Off Balance: A Memoir (24 page)

I certainly wasn’t going to be like Mama—a grown woman who let Tata run her life. At home, Mama took the brunt of Tata’s abuse. I’d get so angry at times that I just wanted to lash out and physically hit Tata for all the hurt he’d caused Mama and me over the years, but I knew more violence was certainly not the answer. For Tata, violence and bullying seemed to be the only way he knew how to release his anger, and I hated that. He was so quick to raise a hand, yell, and hurl harsh, hurtful words at us. Witnessing Tata go off on Mama for something that wasn’t her fault made me so angry and, after all those years, that pent-up anger was starting to show. I’d begun answering back to Tata when he was arguing with Mama and, on occasion, I stepped in to break up a fight between the two of them. Everything I’d bottled up for so long had finally started to boil over, and I knew things would never be the same again. As I sat in that grungy hotel room off the interstate with Brian, Spiros, and Luminita, I knew one thing for sure: I wasn’t going back.

Many of the details from the next few days are a blur, but I ended up hiring a lawyer to help me become emancipated. Emancipation, in simple language, was a ruling by the courts that declared me an adult (even though I was only seventeen) and gave me, instead of my parents, legal control of my own finances. When I left home, the only form of money I had in my possession was a check for $10,000 made payable to me for a professional competition I’d done months prior. It was one of the few checks that had actually been hand delivered to me instead of Tata. That check was the foundation for my independence. I started my new life with that $10,000.

Through the emancipation process, I learned that by age seventeen, I had earned nearly one million dollars. Perhaps not a ton of money by today’s endorsement standards, and not the “millions” Tata sometimes exaggeratedly boasted of, but for me and my family—immigrants who had fled the oppression of Romania—it was an enormous amount of money. I also learned that by the time I was emancipated, Tata had already spent virtually all of it on the gym and a number of other investments, as I’d suspected.

“Spoiled Brat Divorces Parents” was just one of the many headlines in the media at the time of the emancipation. Many other magazines and tabloids, from the the
National Enquirer
to our local
Texas Monthly
, ran equally judgmental and mean-spirited headlines. I was embarrassed to read them as I stood in line at the grocery store, and I wanted to flip every one of them around and hide them, and me, from the world. I wished I could just disappear. I had been a public figure since I was young, and the hope of going through a legal battle privately was a pipe dream, especially when the papers could run juicy headlines about the greedy pixie gymnast and her tyrannical father. Some stories had bits and pieces of the truth, but most often, they were poorly investigated and loaded with misinformation. The situation created a huge burden on my parents as the paparazzi staked out their home and would snap the most unflattering photos of them to sell to the tabloids.

In my heart, I believed that I was entitled to have a say in what to do with my earnings. I’d worked extremely hard since I was unusually young, and I didn’t understand why people would label me spoiled and crucify me because I wanted to take control of my life, which, yes, included taking control of what was left of my earnings. I had sacrificed nearly all of my childhood for these earnings, but the public and the newspapers didn’t seem interested in that. While most seventeen-year-olds are still dependent and asking their parents for money, I was merely asking for some straight and honest answers regarding where the money even was. All I had wanted
from Tata initially was to be included in the decision-making process for my financial future, but he refused. He had been so pumped with pride after he built his “Taj Mahal” that it was going to take something drastic to bring him down to earth. Throughout the entire legal process, he never once acknowledged that he made any mistakes in dealing with me or handling my finances, even though he burned through most of my $1 million earnings and had only this enormous gym structure to show for it. My attorney at the time agreed that emancipation was a necessary last resort.

So much of my childhood was devoted to bringing honor to my family and making sure I never did anything that would in any way shame the Moceanu name. My parents had drilled into me very early on that a child must never disgrace his or her family in any way, and whatever happens inside the walls of the home is no one else’s business. Until now, I had lived my life with this mind-set, applying it to my home life
and
to my life inside the walls of the gym. I had never complained publicly about the struggles and abuse I met in my home with Tata or at the gym with some of my coaches. It was very painful that I had followed these rules and tried my best to be an honorable “good” daughter only to have it end this way, on the eve of becoming an adult.

