01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Just Friends' Turned into a Summer Fling, Then Something More
In October 2014, Dr. George Anthony Russo II was making his way from Scituate, Mass., where he was staying with his parents, to Orlando, Fla., for a new job. Along the way, he stopped in Mahopac, N.Y., to visit a friend.
The two went to a casino, and as luck would have it, Dr. Russo won $4,000 on a slot machine. This meant he could afford to go to Los Angeles to visit Maggie Amelia Weston, with whom he had just had a 'summer fling.'
Dr. Russo and Ms. Weston met that June on her first day working as a hostess at Wahlburgers — a burger chain owned by brothers Donnie, Mark and Paul Wahlberg — in Hingham, Mass. Dr. Russo, who goes by Gidge and was not yet a doctor, was already employed there.
He recalled asking co-workers, 'Who's the new girl?'
Ms. Weston noticed him too: 'I remember he had a certain confidence and a certain tall, dark and handsome quality.'
She had a boyfriend at the time, though the two were on the verge of breaking up, she said.
In late June 2014, Dr. Russo invited Ms. Weston 'to hang out on his boat and join a bonfire on the beach with his friends,' Ms. Weston said, who by then was single, which she 'casually mentioned' to Dr. Russo.
A week later, he joined her to watch 'Game of Thrones' at her parents' home in Hingham, where she was living for the summer. Still, as 'just friends,' she said, because she was moving to L.A. that fall to pursue her dream of becoming 'a star' in film and television. 'I didn't want to form any attachments that would keep me from my dreams,' she said. 'But Gidge made it very hard.'
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