John & Lorena Bobbitt

Lorena Gallo thought she achieved the American Dream when she married military man John Wayne Bobbitt. Once the dream became a nightmare, it was time to cut ties – literally. But that's just the tip! The full story spans decades with wild characters, nonprofit activism, and a real who's who of America's dirtbags!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody. Before we get started today, just wanted to
throw out a little content warning if you're not familiar
with the bobb It's their story does contain sexual violence,
bodily harm, and spousal abuse. If these are not comfortable
topics for your ears, you can hang back and our
next episode is all about happy people having fun, So
we'll see you then. If you are in for this

(00:20):
ridiculous ride, then here we go. Hey, Hey, hey, everybody. Hey,
I'm Eli and I'm Diana. We're here talking about the Bobbit's.
Oh now, this is a ridiculous romance. You might remember
from when it dominated headlines after lorraina Bobbit famously took
a knife and sliced off her husband John's penis and

(00:45):
then threw it out the window of a moving car. Yes,
not the fairytale romance you might remember about the Bobbit's
quite a Cinderella story. No Hallmark movie made about it, sadly,
but a very interesting story. Nonetheless, it's so much more
and just you know, dismemberment. It's so much more than
you know, what we all remember, at least for us.

(01:06):
I mean, I was nine when this was happening, so
to me. It was all just schoolyard parody songs and
like funny ha ha. It's not it's not funny ha ha,
it's funny wow. At best, there there are some funny
ha ha moment. It's a really strange story. These are

(01:27):
a really interesting couple of people, each in their own way. Hey,
we're gonna get into that, so let's dive in hay
their French come listen. Well, Eli and Diana got some
stories to tell. There's no match making, a romantic tips.
It's just about ridiculous relationships, a love. It might be
any type of person at all, and abstract concept at

(01:49):
a concrete wall. But if there's a story, were the
Second Clans Ridiculous Rolls A production of I Heart Radio.
Um So tell Us About Raina Lorraina Gallo. She was
born in Ecuador in nineteen sixty nine. She was raised
in Venezuela and she grew up idolizing American culture. She

(02:10):
loved American movies and television, and she just the American
dream was very big deal for her. So she moved
to Virginia on a student visa in nineteen eighties seven,
and she worked as a manicurist at a salon owned
by a woman named Jane Bassetti, who will come into
this story later. And at a dance hall near the U. S.
Marine Corps base in Quantico, she met John Wayne Bobbitt,

(02:33):
a lance corporal in the U. S. Marines, and it
was like an instant attraction. This is the Cinderella part
of the story, I guess you could say, because she
thought he was very handsome, he had blue eyes, a
man in uniform fighting for the American dream. And he
thought she was pretty and innocent and sweets I mean,
and if she was obsessed with American culture growing up

(02:56):
in the seventies. And she meets a guy named John
Wayne Bobbitt who was in the Marines, and the Marines
come on done. That's it. That's all. That's the last ingredient.
So they got married. She was twenty and he was
twenty two, and it quickly went south. What I know,

(03:19):
I know this is the this is the heartbreaking part.
I guess that there wasn't much before the heartbreak. The
Cinderella part was very short lived. But you know, this
case was a big deal because there was a lot
of accusations on Lorena's side that throughout their marriage he
raped her, he beat her. She said he threatened to

(03:40):
have her deported, that he forced her to do anal
sex and have an abortion. Just sounds like kind of
a freaking nightmare for Lorena to be married to her
American dream man. For John's part, he said that she
was always wanting nicer things, in a bigger house and
in a Mercedes and all the stuff that jannibi Uddy,

(04:00):
the salon owner had, so he didn't like that she
was exposed to this lifestyle that he couldn't afford. I
guess yeah, it made her envy that, and he thought
that she was a bad influence, leading her to want
to be more extravagant things they couldn't afford. Guess I
thought Lorena was greedy. And then it didn't help at
all that he eventually was discharged from the Marines in

(04:23):
had no job, and they've fully relied on Lorena's job
to keep them afloat, and she actually ended up embezzling
over seven thousand dollars from Janeba Stutty, her boss, and
friends because she had to pay the mortgage. I'll py herself.
So anyway, what I'm trying to say is not a
great marriage. Between Lorena and John pretty unstable, uh, situation

