Los Angeles, CA–It doesn’t matter how wealthy, powerful and privileged a woman is, in divorce some women still love to play the victim. Latest case in point–Madonna.
Madonna is worth an estimated $850 million. Whatever one thought of her music and her racy image, she is in many ways the model of the empowered modern woman–a successful businesswoman who rose from nowhere to become rich and famous.
She has her own career, has flitted in and out of countless romantic relationships with both men and women at her own choosing, has had kids and adopted them at her own choosing, done admirable charity work, and in 2000 chose to marry English filmmaker Guy Ritchie.
Now, eight years later, guess what? She’s a victim.
According to the UK Telegraph:
Lawyers for the singer, who was widely believed to be the dominant partner in the marriage, are putting together a dossier of incidents.
They include allegations that he told her she ‘looked like a granny’ on stage compared with her younger backing dancers. He is also alleged to have declared that she could not act, and was ‘past it’ after she turned 50.
Her lawyers say that 40-year-old Ritchie’s comments made Madonna feel worthless, unattractive, unfeminine, insecure and isolated during their eight-year marriage.
The Mail has learned that Madonna’s case will chronicle how she first fell for Ritchie because she felt he was a challenge and that he was tough enough to stand up to her.
However, she apparently soon started to become affected by her husband’s alleged put-downs which eventually started to eat away at her legendary confidence.
“Worthless, unattractive, unfeminine, insecure and isolated”–and it’s all his fault. I doubt that Ritchie said any of these things, at least not in the way Madonna describes, but they’re being used to publicly blacken him.
Ritchie’s father, instead of buying into Madonna’s fake victim routine, has defended his son. He says:
She is being beastly. She is saying, ‘Did you ever love me?’…She’s calling him an emotional retard. When he’s being bashed by her it’s horrid.”
Madonna de facto referred to Ritchie as an “emotional retard” at a recent conference.
Madonna’s claims of what Ritchie said about her looks remind me of the Clara Harris case.
In both cases, the women sought to strengthen their positions in upcoming litigation (divorce and a murder trial respectively) by playing victim.
Clara Harris claimed that her husband David–who she murdered as his daughter begged her not to kill her father–made disparaging comments about her looks. The effect was to create sympathy for “poor Clara,” desperate to save her marriage despite her caddish husband. To learn more, see my column In Defense of David Harris (LewRockwell.com, 3/4/03).
Apparently Madonna wants to have another child–an extraordinarily selfish thing to do at age 50, when the baby would be at great risk.
I will give her points for one thing, though–apparently she’s not planning on moving with the kids back to New York, but will stay in London.