The following is a transcript of the My Crazy Divorce podcast
Guest Name: Gabrielle Stone
Release date: 12.16.2021
Tom Milligan: This week, our guest tells her crazy divorce story that she’s turned into two best-selling books and a very successful podcast. And she now helps other survive relationship trauma and learn how to love them. This story moves fast, so buckle up and pays attention.
Welcome to my crazy divorce.
Hey everyone and welcome back to my crazy divorce. I’m your host, Tom Milligan. Like every show we do today’s show is crazy. All right, nobody gets arrested or tries to commit murder in this week’s story, but things get really crazy, really fast. So like I said, in the intro, listen carefully, so you don’t miss anything. And if you’re not inspired by the triumph in this story, you’re just not human so let’s get moving.
Gabrielle Stone: My name is Gabrielle Stone. I’m an actress and a director and more recently a two-time bestselling author. I wrote my first book Eat Pray FML when my personal life exploded in front of my face in 2017. And we have been on the self-love community train ever since.
Tom Milligan: Maybe because she’s an actress or because she’s been on dozens of podcasts before this one, or maybe it’s because she’s a podcaster herself, but this week’s episode was the easiest interview I have ever done. I can’t wait to share the rest of the story, but first as always, if you’re in a bad relationship or a crazy divorce, seek qualified and licensed professional guidance from an attorney or a therapist. And to be clear, that’s not me, not even close. And as always, if you have a crazy divorce story and you never got around to writing your best seller. So you’d like to share your story on our show instead, visit mycrazydivorce.com and click on ‘the apply to be a guest’ button at the bottom of the page. I would really love to hear from you. Okay, now that that’s done, let’s find out where Gabrielle comes from.
Gabrielle Stone: I grew up born and raised in Los Angeles as an only child. My parents were both in the film industry. My mom is Dee Wallace who is known for roles like in ET and Kujo and the howling.
Tom Milligan: Okay, if you’re like me and you’re trying to figure out who her mom is, I looked her up on IMDB. Her mom played Elliot’s mom on ET, and she was awesome.
Gabrielle Stone: My dad was also an actor and director who played opposite her in some films, but also was on a lot of different TV shows.
Tom Milligan: Two busy film and TV actors trying to raise a child, how?
Gabrielle Stone: I had a pretty normal childhood and I was able to really have kind of the best of both worlds. In that sense, I always had one of my parents at my dance recitals or my sports games. And if one of them was working, then the other wouldn’t take a job, which is very hard to do in Hollywood when you’re in a cutthroat industry, when you kind of have to take it as it comes. And if one of them was shooting out of town for more than a week, we all went as a family to go visit. So I got to travel to some pretty incredible places.
Tom Milligan: Well, that sounds awesome and good on her parents for understanding and including Gabrielle whenever they could.
Gabrielle Stone: My childhood in my home was very blissful my sixth year and everything kind of came to a screeching halt.
Tom Milligan: Come on, she’s six. How bad can it be?
Gabrielle Stone: I was at my house with my nanny and my dad. My mom was in New Zealand, filming a movie. And I raced into my dad’s bedroom to go wake him up to watch Saturday morning cartoons. And he wasn’t in his room. So I went into the bathroom and I found him lying on the floor. And he had passed away from a heart attack. And as a six year old, I didn’t really comprehend that first. I thought, okay, daddy passed out. So I ran to get my nanny and she raced in there. And then shortly after that I heard sirens and she had to come in and tell me honey, daddy didn’t pass out, daddy died.
Tom Milligan: Just imagine! I feel so bad for everyone in this scene. Gabrielle is almost too young to really understand, but that nanny just had to be freaking out. But mom is halfway around the world. In New Zealand, she had to be pulling her hair out. I mean, she just lost her husband and knew that no matter what it would take days to get home to comfort their daughter. But she also knew she was now a single mom and that she had to take care of things alone. And as they say in Hollywood, the show must go on.
Gabrielle Stone: And she came home and got all the affairs in order. And we had a celebration of life for him. And then she, I and my nanny flew back to New Zealand for her to go finish the film that she was on.
Tom Milligan: Gabrielle may have been young, but this experience taught her two things. First, she learned her mom was a bad ass, which is a good thing. The second thing she learned still haunts her today.
Gabrielle Stone: That was my first real experience of how to handle things when life blows up in front of your face. And it was also when I developed a subconscious belief that would really carry throughout my entire life. And that’s when I love someone they die. And in turn fear of abandonment and fear of being alone
Tom Milligan: That’s rough, but totally understandable for a six-year-old. Her now single mom fought hard to give Gabrielle a normal childhood and she was surprisingly successful. Remember her mom was the star of ET, the highest grossing movie of 1982 and still the third highest grossing movie of all time. She was definitely a celebrity. Gabrielle started out at a performing arts high school, no surprise there, but she quickly realized that it just wasn’t for her. So she transferred to the local public high school.
Gabrielle Stone: I think after my dad passed, when I got older, the fear of abandonment and the fear of being alone translated into me always having a boyfriend or always wanting a man in my life, even in my younger high school days and always needing friends over. And it was very prevalent in my life subconsciously and I met my high school sweetheart, my June or sophomore year at the end of my sophomore year. And we were together for three years.
Tom Milligan: Look, I’ve never been a teenage girl. So I have no idea if it’s normal to want to have a boyfriend or a man in your life, but I think it’s more than that. Gabrielle seemed to NEED a man in her life. There’s a difference, but it sounds like she found a good one and they stuck together.
Gabrielle Stone: He was like the first big puppy love of my life. And when I was 18, I got a call one morning that he had been tragically killed in a car accident. So now I was experiencing this exact same belief after healing from my father’s death, that when I love someone they die and fear of abandonment. So it really kind of reinstated that belief in my subconscious and opens that old wound.
Tom Milligan: Oh my gosh! That totally sucks. I can’t even imagine, but I can totally see how her fear of abandonment would rise to the surface, but she’d seen her mom power through the grief when her dad passed so Gabrielle knew she could survive. After a rough couple of years, she’d graduated high school and attended some college and had begun her acting career in earnest- enter the villain of our story, Daniel.
Gabrielle Stone: I met Daniel when I was 23 and we met in a really weird way. We ran into each other at a club and kept kind of like locking eyes with each other. And we eventually went over to the table that he and his friends were at. And he came up to me and he said, don’t think this is weird, but is your name Gabrielle. And I was like, yeah, and that is weird and it turns out he was in a class with me, not a high school class, but an adult school class that we were taking for credit for college. And I had no idea who he was, had never seen him before. And I actually was in that class with my high school sweetheart that had passed. So he knew who I was. He knew that I had lost my boyfriend years and years back. And we started talking and after that, he followed me on social media, added me on like all the different platforms looking back on it, it was like mildly stalker-ish, but at the time it seemed sweet.
Tom Milligan: Yeah, that’s a bit much, but it’s easy to see it from the outside or with the benefit of hindsight when we’re in the middle of a brand-new relationship shit like that’s kind of hard to see. I think we’re just too close to the situation, but she didn’t just rely on her own judgment.
Gabrielle Stone: Everybody loved him. He seemed finally like I picked one of the nice guys and someone I didn’t need to fix. And everybody was really on board with the relationship and with him. Everyone that knew him thought he was just the nicest and most openly genuine goodhearted person. And he was a sports athlete growing up. So that was a big part of his life. And he ended up coaching. And when I met him, he was a sports coach and that was his, his job and career. And he really anyone that knew him would feel that he would say he was a good person and would really kind of vouch for his character.
Tom Milligan: Daniel sounds like a great catch, right? And I’m not even being sarcastic this time.
Gabrielle Stone: After eight months, he proposed to me under a waterfall in Maui.
Tom Milligan: You know what I just realized, even though Gabrielle didn’t give a lot of detail there, I’m pretty sure that was the most romantic engagement story we’ve heard so far on our show. I mean, at least they were in Maui, right? And she said, yes.
Gabrielle Stone: We were engaged for two years because obviously eight months is quite fast to get engaged.
Tom Milligan: I can’t help but compare Gabrielle’s eight months of dating, plus two years of engagement to Jenny’s from last week’s show. Remember that Jenny and Darrell were married three months after their first date. Jenny ignored a bunch of red flags during their three-month courtship. And we know how that turned out, don’t we? So I wonder if Gabrielle did the same during her two year engagement. I mean, besides the mini stalker behavior we’ve already covered of course, so I asked her.
