Sadly, Ric Flair is in the news for all the wrong reasons yet again, as his fourth divorce with Jacqueline Beems looks like it will become more acrimonious than even his second and third ones to Beth Harrell and Tiffany Vandemark, respectively. What on earth does Ric do to these poor women?
According to Beems, the answer to that rather rhetorical question is to have "numerous intimate relationships with other women" during their marriage together, much to her "embarrassment and humiliation". On top of that, Ric owes Jackie tens of thousands of dollars in previously agreed upon alimony, which given Flair's track record of skipping payments until he is sued isn't at all surprising either.
However, I'm not sure it was a wise decision for Beems to go for the jugular when she's divorcing the dirtiest player in the game, especially when her behaviour was far from exemplary in what was a highly volatile relationship. Indeed, Beems was arrested three times while married to Flair, twice for assaulting her husband and once for a DUI where she was nearly three times over the drink driving limit. Obviously such high profile misdemeanours opens up a natural defence for Flair, which he's taken full advantage of.
Yes, the bloodhounds at TMZ.com are reporting that in Flair's legal response to his wife's separation papers, he's branded her a "barbarous", "cruel" and "vicious alcoholic" who has physically beaten him up several times to the point that his life was even endangered whilst she was in a drunken fit of rage. Apparently, Ric has been left so emotionally traumatised by these beatings that he's still terrified of what his estranged wife might do and thus is asking the court for a restraining order to be put on Jackie.
The most interesting claim is that during a domestic dispute in Feb. 2010, presumably the same one that led to Jackie's first arrest, she went after him with a glass object and "shattered it over his forehead, cutting him severely, and requiring medical attention."
It's intriguing because it doesn't match the account of the incident that was reported in the subscriber only Mar. 8th, 2010 Wrestling Observer Newsletter by Dave Meltzer:
"Additional reports on what happened is that Flair and his wife were at a local sports bar, and a waitress at the bar asked Flair if he needed a ride home, since he lives a couple of blocks from the bar and since he’s a celebrity, it’s routine at the place that he frequents they ask him that at the end of the night.Allegedly, after the two left to go home, she brought up the incident and slapped him and he got out of the car, went into the house, and grabbed a suitcase and started packing things. She came in the house and the incident worsened with her allegedly punching and kicking him and as he tried to get away, he fell over the suitcase, and hit his forehead on a dresser drawer, opening up a significant gash. Flair had bled heavily from the forehead doing a blade job described as one of the bloodiest of his career on a TNA angle taped four days earlier. It is not known if that was opening up of a fresh cut of a different gash. His stepdaughter, who didn’t see what opened the cut, was alarmed seeing the blood, thinking he needed medical attention."
That doesn't necessarily mean that Flair is lying now about the glass attack by Beems, because when the fight first happened he was clearly downplaying the severity of the assault. On the other hand, during his second divorce Beth accused Ric of "opening up wrestling scars in order to appear bloody after he called the police on her", so who knows if he's telling the truth now?
At the end of the day, like every nasty divorce, it comes down to money. Flair revealed these salacious details about his wife's aggressive nature hoping that the court will agree to void the separation agreement he voluntarily signed last October, but has since not paid a penny towards. His excuse is that the previous TMZ publicity of this case where Jackie portrayed him as a cheating scumbag has cost him numerous lucrative performance and endorsement contracts, and now it's impossible for him to make the payments. The reality is that Flair was already up to his eyeballs in debt and probably wouldn't have been able to fully afford the alimony either way, supposing, of course, that the stories of lost financial opportunities are true.
Jacqueline Beems unsurprisingly told TMZ that the allegations are 100% false and Flair was using them as a cheap trick to "avoid paying her the money to which she is entitled." Well, the latter part of that statement might be true, Cagesiders.