Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the Red Table Talk podcast, all your favorite episodes from the Facebook watch show in audio, produced by Westbrook Audio and I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review on Apple Podcasts. All right, and five four three, Hello R T T family, This is a special edition of Red Table Talk. And like many of you willow gamming. Myself of we watched Surviving R. Kelly on Lifetime and I called my producer and I said, we have to do a Red Table Talk about this right away. It's been hard for us to think about anything else. And if you haven't seen the docuseries, please take a look at this trailer. There's a difference between R. Kill and Robert Our kids, this faun, laughing, loving guy. But Robert is the devil. Is the devil is? R Kelly is at the top of the charts, but he may be in for a fall. He was arrested today on twenty one counts of child pornography. Kelly is accused of videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl, taking advantage of miners will not be tolerated. Jurors found him not guilty on all charges. With r Kelly's acquittal in two thousand and eight, the women he allegedly abused continued to be ignored, but in lifetime surviving r Kelly, dozens of women came forward to tell stories of horrific sexual and emotional abuse. And this time millions of people are listening. I can't take another day. I can't do this anymore. One of r Kelly's hidden relationships was with our beloved Aliyah, an R and B singer, who he met when she was just twelve he was twenty four, a secretly married when she was only fifteen. Documents were forged to say she was eighteen. Reaction to the show has been explosive, many supporting the women and many viciously attacking them. I've never introduced her to him, That never introduced oh man. So one of the survivors, Lisa Van Allen, is gonna join us in a minute. I thought it was really important to watch it as mother and daughter, and then I was calling you, like, damn, have you you know? But I have to tell you. I felt a lot of things. I had a lot of feelings about it, one being I was like, man, how complicit we all have been? That really broke my heart, Like to really think about we we ignored it. I think that's been very heartbreaking for me, just how harsh the reactions have been, and specifically I've seen black women being very harsh towards the survivors. I don't know how we can expect to point fingers at other communities that might come in and violate us. We go out in March and we do all these things, but then we're not willing to look at ourselves and we're not willing to protect our own. We have to start examining the self hatred. Let's just talk about children who have been raped and molested, okay, and how the reaction has been, you know, things like they were just hot ass little girls, they didn't have no business, they just gold diggers. Those kinds of reactions shut people down, people who are in your home, right, you feel me. So I look at this as like a lot of times the abuses coming from family member, somebody close to the family or close family friends. Let me tell you, out of the people that I know, I've never heard once that it was a stranger. Remember he was himself a victim of abuse. And let me tell you something. And so if you don't protect your children and give them the freedom to talk, then this is what you create. So a lot of people are talking about we got to protect our girls, but we have to protect our sons as well. It's it's we have to protect our children. But I think that psychological manipulation that the women went through is really really hard for people to accomplishend. When I first heard about some of the women that were held captive, I just felt like, well, they're adults and you know there they should just leave, just leave em prison. But it's trying to really understand um, that psychological manipulation that goes on. For you and I game, if we think about it like this, you and I both have been in some relationships that we we shouldn't have been in, right, but we kept going back. So put put a hundred on that. Right. If you really think about it that way, you can get it. Not that I can get it, but just the degree of nothing that we went through even compared. So I'll tell you one of the honey traps for me, the you ain't cycle, where it's the you have somebody that breaks you down and then comes back to you and they're like I can't live without you. I can't believe you know that my everything, And then the endorphins in my mind and those highs and lows, and even just being addicted to that cycle. Yeah, I've been there. I've been addicted to that cycle of knowing that this person is not treating me well. But then you get so low and then he comes in with his sweetness and you're like, oh, I never, We'll go for you. Well, maybe it's just I just never. May I just felt like from me, I was just being stupid. And the idea of having having a you know, a superstar point you out where most of us come from backgrounds where we feel neglected, we feel like we haven't been loved, and other self worth comes from that attention and then just the cycle of terror. And I have to say that I feel some kind of way about all these people that were around him that were just complicit and actually assisting men. Yeah, but you know, back in the day, let me tell you