jetsetta
Team Owner
Shoutout to @ta1064 for giving me the courage to be a messy b!tch.
So, I read this article and it gave me the heebie jeebies. I wanted to leave it alone, but but I heard Joanne's voice saying "Yes! Dig further! Honestlaaayy..."
Here's the article:
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/olym...-from-rags-to-riches-to-win-gold-love/2110120
The bolded gave me cringey Svengali vibes. A little backstory, Tianna spoke out about being taken advantage of financially by her parents a while back. She also spoke out about her parents letting a boy who had previously molested her come by their house. So of course in 2012 her parents did the noble thing and sued her for $50K, to "get her attention." They also blamed her new husband for turning her against her family.
Here's some snippets of an article summarizing the ordeal:
http://heavy.com/news/2012/09/gold-...ver-abuse-lies-top-10-facts-you-need-to-know/
So of course I had to follow the link in #2. Her parents are so trife:
But wait, there's more:
John has a history of using the media to manipulate disputes. Here's an article about a spat with his interior designer. He takes the reporter around his poorly designed house:
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/olym...-from-rags-to-riches-to-win-gold-love/2110120
The real tea came from some weird lady's blog post. She claimed to be Tianna's "Twitter friend." She says that around the time Tianna and John got married she deleted all her social media accounts and started posting under UNation, some site that John created. The title is such clickbait (kidnapping, really?) but the comments shed some insight:
https://earthzebra.com/2012/09/12/h...ianna-madison-been-kidnapped-and-brainwashed/
Yeah it gets a lot worse, there was so much sh!t I couldn't post it all. The comments span 4 years. They all basically say in one way or another that he's a slimy, unstable guy who picks up young black women online and tries to charm them with his wealth.
These comments were particularly chilling:
https://www.iaaf.org/news/series/ti... 'tianna bartoletta', Page1&utm_content=Slot3
http://indianexpress.com/sports/rio...tta-plans-for-long-jump-sprint-glory-2969005/
So many "we's" smh. Those comments though, I wasn't expecting to see all that. She seems happy and she performed really well. I really, really hope she's happy. Rock and a hard place for real if she isn't.
So, I read this article and it gave me the heebie jeebies. I wanted to leave it alone, but but I heard Joanne's voice saying "Yes! Dig further! Honestlaaayy..."
Here's the article:
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/olym...-from-rags-to-riches-to-win-gold-love/2110120
TAMPA Sprinter Tianna Bartoletta sat in a chair at Tampa's Centre Club, gold medal dangling from her neck, explaining the path from her athletic beginnings to Olympic glory.
At the room's front table, watching and listening intently, sat her husband, John.She has been sharing her story how she went from the world's best long jumper, to languishing for seven years, to becoming an Olympic gold medalist.
In 2005, at age 19, Tianna won the world long jump championship.
Then she struggled to match that success. She grew out of shape by track and field standards. She dealt with a bankruptcy and foreclosure.
But last year, Tianna, 27, did anything but struggle. She helped the U.S. women win gold in the 4x100-meter relay and shatter the world record at the Summer Olympics in London. She followed that feat by earning a spot on the U.S. national bobsled team that aims to compete in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
If you asked what changed in those seven years, Tianna points to a chance meeting with John, a 49-year-old investment manager, in Orlando.
She came to Orlando after moving from Los Angeles to train with coach Caryl Smith Gilbert. She had just placed a "devastating" fifth at the 2008 Olympic trials.
"I needed to perform better and I was nearing the end of my contract, and I needed to post results," Tianna said.
Then she stumbled upon John Bartoletta at an Orlando restaurant. Their first encounter became a sprawling three-hour conversation.
"Three hours, and that was it," John said. "I couldn't stop thinking about her."
Although Tianna said the conversation was fun, it also contained hard, honest truths that she would take to heart.
"(He said) 'You haven't stopped lying to yourself, you haven't stopped cutting corners'," she said. " 'You don't even know how you good you are.' "
John said they started dating right away, talking every day. She moved to Lutz to live with him, and in 2012 they married.
On New Year's Eve that year, sitting on the couch with John watching a Red Bull snowmobile and motorcycle jump, Tianna said, she decided to fully commit to track and field. The name of the event: New Year. No Limit.
"We decided that 2012 was going to be our year," she said.
