TV

Lifetime Double Feature: A Single Episode Of My Life Is A Lifetime Movie

The OG network for women is killing it with their original programming 24/7, 365. It’s in that spirit that I’m making a commitment to reduce my significant DVR backlog by sampling two of their offerings at a time. This week: a three-week-old episode of My Life Is A Lifetime Movie (What? I said my DVR backlog was serious! Relax, there are two stories in each episode.)

This is a reality show in which women who have had bananas things happen to them get to tell their stories. Because it’s Lifetime, these stories typically involve illicit sex, a husband whose Entire Identity Was A Lie or both. This week we got one of each.

Story One: Jodie Barrus, a married high school teacher in a small town, hired a local high school student to do…something clerical for her women’s softball league. She was pretty, blonde, and young so this student developed a crush on her…(Lifetime movie trailer voice) that turned into AN OBSESSION. She let her students text her (???) and so he got her number and asked her to prom. She declined and that seemed like it was the end of it, until he came by her house to pick up a check. Shortly thereafter, he accused her of having sex with him in her home — basing the description of it off the brief visit to her house — and sending him text messages about being “DTF.” She was arrested, the media got ahold of her smiling mugshot and it was off to the races. Four months later the case went to trial and she was acquitted in about 5 seconds both because the kid’s testimony read like bad fan fiction and probably also because she belonged to a softball league (get it? Just kidding). Anyway, the craziest part of this whole thing is that she vetoed her husband’s plan to move out of the teeny tiny town and she still sees that kid around — he was even caught hanging out in his car outside her house. Jodie Barrus, please don’t get murdered. Consider moving.

Story Two: This story got a smaller share of the hour than the first one, which is a shame because this one is infinitely crazier. This woman, a Cuban immigrant from Miami, had two kids from a previous marriage and was down on her luck romantically. Enter Juan-Pablo, a recent Cuban immigrant, who she married after he protected her and her kids during a hurricane. He was a member of an organization called Hermanos al Rescate, which rescued Cuban political refugees who were stuck at sea by plane. Eventually he told her that he was working with the FBI to take down…something related to Castro, and had to leave for a few days but told her he’d be available by phone the whole time. He kissed her goodbye with tears in his eyes and bounced, and later she discovered that he had emptied out all of his drawers except for his cell phone, which he left behind. She turned the TV to a Cuban channel and there was Juan-Pablo talking about how Hermanos al Rescate was a threat to the Castro regime. Yup, dude was a Cuban spy. This lady spent the next two years being gently interrogated by the FBI and eventually sued the Cuban government and got a $20 million judgment, which I’m pretty sure she used some of to get a new face.

Lessons Learned: Your second husband may turn out to be spying for Castro, don’t text high school students, don’t smile in your mug shot.

TAGS: Lifetime | television for women | TV For Women

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