Category Archives: Hot Topic
Jennie Garth: Peter Facinelli and I We are Great Parents Together
Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
Even though they’re in the middle of a divorce, Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli are on the same page when it comes to parenting their three daughters.
“We are great parents together,” Garth, who is mom to Luca, 14, Lola, 9 and Fiona, 5½, tells PEOPLE, “so when it’s about the kids, it’s wonderful.”
The actress, who has raised their daughters on the couple’s ranch in Santa Ynez Valley, Calif., for the past 1½ years, says she made sure their daughters knew their decision to split was not easy.
“They know the heartache that’s behind all of this,” she says. “They get it. They’re doing surprisingly well.”
“We make it very clear to them they don’t have to choose sides,” she adds. “They can go wherever they want and be with whom they want.”
Garth is even considering giving up life in the country and moving back to Los Angeles, where Facinelli currently resides. “I want the girls to have more access to their dad,” she says, “and I like him to be able to pick them up from school. I just want everyone to be healthy and happy.”
For more on Jennie Garth’s life as a single mother, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now
Source: Jennie Garth: Peter Facinelli and I Are ‘Great Parents Together’
Is Michelle Williams Dating Jason Segel
Michelle Williams and Jason Segel
Lionel Hahn/Abaca; Katy Winn/AP
Michelle Williams has new romance in her life: the actress is dating How I Met Your Mother‘s Jason Segel.
“It’s been a few months,” says a friend of the Oscar-nominated actress, who confirms the new relationship to PEOPLE. “I’ve never seen her happier.”
In recent weeks, the two have been spotted out together in Brooklyn, where Williams lives, and also in Los Angeles, where they enjoyed dinner at Comme Ça on March 16.
Most recently, Segel, 32, was spotted at the Chateau Marmont on March 27 sans Williams, 31, though an onlooker tells PEOPLE he was happily chatting with his friends and telling jokes and describes him as “very laid back.”
As for the connection, a source tells PEOPLE the pair met through Williams’s best pal – and Segel’s former Freaks and Geeks costar – Busy Philipps.
And in a cryptic Tweet (that was since taken down) posted March 5, the actor wrote, “If I fell in love would you guys be happy?”
In a recent interview with Parade, the Jeff, Who Lives at Home actor opened up about what he’s looking for romantically, saying, “I don’t want to have a girlfriend for the sake of having a girlfriend. I have no desire to pick a random girl. I want the right girl. There are plenty of opportunities, but I would rather have the right one.”
Williams has a daughter, Matilda, 6, from her relationship with Heath Ledger.
• Reporting by JENNIFER GARCIA
Jennie Garth divorce: I Tried to Save Our Marriage
Jennie Garth
Andrew Southam
When Peter Facinelli told Jennie Garth last fall that he wanted a divorce, she at first refused to give in.
“I was very resistant,” she tells PEOPLE in an exclusive new interview. “I didn’t want it to happen. It took me some time to come to peace with it.”
The couple, who wed in 2001, always had what looked like a storybook marriage. Parents to daughters Luca, 14, Lola, 9 and Fiona, 5, they dubbed themselves the Facinelli Five and reveled in family traditions that included camping in an RV, family movie nights and bingo tournaments.
But over the past two years, as Facinelli’s career was taking off (he plays Dr. Carlisle Cullen in the Twilight series and is a regular on Showtime’s Nurse Jackie), the couple began spending more time apart.
In 2010, Garth, 39, and their daughters moved to the family’s Santa Ynez Valley, Calif., ranch house, while Facinelli, 38, commuted from Vancouver and New York City.
“He would do everything he could to fly back every weekend,” says Garth. “[But] it took a real toll on our marriage.”
Since then, “I’ve gone through my darkest parts and I’m coming out of it,” says Garth, whose new CMT reality show, Jennie Garth: A Little Bit Country, premieres on April 20. “I’m okay. I don’t know what the future holds, but then I’ve never been a planner. And maybe that’s a good thing.”
For more on Jennie Garth’s life as a single mother, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday
Indiana Mom Who Lost Legs in Tornado Goes Home from Hospital
Stephanie Decker and her family, husband Jim and children Dominic and Reese, at the University of Louisville Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky
Splash News Online
Stephanie Decker, the heroic Indiana mother who lost parts of both her legs while saving her children from this month’s deadly 175-m.p.h. tornado, is where she wants to be: back home with her husband and kids.
Neighbors and friends, who made the Marysville, Ind., family residence wheelchair-accessible while Decker, 36, underwent her amazingly fast recovery, greeted her at the door on Monday.
Decker’s first order of business? “Sit down with my kids and give them a hug,” she told TODAY Moms. A round of driveway basketball was also on the agenda.
“Even in a wheelchair I can still get out and shoot basketball,” said the mother of two. “They are so ready for me to be home.”
The twister that hit Southern Indiana and Kentucky on March 2 killed 35 people and sent debris crushing down on Decker, who was shielding her kids, Dominic, 8, and Reese, 5, from the debris with a blanket in the basement of their Indiana home. The kids were completely unharmed, but she nearly bled to death.
After treatment at University Hospital in Louisville to remove portions of her legs, one below her knee and the other just above, Decker was transferred to Southern Indiana Rehab Hospital. In all, she was away for only 24 days.
‘A Second Chance at Life’
Speaking to the press upon her release Monday, Decker choked back tears. Her two children, and husband Joe Decker, were with her, reports USA Today.
“I have a second chance at life,” she said. “We survived something that was pretty traumatic, [but] I’m here, so I get to raise my kids.”
Facing a lengthy recovery period, Decker must first heal to the point that doctors are able to perform a skin graft that would lead the way for prosthetics.
With great determination and tremendous support from others, including complete strangers whose donations went to help renovate her house, a grateful Decker says: “I want to be out and active. I don’t want to be stuck in a bed.”
Source: Indiana Mom Who Lost Legs in Tornado Goes Home from Hospital
