There were occasions during my research process for Affairs Valentino when things went horribly wrong and horribly fast. I would say that one of the more exceptional examples of that was when Donna Hill blurted out to me how the court records I was looking for were in the hands of the Valentino family and Jeanine Villalobos bartered for their return with the exchange of one of Rudy's shirts.
Now at that time Donna Hill knew I was writing a book on the “Affairs Valentino” and what did she think? Anyone in my position would have done exactly the same. For her it was surely a slip of the tongue and some juicy dish. For me it was “breaking news”. I would have had to have been in a coma to not report that and I did.
But it all went horribly wrong. She was betrayed, even though she never asked me not to report on that. For some reason she was furious with me even though I did not name her in the book as being the source. But for the past ten years and counting she has boycotted all our books and according to Cindy Martin, she ghost writes everything for Terhune. And according to Cousin Cindy Martin, Donna Hill is heavily involved in Terhune's, “Campaign to Ruin Evelyn”. Nice people.
My crime? Well let's put it this way. Never tell a writer anything you don't want to see in print. Especially if it constitutes a huge part of their story. For god's sake what did she think I would do?
She tries hard to shoo us and our work under the carpet and reign as Rudy fan. But I think someone so hell bent on shunning all of our new work and discoveries is not going to fair so well in the long run. What will this endless shunning gain? Donna Hill knew I was looking for those records, knew I was writing about Ullman and working with his children. Of course I wanted to know what happened to that stolen case file which would vindicate Ullman as Valentino's executor.
I write this to report the obvious I guess. Renato once sent Ms. Hill a polite query as to why she omitted all of our books from her lavish list of Valentino publications. She did not answer him but her response was made the following day by Terhune and Bret on that hit blog. She just passed it on to the pit bulls for their ravaging. As the Italian expression goes, “To ask a question is reasonable and to answer is courtesy.”
What a scam they all run... feigning expertise when they burn the ground-breaking books and conspire to suppress all that we contribute.
