Lita Ford, one of the most iconic female guitarists in modern history started her career in the 70’s as a member of the Runaways, up until they broke up in 1979. After the Runaways, she started her solo career creating a majority of her discography in the 80’s and 90’s. Lita took a a break from music to raise her sons with her husband Jim Gillette, from the band Nitro.
Apparently, the couple got married to each other after only knowing each other for 2 weeks. In an interview with Loudwire, Lita reflected, as "fucking dumb". She initally met him after her parents had died, having "lost her entire family". In the same interview, she stated that when she got pregnant she initally wanted to leave her husband, but didn’t because she didn’t want to keep her children from their father.
The family moved to Turks and Caicos, where Jim Gillette had a real estate developing business. Lita said that she taught her kids everything, fishing with them, and was a loving mother to her sons. But the relationship between her and her husband started to dissipate. At some point, her husband agreed to doing a reality tv show on TLC with their family, that would’ve been called The Gillettes: An Extreme American Family. In taking a business trip to Los Angeles to discuss the conditions further, Lita came back to her family shunning her. Her kids wouldn’t talk to her, her husband having turned against her. According to Lita, she said that Jim Gillette encouraged her sons to attack her, to which she sought divorce. Lita said that the relationship was about control, and everything was under Jim’s control. Allegedly, everything was in his name, their house, her cell phone, any emails she would get he’d be notified, and he’d read her texts. She felt like she had nothing private to herself.
In 2009, Lita made a comeback musically, with her album ‘Wicked Wonderland’. The album was produced by her then husband, Jim, who she stated had control over almost the entire project. He can be heard on multiple songs singing vocals. Initially, Lita said of the album,
“Everybody has their own 'Wicked Wonderland'. It's a place where you can do whatever you want and get as freaky as you feel. These songs are my version of that - they're all about my life…well, the parts that happen when the kids are in bed and my husband and I get into the boudoir. This is definitely the heaviest stuff I’ve ever recorded. I've evolved and matured as a person and so has my music. It’s lyrically very real.”
Lita has since disowned the album, stating so in her 2016 autobiography. All music rated it as unfavorable, and chronicles of chaos rated it as a 3.5 out of 10. Many long time fans do not consider it a real Lita album. I’ll review it another post.
Though I am unsure of the exact year that they divorced, it involved a 2 year litigation that has been quoted multiple times as “ugly”. Interestingly, the custody resulted in Jim Gillette getting the kids, and not Lita. Surprising for a country that favors the mother so much. Many articles from 2015 have popped up, all quoting the same thing from Jim Gillette.
“First of all and for the record, I have sole legal and physical custody of our sons. I think that should tell you just about all you need to know since it’s nearly impossible for a father to get that kind of result in a highly regarded US court. Unfortunately, it goes much further than that. As heartbreaking and unbelievable as this might sound, Lita Ford is not even allowed to see our sons by way of an agreed upon court order. This order was signed after nearly two years of litigation – during which time the courts only allowed her supervised visitation.
Not many people know about this as up until now I’ve kept my mouth shut. Our sons have urged me for years to tell the world our side of the story but this is all I’m prepared to share at this point in time. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that’s been so kind and supportive of the boys and me.”
There are two sides to every story, and this one is has no easy side to know who is really telling the truth. But in 2015, Jim did two interviews that I found very interesting, with the website metal sludge.
In 2012, Lita said, “What’s happened is my ex husband has taken the children out of the country. They are in a country that is not protected under the United States law. And the only way for me to go there would be to go with the SWAT team because he would become physical with me.”
And in a rebuttal in 2015, Jim stated, “Obviously it’s not true as I have every right to live with our sons anywhere in the world. We are regularly in the states and have no reason to avoid it. Everything is legal about the boys being with me, and all of Lita’s self-serving claims and slanderous allegations are completely and 100% ludicrous. Quite frankly, all of this is more than a little frightening for our family.”
He then went on to say that he was proud of his sons, and of course thanking all the people that had supported him. A week later, there was a follow up interview he did to clear some questions that people had on how he ended up with custody. He provided documents that showed excerpts of the situations he went through with Lita. The first being that Lita had called the police for domestic violence on Jim, and when the police showed up, they ordered Jim to pack his stuff and leave the house. Lita then had custody of the kids, of which frightened the boys. The report showed that the kids were truly afraid that their mother would kill them.
