The Christie Brinkley Liberation Movement

By Sarah

I love it when the New York Times tries to slip in some tabloid fodder by acting as an outside "observer" on a social trend involving a tabloid-ish issue. They can't write about Amy Winehouse's latest bar brawl, for example. They have to write about how the British press reacts to it. (Not that I'm complaining about the NYT in any way shape or form after what they did for Sweet Love!)

So it went with a fascinating story about people I could care less, Christie Brinkley, her slimy ex, Peter Cook and, for that matter, all of the dripping-rich Hamptons. Though I must say the article clarified why Brinkley owned "houses" on the Hamptons when clearly one would do. Answer: investment properties. Ahh.

For those domiciling under rocks, the Brinkley/Cook divorce was a daring game of brinkmanship by Christie who, on the one hand, had her own reputation and that of her children's father to consider, and, on the other hand, wanted to take the most drastic action possible to insure she, not he, got full custody. Stay tuned, a hand plays a big hand in this.

I could see why she might have been nervous about the outcome. Cook is Ken to Christie's Barbie, an anonymous blond male who could have been separated from John Tesh at birth. (And some other TV star who starred in a sappy family drama whose name I forget. Help me out, people!) He is tall and blond and solid. The perfect picture of WASPY perfection.

She, however, has assets and celebrity ties and a 36-24-36 figure (still). He doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry though, apparently, he DOES have a predilection for online pornography on which he spent thousands of dollars while masturbating in front of strangers over a Web cam, at least according to the New York Post.

Whew! That's one to knock off Buffy's London Jewelers' knock offs, eh?

First of all, without getting too preachy, the fact that Peter Cook was married to Christie Brinkley who, allegedly, wanted them to have a more sexual marriage and he STILL went online to search for porn shows how powerful and alluring online porn is and, frankly, how dumb some men are. Do you suppose Christie was down the hall in one of her Dior negligees (or not) waiting and wanting while Peter was clicking and, uh, other stuff, calling over his shoulder, "Not tonight, hon, I have meaningless architectural work to do"?

Good move, buddy.

I mean, how do "regular" women like us stand a chance? I think the answer is, we don't. And to that I say, "Yahoo!"

So begins what I would like to call the Christie Brinkley Liberation Movement. (CBLM.) From now on, whenever we middle-aged women get down on ourselves for supposedly not being as fit and fabulous as we were at eighteen, before we had kids and cooked 7,500 dinners, we need to look to Christie Brinkley who is as fit and fabulous as she was at eighteen and remember her husband ditched her for a teenager, a computer and his left hand. We no longer can blame ourselves for anything. Our sins have been paid for us.

The other beauty of this story - and why I nominate Christie Brinkley as a liberation figure, the supermodel version of a Che Guevara, if you will - is that she's richer than Peter, she's more famous  than Peter, she's older than Peter AND she got the kids. Full custody. And those Hamptons houses. All he got was $2.1 million and parenting time. No wonder the guy's weeping to Geraldo Rivera about his "big mistake." After taxes and legal fees, he's barely going to be able to pay for internet access to watch YouPorn.

Yup.

Fortunately, I am not currently in need of the CBLM, though I will donate to the cause. Thanks to the 19th Anniversary Promise (which I'm keeping, but have removed from the sidebar thanks to prying teenage eyes of a daughter who will remain nameless) I am not being Cookified. But even if I were, I would look to Christie's vapid blue eyes and think, there for me fought she.

Sarah

P.S. Sweet Love hits the Barnes & Noble Summer Reads table today for a big discount!

Comments

[Janis]

Peter Cook cooked his own peter. How smart is that?

[Josh]

I agree with his lawyer's opening statement: this is her fourth divorce, and the only common element in all of them is her. It's obviously her fault.

But I do have to say this: $3,000 a month? The tolls on his information superhighway are obviously much more than on mine. I tend to avoid the toll roads. (Insert EZPass joke here.)

[sarahS]

Wait! What was the $3,000 a month about? Is that how much he paid for porn?

Also, she's still friends with Billy Joel. What does that tell us?

