I have often said it does not matter to me if someone does not like Affairs Valentino. They can hate it, use it as kindling, or toilet paper for all I care. They have that perfect right. But what people can not do is set out to destroy and torture me for writing the book. And I think by now I have explained sufficiently what I mean by “their” destroying/destruction ...calling us names, depicting us as fraudulent criminals and thieves while repeatedly broadcasting how we are people we certainly are not.
Renato and I are honest to a fault perhaps and maybe that makes us boring... but we do not lie or commit crimes and have no reason to...and we are not hateful folks at all.
I am not comfortable talking about or posting about Mr. Terhune. I am uncomfortable even mentioning him let alone posting analyses about him. Why? Because I hope to give him the most minimal amount of attention for his awful behavior. But it is hard to avoid since he has made himself the center of attention... and there is a lot to be said... he is like a spoilt brat throwing a tantrum in the middle of church or the Queen's jubilee. I base my judgment on the fact I was raised knowing how to behave and my children were raised the same way. This is what I know as being normal. But somewhere Mr. Terhune missed the lesson in, “do not act like the center of the universe with your obnoxious tantrums”.
It is shocking anyone shows up to worship Terhune as he positions himself a few feet from Rudolph Valentino's final resting place. I am so appalled people think it is fine to let him have that pulpit while he goes the extra miles... with Bret in hand... and behind-the-scenes... to tell the world we are people we are not. I remember one year watching his service as he read the 23rd Psalm while I was reading his latest hit post attacking us on the blog he runs under the title of the book he loves to hate. It was pretty hard to take.
It is a very disappointing element of the Valentino world that year after year he gets that position. Imagine a new face at the crypt, someone who does not run bully blogs against the author of a book they did not like. Someone at the helm there who does not name call, mock....someone who does not reek of David Bret... someone who represents the sanctity of that tomb.
Renato and I have taken these two men's defamation since 2011 and I was subjected to it some years prior to that. Before Affairs Valentino was even finished, before it was ever published anywhere, they had ruined me, the book and all hope to recover my reputation. They slaughtered me online. After they did this, they have since mocked how Affairs Valentino did not have a huge publisher. I always said it is as if someone shoots you in the legs and then laughs at you for not being able to dance.
They did not have to like our work... but they can respect the serious work that went into it. And in the days before the internet, doing what they do to us would surely land them in jail; i.e. you do not publish someone's fake obituary, you do not post that they have criminal records, drug histories and warrants out on them when that is all false, you do not write about their deaths, you do not post years of salacious commentary about their sexual lives and you do not recruit people to spy and spread the ugly false propaganda. I think at one point these amoral tactics to ruin someone would have been punishable criminal acts.
We have lived our lives around their endless and extremely high levels of gaslighting and abuse. This said we are happy people who refuse to allow them to rob us of a moment of our days and we are grateful that at our ages we have a lot of energy and each other. So our love for life goes on. I hope it is the same for all of you.
