Maddie's husband was caught downloading child sex abuse images. But she stayed.

Actress Maddie Corman’s husband was arrested for downloading and sharing child sex abuse images, and she decided to stay with him, for the sake of their three children.

It’s a decision that has raised many eyebrows, but Corman, 49, is sticking by her choice.

“I’m aware that decision does not sit well with some people. I don’t like having to defend my choice. I was proud to be married to who I’m married too, and I am still proud to be married to him, I am,” she told The Times. 

Here is Maddie talking about her new play about her husband’s arrest, and how hard the decision to stay was to make. 

Corman has turned her controversial experience into a one woman play called ‘Accidentally Brave’. She gets to relive the horror of that incident on stage, eight times a week.

Her life was turned upside down in 2015, when early one morning she received a frantic call from her 16-year-old daughter while at work.

“MOM! The police are here! Mom! They’re taking Dad’s computer. MOOMMMM!”

During the show, she tells the story warts and all. The calls that followed to her husband, her father, her brother. Her initial reaction that it must have been a horrible mistake.

She describes seeing her husband waiting outside her workplace:

“The man that I have been with for 20 years, the man who is the father of my three children and my very best friend . . . who plays songs at the piano and makes silly puns and reads The New Yorker,” she says. “He is hunched over and pale and I don’t recognise this person.”

“Is it true? How old? Did you ever touch anyone?” she asked him.

She describes throwing up, perhaps punching him (it’s all a blur) and the uncontrollable shaking.

The story hit the news. Her husband Jason (Jace) Alexander, 54, is famous himself. He is a TV director, and worked on Law & Order. So media coverage was inevitable.

It’s for this reason her show is titled what it is, she didn’t want her family’s life to be thrust into the limelight, but that wasn’t really a choice she could make. She would have preferred, she tells The Times, to keep it all private.

“If I had the choice, I probably would have,” she says.

She uses her play as a way to settle some facts that she believes were misconstrued in the headlines.

“Some of the headlines about his arrest gave the impression that he had made the videos himself. “He did not,” she says in the play. “He watched them. I’m not in any way saying that this is OK, but let’s be clear: he downloaded and watched.”

He was sentenced to 10 years probation and had to register as a sex offender. He was convicted over two counts of relating to possessing and sharing illegal images of children.

Speaking to The Times, Corman explains; “I had no interest in having my kids grow up without a parent as long as he was willing to get help and be the best person he could.”

Since his conviction, Alexander has been to rehab and they’ve had family therapy. Corman insists she has never worried about the safety of their children.

“I know that some people think that I am crazy or a monster and that’s not been fun to read,” she admits.

 

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A post shared by Maddie Corman (@msmaddiecorman) on Aug 10, 2018 at 8:57am PDT

Corman also admits that in the wake of the scandal, and the news coverage,  their life slowly began to disintegrate around them.

They were dis-invited from gala dinners, removed from the board of the Director’s Guild of America, and no longer allowed to coach their twin’s soccer team.

She also explains her children’s unique reactions.

One of her twin boys told her of his intense feelings of loving and hating his dad all at the one time. The other twin just cried. Her daughter told her to visit him in rehab, “you promised to love him in sickness and in health, well, dad is sick,” she said.

While his wife relives the experience that turned their family life upside down, Jace is supportive and hopes the play helps others.

Meanwhile, he is producing a documentary about the debilitating effects of pornography.