(04:45):
over there. Yeah, thanks were tough. You know, is was struggling,
you know, lower lower middle class American couple discharging the Marines.
Couldn't find out why he was discharged from the Marines.
That's not out there. I think the military doesn't love
to share that inf remation unless they have to, I suppose.
But they were living that that American dream of of

(05:06):
financial struggle and the true American dream. So their house
was foreclosed on. Also, no excuse for violent behavior, aggressive behavior.
We do not condone dismemberment on this podcast. Well and
before that though not an excuse for his behavior. Oh,

(05:27):
it would definitely not. Definitely not And for what it's worth,
you know the case at the time, they couldn't really
seem to figure out, one way or the other who
was telling the truth. But as you get through the story,
you can kind of see that John is an unreliable
narrator at best. So yeah, so their house is foreclosed
on despite the embezzlement. I guess um they broke up

(05:47):
A year later. They got back together, but did not
take and apparently they had already agreed to reseparate when
in the early morning of June, Lorraino went to her
kitchen for a glass of water, saw a kitchen knife,
picked it up, went back to the bedroom, sliced off
John's penis, and fled the house in their Mercury Capri

(06:11):
penis in hand. This of course, ended up being a
huge national story. I mean, it was all over all
over the news. She was twenty four, he was twenty six.
Like we said, they had agreed to separate again. John
had come home from an eight or drinking with his
friend Robert Johnston, and Lorraina claims that he raped her
before he fell asleep, So that was her motivation in

(06:32):
that moment kind of snapped. I guess over a period
of years of pressure finally erupted in her. She also
says said in interviews that she didn't realize she had
really done it until she was already away from the
house and she realized that she was holding it. And
it was just a very crazed situation for her. And

(06:53):
I imagine John too. I I can't imagine that it
was an easy night. No, Well, he thought that she
was going in for it for some what's the way
to say, this is some manual sex and shake weight. Um, yeah,
shake weight. He thought she was going in for a
shake weight, and uh, that's not what happened. So Robert

(07:15):
Johnston the friends said that on her way out the door,
she stopped to steal a hundred dollars and John's game boy,
maybe his next most prized possession, insult to injury. I
guess she's like, these are the two things he spends
his most of his time with, and I'm going to
take them both. So Lorena leaves in the Mercury Capri.

(07:37):
She drives to Jannipasetti's house, and on the way there
she flings the penis out of the window into grassy
field opposite of seven eleven and Jani Bissetti. Apparently, upon
first seeing Lorena said, oh lord, what's John done now,
which certainly lends some weight to I guess Lorena's side

(07:59):
of the store. But also once she found out what
had happened, did say maybe we should call nine one one,
And she's the one who told the cops where the
penis could be found. They found it. They were very
impressed by how intact it was. This is this is
amazing the c s I work by these guys. Uh
Asian Johnson. You're not gonna believe what we're gonna send

(08:20):
you looking for Agent Johnson. We got a code eleven.
Code eleven. Yeah, we got a missing penis in a
field outside of seven eleven. There's a code for that.
It's eleven because it looks like two penises over. That's right.
That's how we name codes, by the shape of the crime. So,
and this is kind of funny. Apparently the cops did

(08:43):
did go into the seven eleven and fill a big
bite hot dog box with ice so that they could
transport the penis from the grassy field to the hospital. Incredibly,
in a nine and a half hour operation by a
plastic surgeon, they successfully attached John Bobbitt's penis, and the
urologist you know, told John that if they couldn't find

(09:07):
his penis, they just have to cover over whatever was
left and he would from now on have to pee
sitting down and he would never have sex again. And
John gave him a high five and said, do your best.
That's that's true. That is from a Washington Post article
called A Stitch in Time that came out at the time,

(09:28):
and this was everybody was writing articles a Stitch in Time.
There was a New York Times one that was a
cut above, cut above. You know, love hurts. I think
we're some of them. There's all kinds of jokes, of course,
I mean, impossible to not make any we're even making
them ourselves to this day. But we're taking it very seriously,

(09:51):
incredibly seriously. This is academic and scholarly, scholarly jokes, scholarly
Library of Congress style jokes. So Time magazine said that
at the time when she was arrested, Lorena told the
police that this is a quote. He always have orgasm,
and he doesn't wait for me ever to have orgasm.

