‘I have receipts for the bags I bought her, the food, the flights…’
‘I didn’t ask him to. Those bags were fugly.’
‘Tom better check his credit card bill closely,’he adds.
My blood boils. If he were here, I’d tear him to pieces.
Ash writes‘CHARACTER ASSASSINATION’and underlines it twice.
‘I’m shooketh,’ breathes Minnie.
‘She didn’t just lie to me. She paints herself as this vulnerable, open voice – she’s built a successful podcast aroundit – but she’s as emotionally disengaged as they come. What’s she really saying about herself? What do you actually know about her? She talked to me about being an “aspirational everywoman”. She played me just as much as she’s playing you. She’s a god damn actress.’
Holy shit.
‘She’s constantly pictured with alcohol in her hand, but she doesn’t drink.’
‘Oh God,’ whispers Minnie.
‘She films all those cutesy vlogs about packing and “come fly with me”, but she’s an awful flyer. Takes a bunch of pills and knocks herself out.’
Ash points at the screen. ‘Being curated online is not fraud, you legally illiterate moron!’
‘And behind closed doors, she’s a little crazy.’
Minnie inhales. ‘I swear to God?—’
But I shush her. I have to hear every word of this.
‘Not like cute crazy, like crazy crazy. She counts when she’s nervous, she checks plug sockets before she leaves hotel rooms, she trackseverythingon apps, her routines are more set in stone than the fucking statue. Now I’m not saying Autism, but c’mon.’
The colour has drained from my entire body.
‘But I loved her despite her weirdness. She was my Jules.’
Minnie rubs her eyes. ‘For the love of God.’
‘All conjecture, no proof, and littered with big, shiny false statements of fact,’ Ash says, practically vibrating with rage, and maybe a little joy. ‘He’s accusing you of professional misconduct, deception, dishonesty in trade, fraudulent misrepresentation, and exploitation for financial gain, amongst a host of baseless inflammatory statements that suggest a lack of integrity,andhe’s omitted all exculpatory context. I’d say we have a verysolid libel case. My colleague Simon is anexcellentdefamation barrister?—’
I nurse my head. ‘I don’t want to sue him, Ash.’
‘Think about it. He worked on the David Beckham affair. Also makes really excellent tea.’
‘I just want to go home.’
He called me a liar.
He implied I was a gold digger.
He accused me of havingAutism. I don’t have words for how unbelievably tactless that is – not to mention hurtful to hundreds of viewers – but I’m going to settle for him conflating it with ‘crazy’four times.
I didn’t know he knew so much. I feel like I’ve been stripped naked for the world to scrutinise, suspended in full view. It was even worse than I imagined. What will I say to my brand partners? My followers? My listeners? Nyla?
Tom?
Bile rises up my throat but I push it down. I need to keep it together for a few more hours. In the American Airlines lounge, surrounded by businessmen, and about to get on a long-haul flight is not the place or time to spiral. I need to sleep and think this over.
What’s suing going to do? A year-long trial where we’re both dragged through the mud for him to pay a fraction of my lawyers’ fees in compensation? My reputation would be in cinders before an outcome.
