Because
I intend to leave a record; a record of what happened and what is
happening. One of the last things Michael Morris said to me was
“Time's a' wasting!” He was correct and in his case he had about
two weeks left to live when he said that. A desire to not waste a
second of time is one reason I am addressing this story but
there is one other reason; I am now able to validate
this story through a third party voice.
This
voice being Ms. Cindy Martin, who shared a veritable wealth of inside
information which confirmed the workings of the “team”. This
“team” being a group of people who have publicly bullied and
allied to “ruin” us and our work; now twelve books.
Of
course we knew what was going on and the cast of
characters.. but with evidence presented from a third party and
someone who was actively involved with these people it became
possible to reference Ms. Martin's commentary as a knowledgeable
expert if you will. Regarding the workings of this group she shared
the following insights which are excerpted from her May 29th
2019 messages to my husband Renato:
“Now
I have my own group and am still on the We Never Forget group, only
because Tracy has fought against Donna to keep me on there. Donna
would love to throw me off, and I keep waiting for THAT to happen.”
“Now
we see Eleanor, Simon, Bret (who goes by Albert Morris) Donna Hill,
Christopher Riordan and Tracy along with their various minions all
ganged up on myself and my group.”
“Tracy
has always been the puppet master. No one else has ever pulled the
strings. Even David would read his entire statement for his blog to
him before posting it.”
“...when
Tracy found out that Donna had given up that shirt in the cafe (which
Tracy had given to Donna) For that information, he was REALLY MAD at
Donna and never really trusted her again. He still doesn't. Donna has
been trying to get back into Tracy's good graces ever since. So it
makes perfect sense to me that she has been sending him the
information behind your backs.”
How
valuable her words are, as now this story is no longer being told
only in my words. But is it not sad
to see how very little
this purported band of colleagues and friends actually respect one
another? The back stabbing and distrust; the shaky alliances and
power trips reveal a most unhappy
and duplicitous bunch.
In
a post I made recently on this blog, I shared an email exchange I had
in November of 2003 with Donna Hill. She was then a supportive
friend, or so I believed. I posted her email she sent to me the day after a
heated exchange I had on a Valentino chat room with Tracy Terhune
over my discovery of the Ullman memoir. (see post titled, “The Day
After..Seventeen Years Ago, Some Comments on 'Backstabbing' and
'Wheedling').
Shortly after I posted Donna Hill's response to me, it disappeared from
my blog. Perhaps that email is something "they" needed to hide. But in that email, she apologized to me for what I
experienced in that chat room exchange, told me that she was “not
out here to wheedle info out of you only to turn around and stab you
in the back.”
Then,
in my opinion she appeared to do just that to Emily Leider when she
admits to having praised her Valentino biography, Dark
Lover,
only to say differently behind her back to Michael Morris by calling
the book, “boring,” and a “
lot of magazine rehash”.
I
admit I was woefully naive back in 2003 when I first stepped out into
the Valentino sphere. It took me a while to wise up and see that
these people were not my friends and in my opinion the following was
the case at that time.
“They”
had little real interest in the Ullman 1975 memoir because they all
knew about it and had read it. My discovering it and announcing this
discovery presented them with an immediate challenge; to stop its
publication and stop me... whether by calling me names, calling me a
forger.. or threatening me directly as the Valentino spokeswoman
Jeanine Villalobos did after my speech in Turin.
She
told me if I dared to publish the memoir, it would “kill her
mother” and the family would release damaging material about
Ullman. This proves they all knew about the memoir (if they had not
read it then why fear its publication?) but they could not admit this
because their cover up of this remarkable historical document would
have been exposed. In my opinion they befriended me to see what
collectibles the Ullmans might have about (I was asked) and to troll the status of
Affairs
Valentino.
So
yes, Time's a'wasting! And I would wish for "them" that they might cultivate more loyal friendships with more honest people. Maybe they
are just not good judges of character or maybe they all hold so many
sinister secrets against each other.. at this point they can only
manipulate their relationships in a form of extortion.
There
now is so much more evidence of their duplicity and with that
evidence in hand... I tell the story.
