What Really Happened (26 page)

Cheri replies, “I know, but I want to tape it anyway.”

At one point in June, Fred told me that Andrew told him that he had my father’s ashes with him in Santa Barbara. I replied, “What?” That’s what Andrew had told him. He had my father’s ashes and was going to bring them to me. He was going to call me. I never heard from him. Later in September, Mimi found my father’s ashes in the closet of my rental house in North Carolina when she went to pack up all my belongings. She also found my hatbox there. I did not leave my hatbox, which was filled with many personal mementos (including the videotape I thought I had destroyed), or my father’s ashes in the closet. They had been moved.

Johnny was going to be in LA for some meetings, so I thought, why don’t we just do what we did before? He stayed at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, we stayed at the Beverly Hilton, and Bob picked him up and dropped him back at his hotel later. We stayed for three days and two nights, June 19
^th
to 21
^st
. I took a bunch of pictures. One night Johnny ran into a woman he knew in the parking lot of the Hilton. I would later read that she talked to the press about that.

On June 21
^st
, Johnny ran over to the Hilton to see us before we left in the morning. I took some pictures of him and Quinn—he had on a sweaty running T-shirt. One of the many photos I took that day was doctored and appeared in the
National Enquirer
as a “spy photo,” claiming it was taken a month later. It was taken on June 21
^st
and it was stolen from me. I don’t know whether the
National Enquirer
stole it or if it bought the photo from someone who stole it. It was stolen either from my camera before I deleted the image, or from my computer. I would guess from my computer, or someone took a picture of it as it was on my computer, hence the doctoring of the photo. The bottom line is that I took the picture, I own it, and someone stole the image.

The Beverly Hilton, June 2008. I took five photos that morning; the picture taken ten minutes before this one was stolen from me and appeared in the
National Enquirer
as a “spy photo.”

At the end of June, I flew my younger sister Melissa and her two daughters out for a visit. She is the only sister with whom I have a relationship. For her birthday, I took everyone to the Four Seasons for lunch, and for her birthday present I gave her my Cartier watch. It was a man’s Panther watch that I had bought right after my father died in 1990. I gifted it to my sister because it was something of mine she always loved.

It was an emotional and sweet birthday lunch. Melissa took a picture of Quinn and me that ended up (without my knowledge or consent) on the cover of the
National Enquirer
. My sister claims that she did not sell it to the
Enquirer
, even though she owns the photograph. She claims she must have accidentally emailed it to my other sister, the one who has gone on TV bashing me more than once, who must have given it to the publication.

Melissa would also be one of the people (given that she was staying with me) who had access to my computer and my camera. I hate to think that there is even a possibility that my own sister would do such things, but when these things happen to you and your property, you can’t help but become a little paranoid. I don’t believe it was her, but my mind did go everywhere, including to my loved ones.

To this day, I have no idea how the
Enquirer
got those photos. I do know that I did not have anything to do with it. And one of them, the “spy photo,” is stolen property—my stolen property.

Why don’t I just sue the
Enquirer
?

Believe me, I have had many serious conversations with lawyers about this very topic and, who knows, maybe I will one day sue them. Right now my plate is full with other lawsuits. Rob Gordon, one of my early lawyers, joked to me one day long ago that when all this is done, I could open my own law firm. No kidding: criminal law, family law, First Amendment—what an education I have received.

Funnily enough, on my sister’s birthday, while we were dining at the Four Seasons Resort, I got an email from my old pal Jonathan Darman, which read:

Hello my old friend, I don’t think this email address works for you anymore. But I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. And knowing you, you probably know that I’ve been thinking about you so I figured I’d send a message out there and it would find its way to you somehow. Hope the past few months have been good for you. I’d love to hear where you are and what you’re doing. It has been a thousand years, I mean that seriously, for me, since last we spoke and I’m sure it feels that it has been for you as well. I would love to be back in touch. At the very least, know that I’m thinking of you and sending you much, much love. Warmest, J

I didn’t respond but wished I could have. I missed Darman.

In mid-July, Johnny scheduled a meeting in order to be in LA for one night only—July 21
^st
, 2008. Bob and I arrived at the Beverly Hilton in the afternoon, and Bob went inside to check in. It was packed. Apparently there had been some media conference held there that day but was ending. I was a bit freaked because it was so crowded, but Bob assured me that the desk had told him that it was over and all these people were clearing out, which turned out to be the case. I went to the room without passing one person, which was easy to do from the parking garage by taking the stairs and avoiding the lobby. That was the route Johnny would take later that evening as well.

