Basketball Wives star Evelyn Lozada is tearfully claiming that she suffered from repeated instances of domestic abuse at the hands of her ex-husband former NFL star Chad Johnson.
The reality TV mainstay admitted to being “triggered” after Johnson responded to a fan about how he’d been able to find happiness in his life.
“What’s the secret? How do you stay so positive? Was it therapy? Not being funny…really asking for myself,” the fan asked the former NFL star.
“I lost my temper for once in life for 3 seconds & it cost me a lifetimes worth of work, I got it all back plus some after getting a 2nd chance & NOTHING will ever get me out of that happy space again..,” he replied.
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Lozada and Johnson married on July 4, 2012, but their marriage lasted just 41 days after he head-butted her in a car two months after their marriage. Johnson was arrested for domestic battery and the Miami Dolphins released him. He was ultimately sentenced to a year’s probation and the two divorced.
Lozado caught wind of the former wide receiver’s comments about the incident and released a five-minute video accusing her ex of repeated abuse.
“For this man to sit up there and say that he lost his temper for three seconds is infuriating to me,” Lozada said. “It’s messages like this, tweets or whatever the hell it was, that are triggers for me.”
She also posted a picture of a gash in her head and captioned the bloody photo, “This took longer than 3 seconds.”
Lozado was angered that her character was now being questioned by those who felt she ruined his professional and personal life.
“People read this on social media and are coming at me talking about ‘Oh you made this man lose his job’ it’s like if you’re gonna speak the truth, I want you to speak the truth as to what the situation was.”
She insisted that he abused her on more than just the one occasion that is publicly known.
“It wasn’t the first time, it wasn’t the first time!” she declared.
“And, one of the things I’m always gonna do is I’m always gonna live in my truth, whether it’s good, whether it’s bad, whether it’s ugly, I’m not going to let anybody take away my f**king truth and put this perception out there for a pity party as if you made one mistake.”
She says she stayed quiet out of respect for his family but could not continue to do so.
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“I have never discussed anything else that ever happened except the incident people know because I always was concerned about his kids and our kids. But you can’t make comments like this and expect for nobody, especially me on the other end of this, to feel how I feel,” she said.
The reality star also acknowledged her own past as a villain on the popular VH1 Basketball Wives series. She’s been verbally abusive, fought other castmates on air, and has thrown bottles at them.
“I didn’t always handle things the right way. But the person who I am on “Basketball Wives” and who I am as a mother and how I’ve been in my personal relationships … are two totally different things,” she said.
Ultimately, Lozada said she wanted to move on but as a victim, his comments didn’t make that possible.
“What happened to me that day and other days, I didn’t deserve. I didn’t deserve that,” she said.
Lozado’s comments contradict what she said in 2018 when asked who she’d trust with her life.
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“Chad. And not that I don’t have faith in Carl [Crawford, her ex-boyfriend and son’s father],” she said. “Carl would be there, but we’re talking about if my life is on the line,” she responded.
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