Gabrielle Stone: There were definitely some issues in the relationship that we were working through. He met me as an actress. That was my profession at the time, and he had a very big jealousy problem. He never liked when I was on set and was hanging out with male co-stars. If I had a kissing scene to do forget about it, there was hell to pay for that. But we always, we were in therapy trying to work through it. And without me realizing it, there were some very toxic cycles being created. So he would pitch a fit and really ruin my time on set and emotionally drain me and then apologize with either a vacation or gifts or let’s go shopping and really in tears trying to make it all better.
Tom Milligan: I have to admit, I never really thought about why watching my fiancé or wife kissing someone else as part of their profession. I honestly don’t know how I’d feel. I think Gabrielle could see the wheels turning in my head because she offered this.
Gabrielle Stone: I can totally understand why it would be difficult to see your significant other, having to kiss someone or having to have any type of intimacy with another person on set. Also, you have to remember that doing intimacy scenes is one of the most awkward and embarrassing moments of an actor’s career. There are lights pointing at you. There are people watching you, the director is saying, Hey, can you turn your cheek this way and lift your ass more up so I can like, get this angle correctly. It’s really embarrassing. It’s really awkward. There is nothing sexy about it whatsoever.
Tom Milligan: That totally made me laugh, but it doesn’t matter how I’d feel. So let’s get back to Daniel’s issues.
Gabrielle Stone: It was more than just the intimacy stuff. It was, if there were four of us that wanted to go to dinner on set, and I was the only female, that was a problem, even if they were just friends and none of us had anything intimate on screen.
Tom Milligan: Sounds like it’s more than just jealousy. It sounds to me like he’s just a control freak.
Gabrielle Stone: He was really not okay with me being away, me being on set, me having to do any intimate kissing scenes. It was always a problem. And I, we fought numerous times about it and he would always somehow make it okay. Like I mentioned, we were in therapy for it, but it really was a problem from the start and I kept brushing it under the rug saying, we’ll fix it. We’ll fix it.
Tom Milligan: Why do we do that to ourselves? Why do we brush issues under the rug? What’s worse? Why do we convince ourselves that we can fix it later after we’re married? I mean, we all do it. I just don’t get it, but at least they’re in therapy to figure it out. That’s good. But since we’re talking about Gabrielle’s crazy divorce, I’ll give you one guess as to how effective that therapy was. There
Gabrielle Stone: Was a film that I got booked on. That was one of the biggest films that I had done thus far in my career. I was making more money. It was like I was one of the bigger people on that set. And it was a really like big accomplishment in my career. And I was feeling really amazing about going to get to do this opportunity, especially in an industry where actors are begging to be paid $125 a day. It’s a cutthroat industry. So when you get to that next step up, it’s a really big deal. And it’s something to celebrate. And I was playing the love interest of the main guy and he hadn’t openly come out about his sexuality, but it was like the least person that you would ever have to be worried about ever.
It’s not like I was going and having a sex scene with Channing Tatum by any means. And I remember being on that set and he had known I was going to go; he had met this person in LA like he knew who it was. And the first day I was on set, he called me upset, my ex-husband and was like, he was my fiancé at the time and said, I’m really having problems with knowing that you’re going to be kissing him. And I said why you’ve known about this for a long time. We’ve talked about this in therapy. And he said, well, I think he’s gay and that means he’s had dicks in his mouth and I don’t want your mouth touching his.
Tom Milligan: I’m speechless, but Gabrielle knew exactly what to say.
Gabrielle Stone: Do you think he’s comfortable kissing me knowing that your dick has been in my mouth?
Tom Milligan: Boom, that was the perfect response get Gabrielle. So Gabrielle’s on set for the biggest film of her young career and her jealous, controlling, and apparently homophobic fiancé is at home stewing.
Gabrielle Stone: I was there for five days. It was the best five days of my career and the worst five days, because I was on the phone with him crying and screaming every night of him not being able to just let me be and let me work.