something, the black community was not built like that. You know, like you could, like if somebody was acting up in the neighborhood, you could count on Miss Betty down the street. She's gonna tell your mama the guys, They protected their neighborhood, They protected the girls growing up in the neighborhood. I really felt like it was important that Willow and I watched together because I felt like it was a teachable moments. Exactly what was it about it that was important for you and I to watch it together. What made me start crying was I had listened to Aaliyah and had I had known about r Kelly and listened to his music when I was super young, and it was it's so strange because I had an inkling that he was slightly sussed, but I never like, it just hit me so hard when I was watching it, like, oh my god, like I was listening to this when I was a kid, like and then seeing him in the back of a jing nothing but a number album cover I had, it was like my, like something from my childhood was just debased, like like why is he just in the back of the album cover just lurking. That's weird, like and we're just like all no ane, but enough, like it's slipped under my radar. You and will did that bungee jump and we put I believe I can fly, yeah, And that just goes to show you didn't. But see see how things will fly. But I didn't like was it on the line? We we it was on you know, Instagram, Instagram, and but see how it you'll forget. But that's how we are all complicit because guess what, how can you forget? Yeah, right, right right? How can you forget and be so unaware you can't forget? Yeah, you know that's why we should have all been screaming from the rack, what's going on with the Celia thing? Exactly? Black community, what's going on? But here's the other conflict. We have such a conflicted relationship to the law, to the media, to feeling as though authority is attacking our men, which they and they still do. You know what was deep that jor on Lifetime on the on the juror, that was like I didn't like how they were dressed. I didn't. I just didn't like them. Yeah, I just didn't believe them, the woes. I know, it sums ridiculous the way they dressed, the way they act. I didn't like them. I voted again, I disregard at all what they said. I don't know. If I asked you what you liked, ye look at the evidence exactly all right, we have a very special guest today, Lisa Van Allen. Lisa met r Kelly at a music video shoot in Atlanta at the tender age of seventeen. I heard about Rob's reputation about him dating Aliyah, but I didn't assume that he liked younger girls. I just thought at that moment, I just thought he liked me. I knew he was at least thirty one, so I thought when I said seventeen that he'd be like, you know, like that was gonna be the deal breaker. But um, it wasn't. Pretty early on, he kind of introduced you to everything that he was into. The first time Robert had me do sexual acts with him and another female, he actually told me it was going to be his first time and he wanted to do it with me. Robert would film our sex acts sometimes he would never ask me if it was okay to be filmed, but he never hit the camera or anything like that. Once we did the threesome, it became more frequent. Then he started introducing me to other young women. Most of the threesomes were with a fourteen year old girl who Lisa thought was sixteen. One of the tapes became key evidence in Roberts two thousand and eight trial. Lisa testified against him, but he was acquitted. Still, she was determined that her story it would be heard. In Surviving r Kelly finally has people listening. There she is. He nice to meet you, so nice. We're so happy to have you here. Yeah, you really are happy to be here and welcome. Come on, yeah, come on and sit down. How are you feeling today? You look beautiful series. How are you like? It's been so explosive, you know, in great ways and then not so great ways. I feel I feel blessed, like I feel like we didn't expect it to be this powerful, this impactful, like because you know, I came out in two thousand and eight and nobody heard me. Do you feel like a relief, like a weight off of your shoulders? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's awesome to be yes, And I'm so happy that you guys could be brave enough to do it this way. And then lifetime is brave enough and that, you know, because you guys deserve it, and I and just so start thinking, I'm sorry, you can get it sooner. I'm not good. I'm not gonna cry, I said, Oh I said, I said, I love their show. Red Table Talk is so real and raw. And I've been before this, even the show even aired or anything. I've been saying, I want to talk to Jada. I know she'll understand. Yeah, I want to talk to Yeah. So it's just a blessing to be here and be able to talk to you guys, and I mean the world. The reaction has been so different this time around, you know what I mean. So, I mean I feel I feel blessed, and I feel like I'm a vessel, you know what I mean, to speak out for other young girls, because I mean, we've always been told, you know, you don't talk about that. You don't tell our business, you know, like, don't tell our business. You know, Like even my mom had a hard time dealing with this, you know what I mean, because you know, because we have to really deal with ourselves. You know, her reaction on how she felt about her role, you