Chapter 281: Brick (Revised)
Chapter 281: Brick (Revised)
P.S.: Everything has been revised. Chapter 281 and Chapter 282 have been merged.
The black commercial van stopped outside an apartment building in Culver City, Los Angeles. Several burly bodyguards quickly got out and separated the reporters who had followed them there. Drew, dressed in conservative casual clothes and wearing sunglasses, got out of the van. Protected by the bodyguards, she passed through the frenzied crowd of reporters without saying a word and entered the apartment courtyard. Although reporters often used every possible means to obtain news, they did not dare trespass into a private residence in broad daylight. They could only wait outside in disappointment.
“Alright, talk. What’s going on this time?” After entering the apartment and sitting down on the living room sofa, Drew removed her sunglasses and looked coldly at her mother, Jaid Barrymore.
Having not seen her daughter for nearly a year, Jaid had originally wanted to say a few affectionate words. But hearing her daughter speak to her so coldly, Jaid immediately became unwilling. “I’m still your mother. Is this the tone you should use when speaking to me?”
“I asked you, what exactly is going on?” Drew suddenly stood up and threw the sunglasses in her hand onto the floor. The broken lenses scattered everywhere.
Her daughter’s sudden outburst startled Jaid, but she immediately refused to show weakness. “Why are you losing your temper at me? Isn’t this all because of you and Eric Williams? That bastard father of yours even sued me. Now I have to spend money fighting a lawsuit. Let me tell you, you two must compensate me double for this money. Otherwise, don’t even think I’ll fight this case. Just let that bastard father of yours take you away.”
“I’m only asking one thing. Did you take anyone else’s money this time?” Drew raised her voice.
Jaid waved her arms emotionally. “What money? Who would give me money? The money probably all went to that bastard father of yours. I haven’t seen a cent, and I still have to spend money fighting a lawsuit. I still have to spend money fighting a lawsuit!”
Drew stared at her mother for a while before taking a check from her handbag and throwing it over. She warned, “Take this money. You don’t need to hire a lawyer either. All you need to do is keep your mouth shut. Also, don’t let me find out you’re doing anything messy behind my back. Otherwise, I’ll let you know what a miserable old age means.”
Jaid bent down to pick up the check. Hearing her daughter say this, she was about to retort, but when she lowered her head and saw the amount written on the check, she immediately shut her mouth. The angry expression on her face stiffened, then quickly softened into a somewhat reluctant ingratiating look. She opened her mouth, but for a moment, she did not know what to say.
Drew no longer paid attention to Jaid. She turned toward a middle-aged maid peeking from the kitchen at the confrontation between mother and daughter in the living room. “Ms. Martha, go clean up my room. I’ll be staying here for a while.”
“No problem, Miss Drew,” the maid said, quickly coming out of the kitchen and heading upstairs.
Only after the maid disappeared around the corner of the stairs did Drew speak to Jaid again. “During this time, you are not allowed to attend any messy gatherings or parties, you are not allowed to accept invitations from strangers, and you are not allowed to bring men back here.”
“I’m your mother!” Jaid could not help retorting again.
Drew immediately stretched out her hand. “Give me the check back.”
Jaid instinctively took a step back and stuffed the check into her pocket. After stammering twice, she asked, “How long?”
“Until this matter is over.” After saying this, Drew walked to the door and instructed the bodyguards to bring in her luggage, leaving Jaid in the living room as she went upstairs on her own.
In the United States, very few civil lawsuits enter the final trial stage. More than ninety percent of cases reach a settlement before final trial. Therefore, regarding the case in which Drew’s father sued Eric, Eric’s legal team privately contacted John Barrymore at once in an attempt to settle. However, the other party directly demanded as much as ten million dollars in compensation, which was no different from extortion. Eric’s attorney, Edward Lewis, held a round of private negotiations with John Barrymore, but the other party refused to make any concession. In the end, they had no choice but to go to court.
