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YouTube hubby wins divorce
22/07/2008 08:57 - (SA)
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| Actress Tricia Walsh Smith trashed her husband in a video posted on YouTube. (Screen shot, YouTube) |
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New York - A Broadway mogul whose actress wife trashes him in a widely viewed internet video has been granted a divorce from her.
A Manhattan judge granted Philip Smith a divorce from Tricia Walsh-Smith on Monday on the grounds of cruel and inhuman treatment.
Walsh-Smith lashes out against Smith in the tearful and furious YouTube video, which has attracted more than 3 million hits.
She makes embarrassing claims about their intimate life and then calls his office to repeat those claims to a stunned assistant.
On the video, Walsh-Smith also goes through their wedding album, describing family members as "bad," "evil" or "nasty," and expresses concern about eviction from the couple's luxury apartment.
Judge Harold Beeler said on Monday that a prenuptial agreement signed three weeks before the couple's 1999 wedding was valid.
This means Walsh-Smith must leave their posh Park Avenue apartment within 30 days and Smith, president of The Shubert Organisation, the largest theatre owner on Broadway, must pay her $750 000.
'Disgusting'
Smith said after the ruling he was "sorry it had to come to this".
"I'm happy with the decision of the judge, and I'm happy with the outcome," he said.
Walsh-Smith didn't see the decision the same way.
"I think it's disgusting," she said. "I'm really, really disappointed with the decision."
She accused Smith of "basically throwing me out on the street".
One of her attorneys, Joseph P McCaffrey, said they would appeal.
The famed divorce attorney Raoul Felder began representing Walsh-Smith after she made the video. Felder previously had termed the whole thing "funny, but there's also sadness".
"This is a victim who is holding her head up," he said. "I think she comes off well."
'Love is blind'
Felder has explained that his client was "acting out of passion".
He called the prenuptial agreement she'd signed with her husband, who is a quarter-century older than her, "stupid".
So why did his client sign?
"Why do women sign these things? Love is blind, and sometimes it is deaf and dumb, too," Felder said.
The video, he added, was the act of a powerless person, and "revolutions are made by powerless people".
Watch the YouTube video here.
Watch the follow up YouTube video here.
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