Friday, August 10, 2012

Timothy Douglas, the estranged father of black Olympic superstar Gabby Douglas, has broken his silence following a string of revealing reports about his parenting

Douglas visited London, but did not witness any sport as his daughter refused to offer him, or his family tickets to the competition. As Gabby Douglas was training hard for her future Olympic victory in London, her father was getting into trouble with the law. Douglas, an Air National Guardsman, was arrested on March 8, 2012 for contributing to the delinquency of a child. Little is known about Douglas' life apart from his estranged wife Natalie Hawkins, and since the documents are sealed, the identity of his victim may be related to a family friend or even a new girlfriend. Gabby has spoken out about her father at length following her first place finish in the women's all-around competition. She said that he abandoned her mother and her three siblings at an early age, leaving the family to struggle financially for years. The news of the arrest comes just days after U.S. gold-medal-winning gymnast Gabby Douglas slammed her father as a deadbeat dad, claiming he left her mother with mountains of bills. The 16-year-old - who failed in her final bid to win a medal after she fell off the balance beam - said that her father, Staff Sergeant Timothy Douglas, who served for the Air National Guard in Afghanistan, abandoned her and her three older siblings years ago and rarely paid child support. It left her mother, Natalie Hawkins, struggling to provide for Gabby, her two older sisters and brother - and often got the gymnast so down that she considered quitting her Olympics dream. Even after winning two gold medals - the individual and team titles - she revealed that she had not been in touch with him, though he resided in a home just 10 miles away from her mother's Virginia Beach property. Hawkins battled to raise the money to support her daughter's dreams and identifies as a single mother. Earlier in 2012, with debts nearing $80,000, she filed for bankruptcy.

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