A Detailed Statement from Frankie

Here's a longer statement from Frankie, going into detail about her own abuse:

Hi. I am Frankie. I played DnD in I Hit it With My Axe. I lived with Zak and Mandy in LA. AMA. 

I know most people here have already made up their minds on how to feel about this public and now ugly divorce. 

CW/ abuse
I never wanted to publicly talk about my own experience with my abuser, and I won’t go into detail. Only that I was severely gaslit, verbally abused daily, raped and reached a point of being suicidal. I hate having to even say as much, but I feel like this is important. I reached out to anyone I could whenever I couldn’t take it anymore. I started with family members, screaming crying into the phone not knowing what to do, not knowing what was even really going on. I was told by family “This is abusive, you are in an abusive relationship you need to leave.” I couldn’t leave. I wondered how to, wondered why I wasn’t enough. I stayed. I called KK one out of several days, crying. Screaming telling her I couldn’t take it anymore, that I wanted to die. She was there for me, she knows what I went through. This went on for years until actually, he left me. He left me after I demanded we go to therapy together, the therapist insisted he take responsibility for himself. After that he said fuck this and left. So I went to therapy. Then I understood deeply, how to heal and how to understand what had happened. To understand the strength it took to set boundaries, the strength it takes to see how I let it happen and how to make sure I never let it happen again. 

I have to open with this because, nearly everyone who has been close with Zak and Mandy, who have actually lived with them, know that Mandy is essentially full of shit in her post. I know this because not only did I live with them, I have been through years of the horrifying experience she claims to have survived. 

First of all, you have to understand that Zak and Mandy as a couple were almost identically the same person. They were each other’s other halves. Their past times included reading the same books and comics, gaming and threesomes/various lovers. Yes people outgrow each other. This happens. But what she writes about him is a new narrative for her, and is completely unwarranted in it’s attempt to assassinate his character to justify the person she’s grown to become. 

I met them at Canter’s for a friends birthday party. I liked them because they were both charismatic, looked cool and seemed intellectual enough to hold a conversation about Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time. We connected on the fact that I was obsessed with Oblivion/Skyrim and they insisted I’d enjoy a tabletop version, which was DnD. I went over to play an 8 hour campaign. I remember thinking to myself “god damn everyone here is unusually sex driven/horny.” Which is funnily the moment Zak introduced me to the fact that they were mostly all sex workers. 

I played d&d with them, we watched movies together, drank together, they asked me to be in pornos with them I said no every time. I remember the time being super fun. I also remember when they were preparing for I Hit it With My Axe, they said I couldn’t be on the show because I wasn’t a sex worker. Somehow I got on the show anyway because we had all become friends. 

In getting to know them I learned some things. When I asked Mandy how they met she unabashedly let me know they met on the internet and that they “fucked within 20mins of meeting”, in an elevator. Zak says Mandy had a powerful sex drive, I was there to witness what happened if Mandy’s needs were not met. i learned very quickly that Mandy ran the show, she called the shots and she was absolutely the matriarch. This is important because in an abusive situation, one’s voice is completely silenced. I was so silenced I was unable to even speak for myself in simple public circumstances like ordering food. This was a very slow process that I have come to take full responsibility for allowing because I had no idea how to keep it from getting to that point.
Mandy claims that Zak had “idolized” her body and not her as a person. In my experience with them, this is unequivocally untrue. Zak definitely idolized Mandy, and it -was- about who she was as a person. Remember they shared the same interests, read the same books, read to each other, essentially felt the same about most things. Zak constantly held Mandy up as someone who wholly understood him in ways many others could never and vice versa. I was there when he showed appreciation toward her capacity for intellect and understanding, her interest in books not many other people were interested in. In her desire to know and understand minute details of Star Trek ships and references. If Zak only idolized her body, then Mandy must have fully fabricated a personality to fit Zak’s pleasures. Let’s look for personal accountability here. 

