Last night, I was sitting around re watching the Curling World Championships from Sunday night. In case you have it on your TiVo ready to watch I won't tell you that Scotland beat Canada in a heart breaker. Whooops. Anyway, the thing about Curling is that you don't have to pay really close attention to the television and so I was surfing through the internet and saw that Marlee Matlin had finally come clean and spilled the beans about her life and abusive relationship with William Hurt.
Back in the day, when she was in her teens and Hurt was already a dirty old man he pretty much beat her everyday. This was true even when she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Definitely a beating day. He had to put her in her place. Of course back then she was also doing so much coke and pot that she couldn't even tell the difference between the two and just did them to do them. In her book she says the only person she even knew other than Hurt was her drug dealer.
Marlee has always been a very quiet person and kept everything within. I think the best thing she has ever done was going on Dancing With The Stars because it allowed her to be able to express herself that nothing else ever has, and gave her the power to write this book. Marlee says she and Hurt never spoke about the book and the last time she saw him was 3 years ago, but I guarantee he knew it was coming. I wish it would have come out sooner. Hurt has gone through a string of girlfriends, wives and baby mamas. I'm glad Marlee finally came out and said what happened.
wow, i'd never have guessed that about her. good to see she's come out of it a strong and confident woman.
ReplyDeleteas for wm. hurt, what an ASS.
kudos for her!!
ReplyDeletewow, I would have never guessed that about her. You can never give too many kudos to a woman who stops the abusive cycle and becomes a better person for it.
ReplyDeleteMost of this post depresses me, so I'm just going to ignore that part and say Curling is AWESOME!!! :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a sad story. Anyone remember the story about one of his ex's suing him? Was it about paternity or money or something? Did she claim abuse?
ReplyDeletemooshki:
ReplyDeleteanother closeted curling fan here. I've got to wiki it so I understand it. All I know is there is a "house" and the curlers either yell "yep!" or "HARD!" continuously. And I want those shoes for my local ice rink.
I commend her for exposing the douche bag.
ReplyDeleteKudos to Marlee!
They shot part of Children of a Lesser God in St. John, New Brunswick where my mom's best friend lives. She'd run into him at local bars during those days and she said every time she encountered him he was a complete prick.
ReplyDeleteHurt and Ryan O'Neal should get together and go bowling
ReplyDeleteBless her for having the strength to share her story.
ReplyDeleteEnty the way you put this, you make it sound like it was common knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI've been a fan of his work for years. I'd heard that he was "difficult" and had alcohol problems, but I had no idea he was a beater.
ReplyDeleteSo disappointing....
I'VE READ SOMETHING LIKE THIS BEFORE, HE HAD A REAL PROBLEM WHEN SHE WON THE OSCAR....JEALOUS...ALSO HE HAS A HISTORY WITH HIS OTHER PARTNERS......AND IT'S NOT GOOD...
ReplyDeleteWhat was Kevin Martin thinking with that second last rock he threw???!!!! We were all yelling "Blow out the house!!" He had the hammer so he could have got at least one point. So frustrating.
ReplyDeleteAs for Marlee - good for you girl.
Why is this shocking to anyone? This was common knowledge back then! Hurt has well been known as a beater ever since Body Heat came out.
ReplyDeleteI watched the curling while I had a good Easter Sunday drunk going on. Why didn't we watch the masters instead? Because we're Canadian, and for some reason that means we'll always choose the inane ice sport...
ReplyDeleteIn Tatum O'Neal's biography, she says her father Ryan beat her when she won the Oscar for "Paper Moon". Very sad.
ReplyDeleteSounds like W.H. has gotten away with this for far too long. Karma's a bitch.
Ror is right. Maybe Marlee didn't speak about it much but it wasn't a secret that he beat her and was generally abusive. He is known to be a nasty piece of work.
ReplyDeleteIs WH the answer to that BI about giving his working girls mean beat down & the new one is blabbing about it?
ReplyDeleteEchoing that Ror has it right. When these two split, word was that he was abusive - and it affected his career. He no longer got top film roles.
ReplyDeleteI never heard anything about him being such a douchebag. What a dick. I hope she blasts him in her book.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't shock me that Ryan O'Neal beat the fuck out of Tatum but what extra amount of scumbaggery does it take to beat your kid cause she won an Oscar?
Special place in hell for these fuckers. Chris Brown should tag along on the bowling outing.
Where's her family? I believe he beat her, I'm not going to believe he was the only human she knew. Plus, she had an agent and manager.
ReplyDeleteThis is really awful. Wow. If it was such common knowledge why didn't someone go to the cops over his treatment of her? It's just so, so sad.
ReplyDeleteSo many people have criticized her for coming out with this now when she has a book but HELLO its a book about her life, and who cares when she mentions it? Its HER LIFE! She shouldn't have to edit or announce things before she's ready just to make us all comfortable!
