The Bode Miller Custody Scandal Is Totally Overshadowing His Embarrassing Olympic Loss

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Earlier today Olympic skier Bode Miller finished a disappointing eighth in the men’s downhill skiing competition, after getting the top time in training.He was beat out by (among many others, obviously) the dark horse Austrian skier Matthias Mayer, but that isn’t the real controversy surrounding Miller this year. The real story involves Miller, his ex-girlfriend Sara McKenna and their 11-month-old son.

Bode Miller and Sara McKenna are currently embroiled a heated custody battle over their young son. The former couple are at war and can’t seem to agree on anything, even the child’s name; Bode calls him Nate, but Sara calls him Sam. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. According to the ESPN article on the subject, Miller is known for being a wild card in his professional life:

“For 16 years, he has built a reputation as an überathletic, win-or-crash-trying daredevil who pushes the line between safety and success. Since 1998, he has won five Olympic medals and 33 World Cup races, more than any other American male Alpine skier.”

Apparently this wild, devil-may-care attitude can be found off the slopes as well, judging from his tumultuous personal history. It seems that it even took precedence over his career:

” If every minute of every day would have been dedicated to skiing, he undoubtedly would have grown to hate the sport, burned out and quit. So instead, he reaped the rewards of his worldwide celebrity in the most anti-establishment way possible. He partied. He drank. He chased women. “A rock-star life,” says Lowell Taub, Miller’s agent. “

According to Miller, back in early 2012 he had sensed that his “ability to be a husband had finally developed,” (whatever that means) and he went searching for a wife the same way he seems to do everything – with a sense of entitlement and bravado that wouldn’t work with any man but a famous Olympic bad boy. Of course, Bode went the Millionaire Matchmaker route and hired a high end matchmaking service, saying strangely that he “needed someone just as complicated and fucked up as it gets.” That’s where he met McKenna And it only gets more head-scratchingly-weird from there.

According to Bode, after a few dates with Sara he realized that she wasn’t “the one.” But of course he was intimate with her anyway, because with a name like Bode, what do you expect. He even goes as far as to say “I have no one to blame but myself,” in a tone that actually says “She was easy, I should have known not to sleep with a slag,” because DudeBros like Miller always blame the woman when they can’t remember to put a raincoat on it.

A few weeks after McKenna and Miller ended their short relationship, she realized she was pregnant with Miller’s child. The two tried to be amicable at first, with Miller attending various appointments and sonograms, but of course, according to Bode, bitches be crazy, and it soon fell apart.

I think I should mention that the ESPN article goes on and on about Miller and his new wife Morgan, pandering in the way only a sports publication can. The slut shaming against Sara McKenna in that piece is so thick you could cut it with a knife. They mention Morgan having a miscarriage in a tone that suggests that it’s unfair that the mean old ex’s baby lives when the sweet, deserving wifey’s didn’t. Yuck. 

Before giving birth, McKenna moved from California to NEw York to pursue an education at Columbia University. Although, according to McKenna he hadn’t even wanted her to keep the baby, he apparently saw this as her “kidnapping” the fetus, and quickly sued her for custody.

Obviously there is going to be a lot of he said/she said going on in a story as complicated as this one, but a few things are clear. After Sam was born, a New York judge scolded McKenna for moving across the country while pregnant with Miller’s child, because apparently it’s okay for him to be out of the country all the time for his work, but as a pregnant woman she didn’t have the right to pursue her education and career outside of her ex-boyfriend’s sphere of influence. It’s not like he’s filthy rich and could make it work cross-country…oh, right, he totally is and could.

The New York court’s decision threw the ball back into the California legal system’s court, where they granted Bode custody. However in November of 2013 a New York appellate court reversed this decision and gave primary custody back to McKenna, with Miller sharing custody as part of a short-term agreement. agreement.

Obviously the drama is still going on. At one point, Miller wanted to bring Sam (or Nate, as he calls him, because DudeBro gets what DudeBro wants apparently) to Sochi to see him compete, but due to issues with getting a Russian visa, it couldn’t happen (because of the ridiculous name issue). Personally, I think the issue is a typical frat-bro type becoming enraged when he can’t have his way. I empathize with the desire to be a part of your child’s life (though the jury is still out on whether he was genuinely interested or feigning interest to impress his new girlfriend-turned-wife), but by refusing to call the child his legal name, and fighting for custody while the kid was still in utero, he seems like a petulant child who cares more about getting his way than the mother of his child bettering her life for her own sake and more importantly, the sake of their child.

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