[Maryann Mercer]

Sarah, I immediately thought of Steven Collins from 7th Heaven (I think that's the name anyway)for the 'twinsie'.I haven't been paying much attention to Ms Brinkley's adventures except when they pop up on my comcat home page, and even then I just shake my head and move on.Now the current New Yorker cover-that's another thing entirely. But I digress. Isn't it interesting how the beautiful people turn out in some cases to be so much less beautiful than we think? Yet I wonder how many other spouses in this country are waiting down the hall while their partners play handsies in front of a webcam. Money doesn't buy everything, although it can hide a lot...as long you're discreet.The CBLF is quite a unique idea :o)

[michele]

Is it too early in the morning to kick somebody off the blog? Josh, you're in Cinema Dave territory here.

I love this, Sarah. You got it exactly right. I so enjoyed the images of Christie Brinkley walking into court all smiling and triumphant, because for the first time in human history, a man who shat all over his wife actually got screwed in a divorce settlement. How satisfying is that??

As for all the tongue-cluckers criticizing her for airing the dirty laundry because it's "bad for the children" -- doesn't a 12-year old girl need to know that her father is a sexual predator of girls not much older than her? Isn't that a safety issue? Look what happened to poor Brooke because her parents thought that her uncle being a rapist and pedophile "wasn't something you tell a kid." By covering up for the perverts, we enable them.

[Anna C.]

LOL! And I'm quite sure there's a T-shirt design in here somewhere.

[sarahS]

Michele, where did you find out that they didn't tell Brooke that about her uncle? I definitely want to read that.....Yeah, it's the sexual predators you DON'T know who are the problem.

Not only would I have told Brooke, I would have told the uncle that should he feel inclined to come within 20 feet of her or so much as put a toe on her property, he would be obliterated. I keep thinking of that assistant prosecutor in Orange County who argued for him to be supervised. I know the judge in the case, too, who let him go....The guilt she must be feeling.

As for the New Yorker cover - it took me back at first, but then I got it. I would have liked to open my mailbox and have seen it first for a fresh reaction. It's pretty clever.

Here's an LA Times article about how we need to get a sense of humor - or what they call America's "irony" deficiency.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-onthemedia15-2008jul15,0,2297403.story

[Pam aka SisterZip]

Sarah, I found the NYer cover very funny, too, in a Richard Pryor/Lenny Bruce kinda way. My first reaction was the same...OMG, I can't believe they did that. But when I thought about it, I laughed, loudly. We do need to lighten up.

Josh, I got the sarcasm. Pretty good, too. :D

I just wonder what CB's private detectives had on him that made him settle. Would have been interesting, no?

[Josh]

Yeah, Michele, get a sense of humor. I was just trying to get the conversation going. And it worked. I've been in and out of CD territory for years.

Sarah, the reports of the husband's lawyer's opening were that he admitted to a $3,000/month Internet porn habit. And, that it was Her Fault.

I haven't seen the New Yorker cover yet, and I hope to avoid any comment about it until I see it, which should be today or tomorrow.

[sarahS]

Josh, josh, josh.

[Karen in Ohio]

Having been humped and dumped by my first husband, for another, younger, blonde woman (grrrr, after the fool had given me a blonde wig for Christmas--I'm a brunette), I can so empathize with CB. And you're so right, if it could happen to her, there's no hope for the rest of us. The only choice we have is to find a man who was raised by a woman with a well-developed sense of irony and an eye towards the future of her son's well-being. That works for me!

In my opinion, spending $3,000 a month on that sort of self-indulgence (pun intended) is tantamount to stealing from his own children.

[michele]

Hah -- joke's on me. OK, I'll lighten up!

I thought the NYer cover was funny, too. I'm sure Obama and his people understand it's satire. That magazine adores Obama; obviously they were trying to help. The campaign seems to have a policy of going after this stuff with a blowtorch no matter who says it or what their motives.

Sarah, as for not telling Brooke, I saw that on the local news. The father and stepmother were being interviewed, and were asked why they didn't warn her. The step-mother was the one who said that.