During the trial, it was heartbreaking to see Tata and Mama sitting across the courtroom, looking as if they were losing everything that ever meant anything to them. They both seemed so sad and so hurt. I broke down in tears whenever I looked at them, and I literally fell apart bawling on the courthouse steps after I had to testify. I dreaded taking the stand because I had to admit that Tata abused me and physically hit me, which I’d never said publicly before then. I was ashamed to have to say those words, but it was the truth. It was the worst day of my life, and I couldn’t even look at my parents afterward, knowing that I must have hurt them so, so deeply. My heart was broken. Despite these conflicting emotions and enormous feelings of guilt, I didn’t see any other way to break
free from Tata. I needed this for my sanity—so I could live and grow—and I prayed one day we could all look back and understand one another in a different light.

Before the trial started, I was contacted by William (“Bill”) J. Hickl III, a CPA who had read my story in the
Houston Chronicle
. He offered to help get my finances in order, and I accepted, since I was amassing huge legal fees by the day. Bill’s plan from the get-go was straightforward and simple: gain control of the gym without a court battle to keep my legal fees low, so I wouldn’t wind up spending more on fees than the equity in my gym. Bill was confident that he could accomplish this without involving attorneys. I was surprised when I first met Bill because, for whatever naïve reasons, I was expecting a serious and somewhat detached banker type, but Bill was the opposite—a warm, kindhearted gentleman and a father of three, who approached me with compassion and professionalism.

Bill did what he promised and immediately focused on gaining control of my only real asset—the gym. Of course, getting control of the gym meant taking control
away
from Tata. Bill managed to set up a series of face-to-face meetings with Tata. He knew Tata would be a tough nut to crack and instead of trying to challenge and overpower Tata, he aimed to prove that he was an honest guy who wasn’t going to take advantage of me. What was said in those meetings—Bill empathizing with Tata and sharing that he was a father himself—worked. Surprisingly, Tata ended up trusting Bill, which proved to be instrumental in getting Tata to sign over the trustee papers and title of the gym without another painful court battle. Per Tata’s design, the gym was originally held in trust, but what startled me was Tata designed it so I wouldn’t become eligible to receive the gym in my name until I was thirty-five years old. Did Tata really think it was okay to bar me from my own gym for that long? Was that the age he was finally going to let me start making my own decisions?

Aunt Janice was in the room at the courthouse hearing when Tata had to sign over the gym, and she has shared with me just how painful a moment it was for him. He was crying, telling her that if he signed the papers, he was would lose me forever. It was one of the most difficult things Tata had to do, but he knew he had no choice. The gym was losing money after I’d left home, and Tata didn’t want to see the building go into foreclosure after he’d worked so hard to create it. He knew we’d lose everything I had earned and he had invested if we didn’t try to salvage what we could, and fast. Once Bill gained control of the building, he was able to help me avoid foreclosure by engaging the right real estate broker, who found me a stable, reliable non-gymnastics-related corporate tenant who signed a ten-year lease. When the market permitted, I’d be able to sell the building and hopefully regain some of my earnings by cashing out of the gym. Bill also began helping me manage what little was left of my life’s earnings at that same time. I was by no means wealthy, but I was finally free to make my own choices, free to hire who I believed had my best interests at heart, and free to start building a new dream.

Closing this chapter of my life, I honestly believed my darkest days were behind me. Little did I know, there were plenty waiting for me ahead, some right around the corner.

Chapter 10

DARK TIMES

M
y emancipation was a double-edged sword. It lifted an enormous weight off my shoulders by finally giving me the financial and personal freedom I had sought, but it also left me with a heavy heart. I felt awful that my family suffered through a very public trial that aired our dirty laundry. I know it devastated all of us on a personal level, and I didn’t know how to recover from it. I was torn between feeling guilty for what I had done to my family and feeling excited and invigorated by the prospect of starting a life of my own. The wounds were too fresh and too deep for me to enjoy my freedom.
Everything had happened so quickly that most of my time after the trial was spent in a state of confusion, guilt, and pain. I had been sheltered my whole life and was suddenly afforded immediate liberty without any preparation, and I made mistakes—lots of them.

