Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

There is a whole lot of sympathy going around for Tatum O'Neal which I suppose shows that Americans can be very forgiving people and this is nice. What is not so nice is Ms. O'Neal playing us for suckers with her acting the role of the poor little very rich girl who fell apart after her dog died and is so thankful the police stopped her from falling off her very unstable wagon. From what I can see, the woman is a classic narcissist and drug abuser who story changes (read: lies) each time she is caught telling a less-than-true version of events.

One of the reason folks feel so sorry for her is they are familiar with her history from O'Neal's book, A Paper Life, in which she laments of her horrifying childhood of abuse from her drug-using parents and her terrible marriage to the vicious John McEnroe. They feel sorry for her because they believe her. I feel sorry for everyone who has had to come in contact with this woman because they are all to blame, pretty much each and every one of them, for her miserable life and decent into drugs.

The way to tell if someone is a liar is to see if they have lied. Simple, but effective. If they lie over here, they will lie over there. Tatum O'Neil lied to the police that she was researching an acting part by buying drugs (the stupidest lie I have ever heard) and when they found the drugs and crack pipe in her pocket, she claimed she had been clean up until that very moment, and since they just saved her and she was really thankful, could she just go home? Well, if she lied more than once here, my guess is her book is full of whoppers as well.

In the end, O'Neil is does not blame herself for anything and if she says she does at a press conference or when there is a microphone in her face, no doubt her manager or publicist has told her to "confess." She is lucky she is actually an actress or we might think she is just reading a script.

Tatum, let me give you some advice. Stop blaming everyone else for your mistakes. You are a drug addict because you choose to do drugs. It is that simple.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown