Criminal Inspirations: Rx Exaggeration

It's been awhile since I posted one of these, and I've noticed them a lot lately. Nothing like a stubborn MS to make you value all the plots that got away. Here's one from this morning in the New York Post's Page Six that seemed ripe with possibilities:

Did He Or Didn't He?

BRITISH publishing maverick Felix Dennis claims he killed a man who had beaten a gal pal and "made her life a living misery." Dennis, who publishes the British edition of Maxim and 50 other mags, made the startling admission - which he then denied - during a wine-fueled interview published yesterday in the Times of London. The 60-year-old billionaire declined to offer specifics other than to say the violence happened 25 years ago. He told interviewer Ginny Dougary, who taped the session, "I killed him . . . He hurt her . . . He wouldn't let her alone. She told him to stop. I told him to stop. Many people told him to stop. Wouldn't stop. Kept on and on. Made her life a living misery: beat her up, beat up her kids, wouldn't let her alone. So in the end, I had a little meeting with him, pushed him over the edge of a cliff. Weren't hard." The day after the interview, however, Dennis sent the reporter an e-mail saying he had been on prescription drugs that, combined with wine, can cause "severe exaggeration."

The woman's and children's story from 25 years ago might be tragic and horrible, even ultimately triumphant in an awful way, but when the "savior" is a publishing magnate and billionaire who finally succumbs to the temptation to boast, it adds another twist to the pretzel. I wondered: Was he really the man's romantic rival? Could Dennis have been justifying an ultimately immoral act to himself this way from back then? What would the woman say? Has she been eternally grateful for the relief, or shaken forever by the violence done to her children's father, let's say, in her name?

Given that the subject in question possesses amazing wealth and notoriety, I'm not so sure the prescription exaggeration excuse will go down that smoothly. Some ink-stained wretch(es) will be inspired to dig the dirt and answer these billions of questions.

P.S. Though we've been hosting Two Sentence Tuesdays around here, some people have found that schedule simply too jam-packed with fun on the heels of My Town Mondays. Britta Coleman, for one, calls hers 2 X 2 and posts them on Thursday. Until you build up your fun endurance, if you missed Tuesday, it's not too late to join in. And let us know when and where you do so we can link to it!

P.P.S. Our friend Marijke's idea of a blogiversary present is a big fat tag posted at her Help My Hurt blog. I'm thinking...