Fatal Attraction in the Boardroom: Billboards Expose the Oracle Affair

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When a married man scorns his longtime mistress, he’s opening himself up to any number of possible revenge tactics. She could boil his family’s pet bunny, as Glenn Close’s character famously did in Fatal Attraction, or she could shoot his wife in the face, as Amy Fisher infamously did to Mary Jo Buttafuoco.

Or, if her lover is a top technology executive, she could spend $250,000 on billboards in major cities advertising the affair, as YaVaughnie Wilkins did in January. As the New York Post so eloquently put it: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned -- and then there's this lady.”

Wilkins’ former lover, Charles Phillips, 50, was relatively unknown until then. As the co-president of the enterprise software giant Oracle (ORCL), he was a low-profile, buttoned-up executive under his flamboyantly wealthy, formerly playboy boss, Larry Ellison. Last year, President Obama appointed Phillips to the 16-person Economic Advisory Board to help fix the financial crisis, but economic appointees were a dime a dozen back then.

On January 19, billboards went up in San Francisco, Atlanta, and in Times Square in New York showcasing a photograph of the couple in happier times under the heading “Charles & YaVaughnie.” The advertisement, which was three stories high in New York, included an excerpt from a love note purportedly from Phillips: "You are my soulmate forever!"

It didn’t take long for bloggers and the mainstream media to figure out who the mysterious Charles was. It took a bit longer to identify the 42-year-old Wilkins, since Phillips was never divorced from his wife. Karen Phillips had filed for divorce in 2008, but there were no subsequent legal actions and the couple had recently been photographed together in New York. It seemed they’d reconciled.

Information on the billboard provided clues. The ad directed viewers to a website that featured a digital history of Charles and YaVaughnie’s relationship -- photos of the couple on exotic vacations, images of love notes exchanged, ticket stubs from events they attended, and cringe-inducing clips of the couple singing karaoke together.

There would be no denying this affair, no proclamations of innocence, or declining comment. The evidence, dating back to 2001, was plain and clear. Charles Phillips cheated on his wife for years.

Meanwhile, back at the office, Phillips was working hard to close a major deal for Oracle. The software giant was in the final stretch of its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems.

By Friday, three days after the billboards went up, Phillips’ chaos began to return to calm. The signs were removed, as was the website. After receiving approval from European regulators, Oracle closed its deal with Sun.

Phillips issued a simple, dignified statement on the affair: "I had an 8½-year serious relationship with YaVaughnie Wilkins. My divorce proceedings began in 2008. The relationship with Ms. Wilkins has since ended, and we both wish each other well."

Did the successful executive pay off the jilted lover? Were legal threats involved? Did Karen Phillips stand by her man? Did Larry Ellison get a kick out of the whole thing?

We may never know. Wilkins has disappeared from the media entirely. As for Phillips, he’s got bigger issues to deal with now. Shares of Oracle have fallen by 8% since the day the billboards went up.

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