Judge calls it “the most confusing case between sisters I’ve ever seen”
LOS ANGELES – March 29, 2008 – Famous twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen appeared in District Court Wednesday morning to hash out the details of a lawsuit that Mary-Kate hoped would permanently separate her from her sister. In documents she filed with the court, Mary-Kate claimed she has
“been the victim of cruel and inhumane treatment”
at the hands of Ashley for the past four years and thus
“I want a divorce so I can extracate [sic] myself from my sister and get on with my life.”
The hearing was held without a jury on the fourth floor of the Spring Street courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. No members of Mary-Kate and Ashley’s immediate family were present.
Judge Horatio L. Marquez agreed to hear the case, in spite of warnings from Los Angeles County Magistrate Judge Tannika Forrester, who has overseen several cases involving Mary-Kate and Ashley and their company, Dualstar Entertainment Group.
“I told him that nothing good could come of it,” Forrester said early Monday before proceedings began. “It’s a bad enough sight when those two get together and go after somebody they believe is out to do them financial harm – like 12-year-old girls who put several unauthorized Mary-Kate & Ashley photos on their fan blogs – but when they start going after each other, it’s sure to get ugly. And not a little crazy.”
Forrester’s prediction turned out to be an understatement.
“This is the most confusing case I’ve ever seen involving sisters,” Marquez told the packed courtroom after swearing in the plaintiff, Mary-Kate, and the defendant, Ashley, both 21 years old. “But we’re going to hear it out, see what we’ve got here, see what Mary-Kate Olsen has to say.”
Mary-Kate’s turn
What Mary-Kate had to say was this. “Your Highness, me and Ashley–”
“‘Your Honor’ is the appropriate term,” Marquez told her.
“Sorry, Your Honor. Me and Ashley have been joined at the hip since we were babies, and even before that, if you count while we were in the womb. And even before that, if you consider we might have been swimming around inside our dad for who knows how long.”
Wearing black ankle boots, knee-ripped Oshkosh B’Gosh jeans, a black leather jacket and a purple nylon scarf, Mary-Kate left the plaintiff’s table and began wandering around the open area in front of Marquez’s bench, speaking to everybody and nobody at the same time.
“She picks on me, she tries to run my life, she won’t let me hang out with my friends, she hides all of my dr . . . dresses, and she taps my phone at work so she can see who I’m talking to.”
Ashley Olsen’s attorney, Seymour Abramowitz, objected. “The plaintiff can produce no evidence that any phone at their offices was tapped, Your Honor.”
Marquez sustained the objection.
“What does that mean, what you just said?” Mary-Kate asked the judge.
“It means I’m striking your accusation of phone-tapping from the record. Miss Olsen, do you have an attorney? Your sister has one.”
“My sister has everything,” Mary-Kate said. “I’m representing myself.”
“The court could appoint an attorney for you, if you’re having trouble finding one.”
Mary-Kate spun around toward her sister, who sat stiffly at the defense table in a stunning white-silk Dolce and Gabbana original accented with a pair of sparkling diamond drop earrings from Harry Winston. “Did you tell him I couldn’t afford a fucking lawyer?”
Marquez banged his gavel. Abramowitz leapt to his feet and shouted, “Objection, Your Honor! The plaintiff is harassing my client!”
“Miss Olsen, you may not address the defendant,” Marquez told Mary-Kate. “That’s what I’m here for. You just tell me your story, then the defendant will have her chance to tell hers. I’d like you to tell me why you want to divorce your sister.”
“Oh, I’ll tell you,” Mary-Kate said. “Ever since I started my diet five years ago, she treats me like there’s something wrong with me. But there’s not. I take haldol and lithium every day, I do three hours a week with a psychotherapist, I’ve started channeling inter-galactic beings from at least three solar systems that I know of, and I do a hatha yoga, which is bad for my hips but great for my periods.” She peered up at the judge with wide, unfocused eyes, her blood-red lips curling, and said, “I’m as normal as everybody else.”
“But what you describe – I mean about you and your sister’s relationship – the inter-galactic beings might require more time for me to grasp–”
“They talk English, just like you and me,“ Mary-Kate said.
“What you describe is not atypical between twins who have worked and lived as closely together for as long as you two have,” Marquez said. “Now, I don’t keep up with your careers–”
“We don’t have careers anymore, thanks to her,” Mary-Kate said.
Abramowitz objected; Marquez overruled it.
“I don’t follow your careers,” Marquez continued, “but I do know the two of you have had difficulty adjusting to the lifestyles your careers have bought you. But I wish you could tell me exactly what you mean by wanting to divorce Ashley. Normally divorces are only granted for married couples.”
“We are married.”
“Objection!” shouted Abramowitz.
