Bernie Madoff’s Daughter-In-Law Tries To Erase Everything About Him; Changes Name
Feb. 3 2012, Published 9:00 a.m. ET
By Alexis Tereszcuk - Breaking Celebrity News Senior Reporter
As Bernie Madoff sits in jail for his billion dollar Ponzi scheme his daughter-in-law is trying her best to erase everything about him from her young family’s minds.
Stephanie Madoff, 37, was the wife of Bernie’s son Mark before he committed suicide in December 2010. In a new interview with Harper's Bazaar magazine, she says after the humiliation their family suffered, she changed her last name, moved out of the family apartment and is trying to start a new life.
She now goes by the name Stephanie Mack.
“She and Mark chose it together not long before he died, combining the M from Madoff with ACK, the airport code for their beloved Nantucket, so that neither they nor their children would have to carry the poisoned name anymore,” the article says.
The blonde mother of two children, Audrey, 5, and Nicholas, 3, says neither of her children “remembers Grampa Bernie, as they called him,” and she is “grateful,” for that.
They also have trouble remembering their father, who hanged himself on December 11, 2010 in their apartment while the family was at Disney World.
Stephanie has written a memoir called The End of Normal to help people understand her husband, who she says killed himself after hearing that one of the victims of Bernie Madoff’s scam was going to sue their young daughter for $11,000.
She said that he had actually tried to commit suicide 14 months earlier by swallowing 30 Ambien and even left his father a note that read “Bernie: Now you