ROBERT BLAKE’s daughter ROSE is thriving more than seven years after he was acquitted in the mysterious shooting death of her mom – and she never sees her dad!
Rose, now 12, was only 11 months old when her mother Bonny Lee Bakley was murdered outside a Studio City, Calif., restaurant. She is living with Blake’s eldest daughter Delinah, her fiction-writing husband Gregg Hurwitz and their 7-year-old daughter Natalie in a spacious $1.3 million suburban Los Angeles home.
Sources reveal that Delinah is determined to provide Rose with a stable life far removed from the drama of her mother’s murder and father’s sensational trial, and she has kept the child away from both Blake and her late mom’s family.
“Delinah made a conscious decision to make a fresh start,” a close source explained. “She didn’t want Rosie anywhere near her father because she didn’t think he was stable.”
Delinah, 46, confirmed to The ENQUIRER: “I live a separate life away from everything now with my husband and my family.”
Delinah obtained permanent custody of Rose in 2002, a year after Bonny Lee was gunned down just after she and Blake had finished dining. The former “Baretta” star had returned to the restaurant briefly, he says, to retrieve a gun he’d left there. When he returned to the vehicle just minutes later, he claimed he found Bonny Lee with a gunshot wound to the head.
Prosecutors at his criminal trial alleged that Blake killed his wife – who had been described as a celebrity-obsessed con artist – in order to gain full custody of baby Rose and to protect her from Bonny Lee’s mail-order porn business.
Although Blake was acquitted of the charges in 2005, he was later found liable for Bonny Lee’s death in a civil suit brought by her other children.
Delinah and her husband Gregg legally adopted Rose shortly before Blake’s trial began in December 2004.
“Even though Rosie is not her biological daughter, Delinah treats her as if she were,” the source continued. “She is very affectionate to Rosie, and they live in a beautiful home that is filled with love.”
That home is a neatly landscaped two-story house in the hills of Sherman Oaks. In the rear of the property is a play yard and lots of room for two young girls to run around.
“Delinah spends as much time as possible with her kids,” disclosed another source. “Rose also seems to have a very well-organized schedule.”
Her current activities include a fun summer camp. Delinah drives her there in the morning and brings her home around 2:30 each afternoon.
“Rose seems really happy and content,” the insider added.
In contrast, Blake is living a “sad and lonely” existence, spending the majority of his time in his small Los Angeles apartment lifting weights, or sipping coffee, alone, at the local Whole Foods Market, says the source.
The volatile actor recently made headlines after an appearance on “Piers Morgan Tonight.” There to promote his self-published memoir, “Tales of a Rascal,” the 78-year-old Blake was “bleeped” 40 times and exploded in a fit of anger when Morgan asked him about the murder.