Tom Milligan: That just sounds terrible. Remember earlier when Daniel sounded like a great catch? Spoiler alert, I don’t think that anymore.
Gabrielle Stone: I came home and it was like, I’m so sorry. Look at all this stuff I bought you let’s go to dinner. Let’s go to therapy. And it was like, okay, we’re going to fix it. Okay, we’re going to fix it.
Tom Milligan: Despite the jealousy and the ensuing fights, Daniel and Gabrielle stayed together and got married.
Gabrielle Stone: We had an absolutely beautiful wedding. It was something that my mom worked her off all year to pay for. I’m her only child. And she really wanted to give me this, this really beautiful day. And still till this day, I will say it was one of the best weddings that I’ve been to. And a lot of my friends say that we always joke that I produced the out of that wedding. We just cast the male lead wrong and I stand by that. And it really was a beautiful night. We had a wonderful experience. All of our friends and family so much love was there. And then we went to a beautiful honeymoon in Bora Bora. And it was really looked perfect from the outside and it felt perfect during that time going through it as well.
Tom Milligan: I love it. She produced the shit out of her wedding. Just cast the male lead wrong. Oh my gosh, that’s perfect.
Gabrielle Stone: We took our honeymoon. We came home and we rented a three-bedroom house. We were like pretty blissfully happy together with the exception of the things that we were working on in therapy. And 90% of the time we were great. We rarely fought. And we from the outside, even had a really solid relationship. And I even felt that in the relationship and everyone always says, the first year of marriage is the hardest we didn’t experience that. Our first year was pretty great. We were nesting in this little home that we rented and he was doing really well in his sports coaching field. I was starting to pick up in my acting stuff and everything seemed like it was on track to be really great.
Tom Milligan: Since most of our stories are about a rise to, and then a fall from grace. I’m just going to call it right now. This is grace. Next up; the fall.
Tom Milligan: Daniel and Gabrielle were living in a nice little house were building their careers and despite some jealousy issues, they had a pretty good life, but something changed about 18 months in.
Gabrielle Stone: I guess it started in December of 2016. I started to not feel as happy in the relationship and I didn’t know why at the time. And this continued for months and months and we were going to therapy. I was working my off to try and figure out, A, what was wrong and B, how to get us back to a place of love and happiness. We had taken these vows, we had made these commitments like there were moments where I was like, oh my God, I’m not happy. And like, if this doesn’t change, what am I going to do? – Because the thought of divorce seemed so not in the possibilities. We had just had this huge, beautiful wedding with all of these people there. And it didn’t seem possible that that would be an option. So we were going to therapy. I was doing everything that our therapist was saying and he wasn’t, it was almost like he wasn’t really working as hard I was. And things just started to deteriorate over those months. And I was really unhappy and didn’t really know what to do about it.
Tom Milligan: I think we all know that for any relationship to be successful, it takes equal effort from both parties, no matter how hard one, she can only get to 50%, which is a failing grade in any situation. And it sounds like Daniel wasn’t even trying.
Gabrielle Stone: And then as the months went on, he started coming to therapy and giving me very strange requests. Like I have all, I had always been the most supportive coach’s wife. I was at all the games. I went to all the travel tournaments. I knew the whole team. Many of them were at our wedding. We double dated with the parents and he would be like, well, I don’t feel supported enough by you. And I would say, well, what do you mean? I’m going to all of the games. And I’m like, everybody knows me. I’m like always present. He’s like well you could come to the practices.
Tom Milligan: Yeah, whatever Daniel
Gabrielle Stone: Do I ask you to come to my auditions with me? I don’t understand why you need that.
Tom Milligan: Damn straight! How insecure and self-important could this guy be?
Gabrielle Stone: But okay and sure enough, I would show up to the practices and sit there and watch and be supportive. Not like I had time to be doing this, but if that’s what it took and that’s what was asked in therapy, fine.
Tom Milligan: Seriously, despite her busy schedule, Gabrielle made the time to sit and watch a bunch of kids practice just to appease, her insecure and needy husband that had to make a difference, right. But remember Gabrielle’s intuition was telling her something just wasn’t right.
