Heather Armstrong, IL DOOCE, is unraveling faster than a twice washed Ikea couch blanket. After her estranged husband posted some thoughts about her sponsored guest room on his blog, a few readers came forward in her post about the project with some criticism about the partnership – and her website in general.
Dooce didn’t take comments like “Cami has her own blog. If I was interested in how she chose to look homeless today, I would read that blog” too well. Her response was to post a picture of her dog with the word “JERK” on his head. When people around the internets implied such a reaction might be a bit out of line, she went into full-on “eff you” mode in her next “style” post:
Oh, look. I’m still posting pictures of Cami, my best friend, she who has been more supportive of me during this horrific time than anyone else in my life. And some of you object to this. If you are in that group I have a couple of suggestions for you. One, don’t look at her photos. It’s that simple. Two, see suggestion one. Three, I hope for you that if you’re ever feeling as vulnerable as I am that strangers wouldn’t nitpick your every move. Publicly.
Yes, jerks. I hope that when you put your entire life in front of the public and use the public to finance your life you never have to listen to anything but positive feedback from the public! Such an antagonistic stance is thrown into stark relief against the cautious optimism and seeming neutrality of her husband Jon’s blog.
It is unknown whether Dooce’s behavior is turning away readers. I can’t imagine that such a spiderific empire as hers would suffer if she lost even 20% of her audience. Still, it doesn’t make her look very endearing to basically tell the people who are paying her bills to stuff it up their jumper. I know this is a tough time and all, but business is business, lady. Maybe she was always this hypersensitive and Jon kept her in line? If that’s the case, she should get herself a new handler, pronto!
The jerk store called….
Oh I literally LOL’d on that one
FUCKING HILARIOUS!
Yup, literally LOL’d as well. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.
Completely unrelated to anything but this picture, I just read that Daniel Von Bargen (Mr. Kruger), attempted suicide today. Puts this “playing the victim” shit in perspective.
Yeah, I read about his suicide attempt and subsequent 911 call online. Such a sad story.
Yeah? Well I had sex with your wife!
She’s just not a very attractive woman, is she? :/
She looks like Stuart from MadtTV
My picture didn’t post! So fat, so sorry!
Why is being cruel OK? It’s so much easier to be compassionate and nice than catty and cruel.
JERK STORE! WE’RE GOING WITH JERK STORE!
Readership is one thing, but I would think sponsors would be wary to get involved with her if she seems unhinged, and that would be the real problem, yes?
Hasn’t she always been unhinged, though?
My guess is the ink was already dry on these deals before they went public with the split. That seems especially true of the IKEA one since Jon said something on his blog about his this had been in the works from when they were still together.
Exactly!
She’s never been able to handle criticism, even the constructive stuff. Remember the great meltdown that occurred when Anna Viele questioned her motives during her ‘life changing’ trip to Bangladesh?
Speaking of Bangladesh and her ‘life changing’ experiences there, any word on her monumental contributions to impoverished women, what’s she been up to in that whole humanitarian area these days? I only ask because it was so ‘life changing’ and junk…
Life changing? Well, she is getting a divorce.
I think she’s donating Levi’s and Swedish meatballs to them.
Oh, snap.
This comment is worthy of the coffee ,I almost coughed out my nose.
I bet if the trip to Bangladesh wouldn’t have been in connection with Christy Turlington, Heather would have never gone on that plane. In the past she complained about the 5 hour plane ride from Utah to N.Y. and the jetlag she suffered. Utah to N.Y! Jetlag!
Perhaps she could offer that IKEA sponsored guestroom to some underprivileged women to live in for a while.
Oh I completely agree regarding Bangladesh.
The IKEA thing was so tone deaf. She could have held a contest for a bedroom makeover courtesy of IKEA rather than keeping it all for herself. As if she needs IKEA furniture . . .
Yes. Throw up some Polyvore-ish room idea boards, still have some sort of inane video full of southern drawl, give stuff to your loyal readers. But then there wouldn’t be drama, and there wouldn’t be as many hits.
Or her husband… he sure needs the furniture!
Amen! This would’ve been a great idea.
