LOOK OUT STAR JONES

Author McMillan seeks divorce from husband

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Author Terry McMillan has filed for divorce from the man who inspired the 1996 novel How Stella Got Her Groove Back, which chronicled the romantic adventures of a 40-something woman who falls for a guy half her age.
In papers filed in Contra Costa County Superior Court, McMillan, 53, says she decided to end her 6 1/2-year marriage to Jonathan Plummer, 30, after learning he is gay.

The revelation led her to conclude Plummer married only to get his U.S. citizenship, she said. McMillan met Plummer at a Jamaican resort a decade ago.

"It was devastating to discover that a relationship I had publicized to the world as life-affirming and built on mutual love was actually based on deceit," she said in court papers. "I was humiliated."

In response, Plummer maintained McMillan treated him with "homophobic" scorn bordering on harassment since he came out to her as gay just before Christmas.

McMillan is seeking to have the marriage annulled; Plummer has asked the court to set aside a prenuptial agreement that would prevent him from getting spousal support.

McMillan filed for divorce in January, but news of the split didn't surface until this week, when it was first reported in a San Francisco Chronicle gossip column. Earlier this month, a judge ordered McMillan to pay Plummer $2,000 a month in spousal support and $25,000 in attorney's fees until the case comes back to court in October.

McMillan's latest novel, The Interruption of Everything, is scheduled to hit store shelves next month. It plots the mid-life adventures of a married mother of three who is questioning her comfortable suburban life.

McMillan said she did not plan to let a divorce "detract from the many blessings in her life," according to a statement released through her publicist.

Plummer's attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.

Oh God...she's going to sell millions when she writes the book.



Damnyum. Why couldn't I come across a story like this?

I'm always writing about murder and serial killing shit...



It's a fact...relationship stuff sells.

...

Damn Stella!!!!!

Just saw this on msn. I'm amazed he was able to hide for this long. I guess ol' Jonathan was thinking about Tyson Beckford when he was on top.

Kelly Preston and Katie Holmes better look out too.

kelly preston as in Mrs. John travolta?????




first I heard of that closet

AlienX2050 said:

if I help you will you cut me in ?

too bad.

butterfli25 said:

I will cut you in. Sure deal.



Maybe I should publicize my divorce....

She told me not to...

Shit....detectives and all were involved.

Damn....it wasn't that scandolous though....or was it?
.

Never read the novel
but I saw the first 5 minutes of the movie on cable and couldn't resist how bad it was

butterfli25 said:

Its been rumoured for years. In fact, its pretty much been ignored since Cruise became the hot closet suspect, but he used to be the main celeb in Hollywood that folks claimed was gay.

Half of Hollywood are Homos! This should'nt be news to anyone.

I knew he was gay!

Smooches;)

AlienX2050 said:

JediMaster said:

wow that I didn't know

butterfli25 said:

Yeah, supposedly when Travolta was starting out with Welcome Back Kotter, he was open about his sexuality. Rumor is, that when he recorded his first album he would take his lover with him. It wasn't a big deal with anyone. It became a big deal later.


M

yeah I bet, with them marketing him as a sex symbol and all.


my question is it took Terry 6 years to notice that her man was gay?

or is it that he didn't know until he recently came out?

it's sad really for both of them in a way

exept I guess he's getting paid, so maybe he's not so sad.

Damn Stella!!

JediMaster said:

I read an old expose on Scientology that said folks within the church threatened to out Travolta. It was a great article - if I can find it, I'll post the link.

Spousal support is bullshit in this case, i am doing that too right now in a way cause i dontthink my last spouse can make it neither..

uPtoWnNY said:

Please do. I'd love to also post it on my Scientology thread in the P&R.

Man when I saw that article on the front page of the Sunday paper, I had to get the paper just for that. For some reason I'm not surprised. That's too bad, but that's more writing material for her. I'm sure she was pissed and shocked when he came out. Why can't peeps be honest about where they stand in relationships, and about what they are? Even if he didn't know when they first met, once he figured it out, he should have let her know instead of sneaking around and doing internet chats.

I don't know how I feel about this. The guy may have known but then again he was 20 years old.

Read this:


How 'Stella's' groove got away from her

June 28, 2005

BY MARY MITCHELL SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement


There's a new "Tea Cake" twist.