On January 16, the third week after the storm began, media public opinion was still smearing Eric with all kinds of negative information. At the same time, the case in which John Barrymore sued his ex-wife Jaid Barrymore and the famous director Eric Williams opened for the first time. Early that morning, the number of reporters blocking the outside of Eric’s Point Dume estate in Malibu swelled to more than three hundred, and the number of reporters outside the Los Angeles Superior Court was no less than that.
Drew and her mother arrived outside the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles in the same commercial van. As soon as she got out, she was surrounded so tightly by the surging reporters that not even water could get through.
At almost the same time, Drew’s father, John Barrymore, who had frequently appeared in the media during this period as a heartbroken father, also arrived. Seeing this scene, the crowd of reporters seemed to receive some kind of hint and consciously opened a path between Drew and John Barrymore.
After getting out of the car, Drew carried a somewhat heavy-looking shoulder bag and walked straight through the crowd with a smile on her face, heading toward John Barrymore amid a burst of camera flashes.
John Barrymore had not expected his daughter to take the initiative to walk over. Although he had portrayed himself in the media as a loving father grieving for his daughter, he did not have much closeness toward this baby-faced girl from the bottom of his heart.
Of course, since his daughter had taken the initiative to approach him, John Barrymore could not possibly make no response. After thinking for a moment, he revealed a gentle smile and also walked toward Drew, as if he wanted to give his daughter a warm embrace.
Seeing this scene, the surrounding reporters’ flashes became even more frantic. These reporters were paying far more attention to this storm than the ordinary public, so they also understood the inside story of this lawsuit very deeply. Seeing this situation, many of them keenly realized that Drew Barrymore might have sided with her father. If so, Eric Williams would undoubtedly lose this lawsuit.
When father and daughter were about a meter apart, John Barrymore smiled and opened his arms, wanting to give his daughter a hug. After all, he still had to put on this posture.
Drew tilted her head slightly and stared at her father. The smile on her face grew increasingly strange. One hand reached into the shoulder bag, and after stepping forward, she quickly pulled out a bright red brick. While John Barrymore was completely unguarded, she struck the man in front of her across the face without the slightest mercy.
Bang.
A dull sound came together with the distinct noise of bone cracking. The brick shattered apart and clattered onto the ground.
Everyone around them, including John Barrymore himself, froze. Even the camera flashes stopped at that moment, and the atmosphere went rigid for several seconds. Only then did John Barrymore feel the intense pain from the bridge of his nose. He wanted to raise his hand and touch his bleeding nostrils, but felt he had no strength in his hands at all. His eyes rolled back, and he fainted to the ground.
Only when John Barrymore collapsed to the ground with a thud did the originally stunned crowd at the scene wake up.
The reporters in the front row began pressing their shutters rapidly. The reporters at the back, realizing what had happened, also raised their cameras, roughly aimed them in the right direction, and frantically pressed the shutters while trying hard to squeeze forward. Camera flashes went wild again. Several quick-eyed bodyguards stepped forward and protected Drew in the center, blocking the reporters who frantically pressed toward her.
The girl glanced at the man lying on the ground, patted her clothes, then pushed aside the security guard blocking directly in front of her. Facing the pile of recording equipment shoved toward her, she said, “I don’t care how you write this, but I still have to say it. I have nothing to do with this man. From the moment I have memories, every time this man appeared, it was a disaster for my mother and me. He always beat and cursed us without mercy, then took away the living expenses I earned from shooting advertisements, leaving my mother and me in hardship. Since you reporters claim to be able to get into every crack, go investigate it. See what this man has done over the years. See whether he deserves to be my father.”
After saying this, Drew said something softly to the bodyguards. The bodyguards protected Drew together and walked back toward the commercial van they had arrived in. Poor John Barrymore was only carried into a car and sent to the hospital after the reporters followed Drew away.
“Drew, is everything you said true?”
“Miss Barrymore, say a few more words.”
“Drew, he is still your father. Don’t you think doing this is too cold-blooded?”
