BILLY BOB THORNTON, EX-WIFE SAYS JAILED CHILD PLEADS FOR STONE-COLD DAD’S LOVE!
“Where’s MY daddy?” That’s the pitiful cry of Billy Bob Thornton’s daughter Amanda Brumfield as she sits in a Florida jail cell, awaiting sentencing on a conviction of aggravated manslaughter.
“Amanda is heartbroken,” her mother Melissa Parish – the “Bad Santa” star’s first wife – told The ENQUIRER in an exclusive interview.
“When I visited her in jail, she broke down crying, saying, ‘I don’t understand why he doesn’t love me. I don’t want his money – I just want my dad.’
“Billy Bob has turned his back on his own flesh and blood, his first-born daughter, at a time when she needs him most. Amanda can’t understand it, and neither can I.”
The Oscar-winning actor, 55, and Amanda, 31, were estranged for her entire life until he finally reached out to her while playing the father of a troubled teenager in the 2005 movie, “Bad News Bears.”
At the time, Thornton said: “We have a really good relationship these days, but she didn’t grow up with me and so we were pretty much strangers for years. Then a few years later we reconnected and it’s really good now.”
While they communicated for several years, “as soon as Amanda got into this trouble, Billy Bob walked away,” Melissa said. “He’s changed his phone numbers and refuses to answer her letters.”
Amanda was found guilty of aggravated manslaughter in the death of Olivia Madison Garcia, her 1-year-old goddaughter and daughter of her best friend. Amanda says Olivia died after climbing out of her playpen and falling 28 inches to the floor. But experts testified the child could not have received such severe injuries from the fall alone. Amanda, who awaits sentencing, now faces 13 to 30 years in prison.
After her conviction, Thornton said in a statement: “Any time a baby’s life is lost is an unimaginable tragedy, and my heart goes out to the baby’s family and loved ones.”
He made no mention of Amanda – and that made her mother furious.
“Isn’t Amanda supposed to be one of HIS loved ones? Billy Bob acted like she was for years and then, when there’s trouble, he disappears,” fumed Melissa, 51, of Brandon, Fla.
Thornton has been married and divorced five times, and has four children by three different women. He was married to Melissa from 1978 until 1980.
“Amanda has no animosity toward Billy Bob,” Melissa said. “She’s just deeply hurt that he won’t write her, or at least call her and tell her he cares. She keeps asking what she’s done wrong to make him not love her, and I keep telling her it’s not her fault – it’s HIS.
“What father walks out on his own child – no matter what she’s done?”