know, my role. You know, everybody has their own things to deal with. I had to do it for me for other young girls, you know what I mean, Like someone has to have that conversation that nobody wants to have, Like you can't worry about how you look, you know what I mean, We got to put it on the line, put it out there. That's what I felt like, I did you have there was me before me too, because in two thousand and eight, there weren't any movements. You know, nobody else was talking about it. So and I came out, you know, hoping that I could help the victims and the good girl on the tape, you know what I mean, because I knew her family wasn't going to speak, so I felt like somebody has to stand up, like somebody. I mean, they threatened my life. You know, there were was a lot I was dealing with. I was pregnant, but you know, you can't let that stuff stopping. And people need to remember that, Lisa, you wore a child on that tape, and I think people got that twisted. Those were two minors exactly when he first told me he had never had a threesome, and I felt like I needed to do that for him because we were together and I was living with him, and and I did it, and then he wanted another one and another one. Then that's when it was like, uh, like I may have been tricked here. When I started noticing that he was a liar and a manipulator. Was when I found out the girl was younger, and I'm like, well, why wait, why would he do that? He know I wouldn't admit then things like that, or when I started really questioning him because the threesomes, even though I didn't want him and I didn't like him, because he wanted him, I would back then, I would have done him, you know what I mean. And I hate to say that. I'm not saying with a young girl because I would not have, but I would have cried and did you know back then, just because he wanted to do them. And that's sad too. I have a thing now that I say to young girls or girls in general, love yourself first, because that was the problem. I was putting his feelings before my I didn't care that it bothered me. I didn't care that I cried and I was upset and that I had to share someone I loved with other women. I wanted him to be happy, so I would I would say that, I tell my daughter that love yourself first. Yeah, And you know, we all, we all go through that in different levels. He's a master manipulator. He says what he needs to say to get what he needs done. Yeah, yeah, he knew my whole background. He knew that I was in foster care. He knew that I was adopted with a single month my my adoptor mothers. Pause right there. I didn't know that you were in foster care until six. Wow, GI knew all about that. So you were in foster care until you were six and then you were adopted? Right? And did you any abuse and while you were in foster care he knew that as well? Got it? Yeah? Got it? Do you think in any way he tried to push on those buttons for you, like try to bring back those emotions and that insecurity, he would do things like he'll ask you, um, what about you would you like to change? And then he'll pretend like he's the night in shining armor. It's going to fix that for you. Or if you got in trouble for something, or one time I had a situation where I was allowed to go home and I got into it with some girls. I had a case. He made it go away. So you get what I mean. You got to protect me. I take care of you, You take care of me. Well, was that moment when you thought to yourself enough? There were a lot of times where I came and went because you know, with the abusive situations, you'll leave and go back, leave and go back. So I did a lot of that. But personally, once I got to the point where it was just like sickening, like kind of like just dealing with him or being around him and seeing that the girls were still nineteen and twenty year and you're late forties almost, you know, it was sickening. Over time, it got worse and worse, and I got older and mature, and I knew more about him and more about and he didn't want help. That's the thing. Like in the beginning, people say, well, once you found out she was fourteen, why did you turn him in? Because I loved him. I wanted to help him get better, because that's how how we work as far as love. I love, I'll trying to figure out how to help you and what I can do to save you. And then once I realized he couldn't be saved, he didn't want to be said saved. He would tell me things like my mama told me, if you love a man, you don't try to change him. You know. The order I got, the more it's like, boy, that's a b Yeah, you just you just messed up. So once you realize that, you know you're a part of that, you know it's and it's not okay and it's not acceptable. And I had to. I had me a daughter and I didn't want her around him, you know what I mean. I'm like, you know, because at first, you know, I wanted to be with this man, you know, like, but I can't. I can't be with nobody like that, Like I can't trust you around my child, like no, But she went back that I actually been with her in a relationship briefly and he was abusive. He but he was abusive, like beating me up like that. I had to get away and I didn't have anyone to call, come on to Chicago. They got me there. Then he thought that I think he thought she was his because he wanted me to do a fraternity test. He I guess he thought because I an abortion by with