Gabrielle Stone: We ended up getting into a fight one night because I was doing laundry and I was putting socks away in his sock drawer. And I opened the drawer and his phone was there and I picked it up and said, why is your phone in your sock drawer? And the second I picked it up, it lit up and it had a girl’s contact name and a heart emoji in the contact name, like, are we 12? It was weird on that level, just from that standpoint. And I looked at him and I was like, why is your phone in your sock drawer?
Tom Milligan: Oh no, if you’ve watched any of my TikToks, if you’ve ever been cheated on, or if you’ve ever cheated, you already know what’s about to happen. The next part is page one of the cheater’s handbook.
Gabrielle Stone: And he came over and snatched it out of my hand, went into the bathroom and was like, you’re fucking crazy. I’m not doing this with you and locked himself in the bathroom
Tom Milligan: There is step one, deflect and call her the crazy one.
Gabrielle Stone: I just stood there waiting and he came out of the bathroom and was like, here, my phone’s not even working. It’s fucked up. Take it and handed me his phone.
Tom Milligan: And there’s step two; deny, deny, deny. And now step three, Gaslight the shit out of your victim.
Gabrielle Stone: Well, I’m convincing myself that there’s no way that this human, that everybody loves so much, that I’ve never had any doubts or questions about integrity wise, character wise would be having an affair.
Tom Milligan: I really wish I didn’t understand how she felt. It sucks. I’m sure the rest of that day, wasn’t fun at all. Gabrielle needed some to time and some space to think. Fortunately, Daniel left the next day for a two-week trip to Florida.
Gabrielle Stone: A couple days later, I was in our office and getting something out of the filing cabinet and his big Mac Air was on the desk and it started going ding, ding and I looked over and there was his email just open on the computer. Like I still to this day, don’t know his email password. And it was an Uber receipt from where he was supposed to be in Florida, going to Miami. And I was like, ah, that’s weird. And that was all it took for me to then go, looking in the trash email and finding all the receipts, all of the dinners, all of the hotels, all of the everything that had been going on for roughly six months, which was of course, roughly the time our marriage had been really, really suffering and I had been unhappy. He was married with a full-on girlfriend on the side. She was 19.
Tom Milligan: 19? Gross Daniel! Gabrielle knew! Women really do have a sixth sense about these things don’t they? I mean, my ex carried on with her side dick for six months in our bed and I had no clue and I probably wouldn’t have ever known if I hadn’t found out by pure luck. So now Gabrielle had evidence. Now what?
Gabrielle Stone: So, because he was on his work trip for two weeks and I found all of this evidence. I wanted to be able to file before he caught wind of it so that he didn’t file first.
Tom Milligan: Man, she’s not playing around. Let’s not forget. This is the same loving boyfriend and husband, who had a problem with her kissing someone on a movie set without any real intimacy. Let’s just say his hypocrisy is on full display, but wait, there’s more. Now that she’d made the hard choice to get a divorce, she wanted to get all her ducks in a row for her future attorney.
Gabrielle Stone: It was really crazy how sloppy it was like my girlfriend and I had made a fake Snapchat account to follow this 19 year old story. And it was basically like her vacation in Miami with my husband.
Tom Milligan: Even though she’d been hurt for years by his jealousy and control. And even though she knew something was wrong, seeing it play out in real time had to hurt.
Gabrielle Stone: But the icing on the cake was when I found out he took her to Ohio, which is where his boys team was playing. And all of those kids that were at my wedding and all of those parents that I’ve been on double dates with that like were part of our family at this point, saw him gallivanting around with this 19 year old girl.
Tom Milligan: Okay, that really sucks. I mean, come on. He has his girlfriend with him on multiple out of town trips and nobody says a word. Every one of those kids and their parents are part of a conspiracy and they should be ashamed of themselves at this point. Gabrielle has all the proof she needs. And of course, Daniel’s clueless. He has no idea she’s following his trip in real time through the miracle of social media. But his two weeks in Florida did come to an end.
Gabrielle Stone: He actually returned from that trip and spent a few days at her house before he even told me that he was home.
Tom Milligan: I’m sorry, Daniel’s a douche nozzle.
