QOTD: Do You Have Your Own Hatfields and McCoys Family Feud Story?

A recent comment by BBQ got me thinking about family feuds. Long, bitter, too-often dragged out for discussion and hashed over yet again. Sometimes the re-hash is pretty much verbatim, sometimes it gets embellished.

My own half-sister won’t talk to me at all, not even one word, not even the one time we were in the same room together. Due to trouble between her and my parents, when I was ten.

Mr. S. doesn’t talk to, hm, 75% (big family) of his siblings because of a (really very nasty, not his fault) incident in 1997.

History is full to the brim with grudges, vendettas and blood feuds.  (I sincerely hope no one here has any blood feuds going on. That would be bad.)

Madonna and Elton John had a, maybe not an actual feud, but a period of grudginess between them. He and his camp accused her of lip-synching, and said she had little chance of winning an upcoming award. Madonna went on to sing without lip-syncing at a big event, and won the award. Match goes to: Madonna.

Kid Rock and Tommy Lee had words over their being married to the same woman, Pamela Anderson. Not at the same time. But near enough.  Match: draw. She divorced them both. Or they both divorced her?

Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots (invariably referred to as Mary Queen of Scots so as not to be confused with the other Marys who were thorns under Elizabeth’s saddle) had a very serious blood feud, over the throne of England. Probably more worth fighting over than Pamela Anderson. Match: Elizabeth, by measure of having Mary Queen of Scots hauled off and beheaded.

Now off to post-revolutionary Russia. Lenin died in 1924, leaving Stalin and Trotsky to fight it out for dominance. Sneaky-snake Stalin out-sneakied Trotsky, who was then 1 – thrown out of the Communist Party, 2 – thrown out of Russia and then 3 – assassinated in Mexico. Match: Stalin. With disastrous results, as history records.

Research sources here, here and here.  Picture source is Wikipedia, here.

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