MUST I APOLOGIZE TO FELICITY HUFFMAN?

MUST I APOLOGIZE TO FELICITY HUFFMAN?

My legions of blog followers will, without a doubt, remember the “So You Think Life In Prison Is Easy, Eh?” blog that I posted in September regarding the sentencing to prison of actress Felicity Huffman for her part in the college admissions scandal in the US. I am afraid I was a little insensitive and flippant when I identified a number of the conditions that Huffman would face in prison. Her hours of sunbathing and TV watching were restricted and she was forced to make her own bed and only shop in the concession once a week. Little did I realize that her confinement would be much more traumatic. Today, I read two articles that described her incarceration woes.

One newspaper article headline screamed, “Huffman a wreck in jail”. It reports, “Horrified Felicity Huffman has turned into a shattered wreck behind bars. The shamed actress has cried non-stop, barely eaten and lived in fear she’d be targetted by fellow cons as she rots in the FCI in Dublin, California. The constant screams, yelping and banging rammed it home that she’d been thrust into a living hell.”

“Each day seems to last forever,” tattled a prison snitch.”She feels so alone with so much time on her hands.” Terrified of a confrontation, Huffman has turned into a recluse, said the spy. “She tries to hide her pain, so she doesn’t come across as weak”. But alone in her cell, she’s a crying, blubbering mess. And the pampered star can barely stomach prison food. Felicity never imagined how revolting the food could be.

I can’t vouch for the honesty or integrity of the prison snitch, but despite a probable small cash donation to his rehabilitation fund by National Inquirer, he is probably a person of character, just reporting the facts. The second news report is much more believable, I think when you consider the source.

Former jailbird Martha Stewart, the ex-con insider trading queen, took it upon herself to comment on a recent paparazzi photo of Huffman wearing a prison jumpsuit. Steward reports, “She (Huffman) should style her outfit a little bit more. She looked pretty schlumpy. She made a horrible mistake and now she’s paying for it.” If Huffman relaxes this evening and reads the two reports above, I am sure that Stewart’s criticism will no doubt be the most hurtful and damning. No woman, regardless of the occasion, wants to have her wardrobe dissed and scoffed upon, especially by Martha Stewart, the fashion guru of the eggs benny and mimosa sipping crowd.

So today, I am kind of ashamed that I might have been too harsh in my earlier blog about the kind of minimal security institute that Huffman would be held in. And my biggest concern now is what might happen to her in the last seven days of her sentence, when she has already undergone so much pain and anguish in the first week of her two-week sentence.

I am going to have to undergo some sensitivity training soon if I am not more careful! Perhaps I can start with a “Sorry, Felicity - I can feel your pain!”