his first baby, that I ran away when I got pregnant the second time to have a baby. But it wasn't that, you know, But that's just what he thought because he's thinking, it's no way she got pregnant by someone else, Like, but you know. So I went there, and my big issue with him was the fact that he liked young girls. But he specifically kept telling me to buy my daughter dresses. Every time I would put her in like leggings and things like that. We'd be sitting in the studio, she'd be on my lap and He'll be like, uh, well, ain't I don't know to go get her dress? Give me every time he gave me three dollars for a dress, and I'm looking like, why does he care? That's not his kid? Why does he keep on it? So I just I could just my instincts was like saying this, say I'm not feeling it, like I didn't get it. That is a really um interesting to know in regards to the history of your own abuse and how it started so young, and how it seemed as though the cycle kind of continued, and as we were talking about before, the necessity to be able to tell someone be believed, you know what I mean, in order to stop the cycle. And I never told anyone until I got with him. He's the first person I told about my abews like my my I mean, we had this thing um in her bathroom. She would keep magazines in the bathroom with pictures and I would flip all her magazines over because I didn't want the faces looking at me because one of my abusers would become in the bathroom while I was in there. So mentally and she was like, why does she keep this girl keep flipping my magazines over it? But she never could figure out that. Mentally for me as a kid, it was like I felt like, so it was crazy. It's just crazy how things happened to you and you take it with you. People don't understand like you can. A situation can end, but you take that with you at your piece of all of your things you've been through in life go with you. So yeah, have you ever gotten professional help? Never? I was more worried about everybody else as I always am. I still feel like I just need to help. And I still talking to the women that other women he has abused has helped me. I talked to them and I love it because we don't have to convince each other yeah you yes, or you know, like me and his ex wife everything, Like I'll tell her something and she'll say that's why. Like I gave her a lot of moments when it when it is someone being really cut through. It's usually a woman, and I mean they be there's some really mean ones out there, you know what I mean, But I take it as they just don't know or you just don't want to know, because there's enough information out there to know about this one, you know what I mean, like the Cook County Courthouse public records, Like you pull up case after case that he's paid off, and you don't pay off people when you're innocent, you know what I mean? Why? Right? Why would you going back to that self love? I do believe that within us sometimes that self hatred explodes and we projected on other people. What were those conversations that you had with your mother? Like, yeah, the ones with my my mom? We really haven't had many, to be honest. And the reason why, I think is because she didn't want to deal with her guilt. Like our conversations actually have just started like after all of this, and she cried and I cried, and I told her I don't blame her, right, And the reason why I don't blame her is because when he asked me the night he met me and at the video, he asked me how old I was? I said seventeen. He said when your mama, let you come to Chicago. I didn't call her on you know, the phone at the at the video, she'd ask can I go? I just told him yes because I was going, right, That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I know it wasn't you know, but I knew everything, so it really I don't want the blame to be on her, because either way go, he was booking my flights, giving me money, I would have found a way to get there. He has people that work for him to make it so. You know, a lot of people don't understand that either. But then they'll say where was your mother? But they don't ask the same questions for him. You don't ask what happened to his mom when he got abused by his family members? With us women, you know, they tear us all the way, now you know what I mean. Well, you know it's as if we have to take on everybody's morality. You know, people, specifically men don't have to be responsible for their own actions. People find a way to look at us and make it our fault, you know, or our responsibility. Did he share with you his story of abuse to help you see? That's the thing I know all about him and Eliah everything like the dirty dirt, all of that. He told me all his personal problems and turmoils and and that's part of it because when he did that, I felt like he felt special, Like now I can tell him what I've been through and let my guard down. He had a thing called pens, Pens and eyeballs, the matter. They stick pins in your eyeballs. You don't talk about what we do, what we got going on. And he said he had that packed with Eliah as well. Wow, and she didn't talk. On our next Red Table Talk you have six year old never talked about this? Yeah, y hey, r T T family. Join our Red Table Talk group on Facebook and become part of the conversation. To join the Red Table Talk family and become a part of the conversation, follow us at facebook dot com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.

Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the Red Table Talk podcast, all your favorite episodes from the Facebook watch show in audio, produced by Westbrook Audio and I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review on Apple Podcasts. All right, and five four three, Hello R T T family, This is a special edition of Red Table Talk. And like many of you willow gamming. Myself of we watched Surviving R. Kelly on Lifetime and I called my producer and I said, we have to do a Red Table Talk about this right away. It's been hard for us to think about anything else. And if you haven't seen the docuseries, please take a look at this trailer. There's a difference between R. Kill and Robert Our kids, this faun, laughing, loving guy. But Robert is the devil. Is the devil is? R Kelly is at the top of the charts, but he may be in for a fall. He was arrested today on twenty one counts of child pornography. Kelly is accused of videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl, taking advantage of miners will not be tolerated. Jurors found him not guilty on all charges. With r Kelly's acquittal in two thousand and eight, the women he allegedly abused continued to be ignored, but in lifetime surviving r Kelly, dozens of women came forward to tell stories of horrific sexual and emotional abuse. And this time millions of people are listening. I can't take another day. I can't do this anymore. One of r Kelly's hidden relationships was with our beloved Aliyah, an R and B singer, who he met when she was just twelve he was twenty four, a secretly married when she was only fifteen. Documents were forged to say she was eighteen. Reaction to the show has been explosive, many supporting the women and many viciously attacking them. I've never introduced her to him, That never introduced oh man. So one of the survivors, Lisa Van Allen, is gonna join us in a minute. I thought it was really important to watch it as mother and daughter, and then I was calling you, like, damn, have you you know? But I have to tell you. I felt a lot of things. I had a lot of feelings about it, one being I was like, man, how complicit we all have been? That really broke my heart, Like to really think about we we ignored it. I think that's been very heartbreaking for me, just how harsh the reactions have been, and specifically I've seen black women being very harsh towards the survivors. I don't know how we can expect to point fingers at other communities that might come in and violate us. We go out in March and we do all these things, but then we're not willing to look at ourselves and we're not willing to protect our own. We have to start examining the self hatred. Let's just talk about children who have been raped and molested, okay, and how the reaction has been, you know, things like they were just hot ass little girls, they didn't have no business, they just gold diggers. Those kinds of reactions shut people down, people who are in your home, right, you feel me. So I look at this as like a lot of times the abuses coming from family member, somebody close to the family or close family friends. Let me tell you, out of the people that I know, I've never heard once that it was a stranger. Remember he was himself a victim of abuse. And let me tell you something. And so if you don't protect your children and give them the freedom to talk, then this is what you create. So a lot of people are talking about we got to protect our girls, but we have to protect our sons as well. It's it's we have to protect our children. But I think that psychological manipulation that the women went through is really really hard for people to accomplishend. When I first heard about some of the women that were held captive, I just felt like, well, they're adults and you know there they should just leave, just leave em prison. But it's trying to really understand um, that psychological manipulation that goes on. For you and I game, if we think about it like this, you and I both have been in some relationships that we we shouldn't have been in, right, but we kept going back. So put put a hundred on that. Right. If you really think about it that way, you can get it. Not that I can get it, but just the degree of nothing that we went through even compared. So I'll tell you one of the honey traps for me, the you ain't cycle, where it's the you have somebody that breaks you down and then comes back to you and they're like I can't live without you. I can't believe you know that my everything, And then the endorphins in my mind and those highs and lows, and even just being addicted to that cycle. Yeah, I've been there. I've been addicted to that cycle of knowing that this person is not treating me well. But then you get so low and then he comes in with his sweetness and you're like, oh, I never, We'll go for you. Well, maybe it's just I just never. May I just felt like from me, I was just being stupid. And the idea of having having a you know, a superstar point you out where most of us come from backgrounds where we feel neglected, we feel like we haven't been loved, and other self worth comes from that attention and then just the cycle of terror. And I have to say that I feel some kind of way about all these people that were around him that were just