Digital Playground's Samantha Lewis took an assertive stance today when she broke the company's silence and spoke about Tera Patrick's alleged desire to break her relationship with Digital Playground. It was a clever mix of legal-speak and PR spin doctoring. Because I'm sitting here in my cold, lonely bedroom with nothing better to do--yes, that's also sometimes a pornographer's life--I thought I'd be so bold as to offer my own, personal, translation of some of Ms. Lewis' comments

"Digital Playground, Inc. has a long term, exclusive agreement with Tera Patrick and fully intends to both preserve and enforce it," Samantha Lewis from Digital Playground told AVN.com. "Tera and anyone speaking on her behalf should be mindful of the exclusive agreement in place and govern their conduct accordingly. We intend to enforce our rights and hold others who may tortuously interfere with them accountable."

This is a legal threat, plain and simple. Far be it for me to think one of those highly-educated, cunning-linguistic, AVN reporters might get an important word wrong, but in this case I think there's a misquote--either that or Samantha misspoke the word she meant to use. My guess is, when Ms. Lewis said, "We intend to enforce our rights and hold others who may tortuously interfere with them accountable," she meant to use the word, "tortiously," which has a very different meaning than "tortuously." Either she misspoke, or the reporter misquoted.

Tortuous means: Having or marked by repeated turns or bends; winding or twisting: a tortuous road through the mountains.Not straightforward; circuitous; devious: a tortuous plot; tortuous reasoning. Highly involved; complex: tortuous legal procedures.

On the other hand, 'tortious' or 'tortiously' refers to (as in the legal term, 'tortious interference'): The causing of harm by disrupting something that belongs to someone else -- for example, interfering with a contractual relationship so that one party fails to deliver goods on time.

You see what I mean? This is, of course, a threat aimed at Tera's fiance. It means, "look asshole, we're gonna hold you legally accountable for any trouble you make that effects our contractual relationship with our girl, Tera. While I'm confident that before it's over, the Tera Patrick story will be quite tortuous, I don't think that's what Samantha meant to say.

Samantha went on to say she had no idea whether Tera was already married to Evan Seinfeld. She also said this:

"Tera Patrick has been a dream to work with for the last three years and we've been honored to have her in our line up," Lewis said. "After signing with Digital Playground, Tera's career skyrocketed. During her time with us we have provided her with every opportunity, protected her from harm, be it personal or business and afforded her every luxury. The time we invested managing and promoting her career is a reflection of not only our philosophies but also our belief in Tera Patrick.

It's pretty obvious what this means. It's a really nice way of saying, "Listen you ungrateful bitch, we fucking made you; we created you; we gave you a nicer life than most whores deserve; we spent a lot of money on your ass and you owe us."

Ms. Lewis then said:

"Three months ago Tera starting dating a new man and things began to shift," she continued. "In the typical ‘porn star meets guy who will be a better manager, better publicist and better director of her career’ story, it seems that some tales have been fabricated in an effort to release Tera from her existing contract."

I love this one. She's saying Evan Seinfeld is nothing more than a loser suitcase pimp and that they've seen loser suitcase pimps try to take girls down this road before. They expect him to lie, and they expect him to be deceitful in his attempts to help Tera break her contract. And let's not forget, they will consider this to be 'tortious interference,' and will respond accordingly.

Well, that's my take on it it. This is probably going to get juicy, and it's going to get mainstream attention. Both Tera and the folks at Digital Playground should probably fasten their seatbelts, because--barring some truly unforseen circumstances--they're all in for one hell of a bumpy ride. It ought to be a hoot to watch.




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