Did Custody Battle Make Heath Ledger Snap?

Here's an article on the death of Heath Ledger.  According to former Monty Python member, Terry Gilliam, his custody battle over his daughter Matilda had a lot to do with it (Vanity Fair, 6/29/09).  That, combined with overwork, illness and lack of sleep seem to have done him in.  But Ledger was adamant about having custody of his daughter and that seems to have snowballed into enough lawyers that multiplied, according to Gilliam, "as if they were breeding."

(I've seen it myself; divorce and custody, that can be so simple, become, when one party has a lot of money, donnybrooks.  The greater the acrimony, the longer the case lasts.  The longer the case lasts, the larger the attorney's fees.  It's why we should do everything we can to get divorce and custody out of courts, out of the hands of lawyers and into the hands of those who care about the needs of children.)

Ledger's friends advised him to just drop the custody issue and walk away, but he refused, adding to the stress that eventually killed him.

Stephen Baskerville's Taken Into Custody Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family by Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D. examines one of the greatest and most destructive civil rights abuses in America today--our family law system. Baskerville has authored many articles on fatherhood and family issues and is a frequent media commentator. To learn more or to purchase Taken Into Custody, click here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 9:24 pm and is filed under blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. | 400 views | Trackback | Print this page |

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