In my experience, people who actually, legitimately hate plane rides avoid them at all costs.
Heather doesn’t hate air travel, she loves complaining.
There is not a big enough +1 button for this comment. Complaining Heather and Hobo Cami. This requires a glitter gif.
What is up with that Cami, though? For a “style consultant” and fashun blogger, she looks horrifical.
I read that as “horrificat”. I should spend less time with you people.
If Already Pretty can call herself a stylist…
Have added horrificat to my vocab.
Opposite of magnificat?
Already Pretty has helped me out twice via e-mail, once with curly girl stuff and again with 100% cotton clothes resources (chronic hives suuuuuuuuck). I can’t help it, I love her.
ooh that’s nice. share? I smell funny when I wear polyester.
However nice a person she may be–I only know her from her blog and what I’ve seen about her there–she still can’t dress for shit. :)
this and this a thousand times over. Sal has minus dress sense.
Fair enough. That’s my own issue with snarking on some of the fashion blogs though – taste is so diverse. I appreciate that the woman loves color and has the chutzpah to wear it (and photograph it and post it and build it into her full-time job/brand/whatever we are calling it these days).
On a side note, now I am off to check the SOMI section of the forum for fashion blogs, because I am not sure what ones folks around here do like.
^ we like plenty of fashion blogs, we just bitch about the crap ones more.
@bikusalt – if you look in the comments of the last Messica post, people mention some they like – Girl With Curves is one I remember.
Thanks, folks! Girls with Curves is GORGEOUS. I almost typed that “Girls with Curls” first.
Cami might be hiding some cats in the layers of thrift store finds and general what in the actual f*ckery she calls “style”.
Who is Cami? She seems to be at the center of contention for some. ( I dooce dumb, sorry)
Cami is dooce’s BFF. Which is fine but a little weird since Cami is (I think) a senior at BYU.
rofl!!
They should get friendship bracelets.
I bet Cami could make some for them from old drapes thrifted from the Goodwill and the hair she removes from Chuck and takes photos of.
One of Camis fashun outfits is spandex bike shorts and a blouse tied around her waist.
If shes making dollars from fashun styling Im going to smack a duck.
My mother once walked in on me smacking the duck.
She could be a farmer in those clothes!
Cami.
If I was her friend, I would suggest to her to shut that blog down until the privat stuff is cleared up.
Her blog is a sad leftover from what it once was und everything she writes now seems fake and forced.
I feel sorry for the two girls, I really do. They are the ones who have no choice.
Can she afford to shut down her blog? I’m not sure if she really is house-poor or of that’s just a woe-is-me shtick. When she wrote about getting the free roof, I remember her posting she was worried about being able to afford it, so they decided to shop for sponsors. If she can’t afford a new roof, I’m sure she can’t afford to shut the blog down, especially now that it’s not only paying her mortgage, but Jon’s rent as well.
Shes fine. She makes over 20k for a sponsored post.
If that’s accurate, she is very blessed.
Actually, I think that’s my beef with this broad – she IS very blessed. She should seriously stop, take stock and thank her lucky stars, individually and by name, for everything that life has given her. She is very, very, very lucky.
Thank you!
OMG. That’s a car. That’s many, many of my mortgage payments. That’s a lot of college for my kid. If that’s legit, then my mind is overwhelmed.
Where did you get this information?
TOO SOON!
just kiddin’.
The house clearly is huge so I imagine a roof would be really expensive. But there’s no way she could *not* afford it. First, she makes a lot of money. Second, she’s smart enough with her money not to buy a house that she couldn’t afford the upkeep on. Basically, she knew if she shopped around an idea, she could get thousands of dollars of shingles thrown at her for free because of her name. It’s just like her saying “The house is so big we can’t afford to furnish it all right now.” She just throws stuff out there like that and leaves the house empty because eventually, someone like IKEA will come along and just give her free furniture.
I know she looooves to get defensive when people bring this stuff up and throw jabs about her rolling in her millions, but the truth is, even if she’s in a slight money crunch by having to support Jon on his own right now as well, her money crunch is nowhere near most normal people’s money crunches. I firmly believe she is fine, monetarily. Naturally, shutting down the blog for GOOD would mean a huge loss in income, but she’s not skill-less. She could get another job, easily. But shutting it down for a month or two to get her life in order and get her footing would probably be doable and something she should consider.
