For 37 years, Nancy Motes lived in
the shadow of her half-sister, Julia Roberts. By taking her life last
Sunday, she made headlines of her own. At last. At long damned last it
was Nancy people were talking about; not her beautiful, Oscar-winning,
nation’s sweetheart, spotlight-grabbing ‘bitch’ (her words, not mine) of
a sister.
One can imagine the grim satisfaction that thought would have given Nancy in her last moments on Earth. A cold comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.
After sending out a string of angry tweets, Nancy ended her life in a bathtub, in a home that was not
She was dog-sitting in a house in Los Angeles — while across town Julia was preparing to attend a luncheon for Oscar nominees the next day.
There was the contrast of their lives right there: luckless Nancy scratching for a few extra dollars, golden Julia preparing to dazzle once more amongst the cream of Hollywood. In the city of a million dreams, they lived at opposite ends of the fantasy. Theirs was a sibling rivalry riven by extremes.
Pause for a moment to think what it must have been like to have been Nancy Motes, growing up with Julia Roberts as your big sister. Not easy. For anyone.
Roberts is one of the most beautiful women in the world, the most successful actress of her generation, happily married to a handsome husband, with three children — and wealthy beyond all reason.
You? You live in a downbeat area of Malibu with a fiancé and a career that was going nowhere; your dreams of also being an actress finally turned to dust.
You grew up together in a small town, but Julia was out of the house by the age of 18, confident and already socking it to the world. Four years later, she was a huge star while you just got fatter and fatter. And when Julia came home, all she did was tell you to lose weight.
It
is easy to see how jealousy and resentment can ossify into something
deeper and more dangerous. And how families can be capsized by having
one huge star in their midst. Sometimes it must seem like a bomb has
been lobbed into the middle of the punchbowl.
It unbalances the family dynamic and can spoil everything for the other siblings — those who are perhaps not so gifted, who feel the blackness of being in the shadows.
Parents long for a child genius but they come with problems of their own, which can distort family life. Madonna has a brother who is a homeless alcoholic; Gordon Ramsay has done everything possible to help his brother Ronnie, a drug addict. Alison Carey turned to prostitution and drugs to help her blot out the pain of sister Mariah’s success.
Yet no one has been quite as bitter as poor Nancy. We know that she was troubled, with a history of drug abuse. She left an eight-page suicide note blaming Julia for just about everything — something she has done all her life. Like the classic Sibling of Lesser Success, she appears to have convinced herself that Julia had it easy, while her own life was incomparably hard.
Julia was cruel to her. Julia was not tactful about Nancy being overweight. Julia did not encourage Nancy to be an actress. Julia disapproved of her fiancé John Dilbeck, who she thought was a bad influence. Julia nagged her sister to stop taking drugs and get into rehab. Julia, Julia, Julia.
Miss Motes left a suicide note which allegedly contained dark secrets about the Pretty Woman star that she wanted to be made public
Yet these do not sound like the acts of a cruel and uncaring sister to me: they sound like a sister trying her best to help, to address the problems head on.
And let us be honest here — the problem was drugs.
As Nancy’s difficulties with narcotics increased, the family had cut her off. She had spent Christmas excluded from the festivities, a wounding blow which she laid at Julia’s door.
The reality was that her life was failing. Everything was becoming worse, not better. And nobody wants that for a sister, no matter who they might be.
This is a tragedy for everyone involved, but I don’t think Julia Roberts is the wicked witch of the story. Sometimes people just have to help themselves before anyone else can help them. Nancy Motes seemed incapable of doing that.
She certainly picked her moment. Next month, Roberts is up for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the film August: Osage County. It is one of the best performances of her career, a role that finally takes her from babe into a new and richer acting territory.
Driven by her own demons, Nancy has soured all that — exactly as she intended to. For her, suicide is revenge for a life half-lived. It is an act of hatred upon her family in general, and her sister in particular.
After a lifetime of not being Julia, she just couldn’t take it any more. And whatever you might think of her, that is not the fault of Julia Roberts.
One can imagine the grim satisfaction that thought would have given Nancy in her last moments on Earth. A cold comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.
After sending out a string of angry tweets, Nancy ended her life in a bathtub, in a home that was not
She was dog-sitting in a house in Los Angeles — while across town Julia was preparing to attend a luncheon for Oscar nominees the next day.
There was the contrast of their lives right there: luckless Nancy scratching for a few extra dollars, golden Julia preparing to dazzle once more amongst the cream of Hollywood. In the city of a million dreams, they lived at opposite ends of the fantasy. Theirs was a sibling rivalry riven by extremes.
Pause for a moment to think what it must have been like to have been Nancy Motes, growing up with Julia Roberts as your big sister. Not easy. For anyone.
Roberts is one of the most beautiful women in the world, the most successful actress of her generation, happily married to a handsome husband, with three children — and wealthy beyond all reason.
The 37-year-old passed away in what appears to be an overdose
You? You live in a downbeat area of Malibu with a fiancé and a career that was going nowhere; your dreams of also being an actress finally turned to dust.
You grew up together in a small town, but Julia was out of the house by the age of 18, confident and already socking it to the world. Four years later, she was a huge star while you just got fatter and fatter. And when Julia came home, all she did was tell you to lose weight.
It unbalances the family dynamic and can spoil everything for the other siblings — those who are perhaps not so gifted, who feel the blackness of being in the shadows.
Parents long for a child genius but they come with problems of their own, which can distort family life. Madonna has a brother who is a homeless alcoholic; Gordon Ramsay has done everything possible to help his brother Ronnie, a drug addict. Alison Carey turned to prostitution and drugs to help her blot out the pain of sister Mariah’s success.
Yet no one has been quite as bitter as poor Nancy. We know that she was troubled, with a history of drug abuse. She left an eight-page suicide note blaming Julia for just about everything — something she has done all her life. Like the classic Sibling of Lesser Success, she appears to have convinced herself that Julia had it easy, while her own life was incomparably hard.
Julia was cruel to her. Julia was not tactful about Nancy being overweight. Julia did not encourage Nancy to be an actress. Julia disapproved of her fiancé John Dilbeck, who she thought was a bad influence. Julia nagged her sister to stop taking drugs and get into rehab. Julia, Julia, Julia.
Miss Motes left a suicide note which allegedly contained dark secrets about the Pretty Woman star that she wanted to be made public
Yet these do not sound like the acts of a cruel and uncaring sister to me: they sound like a sister trying her best to help, to address the problems head on.
And let us be honest here — the problem was drugs.
As Nancy’s difficulties with narcotics increased, the family had cut her off. She had spent Christmas excluded from the festivities, a wounding blow which she laid at Julia’s door.
The reality was that her life was failing. Everything was becoming worse, not better. And nobody wants that for a sister, no matter who they might be.
This is a tragedy for everyone involved, but I don’t think Julia Roberts is the wicked witch of the story. Sometimes people just have to help themselves before anyone else can help them. Nancy Motes seemed incapable of doing that.
She certainly picked her moment. Next month, Roberts is up for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the film August: Osage County. It is one of the best performances of her career, a role that finally takes her from babe into a new and richer acting territory.
Driven by her own demons, Nancy has soured all that — exactly as she intended to. For her, suicide is revenge for a life half-lived. It is an act of hatred upon her family in general, and her sister in particular.
After a lifetime of not being Julia, she just couldn’t take it any more. And whatever you might think of her, that is not the fault of Julia Roberts.
