Terry and I looked at houses all over Miami, but there was really nothing to choose from at that time that would suit our needs. We did see one big spec house that could be absolutely fabulous. It had a five-car garage and guesthouses, and the floor plan showed plenty of room for filming as well as fitting Terry’s at-home gym. I really thought that this was the answer for us. Plus the kids loved it! Terry liked making them happy.
The huge contemporary house was $12 million and not even finished yet. It was a cinder-block frame sitting in a pile of mud from all the rain that had inundated Miami the previous winter. I could kind of see what the structure and style of the house was going to eventually become, but it had a long way to go before it was completed, and I had some convincing to do.
Contemporary wasn’t my thing as I was more used to antiques and country, but Terry, Brooke, and Nick thought the house was fabulous. We had seen some other houses that the builder had done in the neighborhood that were absolutely stunning, similar in construction but finished. Although nobody else could envision the final look of the house, I could. I knew that I could design an even better home. Spectacular!
We took the leap and bought the house in February 2006 with the promise that the construction work would definitely be completed by May because that was when we were scheduled to start filming season three of Hogan Knows Best. The builder swore up and down that he could do it in time. I put my faith in him and ran the job from Clearwater, driving down on weekends to work with the builder on details.
Terry and I decided not to pay for the house in full, but make payments instead. We had enough money in the bank to buy it outright, but we decided to play it safe and see how things went in Miami. Even though we were going to make house payments on this property, I felt strongly that after a year or two, if we wanted to sell the house, we could make a profit.
Miami proved to be good right off the bat for Brooke’s career in the music industry. While she was making a personal appearance at Mansion nightclub in Miami, we met record producer Scott Storch. At the time, it seemed like you couldn’t put on the radio without hearing one of his collaborations; he’d worked alongside such artists as Nelly Furtado, The Roots, and The Game. Storch loved the music/TV collaboration on our show and was willing to help her out. This was music to our ears!
Storch introduced us to his business partner, who was the head of the record label. After we decided to do business, we all flew down to Miami from Clearwater with cameras in tow to sign the contracts and ink Brooke’s deal with her new record producers. They handed her a check and welcomed her to the “family.” This was a big event for Brooke in real life as well as for the fans of her music and Hogan Knows Best.
Everyone was there from the entertainment company, including the receptionist, Christiane Plante. She sat at the table during the scene we shot for Hogan Knows Best. She was built just like me, about five foot seven in height with fair skin and big boobs. She was wearing tight jeans, a white wife-beater, and sexy heels. Christiane had jet-black hair and green eyes. She was in her early thirties and definitely sexy with that body! Little did I know back then that she would eventually prove to be too much of a temptation for my husband.
While the house was being built Terry and Brooke would drive down to Miami for three or four days to work on her music while I stayed with Nick in Clearwater and packed up for the move. We were actually only partially moving because we weren’t selling our Willadel home.
I wrote a diary entry on May 10, 2006, that reflected my feelings at the time:
We’re getting ready for our move to Miami, and it’s bittersweet. We were so excited and ready for a change, but change is hard emotionally. It’s hard to decide which clothes to take or not take. It’s hard for me to leave my “home,” wishing I was making the move to California instead of settling for Miami. But at this point, any change is welcomed.
Brooke got a record deal and a schedule, which means being gone. Nick has a deal to drive for Dodge, which means a schedule and being gone. I’m missing my two dogs and Lilly the rooster that all died within the last month. We’ve been confused about what to do for so long and then boom—TV show, moving, selling, full-time work, kids leaving, dogs dying—it’s just too much all at once. My house is full of boxes, I’m still not sure of what to pack or not—the new house is so empty. I wish it would just happen or not, but the waiting is putting me on such a bummer because I’m clinging to what is safe and keep changing my mind about the whole thing. In order to stay positive, I need to stay numb emotionally, because when I think about what I’ll be missing, it makes me so sad. I should be happy—moving on, fewer pets, less housework, venturing into new territory—but I’m not. I’ll just go through the motions—do what I have to do to move, try to stay positive for my family, but I’m just so spent—drained, tired, sad. This is a serious hurdle in my life. What will tomorrow bring?
