Less than two weeks ago, Dennis Hopper filed for divorce from his wife of 14 years, Victoria. Then all hell broke loose, mainly because it’s generally established that Dennis Hopper is on his deathbed, and will not be alive for very much longer, and is likely heavily medicated. So how, perchance, did he decide to file for divorce? One theory is that his oldest daughter basically forced her father into the lawyer’s office and made him file the papers.

Anyway, Victoria filed a petition in response to the divorce filing. The peition was obtained by The Daily Beast, amongst other media outlets, and Victoria is alleging some pretty serious stuff about Hopper. Allegedly, Hopper used to keep loaded guns around the house (he and Victoria have a six-year-old daughter), and Hopper used to threaten to kill Victoria. Oh, yes. This sh-t it going to get even nastier:

“In 2009,” the declaration reads, “I discovered a pistol with multiple rounds of ammunition in Petitioner’s bedroom drawer. The gun and ammunition was unsecure and easily accessible, including to Galen [Victoria and Dennis’ six year old daughter]. I also located a loaded shotgun, unsecure, in our bedroom closet. I told Petitioner to remove the guns from our home. Petitioner agreed. I immediately moved the guns to a secure temporary location and later had them removed by a police officer.”

This followed another incident in which she claims Hopper told her that if she divorced him, “Something bad is going to happen to you and you won’t see it coming.”

In addition to the threats, Victoria claims that the whole marriage dissolution is not Hopper’s desire at all, but rather “a result of estate planning by other family members” who presumably want her cut off financially. Hopper, she says, told her “he does not want to divorce” and “that other people are insisting he take care of them upon his death.”

Victoria calls out one of these family members specifically several times in the document: Hopper’s 47-year-old daughter, Marin, who has been living in a wing of her father’s Venice compound for more than two years.

Financially, Victoria claims she needs Hopper’s support. “While I have attempted to work at various careers throughout our marriage, Petitioner has discouraged and prevented me from doing so.” She says she signed their jointly filed 2008 tax return and that their total income was stated as over $1.2 million, and that Hopper has a $1 million life insurance policy. She wants the court to order that she and Galen be named as equal beneficiaries of that policy. “Based on Petitioner’s statements to me that he will leave me destitute and because I do not have a steady or significant source of income, I fear I will be unable to financially provide for our six year old daughter and myself.”

She also charges that Hopper is a habitual pot smoker and got high in front of their child.

“Petitioner has in recent months used marijuana in Galen’s presence. I request the Court order Petitioner to refrain from use of marijuana and any nonprescription drugs 12 hours before and during any time he spends with Galen.”

[The filing also says] that as his illness worsened, the marriage began to fray, in part because he became so cruel to his wife. “Dennis has misdirected all his rage and fear onto Victoria,” is how one close friend of the couple puts it. Says another: “He’s angry about his health and he’s taking it out on her.”

[From The Daily Beast]

The Daily Beast piece goes on to insinuate that Victoria may have had an affair while she was working on Obama’s campaign in 2008, describing “a man whom Victoria grew close to during the election…who listened to her and was encouraging of her having a career.” Hmm… well, I’m prepared to believe that Hopper is a son of a bitch, and that he likes guns, and that he’s violent, and that he uses money to control people. But that still doesn’t answer all of the questions I have about Dennis and Victoria’s marriage, or about this family in general.

Oh, and who is really surprised that Hopper smokes pot? It would shock me more if he had spent the last decade not inhaling substances.