On the night of June 23 1993, the town of Manassas, Virginia, site of two civil war battles, played host to an altogether more modern – and sensational – conflict.
Lorena Bobbitt, 24, grabbed a knife from the kitchen worktop, ran into the bedroom where her husband John Wayne, 26, was sleeping and sliced off his penis. As she drove away, she tossed the remains from the window. That act would make her one of the most notorious women on the planet.
Coinciding with the birth of 24-hour news, the Bobbitts’ drama became the biggest story on earth - and has held our fascination ever since. Men were amused or appalled. Women seemed openly delighted. Even Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg made wisecracks about the case.
Twenty-five years on, mention the name “Bobbitt” and most people will know what you are talking about. Some may recall that both husband and wife became celebrities for a while; Lorena posing in a swimsuit for aVanity Fair article entitled 'Sex, Lies and an 8-inch carving Knife'; John Wayne (whose essentials were restored by microsurgery) starring in p*rn films, such as the unforgettably namedJohn Wayne Bobbitt: Uncut.
But what you probably won’t have grasped is the real story behind the attack. It is dark, ugly and nothing like the tabloid portrayal of the vengeful wife and handsome American-hero husband whose fate sent a shiver of fear through every man.
Film-maker Joshua Rofebecame interested in Lorena’s story two years ago, when hecame across an article about her on Facebook. It described how she had become sick of being the butt of jokes and that her trial had been a missed opportunity to have a national conversation about domestic violence. She wasn’t the crazed harridan of popular imagination who had acted to prevent her husband from leaving her, it claimed, but a terrified young woman who had lashed out after being subjected to repeated beatings and rapes. Instead of treating her plight with the seriousness it deserved, all society could do was laugh.
At that moment, he decided that hehad to tell her story. The resulting four-part series will airon Amazon Prime from this week.
Lorena is now 48 and runs a foundation dedicated to helping victims of domestic abuse. Her hair is tinted blonde and she has returned to her maiden name, Gallo, but people still recognise her on the street.She had arrived in the US aged 18 from Venezuela (her family were originally fromEcuador), in search of the American dream - and thought she had found it when she met the charming John Wayne Bobbitt. They had an old-fashioned, 10-month courtship, with chaperones accompanying their every date.
But, Lorena alleges, things changed four weeks after they married. John Wayne was driving erratically late one night and she became frightened; begging him to stop. When she tried to grab the steering wheel, she says, he punched her.
That began what she claims were four years of horrific domestic violence, culminating on the night of June 23, when she says (and has always said) that he came home drunk and raped her.
What seems incredible now, is that so many people backed Lorena’s version of events.
For his film, Rofe talked to the Bobbitt’s neighbours, who told him they had seen her being pushed and shoved. A client at the nail salon, where she worked, had noticed bruises up her arms. There were money troubles. Having been discharged from the Marines, John Wayne could not seem to hold down a job. Police were called to fights at the Bobbitts’ apartment on seven occasions – three times by John and four times by Lorena - but an officer admitted the way they dealt with “domestics” in those days was to get both parties to take a walk round the block. It’s like something from the 1950s.
After the “incident”, John Wayne was charged with malicious sexual assault (a lesser charge than spousal rape, which, according to the law of the time, could only happen if a couple was separated). His trial was held in private, as it was deemed a sexual matter. He was acquitted.
Lorena was charged with “malicious wounding”. Incredibly, hers was not regarded as a sexual matter and so the trial took place in public. Cameras in the courtroom caught every minute.
Scores of reporters camped outside the Manassas courthouse every day. Local residents sold t-shirts reading “Love Hurts” and "Manassas VA - A Cut Above the Rest!"Lorena’s testimony was broadcast live. Watching it now, you can see she was having a panic attack on the stand. How could anyone have seen that and thought the story was “fun”?
There were voices raised in her defence. In 1990, Senator Joe Biden, later Barack Obama’s running mate, had starting campaigning against domestic violence and crafting legislation that would give the police more power to intervene. But any good people were drowned out by the salacious headlines.
The problem was one of timing: Lorena’s trial took place when America - and Britain - was only just waking-up to the prevalence of domestic abuse. The Violence Against Women Act wasn’t signed by Bill Clinton until 1994 and the National Domestic Violence Hotline in the US didn’t come into being until 1996 - when it was swamped with 4,826 calls in its first month.
Far easier in 1993, then, to see Lorena’s act as one of malevolence, than acknowledge that it held a mirror up to millions of women’s lives. Only a year later, in 1994, the pattern was repeated with the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson. We made “did OJ do it?” the prevailing narrative, but behind the headlines was a story of domestic violence, largely ignored.
Crucially, though, the Bobbitt case came in the wake of allegations of sexual harassment made by Anita Hill, a young lawyer, against Clarence Thomas, a judge being appointed to America’s supreme court. Many people had thought Hill’s testimony – given at a public hearing in October 1991 – had been credible, but Thomas was promoted anyway. The situation had much in common with the recent accusations made by Prof Christine Blasey Ford against President Trump’s supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who she claimed had sexually assaulted her in high school.
We might like to think that we have come a long way, but Rofe's film - whichputsthe Bobbitt’s story into a wider social and historical context -suggestsotherwise.
After a trial in which Lorena told the jury that her husband had spent years abusing her (something John Wayne always denied), they found her not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. She was set free after a 45-day psychiatric evaluation. Today, she still lives inManassas, when it would have been so easy to flee. She has a new partner, a child and a beautiful home.
Rofe also spent acouple of "dark and fascinating days" with John Wayne. He has continued to flit between jobs in the intervening years, trying his hand as a doorman at a Nevada brothel, a wrestler and bizarrely in the circus. Today, he is believed to be livingon disability benefits after being injured in a car crash, and is "obsessed with the scandal and constantly trying to extend his 15 minutes of fame", according to Rofe. There have been subsequentdomestic battery chargesagainst him by two otherwomen, following his marriage to Lorena.
The two have only met once since that night: when Lorena was a guest on a chat show The Insiderand found herself ambushed by her ex husband, whoapologised for the way he had treated her.
Had Lorena’s story been unfolding today, she might have called herself a victim of MeToo. Aquarter of a century on, women are still being intimidated, ill-treated and silenced by men - whether famous, or in their own homes. In England and Wales, two women are killed every week by a partner or former partner. In the US, it is three women a day - and, according to a report published in December 2018,that number is rising for the first time in years.
That alone should make us stop and think.Perhaps when we hear Lorena Bobbitt's name in the future, we won't be laughing at all.
Lorena premieres on Amazon Prime on Friday 15February
