As her first marriage fell apart, radio deejay and actress Vernetta Lopez maintained a stoic public facade while crying secretly in her dressing room and stalking her then-husband to confirm that he was cheating on her.
The Class 95FM deejay, best known for playing teenager Denise in the television comedy Under One Roof, is finally talking about her divorce from Mark Richmond in an autobiography out tomorrow.
They separated in 2001 after four years of marriage, and the divorce was finalised two years later.
She declined to comment throughout the breakdown of the relationship, in part due to employer pressure, according to the book. Both were DJs with radio station Class 95FM at the time.
Lopez reveals that Richmond had wanted to call the wedding off days before the ceremony, and she had refused, fearing public embarrassment.
According to her, she could not see or did not want to admit that there was no connection with Richmond, that they were two kids who were merely playing masak masak.
Their relationship dissolved not long after the honeymoon and the book described how she became suspicious of his relationship with another woman, identified only as B in the book, and found an illicit love note in his car when Richmond was away filming.
The note was filled with sweet nothings that only an intimate partner would say, she recalled in the book, including the words “...I can still smell you on my pillow...”
When she asked Richmond about the note, she said “the blood literally drained from his lips” but he denied the relationship.
Then came what she described as the “even more incredible part of this saga”.
B met her to explain that she had written the letter to make Richmond feel better. The letter was a snippet copied from a romance novel, it was not real and she never intended to cause any harm.
Although Lopez says that she accepted the explanations, she later followed Richmond secretly and saw him on a date with the other woman.
Even then, she could not make herself ask for a clean break. Instead, she cried in solitude or in front of her make-up assistants.
“It’s definitely not revenge. It’s just what happened. If I’m going to do my memoirs, it would be silly not to mention it.”
Richmond told SundayLife! he found out about the book only five days ago, but had not read it.
In a measured tone over the phone, he said he had no comments to make except to wish his ex-wife well. “I have to respect the privacy of my family, my wife and my five-year-old son,” he said.
“But I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. I’m not about to take a dagger and stab it in someone’s back and destroy a family. All I’m saying is, this is what I went through.
“At the end of the day, I’m very happy for him, he has a wife and a kid and his career’s doing okay.”
Richmond, a programme director with MediaCorp and DJ with Gold90.5FM is married to theatre director Beatrice Chia-Richmond, 38.
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