BIZARRE: Katherine Thurston (above in court) is charged with stalking Hugh Jackman, who was still a bit shaken outside his West Village home yesterday. (Gregory P. Mango)
BIZARRE: Katherine Thurston (inset in court) is charged with stalking Hugh Jackman, who was still a bit shaken outside his West Village home yesterday. (
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A month before an unhinged woman accosted Hugh Jackman with a pubic-hair-filled razor at his West Village gym Saturday, she marched up to his wife and 7-year-old daughter and announced, “I am going to marry your husband,” authorities said yesterday.
The chilling March 6 encounter with accused stalker Katherine Thurston, 47, left Jackman’s family petrified and the usually cool star shaken.
“It was obviously frightening,” Jackman, 44, told The Post yesterday outside the West Village home where he lives with his wife, actress-producer Deborra-Lee Furness, 57, son Oscar, 12, and daughter Ava.
“For me, my main concern is for my family,’’ the “Les Misérables’’ and “X-Men’’ star said of the razor-tossing incident.
He thanked prosecutors for taking the case seriously.
“I just hope the woman gets the help she needs,” he said
Thurston was hauled into Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday and charged with stalking after first allegedly approaching Jackman outside Gotham Gym at 8 a.m. the day before, saying, “We’re getting married, right?”
She then allegedly followed him inside, shouting, “I love you!” at the Aussie star.
Prosecutors said Thurston whipped a black electric razor out of a bag.
The actor thought she was reaching for a gun or knife, said police sources, who noted that the razor was full of Thurston’s pubic hair.
Thurston, a Bakersfield, Calif., native who has three grown children, is being held in lieu of $15,000 bond or $7,500 cash bail.
She was already on probation for stalking Jackman at a San Francisco concert last year. Jackman took out a restraining order against Thurston after that, and Saturday’s arrest is a violation of that order, sources said.
After the latest bust, she admitted she’d been tailing Jackman.
“I was at his daughter’s school. I went to his gym this morning,” she told cops, according to the criminal complaint. “I want to marry him. This is not against the law. It is not against the law to have two wives.
“I was very impressed with ‘X-Men 2,’ so I started e-mailing him,” Thurston told cops.
She didn’t say why she allegedly threw the razor at Jackman, but prosecutors said Thurston told detectives, “I hated him having those whiskers.”
Thurston had repeatedly visited Jackman’s home, gym and daughter’s school, prosecutor Bernard Eyth told the court.
“The defendant believes the victim and his wife want her to be his second wife, despite being arrested,” Eyth said.
Thurston even told cops during questioning, “He really wants to see me now. When can I see him? Where is he at? When am I going to meet him?”
Thurston’s mom, Neita Wright, said her troubled daughter — diagnosed as bipolar at 17 — has long immersed herself in every detail of Jackman’s life, noting “this is a long obsession with her.”
Thurston’s daughter, Kalianna, 21, said her mom has trekked to Manhattan twice in the last 12 months to stalk him.
“The first time was last fall, I think. She got in trouble for hanging out outside of his apartment. They hospitalized her — I do know that — and then they sent her back here [to California],” Kalianna said.
She said her mom denied that the reason she was going to New York — most recently by bus — was to search for Jackman.
“About two months ago, my mom announced she was going back to New York. We got in a huge argument — I said, ‘You’re going back to stalk Hugh Jackman! ‘And she looked me dead in the eye and said, “You don’t know that,’” Kalianna recalled.
“My mother has a very high IQ and is very manipulative. But she is sick and she doesn’t listen to the doctors. She can go from being completely lucid to totally crazy in seconds.”
During both trips to Manhattan, Thurston stayed at the Weston Transitional Living Shelter in Harlem, her daughter said. Shelter sources yesterday said Thurston sported an “engagement ring and talked about Jackman nonstop.”
“She told me she’s going to stay with his wife and him and that the wife doesn’t mind,’” one source said.