She started a daily commute from Lutz to Daytona Beach to train with coach Rana Reider that would last 220 days. Tianna said she would leave at 7 a.m. and make it to practice at 10 a.m. for a track workout that would last until noon.
She would then have a couple of minutes to call John and eat leftovers steak, beef jerky, a protein shake. After training in the weight room, she would drive home and eat a regimen of 2 pounds of steak, a bag of mushrooms or brussels sprouts, lots of spinach and lots of water.
It was so much water, John said, that she drank 11 cases of 24-packs in the five weeks leading up to the Olympic trials.
"She was anemic at the time," he said. "Her whole body type, strength and body fat level changed radically last year."
Despite winning the gold medal, Tianna said, the greater sense of success at the Olympics came when she finished fourth in the 100-meter finals just .04 from another medal. While she didn't earn bronze, she clocked a 10.85 a time she had been striving to reach.
"I will tell you we celebrated a lot harder about that 10.85 than we did about the gold medal," Tianna said.
When it came time to celebrate the gold medal, the couple stopped by a convenience store near their rented flat in London.
"We walked into the convenience store with the medal because of one of the cashiers had said, "If you don't come back with the medal, I'm going to kill you,' " Tianna said. "This girl, she was really funny. So I go, 'Ha!' and showed her the medal."
They bought potato chips and Magnum ice creams, went home and watched the latest Harry Potter movie.
That night, they started discussing the similarities between track and field and bobsledding training, warmups, the block start and the bobsled start. John put in a call, and Tianna was asked to try out for the U.S. bobsled team.
After making the team, she first competed on the Lake Placid, N.Y., track, taking third place. And although Tianna said she wasn't afraid for her life, it was an intense, violent experience.
"I'm so disoriented, I'm walking sideways," she said. "I can't get out of my helmet, I start to hyperventilate. John's looking completely scared to death. And I finally get out of my helmet, and there's just drool and snot everywhere."
Now Tianna is training for the 2013 World Championships in Moscow. Her commute now only includes Tampa and Bradenton, but the training remains intense. She takes a day off for recovery, including chiropractic and hyperbaric chamber sessions.
She's also hoping to launch Club 360, a primarily online outreach program for young girls, by the end of the year. She said she came up with the idea several years ago, while still struggling herself.
Looking back, Tianna said, the beginning of her current success in track and field came from that three-hour dinner conversation with John.
"I believed what he was saying and believed him enough to believe in myself, and that was kind of the start of the whole new track and field journey," she said. "But it also was the foundation of our relationship, which is believe in each other."
The bolded gave me cringey Svengali vibes. A little backstory, Tianna spoke out about being taken advantage of financially by her parents a while back. She also spoke out about her parents letting a boy who had previously molested her come by their house. So of course in 2012 her parents did the noble thing and sued her for $50K, to "get her attention." They also blamed her new husband for turning her against her family.
Here's some snippets of an article summarizing the ordeal:
http://heavy.com/news/2012/09/gold-...ver-abuse-lies-top-10-facts-you-need-to-know/
[FONT=&]1. Her parents say theyve always been loving and generous parents and spent $100,000 on her training.
2. Tianna and John Bartoletta say they are private people but her hometown newspaper says the couple started threatening her parents in March with lawsuits and trying to sell her story to local newspapers.
7. Her rich new hubby founded the Unation social media site, where he brags on his wife. A lot.[/FONT]
So of course I had to follow the link in #2. Her parents are so trife:
the Madisons see the lawsuit as a way of getting their daughters attention.
It was a wake-up call for Tianna to really look at the entire situation and look at what exactly is going on, he said. Hopefully, she will realize there is some importance in having a relationship with her parents.
Schooler said the Madisons did assist their daughter with her finances but stopped years ago. And, in regards to the claim the couple let their daughters molester into the family home, Schooler said the Madisons have no facts that she was ever molested.
But secondly, assuming that fact is true, the parents had no knowledge this had ever happened, he said. She did not disclose this to her parents.
But wait, there's more:
According to the complaint, on that day Bartoletta indicated for the first time to the Madisons that their daughter was planning to sue them for mismanaging her finances and abusing their power of attorney. The complaint said Bartoletta had hired a bodyguard to protect his wife.
Jo Ann and Robert Madison were shocked by the allegations, which they contend were unfounded and untrue. No such lawsuit has ever been filed.
