Las Vegas Weekly

July 15, 2009 · 7:30 AM

A timeline of Terry Fator’s new dates, and Melinda Fator responds

By Robin Leach

Terry Fator and Taylor Makakoa onstage at The Mirage.

Photo: Tom Donoghue/www.donoghuephotography.com

Following our news yesterday about Terry Fator’s weekend dates with cover girl model Taylor Makakoa, Las Vegas media whipped itself into an overnight frenzy playing catch-up. One TV report even had Terry’s separated wife in shellshock over my first revelation!

Puh-lease! I’m out of town with family on a working trip, and I didn’t let the news of Terry’s newly dating status get blown up into an exploitative piece of histrionics!

Let’s run down the facts here:

Terry’s wife of 18 years, Melinda, separated from him in January and filed for divorce in Texas in February -- all before Terry opened his headliner entertainment show at The Mirage.

Photo: Tom Donoghue/www.donoghuephotography.com

An unidentified friend, Terry Fator and Taylor Makakoa.

Hawaiian-born beauty Taylor was hired for Terry’s show for the first few weeks of the singing impressionist and ventriloquist’s sensational debut on the Strip.

She departed in March to continue studies and expand her modeling career, and a new stage assistant was added to Terry’s act.

Now five months later, 44-year-old Terry is seen twice in the same weekend with 20-year-old Taylor, my story runs, and his PR folks asked me to clarify it and simultaneously confirmed the couple had just begun dating.

Photo: Tom Donoghue/www.donoghuephotography.com

Taylor Makakoa.

They were at the Planet Hollywood celebration of MMA fighter Chuck Liddell’s induction into the Hall of Fame this past weekend, and then 48 hours later at the opening of Rhumbar in The Mirage, where Terry stars nightly.

“They weren’t hiding anything. They were completely open and honest,” I was told. “Millions of people meet somebody at work and take them out on a date. He’s legally separated, and an amicable divorce settlement was underway. He was completely free to go out on dates!

“The divorce news leaked out only two weeks ago, but Terry had been separated for seven months before he and Taylor went out on a pair of public dates. Nobody was blindsided, and Taylor had not been out on the road with Terry in advance of his producers hiring her for the brief period to start the Vegas run! Why is there this hysteria?”

Photo: Tom Donoghue/www.donoghuephotography.com

Taylor Makakoa.

Maybe because my Las Vegas colleagues were just playing catch-up once again? For the record, I learned Monday night that the couple showed up together, and I first wrote about the dates yesterday at 7 a.m. and then updated two hours later with Taylor’s surname. We tweeted at that point and posted the full Vegas DeLuxe story with photos at 2 p.m. Four hours later, tweets from other Las Vegas media began -- and, voila, the story late last night on TV and this morning has been turned into major headline hysteria -- all 24 hours after my innocent mention!

Updated @11:10 a.m.: Upon reading the above story this morning, Melinda has asked me to post her official comments by way of a correction to some points:

By phone from her Dallas home, she told me: “Terry asked me for a divorce in January, and I filed for the divorce under Texas no-fault citing “irreconcilable differences.” It was filed before his February soft opening at The Mirage and completely blindsided me. We agreed to keep it a secret. I was shellshocked that he disclosed publicly the divorce on July 4. Taylor worked on his shows at the Hilton back in 2008 and did go out on the road many times to the corporate engagements he had around the country.”

Incidentally, another local TV reporter is breathlessly revealing details of Mayor Oscar Goodman’s 70th birthday celebrations planned for July 31, which also has been picked up for other news reports this morning. Just pointing out that we posted all those details and more about the 70-inch Bombay Sapphire ice sculpture, the 70 dancing showgirls and the 700 gin martini drinks more than two weeks ago here at Vegas DeLuxe!

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter HERE.

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