Because of the conditions of their divorce, Lita had absolutely no right to see her children, and she didn’t for many years. In 2013, she posted the song ‘Mother’, a tribute to her kids on youtube.
Interestingly, this song would brought up in the 2015 interview with Gillette, of which he said,
“In what universe does a mother think it’s a good decision to dedicate a song to her children that says their father (whom they love more than anything) should be crucified and left to die?”
The rest of the interview talked about how despite swearing under oath that Jim didn’t, hit her, she has made things seem worse for her. Interestingly, Jim also brought up Lita’s known temper, that was also pointed out on the Runaways’ documentary, ‘Edgeplay’. In the movie, it was brought up how she pinned Cherie Currie to a wall, and hit Jackie Fox over the head with a phone. Metal sludge asked if she had taken drugs in their marriage, and Jim stated that he believed she was on pills when they were together.
Interestingly, later on that year in July 2015 their oldest son, James, went to the press to tell people a little bit of his side.
“ My Dad always taught me, “if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it”. Well unfortunately my mother has left me no choice with her latest crazy allegations against my father (including kidnapping) and recent attempts to start a nation-wide amber alert type search for my brother and me.
We have not been kidnapped. We live with our dad and have every right to. Thankfully we never have to see our mother again and we have the legal paperwork to prove it. By the way, I’m 18 and can live wherever I want, with whoever I want, and I choose to live with my dad. How ridiculous would it be for my mother to put out an amber alert on me even though I’m a legal adult.
Obviously our mother has a lot of problems. Five years ago a court appointed doctor told my brother and me that our mother was mentally ill. This came as no surprise to either of us.
Unfortunately my mother has never accepted any responsibility for her actions and continues to blame anyone and everyone all while publicly playing the victim.
Our mother is a child abuser. She was violent, threatening, and tried to make my brother and me hate our dad. Her attempts at parental alienation were constant and never ending. When we didn’t agree with her she would become livid and out of control. We told child services, the sheriffs department, and many court appointed professionals that our mother was crazy, violent, and we were afraid she would someday kill us in a fit of rage.
We were with our dad when he was served divorce papers. We made him promise to do everything he could so we never had to see our mother again. He kept his promise and for that we are forever grateful.
Our mother alleges that our father brainwashed us against her. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our dad never said a bad thing about her. He didn’t have to. We saw first hand what she did to all of us. If he has in any way let us down, it was that our father should have gotten us away from her sooner.
Our mother said horrible things about our dad all the time. She even said things about me and my brother. She called us “fucking faggots” because we used to sit with our dad and watch movies.
Our mother threatened to have us thrown in a Foster home and said we’d never see our dad again. Why? Because we told her we didn’t want to be with her and she was angry we told all the professionals that she beat us. She also threatened us and said she would have our dad thrown in jail for the same reasons.
I could tell you horror stories for days but that wouldn’t accomplish anything. My mother needs serious help. She needs to stop lying and she needs to leave us alone. She also needs to stop with her harassing and stalking behavior.
Anyone that says my father should be crucified and left to die will never be a part of my life. Who in their right mind writes a song for their children saying those terrible things?
James Gillette “
In 2016, there was an article with Lita talking about how she hasn’t been able to see her sons in several years. She was quoted as saying, “My ex has kept my sons from me for seven years now. No communication with my sons whatsoever. No texting, no phone calls, no e-mails, nothing!"
In 2018, there was an article from blabbermouth stating that she finally saw her children for the first time in almost ten years. She stated,
“By the time our divorce was final and everything was said and done, it was such a joke that it didn't matter what I got on paper. There was no way I was gonna be in those boys' lives. They were such a mess by the time I left and my ex-husband left that it just didn't matter. I just needed to walk away from everything and regroup and come back with Plan B. The big problem for me was I couldn't find them after hiring four or five private investigators and them being out of the country in a Caribbean island. I really didn't have any United States… The Hague Convention, the Hague treaty was working against me with them being in a Caribbean island. And when they did come back to the United States, it took me nine years to track them down and find out that they were living in Tennessee. If somebody wants to fall below the radar, they can."
