Jets make it to the playoffs as owner’s daughter found dead
When Jets’ owner Woody Johnson went to bed on Sunday night, he was probably feeling good about himself. The team he paid $635 million for in 2000 – the most money ever paid for a New York team -- a team with way more losses than wins over the years, upsets and failures, made the playoffs.
But what good is professional success when you wake up to the phone call every parent fears most?
The Jets – who are based in Florham Park, NJ and play in East Rutherford, don’t let the New York name fool you -- got into the playoffs on Sunday. Casey Johnson was found dead on Monday. Some will say it’s the Jets curse rearing its ugly head again. But it’s just another sad tale of drug addiction.
Johnson – Robert Wood Johnson IV – is a Jersey guy. He’s a resident of Bedminister, was raised near New Brunswick and is part of the Johnson & Johnson family; his great-grandfather was Robert Wood Johnson I, co-founder of the company. There’s even a Robert Wood Johnson hospital in New Jersey.
He was raised with old money and privilege and became a generous philanthropist. He passed the same on to his 5 children, who never wanted for a thing, except, perhaps, his time. Who knows. He’s a private man, his family life even more so.
Except for Casey. The 30-year-old lesbian had a history of drug and alcohol problems and speculation is that she overdosed, whether or not remains to be seen. In an act of tough love, her father cut off her trust fund. But that didn’t stop her addictive ways, and it was her maid who found her. Trust fund or not, she had access to money.
She made headlines from time to time, most recently for her engagement to reality star Tila Tequila. In November she was arrested for robbing $200,000 worth of jewelry from the apartment of former girlfriend, model Jasmine Lennard. She was a childhood friend of Paris Hilton, and an heiress to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. She’s been in and out of rehab several times.
Her adopted daughter from Kazakhstan, now 3, has been in the custody of her mother for months.
What should now be a time of celebration and strategy for Woody Johnson is now one of sadness and regret. In the end, no one can really help an addict; it comes from within. But I doubt that’s any comfort to a father who thought he did everything but then found it wasn’t enough. Or, one who feels guilt over not having done much of anything at all except write checks.
Maybe he knows he couldn’t save her, that it was her journey. She was 30 years old, certainly no kid.
Drugs. They rob everyone’s joy – the user’s, and everyone around them.
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Comments
@OEsheepdog, unfortunately, I saw the story as lead items in both the NY Post and NY Daily News this morning online. It remains to be seen what the grocery store checkout tabloids do with it. My guess is cover story material in the next editions.
Sheep, she did have juvenile diabetes, which makes it even more dangerous to be a drug and alcohol user. her addiction was no secret. and she had a "career" as a socialite. of course the gossip rags are all over it. you can't try to make headlines, have a public engagement in the nude to tila tequila, then hope there won't be any headlines when you're found dead. it's tragic. i feel for her parents, and her little girl.
paul, it is indeed a greek tragedy. but i do feel for the team -- addiction robs everyone of something. everyone is affected. it's sad. i feel the team's sadness and for the disruption in their momentum. mostly i feel the pain of her parent's loss, and the pain she herself went through as a struggling addict.
so sad deb. thanks.
very true walkaway. no amount of money can buy this kind of pain relief.
chuck, it's scary for any parent. doesn't matter how old the child is.
well, consonants, her being a lesbian was mentionable because it was another example of how she lived her life out loud and in headlines -- she wanted the world to know, and not everyone of old money famous families does. it's not as mainstream as being heterosexual. it also explains her engagement to a female reality star as being more than just a publicity stunt, which it's been called. i don't think my mentioning her sexual orientation was gratuitous.
Describing her as a "30-year-old lesbian" (would you have described a straight person as a "30-year-old heterosexual"?) seems completely gratuitous and almost implies that her lesbianism was some sort of contributor to her apparent psychological health problems.
"Drugs. They rob everyone’s joy – the user’s, and everyone around them. "
What a simplistic moronic statement.
What about alcohol? And what about penicillin? And Prozac? And marijuana?
The worst thing about the recovery movement has to be the way people are taught to be such simplistic, rote thinkers.
And then there's the ethical question of accusing people of having overdosed long before any toxicology report has been issued.
Oh well -- you're against drugs! I guess that means you're so morally pure, you don't have to be ethical in your lame attempt at journalism.
As far as lumping antibiotics in with the abuse of addicting euphorics, that's just moronic. It was i-m-p-l-i-e-d (look it up).
As someone who has experienced first hand the ravages of addiction, I take umbrage at your description of the recovery movement fostering "rote thinkers." I have been graced with 17 years of continuous sobriety and received the Jurisprudence Award and the American Constitutional Society's William Paterson Award at my graduation from law school (full scholarship) two years ago.
The literary magazines which have published my poems didn't seem to think my work was "rote" either.
Finally, as someone who has experienced first hand the ravages of addiction in others-- lives and families simply ruined-- and as someone who just checked his daughter into the same rehab he once took that daughter to-- to visit her drug addicted mother--the only thing I can think to say-- regarding you Ms. Schwarz, is a) Me thinks the lady doth protest too much," and b) "She knows not what she speaks."
It has nothing to do with "moral purity." It has everything to do with escaping a future filled with drug and alcohol related (yes, alcohol is a drug) "jails, institutions, and death."
This piece captured some of the horror of that.
On a more general note, unless a post espouses a position completely outside the pale (like, for instance, someone defending neo-Nazis), everyone should maintain a civil tone, especially because Cindy is open to other interpretations (as evidenced by her exchange with the poster who - politely - took issue with the fact that the deceased's sexual orientation was mentioned). The point here is to have a constructive dialogue, not to fling excrement like chimps in the zoo.
Finally, I'd like to point out that Ms. Schwartz doesn't even have any blogs of her own on OS - I checked. Madam, allow me to say that a so-called "lame" attempt at journalism is infinitely better than no attempt at all.
Although I am a diehard GIANTS fan...I will be rooting for the JETS during the playoffs.
"speculation is that she overdosed"
"of course the gossip rags are all over it. "
The nerve of those scoundrels. Don't they know we make the headlines here?
I"m always saddened by things like this- money doesn't buy happiness, but you would hope that with that amount of money someone would be in therapy and choose to find a better way of dealing with one's demons.