The day that we left Willadel and headed to Miami, we had our cars loaded on open trucks. As we were heading down Interstate 195 across the Intercoastal, it began raining heavily. All of a sudden, the temperature dropped unexpectedly and the rain turned to hail. By the time we got close to our new house, it was hailing golf-ball-sized pieces of hail. Our beautiful cars were out on this open hauler being pelted. The driver tried to park under a tree to protect the cars, but it was next to impossible to find refuge. When we got to our new Miami home, everything we brought in was a muddy mess. Right out of the gate, the horrendous weather seemed like a sign of things to come. There was definitely a storm front coming all right!
All we had to start things off in our new home were some mattresses on the floor, so I had to play set dresser again. I decided to furnish the house a little less expensively because in Miami you can get away with smoke and mirrors by using a lot of white—white drapes, white pillows, white sofas, and so on.
In a magazine, I saw a house in Bali that looked stunning. I wanted to re-create a similar look in our new house with teak furniture, white fabric, palm trees, fountains, candles—all very peaceful. I thought it would look oh-so Miami for the show. I researched and found a place locally that sold furniture. I got a great deal, with all of the furniture costing us only $35,000. It was perfect for the Miami look, since we basically lived on set. Quick, cheap, and looks good on TV!
After it was delivered and Terry walked into the house, he flipped out. He hated the chunky teak furniture and wanted a modern sleek look for the house. “Get this shit out of here,” he demanded. “Call the guy at the store and tell him to take it back right now. What are you thinking!”
Men don’t usually care about furniture, especially Terry. Men care about sex, food, money, and sleeping. Plus, Terry never complained about all of the dark furniture I put in the Willadel house. When I furnished it on my own, he never asked me to return any of it. He loved showing his house off and knew that I knew what I was doing when it came to decorating. Looking back, I don’t think this was about the furniture. I think it was about finding stupid things that were wrong about me so he could excuse his cheating ways. Or maybe it was to make me feel inadequate and keep me busy so I wouldn’t notice what he was doing behind my back. The argument created distance, and that distance enabled him to do what he really wanted to do. If the house was in disarray, we both wouldn’t be there.
Returning the furniture caused a huge ruckus, and it sat in our garage as we negotiated a return. Meanwhile, we were set to begin shooting season three of Hogan Knows Best in two weeks and I had a huge home to furnish. I wished he’d had more compassion. Needless to say, I spent the next fourteen days basically living in my car and the main Levitz furniture showroom. It ended up being a costly mistake because I think they saw me coming! I thought Mom could shed some quick decorating light on the subject, but it was too hard to try to have her help from Los Angeles at the last minute. I decided to use a local decorator. He had a studio in the design district with lots of furniture on the floor. I bought most of the stuff he had because it was contem
porary and available immediately. I really didn’t have time now to worry about the price.
Terry liked the square modern look, so I went with it. It wasn’t my cup of tea at all, and I became dependent on the decorator to do the house. I guess it looked all right, but it ended up being so expensive. I had a deadline and never intended on having all of the added frustration! At that point, I was in over my head. Finally, the house was decorated to Terry’s liking. I was over it. I didn’t even care anymore. I had so much else on my plate.
Once the house was decorated, we started taping the new season. Honestly, I felt the show looked terrible that year because it was shot against an all-white background looking bland and boring. Willadel was so colorful and warm looking.
I really had a gorgeous plan for the house at first—waterfalls, palms, white flowing drapes—but trying to please Terry and do the ultramod thing? I just couldn’t figure out how to make the house look full with low, modern Italian furniture! Viewers who had watched the first two seasons of Hogan Knows Best were used to seeing bright colors and green trees on the show. Now, the only comfortable room in the entire house to sit in was a family room off the kitchen. Primarily, the entire family sat on one couch and two chairs for the entire third season. Our goal was to have new surroundings, but we were more confined than ever.
