A letter from Mary.

[Blue]

Is it really that hard a concept to grasp that you can feel empathy for a person, and mourn their loss, while also acknowledging they were a flawed person?

How about some empathy for Mary? And for the kids who spent the last few years waiting for their father to come back into their lives, who now have to spend the rest of their lives having lost him as a stranger?

How about some empathy for the people out there, living similar experiences who could learn from this cautionary tale?

[etcreative]

     In my initial posts about her 'letter' I sincerely acknowledged her point of view and how she and her kids must be devastated and angry.  Maybe you should have read it.  But some things you just don't do, and her letter to Rollingstone is over the line.  Posthumously being that critical of a man that just died in a nationally published article is outrageous and perverse.   
She waxes about his parenting flaws publically and shares very private matters at the expense of her children's innocence and heartbreak.  I'm certain both her and Scott were imperfect parents. 
In her letter she plays the victim, and lacks any responsibility in the matter.  She did after all marry this guy who she whole hearted knew of his severe mental health and SA problems.  She did decided to have two (2) kids with him.  She made choices too.  And its importance she be culpable and answer for those choices the same way Scott has. 
Mislabeling Scott as the source of everyone's problem is a gross oversimplification of a much larger pattern of family dysfunction.  Clinically SA is often considered a family disease from not only a hereditary stand point but a pathological one.  Maybe before we sit back in our ivory towers and wax about our convenient scapegoat "Scott Weiland" maybe we should do a little research on how SA is a family illness.

Wegscheider-Cruse, Sharon. 1976. The Family Trap "No one escapes the chemically addicted family", Johnson Institute.
I know its probably too deep for most - but whatever.  Its real.  I stand by my opinion and point of view passionately.  After all for years I've read some very 'passionate' viscerally hateful articles on the man. 
After her 'lets pile on Scott he's a bad father' letter -  I have no problem reminding everyone that maybe we should start to look at things from the 3,000 foot view and refrain from getting caught in the weeds.
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[lovemachine97]

I finally pinpointed what bothers me about this letter. I couldn't quite formulate it in my head, much less in writing. But I started to think rhetorically about what she wrote and it hit me.

If you want to write a cautionary tale about how Scott ended up with his demons and basically abandoned his kids, then what you would want to do is juxtapose the man he was with how he ended up. We didn't know Scott. We only knew the music and the public persona. Almost all of our actual interactions with him were fleeting and not enough to judge him, especially when you throw addiction into the mix.

But by all accounts of those who have known and loved him the longest, Scott was a genuinely kind, interesting, talented individual. I think that story about working at the paper speaks volumes. Even 6 years ago, 25 or so years later, he still remembered names and asked how they were doing. Most people near and dear to him have said how great he was when sober. Mary married him for a reason. But you get none of that from her.

With Mary's letter I have no frame of reference. It's not really a cautionary tale because she didn't tell me where he started, just where he ended up. For every shitty thing he had done, she needed an example of how he handled it when they were happy and he was sober. That's the only way you really paint a frightening picture of the end.

Otherwise, it just comes across as a way to trash him--precisely because she is hurt and angry--disguised as a cautionary tale.

[Jord9622]

