McKensie Morrison Update: Senator Stanley Admits Affair; Boyfriend Joel Watts Demands Apology

The news has been coming fast and furious since we last met McKensie Morrison and the two men in her life whose brains she has apparently turned into bags of dead worms. Let’s get caught up, shall we?

To re-cap: McKensie Morrison is the legislative intern caught between her former boss, married Tennessee State Senator Paul Stanley, with whom she was having an affair, and her jealous ex-boyfriend, Joel Watts. Watts was arrested in April while attempting to extort $10,000 from Stanley after discovering sexytime pictures of Morrison in the senator’s apartment.

Senator Stanley wouldn’t confirm the affair initially but –whoops, uh-oh– admitted to it in sworn statements given to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations in April that were leaked two days ago. He also confirmed to the TBI that he was the one who took the pictures, so there goes his initial defense that he was just the victim of some horrible extortion scheme. Stanley finally saw the writing on the wall and resigned his position on the Senate Commerce Committee last night, amid speculation that he might be forced to resign from the senate altogether.

Simultaneously, the boyfriend Joel Watts tried to flip the script yesterday by claiming that Senator Stanley is the one who initiated the bag drop and all Watts wanted was “an apology.” This wasn’t extortion! Just some guy who wanted to buy pics of some girl he use to bonk, as a keepsake. Of course, that doesn’t jibe with the Senator’s leaked testimony, and it really doesn’t jibe with the text messages Watts sent the Senator before the drop:

Good morning sir, how are you this fine day. McKensie and I have been talking and I feel that I have a video and some pictures you might be interested in seeing. This is her boyfriend, that guy you met outside Walgreens. Contact me as [soon as] possible and have a splendid day

First of all, that Walgreens thing just totally kills us. We’ve all been there as men, either suspecting that our girlfriend is cheating, or just that she’s taking a shine to someone else, or maybe the relationship isn’t going great and she chats it up too eagerly with the guy working the cash register. Whatever the case may be there’s that one encounter, that other guy, and it burns you and you spend waaaay too much time fixating on the significance of “the encounter at the Walgreens.”

Secondly, it’s just sad to see the way poor Joel is clearly going about this thing after watching six or seven crappy heist movies in a row. Like, he took in a marathon of every Jason Statham movie he could get his hands on, paid attention to how the bad guys talk, and just went for it. All of the texts are like this:

Be smart because I will take all of us down you have until 10 am to reply with cash in fist.

You will see I will give you the main copy. I am not going to play with you. This will be fast and there will not be any words.

There will be two other vehicles that will be watching for the pickup and drop. Exit 40 is as far as we go.

Sounds like games. May need a big box to clean out your desk.

And on and on like this. He also keeps teasing the Senator with threats to go to the press, dangling an offer from an unnamed reporter to pay $7500 for the pics if the Senator doesn’t want them. Intrigue! They eventually did the drop, which was monitored by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations, and Watts was picked up by TBI (a judge later dropped a charge of theft, but he’s still awaiting trail for extortion.)

On top of it all the extortioner-in-training decided yesterday would be a good time to take to the airwaves and read a sanctimonious public statement to the Senator, demanding an apology:

“…a responsibility as a leader to guide and direct his young interns…” That’s the money quote. Come on, Joel, cut the shit. This isn’t about the Republican Party or the conservative movement or responsibility and God and country or whatever. When you demanded ten thousand bucks in small bills it was about a girl, man. It was about some dude running around with your girlfriend, some powerful dude who offered things you couldn’t, and you found a way to get him by the balls.

More than anything, this just makes the rest of us dudes look awful. You’ve got the philandering jerkhole on one side and the make-believe movie tough guy on the other, and stuck in the middle is a woman who, up to this point, has remained completely out of the public eye, refusing to release any ridiculous statements or proclamations, or make any sort of spectacle of herself in any way. Maybe girls are smarter than us.

Stanley Seduced Young Intern, Her Jealous Boyfriend Says: ‘All I Wanted Was an Apology’ [Nashville Scene]
Testimony paints blackmail picture of state senator [Nashville Post]
Stanley Resigns Chairmanship, Admits Taking “Explicit” Pictures [Memphis Flyer Political Beat]