Dita Von Teese has given an interview to London’s Daily Telegraph in retaliation to her ex Marilyn Manson’s interview to Rolling Stone. She felt she was unfairly criticized for the downfall of their marriage in the Rolling Stone piece, and wanted to give her version of the events for the general public.

In the Telegraph interview, Dita comes across as a graceful, intelligent woman whose only fault was loving a depressed man with Peter Pan syndrome that simply didn’t want her help. You won’t catch her getting into a mudslinging match with her ex on My Space, or trying to re-create Waiting To Exhale on Marilyn’s taxidermy stuff:

‘It was difficult, because I was trying to get him help for his problems, and eventually I realised that he didn’t want help. I wasn’t supportive about his partying or his relationship with another girl, and as much as I loved him I wasn’t going to be part of that.’

After the wedding the relationship went into sharp decline, according to Von Teese. ‘Everything went downhill after we got married. I started working a lot to escape my home life.’ Manson, she says, lapsed into depression.

‘He says how depressed he was. I get the impression he thinks I was unsupportive,’ she says. ‘But the truth is I wasn’t supportive of his lifestyle, and someone else came along who was.’ Von Teese issued Manson an ultimatum, and, she says sadly, ‘It didn’t work. Instead, it made me the enemy.’

She decided to move out on Christmas Eve, essentially empty-handed. ‘I left with nothing. I knew that there was an inappropriate relationship going on in it, and I didn’t want any part of it around to remind me. I didn’t want that sofa. I didn’t want that bed. I didn’t want the knife you read about in the article.’

Bravo, Dita, for showing the world how a grown woman should behave when they split up with someone. It’s refreshing to see someone in the public eye who can be candid with what they feel but still not be reduced to denigrating another party so publicly. Divorces are not the easiest things to go through (having been through one myself), and it’s easy to slip into depression and falling back on humiliating the person who hurt you the most in order to make yourself feel better.

Now if only the rest of Celebland could learn from her example…

Picture note by Celebitchy: Dita is shown on the cover of April, 2007 Penthouse below. An old photospread accompanies the magazine’s tribute to Von Teese. [via]