After that call, the Madisons allege in the lawsuit that Bartoletta or their daughter would call them repeatedly with accusations of improprieties.
The complaint said Tianna Madison and her husband were shopping a story and prewritten article in regards to the athletes life with her parents around to several media outlets, including the Plain Dealer, which eventually ran an exclusive blog written by Tianna Madison leading up to her Olympic debut.
That article was the first time the parents had learned of the molestation incident in high school, they have said.
Around that same time, a Plain Dealer reporter contacted the Madisons at their Elyria home and indicated he had received the story, but the newspaperwas not publishing it.
Still, the lawsuit said Tianna Madison continued with her pursuit to have her story told and on Aug. 11 sent a text message to her parents telling them that after the Olympic games she would break the story of the Madisons selfish, controlling and utterly abusive ways and treatment of her, and that it was going to be brutal.
The accusation is in contrast to how Robert Madison said his daughter was raised at the citywide rally held in her honor. In a video posted after the event on chroniclet.com, Robert Madison talks candidly about their family life.
When Tianna was young, and Christina, we trained them to read the word, love the Lord, love people, take care of people, take care of your community and the community would give back to you, he said. When you train them this way, how to do their studies and have a good work ethic, it carries over into their athletics and academics.
John has a history of using the media to manipulate disputes. Here's an article about a spat with his interior designer. He takes the reporter around his poorly designed house:
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/olym...-from-rags-to-riches-to-win-gold-love/2110120
The real tea came from some weird lady's blog post. She claimed to be Tianna's "Twitter friend." She says that around the time Tianna and John got married she deleted all her social media accounts and started posting under UNation, some site that John created. The title is such clickbait (kidnapping, really?) but the comments shed some insight:
https://earthzebra.com/2012/09/12/h...ianna-madison-been-kidnapped-and-brainwashed/
Her husband did not kidnap her. He is a control freak. He treats even his close friends very poorly. Talks crap about them. My guess is he called her parents and spewed horrible threats to them. That is his style. Basically thinks he can get away with saying anything. When this all comes out, no one will be saying they are bad parents. They are standing up to him. The only people who can even stand him are on his payroll. I feel bad for Tianna. Im sure she is a nice girl who feels she owes her life to him. We can only hope he doesnt turn on her too. She had to chose between her parents and the man in the big house pulling her puppet strings. Bad choice.
Ya, I was invited to one of his parties promoting his new, or at this point not so new social media site. At that time, I met his girlfriend. She is also a black girl. My wife and I found her to be very nice but the only interaction they had was more boss and employee. My wife said if I ever talk to her that way, it would end in divorce. Tiannas parents are in for a big battle. I smell a counter suit . But to bartoletta, it is just more publicity for his site that is in trouble. He saw a chance to get an Olympic athlete onboard, in hopes of saving it.
I saw on the news that she received a key to the city of Tampa for her win. Shes not a resident of Tampa. No one here even knows who she is. She is just shacking up with some guy here. Elyria should have been where she got the key. Those are her peeps.
In the end, that town will have nothing to do with her and being his wife here does nothing for her personally. When he turns on her, she will be left with nothing.
Btw. His house is nice, but I wasnt impressed. There has been some chatter that he is going bankrupt and it may take that for her to see the man behind the curtain.
John Bartoletta has so many lawsuits against him for various bad deeds it would make your head spin
...
He basically lived with another girl and seems to have thrown her to the curb for Tianna. Could have something to do with his impending bankruptcy for himself.
ArielleOctober 16, 2012 at 7:34 PM #
You have every right to be concerned about this young lady. People making comments on the news articles blame her family. They have no idea. I blame John Bartoletta. I live in the Tampa area and have met him. What can you say about a man who asked me several times if I was impressed by him? Uh no!! He is an ego-maniac, bragger, name dropping, control freak who has obviously brainwashed and alienated this young woman from her family and friends. He gets pleasure from bragging about some waiter he got fired from a local steakhouse because he knows people. What person do you know, who within the first few minutes of meeting you, starts to tell you about everything that you need fixed or changed? Hmm, just saying .lol! There is more I could say about his house (a tomb is more appealing) and an alleged ex wife and estranged child who he claimed have no contact with him, but its all just too weird, like him. I gladly stopped dealing with him because he is slicker than snot. I feel sorry for Tianna and pray that she can reconcile with her family and see this man for what he really is, before its too late.
