‘Lorena’ on Amazon Prime: John Wayne Bobbitt Still Refuses To Admit His Shortcomings All These Years Later

Anyone who lived through the ’90s likely remembers the sensational story of Lorena and John Bobbitt. The trial of the abused wife who cut off her husband’s penis in the middle of the night dominated newspapers, tabloids, and TV screens for years following the incident, and now, 25 years later, it’s back in the spotlight with the release of the four-episode docuseries Lorena now streaming on Amazon Prime. Thankfully, being more than two decades removed from the event, the focus is less on what happened and more on why—and how we can prevent it from happening again.

Lorena has the unique advantage of having most parties involved with the original case appear in the documentary itself. Lorena and John both annotate their version of past events as well as offering their perspective 25 years on. Also present are the lawyers, friends, neighbors, police officers, and witnesses who took part in both of their trials, as well as journalists and advocates for victims of domestic violence. Everyone involved could agree without a shadow of a doubt that Lorena was the victim of serious domestic abuse—everyone, that is, except John Wayne Bobbitt.

Perhaps the most startling element of Lorena is how extremely disconnected John was from his transgressions. Despite lengthy and well-documented proof of his verbal, physical, and sexual abuse against Lorena and other female partners, he insists that he’s never hit a woman and instead projects the blame onto the women themselves. After all, they’re all gold diggers or, in Lorena’s case, desperate and using him for US citizenship. Never mind the fact that John clearly has a history of racist and sexist behavior and is known for sponging off the women he claims were siphoning money he’s never had.

Whereas Lorena saw her ordeal with her ex-husband as something from which she wanted to heal and ultimately move on, John wanted to profit from it (and still does). He made public appearances in the years following the event, relished signing autographs, and even did two porn movies to make some extra cash and “prove that it all still works.” While these things in and of itself show his questionable judgment, what’s more troubling is that Americans welcomed John with open arms and saw him, as one newspaper headline described him, as their “white trash hero.” John was a known abuser who’d been arrested numerous times for battery against women and all anyone seemed to care about was how crazy it was that his wife had cut his penis off.

Rewarding abusers is nothing new; you only have to look at the likes of Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and even Johnny Depp to see this. We turn a blind eye to their behavior and continue to cast them in movies, go see their concerts, buy their books even. The women they abuse are forgotten about at best or publicly vilified at worst, branded liars or bitches by online trolls and the media. Yes, things are changing; yes, we’re beginning to take women’s stories seriously and demand that those who perpetuate this abuse be held accountable for their actions, but we still have a long way to go.

John Wayne Bobbitt is currently a free man, one who sits on his couch and feels completely confident telling a camera crew that he has no idea why his ex-wife would feel so threatened by him, so angry that she’d want to cut off his penis after he’d raped her while drunk for the umpteenth time. He’s a man who feels comfortable spouting off misguided racial stereotypes, claiming that Lorena just wanted “too much too fast” due to the fact that she was from South America. (What does that even mean?)

You almost feel bad for him, in a sense, because it seems as if he truly believes his own lies. Then you remember the fact that he’s continued to harass Lorena in the years since their split, bombarding her with Facebook messages, texts, emails, and handwritten cards and letters insisting that they should get back together just so that they can make a lot of money. When confronted about this, John claims that Lorena made contact first, wanting to know how much money he had. That he continues to spout off lies so readily is not a surprise; that he expects to be believed is.

Lorena is now happily married with a young daughter and works with domestic violence victims to promote healing and increase awareness of terrible situations like the one she herself went through. She just wants to be left alone, for her ex-husband to take the hint. With any luck, “alone” is a concept that John Wayne Bobbitt will come to understand very well for the rest of his life.

Jennifer Still is a writer and editor from New York who cares too way much about fictional characters and spends her time writing about them.

Stream Lorena on Prime Video