Johnny Weir’s Single

Johnny Weir is making the news again, and this time it’s about a separation from his husband and domestic abuse charges filed in New Jersey where Weir allegedly bit his husband.

Further details of the split were scarce, as Philly.com pointed out, Weir’s Twitter handle has been changed from “Weir-Voronov” back to “Weir.”
 
News of the split comes just weeks after Weir reportedly appeared in a New Jersey courtroom on charges of domestic violence against his husband. At the time, Weir-Voronov asked the judge to dismiss the charges, in which he alleged that Weir had bitten him during a dispute, according to Radar Online. The dismissal was granted, according to the report.

There’s more here.

Weir-Voronov, Weir’s husband, once made comments about his marriage to good old Bethenny Frankel who tends to treat gay men like pet poodles. I posted about that here.

In one scene, Bethenny and an older woman with a very negative attitude go shopping. And guess where they go? That’s right. To the gay guys who own a posh high end furniture gallery in New York. I think Ms. Frankel even commented about how much she loves to visit her “boys,” (meaning her gay male friends) on her way into the gallery. This scene mirrored every single offensive “Sex in the City” scene with gay men being treated like women…just one of the girls…I’d ever witnessed. Tony and I watched for a few minutes, rolled our eyes, and promptly changed the channel.

In any event, here’s what Weir said about his marriage, and what Weir-Voronov said to Frankel.

Weir, whose NBC stint was generally well received, told Access Hollywood last month that his marriage was “constant fireworks,” adding, “We’re both constantly trying to fight to wear the pants in the relationship.”

Side note…here’s a link to a photo of Weir allegedly “wearing the pants.”

Meanwhile, Weir-Voronov, who tied the knot with the U.S. figure skater on New Year’s Eve in 2011, told Bethenny Frankel last year that he had not come out of the closet to his family until one month before the wedding.

“I told my family a month before we got married, and my friends only found out in People magazine,” Weir-Voronov, who claims he knew he was gay as a child, told Frankel. “I didn’t come out of the closet, I chainstormed the door down … I’m a masculine guy, people [didn’t expect it].”

You can read more about that here.

My only comment about any of this is that I hope no one out there really thinks all gay men are like Weir. We’re nothing like that, so please just trust me on this. Weir doesn’t represent anyone in particular in the gay community. He’s just there.

Anne Rice, Bully Petition, Amazon Anons

I haven’t thought much about the petition at change.org I posted about previously that author, Anne Rice, seems to be endorsing. I haven’t seen much posted about it either, at least not in my online travels. And I tend to focus on LGBTI issues and publishing related pieces. But with a simple search I saw that it hasn’t disappeared. In fact, it’s gained more signatures and is only a few shy of the original goal. But even more important, there was a bully related issue regarding something else I posted about recently that I didn’t even know fell under the bully category at the time I posted about it. It never even occurred to me this might happen.

In this post of mine titled, J.K. Rowling Gets Slammed, I wasn’t fond of a few comments author Lynn Shepherd made about Rowling…in a general sense. (You can find more links at my post.) But I used my own name, and at the end of the piece I even updated with info linking to Shepherd’s web site with a few compliments about the site. I still stand by what I posted, and I did it with my own name. I respect Shepherd’s right to an opinion even though I disagreed with her. But as a result of Shepherd’s article slamming Rowling I recently read that her Amazon pages were bombarded with one star reviews left by anons who admittedly didn’t even read her books. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this happen, sadly.

 Author bullying has long been a problem on online sites Amazon and Goodreads, where users can hide under pseudonyms while they attack authors they dislike. Numerous authors have reported organized campaigns against them, which has led to sites such as Stop the Goodreads Bullies and the opposing site Readers Have Rights. Amazon bullying was most recently in the news when U.K. mystery writer Lynn Shepherd called upon Harry Potter scribe J.K. Rowling to stop writing and reviewers flooded her Amazon pages with one-star reviews while admitting to never having read her books.
Read more at ONTD: http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/86538989.html#ixzz2wSCABY2n

As a result of what happened to Shepherd I’ve heard that many people who were on the fence about signing the petition broke down and signed it anyway…claiming the abuse of power with anonymous commenting has gotten way out of control and they are sick and tired of dealing with it. I hear more are planning to sign it. I’m still not certain the petition will do anything, but at this point I do agree that something should be done. It’s not just books and authors and Amazon. It’s everywhere online you find anonymous commenting.

You can read the full petition here and sign if you are so inclined. Or, you can simply just dismiss all Amazon reviews as being ridiculous as so many have already done. Which is a shame because I’ve left my own Amazon reviews and I hate to see that happen.

As of now the petition has 7,265 supporters. And, they make it very clear this isn’t about leaving bad reviews.