Gabrielle Stone: And then ended up texting me, asking if we could meet at the house to talk. And I had a process server waiting there and he was served the papers. And I looked at him and was like, look, I know everything, but if you want to come in and talk, you’re more than welcome to. And he said, of course I want to come in and talk. And I walked in and I said, there are four people that know where I am right now. And when I’m supposed to leave, leave the door open. And he said, God, Gabrielle, I’m not a psychopath.
Tom Milligan: Yeah Gabrielle, he’s just a controlling, insanely jealous hypocrite and borderline pedophile without morals or a shred of decency. But he’s not a psychopath, duh!
Gabrielle Stone: We sat down and had a conversation where he basically didn’t own up to anything and was like, clearly you’ve been feeling the same way I have. And you’ve been unhappy. And I think we were just too young and I’m so sorry. And I want you to be successful in life. And I don’t want this to tear you down in any way.
Tom Milligan: Oh, he’s all heart, but she holds all the cards.
Gabrielle Stone: I said, okay, then say it. And he was like, say what? And I said, say it. He said, say what? Say it. And he said what? That I’ve been in another relationship? And I looked at him and was like, okay. And I grabbed my keys and walked out of the house and drove away that day, feeling like a fucking weight had been lifted off of my chest. And I knew that I did not dodge a bullet in this one. I had dodged an army of snipers.
Tom Milligan: Finally Daniel fessed up. Well sort of and good for Gabrielle.
Gabrielle Stone: I left the house and really as much as I was betrayed and angered, I wasn’t heartbroken because I had been unhappy for so long that it truly felt like the universe was throwing me a get out of jail free card, because if he wouldn’t have done something so deep and so drastic to make me just say, okay, fuck this. I’m done. I would’ve stayed in that so much longer trying to make it work. Because we had taken these vows and we had made this commitment to each other. So it would’ve taken me a lot longer to come to terms with like the guilt and shame that goes along with saying I want a divorce and not having a better reason than I’m unhappy.
Tom Milligan: It took me a lot longer to get it in my own life, but I completely understand what she’s saying. Who knows how long I would’ve stayed with my unfaithful wife. How long would Gabrielle have continued putting in more than her fair share only to learn much later that Daniel had been screwing a teenager? At this point, I want you to remember way back to the beginning of the story. Gabrielle lost her father at an early age, which instilled a lifelong fear of abandonment. Then when her high school sweetheart was killed, her fears were just reinforced. And since infidelity is abandonment pure and simple, her fears are once again, becoming realities. Crazy story so far, right? But the craziness is just beginning. Remember that book she wrote.
Gabrielle Stone: This is like literally only where the story really starts is what’s crazy is this is the first two chapters of the book.
Tom Milligan: Seriously folks. The rest of the show is going to happen pretty fast, so pay attention.
Gabrielle Stone: I want to preface this with, I had not only been unhappy for six to seven months, I had known about the affair for three weeks, waiting for him to come home and living with that and waiting for that and the anxiety of all of that, but two weeks after I left my house. So it was probably like a month after I knew for sure. My marriage is over and I’m getting a divorce. I met a man and we fell head over heels in love with each other. It went from zero to 100 really quickly. It was like, meet my family, have my babies. Like we’re done sign sealed, delivered his whole friends and family were, we’ve never seen anyone do this with him. Like this is it. It was wild. And it almost felt like, of course I had to go through this blind siding divorce to like end my marriage so I could meet this person. It all made sense universal timing.
Tom Milligan: See what I mean? We’re to short weeks after Gabrielle drove away from the “I’m not a psychopath” meeting and Gabrielle’s in love.
Gabrielle Stone: His backstory is that a year and a half before we connected, he lost his brother to suicide. And when we met, he presented it to me that, of course it was like devastating and so hard. And he really went through a lot of mental health struggles as anyone would. But that he had done a lot of the work and healed and that he really finally felt like he was on the other side of all of it.
Tom Milligan: Well, they’ve both lost people they loved. I’m glad to hear he’s done the work and come out the other side. And that she’s aware of how important that is.
Gabrielle Stone: So we have this wild love affair. And within a few days he tells me, I have a trip booked to Italy for a month and I don’t know what to do now that I’ve met you. And I said, well, I would never tell you not to go travel. And he goes, no, I want you to come with me. And of course I’m like, this is insane.