I do not believe that the
Enquirer
had been tipped off and was waiting for us. I had been there since three or four in the afternoon. I believe that, as usual, someone spotted Johnny as he was coming in and alerted the
Enquirer
, which was there waiting for him when he left later that night—or, I should say, early in the morning. The
Enquirer
claimed it was tipped off and had photos of us together. I know the publication didn’t have photos of us together unless there was one taken with surveillance cameras inside the room because we never left the room. And I don’t buy that the
Enquirer
was tipped off early on because, if that had been the case,
wouldn’t a photographer have been waiting
when we arrived
?

I remember people saying, “What? They don’t even have a cell phone camera? Where are the photos?” Of course, the
Enquirer
’s big smoking gun was the “spy photo” that was stolen from me—a shot taken a month earlier. Not to mention the security guy told Johnny that he heard the reporter screaming into his phone, “Where’s my photographer?!”

The Beverly Hilton, the night the
National Enquirer
confronted Johnny on his way out, July 21
^st
, 2008. Quinn’s T-shirt says
ME for President.

In any case, we had a great visit. Johnny was so sweet and happy to see me. He really wanted to stay the whole night, which I thought was a bad idea and think had something to do with the fact that I had never slept a night without Quinn and I didn’t want to. Later, we had fallen asleep for a while, and when I woke up, I wanted my girl back. I told him he should probably go. Bob brought Quinn back to our room. And Bob left us so we could say goodbye. He planned on meeting Johnny at the car. Johnny kissed Quinn goodbye, kissed me goodbye, and left. I had no way of knowing that when he left that it would be the last time I saw the man that was filled with optimism, the man I had fallen in love with.

About thirty minutes after the door had closed, I realized that Bob had not brought Quinn’s favorite little binky back with her. I called Bob and said, “Do you have Quinn’s binky?”

He said, “I’ll bring it to you when I get back.”

“When you get back? Aren’t you already back?”

“No, I’m still waiting for John.”

“
What?
He left here, like, thirty minutes ago.” I hung up and called his cell.

He answered, “I guess you figured out what happened.”

“No, I have no idea. Where are you?”

“I am with security.” He told me what had happened. The English
National Enquirer
reporter was sitting on a bench by the bathrooms waiting for him and asked him if he was at the hotel visiting Rielle Hunter and if he was the father of her baby. Johnny walked right by him up the stairs and was met by a guy doing weird things with a video camera—not behaving like a normal videographer, but making erratic motions with a small camera, which made Johnny turn around and go back down the stairs and into the bathroom. The reporter attempted to come into the bathroom as he screamed questions, but Johnny held the door closed until a man said, “This is hotel security.” At that point, Johnny opened the door, and the security guy escorted Johnny out of the bathroom (the reporter was no longer standing there), through the gym, and up to the top floor of the hotel.

That’s where he was when I called him. Security was going to get him back to his hotel. He was trying to figure out whether he should have security get me out too. I said, “No, I don’t want them to help me out.”

The security man got him back to his hotel, and Johnny tipped him a few hundred bucks. Clearly that wasn’t enough money to keep him from talking, or maybe the security guy was a Republican, given his interview on Fox News was the first to air on the mainstream media, creating a feeding frenzy.

Johnny remembers the
National Enquirer
claimed to have filed a criminal complaint against the security guard, but the cops claimed it was an incident report and no charges were filed. The
Enquirer
also claimed it had pictures and/or video of Johnny and I leaving the room together and said it had video of me entering the room to see Johnny.
Nope
. Impossible, because neither event happened.

Johnny got back to his hotel, and we talked on the phone for at least an hour. Bob called saying that he had found a way out for me, that I should just get dressed and leave my suitcase, walk down the hall to the stairs, and take the stairs all the way down past the boiler, past another door, and then out to the street, where he would be waiting for me. I was not thrilled with this idea because I had not slept a wink. Bob thought that the longer I waited, the more surrounded the hotel would be. My room phone began ringing. The
Enquirer
still had no idea which room I was in, or the reporter would have been out in the hallway. But I took my ringing phone to mean that it was just a matter of time before they had someone on every floor.

So I did what Bob suggested. I got dressed, packed everything in my red suitcase, took my purse, and put Quinn in the Baby Björn on my chest with a towel over her head. I took the route Bob suggested and passed two maids on my floor beginning their morning cleaning routine, but no guests—and no reporters.