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DebbieOctober 16, 2012 at 8:16 PM #
Great comment and very true. Very ugly divorce from that ex-wife and hasnt seen his child in years. Not even sure he is allowed. Thinks nothing of abusing his employees especially if you are female
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ArielleOctober 16, 2012 at 8:30 PM #
Debbie, Thank you. I am not trying to hate, but I know how my interaction with him went down. I really feel sorry for this young lady. She is young, beautiful, intelligent and obviously a very talented athlete. Yes, Im sure he had the means to help get her to Olympic gold, but I am sure he doesnt hesitate to remind her daily of this either! She knows how to run NOW might be a good time to start. Make a run to the store and head home to Elyria!!! LOL!! But, seriously I just really pray that her family doesnt give up on her.
DebbieOctober 16, 2012 at 9:25 PM #
I feel very sorry also. Knowing him she is not allowed to do anything without his approval. If she does there is hell to pay. If you go against him he looks at you as an enemy
Hello EZ I like your blog I knew John Bartoletta on a personal level for about ten years The first time I met him I caught him in a lie Needless to say I scan the interwebs every few months to see if John Bartoletta has been sued, committed to a mental institution or arrested for securities fraud He made my skin crawl like no other human on earth Are there any updates on this ringmasters circus? What was the outcome of Hemenway Vs. Bartoletta? Has he completely destroyed this poor young woman yet?
Yeah it gets a lot worse, there was so much sh!t I couldn't post it all. The comments span 4 years. They all basically say in one way or another that he's a slimy, unstable guy who picks up young black women online and tries to charm them with his wealth.
These comments were particularly chilling:
Ok 2 more snips of articles:Jessica JJanuary 14, 2016 at 11:59 PM #
WOW!! this is so crazy. I just said yes to an option on facebook to link my contacts to FB and this crazy name came up. I pride myself on having an over active vivid intuition which makes me even arriving at this blog soooooo eerie because I have never met John in person, but was contacted by him years ago on a dating site. this was like 2005-2007. For some reason He made my skin crawl and I would feel something really strong and off about him. He came across as someone with an insane ego and need for control. I described him to my mom and believed he showed characterestics of a megomaniac and a sociopath. He tried to wow me with pics of his home etc. He called me several times and and once I heard his voice, my physical reaction to it was in synch with what I perceived. There was something fowl about this man. He began telling me that he wanted to marry me and promising me the world and talking as if we knew each other intimately for years, yet we had never met and this was one of our first phone conversations. I was in the car with my mom and I told him I couldnt really talk because she was there and he even wanted me to put her on the phone because he was dead serious. Then I did something that set him off in a bizarre rage, I laughed at him. When he heard me laughing at him he freaked out. This made me realize that I may be dealing with a mentally ill person and became afraid of interacting with him. This did not stop me from snooping around to confirm my intuition that something was seriously off with this man and then . 16 years later I stumble upon this. I agree and support your intuition. You and her family are 100% correct. Tiana turning on her family and dropping out of site far away from her friends and fans is typical text book behavior by an emotionally abused woman that is with a controlling man. There is something wring here for sure. One other thing that I remember was his strong macho personality that was very aggressive. I can only imagine what this veteran sh!t talker said to her to convince her that he is a dream maker. He did not technically do anything to me but he made me feel he was unstable and dangerous due to the extreme reaction he had to me laughing at him. It was scary. I really feel for her. I was in a similar situation with this same personality type.. he will isolate her and make her feel that everything she is and does is because of him and he will tell her that everyone else is only going to fill her head with lies and that they want to tear them apart because they are jealous and dont really love her or have her best interests in mind. . He may even threaten her not to
leave him. He will convince her that he knows best. it is a form of brainwashing he will stripper of her self-esteem and re-create it making him as her king and provider and make her believe that she owes it all to him. I survived this drama before. The important thing are people like you who have intuition and speak up and use this means and social media to speak your mind. It is also important for family and friends NOT to give up on her. They need to be just as aggressive and clever as he is to get her to see her family. God Bless
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ArielleJune 21, 2016 at 1:56 PM #
Wow! I just read some more of the comments and they are all accurate! Especially the dating website. I met him on dating site, years ago and he attached a link to company video of him in the email. I met him in person for lunch and needless to say, my inner bell was ringing the entire time. He said didnt like my fingernail color. He was bragging and name dropping. He kept asking me if I was blown away by him. No, I wasnt and I left him alone after that. All I can say is: notice she credits him with her success in every interview. Hmmm!? I hope that she reconciles with her family one day.
https://www.iaaf.org/news/series/ti... 'tianna bartoletta', Page1&utm_content=Slot3
What is your favourite music to chill to?
