[worthyoflove]

He does look a lot like Michael Douglas there with the hair.

[SouthernSweetieTX]

Originally Posted by worthyoflove (View Post) He does look a lot like Michael Douglas there with the hair.

He really does!

[worthyoflove]

This is really sad and I can't imagine how incredibly hard it was to post this but Melissa posted her story about being a victim of domestic abuse, it's not hard to piece together who it was, her first husband, Blake (who she met while on Glee) who is a fellow actor.

I don't know why she came out with this now but she got a really really hard time from fans after she filed for divorce from Blake and moved on quickly to her now husband. Poor girl.

Supergirl star Melissa Benoist is speaking out about domestic violence after what she describes as months of domestic abuse. In a vulnerable, 14-minute Instagram video posted on Wednesday, the actor declared upfront, "I am a survivor of domestic violence, or IPV, intimate partner violence." In the story, Benoist, 31, describes meeting the alleged perpetrator at a time in her life when she had just gotten out of a relationship and wasn't eager to get into another. After becoming friends, she says, they started dating and the relationship immediately felt like a "runaway freight train." She says the abuse began as emotional manipulation, and that her partner was often jealous, looked at her devices, got angry when she spoke to other men, asked her to change clothes so others wouldn't look at her and got angry when she did romantic scenes at work. "Work in general was a touchy subject," she said. "He didn't want me ever kissing or even having flirtatious scenes with men, which was very hard for me to avoid, so I began turning down auditions, job offers, test deals and friendships, because I didn't want to hurt him." Benoist never named the abuser. She only describes the alleged perpetrator as being younger than her. She has been linked to photographer Nick Vorderman, 37, was married to actor Blake Jenner, 27, for over a year and is now married to actor Chris Wood, 31. The first incident of violence occurred five months in, she says in the video, when the partner allegedly threw a smoothie at her face. She kept the incident a secret out of shame, fear of again being abused and reluctance to admit it was happening to her. "I learned what it felt like to be pinned down and slapped repeatedly, punched so hard I felt the wind go out of me, dragged by my hair across pavement, head-butted, pinched until my skin broke, slammed against he wall so hard the drywall broke, choked," she said. When she locked herself in rooms, she said, the door was broken down, and she learned not to value property or "myself." After a violent attack, the alleged perpetrator would put her in a bathtub and turn on the faucet before leaving the room, only to later return and apologize. She says she stayed because "Deep down I never believed he would change, I just fooled myself into thinking I could help him... Someone had to let him know his behavior wasn't OK, and who better than the one he was taking it out on?" Benoist then describes how she herself became violent to fend off the attacks: "I changed and I'm not proud of how I changed," she said. A turning point occurred when the partner threw an iPhone at her face, allegedly tearing her iris to the point where it nearly ruptured her eyeball and breaking her nose, an injury such that her vision changed forever. She lied to the nurses and police about how she got the injuries but soon mustered the courage to be able to confide in a friend who asked her about her partner's controlling behavior. "The more people I let in, the more I was bolstered," she said. She says she then broke off relations with the partner. Ending her story, Benoist says, "None of this is salacious news, it was my reality. What I went through caused a tectonic shift in my outlook on life." She concludes that she wanted to tell her story because IPV is a chronically underreported crime. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, one in four women and one in four men have experienced some kind of violence from their partners; one in seven women and one in 25 men have been injured by their partners. "I want those statistics to change, and I hope that telling my story will prevent more stories like this from happening," she said. "If you are enduring what I went through and you see this, you might be able to find the tiny straw that will break the camel's back." In late-night appearances, Benoist often told stories about being "accident-prone," and in one 2016 appearance on The Tonight Show chalked up an eye injury extremely similar to the iPhone incident to falling down a flight of stairs and hitting her eye on a potted plant. “I looked like Squirt from Finding Nemo,” she told host Jimmy Fallon, which is what she said her alleged abuser had told her following the injury in her latest Instagram video.

[SouthernSweetieTX]

That took a lot of courage to come forward. I hope her story helps someone in that situation to have the bravery to get out.

[KitscherSunk]

I came to post this. I can’t bear to watch the video. I’m near tears just reading that article. God bless her for coming forward. She has some really happy IG photos with her new husband. Maybe being free of the abuse and in a healthy relationship made her feel safe, loved and supported enough to share this.

[elherts]

I saw that this morning. Her current husband, Chris Wood was on Vampire Diaries (Kai) and is good friends with Paul Wesley. Paul posted Melissa's story on Twitter this morning. Some of the things she said he (Blake) did to her a pretty intense. I hope that he's going to have to answer for this.

[worthyoflove]

I do wonder if he'll acknowledge it at all. It's very easy to determine who it was just based on the iphone incident. She went on Jimmy Fallon years ago and talked about it but how it happened was all made up, but it definitely happened when she was married to Blake.

I feel bad, because I admit that the rumors that she cheated or moved on so quickly to her now husband kind of turned me off of her. It makes a lot of sense why things went down the way they went down with her marriage ending. I hope that now this is out in the world she can heal from it. I'm sure the fact that she didn't talk about it or watching her abuser out there in the world going about life like he's not some monster has to be devastating.

[worthyoflove]

I always keep an eye on stuff like this as it is a) a Network Taylor has worked with before, b) someone Taylor has a close relationship with/working relationship...

Taylor Sheridan has really carved out his spot in TV on the Paramount Network with Yellowstone and now signing on for this new show too. I'd actually love to see Taylor do something like this.

TYhe cabler has ordered the scripted drama “Mayor of Kingstown” from Sheridan, who is the co-creator of the hit Paramount Network drama “Yellowstone.” In addition, Paramount Network has renewed Sheridan’s unscripted series “The Last Cowboy” for a second season. Set in a small Michigan town where the only industry remaining are federal, state, and private prisons, “Mayor of Kingstown” follows the McClusky family, the power brokers between the police, criminals, inmates, prison guards and politicians, in a city completely dependent on prisons and the prisoners they contain.

[SouthernSweetieTX]

I don’t feel like he’d do a regular series again. At least not anytime soon.

[worthyoflove]

His HBO deal was supposed to be a series...so he seemed ready to sign on to something like that, though who knows what's actually going on with that too.

I could see him signing on to something that would film for three/four months then give him freedom to film movies the rest of the year.

[worthyoflove]

Well, well, well...Waco was finally added to Netflix today, in the US and Canada. I can't vouch for other countries but I did double check and it's added on US Netflix.

[elherts]

Have you heard anything about the HBO show? I forgot about that.

Yeah for Netflix. Hopefully people will find it. I don't know that I would watch it again. It was a little too disturbing for me, although he was amazing.

[SouthernSweetieTX]

Originally Posted by worthyoflove (View Post) Well, well, well...Waco was finally added to Netflix today, in the US and Canada. I can't vouch for other countries but I did double check and it's added on US Netflix.

Yay! I only got to watch this once. I was distracted most of the time. It aired while we were at my parents and trying to move. I will watch it again, and be able to pay attention.

[worthyoflove]

I'm hoping this gives it a second life. People are desperate for new content right now and no offense to Paramount but they're not Netflix. People might think this is a whole new series.

[elherts]

I would rewatch it with you guys though. Probably not on my own.