 Mary,
You don't know me personally, however, I felt compelled to respond to your letter on behalf of your ex-husband, the late Scott Weiland. I sat here waiting for someone to stick up for him and thankfully, Joe Howard did. Nothing from the media though, they all kept saying your letter was "moving" and "heartfelt". I felt just the opposite.
Quite frankly, I found your letter disgusting and deplorable. First, how dare you write the letter on behalf of his two children. This letter was clearly all about you and you simply used them just as you had before when you released your "tell-all" book. I sure hope this wasn't your cold and calculated move towards securing a movie deal for that book as that would be even more evil.
Did you ever wonder why Scott could not spend as much time as he wanted with his children? Did you ever think it might have had something to do with the $60,000 a month alimony he had to pay to you? In case, you haven't noticed, albums, even from established acts, like Scott don't sell like they used to and they have to tour and tour just to get by and maintain their standard of living. Scott had to do that and pay you alimony, so you can now stand on your soapbox and attack a man who can't respond or defend himself. How selfish and irresponsible of you.
If you really cared about your children, you never would have released this letter, as you would have thought about their school friends and anybody they ever met reading it online. You see, this letter is permanent, and you can never take it back. It wasn't awful enough that you attacked a man who couldn't defend himself or the fact that he hasn't even been gone a solid week yet. You had to hurt his children.
You also say "it" (describing your ex-husband's musical accomplishments) will happen again, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Scott Weiland was a one and only, there will never be another talent just like him; every artist is unique and special in their own way. Scott was and is special to people around the world in a way you couldn't possibly fathom.
It’s awful when divorced parents use their kids as weapons to attack each other because the kids are the only ones who really get hurt. Why couldn't you allow them to remember the, as you say, "handful of times they got to spend with him". If you really think he was that awful, why etch it into their hearts and brains and even worse, in such a public manner.
It’s despicable how you use those very same kids, you claim you care about, as anticipation shields to protect you from any criticism for your letter. Why not just write the letter on behalf of yourself?
I agree with you on one thing though, we should skip the depressing t-shirts, but, we should also skip the depressing attention-seekers who just want to drag his name through the mud one more time because doing it to him when he was alive just wasn't enough.
I could go on, but, I'm going to stop here with one last thought. How dare you say he gave up? He put 110% of his heart and soul into everything he did. He played multiple concerts every week to keep you happy, he toured all year long. He didn't stop, he was a human dynamo who died doing what he loved. He never stopped creating and he never stopped caring. Please see what Joe Howard said in an interview below:
“Wow! It’s pretty funny that I sat at a lunch last week with Scott and Tommy Black and Scott was very upset at the fact that his ex moved the kids out of state and shut him out from them. He was upset and frustrated about it. We got into an “I miss my kids” conversation and he was visually upset by this. So much that I had to change the topic. I felt reading this that there were a bunch of cheap shots written and some untruths. Scott loved his kids and was totally upset by the situation between his ex and kids. The last thing he said was I haven’t seen my kids in over a year and I love and miss them very much. Glasses came off and his eyes were red. Remember, there are three sides to every story. Scott is not here to defend himself so I had to at least share this. My heart goes out to his children.”
My own heart goes out to his children as well.
You should be ashamed Mary, it may be too late to apologize to Scott for your letter, but, at least apologize to your children.

[DrLymphNode]

People blatantly missing the point of the letter.

[Fear 2 Stop]

Is it really that hard a concept to grasp that you can feel empathy for a person, and mourn their loss, while also acknowledging they were a flawed person?

How about some empathy for Mary? And for the kids who spent the last few years waiting for their father to come back into their lives, who now have to spend the rest of their lives having lost him as a stranger?

How about some empathy for the people out there, living similar experiences who could learn from this cautionary tale?

I definitely have empathy for Noah and Lucy, but here's a question...where's the empathy for Jamie? She just lost her husband for Pete's sake.

Mary's letter is about the period after he married Jaime, so late 2012-forward. David Ritz worked with Scott up until 2011, well before he married Jaime.

So this doesn't invalidate anything.

And here's another question...if he HADN'T married Jamie, would Mary have said the same thing about him? And now she's saying that she went easy on him in her book so as to not hurt the kids.  So, she was lying then, but now she's telling the truth. In the book, she burned his clothes because she was bipolar, except now all of a sudden she was misdiagnosed. So what was it? Was it a psychotic break? Or was she only manic when the situation called for it? Honestly, it comes across as bitterness more than anything else.  Was Joe Howard lying when he said what he did about Scott's feelings about not being able to see his kids?

Scott had a lot of issues the last years of his life. Nobody is denying it. Nobody should. Hell, RIGHT before I got a text from one ofour bandmates saying Scott had passed, my wife and I were talking about the christmas album, and I swear to God (and I don't take that lightly) that I had JUST said 'there's no way in hell you can't tell me that man doesn't have some sort of brain damage'...right when I finished the sentence is when the text came in.  So yes, I am extremely aware of what kind of condition he was in, and the horrible burden that put on people. I don't take that lightly at all.

