Former wife of Billy Bob is back on the scene producing and writing a unique reality TV show. Malibu (LMS) - Pietra Dawn Thornton, the young and beautiful ex-spouse of Oscar-winning writer/actor Billy Bob Thornton and the mother of his two sons, is on the rise again.
Pietra Dawn Thornton
The entertainment world was shocked when within a few days after the worldwide Oscar Broadcast, Pietra filed for divorce. The divorce and the messy proceedings with charges and countercharges were front page stories including the cover of USA Today and the AP. Interviews with Pietra and news of their divorce on national TV included Inside Edition, Entertainment Tonight, Hard Copy, E-Entertainment Television, Newsweek and Time Magazine and many of the 6 o'clock news hours coast to coast. During her divorce proceedings that year Pietra organized and supported charities advocating help for victims of domestic violence. Not one to be weak on any campaign she took on, Pietra posed nude for Playboy Magazine in January of 1998. It raised a lot of eyebrows but she told USA Today that, 'the layout was a sacrifice of myself ... I wanted to reach people to bring awareness of domestic violence.' She certainly did.
Billy Bob Thornton with ex Pietra & their two sons
After settling things with Billy Bob Thornton, who remains a good friend, Pietra disappeared from the public eye to raise her two boys who remain with her and who are home-schooled in their beautiful seaside Malibu estate.
Pietra created a concept and treatment for television last summer and registered it with the Writer's Guild. Nationally syndicated columnist Liz Smith, prematurely broke the story in her usual brief and no-nonsense manner: 'Pietra Dawn Thornton ... Billy Bob Thornton's ex-wife, is pitching a reality pilot called 'Celebrity Ex.' This will show what happens when you are suddenly no longer on the arm of a well-known man (or woman). As Billy Bob and Pietra parted amicably, word is he'll put in an appearance if the show gets the green light. Other 'exes' of men such as Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, George Hamilton, Richard Dreyfuss, and Martin Landau have volunteered to tell all to Pietra, on air. Even Paula Abdul, who was for several years Mrs. Emilio Estevez.'
Recently Pietra befriended Donya Fiorentino, Gary Oldman's ex-wife and mother of his two young boys. Pietra decided to bring in this beauty with whom she has much in common to the show Celebrity Ex. The show is a reality-based, episodical comedy with more than a twist of reality.
'Being a single mother, I have always considered the future and how much I want to be a hopeful example of how my life and my son's lives after divorce from a celebrity realm will be...and that living in the shadow of such a past is sometimes just as exploitive and cruel as it is being celebrity ourselves,' says Pietra at one of her writer's think tank staff meetings.
An actress and former model, Pietra Thornton's new image has made her virtually a living resurrection in the minds of most who thought she'd gone away forever. She's been there all along creating and writing, behind the scenes, but taking it all in for ideas for her show. Like the Oscar Night red carpet, Pietra is about to come out again, but this time with her own creative concept to entertain and educate viewers.
