Everything Interrupted...AgainTerry McMillan Sues Ex-Husband for $40 Million

Terry McMillan is suing her ex-husband Jonathan Plummer for $40 million.  The reason?  Alleging that he tried to smear her reputation during their highly publicized 2005 divorce.

The lawsuit also claims Plummer, a Jamaica native, married McMillan in 1998 only to become a U.S. citizen, because she later found out that he was he was gay.  She's also suing his lawyer.

"The defendants conspired and formed a plan to threaten to humiliate and embarrass Terry McMillan," the suit said, "and violate her privacy and place her in harm's way, and threatened to damage her professional and personal standing in an attempt to extort monies from her."

McMillan's allegations include emotional distress, invasion of privacy and placing her in a "false light" to harm her professionally and personally.  She also claimed that Plummer violated a restraining order by calling her to speak with her son.

Now if I recall, when all of this went down, Terry wasn’t the nicest of people about the whole situation.  In fact, in interviews she was downright mad and did a little “smearing” of her own against her ex-hubby.  She too was accused of violating the restraining order by her e-husband, including leaving a jar of red hot peppers at his job labeled as “penis juice,” and a bottle of Jamaican pepper sauce where she wrote the words “Fag. Juice Burn Baby Burn,” among other things.

Plummer said that McMillan has tormented him in a series of vitriolic letters, one of which concluded, "I wish I had never met your sneaky ass. I wish I had never married you. I do hate you Jonathan...And I hate all the Fags out there like you who use women to hide behind so that you can walk the streets of America without a care in the world...you're a Fag alright."

Remember the Oprah interview and her admission that when he told her he was gay she said to him “I feel like taking this lamp and bashing your face in.”

And then there was the The Tavis Smiley Show interview where she publicly showed her bitterness and anger towards Jonathan.

In the end, they had reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount of money, leaving me to believe that there was truth to the accusations that Jonathan put forth as well.

So why the sudden lawsuit?  If you ask me, Terry did more of the smearing than her ex-hubby as it was her, and not him that was seen on national television as being angry and hostile leaving him to defend himself.

What happened between them was unfortunate, I get that.  To me, it doesn’t really matter if it’s a heterosexual relationship or a same-sex relationship.  Coming to the realization that someone you thought was attracted to actually isn’t hurts.  It happens to all us.  At some point, you just have to move on, even on those bad days when you wake up and are mad all over again, you just have to move on.

Jonathan is working as a hairstylist in California.  What is the real point in suing him for $40 million dollars?

Comments

[Sophia]

I do agree with someone on here. I wonder what the hell is STAR JONES going to do about her gay ass husband????? You can look at him just like TERRY should of been able to look also. Dont love be the reason

[tilly]

Terry has made some homophobic remarks. That does not necessarily make her a homophobe. There are people myself included that have made insensitive, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic remarks that are not Bigots. they are just people that make a mistake. People must be able to make a mistake. It is the continued actions that people make that tells about their character rather than a few emotional outbursts. There are no absolutes other than we all make mistakes.

she needs to get over it and move on like he did.

[mcQUAIDLA]

Terry, hon? Time to move on... Shit happens. We all get burned. We all face disappointments. Your dream man may have had no idea he preferred men to women. Take it as a compliment that you were hot enough to aid and abet his self-deception. Take it as a compliment that you were able to confuse him for a good long while. Take it as an insult that you were completely exploited by a ruthless closet case.

Take it as whatever you like, but move on already. Because you're getting boring. And stupid. And you're driving yourself nuts. And you're wasting a life by allowing it to be poisoned with rage, and jealousy. I totally believe that when someone does you dirt - whether they meant to or not - you're allowed a good, solid year of what I call "hatin' time." But after that, you have to take it down a notch and keep going til you eventually arrive at that place where you truly wish that person no ill and even eventually, good.

At the moment, you are being controlled by someone who doesn't want you; someone who, at this point would rather have nothing to do with you. And the people who are watching this example of self-will run riot are saying "this person is nuts, what could she possibly have to tell me with her literature?"

To prove them wrong, you're going to have to start acting like an adult. You might even like it.

I admit that I like Terry's books, but I'll never put a dime in her pocket again. It would be one thing if this was a one-time thing (inexcusable, but forgivable), but she's a RAGING homophobe and that, I can't condone.

[PDQ]

If more media exposure is what she's after, maybe she should go to rehab. She could check in for homophobia and anger management issues. It works for other celebrities. Oops...I forgot. Terry hasn't been a celebrity since the days of "Exhale".

I hope her book bombs so we don't have to listen to her blather on at length about her ongoing hatred issues.

Uhh Terry - I'd like fries with my burger please.