Clearly fine, financially. Jon just furnished an entire apartment. I don’t know that she’s a millionaire, as many suggest, but she’s very comfortable. Prior to pimping Cami, she used to showcase things she owned herself, and many were definitely out of my price range.
Fake and forced is a great description. I’ve been reading her blog since 2002 and the last 2-3 years have not been good. I guess I’m not allowed to have that opinion though, unless I want to be called fat, jealous, cat owning, unemployed, hater, jerk, etc.
I feel terrible for the girls :-(
lol but you’ve been reading faithfully for 10 years? hahaha what is WRONG with you people? You are all so affronted, someone would guess you are forced to follow Dooce. Something keeps you coming back, and Dooce is right to laugh at you all the way to the bank.
First I read Dooce because it was interesting, then I stopped because it got boring and ridiculous, then I came back because it got trainwrecky. And I love me a trainwreck.
She’s not laughing all the way to the bank, she’s laughing all the way to the loonybin. Money clearly doesn’t buy happiness, (you’d think Heather would have that figured out by now) and a cushy life can’t mend for what she has done to her family.
Yes, ‘fake and forced’ is very accurate. The ‘humour’ hurts – it’s so passive-aggressive.
She has become very bitter.
I can’t imagine why…
YES. Some day they are going to learn how to google and read all about their early childhood shitty eccentricities (Leta and the laxatives, anyone?) How embarrassing for them! Not to mention their parents divorce which is now out there for anyone to see. I struggled mightily with my parents talking about their divorce to me in person. Leta and Marlo may not get it first hand, but they will hear about it at school some day or read all about it themselves when they are older.
I sincerely hope the damage is minimal, but it’s simply not possible for this to NOT cause at least some damage.
I meant shitting, not shitty…as in, some day they can read all about how they hated pooping and so on.
There’s a book coming out in April, Leta the best of letters. All rehashed for the world to see. There goes that promise of not writing about Leta anymore.
Does Heather (or anyone in her family) truly not see the painful, wince-inducing irony that her life is supposedly ruined because of her parents divorcing when she was a child and how it all played out — yet look what SHE is doing to her girls. Their mom being in the basement with a dog leash considering suicide, tissues on the dog’s head, writing JERK with their toys… I can’t imagine this is going to be any better for them than her parents divorce was for her.
She should effing LEARN from her therapy (I’d love to see some credentials on this guy) and work to stop history from repeating itself.
Shut down dooce.com, keep her mouth shut, and give this situation the attention, privacy, and grace it deserves. A modicum, Heather. That’s all it takes.
Amen.
There’s no way those girls wouldn’t rather have a little peace in their lives instead of a huge house full of overpriced crap, and all the angst that goes with it.
you guys all sound like a bunch of jealous assholes. i usually enjoy the snark, but in this case i don’t see why so many of you are eager to tear her down when she’s obviously going through a hard time. what’s this about her life having been “supposedly ruined because of her parents divorcing”? supposedly? you don’t believe her? why not? what is wrong with you?
and why are you the authority on how to handle a public divorce? she can do whatever the fuck she wants. WHY DOES IT BOTHER YOU SO MUCH? also: you’re an asshole.
Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long for a white knight for the almighty Dooce.
Shit guys, did you know that we were jealous assholes?? Damn it.
She never mentioned the name of the site so I doubt the Dooce Posse even knows about GOMI. Or they’re “above” commenting on such a horrible hate/cyber bully/whatever they’re calling us today site.
I can 100% guarantee you nobody right now is jealous of Heather Armstrong. I don’t even want to know what kind of pathetic state your life would have to be in for HERS to look appealing. It’s a mess. Nobody’s reveling in it. In fact, there’s QUITE a bit of sympathy for Jon and the girls, because they seem to be the ones suffering the most. She’s just on a rage bender, kicking out her main support system (her husband) and shitting on the people who have been reading her and cheering her on for years. She’s gone off the rails.
