Here is my new take after this evening and it doesn’t excuse any of Katie’s actions over the past week.
With that said, I don’t think I really mentally processed the age difference between the two quite before. Katie is definitely younger appearance wise in person and Spencer is definitely older appearance wise in person.
I just don’t know how much of Katie’s struggles in her current state are from Spencer “grooming” her after stalking/preying on her and she now has to live with the decision she made to be completely dependent to him (since she threw her marriage away). Depending on him for money, housing, and any social life.
Spencer clearly romantically obsessed about Katie long before he ever met her in person and I know he is quite the “smooth talker”. I just kept thinking of that one Vlog where she said, paraphrasing, “I love being with you because I can do what I do for a living and go to the parks everyday”. He had to tell her that OVER and OVER again to originally break her down to leave her husband.
For a girl, who was raised on Disney fairytales, Disneyland as a career as a “featured entertainer” (in a sense) is a pretty powerful drug. Like the movie “Casino”, when Sharon Stone’s character keeps going back to Lester Diamond. Lester Diamond always knows what she wants to hear and what promises are made to her. Spencer has that same feel to him.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he told her to take the extreme angle she put out there tonight about the supposed extent of “what trolls want”.
I know this has been a long rant already. My perspective changed slightly tonight. Both should still be banned from Disneyland for exploiting it for commercial purposes.
I am going to have a couple more drinks…