“We slept together!” Mary-Kate yelled.
Abramowitz jumped up again. “Objection! Your Honor, I must request that you prohibit the plaintiff from making these leading accusations!”
“Objection sustained,” Marquez said, then to Mary-Kate: “Don’t go down that road, Miss Olsen.”
“But it’s true,” Mary-Kate said. “We were just like a married couple when we lived at home.”
“Mary-Kate, shut up!” Ashley screamed, completely losing her composure. “If you want to divorce me, fine, just don’t go spewing out all your hallucinations. You’re going to ruin what little we’ve got left.”
“Can I object?” Mary-Kate asked the judge.
“On what grounds?” Marquez said.
“On the grounds that if I can’t talk to her, she can’t talk to me.”
Ashley blew out a hard breath and whispered something to Abramowitz.
“Don’t make those noises!” Mary-Kate yelled at her.
Marquez banged his gavel twice. “Miss Olsen, I’m going to ask you one more time to tell the court exactly what you think you’ll accomplish by divorcing your sister.”
“I’ll accomplish freedom,” Mary-Kate said. “I’ll accomplish not having her call me every ten minutes to see if I’m all right. I’ll accomplish being able to go somewhere without her sending somebody to watch out for me. I just want to be myself.” She began to cry. “I just want to live or die if I want to, without . . . knowing how much I hurt her. I can’t stand watching what all this is doing to her. I need freedom.”
Across the floor, Ashley wiped her eye with a handkerchief.
Marquez took a recess. Ashley and Abramowitz went across the street to a café for lunch. Mary-Kate sat by herself on the floor outside the courtroom, drinking a Jolt energy drink and eating Skittles. When court reconvened, the defense presented its argument.
Ashley’s turn
“Your Honor, Ashley Olsen does not want a divorce from her sister,” Abramowitz said as he walked toward the bench. “This whole problem started just recently when Ashley attempted to persuade the plaintiff to admit herself into a psychiatric clinic following an episode in which Ashley found the plaintiff in an alley not far from here, congregating with homeless people.”
“They made me the honorary president of their association!” Mary-Kate said from her seat at the plaintiff’s table.
“Miss Olsen, you had your chance,” Marquez said to her. “Please let Mr. Abramowitz speak.”
“Fine,” Mary-Kate said and folded her arms across her chest. Four Skittles fell out of a pocket and rattled on the floor.
“The plaintiff’s physical and mental descent has been well-documented in the press for the past four years,” Abramowitz went on. “Those closest to her, minus her family, who chose not to endure the proceedings, are here today on my client’s behalf to testify to that fact, if necessary.”
“Who’s here?” Mary-Kate said and jerked around to face the capacity crowd as if she hadn’t realized there were people watching her. “Jesus Christ, Stavros, what are you doing here?”
Three benches behind Ashley, Stavros Niarchos, Greek shipping heir and a former boyfriend of Mary-Kate’s, gave a slight wave.
“I thought you were still in Paris,” Mary-Kate said, and several people laughed.
“All right, Miss Olsen, that’ll be enough,” Marquez said. “Mr. Abramowitz, please continue.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. As I was saying, it’s widely known in both public and private circles that the plaintiff has had a difficult time of it over the last several years, and her sister, Ashley, who loves her very much, is very concerned for her welfare. Since the girls left home, Ashley has had to take over the role of mother to the plaintiff much of the time.”
“Mrs. Olsen is still living, isn’t she?” Marquez asked.
“She is, Your Honor,” Abramowitz said, “but like I said, neither of the twins lives at home now, and Jarnette Olsen, their mother, can’t be with the plaintiff all the time. The point is, because of her sister’s personal issues, Ashley has been worried to the point of compromising her own health, but she’s still determined to help the plaintiff on the long road to recovery. She absolutely doesn’t want a divorce and believes if it were to be granted, it could lead to the plaintiff’s death.”
The courtroom remained silent for two minutes as Marquez looked through a sheaf of papers in front of him. He glanced at Mary-Kate, who smiled at him. He looked at Ashley, who put her face down toward the table.
“Miss Olsen?” Marquez said.
“Yes?” both twins said.
“I meant Ashley.”
“Yes?”
“Before I make my decision, would you like to address the court?”
Ashley stood up. Someone in one of the back rows whistled softly.
