It’s a toss-up, really. Who does the Valentino cult leader hate more: me or Rudolph Valentino’s wife, Natacha Rambova? Let’s dive in.
There is no shortage of evidence to support the claim he hates us both. Perhaps he believes the lies he tells, but I doubt it. His campaign to ruin both Natacha Rambova’s and my reputation is deeply personal. He once accused me of having an “agenda of hate.” But in light of his own obsessive slander, there’s no clearer example of projection. His long, documented history of hatred speaks for itself. To claim otherwise is textbook gaslighting.
Today, for the sake of brevity, I’ll cite just two of his most hateful, absurd claims:
He repeatedly says, “Natacha Rambova was the worst thing that ever happened to Valentino.”
And of me, he declares that all my work belongs in “the trash can of Valentino history.”
Let me be clear: I reverse that slanderous tag on Rambova. She was the best thing that ever happened to Rudolph Valentino. And yet, her erasure has been so thorough that even saying this invites doubt. The cult leader’s campaign has worked its poison over time.
Unless you’re a dedicated student of Valentino history, you might not even know he was married for five years to the brilliant, visionary Natacha Rambova. Contrary to lies that theirs was a fraudulent marriage, they were deeply in love—and struggled to keep that love alive against immense odds.
Rambova was not just his wife. She was a stylist, art director, and intellectual powerhouse. Her influence on Valentino was profound and transformative. Michael Morris, in his biography Madam Valentino and its addendum Beyond Valentino, writes:
“Of all her lovers, Natacha Rambova exercised her greatest influence on silent film icon Rudolph Valentino... catapulting him into the paragon of style and costumed elegance thereby defining his legacy and ensuring his role as a Hollywood icon.”
When they met in 1920, Rambova was the bigger star—already working with giants like Alla Nazimova and Cecil B. DeMille. Valentino was still an unknown. And as his star rose, hers was scapegoated for it. Hollywood needed a bachelor heartthrob, not a married man with a brilliant wife.
The portrayal of Rambova as cold, controlling, and calculating wasn’t just a smear—it was misogyny in motion. Had she been a man, her creative influence would have been praised as visionary leadership. Valentino never saw her as a liability. In fact, his trusted friend and business manager George Ullman wrote in his 1975 memoir:
“It is only fair to say that Natacha's culture, which she painstakingly but subtly communicated to her husband, was one which others recognized and which in my opinion put him forever in her debt.”
The reasons for their divorce—and their reunion on his deathbed—are a story for another day. Today I focus on reclaiming her rightful place in his legacy, and addressing the man who has led the charge to erase it.
Years after Valentino’s death, Rambova granted an interview to journalist Herb Howe, published in The New Movie Magazine (1929). In reference to her enduring years of malicious gossip she says:
“I've been called everything from Messalina to a dope-fiend... I was tortured. I was tortured to agony.”
And yet this woman, so vilified, was the true architect of the Valentino legend. So how does the cult leader claim she “ruined” Valentino’s career? He doesn’t—because he can’t. He simply repeats the accusation, cloaked in pseudo-scholarship, in a bid to cannibalize her truth. Her intelligence, artistic authority, and refusal to be submissive are all rebranded by him as “controlling.” The very qualities we praise in men, he punishes in women.
It’s no mystery why. The reality that Rambova shared Valentino’s bed—and had a hand in shaping his artistry—stands as a direct threat to the cult leader’s obsessive efforts to rewrite Valentino’s sexuality and history. In his narrative, there is no room for a powerful woman like Natacha.
And as for me? The parallels are obvious. I’ve also been targeted relentlessly for over twenty years. Because like Rambova, I refuse to submit, refuse to lie, and I tell truths that threaten his fragile control.
This cult leader positions both Rambova and me as villains in his warped tale. He deploys the same fear-based tactics used for centuries to silence powerful women. His language is not only offensive—it’s strategic.
For instance:
He’s posted an image of a Bible on his blog under my book's title with the caption, “Deliver Us From Evil.”
Another post shows the headline, “Even Satan Shudders.”
Elsewhere: “Get thee behind me Satan,” alongside images of hellfire.
One cartoon shows a jackboot slamming down on Satan’s neck—implying, absurdly, that this is him “crushing evil.”
It’s not satire. It’s persecution. This weaponization of religious language to demonize women is lifted straight from the Malleus Maleficarum, the infamous medieval witch-hunting manual. The same logic applies today:
She speaks out? She’s manipulative.
She has influence? She’s dangerous.
She challenges male authority? She’s a witch.
This isn’t commentary—it’s spiritual cosplay, performative zealotry designed to destroy.
Make no mistake: Natacha Rambova was not a witch. She was not “the worst thing” to happen to Valentino—she was the best. She helped create the icon the world still reveres. And like so many powerful women, she was punished for it.
The cult leader’s grotesque pantomime, as he weaponizes religion and fake morality to justify cruelty, isn’t about guarding Valentino’s legacy. It’s about control. His attack on the Valentino marriage is the linchpin, because if he can erase Natacha’s legitimacy as Valentino’s wife, he can erase her from the story entirely.
This is a centuries-old playbook—still in use. Only now, instead of torches and gallows, it’s blogs and slander.
To call a woman “Satanic” because she speaks, creates, or challenges you is textbook persecution. It echoes every attempt to silence intelligent, independent, inconvenient women throughout history.
The time has come to stop rewriting Rambova out of the story and to begin giving her the honor she earned. As Michael Morris so aptly put it, she was “The Woman Behind the Myth.”
And in Rambova’s own words:
“Hollywood is a hot-bed of malice... Sweet words of flattery have vinegar on their breath. Eyes of malevolence watch you... Fear is on parade.”
She knew the game. And it still plays on today in the actions of the cult leader who lashes women like Natacha and me to stakes and lights the fire—then pretends he isn’t holding the match.
I refute his false agenda. I file this note in Rambova’s redemption.
And I will continue to speak my own truth against his scorched-earth campaign. Enough of the cultish fanaticism. Enough of the misogynistic gatekeeping. The truth, in the end, burns brighter than any of his lies.
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