“They
said I was not taking the medication that they prescribed for me that
was absolutely ridiculous. It was just an excuse. I did everything in
my power that they asked me to do. I did everything. They had nothing
on me. And my ex-husband was just lying, he was just making up stuff
as we went along. It was just insane. And as he made stuff up, there
was no proof that I did all these things he said I did. It was just
absolutely crazy. Because I really was a great mom. I put everything
into being a mom. I stopped my musical career. I focused on nothing
but my boys. I home schooled my boys living on that deserted island. I
mean, I spent all day every day with these kids. I had stacks of
books. And then we would go fishing and we would cook dinner. We had
a great, great relationship. So for them to turn around and say,
'Mom, you did this and you did that.' Like, 'Wait a minute. You guys
are dreaming. You guys are being brainwashed by your dad.' And the
attorneys are just feeding off of that."
"I
just contacted them for the first time in almost 10 years, And I was
able to serve my ex-husband with papers saying that I want to see my
son, my 17-year-old son. Because my older son now, being 21, there
really isn't much I can do. So I was able to go in and see my kids
for maybe 10 minutes in a mediation. But my ex-husband had turned
them against me so badly that when I went into the mediation, all
they did was accuse me of things and get angry at me and point their
finger at me. It was horrible — it was absolutely horrible —
because he's still sticking to the same crap stories."
In 2012, Lita created the page ‘Lita Ford’s Parental Alienation Awareness’, a page talking about parents that have had similar experiences as her. She still posts regularly, wishing her sons happy birthday when their birthdays roll around.
EDIT [Sept. 6th, 2020]: As I edited the video for this post, I realized something that I didn't pick up on before, and went back to do some research on the post. While listening to my recording of Lita's son's letter to the press, I realized that it seemed quite odd that the letter sent was quite similar in the verbiage that Jim Gillette would use in interviews about the divorce. What stuck out to me was the last part that said, "Who in their right mind writes a song for their children saying those terrible things?" in reference to the song that Lita wrote, "Mother".
Earlier in the post, there is the quote from the Jim Gillette interview, where he says essentially the same thing about the song, in his interview with Metal Sludge. He said, "In what universe does a mother think it’s a good decision to dedicate a song to her children that says their father (whom they love more than anything) should be crucified and left to die?". This may seem like a vague detail to some, but it is enough for me to doubt the veracity of this letter. On top of that, there was never any sort of confirmation from any of the sites that this letter came from that it was actually James Gillette himself that wrote it. What I find even more odd, is that there is seemingly no reply or response found from Lita about this letter, unless I have missed it.
In the metal sludge interviews with Jim, there are a couple screenshots of the court files included (the second interview I believe). One picture shows that the children were reportedly scared of being left alone with their mother. True. One screenshot is without much context except for setting the stage that Lita had slurred speech, implying that she was potentially on drugs. The last screenshot shows where Lita had been asked if Jim ever hit her, to which she said yes, but quickly reflected and said that he had more like "squeezed her".
I do not think that there is any good person in this situation, as divorce tends to be messy and hard for both sides. But when I think back on this situation I feel like us on the outside really don't have much information despite what he or she says.
In the article, "Denial of ambivalence as a hallmark of parental alienation", it states that in 11-15% of divorce cases, parental alienation is present in mild to extreme cases, with 1% of children being subject to "some form of parental alienation with an equal distribution between fathers and mothers being alienated and doing the alienation". Apparently there are 20–25% of parents who still use parental alienation tactics six years after the divorce. The article states that parental alienation can be represented as:
- Complete rejection of one parent by the children
- lack of finding anything positive to say about the alienated parent
- and no longer presenting mixed feelings about said parent
Children in situations like these tend to rely on the parent that "holds the power", which typically ends up being the alienator in these situations. Even more interestingly, parental alienation tends to start when the children are 9-15 years old, with adolescents being more alienated than younger children. This is almost textbook as to what happened Lita, since between the two sons, we have only heard anything from the older one James, and his disdain for his mother.
In the end, we can never really know what happened, unless the two were to release the court documents. I cannot say that side with either person, since I feel like I just don't know enough. The situation is just so very weird to me, and it seems like the ex spouses went from love to hate very quickly.
[SOURCES]
wikipedia
https://metalinjection.net/news/lita-fords-son-our-mother-is-a-child-abuser
https://www.axs.com/lita-ford-explains-why-she-hasn-t-spoken-to-her-sons-in-seven-years-112402
https://www.facebook.com/Lita-Fords-Parental-Alienation-Awareness-458574774195123/
https://www.cogentoa.com/article/10.1080/23311908.2017.1327144
No comments:
Post a Comment