This letter? Not buying it.

[Manxita]

I finally pinpointed what bothers me about this letter. I couldn't quite formulate it in my head, much less in writing. But I started to think rhetorically about what she wrote and it hit me.

If you want to write a cautionary tale about how Scott ended up with his demons and basically abandoned his kids, then what you would want to do is juxtapose the man he was with how he ended up. We didn't know Scott. We only knew the music and the public persona. Almost all of our actual interactions with him were fleeting and not enough to judge him, especially when you throw addiction into the mix.

But by all accounts of those who have known and loved him the longest, Scott was a genuinely kind, interesting, talented individual. I think that story about working at the paper speaks volumes. Even 6 years ago, 25 or so years later, he still remembered names and asked how they were doing. Most people near and dear to him have said how great he was when sober. Mary married him for a reason. But you get none of that from her.

With Mary's letter I have no frame of reference. It's not really a cautionary tale because she didn't tell me where he started, just where he ended up. For every shitty thing he had done, she needed an example of how he handled it when they were happy and he was sober. That's the only way you really paint a frightening picture of the end.

Otherwise, it just comes across as a way to trash him--precisely because she is hurt and angry--disguised as a cautionary tale.

This. I feel the same way.

[haanderson]

I am brand new to this site and I have been reading everybody's heartfelt posts. I never had the privilege of meeting or even seeing Scott Weiland, but on a personal level his death has really hit close to home for me. My husband, (we are separated) is also an extremely talented musician. He has had his share of near fame moments opening for many major bands. Six years ago though, he became heavily addicted to meth and everything in our world fell apart. I have always and will always love him, but I just could not live like that any longer. We have one child together. Part of the reason I feel compelled to post on this thread has to do with Mary's article. It saddens me that she felt the need to put something like that out to the world, especially after his passing. I kept asking myself why would she do such a hurtful thing? And then I thought of my own circumstances. There have been many, many times where I just wanted to shout to the world all the hurtful, mean things that my husband had said and done to me. But every time I stopped myself. I stopped myself because I realized the only reason I wanted to do that was to hurt him. I had wanted everybody to know what he had done to me and our child. I hoped that every body would feel sorry for me and turn on him. And then I thought how horrible of me to even think of such a thing. I remembered the beautiful person that he used to be before drugs. I remembered how the lights seemed just a bit brighter when he would walk into a room. I realized that the person he had become was not the person who he really was. And I realized that watching somebody that you love disintegrate right in front of you is quite possibly more painful than their actual death. You still see the person that you loved so deeply, at least their body, but their words and actions you no longer recognize. At least in death there is finality. There is closure. Make no mistake, I under no circumstances ever wished him dead, I just always felt like the pain would subside quicker if that were the case. Again, thinking of myself. Which brings me back to my original reason for posting, Mary's letter. She actually did what I thought I wanted to do, and for the same selfish reasons. She wants the world to feel sorry for her and to turn against Scott. Personally, I do not believe everything in her letter is true, or at least not as she described it. And even if it is true, his illness of addiction had permanently changed the person he was. While it is easy for people to point a finger of blame and say what he could have or should have done, we forget that the person we are seeing is not the person they once were. While they are responsible  for their actions, I truly do not believe that people with addiction purposely make poor decisions with the intent to hurt others. And for someone who is not an addict, nor has ever been one, how can I possibly condemn a person who is so visibly changed from the person I once knew? I don't know what is going through their mind or what they're thinking, but what I do know is the person I once loved would never have made the choices and decisions that he did had he realized what it would do to himself as well as the people who love him. So with that said, I hope that people will remember that regardless of what Scott Weiland did or did not do in his personal life,that does not define who he was as an artist, as a man, and as a person. Nobody is perfect, certainly not me.

[pieceofpie6661]

I've been reading Fall to Pieces (Mary's book) the last few days and I have to say all this letter feels like to me is an extension of the Scott stories in that book. I think she's being extremely genuine with her feelings in the letter. In the book, (I guess in hindsight after Scott's death it's easier to see), but there's just so much foreshadowing of what ultimately happened, this letter just falls into continuity with the book...