It’s a public divorce because she chose to live her life in public. No one forced her. She is free to change her mind at any time, shut down Dooce, and enjoy the privacy and modest income the rest of the non-celebrity world enjoys. Until then she can shut her piehole whining about people discussing her life. We are discussing her life the same way she lives it – in public.
Dooce’s life ruined by her parents’ divorce??? Come on, people survive and thrive after divorce and a lot worse. If Dooce’s life is ruined, it’s because of her pathological hyper-focus on herself. She is her own worst enemy.
The video on the IKEA post is really weird… she says ‘I know’ (at least I think that’s what she’s saying) about 10 times for no reason.
She does that because it’s supposed to be funny. Like, “quirky funny.” Like, “crazy-rich-blogger-quirky funny.”
Sorry, apparently you just wouldn’t understand.
She finds what is left of her Tennessee accent quite amusing.
What I find odd is how stilted the voice over work from her is. It’s reminiscent of the girls on “Teen Mom”. Maybe Dooce needs some Barbara (Janelle’s mom with the wicked accent) in her life.
It’s exactly like the voice over on Teen Mom.
I don’t know much about interior design
You haven’t gotten used to doing this yet??
The “I know” montage made me cringe for her. Southerners exaggerating their Southern accent for comedic effect (or just because they think they don’t sound Southern enough a la Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias- she is FROM Georgia and sounded like that) piss me off. My friend emailed me and said “What is with Dooce’s fake Southern accent, she is from Utah?” and I had to remind her she’s originally from Tennessee.
I also want to let you catladies know that for a couple reasons, I shut down my mommyblog earlier this week. I didn’t have a huge following, but among other reasons, the Dooce divorce thing and how it will probably one day affect her girls really got to me. I never shared the more personal parts of our life, and I kept a lot of things off the blog (our last name, where exactly we live, etc.) but I still started to feel guilt for the idea that one day, people might know my daughter based only on what I’ve written of her. And she’s a real person and that is NOT FAIR! Poor Leta has millions of people who have read about her WHOLE childhood. Dooce’s blog sucks so bad in the last couple years that the good entries are referred to as “pre-Marlo” and that sucks for Marlo! I just couldn’t do it to my family. I liked writing about our lives but I realized for me, if I wanted to do that, I needed to do it anonymously, with no pictures on the blog, using nicknames that don’t identify us. No kid should be forced to have their life put out their for public consumption by their mom. Heather’s made a LOT of money and written books and done cool stuff with her fame. But it came at the expense of her daughters and now her marriage, evidently. No blog is worth that.
Sorry, that first part mocking her video voiceover was wayyyyyy more spaced out when I wrote it out. Just imagine fifteen second pauses in between each word to get across what Dooce sounded like in that video.
You know what else bothers me about the “Pre-Marlo” thing?
Leta is going to have those monthly letters from her mother, which, yeah, got kind of ridiculous at one point, wbut which were still really very sweet and something I’m sure Leta will enjoy reading. (How she feels about the entire internet also reading them is a different story.) But when Marlo came along, those letters stopped, and Heather’s excuse was that there just wasn’t enough time. Which is understandable, but now Marlo is, what? two? And Heather is writing about going to the gym everyday and her vacations to California and Bangladesh and training for marathons and making IKEA videos… but no letters for Marlo. And one day, Marlo’s going to notice that.
I don’t know, maybe there are letters and Heather decided to keep them private… but I doubt it.
THIS.
Thank you.
She posted that she reads those letters to Leta every birthday. Marlo will definitely notice that.
The ironic thing in this regard is that Heather has been so much more effusively affectionate and “schmoopy” in her day-to-day posts about Marlo than she has ever been about Leta. She’s gone to great lengths about how adorable Marlo is, has written paeons to her big blue eyes and chubby little hands and lovable personality, Leta … not so much. A number of commenters have called HA out over that over the past couple of years.
If I were Leta, I think I’d rather have more of a day-to-day demonstration that my mom thinks I’m all that and a bag of chips versus the monthly written tributes.
