Joanquin Phoenix on Letterman's Show, a Sad Trainwreck! — Page 2

Nirvenglish? Genius.

"I know several people whose childhoods were lot more screwed up than his and they aren't batsh*t crazy."

Seriously? Do you know what you're talking about or are you just making one of those sweeping generalizations with no knowledge of the specific details which you casually dismiss?

The neglected children of the Phoenix family were forced to busk on street corners and never knew where their next meal was coming from. They escaped from the cult by stowing away on a freighter, and were caught half-way through their journey trying to escape their past, which was most likely a lurid one.

The leader of the cult advocated sexual contact between adult members of the cult and children. TODDLERS. River Phoenix first had sexual contact with adults at age four. The cult even produced a manual about this sexual contact illustrated with photos of intergenerational sex. Rolling Stone did a huge article about the tragic life of one of the boys in the photos in that manual, which is reprinted at a website for ex-cult members.

It is phenomenally sad, and not somethig that, if you're actually aware of it, is easily dismissed with the causal shrug of our era: "Oh, I know plenty of people who had it worse than THAT..."






I'm not sure you do.

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Updated On: 2/12/09 at 02:23 PM

Not my point at all. My point was that even though we toss around phrases like "bat***t crazy" as if mental illness is just a catchphrase, mental illness is something that seriously affects a significant percentage of the population.

Very often serious mental illness has its roots in damage done in childhood. And the Phoenix story seems to contain more than the average family dysfunction. Gothic-levels of dysfuntion, in fact.

Having said all that, it's obvious to me that this Letterman thing was all just a put on, and not a particularly successful one.

If you prefer to toss off a diagnosis of "bats***t crazy," well, I think you should know if that's true, he came by that fact honestly.

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