Archive for April, 2008

In an incredible display of arrogance, self importance and generally knobery, David ‘The Hoff’ Hasselhoff has insisted on keeping ownership rights to the name ‘The Hoff’ as part of his divorce from Pamela Bach.

Good to see the Hoff has kept a grip on what’s important in his life. He’s also holding onto ownership of the phrase ‘Don’t Hassle the Hoff’… why? For some reason too he’s keeping ownership of the name ‘Malibu Dave’. Who has ever called him that?

In more trivial matters he and his wife will be sharing custody of their two daughters and he’ll pay $21,000 per month in spousal support.

He’s also keeping hold of some of the worst tat you could possibly imagine, as items named in his divorce settlement include: a dolphin, a green elephant, an African pipe, an ivory tusk, an elephant foot and two elephant stools from the “African room”, a themed room in the couple’s Encino home.

What a load of crap!

Don’t worry, he’s keeping hold of some valuable items too, such his collection of Ted Williams memorabilia and an antique barber chair.

If you think that all sounds bad and makes the Hoff out to be a tasteless collector of useless junk, it gets better. His oh so lucky soon to be ex-wife gets, amidst her prized assets, a photograph of Michael Jackson. Why would you name that on a divorce settlement?

I wonder sometimes if celebrities know what on earth is going on in the world.

Clive Bellmore

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You may remember the name Chloë Sevigny? She was the actress who starred in the Cannes film festival participant; Brown Bunny. The film was universally condemned because of the fellatio in the final scene, performed by miss Sevingy. The act was real, and the director was also the male lead actor… no prises for guessing what his motivation was there then!

Anyhow, Chloe Sevigny and Zooey Deschanel are lined up to star in a not so lurid movie, this time entitled Divorce Ranch. Rather than being a romantic comedy, its actually a period piece set just after the second world war, where couples could visit a ranch in Nevada in order to get quickie divorces.

A ranch was set up in Nevada where people from other states could visit, stay at the ranch until they’d established a degree of residency within the state, and then get divorced.

In the film Chloe Sevigny plays an actress (quite a stretch for her there) who stays at a divorce ranch with her son and her assistant, Deschanel.

Clive Bellmore

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Since Ronald Reagan signed the ruling allowing No Fault Divorce in the California in 1969 divorce rates in the USA have sky-rocketed. The number of divorces went from 708,000 in 1970 to a staggering 1,036,000 just five years later.

It’s much the same story in the UK too, as the well voiced statistic states 1 in 3 marriages end in divorce.

Because of the ruling one partner in a marriage was able to apply and successfully get a divorce under the ‘irreconcilable differences’ banner, meaning that the other partner had no choice but to accept the ruling. Much like breaking up a relationship, if one person in the relationship wants to end it, the other person has to accept it.

It makes sense, it stops couples staying together when they really don’t want to be together. Imagine if you had a girlfriend and you wanted to end the relationship, but required her permission to do so. That’s basically what the divorce law used to be, and it’s exactly what ‘Marriage Savers’ want it to become again.

The marriage and counselling agency based Maryland want to make it harder for couples to divorce. They think bot parties should agree that a divorce is required, hoping that it will force more people to stay together.

What a monumentally stupid idea. What benefit is there to anyone, including children, if one of their parents is forced to remain in a loveless marriage because the other parent refuses to accept the marriage is over?

Is it any great surprise that this story came from the Christian Post?

Yep, that’s what happens when religious people get involved with life. They make really stupid suggestions based on their own ‘hammered home’ values, yet have a total lack of understanding of the way the real world works.

Clive Bellmore

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It had to happen, YouTube has been used as a forum for everything else; it may as well be used for divorce as well. Tricia Walsh-Smith has uploaded a very angry video of herself as she berates her husband and his family, for everyone in the world to see.

And they have, over 200,000 views to date and comments added every few seconds. This video is gathering momentum, fast. It’s even had video responses, mostly from people who disagree with her.

While she’s clearly very upset and angry, lawyers have pretty much universally agreed that creating this video and adding it to YouTube was a mistake and could harm her divorce.

