Tuesday morning, Christie Brinkley spoke to TODAY's Matt Lauer and memorably choked up while discussing the ongoing battles she has had with ex-husband Peter Cook. On Wednesday, Cook stirred the pot further, sitting down with TODAY's Savannah Guthrie to defend himself.
Cook said his former wife of 12 years lied about "virtually everything" she said on the show Tuesday. "The entire content of her interview was a lie where she claims that I am harassing and bullying her on a daily basis," he said, adding that they haven't had a conversation in four years or emailed in two years. "So this perception that I am harassing and bullying her is -- is nonsense."
He called Brinkley's welling up toward the end of her interview "crocodile tears" and said ever since they separated, she's been "on a campaign to smear me. There is no Peter Cook press machine. I have no interest in the press. I'm not a celebrity. You don't hear about Peter Cook until Christie Brinkley dredges something up from the past to make herself relevant in the media again."
That said, there is something they can come together on: Each calls the other "narcissistic."
Cook doesn't deny that he is one, and says it makes him a great dad. "Narcissism makes you focus attention on something," he said. "You can either be focused entirely on yourself ... and you can also focus your energies on your child and say, 'I'm always thinking, I'm thinking ahead of what they're going to need.'"
That said, he believes all of this public battling is "terrible for my children." (And the kids are reacting: 16-year-old Jack has refused to see Cook, though he told Guthrie he has a good relationship with 13-year-old Sailor.) And he admits he's no role model.
"If I were a role model, I would just sit back and keep taking the beatings and bruisings," he said, then echoed her statements: "I want peace. I want peace for my family. I want peace for myself. I want to be able to do my job, see my kids and live without the Christie Brinkley shadow over me. That's all I ask."
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