Kinkade's Lover Threatens to Reveal Family Secrets

The Daily, which apparently has an inside line on all the depressing details surrounding Thomas Kinkade's death, reports that the painter's girlfriend is threatening to reveal information that will hurt Kinkade's family. On the morning Kinkade died, Amy Pinto showed a family friend of the artist a collection of personal items including photos and papers. The friend, Linda Raasch, warned that the documents could hurt the Kinkade family, but Pinto refused to give them back and said she might publicize them, according to a civil complaint filed against Pinto on behalf of Kinkade's parent company and his estranged wife, Nanette.

The complaint also states that Kinkade's bodyguard heard Pinto belittling Kinkade's wife and daughters, and believed she was "gathering evidence" to "tear down" his family and businesses. Pinto, a former electrical engineer, reportedly stopped working when she met Kinkade; he had been paying her expenses including credit card bills, and she has lived in his California mansion since last year. Last week, Kinkade's brother Patrick told the San Jose Mercury News that Kinkade had been battling alcoholism for a few years, partially because he was upset at criticism of his work, but that he had sobered up over the past few months. (More Thomas Kinkade stories.)