Stacey Dash

At this point, it is pretty obvious that the fourth time is not the charm. Such is the case for Clueless actress Stacey Dash, whose tumultuous fourth marriage has found a strange ending. She’s being accused of using hypnosis to force her soon-to-be ex-husband to marry her. Let’s look at these allegations and other controversies throughout her career.

THE HYPNOTIST ALLEGATIONS

Now 56 years old, Stacey Dash’s revolving marriage life has hit four. The last marriage happened only ten days after their meeting. She married lawyer Jeffrey Marty in April of 2018, which also included adding his three children to the family. But like her previous three marriages, this one would not last either.

According to Marty, Dash used some type of hypnosis on him to get him to marry her in the first place. Apparently, Stacey Dash actually is a trained hypnotist. While the effects of hypnosis have been documented and confirmed by science, most hypnotists will tell you it’s very difficult, and nearly impossible, to hypnotize someone into doing something they don’t want to do. That didn’t stop Stacey Dash’s husband from making the accusation.

Marty’s lawyer sought an annulment of the marriage, stating in court documents that the pair married after ten days because Dash’s pastor told Marty “unexpectedly and suddenly proclaimed that it was God’s will” to marry Dash and that his ability to say yes to the marriage was influenced by “hypnotic prayer techniques.”

Marty did not go into any further detail as to what those hypnotic prayer techniques entailed. Dash responded, via PEOPLE, to these allegations through her publicist, Claudia Greene, stating “In our country, people are free to say whatever they want regardless if their statement is baseless. That’s what makes America so great.” 

Stacey also filed a legal response saying that she was unaware of her estranged husband’s mental state at the time of her marriage. With the line made famous by the film War Games “Sometimes the only way to win is not to play.” Stacey hopes her case will be finalized soon.”

Stacey Dash filed for divorce in 2020. But in what seems to be a recurring theme, physical violence was part of this marriage too. Dash was arrested in September of 2019 for what she claimed was being put in a chokehold by Marty.

When the police arrived, though, it was he who had the cuts on his arm, there was no evidence visible on Dash, so she was arrested. In a fun little twist, it was Marty who bailed her out. But the twists didn’t stop there.

Dash posted on her Instagram about the breakup of her marriage. Her now-deleted post read, “My husband and I have made the hard decision of ending our marriage. After much prayer, I feel this is the right path for both of us. I wish him nothing but the best. Thank you everyone for your support and respecting our privacy during this difficult time.” Seems amicable enough, right?

Dash is not contesting Marty’s request for a speedy annulment, but perhaps marriage is no longer in her best interest. She continues to get a great amount of work in Hollywood, maybe that is where her hypnotic charms should remain focused.

STACEY DASH WAS IN CLUELESS

Stacey Dash was 15 when she got her first role on TV, though her career didn’t take off as fast as she may have wanted. Dash was seen in a few feature films (Enemy Territory, Tennessee Waltz, Mo’ Money, and Renaissance Man) as well as a few TV series (The Cosby Show, St. Elsewhere, TV 101, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) but it wasn’t until 1995s Clueless that Dash started to become recognizable.

Stacey Dash appeared as Dionne Marie Davenport in the hit movie, Clueless. She played Cher’s (Alicia Silverstone) best friend, a snobby, wealthy and beautiful high school student who maintains a long-term relationship with her boyfriend, the popular Murray (Donald Faison).

Dash could have used some of this in her personal life, no doubt. But the movie spawned a TV series, that saw Dash and Faison return to their popular roles. The series lasted three seasons and while her professional career was finally beginning to Dash along, her personal life was finding a few bumps in the road. Also known as marriage.

STACEY DASH HAS BEEN MARRIED MANY TIMES

Stacey Dash’s first marriage was to producer Brian Lovell. They tied the knot in 1999 and hung in there until 2005 when the couple divorced. Prior to her first marriage, Dash gave birth to her first child, a son, in 1991 from a relationship she had with singer Christopher Williams. Dash had a second child, a girl, with Lovell.

Dash’s second marriage came shortly after her divorce when she married British executive and CEO of Sports Logistics James Maby. This one a short-term marriage, lasting a year. Thankfully, no children were conceived from this marriage.

Her third marriage, this one to actor Emmanuel Xuereb, lasted nearly three years but, as Dash claims, there were many instances of physical abuse. Dash even had to take out a restraining order (obtained through TMZ) on Xuereb, in which it stated he hit Dash in the face, head, and body but Dash had been too afraid to report him to the police.

The order also claimed that one night during a drunken rage, Xuereb pinned Dash to the bed, telling her that it would be the worst night of her life. Ah, life in Hollywood. The couple divorced in 2011 with no mention of hypnotist tricks.

SHE HAS HAD CONTROVERSY

Stacey Dash’s career started 40 years ago as a 15-year-old in a TV movie called Farrell for the People. She turned that into a very promising career, highlighted first by her role in the movie Clueless, and then in the TV series of the same name that saw her reprise her role as Dionne “Dee” Davenport.

In the years that followed, Dash continued to get work but the further her career moved on, more controversy would follow. We’ve talked about Dash’s propensity to walk down the aisle (four failed marriages) but now, Stacey Dash took to the Dr. Oz Show (in 2021) to open up about her drug addiction.

Apparently, Dash felt it was time to come clean to Dr. Oz and his audience. Dash told Dr. Oz that at one point in her life, she was taking upwards of 18 to 20 Vicodin a day. Dr. Oz then says that taking that many pills can be quite an expensive undertaking to which Dash replied, “Yeah, I lost everything.”

Dash then took to her Facebook page to reflect on how opening up to Dr. Oz has helped. “I thank the Lord for being able to say that I have grown more over the last 5 years than I have in my entire life. I am so blessed to be surrounded by people who have loved and supported me through my most challenging time,” she wrote via ET Online.

“Thank you all! I encourage anyone who has a story they are scared of telling to share it with the world. You never know who will be able to relate to you and who it can help.”

Drug abuse isn’t the only issue that has plagued Dash in the past. In 2014, she joined Fox News but didn’t see her contract renewed in 2017. While working for Fox, Dash got herself suspended in 2015 after she made some profanity-laced on-air comments about then-President Barack Obama. In a 2016 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Dash decided it was proper to say that feminism was causing the ruin of men and that transgender people should be peeing in bushes.

In March 2021, Dash apologized for some of the brutal comments she had made. “There are things that I am sorry for. Things that I did say, that I should not have said them the way I said them,” Dash said to the Daily Mail. “They were very arrogant and prideful and angry. And that’s who Stacey was, but that’s not who Stacey is now. Stacey’s someone who has compassion, empathy.”

STACEY DASH IS STILL WORKING

Through all the controversies and her marriages, Stacey Dash has continued to get work in Hollywood. Her projects are sometimes few and far between and many of them are of the B-movie caliber, but with her checkered past, work is work.

Most recently, Dash starred in the TV series, Finding Love in Quarantine. She was then seen in two features, Carolina’s Calling and 7^th Secret. She also has two films coming up, one is titled Corsicana while the other one is an animated film called Dawgtown. Maybe all this work will keep Dash from getting married for the fifth time.