With its next “Ripped from the Headlines” feature, Lifetime is giving Lorena Bobbitt the opportunity to tell her own story. On Memorial Day, May 25, the network is airing TV movie “I Was Lorena Bobbitt,” Bobbitt’s account of the circumstances that led to her cutting off her abusive husband’s penis. According to a press release, Bobbitt is serving as on-screen narrator and executive producer on the project.
“Lorena Bobbitt became a household name and made tabloid headlines when after years of abuse by her husband, she cut off his penis with a knife in 1993. Now nearly 30 years later, Lorena tells her story, and hers alone, for the first time with Lifetime,” the source announces. The feature, starring Dani Montalvo (“Dispatches from Elsewhere”) as Lorena and Luke Humphrey (“Tiny Pretty Things”) as John Bobbitt, will trace Lorena’s journey from newly-married immigrant to abuse and sexual assault survivor to punchline and “unlikely media sensation.” “‘I Was Lorena Bobbitt’ also documents her ultimately emerging as a strong, thoughtful woman who has devoted her life to advocating for other abused women.”
Danishka Esterhazy (“Level 16”) is directing, and Barbara Nance (“The Lizzie Borden Chronicles”) penned the script.
Alongside “I Was Lorena Bobbitt,” Lifetime will also run a PSA for the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Featuring Lorena Bobbitt, Montalvo, and Humphrey, the spot will be part of Lifetime’s Stop Violence Against Women campaign.
“I was the subject of so many jokes in the ’90s and to me it was just cruel,” Bobbitt has said. “They didn’t understand. Why would they laugh about my suffering?” However, she explained that mockery’s a small price to pay for standing up for other domestic abuse and rape survivors. “I’ll put myself through the jokes and everything as long as I can shine a light on domestic violence and sexual assault and marital rape,” she added.
Bobbitt previously revisited “the incident,” as calls it, as did her ex-husband, in last year’s Amazon docuseries “Lorena.”