[William Simon]

Let's all pause and take a breath for a moment, okay?

1) No one knows the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth except the two of them.

2) As I understand it, Diana Bianchi was legal when it happened. Is it off putting? Sure. Illegal? No. 3K a month in online porn? There are not too many people (maybe the Pope and Mother Teresa...maybe) who could withstand an in-depth exposure of their sexual habits/fetishes/inclinations.

3) From professional experience (and I'm 110% certain Michele will back me on this), people lie. People will lie when the truth will get them out of a jackpot, much less a divorce with literally millions at stake.

4) Who gives a shit? SWEET LOVE is getting awesome reviews, there's a new Wollie in the pipeline, one assumes a new Helen and maybe a new Melanie; not sure what Nancy's doing, but it'll be good.

[sarahS]

William...Woops! Is Brooke the name of Peter's daliance? If so, we have a horrible irony since Brooke Bennett is the name of the 12-year-old girl raped and killed in VT - that's the Brooke we're talking about.

[William Simon]

OUCH! Sarah, thank you. This is what I get for posting while under the influence of pain meds.

And I'm not going anywhere NEAR a conversation about Brooke Bennett. Those of you who know me can probably guess why....

[Kathy Sweeney]

Watch it, boys. William - you get no quarter, meds or not.

The man fucked a teenage employee. If my husband did that, they'd never find his body.

And $3,000 for online porn is rather misleading. This guy is not just cruising Hustler and Kink sites. It's worse than that. I was so curious about this, I asked around. No, I did not ask Margie. There are some things I just don't want to know.

In order to spend that much, you have to go well beyond the regular websites - which, by the way, cover an awful lot of porn ground. He spent money on webcam hookers, who, courtesy of online cameras, will do whatever you pay them to do. I understand that the more bizarre the request, the higher the bill. Hey - don't get me wrong. I could care less what some douche does in his own office. But come on, how much time can one man really spend jacking around without having it make all or part of his life unmanageable?

Man, I am in a rant mood today, and sorry I can't stay to parry and thrust on this one - I have to go to a funeral.

(all bad puns intended, plus the good ones)

[Pam aka SisterZip]

re: challenge updates

My daughter is 23. When she was 12, she would stand in front of the tv and snarkily say, "I know what you are doing when your bedroom door is shut". And would stomp off.

Can't blame you for removing it! :)

[sarahS]

I know. Kids, right?

Ugh.

[Pam aka SisterZip]

Well, I have found The Mother's Curse works very well.

"May you have children just like you!"

Am I paying for Dear Hubby's childhood indescressions!

[ArkansasCyndi]

Josh - LOL I hooted at "your opener" But she does seem to pick the wrong guys to marry.

I'm with Kathy on the husband spending 3 grand on porn. I'm almost breathless at the thought, and sharpening a knife for the nut surgery he'd get!

But Sarah, I do love your observation about how beautiful Christie has stayed and yet, her low-life husband would rather date his hand. Jeeze

[Rita Scott]

I'm just surprised that Billy Joel didn't put a hit out on the jagoff (or do it himself!)

[Pam aka SisterZip]

I'm sure BJ (oops, Billy Joel) knows how to get that done!

;)

[Elaine Viets]

Gentlemen, I love you all dearly, though only from a distance (and at no cost) from cyberspace. Can't we agree that $3000 a month on Internet porn is a bit excessive? I mean, a man could have a real live woman for that money. Or a Ferrari.

[J.D. Rhoades]

To these folks, 3 grand is nothing. It's the check for last night's dinner.

Just goes to prove the old saying: "No matter how beautiful she is, somewhere there's a guy who's tired of her bullshit."

Still...Christie Brinkley. 'Net Porn. The columns just won't balance.

[Harley]

This is what I get for getting up late and taking the kids to day camp before reading TLC. All the good stuff's been said.

I don't care about the facts at all. I'm with Christie. Why? I don't like this man's hair. If I ever so much as date a man whose hair looks professionally blown-dry, I hope that one of you will do an intervention. Shoot me, if necessary.

Sign me up for membership in the CBLM