Four years ago, jilted ex-husband Anthony Morelli was going through a messy divorce, complete with a sticky financial situation and a complicated custody battle. So he did what many in the modern age would do: He blogged about it. Morelli and his girlfriend, Misty Weaver-Ostinato, created the Psycho Ex-wife blog and soon found themselves with thousands of readers who related to his tales of contentious divorce drama. Four years later, the blog has become a community of sorts for divorced men... until, that is, a judge has called for Morelli to stop talking about the very things that made the blog a success.
On June 6, 2011, Family Court Judge Diane Gibbons ordered Morelli to shut down his blog and forbade him from mentioning his ex-wife Allison Morelli or his children on any public media.
"Your children are being hurt because you are badmouthing the woman they love in public," Gibbons said. "Should I put them with the man who is publicly browbeating their mother?"
After an online outburst after the ruling wherein Morelli boasted "the judge has no say over what I write here," the blog was officially shutdown by Gibbons on June 14.
"This is about the children," she said. "You may say anything that you would like to say. You may publish it. You may put it on a billboard. But you will not have your children, because that is abusive."
Morelli has gone on the defensive and says this ban violates his freedom of speech.
"Our website and community is not about bashing our ex-spouses," Morelli writes. "I am not fighting for the freedom to 'defend my right to bash my ex-wife in public.' I'm fighting to prevent our support group - and every other one out there - from being silenced simply because a judge doesn't like what is being written/spoken about, or the manner in which it is being written/spoken."
However, in published blogs, Morelli has described his wife as a "a blackout drunk," "a f*&%ing psycho" and like "Jabba the Hut with less personality." He is currently raising funds to fight the shutdown of his blog and to launch a violation of free speech case.