(10:11):
He's selfish. So take take it just a note. I
just want every I just want those words to sink
in for all the listeners. Yeah, everybody at home. That's
important information because it's selfish. It is selfish, you know,
drives people to do things. I don't know that it's
I can't recommend that it drives you to mutilate your partner,

(10:34):
but I'm sure if that was the only thing, it
wouldn't have ended up. No, it's probably true. She said
that she wanted to teach him a lesson and that
she was doing it for survival. He says that she
didn't want him to leave her because they've been married
for four years and they needed to be married for
five years for her to get her green card. So

(10:54):
he tried to turn it into this, this citizenship argument,
and I'm sure immigrant immigration status was probably a big
part of the story. You sure. I just don't see
how it holds up, because if I'm saying, well, I
don't want you to leave me because I need us
to be married for another year, I don't think that

(11:15):
there's a really logical conclusion that, so I'll cut your
penis off so they'll commit a crime. They have to
go to jail. This will keep us together. He thought, Oh,
she'll stay in America because she'll go to prison for
five to ten years. But even then they have to
be married. It doesn't matter if she's in America for

(11:35):
five years. They have to stay married. I don't think
cutting off his penis was a way for her to
get him to stay married to her. It doesn't It
doesn't hold up. I don't think so. And perhaps that's
why he was acquitted of the charge of marital rape
and she was acquitted for malicious wounding for reasons of
temporary insanity, essentially, meaning that no one could really tell

(11:57):
whose fault it was. Yeah, they just didn't want to
put all the blame on either party, which is fair,
I suppose. I mean, she didn't Certainly you shouldn't dismember somebody.
Obviously she shouldn't be punished because she was retaliating under
incredibly difficult circumstances. So I guess it was sort of
like a washing of the hands in the court where

(12:19):
they were like, and you're both, we're both were done
with botha. But they said what What doesn't make sense
to me is they said, Lorraina, we're not going to
charge you of malicious wounding because we understand what you've
been through. But to the guy who put you through that,
we're going to say, well, maybe you didn't do that,
so it doesn't matter. That's crazy. That's both admitting that
she did go through that kind of experience and saying no,

(12:42):
she didn't at the same time. It's a great point sloppy,
terrible justice system for this and many other reasons. Yeah,
and I read this great Vanity Fair article all about
it's been twenty five years since the Bobbit's and stuff,
and they did a really good profile of John Wayne,
Bobbit and Lorena, and they were kind of pointing out that,

(13:04):
of course, in the nineties there was a lot going
on about the conversation about misogyny and rape and rape culture,
much like the me too era. On the top movie
in was Thelma and Louise, which is about a thwarted rape.
Anita Hill was testifying about coke cans and pubic hairs
during Clarence Thomas's Scotus confirmation hearing, so feminists were pretty

(13:28):
much behind Lorena. But another article pointed out that, of
course it's a male dominated media, so it kind of
just turned everything into a big joke, and there was
a lot of jabs and and stabs. It's not a
bad pun for this stabbed, that's true. Nobody gets stabbed.
I got sliced, but not stabbed, So thank you. I

(13:51):
appreciate that permission. Always get your husband's permission on your jokes, everybody.
That's the lesson today. These are not the views of
iHeart media. They really are not any but kind of

(14:11):
like our tasteless jokes. Vendors outside the courthouse during the trial,
howked hot dogs and sliced sodas T shirts that's a
love hurts and they sold penis shaped chocolates, so everybody
just really mature during this time. This was huge. I
mean it was everywhere. CNN was airing the trial and
they had to interrupt it to show President Bill Clinton's

(14:32):
talks on Ukraine nuclear disarmament, and people were furious. The
phone boards lit up with people calling, I'm missing the
Bobbitt case. Who cares about nukes? I want to hear
about the Dick nuclear disarmament? Who cares about that? I'm
talking about John Wayne Bobbit's disarmament something like that. H