Looking back, the one thing I did right was get a place of my own. As I sat in my apartment, I realized for the first time why people referred to home as a “sanctuary.” I cherished the peace, the quiet, and the safety that little apartment brought me. It was the first time in my life I was able to come home and truly relax, letting the security and privacy of home envelop me. I didn’t have to worry about Tata erupting into one of his rages or that he and Mama would get into a fight that I’d have to break up. I often thought of Mama and Christina and wondered how they were coping with the stress following the trial. I hoped that my absence made home a better place to be, but I knew Tata was upset that I had left and feared that it possibly made things worse. When I’d phone Mama to check in on her and Christina, she always sounded so beaten down; I attributed a lot of it to how much she missed me, like I missed her. She’d also tell me that Tata said he wanted to disown me.

Moceanu Gymnastics Incorporated began folding quickly after the emancipation trial. The gym was struggling, and the stories about our family that continued to run in the newspapers and on TV didn’t help matters. Families and coaches began to leave the gym, and without my presence and the unity of the Moceanu family, it couldn’t sustain itself. Within a few months, all of my gymnastics memorabilia was taken from the glass cases in the entry and the family business shut its doors for good. I felt tremendously responsible for this loss and wished it had ended differently. I continued to pray that one day Tata would see my point of view and we’d reconcile.

After everything that had happened, the very notion of working things out with Tata was to be a difficult challenge—especially
since he still blamed the loss of the gym solely on me and told anyone who’d listen that our family’s world came crashing down because I ran away from home and started listening to others who were a bad influence on me. By “others” he meant Brian and Luminita, two people he had brought into my life in the first place. He was convinced that Brian and Luminita were out to take advantage of me and had pressured me to leave home. I was definitely an impressionable seventeen-year-old, but I didn’t leave home because of Brian or Luminita; I left because of a turbulent family life and a growing disconnect between me and Tata that came to a head with the firing of my coach. Tata made it very clear in public interviews that he disapproved of “those people” and was afraid they were out for financial gain. He thought Brian and Luminita were trying to take the gym from me and that I was just unable to see it.

I think in desperation, Tata began harassing me—he’d call many times a day, leaving messages about how I’d ruined everything and when he caught me live on the phone, he’d pressure me to tell him where I was living. I wanted my apartment to remain a private, safe place, so I told very few people my address, and Tata was not one of them. His calls became relentless. I ended up obtaining a short-term restraining order prohibiting him from contacting me. Here I was emancipated, but I was hounded constantly by Tata. I didn’t want to abandon my family; I just needed Tata to leave me alone for a while so I could get things sorted out in my own head.

Tata was never intimidated by authority, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that the restraining order didn’t faze him one bit. He was still going to see and talk to his daughter whenever he wanted regardless of some piece of paper. To prove this, Tata staked out my school, Northland Christian High School, one morning and stayed there all day in order to follow me home to see where I was living. I remember it like it was yesterday—sitting in my classroom looking out the window and noticing Tata’s car
across the street. I froze when I saw him sitting there behind the steering wheel. The classroom windows were tinted, so I could clearly see Tata, but he couldn’t see me. A wave of terror washed over me.

I was embarrassed to tell anyone that Tata was across the street, but a couple of friends noticed that I’d turned ghost white and were concerned. My family already had more than enough negative press and I didn’t want to cause any more, so I tried my best to downplay the situation. I was so tired of being the girl with the crazy life. I just wanted to be a normal teenager. As far as I knew, none of my other classmates ever had to deal with their fathers stalking them! Besides, I really didn’t know what to expect from Tata at that point. He was still so angry and crazed, I wasn’t sure if he wanted to hug me or strangle me.