complicit and actually assisting men. Yeah, but you know, back in the day, let me tell you something, the black community was not built like that. You know, like you could, like if somebody was acting up in the neighborhood, you could count on Miss Betty down the street. She's gonna tell your mama the guys, They protected their neighborhood, They protected the girls growing up in the neighborhood. I really felt like it was important that Willow and I watched together because I felt like it was a teachable moments. Exactly what was it about it that was important for you and I to watch it together. What made me start crying was I had listened to Aaliyah and had I had known about r Kelly and listened to his music when I was super young, and it was it's so strange because I had an inkling that he was slightly sussed, but I never like, it just hit me so hard when I was watching it, like, oh my god, like I was listening to this when I was a kid, like and then seeing him in the back of a jing nothing but a number album cover I had, it was like my, like something from my childhood was just debased, like like why is he just in the back of the album cover just lurking. That's weird, like and we're just like all no ane, but enough, like it's slipped under my radar. You and will did that bungee jump and we put I believe I can fly, yeah, And that just goes to show you didn't. But see see how things will fly. But I didn't like was it on the line? We we it was on you know, Instagram, Instagram, and but see how it you'll forget. But that's how we are all complicit because guess what, how can you forget? Yeah, right, right right? How can you forget and be so unaware you can't forget? Yeah, you know that's why we should have all been screaming from the rack, what's going on with the Celia thing? Exactly? Black community, what's going on? But here's the other conflict. We have such a conflicted relationship to the law, to the media, to feeling as though authority is attacking our men, which they and they still do. You know what was deep that jor on Lifetime on the on the juror, that was like I didn't like how they were dressed. I didn't. I just didn't like them. Yeah, I just didn't believe them, the woes. I know, it sums ridiculous the way they dressed, the way they act. I didn't like them. I voted again, I disregard at all what they said. I don't know. If I asked you what you liked, ye look at the evidence exactly all right, we have a very special guest today, Lisa Van Allen. Lisa met r Kelly at a music video shoot in Atlanta at the tender age of seventeen. I heard about Rob's reputation about him dating Aliyah, but I didn't assume that he liked younger girls. I just thought at that moment, I just thought he liked me. I knew he was at least thirty one, so I thought when I said seventeen that he'd be like, you know, like that was gonna be the deal breaker. But um, it wasn't. Pretty early on, he kind of introduced you to everything that he was into. The first time Robert had me do sexual acts with him and another female, he actually told me it was going to be his first time and he wanted to do it with me. Robert would film our sex acts sometimes he would never ask me if it was okay to be filmed, but he never hit the camera or anything like that. Once we did the threesome, it became more frequent. Then he started introducing me to other young women. Most of the threesomes were with a fourteen year old girl who Lisa thought was sixteen. One of the tapes became key evidence in Roberts two thousand and eight trial. Lisa testified against him, but he was acquitted. Still, she was determined that her story it would be heard. In Surviving r Kelly finally has people listening. There she is. He nice to meet you, so nice. We're so happy to have you here. Yeah, you really are happy to be here and welcome. Come on, yeah, come on and sit down. How are you feeling today? You look beautiful series. How are you like? It's been so explosive, you know, in great ways and then not so great ways. I feel I feel blessed, like I feel like we didn't expect it to be this powerful, this impactful, like because you know, I came out in two thousand and eight and nobody heard me. Do you feel like a relief, like a weight off of your shoulders? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's awesome to be yes, And I'm so happy that you guys could be brave enough to do it this way. And then lifetime is brave enough and that, you know, because you guys deserve it, and I and just so start thinking, I'm sorry, you can get it sooner. I'm not good. I'm not gonna cry, I said, Oh I said, I said, I love their show. Red Table Talk is so real and raw. And I've been before this, even the show even aired or anything. I've been saying, I want to talk to Jada. I know she'll understand. Yeah, I want to talk to Yeah. So it's just a blessing to be here and be able to talk to you guys, and I mean the world. The reaction has been so different this time around, you know what I mean. So, I mean I feel I feel blessed, and I feel like I'm a vessel, you know what I mean, to speak out for other young girls, because I mean, we've always been told, you know, you don't talk about that. You don't tell our business, you know, like, don't tell our business. You know, Like even my mom had a hard time dealing with this, you know what I mean, because you know, because