Tom Milligan: Well damn new boyfriend, just a few days in, and you’re already taking her to Italy.
Gabrielle Stone: So I say when are you leaving? And he says, September 4th, which would’ve been my two year wedding anniversary. And I go, okay, when are you coming home? And he says, October 4th, which is my late father’s birthday. So at this point, I’m like, okay, universe, I hear you. I’m getting the signs like, oh, okay. I guess I’m going to Italy. So I book my ticket. We are blissfully happy for a month and a half. And I meet his family. Everybody’s just like his mom’s already calling me her daughter-in-law his sister’s calling me sister. It’s just; it was like out of a movie.
Tom Milligan: Sounds like a dream come true. How can you help but be happy for her?
Gabrielle Stone: We’re getting ready for this Europe trip. Everything’s amazing.
Tom Milligan: Is anyone else just waiting for something bad to happen?
Gabrielle Stone: About a week before we were getting ready to take this trip, he started telling me about all this grief that he was feeling and that he felt disconnected from everyone and just was kind of scared of the feelings that were coming up. And I’m no stranger to grief. Obviously I’ve dealt with my fair share of it. So I was really trying to be there for him and love him through it and support him through it and do whatever I could to help him move through it. But it definitely felt off and it something wasn’t right.
Tom Milligan: Oh no, there’s Gabrielle’s intuition again. But remember this is just a few weeks into this whirlwind romance, but what could it be?
Gabrielle Stone: 48 hours before we were getting on the plane, he ended up telling me he needed to go by himself. And I was absolutely devastated. Like he broke my heart like my ex-husband never could have done
Tom Milligan: Ouch! I guess he really hadn’t come out the other side from the loss of his brother, either that, or he is messed up in other ways. It doesn’t really matter because just like every other man in her life, her new boyfriend has abandoned her.
Gabrielle Stone: I was sitting on my bed in a pool of tears and was like, well, I can either stay at home heartbroken or I can go travel Europe for a month by myself. Guess I’m going to Europe and I took a backpack and did six countries over the span of a month. And on that trip is where I wrote my best-selling book, Eat, Pray FML.
Tom Milligan: Good for her. So many of us, me included have said, we’re going to write a book about our experiences, but not only did Gabrielle follow through; I think she did it in record time.
Gabrielle Stone: I was not a writer before this. I had written one short screenplay, and I guess I had always loved creative writing in high school, but I was not a writer and took this journal, started the first day in London and was like, I’m writing a book about this because my life, you have to understand that from finding out about the affair to filing for divorce, to meeting the man after and coming home from the month long Europe trip was a three month period. Like it was so back-to-back that my friends were just calling me saying, we just wanted to know what’s going on in this week’s episode of the Netflix story that has become your life.
It was ridiculous. And so I knew I was going to write about it and I knew whatever I was going to find and heal and grow from on this Europe trip was going to be big and that it was going to help other people if I could share that. So I took the journal and wrote three fourths of the book by hand on the trip. I mean, there would be hours where I would sit at cafe writing. I would go on a train ride that I would just write for eight hours straight. And it was really my therapy and it wasn’t like I was journaling and then turned it into a book when I came home. If you open the book, the journal, it’s like chapter one. And it’s very, very close to how the published book ended up being released.
Tom Milligan: So not only did she write the book in record time, she wrote it long hand in a leather journal. Who does that? I think it’s incredible. Nothing but complete respect from me.
Gabrielle Stone: If you look at like my life, like a blueprint, you can really see how everything needed to happen for me to end up here. And I would do the entire thing, pain, heartbreak, all of it. I would do it 10 times over to be able to end up where I’m at now able to help so many people around the world heal from the crazy show that happened in my life. It it’s been the most fulfilling thing I have ever done. And it all started with some asshole cheating on me.
Tom Milligan: Absolutely amazing. I won’t patronize Gabrielle by saying I’m proud of what she’s been unable to do. Instead I’ll just say that I’m in awe and can only hope to have a fraction of the positive impact she’s had. Oh, I got so caught up in the whirlwind. I almost forgot. Gabrielle still needed to get divorced.
Gabrielle Stone: My divorce should have been very, very simple. We didn’t own any property together. Our cars were each leased to us individually. We didn’t have any kids. We had no pets, like it should have been a very, very easy divorce.