“Mr. Abramowitz said mainly everything I would want to say, Your Honor,” Ashley said. “But I do want to point one thing out. Up until 2003, when Mary-Kate started losing weight, I was always the flighty one, the weird one. I was just living free and didn’t really care about that much. I used to bother Mary-Kate all the time with my little jokes and innuendos, especially about her relationship with a very lovely man in 1999 and 2000. She was so serious back then, very internal, very . . . almost withdrawn, unless we were working. But when she got sick, something in me changed. I guess I saw how easy it would be to lose everything, to lose the most important thing in my life. She came really close to dying in rehab in 2004, and I knew that whatever kind of life we’d had up to that point was essentially over. And I knew that somebody was going to have to look after her – possibly for the rest of her life. Our mom and dad love us a lot, but we’re on our own now. That’s why I went to college with her. I didn’t want to go, but there was no way she could cope with it on her own. And that’s why I keep up with her, and why I call her all the time and send people to watch what she’s doing. I’m worried about her for a million reasons. Do you know that she keeps an alligator in her house in La Jolla?”
“He’s a baby, Ashley,” Mary-Kate said.
“He’s a fucking alligator!” Ashley yelled.
“He’s a fucking baby alligator, Ashley!” Mary-Kate screamed back.
Ashley walked back to the defense table and pulled three tissues from her purse. “You – all of you – I know you think we have these perfect, glamorous lives. But we don’t. And that’s another thing that’s changed in the last few years: before, I was always the one who wanted the career, loved doing the movies and videos, loved all the attention. Mary-Kate hated it. She actually . . .” Ashley looked over at Mary-Kate, who had listened closely to every word. “She ran away when she was fourteen in hopes of being able to get out of the business. She never liked being the girl on the left side of the ambersand, as we used to say.”
“Ampersand,” Mary-Kate corrected.
“Right, ampersand,” Ashley said as tears filled her eyes. “I could never get that right.” She faced the judge. “Anyway, now she loves it, and I hate it. I wish we could end it, but it’s like being famous is our job now. I’ve stopped doing film work, and all I do is run our company, where I’m co-CEO and spend twelve or fourteen hours a day. That part’s okay, but I wish I wasn’t famous doing it. Mary-Kate’s doing TV and movies and a bunch of side projects, and she’s happy with it. The problem is, she’s in no shape to do all that, but she can’t see it.”
Ashley walked to the bench and put her hands up on the wooden ledge. “If Mary-Kate dies, Your Honor, I can’t keep living. And I don’t want to die. Not yet. But without her, I would have nothing to live for. She’s been the reason I’m alive since I was a little kid, because I love her more than I love myself.”
Ashley turned and went back to her seat. The clack of her heels on the marble floor echoed in the silence.
Marquez said, “Like I said at the beginning, this is the most confusing–”
“Did you really mean you don’t want me to die?” Mary-Kate said to Ashley.
“Of course I meant it, Mary-Kate,” Ashley said.
“I thought you wanted me out of the way.”
“Miss Olsen, you’ve already had–” Marquez began.
“I thought I was such a bother to you that you wished I would just go away, like into another treatment center,” Mary-Kate said.
“I want you in a treatment center so they can help you,” Ashley said.
Mary-Kate started crying. “I only wanted you to love me,” she said, choking over her words. “That’s all I ever wanted. You’re the only person I ever trusted in my whole life.”
“I do love you, Katie,” Ashley said and stood up. “I love you more than anything in the world, more than anyone in the world, including your galactic beings.”
“Inter-galactic,” Mary-Kate said.
Ashley walked up to Mary-Kate and knelt beside her chair. “Remember how hard I hurt when Jillian died?”
Mary-Kate sniffed and nodded.
“That would be nothing compared to if you ever left me.”
Mary-Kate started crying loudly.
“Please don’t divorce me,” Ashley said. “We’re all each other has. And you’re all I want, forever.”
Marquez let the girls hug and cry together for several moments, then he cleared his throat. “Normally, I go into chambers in order to meditate on the testimony I’ve heard before I render a decision,” he said. “But I can’t meditate on what I heard today, because I’ve never heard anything like it before in twelve years on the bench. So I’ll make my decision now. In the case of Olsen vs. Olsen, I rule in favor of the defendant. Divorce is denied.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Mary-Kate said.
“And let me offer both of you a piece of advice. Love, whether it’s between a man and a woman, a parent and a child or two siblings, is nothing to take lightly. There isn’t enough love in this world to begin with, you can believe me on that. You two obviously have a very special bond, one that you would be wise to cherish and build and allow to carry you through the years. You never want to be in the position to wish you could have the other one back.”
“That is just like a song,” Mary-Kate said.
“Aly & AJ, I think,” Ashley said.
“With that, I’ll bring this case to a close. Court is adjourned.”
As Marquez and everyone else in the courtroom rose, Mary-Kate remained seated, and Ashley remained kneeling in front of her.
“You ready, Katie?” Ashley said. “You want to come to work with me?”
“Yeah,” Mary-Kate said, squeezing Ashley’s hands. “I guess it’s time to try to get back with the program. Try to be the girl on the left side of the ampersand again.”
