Woman who cut her husband's penis off, says she is now 'happy'

Lorena 'Bobbitt' Gallo, who sliced off her ex-husband John Wayne Bobbitt's penis and threw it out of her car window, has said she is now leading a 'happy' life.

When Lorena, now 55, used a butcher's knife on her former marine husband's private part on a Wednesday evening at their home in Manassas in northern Virginia, it was a crime that got global attention.

On June 23, 1993, Lorena, then-24, severed her husband's penis as he slept after she said that he had abused and raped her. She then drove off and threw the remains into a field before calling the police and confessing to what she had just done.

Now, talking in a new ITV documentary, I Cut Off His Penis: The Truth Behind The Headlines, Lorena has told how she is leading a happy lifestyle with a college-age daughter and a 'wonderful' man.

'I'm not only a survivor but I'm an advocate against domestic violence, sexual assault, and marital rape and I have created a foundation to help victims of domestic violence,' she said in the documentary, which airs tonight at 9pm.

Lorena continued: 'I usually wake up at six o'clock and walk the dogs. The dogs are very important in my family.

'My daughter is in college. My husband owns his own business. We like to cook out in our backyard.

'We enjoy movie nights, basically just a regular family life. It's a good life, so far so good, I cannot complain, we are happy.'

Lorena added: 'I mean, sometimes I wish it didn't happen to me, but my life is not a tape that I can rewind... there's no such thing.

'I've become a mother, I have a relationship with this wonderful man, it's really a matter of having a new life.

'I'm not only a survivor but I'm an advocate against domestic violence, sexual assault, and marital rape and I have created a foundation to help victims of domestic violence.'

The sensational case achieved worldwide coverage - with the term 'Bobbitt', meaning to 'cut off a penis', even being added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

During the trial, Lorena's lawyers argued that she was driven by temporary insanity following years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband. John has always denied these allegations.

In 1994, she was found not guilty of malicious wounding and the couple's divorce was finalised the following year.

John Wayne was charged with marital sexual assault. In a 1994 trial, he was acquitted and he continues to assert his innocence.

After being acquitted of the attack by reason of temporary insanity, Lorena underwent a court-mandated psychiatric evaluation and divorced John.

Since then, she went on to build a new life in her hometown of Manassas with her long-time partner and their daughter, who is now in college.

Lorena has spent the past decade advocating for victims of domestic violence through her non-profit organization - Lorena's Red Wagon.

It comes after Lorena, an immigrant from Ecuador, slammed the sexist media coverage of her trial, after she became the subject of a four-part documentary executively-produced by Academy Award winner Jordan Peele in 2019.

She revealed that one of the factors that motivated her to join forces with Peele and director Joshua Rofe was the election of Donald Trump, who was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women.

In the docu-series, Lorena retold the tale from her perspective in the #MeToo era, exploring 'vital moral issues' like domestic violence and sexual assault that, according to the film's description, the national media failed to address 25 years ago.

'She became a national joke, her suffering ignored by the male-dominated press,' the film's promotional page declares.

In the lead up to the documentary, Lorena told the New York Times about the sexual abuse she said she had endured at the hands of her husband.

One of Lorena's main complaints is that the media and the public were always obsessed with the fate of her ex-husband's sex organ, which she threw out of the window of her car as she drove away from the scene of the crime that fateful night.

'They always just focused on it,' she told the newspaper. 'And it's like they all missed or didn't care why I did what I did.' 

John Wayne Bobbitt always denied raping his wife and claimed during her trial that she attacked him because he refused to have sex with her.  

At the time, the male-dominated news media portrayed Lorena as an angry, crazed suburban wife with a grudge, while feminists accused her of hurting their cause with her violent actions.

'We were vilified by the media, vilified and that is so sad. It happens to women,' Bobbitt said.  

Lorena said that when Peele, a comedian-turned-filmmaker who won an Oscar for his horror film Get Out, approached her with the idea of making a documentary about her, she was concerned that her story would be turned into a farce. 

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'I was the subject of so many jokes in the '90s and to me it was just cruel,' she said. 'They didn't understand. Why would they laugh about my suffering?'

After years of therapy, Lorena has resigned herself to the fact that there will always be jokes about herself and John Bobbitt. 

When police located the severed penis, they placed it on ice in a Big Bite hot dog box from a 7-Eleven store before taking it to a hospital, where doctors were able to reattach it to his body. 

The operation was a success, and John went on to star in several adult films to capitalize on his notoriety.  

After years of therapy, Lorena has resigned herself to the fact that there will always be jokes about Lorena and John Bobbitt.  

'I'll put myself through the jokes and everything as long as I can shine a light on domestic violence and sexual assault and marital rape,' she told the New York Times.

I Cut Off His Penis: The Truth Behind the Headlines airs tonight on ITV1 at 9pm.