Part 2 gets right into it, not mincing words with her sister talking about Mary “laying on her back” with the congregation.”
Hooking up with Cameron on Saturday night, then pulling him up on stage with her Sunday morning. Weekends were busy for Mary.
Her sister Denise talks about their grandmother and how amazing she was and would NOT be having this trashy behavior if she were still around.
Denise shares that Robert Sr was not only a step-grandfather, but also acted as a father figure that they never had. Okay, now that’s just GROSS. This dude acted like a stepparent to Mary, and then MARRIES her the second his wife passes away?
The journalist dives into the marriage of Robert Sr. and Rosemary. “Mama” was the founder and pastor of the Faith Temple Church in Salt Lake.
He was twenty years younger, which as I said on Part 1, which sort of narrowed the age gap between him and Mary. But still gross.
Mary and Robert take over Faith Temple after Rosemary passes away.
They don’t say how she died or how old she was. But if Mary was 25 and Robert was 45 when they married and she was 20 yrs older that would only maker her 65. (are you impressed with that?) So that’s not terribly old to pass away. I’m JUST SAYING.
I did a quick Google and her death WAS ACTUALLY SKETCHY. She had high blood pressure, but that was only health issue, which she was on medication for. Robert claims she ‘ran out’ of it, however the pills were found in the home.
Her body was exhumed even, because Robert had refused an autopsy. See?? I knew it. I bet he offed Rosemary and wouldn’t be shocked if Mary was in on it.
I think he killed her. And there was some other woman involved too.
Sure doesn’t seem like Rosemary ran this church like a money grubbing ho, Mary but okay let’s go with that. Whatever you say Mary.
Chronic liars, I swear believe their own bullshit. They think if they keep repeating something, that makes it true. What is with people like that? They should seek help.
They interview an older woman, Dorothy, who was good friends with Rosemary (‘Mama’) and was a member of the church for 76 years. She’s 95.
Rosemary moved from Indiana in the early 60’s to start this church in Salt Lake, as God instructed her, she says.
With her four kids in tow, one of which is Mary’s mom of course they walked, hitchhiked and bussed from Indianapolis to Utah. I mean wow. She really wanted to get there. It’s only 1500 miles. Can you even fathom kids doing that today? And to start a church of another faith, in a predominantly ‘white’ and Mormon city takes a lot of guts.
She worked as a housekeeper to support her family and save for her own church, which was built at the tims. A single mom, in the 60’s this is huge.
In the interviews you can tell that Rosemary is kind and genuine, unlike her granddaughter, Mary. She had no ill intentions of profiting from her parishioners.
Mary looks a lot like her, but that’s where the similarities stop.
It was a lively church. She began opening small businesses centered around catering to the black residents for income since there was nothing in SLC like that at the time.
NOT having sex with the congregants and begging for thousands upon thousands of dollars for fucks sake, Mary.
Rosemary still traveled to Indianapolis on occasion to cater to do sermons in tents (‘tent meetings’.)
As we knew was coming, Rosemary meets Robert through the church of course.
Things took a turn when Rosemary became involved with Robert. I assume he didn’t have a home, and She initially moved him in with her and was ‘mothering’ him.
Remember he’s twenty years younger than her. At this point, he’s early 20’s, she’s early 40’s. Rosemary did not see him as a romantic interest, however that seemed to be Robert’s motive, and he managed to reel her in and they marry in 1975. Mary is three at this time.
He becomes the bishop of the church. Her best friend says it seems as if he really loved her. At first.
Her son Sam says the same, however if you looked closely thing were not as they seemed. I know they didn’t have the term ‘love-bombing’ back then but, I’m pretty sure that was heavily involved.
They go back to that bizarre clip that I think was the first season of SLC, where Mary and Robert are in a joint yap, attempting to explain and ‘normalize’ the arrangement. You know a sign that you’re doing something dishonest and sketchy is when you have to sit and make up lies to try to justify it.
Robert literally laughs and sneers when Mary says it was part of Rosemary’s ‘will’ for him to get with Mary. He laughs at that as he knows it’s fucking crap and sounds preposterous, but Mary is too dumb to see that. We’re not seeing any type of sadness about Rosemary’s passing, I can tell you that much.
However if you do research, there was no will when she died, since it was unexpected. Yes, she should have had one at that point, given her assets and age, but unfortunately she didn’t.
Robert adds that she verbally had said to him that if something happens to her, he is to marry ‘one of her girls’ because they’ll look out for him.
Yeah, something tells me this dude does NOT need anyone ‘looking out for him.’ And then just like that, something DID happen to her.
Sure, I want my husband to bang one of my daughters or granddaughters when I croak. Said no woman ever.
One of her sons addresses these comments, and says you can see Robert getting angry after Mary gives that version, that their marriage was ‘part of the will’ (that didn’t even exist.)
One of Rosemary’s sons shares that he and his brother hated Robert and were afraid of him.
Robert started doing this weird thing with the boys of the church where he claimed to be ‘teaching them to be men’ that quickly became abusive. Kicking kids that couldn’t do push-ups, because you know, this is what God told him to do.
Kids are known to have problems hiding info, so thankfully one of her kids did tell her they were getting beaten at these ‘meetings’ (Or beatings as they should have been called.)
She was pissed. Robert denies it. She puts an end to the meetings. Certainly this is a red flag. She chooses to stay with him.
We did find out I believe in the firsy season, that Mary didn’t speak to her mother at all, and Mary referenced she thought she was the one to ‘get’ Robert after Mama was murdered. I mean suddenly died.
