Meredith Baxter's Ex Disputes Her Abuse Claims

Mar 5th 2011 09:34AMEmail This'Family Ties' star Meredith Baxter (known in her heyday as Meredith Baxter-Birney) visited Oprah Winfrey's show this week to plug her new memoir and talk about coming out of the closet. The actress, 63, publicly confirmed she was gay in 2009.

In 'Untied,' which went on sale March 1, Baxter opens up about another surprising side of her private life, writing that she suffered physical and psychological abuse at the hands of actor David Birney during their 1974-'89 marriage. The two first met as co-stars on TV's 'Bridget Loves Bernie.'

"It was so sudden and unexpected, I couldn't tell you which hand hit me, or even how hard," she writes in her new book. "I do recall thinking, 'I'd better not get up because he's going to hit me again."

In reaction, Birney, 71, is vehemently denying his ex-wife's allegations, calling her book "an appalling abuse of the truth."
Divorced two decades ago, the couple had three children together, welcoming a daughter early in their marriage, and twins ten years later. After their split, the actress reclaimed the name "Meredith Baxter," and took another crack at matrimony from 1995-2000 with screenwriter Michael Blodgett. Today, Baxter's partner (since 2005) is building contractor Nancy Locke.

In an outraged statement to PEOPLE, issued Friday, Birney calls it "immensely sad and truly absurd" that Baxter the memoirist "is unable to reclaim a single instance of joy or pleasure in all that time, not one occasion of love or delight or accomplishment in our entire life together as we built a family. Not one....Nothing from our first meeting to divorce. Nothing, in sixteen years. Really?"

"This blanket omission, this unrelieved denial of even a single instance of joy or pleasure in the creation of a family, the substance and amazing joy of raising children together, of simply being together with them during that time, is incomprehensible," says Birney. "And sad."

Birney also implies a link between the claims of abuse in 'Untied,' which he slams as "a kind of fairy tale," and the heated custody issues that once strained their own family ties.

For years, Birney says his ex "conducted a relentless and brutal assault" against him in order "to destroy [the custody] arrangement and replace it with herself as sole custodian."

"During that time," he recalls, "She arrived in court repeatedly with various lawyers and several therapists, 'recovered memories,' accusations of abuse -- a common charge in custody disputes -- and tales of our life together that bore little resemblance to truth -- a mean-spirited process that battered us all, especially the children....The court denied her suit on every occasion."

The ex-spouses shared custody until the kids left for college, claims Birney, who adds, "This current recycled version of our family story is no more credible now than it was then."

Birney writes off his ex's memory by concluding, "Meredith's own account of these years is its own rebuke to her credibility."

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