Has anyone else had divorcing parrents try stuff like this?

My parents separated the summer before my senior year of highschool, which was no surprise, it was obvious that they're marriage was falling apart for the last several years.
When they told me the news, they said that I got to choose which parent would stay in the house and I would stay with them.

Now prior to this my mother had hired a girl about 2 years older than me as a part time maid. She was drop dead gorgeous, she even did a little modeling work at one point. There was no real reason to hire her, our house wasn't so large we couldn't keep it clean ourselves, and while we aren't poor, we aren't rich enough to regularly hire unnecessary help either.

When I was told I got to choose who would stay and who would leave, I realized the real reason my mother had hired this girl was to try to get me to choose her and let her stay in the house. She tried to use the allure of having a pretty maid around the house to make me side with her when they separated.

I found this weird and was wondering if anyone else has had divorcing parents try anything like this, or any other kind of crazy tactics.