I know I’m totally evil for laughing at this, but c’mon: “The husband of Liza Minnelli is claiming that the singer and actress beat him up so badly during their brief marriage that he now suffers constant pain and nausea” The Guardian. David Gest suffers from a “virtually constant unrelenting pain in his head,” and claims symptoms as varied as “throbbing pain, severe headaches, vertigo, nausea, hypertension, scalp tenderness and insomnia.” [italics mine]
Friends of the couple had high hopes for the marriage, which got off to an auspicious start in March of 2002, with friends Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor officiating as best man and “maid” of honor, respectively. At the time, pal David Hasselhoff said of the couple: “I thought David Gest was going to cry. Liza was staggeringly beautiful.” The lavish celebrity-packed wedding featured some of the couple’s favorite performers, including Paula Abdul, Ed Ames, Tony Bennett, Roberta Flack, Gloria Gaynor, Robert Goulet, the Pointer Sisters, Shaggy, and Dionne Warwick.

But only sixteen months later, the bloom is off the rose. During one of Liza’s vodka-fueled binges, the couple’s security guard tried to intervene: “Liza, it’s me, Imad, I’m your friend,” Handi allegedly told the award-winning singer. “I have no friends,” she replied. “My husband is using me to be a star. I am the star. Next he will start a singing career on stage and record albums.”