Katherine Lester in Seventeen Magazine

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Mich. teen recounts MySpace romance to magazine:

Our favorite runaway to the Middle East, Katherine Lester, is back in the headlines again for telling her story to Seventeen Magazine…

GILFORD A Michigan teenager who flew to the Middle East to be with a man she met on MySpace.com has detailed her online romance and the fallout her trip caused in Seventeen magazine.

In the article in the October issue of Seventeen, which hit newsstands Tuesday, 17-year-old Katherine Lester writes about how she has worked to regain her parents’ trust since her romance was revealed and became international news.

“While my parents were supportive through the legal issues, I can see how much our relationship has changed because of what I did in good ways and bad,’ Lester wrote. “No matter how many times I say I’m sorry, I can’t get back their trust.”

Lester developed an online romance with Abdullah Jimzawi, a 20-year-old Palestinian who lives in the West Bank town of Jericho. For months, she kept the relationship secret before disappearing June 5 from her mother’s home in Gilford, 80 miles north of Detroit.

“I couldn’t imagine going halfway across the globe,” she wrote in the magazine. “But I realized I didn’t want to wait either.”

Her father, Terry Lester, who lives near Flint, has declined requests from The Associated Press to interview his daughter. He said Thursday that she is back in high school for her senior year.

Katherine Lester wrote in the magazine that she and Jimzawi talk daily on the telephone for about an hour. And she reiterated her plans to marry him.

=”Although a lot of people, including my parents, don’t believe us, we really do love each other and we are going to get married someday,” she wrote. “Love is full of tests, and we’re going to pass ours.”

What a great message Seventeen is sending to its readers. It’s ok for girls to run off to marry someone at the age of 16. It’s a guarantee that he’ll love you forever. Please.

And why is her father still allowing her to talk to Abdullah Psycho every day for an hour?

This whole thing is starting to smell of cashing in. I’ll lay odds that a Lifetime movie gets made about this.

Comments

8 responses to “Katherine Lester in Seventeen Magazine”

September 8, 2006

keb

And her parents are allowing this ongoing contact, AND allowing her to PUBLISH the whole thing? Sounds like they enjoy the notoriety (aka $$) more than they are concerned about stopping her. How reinforcing for her, to have all this drama and publicity!

If her family really wants to stop it cold, they might invite Mr. Wonderful to live in their home, where they can supervise while the young lovers get to know each other in all their self-important glory.

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September 19, 2006

Jo

Heh.. everything that has to with this Katherine and Abdullah is just for the $$$…
The same thing they did with the Karr-Benet case.
and as for that Seventeen magazine….
They don’t give a shit..
they’ll print out ANYTHING that has to do with teens.. to attract to their magazine..
Because.. they know.. about.. 95% of girl teens out there are on myspace.. they push out this story into the opening.
so girls can be like.. “ZOMG, myspace stories!!.. I use that!!” -)

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October 20, 2006

bri bri

You have no right to criticize the decisions made by someone regarding their own life. If you read the article you would know that she was the one who began conversating with him. Seventeen is just showing the experiences of girls, they’re not condoning her behavior. They’re giving girls the right to choose their own destiny, just like Katherine Lester. And Jo, Seventeen is the most read young women’s magazine, so they don’t need any money!

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October 20, 2006

Trench Reynolds

Shhh. The adults are talking.

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March 5, 2007

Gabriel

Katherine Lester was brain washed by her boyfriend. In truth, he has quite radical attitudes about women and he is not going to tolerate her upbringing of being “important or valuable” once she is over there. One day, he brags and boasts that he “Owns her.” That she “WILL do whatever he tells her to do. She will obey his every comand, because he has control over her and she belongs to him.”

He claims he is wealthy, but when he was investigated, it turns out his family has very little money. He’s lying through his teeth to that girl.

It’s sad and terrifying, really. Katherine has EVERYTHING going for her right now! She’s safe, she can go to college, have a career, have RIGHTS….

Man, she has NO IDEA what she is about to do to her life. To less prominant sources, the boyfriend admits that he “ordered” Katherine to run away, because “life in America is bull sh**, and no one there knows what a REAL life is.” He says that when she turns 18, they will get married in HIS country and she will live there with him, and do whatever he TELLS her to do. Yet on the American news, he is acting so romantic and talking about love and how special she is. Special my ass! He just wants an obedient servant. A pretty, young, blond piece of “property”. He is playing her like a violin, and she is eating up every single word of it! And her family is just allowing it to happen.

Mark my words, she is going to end up either dead, badly beaten, and/or held captive over there for the rest of her life. But she is deffinitely NOT going to have the happy, loving future she is imagining.

Didn’t you ever see the movie “Not Without My Daughter”? It’s a true story. Weather the family supports Katherine or not, weather they like her boyfriend or not, weather they are NICE to him or not— As soon as that girl turns 18, she’s gonna run over there all starry-eyed, and then vanish off the face of the Earth. They are NEVER gonna see her again. Abdullah will kill her before he lets her go. You just watch.

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May 5, 2007

adult

Ithink everyone needs to shut up. You guys are promoting the story just as much as seventeen is.
All you want is something to gossip about.
Its old news and besides he didnt lie to her at all. He barely kept up a conversation. She was the main one talking. She fell in love all by herself.
and if she marries him let her make her own mistake.
Shes the one whose life may be in danger not yours.
Keep to yourself.

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September 12, 2007

suri

This girl is crazy, What does she know about the world when she is 18, I cannot believe her parents let her do this. Parents need to take control of certain things in their children’s life. I am originally from Asia and we never did anything that parents don’t like, specially when it comes to marriage, we always got alot of advices and listen…what’s wrong with these beautiful american girls. When she is 18, marriage is not the first thing she needs to do, go to college and after few years if she still have the same feeling for this guy, then it’s ok…but she is stupid, if she is my daughter, I’ll never ever let her go there to do this marriage.

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October 30, 2007

Kayla

Gabriel, you sound more psycotic than the person your trying to describe in your comment. “Have you ever watched NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER?” yes, I have, and it portrays a very biased image on Islam, not to mention those “Muslims” were Shi`a. that movie is a good example to use when speaking about anti-Islamic propaganda.

my mom used that same line when I was about to marry a Muslim man from the Middle east…to this day we have shown her wrong:P

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