we have to really deal with ourselves. You know, her reaction on how she felt about her role, you know, my role. You know, everybody has their own things to deal with. I had to do it for me for other young girls, you know what I mean, Like someone has to have that conversation that nobody wants to have, Like you can't worry about how you look, you know what I mean, We got to put it on the line, put it out there. That's what I felt like, I did you have there was me before me too, because in two thousand and eight, there weren't any movements. You know, nobody else was talking about it. So and I came out, you know, hoping that I could help the victims and the good girl on the tape, you know what I mean, because I knew her family wasn't going to speak, so I felt like somebody has to stand up, like somebody. I mean, they threatened my life. You know, there were was a lot I was dealing with. I was pregnant, but you know, you can't let that stuff stopping. And people need to remember that, Lisa, you wore a child on that tape, and I think people got that twisted. Those were two minors exactly when he first told me he had never had a threesome, and I felt like I needed to do that for him because we were together and I was living with him, and and I did it, and then he wanted another one and another one. Then that's when it was like, uh, like I may have been tricked here. When I started noticing that he was a liar and a manipulator. Was when I found out the girl was younger, and I'm like, well, why wait, why would he do that? He know I wouldn't admit then things like that, or when I started really questioning him because the threesomes, even though I didn't want him and I didn't like him, because he wanted him, I would back then, I would have done him, you know what I mean. And I hate to say that. I'm not saying with a young girl because I would not have, but I would have cried and did you know back then, just because he wanted to do them. And that's sad too. I have a thing now that I say to young girls or girls in general, love yourself first, because that was the problem. I was putting his feelings before my I didn't care that it bothered me. I didn't care that I cried and I was upset and that I had to share someone I loved with other women. I wanted him to be happy, so I would I would say that, I tell my daughter that love yourself first. Yeah, And you know, we all, we all go through that in different levels. He's a master manipulator. He says what he needs to say to get what he needs done. Yeah, yeah, he knew my whole background. He knew that I was in foster care. He knew that I was adopted with a single month my my adoptor mothers. Pause right there. I didn't know that you were in foster care until six. Wow, GI knew all about that. So you were in foster care until you were six and then you were adopted? Right? And did you any abuse and while you were in foster care he knew that as well? Got it? Yeah? Got it? Do you think in any way he tried to push on those buttons for you, like try to bring back those emotions and that insecurity, he would do things like he'll ask you, um, what about you would you like to change? And then he'll pretend like he's the night in shining armor. It's going to fix that for you. Or if you got in trouble for something, or one time I had a situation where I was allowed to go home and I got into it with some girls. I had a case. He made it go away. So you get what I mean. You got to protect me. I take care of you, You take care of me. Well, was that moment when you thought to yourself enough? There were a lot of times where I came and went because you know, with the abusive situations, you'll leave and go back, leave and go back. So I did a lot of that. But personally, once I got to the point where it was just like sickening, like kind of like just dealing with him or being around him and seeing that the girls were still nineteen and twenty year and you're late forties almost, you know, it was sickening. Over time, it got worse and worse, and I got older and mature, and I knew more about him and more about and he didn't want help. That's the thing. Like in the beginning, people say, well, once you found out she was fourteen, why did you turn him in? Because I loved him. I wanted to help him get better, because that's how how we work as far as love. I love, I'll trying to figure out how to help you and what I can do to save you. And then once I realized he couldn't be saved, he didn't want to be said saved. He would tell me things like my mama told me, if you love a man, you don't try to change him. You know. The order I got, the more it's like, boy, that's a b Yeah, you just you just messed up. So once you realize that, you know you're a part of that, you know it's and it's not okay and it's not acceptable. And I had to. I had me a daughter and I didn't want her around him, you know what I mean. I'm like, you know, because at first, you know, I wanted to be with this man, you know, like, but I can't. I can't be with nobody like that, Like I can't trust you around my child, like no, But she went back that I actually been with her in a relationship briefly and he was abusive. He but he was abusive, like beating me up like that. I had to get away and I didn't have anyone to call, come on to Chicago. They got me there. Then he thought that I think he thought she was his because