Tom Milligan: Wait, should have been an easy divorce. Oh, shit, here we go.
Gabrielle Stone: Because my gem of an ex-husband decided to hire a criminal defense attorney that was a family friend of his, instead of a family law attorney, all of the paperwork took so much longer. They fought us on every single thing. I mean the amount of money I drained into the attorneys that I hired for that process was unbelievable. It was unbelievable.
Tom Milligan: I believe it. I think we all do anyway. Anyway, carry on Gabrielle
Gabrielle Stone: At the beginning, they were like, you know, you’re going to be owed this; this and this, and you’re going to end up seeing some money. So don’t be afraid to go and like fight for what you deserve. And I didn’t get a dime from him. Not even to like cover some of the expenses that I was paying on my attorney’s fees. The kicker of all of this was that right before they were going to sign the papers, his attorney emailed my attorney and said Daniel would like the ring back. And he replied, I’m sorry, she’s already sold it and gone to Europe and it was just the audacity on the fucking icing of the cake to ask for the ring back. I’m sorry. She’s already sold it.
Tom Milligan: I’m not an attorney, but I’ve been told by attorneys that the wedding ring is considered a gift. So he’d have a tough time getting it back anyway.
Gabrielle Stone: My divorce from the beginning to the end cost around $25,000 and that was literally fighting over nothing. It was just him fighting every tooth and nail little tad bit that was discussed. And I think it took roughly about a year. We took a shot at tequila that day when we found out it was finalized and have been celebrating and counting my lucky stars ever since I’ve never been more thankful to disconnect from a human and a family than I was that one.
Tom Milligan: Twenty-five thousand dollars? We’ve all heard a lot worse, but with no kids, no community assets and no shared debt this could have and should have cost nothing, but Daniel continued his douche baggery and Gabrielle had to pay for it. We’ve already heard a story of triumph today, but as we ended our interview, Gabrielle offered this hopeful advice.
Gabrielle Stone: No matter what you are going through and how dark and grim it may seem, I promise you it is all happening for a reason and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And once you get there, it is more beautiful than you could ever, ever imagine. So keep fucking going.
Tom Milligan: She’s just amazing. I love her attitude and now where I got the title for this episode. Want to know more about Gabrielle’s story or maybe you’re looking for another great podcast?
Gabrielle Stone: You can find both of the books exclusively on Amazon or my website, which is eatprayfml.com. That’s also where we have all of the podcast merch. I also have a self-love healing journal that kind of walks you through step by step of recovering from traumas and heartbreaks, and really creating new pathways into the life that you want. And the books apart from being in hard cover, eBooks, they’re also on audiobook, which you can get on audible or anywhere that you can get your audiobook. I narrate both of them. And the podcast FML talk is available on Spotify, apple podcast, anywhere you get your podcast, season three premiered on YouTube. So you can also watch the episodes happen in studio and that’s youtube.com/fmltalk. And if you want to come hang out with me online, I am mostly on Instagram at Gabrielle Stone or the viral TikToks that are creating uproar all over social media and that’s at Gabrielle_Stone.
Tom Milligan: I am shocked, amazed, and inspired all at the same time. I’ve included links to Gabrielle’s website and social media and the show notes. I hope you show her some love. Thank you for all your reviews this last week. We don’t have the funds to buy an audience through advertising. So we rely on you to rate and review and to share with your friends. So if you haven’t done it already, please take two seconds right now to give us five stars on whatever platform or app you’re using right now to listen to this show.
And if you’ve already done that, please take two seconds to share the show with at least one friend. I also want to thank ourdivorce.com for their sponsorship of my crazy divorce. If you or someone you know, is thinking of divorce. And one of them, isn’t a Dick like Daniel, go to ourdivorce.com to learn more or to get started for free. If you’ve already been through a crazy divorce and want to share your story with the world, please go to mycrazydivorce.com and click on the ‘apply to be a guest’ button at the bottom of the page. I would love to hear your story and find a huge thank you to Gabrielle for taking a break from her incredibly busy schedule to share her story with us. That’s our show for today.
See you next week everyone.
Bye!