(14:56):
it's hard to be tasteful with this story, sure is,
but let me cut you off right there because we
need to take a break. Well, I guess there's a
lot more where that came from. Yeah, we'll be right back,
and we're back with more of John and lorraina Bobbit.
They start talking about movie rights. Lorena even said she

(15:17):
hoped Marissa tom would play her in the movie about her,
which we we decided wouldn't fly today because this is
an Ecuadorian woman, not Marissa Tomac, not Merissa tom No,
who's Italian. I think, yeah, obviously they split up, not
a great way to stay married. Maybe we can we

(15:38):
can work past this. So Lorena didn't really want the spotlight.
She wasn't too sad when the movie deal fell through,
and then she turned down several offers to make money
off of this, including a million dollar offer to pose
for Playboy. She said her family ate rice and beans
to make ends meet, but she wanted to stay true
to her Catholicism and her integrity. So and mean, you know,

(16:01):
it doesn't say thou shalt not dismember thy husband, right,
I don't know the same commandments. It's not in there specifically,
But I think too is you know, they're they're two separate,
they're very very different. Responses to the aftermath of this

(16:24):
might have something to do with the male dominated media
and how she was portrayed over how he was portrayed. Um,
I mean he was technically the victim, of course, so
but they really played that up and he I think
he got forgiven a lot more quickly than she would have.
So if she had gone the way John did, where
he was kind of taking every opportunity to be out there, Um,

(16:49):
you know, I don't think it would she would have
been received at all the same way. That he that
he was, even though he was received as a joke
and he is. But but yeah, but I mean again
going back to the schoolyard kind of attitude again, you know,
being in fourth or fifth grade when this was happening,
it was like, oh my god, she cut that guy's
dick off, like that sucks for him, Like what a

(17:11):
crazy lady. And let's you know, remember the nuance. I mean,
you know, of course at that age, I'm not really
going to understand that kind of nuance anyway, But the
conversation should have been there, right, It wasn't even covered
from what I remember, like, no, nobody, we're gonna ask why. No,
Like I remember asking, well why you know? And I

(17:31):
was just like, who cares? She did it? You know,
that's all that matters. So it was just kind of
really glossed over. And as you said, the age probably
had a lot to do with it. I mean, I
wasn't watching the trial itself. No, I didn't see an
these arguments. It was just rumors. It was just like
jokes being passed around. That's as much as we knew
about it at any rate. Probably hell for Lorena, whether

(17:52):
she wanted to make money off of it or not,
I'm sure that it was not a comfortable time for her.
She definitely seems to have withdrawn from the spotlight pretty quickly.
She switched back to her maiden name Gallo. She did
get her citizenship, she met her current husband, his name
is David Bellinger UM when she re enrolled in community college.
They have a daughter, and now she does spousal abuse advocacy.

(18:15):
She started her own foundation UM, which is called the
Red Wagon Foundation. Kind of lived quietly and just doing
I guess I won't say quietly, because she's definitely telling
her story in order to further the work of her foundation.
And there was Jordan Peel documentary recently made, But for
the most part, she's been really dedicated to this uh
spousal abuse UM nonprofit work. She's focusing her attention on

(18:39):
this rather than just capitalizing off of it. Yeah, yeah, basically.
And then the main thing that she thought was the
big theme of it, which was women can be abused
by their husbands and not have any way to get
out of their situation, so they stay longer than they
should and or longer than they want to. The only
black mark on her record over this period of time

(19:00):
is in She gets arrested for assaulting her mother, Elvia,
who lived with her, but her mother didn't press charges
and apparently said that her facial injuries were the results
of a pimple A big one. So how big? I mean,
I guess she didn't hit her that hard if she
could cover it up with a pimple story. You mentioned

(19:20):
her husband, yeah, David, David Bellinger, I feel like we
need to pull into speculation station here. I want to
talk about what it's like to be married to someone
who is famous for cutting off your husband's penis, you know, like, um,
how often does that come up? Yeah? Like whenever they fight?
Is she just like do you want to keep talking?

