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Summarized by Kent Larsen
NY Post Relates Story Behind Osmond Separation
New York NY Post 25Jan00 P2
By Daniel Jeffreys
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA -- The New York Post has uncovered many details
of Marie Osmond's tragic separation from her husband, Brian Blosil and
discovered that friends of Osmond are not surprised. According to those
friends, Marie's has been suffering from depression that the Post says
comes from unresolved feelings from her music star childhood.
One business associate and friend is simply astonished that the marriage
lasted as long as it did, "Marie had six children with Brian. That is a
child once every two years. And she launched a multimillion-dollar doll
business. And she had an ABC sitcom that still ranks as one of the
network's biggest disasters (it was canceled after half a season). And
she did 200 shows a year, touring all over the country," the friend
notes.
Mo Jacobs, who worked with Marie at ABC agrees, "That would be stressful
for anybody. For somebody with post-partum depression and a feeling she
has never really worked out who she is, I suspect the mix was way too
rich."
The strain evidently became too much for Marie last summer, shortly
after the stressful labor and delivery of her sixth baby. Just a week
after giving birth, Marie was hospitalized for emergency treatment of
exhaustion. Two weeks later, she left her children and a bunch of credit
cards with a nanny and drove off up California's Pacific Coast Highway.
"I really felt my kids would be better off if they did not have a
mother," she told the Los Angeles Times in a later interview, after her
husband found her and persuaded her to come home.
Doctors prescribed Zoloft for the depression, but Marie stopped taking
the drug after five days, "I couldn't handle it. Not only did it take
away the low, it took away the joy," she told the Chicago Tribune just
before Christmas. But her attempts to deal with the depression with
hormone therapy seem to have been unsuccessful, according to an
associate, "My impression was she became a workaholic to avoid
confronting some deep emotional troubles."
Some associates say that her childhood may have caused some of the
problems, "Marie has a lot of unresolved issues about her childhood,"
says a therapist who helped treat both Donny and Marie in the late '80s
and early '90s. "I could never get her to admit becoming a child star at
3 while living in a regimented Mormon family might cause some problems.
In her teens, she was making millions and coming home to do dishes or
face harsh discipline."
The article claims that George Osmond, Marie's father, was a harsh
disciplinarian, imposing "draconian" order and insisted that his
children take their punishment without crying. In addition, the life of
a child star includes additional pressures on the child. On one
occasion, a producer from NBC took Marie aside in the parking lot and
told her that the 'extra pounds' she had gained were "an embarrassment
to your family."
In 1982, Marie went to Manhattan to start an acting career, and gained
some privacy, in which she dated basketball star Steve Craig, who she
married too soon, according to the article. In just two years the
marriage was over, due in part to Craig's infidelity, which seemed to
come from jealousy.
Since she married Blosil, who she met a year after divorcing Craig,
sources told the Post she has tried to bee all things to everyone in her
life; trying to be the perfect wife and mother while pushing her career
back to the level she saw as a teenager.
The article also relates Marie's breakdown to the release of her brother
Donny's autobiography, "Life Is Just What You Make It," last year.
Co-workers say that Donny's confession in the biography that he had
suffered from anxiety attacks and had a nervous breakdown scared Marie,
"It was as if she realized if it could happen to him, maybe it could
happen to her," says Arnie Davis, a musician who toured with Marie
throughout the '90s. "She is a wonderful person to work with, but I
could tell Donny's problems made her sullen, like I had never seen
before."
The Post's sources say that Marie will now stop trying to be everything
to everyone and confront "all the demons of her extraordinary past." She
is said to be getting counseling from the LDS Church as well as seeing a
California therapist.
Meanwhile, Marie has been with Donny almost non-stop since the
separation, and the two are reportedly planning some "new and
surprising" projects.
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