Predictably, there is a whole lot of crazy in the seven-page letter that convicted rapist Peter Braunstein hand-wrote to the New York Post this week. After all, the tabloid put him on the cover for weeks in late 2005 after he set a fire in a Chelsea apartment building, pretended to be a fireman to get into a woman’s apartment, and subsequently spent half a day sexually assaulting her. At first they called him the “fire fiend” and then just the “fiend,” so you wouldn’t think that they’d be a natural set of pen pals. But the letter is real, and it is real, real nuts. “I think I’m the only guy here who sincerely never wants to get out. The mere notion of aspiring to another shot at friends, family, job, girlfriend, wife, home, of revisiting any of that, just depresses me to no end,” he wrote, adding that he does have a “fan club” of sorts. “One silver lining involves pen-pal sympathizers, people — well, actually, just women — who followed my case and write to me, telling me that I’ve been wronged and misunderstood.”
The weirdest part of the letter, from what the Post reprinted, though, is when he talks about the times he’s contemplated suicide. “There’s another incentive or two for staying in the game, namely, Season 3 of Gossip Girl, ” he said. “But still I ask myself: Sure, it’s probably going to be great, but is Gossip Girl in and of itself reason enough to stay alive? We’ll see.”
!!!
Talk about a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the creators of Gossip Girl can say their show is good enough to keep someone alive, which is pretty impressive. On the other hand, that person is an infamous sex-torturing felon. So, wash? In the letter, he also said he really likes the new CW series The Beautiful Life, which at least Mischa Barton should be happy about. Now she’s the second-most unhinged tabloid train wreck hyping that show.
