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‘Bachelor’ Creator’s Estranged Wife Claims He Assaulted Her Over Unwanted Pregnancy, ‘Demanded’ She Get An Abortion
Laura Fleiss has claimed that her husband Mike Fleiss threatened to cut her off financially if she didn't end the pregnancy. She has since been granted a temporary restraining order.
The estranged wife of “The Bachelor” creator Mike Fleiss has been granted a temporary restraining order against him stemming from claims that he assaulted her while she was pregnant and “demanded” that she get an abortion.
A Los Angeles judge granted the domestic violence temporary restraining order after Laura Fleiss claimed that Mike Fleiss, who she said has “frequently” verbally abused her, physically attacked her because he was displeased about her pregnancy, Deadline reports. During a heated argument at their home in Hawaii on July 4 , he “demanded” that she get an abortion and threatened to stop supporting her financially if she did not comply, she claimed.
“While Mike has frequently been verbally abusive towards me during our marriage, in recent weeks, he has become enraged, due to the fact I am pregnant with our second child,” she wrote in the filing, according to Deadline.
They share a 4-year-old son and her husband did not want to have a second child, she explained.
“While we were at our house in Kauai, Mike demanded that I get an abortion,” she wrote. “Our son Ben was in the house, seated in another room nearby. Mike told me, ‘If you have an abortion, then we can just go back to the way we were.’”
She said he threatened to divorce her if she did not terminate the pregnancy, according to a report from People.
“Prior to July 4th, Mike threatened me that if I did not have an abortion, he would end the marriage,” she reportedly wrote. “This was not the first time he had threatened a divorce during our marriage, but now, he was using this threat as leverage to force me to have an abortion. In addition, on July 4th, Mike made the following statements to me: ‘I am cutting you off financially Monday morning’; ‘You are paying for everything with your money’; ‘Next time I see you, I don’t want to see your stomach’; and ‘You have a choice, you can choose. Have an abortion or go back to Wisconsin, but you are not taking Ben.’”
The disagreement escalated over the next couple of days, court documents claim. On July 5, Mike Fleiss was “even more angry” than the day before, Laura Fleiss claimed, and on July 6, he took her phone from her and threatened to push her down the stairs. He allegedly grabbed her and “forcibly pinned [her] up against the wall” before taking her phone with him to his truck outside and threatening to “punch [her] face in,” she claimed. When she followed and tried to get the phone back, he allegedly “forcefully shoved” her off the side of his truck. The incident left her with bruises and scratches as well as a torn dress, she said.
“I am afraid he will continue to act erratically towards me, verbally and physically, and in the presence of Ben,” she wrote in court documents. “I have been hiding in a hotel for the past several days with Ben, and want to be able to return home without fear for myself, my son and my unborn child.”
Mike Fleiss has been ordered to move out of the home he shares with his estranged wife and to have no contact with her, keeping at least 100 feet of distance between them at all times, People reports. A court hearing on the matter is scheduled for Aug. 6, according to Deadline.
Mike Fleiss has denied having ever assaulted his wife, The Blast reports, citing recently filed court documents. He claimed that Laura Fleiss lied to him about being on birth control in order to get pregnant even though they agreed not to have a second child. He went on to claim that he wanted to see her phone that day because he was concerned that she may have been hiding an affair and he “wanted to be sure that the baby she was carrying was [his].”
He said that his estranged wife is actually the one who turned the argument physical, claiming that she attacked him by “pounding on me with her fists, jumping on my back, and trying to get the phone back,” he wrote.
He requested primary custody of their son, citing his wife's "instability,” and claimed that he had not seen his son for more than a week and didn't know where he was.
A spokesperson for Warner Bros., which produces “The Bachelor,” said in a statement that they are “aware of these serious allegations, and are looking into them,” Deadline reports.
Laura Fleiss’ restraining order against her husband comes on the heels of news that Mike Fleiss filed for divorce on July 9, citing “irreconcilable differences,” Entertainment Tonight reports.
The couple met when Mike Fleiss served as a judge for the 2012 Miss America pageant, which Laura Fleiss won. They have been married for five years.
