Alleged John Cusack Stalker Insists She's Just Misunderstood Penpal
Celebrity/stalker disagreements are almost always precarious matters—usually he-said/ she-screamed-incoherently affairs, with the truth lying somewhere in the gray area in between. In the case of John Cusack's alleged obsessor, Jennifer Leatherman, the actor filed and won a restraining order against the homeless 31-year-old, claiming she threw "long letters of interest over my fence in bags with rocks and screwdrivers inside." In an interview with the AP, however, Leatherman denied having catapulted the care packages into Cusack's yard, and resents the implication:
Leatherman, who has been staying with friends in Los Angeles, said she only sent Cusack two letters. She said they were to request that he use his celebrity status to urge police to investigate her belief that she was drugged and raped by several men in 2001. She said police have refused to take a report.
"I feel I've been set up to look like a stalker," said Leatherman, who must stay at least 500 feet from Cusack, his home, workplace, car and any company or office where he does business.
It's easy, of course, for the famous to allow their paranoid imaginations to run away from them, imbuing what might be just a heartfelt gesture with dark, possibly threatening undertones. Sometimes, however, a one-bedroom apartment converted into a celebrity-shrine-cum-crucifix-emporium is just that: a loving tribute from an appreciative fan, who only asks in return that you use your Hollywood Mind-Rays to telepathically explode the heads of their enemies.
