Dirty Laundry

[Lucy Mitford]

It started when she was fourteen. Her aunt and uncle’s Learjet 45 had gone missing somewhere off the Cayman Islands prompting a ten day search that ended with the first signs of wreckage. The disaster brought the Huntington family into the attention of the media, though in those first days, all eyes were on Jamie, her aunt and uncle’s only son. He was barely nineteen at the time, handsome, sad, and then suddenly an orphaned billionaire.

It wasn’t long before Lucy was photographed beside him -- at the funeral, holding hands, the slight young redhead next to the strapping blonde, the two teenagers destined to share one of the oldest fortunes in the nation’s history. Together, they captured the interest of the country, in photo after photo, him hunched around her, trying to shield her from the cameras like a protective older brother. Her, barrelling into womanhood in the public eye.

The tabloids couldn’t get enough. Lucy Huntington Mitford, but her family, and thus the media, called her Mitsy.

And then there was the website. Chronicling every picture of her ever taken. Gleefully archiving every humiliating frame. There were hundreds of them. BlubberMits -- photos of her in tears. UpSkirtMits -- photos of her getting out of cars. DrunkMits -- photos of her at parties. HideyMits -- photos of her trying to hide from the cameras. And of course, CharMits -- photos of her disastrous relationship with Charlie Chandler.

To Lucy, the cameras sounded like machine guns. All the shutters, rapidly firing. It was loud. And the flashes alone were assaults. She would step out of a dark club, and someone would be waiting for her, the flash, right in her eyes. Over time, she learned from her mistakes, and there was less and less to see. By the age of sixteen she never went outside without wearing makeup. By nineteen there was nothing lurid to be seen up her skirt. By twenty-one she had learned to wear sunglasses even at night. And by twenty-two she stopped acknowledging the cameras at all.

But she couldn’t hide from a telephoto lens. And she couldn’t hide in her apartment all the time. And when everything happened with Charlie, she couldn’t hide from the lies.

The only place she could hide was RhyDin.
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Originally posted Fri Jan 25, 2013 11:33 pm

[Lucy Mitford]

March 2011 Common Earth Time (CET)

As soon as the town car pulled up to the curb, the photographers started shouting. Both the driver and the bodyguard got out of the car first, trying to push the photographers back, clearing a space for Charlie Chandler to get out of the car.

"C'mon everybody. Move back. Make some room here. Let's go!"

CHARLIE! OVER HERE, CHARLIE! HAVE YOU TALKED TO MITSY? IS THE WEDDING STILL ON? HAVE YOU APOLOGIZED? CHARLIE!?

Charlie jumped out of the car, trying to keep his head down as he pushed through the reporters towards the front door of the SoHo building. A bouquet of soft pink roses elegantly wrapped was held low at his side, his eyes covered with sunglasses, even in the overcast light.

ARE THE FLOWERS FOR MITSY? ARE FLOWERS ENOUGH, CHARLIE?

At the top of the steps, Charlie pressed the buzzer and tipped his head back as if he could see all the way up to the loft apartment.

"Go away, Charlie. She doesn't want to see you." The voice that crackled through the intercom wasn't Lucy's.

"She won't return my calls. Just -- just let me talk to her. Come on Annie. Let me up."

ARE YOU RETURNING THE GIFTS? IS SHE STILL TALKING TO YOU? OVER HERE, CHARLIE!

"She doesn't want to see you."

"Just let me explain! It's not -- she won't let me explain -- it's not what she thinks."

"She's seen the --" Annie's voice cut off, and Lucy's cut in.

"-- I've seen the photos, you prick."

DO YOU THINK YOU DESERVE FORGIVENESS? DO YOU DESERVE HER? CHARLIE!

"Mittens, come on, let me up. You know what's going on down here --"

"You deserve it."

"Mitsy --"

"-- fuck off."

WHY SHOULD SHE FORGIVE YOU? LOOK OVER HERE, CHARLIE! DON'T YOU DESERVE THIS?

Charlie turned from the door, lowering his head as he started back down the steps, trying to keep behind the protection of his driver and bodyguard.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH THE FLOWERS? OVER HERE, CHARLIE! MAYBE YOU SHOULD GIVE THEM TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND!

A wave of laughter rippled over the collection of photographers all hustling for a good view of him. Charlie's eyes skimmed the crowd. "Who said that?" The shutters started clicking faster as he tossed aside the bouquet of flowers, pushing past his driver towards the crowd. "What did you say!? Shut your fucking mouth!"