(19:42):
And then she carefully just heads toward the kitchen. Yeah.
I mean I would hope he doesn't bring it up
at all. It's not his business. I wonder at what
point she told him did he know when they when
they started dating who she was or was this like
a like a fifth date, Like, Okay, there's something I
gotta tell You can imagine that you're going to hear
some stories. Now. That's the Hallmark movie I need to see,

(20:03):
is the two of them getting together and her awkward.
Her friends going, so have you said anything you told
him just like I used to be married, And he's like, oh,
it's fine, I know. I'm me too, I mean the nineties,
who isn't divorced. And she's like, well, actually it gets worse. Well,

(20:26):
I bet, I bet I can speculate that he makes
her orgasm every time they do it. I would, I
would think so. And that's not to say that she
would do this again given the chance or anything like that. No,
hopefully he treats her better in general, she would not
reach that breaking point and m but you gotta wonder.

(20:49):
Probably it's got to come up. You know, we like
to win a fight. Every spouse likes to win a fight,
and that's it's a good gauntlet to throw. Meanwhile, John,
on the other hand, milked every penny he could get.
He went on a forty city tour called Stump the

(21:13):
bobb It, where he would try to guess punchlines of
jokes about his mutilation. He's probably out there trying to
finish our sentences on this podcast right now. No, because
we're not paying him anything. Well, that's true. Well, he's
got to fill his time somehow. These days, he would
autograph steak knives. He went on Howard's Stern Uh to

(21:35):
be a judge on his New Year's Eve pageant, along
along with other famous celebrities Tiny Tim, Mark Hamill, and
Daniel Carver, the Grand Dragon of the Georgia k k K.
What what a crew. First of all, I don't know
much about Tiny Tim, but Mark Hamill, what do I mean?
It was a different time, you know, I'm sure different time. Look,

(21:59):
I know, I'm just I don't think it was still
not cool to be in the KKK. Not so much
about No, none of them should have been with the KKK.
That guy shouldn't have been on the show. Howard sterns
to be ashamed of himself for inviting him. I'm more
talking about yes, of course, Mark Hamill. What were you thinking?

(22:22):
We love Mark Hamill. What I'm saying is, I think
it was a different time for Mark Hamill. I think
he's grown a lot since then, um, because he seems
like a really great guy right now. But you know,
semi famous people in the early nineties going on Howard Stern,
do you think they knew who the other guests were
when they said yes, I'm gonna hope not Yeah, I'm

(22:45):
just gonna I'm just gonna continue to hope. Where's Mark
Camill going, Oh, John Bobbitt, sure, Tim, Daniel Carver, Yeah,
sounds like a good time, happy New Year regular. Who's
who let's bring in? Oh man, seriously, Daniel Carver, My god,

(23:09):
all of you. So in ninety four, John's media advisor
says he's made every appearance he can make at it's over.
But John, John, You're done. Undaunted, John, who's who's overcome
so much at this point, decides to go to where

(23:29):
dreams are made and travels to Las Vegas, where he
meets another fine upstanding gentleman by the name of Ron
Jeremy Ms. Starts John Wayne Bobbitt's short porn career. He
did a porn called John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut, and John
said in the Vanity Fair interview. Um, he says he

(23:50):
did it to show that his penis was working, but
that it wasn't all the way healed, And I see
now that that was the point. Yeah, John, That's what
they wanted. Yeah, Okay, they didn't want a perfectly working
John Wayne bob at penis or else. They would just
get like another random penis to be there. Your fame

(24:11):
is your busted dick, and it continues to be to
this day. Uh. And he almost missed the premiere of
that film because he was convicted of misdemeanor domestic battery
against his girlfriend, Christina Elliott, who was a dancer at
a topless cabaret, and he was sentenced to sixty days
in jail, and the judge said that he had an

(24:33):
attitude problem caused by his drinking. Just a mess. I mean,
at every step of the way, this guy's a disaster.
He makes a bad decision every time he has a choice.
Really horrible person. Yeah. And again, if he's going to
beat one person, it's not hard to imagine that he
would beat other women that he was with. I mean, yeah,

