Domestic violence doesn’t discriminate—meaning that it doesn’t just plague women who are seemingly insecure, from working-class backgrounds or don’t feel great about themselves physically. All kinds of women can find themselves subjected to abusive partners.
That’s why it’s super important that Christina Milian, a beautiful woman by most standards, revealed during an episode of her reality show, Christina Milian Turned Up, that she was once in a very abusive relationship, E! Online reports.
“So I was 17 going into 18 and I met a boy, and he had this sarcasm about him that I just thought was super funny,” Milian said. “But that sarcasm turned out to be something a little bit more dark, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into.”
Then that sarcasm took a turn for the worse, and Millian found herself looking down the barrel of a loaded gun.
“He literally put a bullet in the gun and pointed it at my face. Staring down the barrel of a gun is the scariest thing you could ever experience. It’s not funny, it’s not for the movies. There’s a chance of life or death in one click, that’s it,” she explained.
The abuse took place in front of others, too, Milian recounted. He pulled her hair and dragged her while she was at a gas station.
“And all you could hope for is that someone will save you,” she said. “But at the same time, you don’t know how to save yourself.”
Her mom got her a one-way ticket to New York as a chance to escape her boyfriend, and in retrospect, Milian credits that trip with saving her life.
“I woke up one day and realized that my family was just trying to help me,” she said. “And gave myself the courage and the strength to not call him and invite him back into my life.”
Kudos to Milian for sharing this experience, in hopes that other women who are going through similar experiences can see that there’s a great life on the other side of that ordeal. She gets my #WCW today.
For more of black Twitter, check out The Chatterati on The Root and follow The Chatterati on Twitter.
Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele is a staff writer at The Root and the founder and executive producer of Lectures to Beats, a Web series that features video interviews with scarily insightful people. Follow Lectures to Beats on Facebook and Twitter.
Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.