[djgenes]

People blatantly missing the point of the letter.

Second.
Denial. Denial everywhere.

[Slither]

People blatantly missing the point of the letter.

Second.
Denial. Denial everywhere.

Nothing new around these parts.

[Rol2292]

I can't believe some of the posts. The enabling continues. It's insane.

Addicts are great at one thing above all else - lying. So Joe from Sayreville had lunch with Scott and we take his word as truth? Scott was a liar. How many times in interviews did he sit there and say he was clean when it was plainly obvious he wasn't?  And to bash Mary for the alimony? It's insane! Now if you want to get on her for the timing of the letter? Okay, I can see that. But guys, it's okay to say he was a very flawed man.  The pattern of behavior was there and I guess I didn't want to admit to myself he was a mess. His wife left him. Fired from two bands. If he had his shit together,  people would have trampled over themselves to work with him.

The whole thing is tragic, man. I feel terrible for his kids. His parents, who have now had to bury 2 sons. For his 2 ex wives. And his widow. 

[Aylin]

People blatantly missing the point of the letter.

Second.
Denial. Denial everywhere.

Nothing new around these parts.

How is it that all you intelligent, eloquent people are missing the point of why Mary's letter is offensive to some of us on this board?? It's not denial, it's not that we don't agree what Mart is saying about not glorifying his death, it's not that we don't believe Scott was a shitty father. IT'S BECAUSE WE THINK MARY SHOULD NOT HAVE DIVULGED SUCH PERSONAL DETAILS ABOUT HIS SHITTINESS SO SOON AFTER HIS DEATH. She could have given the same message (however high and mighty I believe it to be) WITHOUT being so mocking and demeaning to her ex husband.

[Strat]

I can't believe some of the posts. The enabling continues. It's insane.

Addicts are great at one thing above all else - lying. So Joe from Sayreville had lunch with Scott and we take his word as truth? Scott was a liar. How many times in interviews did he sit there and say he was clean when it was plainly obvious he wasn't?  And to bash Mary for the alimony? It's insane! Now if you want to get on her for the timing of the letter? Okay, I can see that. But guys, it's okay to say he was a very flawed man.  The pattern of behavior was there and I guess I didn't want to admit to myself he was a mess. His wife left him. Fired from two bands. If he had his shit together,  people would have trampled over themselves to work with him.

The whole thing is tragic, man. I feel terrible for his kids. His parents, who have now had to bury 2 sons. For his 2 ex wives. And his widow. 

I'm guessing that Mary pulled no punches because of her knowledge of and previous with Scott's fan base. She must be aware that a sizable segment of his fans are prone to delusional thinking. If she didn't come on strong, the real message would be lost or willfully misinterpreted.

[Slither]

People blatantly missing the point of the letter.

Second.
Denial. Denial everywhere.

Nothing new around these parts.

How is it that all you intelligent, eloquent people are missing the point of why Mary's letter is offensive to some of us on this board?? It's not denial, it's not that we don't agree what Mart is saying about not glorifying his death, it's not that we don't believe Scott was a shitty father. IT'S BECAUSE WE THINK MARY SHOULD NOT HAVE DIVULGED SUCH PERSONAL DETAILS ABOUT HIS SHITTINESS SO SOON AFTER HIS DEATH. She could have given the same message (however high and mighty I believe it to be) WITHOUT being so mocking and demeaning to her ex husband.

I guess it's just a matter of perception. While I agree it was a bit soon after Scott passed for her to speaking about Scott like this, it's hard to argue with her timing. With today's news cycle being what it is, who knows if people would have noticed or cared had she released this a month from now. She needed to talk about this while Scott's death was still big news. It's unfortunate it works this way, but that's the way it is.

I also don't agree that it was "mocking" or "demeaning". Her criticisms of Scott were delivered with sorrow and anguish, not ridicule. I'm sure there is MUCH worse shit she could have referenced to drive her point home, and I am sure it was tempting to do so, so simply mentioning things like having to sober him up before a talent show or listening to him cry over the phone didn't bother me.

She's in a tough spot, with a difficult message to get across at a difficult time, I think she did OK.