Friday, December 24th, 2010

Carol Anne Riddell and John Partilla did what many New Yorkers do… they met, fell in love, got married, and had their love story announced in the New York Times’ ‘Vows’ page.  But unlike New Yorkers before them, their story was filled with scandalous details of cheating and breaking up marriages, with the column revealing a surprising amount of information about the seedy parts of their background.  The couple met in 2006 at the Upper West Side school their children attended, and despite the fact that both were still married, they started a hot and heavy love affair.  Eventually, they both divorced, and married each other at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel (60th between Broadway and Columbus) on December 11th.  Rather than approaching the subject with a standard vague description of their story (“the road to their love was rocky” or “they overcame personal struggles in their romantic journey” are solid ways to circumvent the topic), Riddell, a reporter on WNBC New York, and Partilla, a high-powered exec at Time Warner, gushed about the circumstances surrounding a story.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the column caused quite a stir, with local and national media outlets digging into the scandal.  Even the jilted ex-husband has generated attention, speaking with Forbes about his understandable anger over the column.  Bob Ennis, the media executive who was dumped by Riddell, fumed that the article was “a choreographed, self-serving piece of revisionist history,” going on to say:

These folks are well within their rights to tell whatever version of reality they want to tell, and if The New York Times is gullible enough to print it, that mostly reflects poorly on the Times… The picture of my daughter is another matter. I sure as hell would have objected if they had told me they were going to print it… Maybe The New York Times has forgotten, but New York can still be a dangerous town for children of wealthy people.

Neither Riddell nor Partilla have commented on the column since it began circulating other news outlets.

Filed under: News, Upper West Side, Upper West Side Blog No Comments »
Tags: Affair, Bob Ennis, Carol Anne Riddell, John Partilla, Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Scandal, Time Warner, Vows, Wedding, WNBC