HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Jesse James is speaking out after his ex-wife, Janine Lindemulder, went public with their ongoing custody battle involving their 5-year-old daughter, Sunny.
Lindemulder appeared on Wednesday's Good Morning America, where she pleaded for a woman-to-woman meeting with James' current wife, actress Sandra Bullock, to settle the issue.
"Sandra Bullock is not a party to this litigation," the Monster Garage star's attorney, Marilyn Slifman, said in a statement Friday to People. "Mr. James's sole concern is for the safety, welfare and best interests of his daughter. The proper forum to resolve this case is in the courtroom."
Bullock, 45, has been helping James, 40, raise Sunny ever since Lindemulder went to prison in January for tax evasion. Now out of jail, the actress who has appeared in more than 100 adult films, wants her daughter back, but is facing fierce resistance.
"What would give her the right to take away my daughter?" Lindemulder said on Good Morning America. "You know, this is my daughter. I am the best mother I can be."
Bullock and James claim Lindemulder and her new husband, also a convicted felon, are unfit to be parents. In a letter to the judge at Lindemulder's sentencing, Bullock alleged that the child was left alone during the day while Lindemulder was "asleep from drug use." While Lindemulder has admitted to past substance abuse, she claims to have cleaned up her act.
"Sandy doesn't know what goes on in my house," said Lindemulder, who graced the cover of Blink-182's 1999 album Enema of the State. "I'd love for her to. Please come over, you know, I'll make dinner, you know, let's sit down, [as] two women."
In a letter to the court, Bullock also defended accusations that she was motivated by not having her own children.
"I am aware that Janine has claimed many times that my desire to have [the girl], was because I could not have children of my own," Bullock said, adding, "that couldn't be farther from the truth."
"I know the term 'stepmother' carries many connotations, one of them being 'glorified babysitter,'" Bullock wrote. "My commitment and responsibility to [the girl] ... goes beyond that."
Lindemulder denies ever making those accusations, but offered: "I do believe the reason Sandra is so interested in Sunny ... she [thinks she] is saving Sunny from me, from her own mother. ...That's what I believe."
"It hurts tremendously, the accusations, especially from Sandra," she said. "Even more so because we've never sat down and talked. You know, that's the one thing that I wish more than anything, for a remedy for what's happening here, is just communication."
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