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SAY CHARLIE? CHARLIE! OVER HERE!

The crowd collapsed around him, his bodyguard pushing him back now, trying to keep him from swinging his fists, hustling him to the car. The cameras kept firing away as the bouquet of flowers got crushed under feet.

Four stories up, Lucy watched the melee through a narrow part of her curtains until the town car pulled off the curb and Charlie was gone.
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Originally posted Wed Jan 30, 2013 7:46 pm

[Lucy Mitford]

October 2003 CET, Haverford Green Preparatory Academy

"Has no one ever explained this to you?" Jamie stared at his cousin across her dorm room, his blonde head wreathed with smoke, lounging back, his arms and legs stretched out as if the chair wasn't big enough to contain him. "Your mom never sat you down? Your dad?"

Lucy shook her head, her blue eyes still almost too big for her sixteen-year-old face, pinched with worry. She tugged at a corner of a decorative pillow, her legs tucked beneath her on the couch. "My mom always says that it's rude to talk about money."

Jamie laughed, his head tipping back. "Well, look. You're not going to run out of money." Lucy didn't look reassured. Jamie pushed out of the chair and bent to crush out his cigarette. "Go get me a calculator."

Lucy got to her feet, leading Jamie towards the wooden desk in the corner of her dorm room. Jamie brought his chair over, taking up a seat beside her. He grabbed one of her notebooks and opened it to a blank page, then handed Lucy a pen.

"Let's say you have $2,000 and you decide to invest it. Write that down." Jamie pointed at the blank sheet of paper, and Lucy dutifully wrote it down. "You want to be conservative, so you put it in a slow-growth fund. Let's make the numbers simple, and say you earn five percent annually." Jamie reached for the calculator and started tapping the keys for her. "After your first year, your investment has earned $100. Write that down." Lucy put the second figure beneath the first. "You add that $100 to your initial investment for the second year, and so for the second year, you earn another five percent. Now your investment has earned $105. As long as your rate of return is higher than inflation, which is typically around three percent, your money is earning money, right?"

Jamie looked at Lucy. Her big blue eyes were staring at the calculator, a little furrow of concentration above her nose. She didn't follow him. He tried a different tact.

"Okay -- your trust, assuming it's close to the same size as mine, is worth two billion dollars." He pointed to the sheet of paper. "So take that $2,000 investment and add six zeros to it." Lucy looked up at him a moment, then wrote it out: $2,000,000,000. Jamie nodded. "Now add six zeros to the first $100 investment return." Lucy wrote it down: $100,000,000. Then she looked up at Jamie. She still didn't get it.

"Assuming that very conservative rate of return, and even assuming that you never try to earn a higher rate of return, and not even accounting for the interest compounding, you earn $100 million dollars every year."

Lucy looked down at the paper. It was too large a number to even conceive. She looked at the zeros, then up at Jamie. "But -- but we live an expensive life right? I mean -- ?"

"Luce, you're an expensive girl, sure, but you're not that expensive." Jamie laughed at the thought. "Most people would need a couple lifetimes to spend that kind of money, and it's coming to you like clockwork every year."

"So -- ?"

"So, you never have to work if you don't want to. The money is never going to run out. You don't have to think about it if you don't want to. Ever."

Lucy's eyes widened and she looked up at him. The thought of it overwhelmed her. There was just so much of it. "Does everybody here -- ?"

"Your classmates?" At Lucy's nod, Jamie continued. "Well, everybody here is rich, Luce, but no. No one else is in the billionaire club like us."

Lucy nodded, carefully setting the pen back down on the sheet of paper, staring at the numbers again. Jamie reached out and set a hand on her shoulder, his voice softening. "Why are you getting upset?"

"I don't know -- it's just. It's so much. And I -- I haven't done anything -- to deserve it. It's not -- it's not normal to be like this, is it? Everyone must -- everyone knows -- and I -- I didn't do anything for it."

Jamie sighed softly, reaching to pull Lucy in for a hug. "You were born right. That's all." He bent his head, pressing his cheek to her soft red hair, rubbing her back gently. "Just don't think about it. Don't think about it."
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Originally posted Wed Feb 20, 2013 7:36 pm

[Lucy Mitford]

November 2004 CET, New York City

“What do you mean you’re not applying to college?” Lucy’s mother, Dorothy, was still smiling, but Lucy could see the confusion sliding into her eyes.

“There’s no point.”

“No point?” Lucy’s father, Richard, entered the conversation from across the room at his desk, his voice gruff as he glanced up from the documents he was reviewing.