“…”
Amid the frenzied shouting of reporters, the door of the commercial van was pulled shut, and it slowly drove out of the parking lot. Because the party involved, John Barrymore, was injured after being attacked by his daughter, the hearing had no choice but to end before it even began. Eric, who was still on the road, heard the news, smiled bitterly in the car, and directly had the driver turn around and return to the Malibu estate.
Drew had said those words in front of several hundred reporters, so there was naturally no possibility of them being distorted or hidden. On the same day the incident happened, those words appeared in the media word for word. Afterward, some media outlets investigated John Barrymore’s past according to the content of Drew’s statement.
“As an actor, John Barrymore has been unemployed since 1976. Moreover, before Drew Barrymore was born, John Barrymore had already abandoned the mother and daughter. In police records, there are not only criminal records of John Barrymore taking drugs, drinking heavily, and causing trouble, but also a record from 1977, when his ex-wife, unable to endure his violence, called the police and had him arrested. Such a man truly does not deserve to be a father.”
“Although John Barrymore did not fulfill his responsibility as a father, Drew Barrymore’s behavior also appears overly cold-blooded. After all, John Barrymore is her biological father. Even if she disagreed with some of her father’s actions, she should not have attacked her father by such cruel means. This newspaper’s reporter learned from the hospital where John Barrymore is staying that Mr. John Barrymore’s injuries are severe. Aside from a fractured nasal bone, his face also has seven contusions of varying degrees, and there may be a risk of disfigurement.”
“Drew Barrymore is not a good girl. Starting from the age of ten, this child star, who became famous in one stroke through E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, began drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana. At eleven, she came into contact with cocaine. In childhood, she was also arrested on the spot by Los Angeles police for dangerous driving. Her record can be called filled with misconduct. This latest behavior further reveals this girl’s lack of upbringing.”
“John Barrymore released a statement through his representative, saying that he did indeed make mistakes in the past. Although he has already turned over a new leaf, he does not hate his daughter for what she did yesterday. He only hopes Miss Drew Barrymore can return to a normal path in life. Therefore, his attitude will not change because of this matter, and he vows to make Eric Williams receive the punishment he deserves.”
“One hour after John Barrymore’s statement, he released another statement, hoping the Los Angeles court would approve a psychiatric evaluation of his daughter, Drew Barrymore. He suspects his daughter has been brainwashed by Eric Williams. At the same time, Mr. John Barrymore hopes that before this case is concluded, Eric Williams will be placed under residential surveillance to prevent Eric Williams from conveying ‘malicious instructions’ to his daughter.”
“…”
If Drew had originally been a pure and flawless little girl with no record, then this incident might still have brought a slight turn in the situation. Unfortunately, because the girl’s own hands were not clean from her reckless experiences in previous years, after the incident happened, the media smoothly led the matter back onto its original track and even dragged her in as well. Most media outlets sympathized with John Barrymore’s experience while criticizing Drew’s cold-bloodedness and heartlessness. These criticisms slowly shifted back onto Eric, and many media outlets unanimously believed Eric had led Drew astray.
“Alright, I’m hanging up. Next time, don’t mess around like this again. Doing this will only make things more troublesome… I know, I know, but what you did won’t solve anything. Be good… Mm, that’s it.”
Eric put down the phone and looked at Robert Shaye, who was sitting on the other side drinking coffee. Since the incident broke out, due to various reasons, this was the first time the two had met.
This meeting had also been initiated by Eric. According to the information Jeffrey occasionally revealed, Robert Shaye had originally taken a neutral wait-and-see attitude. But starting this week, Robert Shaye perhaps felt that Eric might not be able to survive this storm, so his attitude had clearly changed. Not only had he tried to interfere in the production matters of the two programs Eric originally directly managed, The X-Files and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, but he had also found an excuse during a meeting to reprimand Carolyn Elliott, the CFO personally appointed by Eric.
Eric knew these were only Robert Shaye’s probes. If he made no response, then Robert Shaye would definitely make the next move without hesitation.