So if you all remember that scene of Mary arguing with Britani in one of the first scenes last season, where Mary gets all offended when Britani tries to commiserate with her about growing up poor, Her sister verifies that yes, they were indeed poor, and that their grandmother was more of mother figure to them than her mother.
Mary looked a little scary as a teen in my opinion. I wouldn’t have wanted to get on her bad side.
Her sister describes her as a trouble maker and in need of attention constantly. Even back then, they noticed an affinity for guys with money.
Between him, and her sister Denise, they describe Mary as very selfish and materialistic. That’s not surprising.
‘Mama’ was getting wind of her erratic behavior, and was not happy. She was ‘disfellowshipped’ from the church.
If you listen to Mary, she describes them as close, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
It was around this time that Mama suddenly passes away at age 65 in 1997.
Mary resembles Rosemary. She was basically a much younger version of her grandmother. He’s gross and has no morals, so naturally he was attracted to her.
Don, Mary’s cousin got the phone call from Robert that Rosemary had passed away, with Robert supposedly crying and upset. Yeah sure you were, Robert.
So the real Robert surfaces after she dies. He has no one to hold him accountable, so he doesn’t have has to pretend for anymore. Rosemary held him back from being the true slithering snake that he is.
Remember she had made him Bishop of her church, giving him control of it, I’m assuming. Robert allegedly takes on a role of ‘reviving’ Mary and getting her on the straight and narrow. Yeah, that’s ironic, right? She starts staying at his house and they’re going out to dinner. Mary is ‘consoling’ Robert. He buys her a BMW.
So you see what was going on right from the get go, right? Mary saw dollar signs without having to work or do anything.
The congregants thought this was strange that the Bishop would be dating his late wife’s granddaughter.
They play a clip from one of Mary’s yaps where she again tries hard to make their relationship sound normal, where she claims her grandmother left her empire to Mary consisting of homes, churches and businesses. Wait, I thought there was no will though.
So out of all of her kids and grandkids, she leaves everything to Mary, whom she was unhappy with and didn’t even want her in her church at the time of her death? What’s going on with these businesses now? I assume they were sold once Mary and Robert got their grubby hands on them.
Shut the fuck up Mary. Like seriously shut the fuck up. Her sister debunks that this was any type of conventional inheritance situation.
He then starts brainwashing the parishioners, because he knows he’s doing something sketchy, and morally corrupt by convincing them that God wanting him to marry Mary. This dude is NUTS.
But I thought Rosemary wanted you to marry her?? Which is it? When he was looking for the family’s approval, Robert kept stressing that there was no blood relation. Everyone understood, but it’s still fucking weird, dude.
Even in Utah, it’s fucking weird. She called him ‘Gramps’ for fucks sake.
Oh by the way, and this is new info to me, Mary was MARRIED to another guy during this time. And divorce was against the church’s beliefs.
Long story short, nothing like this was ever indicated by ‘Mama.’ Ever.
Apparently this other marriage was questioned on Reunion 1 which I don’t recall, and she is visibly uncomfortable explaining this, and gets very flustered and just says there were ‘irreconcilable differences’ and had NOTHING to do with Robert.
You can hear her starting to say that the husband wanted the divorce, but she stops herself, because that’s not true, and she was worried he might speak out on that. What’s his current status I wonder. Did they off him too? Like they did Mama?
If I were this reporter that did all of this digging, I would sleep with one eye open. These motherfuckers are ruthless.
She married Robert 2 1/2 weeks after the divorce was final.
So she was banging her grandfather of no blood relation of course, while she was married.
His name is Dana Lamonte Something. They blacked out his last name of the document that they showed. I couldn’t find anything on him.
I guess Robert and the church started picking on this kid and humiliated him until he got out of the picture so that Mary could marry Robert.
She claims at the reunion, that Robert had nothing to do with their divorce. Denise is right. When Mary’s lips are moving, she’s lying.
I liked the comparison of God to The Boogeyman. They made the congregants feel like if they didn’t go along with anything that they said, God was going to ‘get them.’
That actually is cult-like rhetoric. They have a cult expert on that says religion-based cults are the worst because they scare people with God hating them or going to hell and shit like that. It’s mind control is what it is.
Seems like since ‘Bishop Robert’ knows this marriage is fucked up, they start talking it to death to the church to convince the congregants that it’s just fine. This is what Mama wanted.
Mary’s mother isn’t loving this arrangement, which I don’t really blame her. Mary has claimed she was mad because she wanted to be the one to have Robert and all the perks. Not sure if that is true or not. Perhaps as a mother, she thought this was gross and incestuous
There was a ‘walk-out’ service in 1998, like a protest of sorts. Mary’s mom takes the pulpit and tells the church Robert is not God, as he was not. I feel like she was trying to ‘de-brain wash’ these poor people. Everyone started arguing and it even gets physical. Police were called.
Apparently there was a lot more drama to this arrangement than was indicated by Mary on the show. A LOT more. She was just like “yeah it was her wish. A little unconventional but no biggie, it’s Utah.” No, not the case. At all. It was a huge scandal at the time.
So they wed in a private ceremony in Chicago. Mary is made the choir director. This is when things start to get weird. As if they weren’t weird before.
I’m watching on my laptop again and it cuts off with six minutes left so I guess I’m missing the end again.
I wonder what the deal is with the first husband and why he’s not talking? Maybe he will now.