Back in the day when Zora Neal Hurston wrote "Their Eyes Were Watching God," the only thing Janie had to worry about was her lover Tea Cake leaving her for a younger woman. Janie was "around forty" and Tea Cake was "around twenty-five." It never happened, which is one thing that has made Hurston's 1937 love story a classic of black literature.

But romance is a lot messier in real life.

After convincing older women that they can find love with a man half their age, best-selling writer Terry McMillan's Tea Cake has run off -- with a man. Jonathan Plummer was 20 years old and McMillan was 43 when they met while she was staying at a Jamaican resort in 1995. At the time, McMillan had made millions from her novel "Waiting to Exhale" and was so popular she once complained that she couldn't walk through an airport without sisters stopping her.

But apparently brothers in the United States weren't interested, because McMillan was in Jamaica getting turned on by a local just like legions of other lonely American women who go to the Caribbean looking for romantic adventure. Only McMillan did what a lot of other women wish they could do. She brought the young man home, put him up in her $4 million home, and married him three years later.

Charges of homophobia

Her widely read novel How Stella Got Her Groove Back is based, in part, on the steamy affair between McMillan and Plummer. McMillan is now 53. Plummer is 30 --and he has come out of the closet. McMillan has filed for a divorce, claiming Plummer "lied about his sexual orientation" and that he married her "only to gain U.S. citizenship."

Plummer says he was a "20-year-old kid" when he met McMillan and had "no idea that she was anybody other than an attractive older woman," and he didn't know he was gay when the couple met.

He told her he was gay last December and she kicked him out of their home.

Last week, a California judge ordered McMillan to pay Plummer $2,000 a month in spousal support and $25,000 in attorneys fees until there is a hearing on McMillan's annulment request, and until the court rules on the validity of a prenuptional agreement.

Now, Plummer's calling McMillan "homophobic," and claims she cheated him out of royalties he was entitled to for "Stella." McMillan has a restraining order against Plummer and has accused him of embezzling at least $200,000 from her bank accounts.

Plummer has his own restraining order and says McMillan is throwing things at him and calling him a "fag."

Nasty, I tell you.

Still, the McMillan/Plummer split raises all kinds of questions: Did Plummer really commit fraud? After all, he was married to McMillan for six years -- longer than a lot of other marriages last. And shouldn't McMillan have known that a Tea Cake doesn't last forever?

A lot of women think Plummer should have his butt kicked all the way back to Jamaica. Or worse. But, hold on a second. The Tea Cakes are always hot in the Caribbean, yet everyone has heard about some poor doe-eyed woman who brought one home and lived to regret it.

The rules of the game

Given the violent, anti-gay culture in Jamaica, if Plummer knew he was gay at 20, he certainly would have kept it on the "down low." Even now, the biggest dance hall hits in Jamaica are Beenie Man's "Damn," in which he sings about executing gays, and "Chi Chi Man," a song that advocates violence against gays. Getting Plummer deported, by crying fraud, might seem like his just deserts.

But is it?

Before playing, McMillan should have known the rules of the game.

A lot of Island men make their way off the islands by being attentive and charming. They are selling romantic pipe dreams to any woman who is willing to pay for them, and McMillan was willing to pay. But she was buying Plummer's time. Not his soul.

Before we stone Plummer to death for defrauding a sister, isn't it entirely possible that he didn't know he was gay when he met McMillan? After all, he was only 20 years old. Some gay people don't come out until they are 30 or older. And lots of gay men were once married to women and lots of lesbians were once married to men.

Taking it in stride


McMillan had already figured life out when she met Plummer. He hadn't. That's the downside of a Tea Cake.

But if Tea Cake is an older woman's fantasy, McMillan is a young man's dream. She had the money to choose a young, glistening Island man and she provided for him and helped him obtain U.S. citizenship. Until a couple of years ago, when McMillan set Plummer up in a dog-grooming business, he was dependent upon her entirely.

Whether Plummer turned out to be gay or just no longer interested, McMillan would still have felt betrayed. She took the same risk an older man takes when he falls in love with a young woman.


Women just haven't yet learned how to take the leaving in stride.




M

[Edited 6/30/05 13:37pm]

JediMaster said:

There's nearly a whole chapter about it in this book:

Queer in America : Sex, the Media, and the Closets of Power
by Michelangelo Signorile

In addition to Travolta's story, Signorile talks to gay men who were members of the church. Very insightful. My copy is in L.A., or I'd pull out some choice quotes for ya.