You-Tube Wife Loses in Court
Tricia Walsh-Smith and Philip Smith have been granted a divorce. The judge in the case ruled her You-Tube video was “cruel and inhuman” and will also enforce the prenuptial agreement signed a few months before their 1999 marriage. Per that agreement, Walsh-Smith will now have to vacate their shared apartment and will receive $750,000, much less than the millions she was seeking.
The couple married in 1999 but according to the NY Post the marriage fell apart in 2006 when Philip Smith gave each of his daughters $1 million while refusing to give Walsh-Smith a nest egg of her own. He also refused her demands to change the terms of the couple’s prenup. In return, Walsh-Smith threatened to humiliate him publicly if he didn’t give in - a threat she made good on after he sued her for divorce and stopped paying her credit-card bills.
According the the NY Post, the judge in the case stated that if Walsh-Smith had not posted the wildly popular videos on You-Tube, the outcome may have been different. New York remains a fault state for divorce, meaning you have to show that one party’s behavior has caused the break up of the marriage. In this case, the videos presented clear evidence of conduct the judge found to be cruel and inhuman. Smith reportedly suffered from heart related problems due to the stress and humiliation from having his personal life exploited publicly. The lesson here is to avoid creating evidence that will be used against you. It’s very tempting in a divorce case to lash out at your spouse, but if you put it on You-Tube, in email, in writing or record it some other way, you run a serious risk of damaging your own case in court.
Walsh-Smith vows to appeal and accused her former husband of throwing her out on the street. She also plans to make more videos. Some people never learn.
2 Responses to “You-Tube Wife Loses in Court”
By Tim Cooper on Feb 6, 2009
Hang on a minute. There’s been a huge injustice here. The YouTube videos are completely irrelevant in this case. The first one was posted approx 6 months after the divorce was initiated. They can’t even be cited as examples of “cruel & inhumane behaviour” as it’s clear from their content that Tricia was reacting to her current circumstances (ie April 2008, not October 2007). She was cornered. About to be thrown out onto the street. How many “cruel & inhumane” videos did she post pre October 2007? None. Not one. End of. A good lawyer would have thrown this argument out of court there and then. No need for appeal. Bad judgement.