[Andrea]

I think Terry really needs to move on. And isn't this interesting,someone just mentioned she has a new book coming out this year? So she creates new controversy to try to get some more sales? I admit I think Terry is an excellent writer. However, Terry's last book was a real bore.

[lisa]

didn't they BOTH appear on oprah a few years ago, discussing their divorce? i honestly have to say that she didn't do much to keep the situation under wraps either.

i also have to disagree with claude, in my mind, there was no excuse for him to get married to her under false pretenses. if he were, perchance sure of his sexuality and exploiting her for american citizenship, it's unacceptable. there are plenty of other ways to emigrate to other countries, especially from jamaica. people do it all the time, so that excuse doesn't sit well with me.

[teka]

So do you think Star Jones is going to get angry when she finds out that her husband is gay...lolol...ok that was mean, but its so true.

While I feel for Terry, come on, you believe what you want to believe, but you know, deep down inside you know.

This is a little thing I'd like to call the M Butterfly syndrome. People fall in love with an image. A Ken doll image of what Mr Right is and they don't look at the person and then well, the above happens. Nobody can really lie to you, you lie to yourself. The person Terry is truly mad at his her.

That's why I only date bald tattooed punks that beat the crap out of people. That way even through my cocktail induced haze there will be no surprises, well no surprises that I can't fix with a dose of penecillin ;)

Teka

[Claude Wynne]

First off, he comes from a country where mobs attack gay people in the streets. Realistically, what were his chances of “becoming a citizen in a more honest fashion”? If gay person in Nazi Germany had married a foreigner under false pretenses, I think that would be morally defensible. Terry has had plenty of time to get over her hurt feelings and look at the big picture. It’s time to move on.

Moreover, isn’t it at least possible that he is telling the truth when he says he wasn’t fully aware of his sexual orientation when he met her. After all, we all know how good the sex was because she wrote a book about it, one that made her a lot of money. There must have been some attraction there because most men can’t fake it that convincingly and consistently. I wish he would come and "use" me like that. Three years would be more than enough. The old Bill Withers song comes to mind, "Just keep on using me until you use me up."

[PDQ]

Oops - it looks like she is writing. She has a book coming out May 1st.

THAT'S why she's suing him. She wants to be in the news ahead of her book release. She'll use him for PR purposes and then drop the suit once the book takes off.

She's every bit as much an opportunist and user as she paints him to be.

[PDQ]

How long has it been since she's been a news item? Methinks she's broke and just looking for publicity to kick start a dead career.

If she were smart, she'd get a better publicist, check into Promises in Malibu for some imagined "addiction" and then get back to writing so she can make a living. As of now, it's almost like she's obsessed with him and can't let him go. She comes off looking mentally unhinged to the point no one's going to want to work with her.

Suing Jonathan for $40 mil isn't going to help her pay her bills - it's going to rack up even more.

[nunya]

I agree that she probably was the one making herself look bad more than anything. I do think there's kind of a difference, though, in someone not being into you like you are them, and in finding out they *used* you for years and years and *never* were into you. Plus, add that she's a "celebrity," at least among black people...so it's a public embarassment.

I know married women who have been cheated on or lied to in some other way that ended the marriage. Some get angry enough to want to physically hurt a person. Some don't. And I think a lot of the ones who don't get angry like that are the ones who kind of blame themselves. In this situation, she might be able to partially blame herself for not seeing "signs," but really, he just did a lowdown thing.

So she's angry--I really don't blame her. That's years of her life gone, living a lie, all because he didn't want to come out and/or go about becoming a citizen in a more honest fashion, but wanted to be a US citizen. That's like me marrying a man, knowing full-well I prefer women, all to hide my sexual orientation and to look good at business parties for my job or other events where people normally are male/female married couples and that's nearly required. I might not be out, and I might never be willing to come out...but I'm not about to go to *that* extreme for any reason, both out of respect for myself and out of respect for other people's feelings.

I do think the situation does make a difference in how you react. The people I know who were married and got cheated on or seriously lied to, it's years later and they still get really angry and depressed about it. It's just not easy to move on from that, and the particular drama surrounding why the marriage ended complicates the emotions involved. Either way, it affects you for a long time, even people who don't realize it does.

And I'm not at all justifying her, but...oftentimes, when people are hurt and angry, they reach for the *most painful thing* they could possibly say to you. There is probably no way for her to hurt him like he hurt her--and I bet she 100% knows that, and that probably makes her even angrier--but she's still trying anyway with all the "fag" stuff and the lawsuit. I'm not saying that doesn't mean she's not a homophobe or that her language should be excused. But it's not like she's saying these things because she doesn't know better...it's just the opposite.