It’s highly entertaining though

Clive Bellmore

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The Australian version of Zoo Magazine is running a competition for unhappy guys trapped in a loveless marriage the chance to win an all expenses paid divorce.

Considering what I’ve paid for a divorce recently that’s quite an impressive prize. It doesn’t just stop there though, as well as paying for your legal fees they’re also offering a ‘bachelor pack’ designed to get you back into the swing of singledom, which includes a PlayStation3, plasma TV, a cleaner for 2 months (of course) and a year’s subscription to their magazine.

Just to get you fully back into the swing they’ll also throw the winner a celebratory divorce party which includes a bevy of pin-up girls in tow for you and your mates to ogle.

This competition follows in the wake of their previous contest where they offered one lucky winner a breast enlargement for his girlfriend. Readers were encouraged to vote on the photos of the girls showing their ‘assets’ to decide who most deserved, or required, a boob job.

Why don’t we get this sort of stuff in the UK?

Clive Bellmore

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Nojoud Muhammad Nasser, an 8 year old girl in Yemen, has sought a divorce from a 30 year old man after her father had forced her to marry him. The girl logged a complaint with the court against her father for the forced marriage.

The judge ordered both the father and the girl’s husband to be arrested after hearing her testimony, amidst tales of how she was beaten and sexually assaulted.

He used to do bad things to me, and I had no idea as to what a marriage is.

I would run from one room to another in order to escape, but in the end he would catch me and beat me and then continued to do what he wanted. Whenever I wanted to play in the yard he beat me and asked me to go to the bedroom with him. This lasted for two months.

Apparently this is commonplace in some areas of Yemen as there is no law deciding the minimum age for marriage. What sort of world do we live in where an eight year old girl can be forced to marry by her father, and then get beaten and raped in her own home?

Clive Bellmore

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Parents in Seville, Spain, are believed to be faking their divorce in order to get their children into better schools, according to the BBC.

Children receive extra ‘points’, which are used to determine what schools they can enter, if they come from a single parent family. With a drastically increasing divorce rate in the city, family court judges believe that parents are either faking their divorce, or getting divorced deliberately in order to get their children into schools of their choice.

An education department spokesperson said:

There are some cases of this actually occurring, but they are very few and where there are cases reported to us we investigate and if found to be true the child is not allowed into the school.

Most parents who commit this type of fraud do it by providing false information about their home address or income, not by divorcing.

Clive Bellmore

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If you’re looking for divorce advice in the US then Divorce360.com is a good place to start. I found this website when I stumbled across an article comparing a normal divorce with a celebrity divorce, so the website has some humour to it as well.

It also contains a directory of services relevant to people looking to get divorced, such as solicitors and financial professionals.

The website states it is about:

divorce360.com provides help, advice and community for people contemplating, going through or recovering from divorce and the issues around it - custody, child support, alimony and litigation.

Clive Bellmore

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Paul McCartney knows how to celebrate a divorce. I just opened some mid-priced wine and got completely rat arsed for the night. Macca’s announced a World tour to celebrate getting shot of the money grabbing wench he was unfortunate enough to marry.

65 year old McCartney was apparently spurred on through his divorce by the thought of touring again, and with his tour expected to encompass the US, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom he should go some way to clawing back the £24 Million he was forced to pay out to Heather Mills.

Ouch, that must have hurt.

He’s planning the tour for this Autumn.

A close friend of Paul McCartney was quoted as saying:

Paul’s made happy by his family and music. He sees this as a kind of celebration that the messy episode with Heather is over.

Clive Bellmore

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Normally when a guy ends his divorce proceedings I’d be upset for him. Why mate? You came so close!

But, when the wife is Robin Wright (the title role in the Princess Bride) I can see why he may want to hang onto her.

The couple filed a document on Tuesday indicating they were withdrawing their divorce proceedings. The reason for the divorce in the first place when Rob Wright found Sean drunk in a hotel last year, accompanied by two Russian women. Get in Sean, that’s the way!

via UGO.com

Clive Bellmore

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