Marlo looks a lot like Heather, while Leta is a mini-Jon. Leta’s birth = severe PPD, while HA had no such experience after Marlo was born. Leta is reserved by nature and has lots of quirks; Marlo is a social being who seems to be pretty easy going and “center of the bell curve”.
It all begs the question: Is how each of the kiddos seems to be treated and perceived by HA just a coincidence?
Aww :( I’m kind of sorry you shut down your blog because it sounds like you were being very thoughtful about what you did and did not post.
It appears that Jon is deleting any and all comments critical of Heather in his latest blog entry. It’s very respectful of him considering IMO she doesn’t seem to have much for him.
I’m not going to take ‘sides’ because I don’t know their inner life. All I have to go on is what they present to the public. And what he’s putting out there and what she’s putting out there might as well be an exercise in p-brane theory.
I get the feeling she was spiralling into a deep depression and decided she woudl feel better if Jon just left and now he is gone and she is still feeling exactly the same.
Heather, line up some guest bloggers and go somewhere that can help you for a month. Jon can take the girls. Cami will still smell like mothballs and old lady when you get back. Just take a break. Be it a medical hospital stay or a swank meditation sweat lodge yoga stay just go and stop complainingand acting like our so hard done by when you kicked Jon to the curb.
I remember some months back she posted about crying through an entire U2 concert because she was so happy with Jon, her “soulmate”. And now she kicked him out. To me it seems like a manic-depression thing. 2 extremes.
it can’t be manic depression (bipolar) if she graduated from therapy today. it’s you. not her. she’s fine. you are a jerk. or Jon is. or I am. but yeah, there was an awful lot of soulmate soulmate soulmate stuff and then WHAM! no more soulmate. just like no more George! I wish all the ex friends and relatives and husbands would spill it. and Tyrant has all the makings of the next Brad Gorecki, n’est ce pas?
Isn’t part of the “upswing” side of manic depression thinking “I feel great! Why am I in therapy? I don’t need this shit!” …and then the subsequent crash a few months later?
There’s no way Heather “graduated” from therapy. She’s been in therapy FOREVER, I don’t think any decent therapist would say “All right, you’re good to go!” a mere month after she separated from her husband and thought about hanging herself with a dog leash.
SHE may have decided she’s done with therapy, but no therapist would decide she’s done with therapy.
I’ve long suspected that anyone who is featured on the blog has to sign something legal preventing them from spilling any dirty beans later down the road.
Katey (her former assistant) once commented on her own blog that she is not allowed to discuss her employment with the Armstrongs.
Katey was an employee, so that’s different, I know. But I do suspect anyone featured prominently enough has to sign something legal.
Which would explain why all of her friends seem to be people who are affiliated with her in a professional capacity. Because isn’t/wasn’t Cami the nanny?
Am I the only one who doesn’t read this blog and from the above article, assumed that Cami was secretly the blog lady’s lesbian lover?
No, just me?
Not just you. That’s the first thing I thought of.
me too
Dooce has announced on twitter that she graduated from therapy today. That should do it.
Yeah, that sounds about right. Next thing she’ll be doing a tour, opening for Charlie Sheen. But srsly….this is all very going off the deep end stuff. Or a quest for more hits. Either way, um, advertisers/sponsors/supermodels might want to hold back a little before signing her up for another deal/room makeover/saving humanity tour.
On the one hand, I don’t see how that’s possible. On the other hand, I think she’s been OVER therapied recently, hence her complete inability to get over the fact that her parents divorced 20 years ago and her therapist trying to convince her her dad was some monster when she really couldn’t remember any specific instances in which he was. I mean she was basically trying to convince herself that her childhood was traumatic because of her dad. WTF. That is a case of STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS SHIT and just try to get over it. You can’t get over ANYTHING if you go sit in therapy for hours each week and continue to rehash it over and over again. So, maybe she just graduated from some therapy, which would be good for her I think. She needs to get out of her own head from time to time.
Seriously why doesn’t she put the blog on hold or line up guest bloggers and get her mom and Jon and Jon’s mom to watch the girls and just go back to Bangladesh? It would get her mind off her problems, give her a break, and remind her of the real suffering she was just pontificating about a few months ago. You think the women of Bangladesh worry about who is bashing them on the Internet? NO.
