Kat Pellicano, Anthony's ex-wife who spent nearly 20 years together with the imprisoned P.I. and is the mother of his four children, has given me this exclusive statement to release today about the upcoming
Vanity Fair June issue article
Inside Hollywood's Big Wiretap Scandal (
VF's response is lower down...): "I did not give my permission ever to be quoted in the
Vanity Fair article. In my opinion, John Connolly acted unethically when he reported the story. All the quotes and information supposedly attributed to me are erroneous. How dare he drag my children into this. Those events he describes involving my children never happened. I did agree to be photographed by
Vanity Fair. But I never agreed to contribute to the article."
The information in the
VF article which she maintains is erroneous includes: that Anthony Pellicano ever began to think and act like Don Corleone, the fictional Godfather; that Pellicano's son Luca was ever in his father's office known as the "War Room"; that her eldest daughter ever used the word "asshole" to describe the P.I.; and that Pellicano ever wanted to convert to Judaism because "most of the lawyers in Los Angeles are Jewish." About the latter, she maintains that the article misconstrued Pellicano's motive. She says he wanted to do it because, since he was raised Catholic and she was raised Baptist (she maintains that she's never been an atheist as
VF claims), he felt their kids needed a religion and he believed in Judaism more than their own faiths.
Kat Pellicano also told me she would be seeking legal counsel.
After I provided Kat Pellicano's statement, Beth Kseniak, VF's executive director of Public Relations, gave me the following response today: "Vanity Fair Contributing Editor John Connolly has met with and interviewed Kat Pellicano scores of times during the past two and a half years. During their conversations, she asked that Connolly not report certain incidents and he has not done so. Three weeks ago, Connolly carefully went over the information that was to appear in the magazine with her. Kat Pellicano also posed for Vanity Fair, so that her picture could be used in conjunction with the article (we did not end up using it). Just last week, John Connolly heard from the U.S. Attorney’s office who told him that they were obligated to inform him that Anthony Pellicano had threatened his safety." (EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Attorney's Office Informs VF Writer of Pellicano Threat)
To answer VF's statement, Kat Pellicano today faxed me five emails which appear to back up her statement: that she spoke to Connolly off the record and did not consider those meeting to be interviews, that she made it clear that she never thought she was being interviewed for the article or his book, and that she never gave him permission to use her comments on the record. She also points out that she never had any contact with Vanity Fair's factcheckers, and that instead her only contact was with Connolly.
Divorced from her husband in 2002 after an 18-year marriage, Kat Pellicano in 2003 gave an interview to The New York Times. In it, she said that, despite repeated entreaties from FBI agents investigating whether Anthony Pellicano illegally wiretapped people, she had politely refused to talk about her former husband because she didn't want him to stay in prison. But the Southern California resident told the paper she was willing to write a book about her life with Pellicano and was looking for a publisher. (Ironically, that NYT interview was given to Bernie Weinraub, who eventually found out that he was one of Pellicano's investigative targets.) I'm told that, ever since that article appeared, she has been inundated with interview requests about her ex-husband, but she has chosen to stay publicly mum about him, his business, and their life together.
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