(24:54):
those patterns emerge, and you know, it's the kind of
guy that if you'd come across him at this point
in his life and you didn't know who he was,
you thank god somebody I cut that guy's dick off
because he is not responsible with it. Not advocating for
any kind of mutilation or violence perpetrated against people, But
I'm not sympathizing either, So there's that. I think there's

(25:17):
room for both of those yeah, Howard Stern offered to
pay for him to get male enhancement surgery. Penis enhancement surgery. UM,
probably a bad idea, right, And once it's been cut
off and reattached and stuff, it just feels like you
should leave it alone. I think I would leave it alone,
quit picking at it. They say, you know you're going

(25:38):
to leave a skok. You don't just keep coming back
from more surgery most people, I'd say, people, that's not
a hard statistic. I'm making this up. Never get surgery
on their penis, multiple surgeries, it's a lot. But he
really wanted to be famous, I guess. And that male

(26:01):
enhancement surgery led to his second adult film with Ron Jeremy,
which was called Frank and Penis. Came out in if
you want to check out that masterpiece um, and Ron
Jeremy said, I'm sure it's not worth saying. Do pirate it.
Make sure nobody makes a penny off that thing. Come on, Yes,

(26:22):
these are not the views with My Heart Radio, but
they are the views of this podcast. Don't steal media
saying stream it for free on radio. If I don't
think they're streaming Frank and Penis, well maybe they should.
I'm just saying if a VHS, I'm just saying, if
a VHS falls off the back of a truck and
you find it in the road, that's then then you

(26:45):
can watch it if you want. Just don't. That's a
curse tape. Let's let's redo the ring. But it's Frank
and Penis seven in seven days your ticklefall off. Nobody
would watch it. The movie would mean five minutes long.
People are a lot more protective of their dicks than
of their lives. Uh Funnily, Ron Jeremy once said, let's

(27:10):
put it this way. With that type of procedure, length,
you can do not thickness. John went for both. So
turns out the results of all of this is that
his dick resembled a dented red bull can. That's that's
how it's been We haven't seen it, That's just how
it's been described. But yes by his girlfriends and I

(27:32):
guess the porn actresses but acted with him, hopefully the
only people to ever see his dick again. No, I know.
On punch Line now, and believe it or not, John's
story does get crazier and crazier. So we don't want
to leave you dangling, but we'll be right back. Okay,

(27:53):
welcome back. Everybody. Gird your loins because John Bobbitt's story
hasn't even reached peak Bobby too it. Ron Jeremy says,
Uncut is actually one of the highest grossing adult films
of all time, so that's something. But John still had
money problems because, as we've seen before, he's not great
at making decisions. No, he went to work at a
at a bunny ranch where he was fired and rehired

(28:16):
several times. The guy who owned it is Dennis Hoff,
the guy who won the two thousand eighteen State Assembly race,
even though he died a month before the election. He
was found dead by Ron Jeremy after they celebrated his
seventy second birthday at Ron Jeremy's Love Ranch with rapper
Flavor Flavor and Sheriff Joe Arpeo, among others. It's just

(28:39):
so many really great names popping up in this story.
Just the really, it's Howard Stern's New Year's Eve pageant
got a whole slew of folks. You just want to,
Oh God, what a mess. Ron Jeremy's New Year's Eve
party of horrible. He was very much behind Dennis Hoff's

(28:59):
run for the state Assembly seat. So I guess there
was part party, part campaign event, and yeah, he died
at it and then still one. So what does that
say about either his opponent or the state of Nevada.
I don't know. John also had a short stint as
a minister at a chapel in Las Vegas, which imagine

(29:19):
imagine going to Las Vegas to get married and saying, oh,
let's do the Bobbit ceremony. That harbinger of marital harmony
John Wayne Bobbitt. This is really we're going to set
things off on the right foot. Yeah, I'd really like
to start as I mean to go on, and that
means having porn star John Wayne Bobbitt write his name

(29:41):
on my marriage certificate. Uh. He played guilty to a
grand larceny charge related to the theft of a hundred
and forty thou dollars worth of clothes, and he got
five years probation, and four months later he's found guilty
of harassing his ex adult film star Desiree Las So
just crushing it. He drifts for a while. He's still

