| AKA2D '91 |
10-14-2005 10:50 AM |
The Marriage is OVA!
It took months of legal battling and embarrassing national publicity, but writer Terry McMillan has finally ended her celebrated marriage to a Jamaican man 24 years her junior -- whom she belatedly realized was gay. "Our divorce was officially finalized on Oct. 4,'' the Danville resident wrote us this week. The best-selling author of "How Stella Got Her Groove Back'' said her ex-husband, Jonathan Plummer, is now "free to live anyway he sees fit.'' "I'm also free to move forward since I'm now out of this hellish holding pattern my life has been spinning inside of for the past nine months,'' McMillan said. News of the messy divorce, which we first reported in June, made headlines around the country. And while the publicized split may have taken an emotional toll on McMillan, her financial losses, at least from the looks of things, were limited. The Contra Costa County commissioner hearing the case ruled recently that the 30-year-old Plummer had no grounds to challenge the prenuptial agreement he signed with McMillan, 54, in 1998. The final settlement, according to interviews with attorneys on both sides of the case, calls for Plummer to receive about $50,000 -- $20,000 in cash, $20,000 to pay off the loan on his car and $10,000 in temporary spousal support. If nothing else, it should be enough to help Plummer launch his new career as a hair stylist -- this after his dog-grooming business went sideways. Plummer's attorney, Dolores Sargent, was also awarded $27,000 in legal fees. McMillan's L.A. divorce attorney, Bob Nachshin, who had previously represented Giants slugger Barry Bonds in his turbulent divorce from ex-wife Sun Bonds, called it a "great victory for Terry." Sargent said it was just a case of big bucks ruling the day. "We got hit with five letters a day demanding documents, and we didn't have the money to fight it,'' Sargent said. At the heart of the case was Plummer's contention that he had signed a prenuptial agreement under pressure from McMillan shortly before they wed seven years ago, and that it should have been voided. McMillan countered that the marriage should have been annulled on grounds that Plummer had defrauded her by not telling her he was gay. More than anything, McMillan told us, she was "deeply offended for being portrayed (by her husband) as a homophobe ... particularly when my insulting comments were directed solely at and privately to my husband." She apparently was referring to the time she left him a bottle of Jamaican hot pepper sauce on which she wrote, "Fa* Juice Burn Baby Burn." And probably also to the time she scrawled "Jonathan's Fa* boyfriend Fa*" on a photo of a friend. "I do not hate my husband for being gay,'' she wrote to us. "I do not hate anybody (except Saddam Hussein).'' Well, perhaps. In one last gesture, McMillan sent Plummer's attorney an inscribed copy of "How Stella Got Her Groove Back'' with this parting shot: "You made me sick these last eight or nine months and I hope you rot in he&&.''
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...type=printable |