YES. I agree with you 100%, all that constant talking with her therapist, who is most likely as nuts as can be, has made her even mader. Going over the same thing and trying to figure out how she felt on the evening of May 25, 1985, good grief!
See this is where her real problem lies, she has too much time and money, hence she can blow it on therapy and go there during the day when normal people have to be at work.
I almost can’t blame her for being such a mess, because if I had her life, I probably would be too.
I’m bipolar & don’t work because the stress of my job (in Finance, working 50-60 hours a week) almost did me in. My husband & I are lucky to have planned well financially, and he has a good job, so I’m one of those who can affod therapy & goes during the day. I don’t have kids and hey! The dogs go in their crates when I keave the house.
Therapy means dick if you have a bad therapist. I had a few in the past where all they fucking said was, “How do you feel about that?” and I would go on and on…but there were never any solutions or coping techniques taught. That’s when therapy is bad & just this morass if FEEEEELLLLIIINGS. IMHO you need a therapist who challenges you, calls you on your bullshit, of course empathizes with you & helps to soothe you when you are suffering, but s/he should give you tools. If Heather has been rehashing trauma over & over, she needs a new therapist. And goid ones are hard to find, but you have to keep trying.
So fat, the typos. Sorry.
“afford” (Though we by no means have Dooce-rumored type of money. My house was built in 1917 & is 1700 square feet, that is, a great size for two human inhabitants. But fully furnished!)
“of FEEEEELLLIIINGS”
“good ones”
I never benefitted from talk therapy at all. I mean, it’s been scientifically proven that venting (which is basically talk therapy) doesn’t work and can actually make a person more upset.
if therapy was just venting, I agree it would do no good. GOOD healthy coping mechanisms (that the person in question has been unable to do by themselves) added with someone that points out when you are talking yourself into the other direction, can do wonders.
Melissa, I totally agree with you. My therapist’s counseling strategy was just totally wrong for me. She listened without questioning my behavior or teaching me any coping skills or anything. It finally came down to me questioning what I was paying her for.
She need Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with specific set goals, obviously. I think she feeds into a master narrative in therapy which isn’t honest or reliable. A good therapist would push her on this but she may be far too resistant.
I was thinking this as well.
Signed, Almost done with my Masters in Social work.
Congrats!
I can’t imagine anyone as defensive and ubersenstitive to constructive criticism would take anything a therapist says on board.
my little brother is in therapy and he thinks his therapist is a bitch and an idiot who ‘doesn’t understand’ (because he doesn’ t like her calling him out on his bullshit)
WOW. I guess the goal of therapy was for her to end her marriage??
@Raisesun – I was wondering about that too. It kinda seems that way, huh? Like, ‘OK, Dooce… you’ve FINALLY dumped him! So we’re done! Fly, little songbird!’
Sure seems like convenient timing.
So, because I am thick and not down with the therapy speak: “graduated” means “told my shrink to shove it,” right? She basically fired him? Or did somebody actually give Dooce a clean bill of mental health weeks after she posted about and waking up on the verge of hanging herself with a dog leash?
What is graduating for therapy? Signed, a Therapist.
We don’t use that term. It would be counter to the practice. Sure, people are ready to move on, and by no means should they be forever in therapy (unless they want) but her use of the word “graduating” means she isn’t aware of the process itself.
also- anyone going through a divorce should not be exiting therapy during said divorce. seriously, there will be enough shit for her to cope and deal with during it. I can’t see the therapist letting her off the hook in the middle of what is most likely ot be the hardest thing her privleged ass with go through.
Particularly not when she’s having daily crying jags. It makes absolutely zero sense to me that any licensed therapist would tell her she “doesn’t need to come back” at this stage of the game. Something is really, really hinky with that.
Y’all she “graduated.” so now she can be the “valedictorian” of therapy. Cuz nobody does anything as well as she does.
This!
Maybe she’s talking about physical therapy (from her running injuries) and not psychotherapy? Maybe? Hopefully?
we can hope
IL DOOCE! Sensational!