(30:03):
trying to find ways to make money out of all this,
along with his lawyer Barry Levinson, who is a scam
artist who died in prison for defrauding several homeowners associations
and the I R S. And I want to make
sure jump in and clarify here that this is not
Barry Levinson, the filmmaker who directed rain Man, Good Morning,
Vietnam Toys, Wagged the Dog, among others. Very different Barry, No,

(30:29):
completely different guy who is dead now? So wait, which
the scam artist he died in prison? Oh yeah, okay,
Barry Levinson the director is live and well doing great things.
He's got a new project coming up called Dope Sick,
according to IMDb, like Barry Levinson's Fine, Barry Levinson's School.

(30:50):
Barry Levinson is dead. Yes, Philippa Sue is in it.
I'll watch it. John appeared on a Monday Night raw
on the World Wrestling Federation. Of course, what's left? He
was supposed to fight Joey Buttafuco so nothing, nothing is left?

(31:10):
But he missed that much like his premiere, because he
was charged with battering his third wife, Joanna Farrell, who
was a fitness model. So you may have noticed I
just said third wife. Marina was his first wife. Second
was married for an unclear number of days. I saw
two days, thirteen days, a couple of weeks, and thirty

(31:33):
two days respectively on different sources, but I think for
the most part it's maybe a week or so. That
he was married to a woman named Dottie Brewer in
two thousand and one, which brings me to you this
episode side piece. Dottie Brewer. She is an author. She
wrote a book a tell all called This Week I

(31:56):
Married John Wayne Bobbitt Extraordinary Stories from an Ordinary Life.
Her other books include How to Ship Money, The Soul Cries,
and I Saw Jesus and the Cat Food Bowl And
you should look her up. Her publishing company is called
Billion Dollar Baby Productions. Uh. Dotties bio on Amazon is

(32:18):
that she was born in New Orleans and moved to
Los Angeles at an early age. She began reading any
and everything spiritual. As a young adult, she began taking
any and every spiritual class and or workshop. It is
through her experiences that she gathered the knowledge that she
imparts in her books. She currently lives in Delaware with
her five cats. So I guess is where she saw

(32:38):
Jesus in their bowl? And the review of her book
about John Wayne Bobbitt is that it's part true life
self helped text and the other part a no holds
barred tell all altogether a hoot, and it has everything
from breast implants to earthquakes, marital distress, ghosts, drag queens,
panic attacks, betrayal. She does tell you what it's like

(33:01):
to sleep with John Wayne Bobbitt, but not until the
very end, because she knows how to sell a book,
does Dottie. She's going to keep you on the edge
of your seat till the end. And yeah, ghosts, Yeah,
she had an accounter of the witch doctor apparently, um
and a butcher ordinary life, come on. That's another reviewer

(33:22):
was kind of like she's good at She's kind of
a lady who makes some crazy choices and then she
writes them down. But from a lot of the reviews
are actually pretty good and it sounds like it might
be a fun read. So anyway, Dottie Brewer, she was
married to John Wayne Bobbitt for a little while. That's her,
that's her claim to fame. Bunch of really fascinating characters

(33:47):
in this story. So now, John Wayne Bobbitt works in construction,
He drives a truck, he split with Joanna Farrell, and
he was found not guilty for sever all battering charges. Uh.
And he moved back home to take care of his
mother who was sick with cancer. He gets into a
car accident and he broke his neck. That didn kill him.