he wanted me to do a fraternity test. He I guess he thought because I an abortion by with his first baby, that I ran away when I got pregnant the second time to have a baby. But it wasn't that, you know, But that's just what he thought because he's thinking, it's no way she got pregnant by someone else, Like, but you know. So I went there, and my big issue with him was the fact that he liked young girls. But he specifically kept telling me to buy my daughter dresses. Every time I would put her in like leggings and things like that. We'd be sitting in the studio, she'd be on my lap and He'll be like, uh, well, ain't I don't know to go get her dress? Give me every time he gave me three dollars for a dress, and I'm looking like, why does he care? That's not his kid? Why does he keep on it? So I just I could just my instincts was like saying this, say I'm not feeling it, like I didn't get it. That is a really um interesting to know in regards to the history of your own abuse and how it started so young, and how it seemed as though the cycle kind of continued, and as we were talking about before, the necessity to be able to tell someone be believed, you know what I mean, in order to stop the cycle. And I never told anyone until I got with him. He's the first person I told about my abews like my my I mean, we had this thing um in her bathroom. She would keep magazines in the bathroom with pictures and I would flip all her magazines over because I didn't want the faces looking at me because one of my abusers would become in the bathroom while I was in there. So mentally and she was like, why does she keep this girl keep flipping my magazines over it? But she never could figure out that. Mentally for me as a kid, it was like I felt like, so it was crazy. It's just crazy how things happened to you and you take it with you. People don't understand like you can. A situation can end, but you take that with you at your piece of all of your things you've been through in life go with you. So yeah, have you ever gotten professional help? Never? I was more worried about everybody else as I always am. I still feel like I just need to help. And I still talking to the women that other women he has abused has helped me. I talked to them and I love it because we don't have to convince each other yeah you yes, or you know, like me and his ex wife everything, Like I'll tell her something and she'll say that's why. Like I gave her a lot of moments when it when it is someone being really cut through. It's usually a woman, and I mean they be there's some really mean ones out there, you know what I mean, But I take it as they just don't know or you just don't want to know, because there's enough information out there to know about this one, you know what I mean, like the Cook County Courthouse public records, Like you pull up case after case that he's paid off, and you don't pay off people when you're innocent, you know what I mean? Why? Right? Why would you going back to that self love? I do believe that within us sometimes that self hatred explodes and we projected on other people. What were those conversations that you had with your mother? Like, yeah, the ones with my my mom? We really haven't had many, to be honest. And the reason why, I think is because she didn't want to deal with her guilt. Like our conversations actually have just started like after all of this, and she cried and I cried, and I told her I don't blame her, right, And the reason why I don't blame her is because when he asked me the night he met me and at the video, he asked me how old I was? I said seventeen. He said when your mama, let you come to Chicago. I didn't call her on you know, the phone at the at the video, she'd ask can I go? I just told him yes because I was going, right, That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I know it wasn't you know, but I knew everything, so it really I don't want the blame to be on her, because either way go, he was booking my flights, giving me money, I would have found a way to get there. He has people that work for him to make it so. You know, a lot of people don't understand that either. But then they'll say where was your mother? But they don't ask the same questions for him. You don't ask what happened to his mom when he got abused by his family members? With us women, you know, they tear us all the way, now you know what I mean. Well, you know it's as if we have to take on everybody's morality. You know, people, specifically men don't have to be responsible for their own actions. People find a way to look at us and make it our fault, you know, or our responsibility. Did he share with you his story of abuse to help you see? That's the thing I know all about him and Eliah everything like the dirty dirt, all of that. He told me all his personal problems and turmoils and and that's part of it because when he did that, I felt like he felt special, Like now I can tell him what I've been through and let my guard down. He had a thing called pens, Pens and eyeballs, the matter. They stick pins in your eyeballs. You don't talk about what we do, what we got going on. And he said he had that packed with Eliah as well. Wow, and she didn't talk. On our next Red Table Talk you have six year old never talked about this? Yeah, y hey, r T T family. 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