47-year-old Katherine Thurston was arrested Saturday after attacking the X-Men star Hugh Jackman in a West Village gym. She said she was already waiting for the actor outside Gotham Gym on Washington Street. Thurston was on probation for stalking Jackman at a San Francisco concert last year.
The obsessed California woman followed Jackman around the gym “for an extended period of time” while carrying an electric razor filled with pubic hair, according to witnesses. She didn’t say why she threw the razor at him, but prosecutors said Thurston told detectives, “I hated him having those whiskers.”
Thurston left the gym before the police arrived, but was arrested on the street later, on charges of menacing, stalking, harassment and trespassing. She was also charged with criminal possession of a weapon. Thurston appeared at her arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Sunday. She is being held on a $US7,500 cash bail.
Thurston told cops she wants to be the married actor’s second wife:
“I want to marry him,” she told a NYPD Detective Frank Francisco. “This is not against the law. It is not against the law to have two wives.”
Hugh Jackman suspected that Thurston had been stalking him for some time. The actor said she went to his 7-year-old daughter Ava’s school and even confronted his wife Deborra-Lee Furness outside their home one month ago, saying “I’m going to marry your husband.” Thurston claimed she started emailing Jackman about a year ago.
“It was obviously frightening,” Jackman, 44, told The Post. “For me, my main concern is for my family.”
Thurston’s ex-mother-in-law, Joan Washburn, whose son separated from Thurston about 15 years ago, said she’d had issues for a long time. She has a troubled history that includes stalking other celebrities.
“I believe they diagnosed her as bipolar,” 69-year-old Washburn said on Monday.
Katherine Thurston is a Bakersfield, California native. Her mother is Neita Wright. Thurston has three grown children, one of them is 21-year-old daughter, Kalianna, who said:
“My mother has a very high IQ and is very manipulative,” the daughter said. “But she is sick and she doesn’t listen to the doctors. She can go from being completely lucid to totally crazy in seconds.”
According to public records, Thurston has been arrested 11 times since 2003 in California, with charges including arson, trespassing, and possession of stolen property.
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