(34:11):
He still alive. In he got his penis reduced by
the same surgeon who reattached it. And John said, I
should have just left it alone. That's what I've told
you in Ninetee John, it's John. How it's been all
over Las Vegas Jesus disgusting. Uh. Yeah. And now now

(34:35):
he lives in Vegas off his disability settlement from when
he broke his neck from that car accident, and a
majority of his time was spent searching for a treasure
chest that an accentric millionaire named Forest Fenn was rumored
to have buried in the Rockies, but that was actually
found in last year June of It was found in

(34:55):
Wyoming by a thirty two year old medical student. So
John was kept from that treasure. I don't think he
looked that hard for it, though, I mean, he was
totally off right. I think he didn't really leave Nevada.
I found a really funny passage and the Durango Telegraph
said that, according to an unnamed employee of a Durango

(35:15):
gear shop, someone claiming to be John Bobbitt asked for
a grappling hook. When said employee explained that the store
did not sell such devices, adding that they were in
fact quite dangerous in the wrong hands, the man claiming
to be bobb It allegedly played the rich and famous
do you know who I am? Card? Which? What I
mean again? What a claim to fame? It's not like

(35:37):
that exciting? Do you know who I am? I had
my dick chopped off, sir, give me a grappling hook.
I'm the star of franking Penis and I'll demand the
respect I deserve and you'll get it too. And the
Telegraph goes on to say, then the customer, who was

(35:57):
described as flaming Lee up knock Shifts, went on to
divulge that he was in search of friends treasure, which
he believed to be hidden somewhere nearby. Why he needed
such a treasure when he was already rich and famous
was not explained. So he gets roasted by the Durango
Telegraph and yeah, and he lives in Vegas. And Lorena's

(36:22):
claimed in two thousand nine that he still sent her
flowers and Valentine's cards, so she said he was still
in love with her. He said more recently that she
was stubborn and crazy. So either way, they've communicated. They
have communicated. It took a while, but they did. They
have been in the same room. And uh, their legacy

(36:43):
beyond this episode and many others like hid about their
story is that a worm that attacks its prey with
scissor like Jaws was named for the case. It's called
the bobb It worm, which makes sense. It's a worm,
after all. That's do you think when they found the
worm they put it in a big bite hot dog
box filled with ice. I hope. So just get back

(37:07):
to the lab, just full old time stake. I wonder
if John hangs onto that hot dog box. I wonder
if they let him keep it. What a souvenir. Oh man,
it's my dick. It really was. His stick was in
a box stick. But it wasn't a gift. It was
a curse. So John's John Wayne Bobbitt has the Bobbit

(37:30):
worm as his legacy. Loreena Gallo has a much better legacy.
The Gallo Foundation is dedicated to spousal abuse, marital rape
um not dedicated to dedicated uh from from our cursory
research causeworth supporting for sure. So she's she's been in

(37:52):
the media a lot, especially recently. Like we said, Jordan
Peele put out a documentary recently about the story. Yeah,
so we fortunately a better legacy than what John was
left with. And again, it's a tough story because you
don't want to condone someone taking a knife to anyone else.
It's maybe wasn't the best choice. But the more you

(38:14):
get to know him, the more you get it. Yeah, yeah,
And the more he does, the more he seems to
reinforce the kind of character that he was in the
in the circumstances that he brought upon himself. And this story,
we didn't focus as much on their actual romance because
what what kind of romance really good? Yeah, there was one,
It doesn't seem that way. It was nice for a minute,

(38:34):
It seemed like maybe a good year, but then maybe
not even a year because it really didn't take very
long for but the fall out of that romance it
is certainly insane, from him thinking she was coming in
to give him a hand job, like a nice nightcap
to him searching the Rockies for a fortune that wasn't there.

(38:56):
I don't know. You know, the guy certainly lived, has
live to life. You've lived out loud, he has lived
out turn it down, yeah, dial it back, John. But
if you were around for the Bobby trial, um, or
if you have any thoughts on this episode at all,
if you know anything about this stuff, or if you
met either of these people or anyone who knew Ron Jeremy,

(39:19):
If you are Ron Jeremy, I don't know. I don't
want to hear from Ron jeremesis I don't want to
hear from Ron. I don't care. You know what we got,
Ron Jeremy. If you're listening, don't email us. I don't
want to hear it. So if you're anyone but Ron Jeremy,
please feel free to reach out to us at romance
at iHeart media dot com. That's right. You can follow
us both also on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Oh Great,

(39:40):
It's Eli and I'm at Dianamite Boom. Thanks for tuning in.
I see you next time. So long, friends, it's time
to go. Thanks so listening to our show, tell your
friends names Uncle's in dance to listen to a show
Ridiculous roll NaNs