There was a lot of stress to deal with. Mandy was constantly sick, constantly going to the ER, she had no insurance so most of Zak’s earnings went straight to ghost symptoms and a seemingly endless array of medical difficulties. Despite this, I only really ever saw Zak get truly angry when my dog Nico bit his toe, drew blood and I was incredibly unapologetic about it. 

I speak about Zak’s demeanor here because there are signs to look for in an abuser. Loses temper quickly and easily is one of them, and I mostly saw Zak coast. He was incredibly supportive and capable of emotionally connecting to our ideas and aspirations and regularly offered positive encouragement. This is not something an abuser would be even remotely capable of. I also interacted with Mandy a lot. Zak always wanted to debate and I always refused, and I feel like I did this because I sensed it would make Mandy uncomfortable. I was not in their rotation as a lover, she was unable to dominate me, and so I was a free human who could converse with Zak without her control. Yet I sensed her need for the control and I naturally set boundaries knowing I did not want to set her off. I mean even in living with them if I was going out I’d ask if they thought my outfit was cool and Mandy constantly told me I was insecure and needed to get a grip on that. I felt secure, I thought asking friends about outfits was a thing friends did when they lived together but I mostly ignored those projections. 

Mandy and I talked about babies, and never wanting them. Mandy had mentioned it wasn’t possible for her to get pregnant, because of the nature of her many medical issues, her arthritis and her small stature. She said it wasn’t even possible for her to get pregnant and that if she did she could possibly die. I set out to understand Mandy’s medical issues and in knowing what her body went through and how physically fragile she was, I believed her. I have to add that when I moved in and was car shopping I purposefully bought a car that would fit a wheelchair in the back. I truly felt for her and her medical issues and always wanted to help. 

Whenever I was out with Zak and Mandy, Mandy would point women out to Zak for him to check out and they would assess them together. It wasn’t a thing I saw that Zak offered up or did on his own. In the time I knew Zak and hung out with them this doesn’t even align with who he is as a person. This whole breast humiliation narrative just doesn’t make any sense at all. If anything Mandy was a scathing breast critic in the claim that hers were perfect and above all others. God how ridiculous to even think about. When I was living there Gia had come over to get photos taken for a painting. She wildly complained about the size of her breasts during the photoshoot (it was in our living room) and Zak did nothing but compliment her, put her at ease and tell her she was perfect and even when Gia mentioned wanting to get a boob job Zak encouraged her to do whatever would make her feel her best but that she was wonderfully perfect the way she was. He was painting her for crying out loud! 

This is a couple who very regularly had lovers, enjoyed threesomes and had multiple sister-wives over the span of their relationship. Some of the discomfort or abuse Mandy addresses is simply dysfunction and not actual abuse or it is dramatized and worded to seem heavier than what it actually is. 

As far as Mandy grooming women for Zak. No. There was a girl from the midwest Mandy begged Zak to fly out here so she “could fuck her”. They had a friend visiting from NY that Mandy was very excited to “fuck”. 

In writing this I understand that people change, that people grow into new and different humans. But a lot of what’s written in the post are vague renditions of severe abuse and a need to experience a healing process through exaggerating or downright making up trash nonsense and gather people to feel sorry for her. 

In my life I have been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and have spent years trying to understand what my body was going through. I learned about fibromyalgia when my father passed while I was still living with Zak and Mandy. My grief wholly consumed me and took a debilitating tax on my body. I was fortunately definitely not as sick as Mandy but when I dealt with the grief of loss from my father, Mandy was not nearly as understanding or present as she was when it was clear she would not be able to manipulate, control me or take advantage of my kindness. This is when things hit a heavy point and I moved out. I swore they were both totally out of their fucking minds and as the years passed I remember saying to friends: Mandy will get sicker. She absolutely fetishizes victimhood. 

I don’t like to refute or question when women come forward with their stories of abuse. Since the MeToo movement started it seemed a safe way to express solidarity for something that happens to women regularly. However since then I have also seen a slew of false accusations, riding the wave of women who have actually endured long standing abuse for whatever wild ass reason and I don’t stand for that shit so this is my perspective of life with this couple for whatever it’s worth.

Frankie gave me permission to publish her original DM to me: