assistant on Friends . The breakup was hard on her, Alexis said. Neiers married the woman, but then later, âhis wife left him,â said Andrea. (Mikel Neiers declined to comment.)
Tracie Adler also got divorced from her husband Frank. Their daughter Tess was becoming âwild,â hanging out at nightclubs in Hollywood, and not getting along with her father. âFrank and Tessyâs relationship was tough,â Alexis said. Tess moved out of her fatherâs house when she was around 18, preferring to stay at Alexisâ house, where her unofficial mother now also acted as an unofficial manager, encouraging Tess and Alexis in pursuing careers in modeling and acting.
In July 2009 Tess became a Playboy âCybergirl.â Andrea was there for Tess when she began working for the porn empire where Andrea herself once had modeled. âI was in the magazine doing ads all the time,â Andrea told me. âI was a centerfold in the international edition. I was a Playmate.â Stephen Wayda, the veteran Playboy photographer who shot Tessâ Cybergirl shoot, also photographed Andrea in the 1980s, Andrea said. âI remember those days,â she told me nostalgically.
Cybergirls, who appear on Playboy.com rather than in the print version of Playboy magazine, are considered second-string; but Tess was an instantly popular one. She was âCybergirl of the Weekâ for the week of July 14, 2009âcoincidentally the week after Alexis allegedly participated in the Orlando Bloom burglary. Tess was âCybergirl of the Monthâ for November, the month after the Bling Ring suspects were arrested and her face and midriff appeared all over the media. And she would be âCybergirl of the Yearâ for 2010.
âEnough about Tess,â said Susan Haber curtly.
14
âIn my life,â Alexis said, dabbing at her eyes, âIâve had a lot of struggle, with my dad falling off the face of this earthâhe wasnât a father. He wouldnât give any child support for years and he was a drug addict and alcoholic and thank God now heâs sober and lot more in my life than he was before.â (Mikel Neiers declined to comment.)
âAnd thatâs why I want to be doing charity work,â Alexis said, âand thatâs why I want to encourage women to take a stand for themselves. To realize that they donât have to deal with this in their lives and through certain steps you can eliminate negativity in your lifeââ
âOr the possibility of it,â murmured Andrea.
âOr the possibility of x, y, and z,â Alexis said.
âI dealt with a lot,â Alexis went on, âwith a lot of women leaving and coming into my life. My dad had a lot of girlfriends, and there was a lot of abuse with my dad. Some physical.â
âUm, Alexisââ Andrea cut in.
âIâm being honest!â said Alexis.
âOkay,â said Andrea, âbut you also have to be considerate of where your dad is now.â
âHeâs raised his hand on me a couple of times.â Alexis sniffed. âHeâs smacked me in the face. Stuff like that. Just a lot of verbal abuse, emotional abuseâjust pain, in seeing him in bad positions.â (Again Mikel Neiers declined to comment.)
While as a reporter I was interested in knowing these things, I was also curious as to why Alexis was revealing such intimate details about her life just minutes after weâd met. I wondered if it could have anything to do with the confessional culture in which sheâd been raised, with celebrity confessors like Oprahâwhom her mother told me she idolizedâand Dr. Phil, Jerry Springer, and Maury prompting their guests to spill their guts posthaste, as this made for better TV. Exposing oneâs pain had become a celebrity rite of passage, and Alexis seemed to think of herself as a celebrity, although her reality show had not yet aired, or even been
Megan Lindholm
Braxton Cole
Saud Alsanousi
Allan Leverone
Audrey Carlan
Veronica Henry
Terry Spear
J.D. Cunegan
Derek Robinson
Richmal Crompton