TB: I like a lot of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. That is a genre of music I like to listen to. It helps me unwind. I like the smoothness in their voice. Their delivery disarms and relaxes me.
Describe your perfect day without training.
TB: It would normally be a typical Sunday. My husband wakes before me, so when I get up there will be Italian opera music playing and he would have made breakfast. It will then be a lazy Sunday either in the pool or watching (American) football at this time of year. When it comes to a non-training day, I like to do absolutely nothing.
If you could pick any other athlete in the world with whom to relax, who would it be?
TB: Someone who has succeeded at the long jump, so Ill go for Jackie Joyner-Kersee. She was also an amazing heptathlete and Id like to ask her how she found the transition between training for heptathlon and long jump because I struggle switching from my sprinting rhythm on the runway to running in the 100m. She would be the perfect person for me to relax with. Shes already been successful and has a heart for philanthropy which Im completely drawn to. She would be a great person to shoot the breeze with.
Where is your favourite place to relax?
TB: On my couch, in front of my television at home. We have an 80in flat-screen television and although my husband has a very busy job, if I say Ill meet you on the couch at 7.30pm hell be there. It is also the second-best place to watch movies after the movie theatre.
http://indianexpress.com/sports/rio...tta-plans-for-long-jump-sprint-glory-2969005/
[FONT=&]Its one thing to say youre going to win an Olympic medal or two. Its another to plan out every step in minute detail _ on laminated flash cards, even _ the way Tianna Bartoletta does.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]The 30-year-old American is one of those rare throwbacks _ trying for sprint medals in the 100 and the relay, while also focusing on her day job, the long jump, where shes the defending world champion.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]It makes her busier than your average Olympian, and shes got the perfect system to handle it all. Printed on cards , in near minute-by-minute detail, are her daily routines for pretty much everything _ practice days, long jump days, sprint days, transportation, meals, packing her suitcase, and so on.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]We have laminated cards to give to the cab drivers, said Bartolettas husband, John, who doubles as her team manager. We treat it like a business. That way, it takes everything off her mind and allows her to run free. When shes on the line, theres nothing else shed even need to think about.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Right around her lowest point, she met her future husband, a hedge-fund trader in Florida who took a lot of what he learned in the financial world and brought it over to the track.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]She wasnt training, was overweight, having some struggles, John Bartoletta said. I told her, `I would never tell you what to do, but Ill give you some options. It didnt happen at the kitchen table. It was a deep, intellectual discussion of her options.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]It meant recommitting herself to a new training regimen, better diet, better planning. John Bartoletta did more than talk the talk; he designed an improved training program for himself, as well: If shes (going to do it), then Im not eating a piece of pizza in front of her, he said. In fact, Im going to train myself like an Olympic athlete because if shes doing it, Im going to do it.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]The truest test of their planning came at Olympic trials, where Bartoletta was trying to qualify for the 100 and long jump _ events that were literally going on at the same time. She had to take her first jump, then get to the starting line for the 100-meter heats, then back again.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]The plan wasnt to win, the plan was to make the team by earning a top-three spot in each event, she said. We executed it beautifully.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Given the stress of that day, the Olympics will feel like a breeze in some ways.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]The womens 100 final is set for Saturday. The long jump starts next Tuesday. While the womens 100 _ featuring Americans Tori Bowie and English Gardner and two-time defending champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce _ is considered possibly the most competitive event on the program, Bartoletta will be among the favorites in the long jump. Shell also be in the mix in the 4×100 relay _ an event where she already has a gold medal, courtesy of her role as the lead-off runner in the world-record trip around the track (40.82 seconds) in London four years ago.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Something magical could happen in Rio, her husband said. If we get her to the track and she makes the semifinals and performs there, the rest of the week will light up. Shell do very, very well.[/FONT]
[FONT=&]All part of the plan.[/FONT]
So many "we's" smh. Those comments though, I wasn't expecting to see all that. She seems happy and she performed really well. I really, really hope she's happy. Rock and a hard place for real if she isn't.