ReplyDeleteFirst, while I'm not defending the alleged abuse, I think it's ridiculous to say that breaking up with Matlin ruined Hurt's career. They only lived together for a couple of years. He's a consistently working actor and has had lead roles in many big films including "The Accidental Tourist," "The Doctor," "Jane Eyre," "Michael," "Lost in Space," "AI," "Syriana," "The Good Shepherd, " A History of Violence" (got Oscar nod), etc.
ReplyDeleteRemember, too, that she says in her book both were addicted to substances, so to vilify him for abusing alcohol and getting abusive when she was so coked out she couldn't separate the two is letting her off wayyyy easy.
Hurt's a very talented actor and according to people I know who've known him, difficult (as many actors are) to get along with. But they say (and this is in the '90s and '00s) if you are nice to him, he is nice to you. If he were such a bastard, do you think his ex-wife would have allowed him to raise their sons in Oregon?
I met Marlee Matlin in the last 1980s/early 1990s. She wasn't a very nice person herself then.
It is what it is :-)
Sounds to me like they had a mutually destructive relationship. I am NOT condoning abuse, but who knows what HER behavior was like when she was on coke? If she were stone cold sober then, that's another thing. But I've seen a lot of destructive behavior of coke addicts.
We're only hearing one side of the story.
Here's what Marlee told Joy Behar:
ReplyDeleteBehar: All right, let's talk about William Hurt. What's the deal between the two of you? Was it love? Was it lust?
Matlin: You know what, actually, we started our relationship during the end of the screen test process for "Children of a Lesser God" before I even got the role. And it continued until I got the role. And it continued throughout the film. And it continued after. And I lived with him with for two years.
Behar: And you said in the book that the sex with him was spectacular. Now you've piqued my interest. Can we have a few details here?
Matlin: You know, actually, we were in love. We were truly in love in a relationship, but part of that was love-hate. I mean I was battling my drug addiction at the time.
Behar: What kind of drugs were you using?
Matlin: Pot, cocaine, and --
Behar: Alcohol, too?
Matlin: No alcohol. Alcohol was never my thing.
Behar: He was doing drugs, too?
Matlin: With me, yes.
Behar: Tell me about the abusive part of the relationship with him. Was he physically abusive or verbally?
Matlin: It is not easy to talk about it.
Behar: I know.
Matlin: But it happened. ... I was 19, and he was 35. I didn't understand what this was about. ... There was so much going on with the film, with him being older, me being younger, not seeing eye to eye on a lot of things, and being drunk and being high ...
Behar: Was there violence?
Matlin: There was violence.
Behar: Sometimes?
Matlin: All the time.
Behar: He's a big fellow. He might have hurt you. You are a small girl.
Matlin: But I kick butt.
Behar: You kicked him back?
Matlin: Oh, yes. I had to. I had to.
Behar: But you stayed. Why did you say?
Matlin: I didn't know how to leave. I didn't have friends in New York. I didn't know that you could ask for help. I didn't know that you could call 911. I didn't know. Now I know. And for anyone who's in this kind of relationship, look, it's hard. It's hard to get out when you don't know.
Behar: Has he ever apologized to you?
Matlin: No.
Behar: You're very nice to him in the book. You have an acknowledgment in the book for William Hurt.
Matlin: Look, he is a very good actor. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the work we had together. I was a fan of his before I met him.
Behar: But if he hasn't apologized and you still feel that he was very wrong in the way he behaved, why do you acknowledge ... ?
Matlin: If he apologized, I would forgive him, but I won't forget.
Behar: You won't forget, no. But you've forgiven him in this book. it seems to me.
Matlin: How else am I going to live? How else am I going to live? You have to try to find the heart to forgive.
Holy Moly! Shocked. About her and about him. Ass HOLE.
ReplyDeleteAnd I used to think he was so hot, but f*ck that abusing jack off.
I will never spend money on any film or project of his again.
And I think she's freaking awesome, truly.
I am with BADFISH I've heard her get flack for telling this happened to her people think she should have kept it quiet. I keep saying the silence is what allows abuse to continue. Good for her saying that she was able to overcome this and change her life. Hopefully her story helps someone else along the way.
ReplyDeletei watched this live on Larry King with Joy. damn was i shocked she actually talked about it!
ReplyDeletegood for her, he beat her allthetime.
scumbag.
I like Marlee.
ReplyDeleteI don't condone what WH did and I don't mean to be insensitive, but I've got to say this: MM has already talked extensively about this in the past. She even went on a lecture tour, telling people how she suffered because of WH's professional jealousy and abuse, and how much better off she was with her policeman cop. Great, I thought. She healed, she moved on. She even got jobs after that. But now she's back, resucitating the story yet again. Hope she gets some permanent job after this, otherwise she'll be bringing up the story for years to come.
ReplyDeletein his defense, she probably doesn't listen real well.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone read the book? How much of it is about her relationship with WH?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it's just what the interviewers chose to ask about (bec it's sensational) or if she just can't get past that part of her life.
i just finished kathleen turner's book, and she says he was pretty messed up during 9-1/2 weeks, but is clean and much better now.
ReplyDelete