“I don’t really have the grades for it, anyhow.”

Dorothy waved her hand dismissively. “Grades don’t matter. Just tell us where you want to go, and we’ll work it out.”

Lucy sniffed derisively, muttering under her breath. “You mean you’ll write a check.”

“How are your SAT scores?” Richard twisted in his desk chair, turning to look at his wife and daughter on the couches behind him.

Lucy hesitated a moment before answering. “I didn’t take it.”

“You didn’t --?” Richard’s reaction was instantaneous. He got to his feet, his eyes looking accusatorily at his wife. “She didn’t take the SATs?”

Dorothy held up her hands. “This is the first I’m hearing of it.”

“Well that’s precisely the problem, Dotty!” Richard looked from his wife to his daughter, then back again. “We agreed that you would handle these sorts of things.” He flung one hand towards Lucy without looking at his daughter.

Lucy rolled her eyes. “What’s the point of college anyhow? It’s not like -- I mean, I don’t have to work, right? And we don’t -- we don’t have a family business that I have to like -- take over, or anything.”

“You’re going to college. This is not a discussion.” Richard returned to his desk, moving for his laptop. “Where do you want to go? Harvard? Stanford?”

“I don’t want to go anywhere.” Lucy pressed her lips together. “I’m not going.”

Dorothy shifted uncomfortably on the couch across from Lucy, her eyes moving between her husband and her daughter. “Honey, you can go wherever you want. We’ll get you an apartment, you can have parties, spend time with your friends. You’ll like it, you’ll see.”

Richard erupted. “No daughter of mine is going to grow up without a proper education!” He tossed a pen to his desk, the plastic bouncing off the mahogany and then clattering to the hardwood floor.

“I’m not -- I’m not smart enough, dad!”

“What!? Stop that -- you’re plenty bright -- “

“ -- No, I’m not!” Lucy pushed to her feet. “You just -- you’ve never paid any attention!” Her voice rose with her frustration. “You have no idea -- I just -- I can’t --”

“You just don’t apply yourself! We spoiled you --” Richard turned to his wife. “We should have been on top of her! We could have gotten her tutors!”

“Tutors wouldn’t have helped anything! I can’t do it!” Lucy shook her head.

“Bullshit! Of course you could! You’re my daughter.”

Lucy snorted. “I’m also mom’s daughter --”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Richard --” Dorothy tried to wave off her husband, trying to dismiss Lucy’s comment.

“No! No --”

“Mom’s greatest accomplishment is figuring out who should sit next to who at the next charity luncheon. I didn’t get anything from her.”

“Don’t you --” Richard charged across the room, grabbed Lucy by the arm, and laid a hard, open-handed smack against her cheek. “Don’t you talk about your mother that way.”

Lucy pulled back, the surprise of the blow blinding her. Her father’s tight hold on her arm was the only thing keeping her from falling. She lifted a hand to touch her face, her eyes filling with tears.

“Richard --” Dorothy got to her feet and crossed to her daughter, pushing him back from her. She draped an arm about Lucy’s shoulders to soothe her.

“I’m not --” Lucy swallowed thickly, trying to keep the tears from falling. She pushed free of her mother’s arms and stepped back. “I’m not going.”

“Lucille --” Richard's voice growled out the threat. “Don’t you leave --” He stepped forward, his eyes narrowed with fury, intent on Lucy. She retreated to the door, tears finally breaking and falling.

Dorothy touched Richard’s arm, keeping him back. “Just let her go. Let her go.”
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Originally posted on Mon Feb 25, 2013

[Lucy Mitford]

CELEB-STREAM! September 21, 2009, Vol. 9, Issue 14

CHAR TO MITS: 'HIT THE GYM!'

After the shocking photos surfaced last week of Lucy Mitford looking considerably more plump than usual, sources are reporting that she and longtime boyfriend Charlie Chandler had a very public blowout at new SoHo hot spot, Ink, on Saturday night. The subject of the fight? Mitsy's weight.

Those who witnessed the fight, which reportedly left Mitsy in tears, say that Char accused her of "letting herself go" and claiming that she was "embarrassing" him. Ouch! Onlookers say Char refused to leave with Mitsy until she "fixed her face." Brutal!

Is this the end of CharMits? We here at CELEB-STREAM don't know who to side with. While Char was admittedly harsh, there's no doubt that Mitsy has been looking pretty pudgy recently. Tell us what you think will happen in our online poll at CELEB-STREAM.com!
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Originally posted on Thu Apr 04, 2013 5:59 pm