Christina Ricci’s Estranged Husband Now Claims SHE Is An Abusive Drunk — Who Injured Herself!
We thought this divorce was messy before, but things just got so much worse.
Christina Ricci filed for divorce last summer, reportedly after a huge, violent fight in which her now estranged husband SPAT ON HER. Oof. But as we heard more from the Addams Family Values alum, the picture of their marriage got all the more bleak and brutal.
In a request for a domestic violence restraining order on Tuesday, Christina accused James Heerdegen of mental and physical abuse throughout their seven years of marriage, including making a statement that made her believe her husband “could kill” her:
“He said the only way he could feel sorry for me is if I were dismembered into small pieces. That night I hid all the knives in the cabin where we were staying. I feared for my life and the life of our son. I slept in a separate bedroom with Freddie, and I locked the door.”
Scary stuff. That doesn’t even include when she says he physically attacked her after becoming “emotionally unhinged” over her spending more time with a male friend, as she described in her filing:
“He grabbed my wrists and hands, dragged me, and slammed my body into the fire pit we have in the yard. I suffered cuts, bruising, and soreness of my hip, which still causes me pain today.”
The Casper star shared photos of her bruised hands and wrists as evidence. Heerdegen immediately denied the abuse allegations — at least the 2020 ones, oddly. But now he’s not just defending himself; he’s hitting back. Legally.
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The camera technician filed a temporary retraining order of his own against Ricci, and with it made his own claims — of alcohol abuse, drug use, and more. In legal docs obtained by DailyMail.com, he wrote:
“Prior to our separation in June of 2020, [Ricci] would drink to excess on an almost daily basis causing her to engage in emotionally abusive and offensive conduct directed towards me wherein Petitioner during her rants and raves would typically call me a ‘f**king c**t.’”
He claims the drinking has been going on since the days when their son Freddie, who was born back in 2014, was still drinking mommy’s milk — meaning sometimes the excessive drinking would cause the breast milk to be too alcoholic to be safe:
“On those occasions in which I found ”contaminated” bottles, I would have to throw them out to ensure that our infant was not being fed with alcohol polluted breast milk.”
He also says Ricci would get drunk and cruel in front of their child, describing an incident in which she got wasted at Freddie’s first birthday party, which “resulted in her launching into a drunken tirade in front of my son, informing me that she had slept with a producer on her show, and calling me the most vile of names and making bizarre threats.”
“The following day Petitioner claimed to have no memory of what she had said or done. When I inquired about her statement that she had slept with a producer on the show, she stated to me that she most likely said that in order to ‘hurt me.’”
This type of blacking out and claims of having no memory of the night before, Heerdegen alleges, were common; he has documented some of them with messages between the couple, such as one where Christina writes to him:
“I get it this time. This morning was a huge alert.”
Additional claims include her driving under the influence with Freddie in the car and her falling over while holding their son because she was so drunk.
Unrelated to the alleged drinking and pill popping, Heerdegen also claims Ricci once terminated a pregnancy without telling him:
“I was particularly devastated upon learning of this. It resulted in a brief separation as I left the family house in order to contemplate whether I wanted to continue on in the marriage. Ultimately I decided to reconcile with Petitioner and moved back into the family.”
As for the abuse claims? Heerdegen says his estranged wife got her hand and wrist bruises from how hard she was hitting him.
Obviously Ricci’s attorney has responded to these claims, telling DM the filing is “nothing more than a transparently abusive attempt to silence my client” that “will not work”:
“Christina will not be intimidated by Mr. Heerdegen and his barrage of misleading claims — and she remains determined to protect her family.”
Is he being honest and telling his side of the story? Or is this just another case of blaming the victim??
[Image via Christina Ricci/Instagram.]