Onion entrepreneur Nick Loeb has filed new paperwork in his bizarre legal fight over the fate of the two frozen embryos he made with ex-fiancée Sofia Vergara. The new filings include a letter he sent to the Modern Family star prior to their 2014 breakup in which he lists a number of relationship “boundaries.” Chief among the things he "won't put up with anymore" from the Colombian actress: speaking her native language in front of him—a habit Loeb called “classless.”
“I like spending time with you out at night much more than any of my friends,” he writes. “What I do not like and what I will not put up with anymore is the Spanish, and no I do not like hanging out with you when you speak in Spanish, with others at the table or out with us.”
He goes on: “I may as well be alone and for someone who cares so much for what other people think, I am surprised that you think its (sic) ok. Not only is it rude and disrespectful, it is classless. And for you to then berate, embarrass, and humiliate me in front of others when I ask you to stop is not happening anymore. You tell me, I need to remind you, and then I do and you make fun of the situation. I should never of let this get this far, but I have some boundaries that I have let you cross, and this is one of them. It’s not ok, you will not do this anymore, or I will just get up, leave and go.”
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Loeb continues on about his boundaries, noting Vergara has her own “things that are not ok with you, like going to a strip club.”
The letter was filed as evidence of Loeb’s declaration that the embryos had become one of three major issues that led to their relationship’s decline. Other issues included that she allegedly refused to help him in his condiment endeavors, and that he allegedly went out partying too late and too often.
After a year in California state court, Loeb dropped a case that sought to bring to term two embryos he and Vergara created in 2013, allegedly because he refused to share with the court the name of two former girlfriends who’d had abortions. Vergara had filed to have the case dismissed and a judge was set to rule when a new unprecedented lawsuit was filed by a pro-life lawyer on behalf of the embryos themselves—naming them Emma and Isabella—with the argument that they should be unfrozen from their tank in Beverly Hills, implanted, and born so that they can access a financial trust set up by Loeb. The lawsuit was filed in a very fetus-friendly area of the country: Louisiana.
Louisiana law has a unique law, passed in 1986, that confers personhood on embryos. As part of that personhood, the law grants even the pre-fertilized the same rights as a company might have: the explicit right to sue and be sued, the prohibition of their ownership or destruction, and requirement that any dispute to their futures be resolved in their “best interests.”
Vergara had the lawsuit moved from state court last month, insisting that Loeb had picked Louisiana not because it was a proper venue for the case (neither party lived in the state, the embryos weren’t created nor are they stored there, and the contract wasn’t signed there) but because it provided the best chance of a judgement in Loeb’s favor.
“Mr. Loeb obviously set up this trust...for the sole purpose of fabricating a scenario whereby alleged third parties could bring suit against Ms. Vergara in Louisiana — which, by no coincidence, is the only state that purportedly provides special rights to embryos.” Vergara’s motion said.
The recent filing is part of a response by Loeb’s attorneys in federal court. Vergara’s lawyers have asked the federal judge to dismiss the suit.