The heat in Miami was getting to me, and it had nothing to do with the weather.
Sleeping with the Frenemy?
The pressure of the show, kids’ schedules, animals, new help, workmen at the door, twenty-eight-person film crew, and the kids’ new friends caused a lot of behind-the-scenes fighting and bickering within our family during season three. It was like we were all in a pressure cooker with the cameras constantly rolling, wardrobe needing to be changed, getting the house ready for filming each day, and so on. And my day didn’t end when the cameras were shut off. No, I was only at the halfway point. We also had Brooke’s music career to contend with, and it was in full swing.
After we filmed all day I would take Brooke to the studio in Miami to work all night on her upcoming album. I’d literally sleep on a leather couch in the recording studio until six thirty in the morning, waking up every hour or so to check on Brooke and be a cheerleader for her. Then we’d rush back home and I’d have to be on-camera with VH1 at nine thirty A.M. When I got home from the recording studio, I would feed all the dogs and clean up the kitchen while Terry either slept, went to the gym, or simply woke up and got himself ready. I took a lot of static for not looking so good the last year in Miami. The tabloids relentlessly made fun of my outfits that I wore on-camera. With absolutely no time to shop, I wasn’t looking or feeling so hot.
Brooke had become good friends with Christiane, the secretary from the label. First, Christiane began assisting Brooke. I was so busy getting settled into our new house in Miami and shooting the reality show that I couldn’t handle every detail like I used to. At the time, Christiane was in her early thirties and Brooke was only nineteen, so it was great to have an adult with her from the record label. She assisted with autographing pictures and making sure the hotel reservations were made and the car service was on time, among other details like walking Brooke up to her room and getting her food. I always kept my interactions with Christiane professional. Brooke and Christiane had become good friends, and I let them do their thing. I was glad that Brooke had a companion on the road who could understand her workload and help her out a bit.
Their friendship didn’t end on the road. When Brooke was back in Miami, Christiane would often sleep over at the house in Brooke’s room. Brooke lived over the garage and had her own entrance with a lock on her door. Christiane slept in a separate bed in a loft in Brooke’s garage apartment. Since Brooke’s front door was close to the street, I told her to lock it at all times because anyone could hop the wall and break into her room. In Miami, you had to be extra careful. Sometimes, when Christiane was sleeping over, in the morning I’d walk across the courtyard to her room and the door would be unlocked. “Brooke, I told you to always lock the door!” I hollered.
“I did, Mom,” she answered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Oh, that’s typical of kids, I thought.
Weird things continued to happen that year in Miami—things that were hard to pinpoint, and I questioned my own sanity!
There was a round table and chairs in our master bedroom in Miami, and I was sitting there one afternoon trying to plan Brooke’s tour. I had two big bookcases that were ten feet tall. On the very top shelf, I had placed beautifully framed photos of me and the children. The other shelf had a collection of beautiful glass vases. I noticed something that didn’t look right. I stood on a chair and was surprised to see all of the framed photos of the kids and me turned over facedown. Did they fall over? There are no earthquakes in Florida. The vases and everything else were where I left them. Why were only the photos lying facedown? Did the maid knock them over? It was too high up for the maid to dust. And with seventeen thousand square feet of house to clean, it’s probably the last place she was worried about. It just didn’t add up.
From that time on, I started watching Terry more closely. Every morning as soon as he got up, he would attach his fanny pack to his waist, stuffed with his wallet and two cell phones. Even if Terry got up at six A.M. to make coffee, he would put the fanny pack on just to go downstairs. One day, when he came up a few minutes later holding his coffee cup, I asked him, “Why do you always have to take that fanny pack with you every time you go downstairs?”
“I might have to make a phone call,” he said.
“At six in the morning?” I shot back. “Why do you need two cell phones anyway?”
“I don’t get good reception on one of them.”
Terry always seemed to have an answer for everything. Many times at night he would pull into the driveway and he’d sit in his Mercedes for a while, talking on his cell phone. Once or twice I understand that you’re in the middle of a call and you don’t want to hang up and come right in. After a while, though, it was beginning to become a habit and it raised a red flag. One night I saw his headlights on for fifteen to twenty minutes and ran outside and told him to come in. Instead, he stayed out there for another twenty minutes. When Terry finally came inside, I asked him, a bit pissed off, “Why didn’t you just take the call in here?”
“I was already on the call and was comfortable inside the car.” Excuses, excuses!
Terry kept putting distance between us as well as with the people working alongside him on the show. During the day, he wouldn’t eat catered lunch with the crew. Instead, he’d always go out to eat by “himself” at a local Mexican restaurant, or so I thought. In actuality he was probably dining on Christiane’s lap!
When I was with Brooke in New York recording her music, I expressed my concern about the release date of her album, which was something that I didn’t agree with. When I got back to Miami, Terry confronted me about it. The only person who heard my conversation was Christiane. I asked Terry the golden question, “How do you even know about this?” I caught him off guard and after some stuttering he explained that Christiane told her boss, and then he told Terry. This was the tip of the iceberg. Too weird!
As Nick’s schedule grew more crowded, with his getting his GED and a sponsorship with Dodge, I was busier than ever. So Terry began accompanying Brooke to the recording studio. I was thankful because the hours were so bad. What I didn’t realize was that as he went more and more to the studios, he became closer friends with Brooke’s producers. When I went with Brooke, I’d make her tea with honey and listen in to the session, or sleep just outside her vocal booth on a black leather sofa until she needed me again. But when Terry went with Brooke, they put Brooke in a recording booth and then they’d all hang out in a separate room away from her, partying with a steady stream of women. I never knew any of this until we were close to wrapping the last season of Hogan Knows Best. Let’s just say, the walls had eyes. Brooke worked so hard
on her debut album, Undiscovered. When it was released in October 2006, it seemed a shame that the label owner didn’t have a solid marketing plan behind it. It was clear that they were more or less just counting on it selling on the heels of our fame and television show. Well, the album fell flat on its face because it had no promotion. I asked Terry to help us to get the label to promote Brooke’s album properly. He pretty much soft-pedaled the situation. I think he didn’t want to put a rift in his relationship with the head of the label because he had a few other big deals riding with them for himself and he didn’t want to rock the boat. Watching the album fail and the record label and her dad do nothing about it was devastating to Brooke. I would come to find out that there was even more to the story behind the scenes.
For New Year’s Eve 2007, our family made plans to go to the Forge, a fancy and trendy restaurant in Miami. Brooke felt sorry for Christiane because she had no plans for New Year’s and insisted that she come out with us. Brooke let her borrow a dress, and we called the restaurant and made room for one more at our table. While at the Forge, the wine was flowing, with bottles of red and white on our table at all times. I sat on one side of Terry while Christiane sat on the other. I noticed that the more the wine flowed, the cozier Christiane and Terry became with each other. Throughout dinner Terry kept reaching over and refilling Christiane’s glass with red wine and then he’d fill his own, never once pouring me any white. After dinner, Brooke and Nick went to meet some of their friends at another place down the street, while Terry, Christiane, and I went to the disco that was attached the restaurant. At the club, while we waited for our drinks Christiane excused herself and went to the restroom, and a couple seconds later Terry excused himself to go to the men’s room. The drinks came, and I sat alone at the table waiting for Terry and Christiane. Ten minutes went by, fifteen, twenty—they were gone for so long. My cell phone rang and Brooke told me that she and Nick needed to be picked up at another club right away. I couldn’t find Terry or Christiane anywhere. I paid the check and left the drinks on the table! I went to the ladies’ room—no Christiane. I went back to the restaurant area and they weren’t there, either. I went outside the club to the valet to get the car. A few moments later Terry came outside and Christiane resurfaced shortly after that. This is really odd, I thought. Where were they for almost a half hour?