Tamar Braxtonis opening up about her past and how she’s moving forward from it.
Braxton, 44, tells PEOPLE she recently realized she’d never fully dealt with having been repeatedly molested when she was young, an experience she says was brought up in a 2018 taping without her consent.
“How it came out was very traumatic for me,” she says. (A WE tv spokesperson declined to comment on Braxton’s most recent statements but noted that her past revelations about childhood sexual abuse never aired and were not discussed on her family’s reality series,Braxton Family Values.)
“I thought I had successfully buried that part of me, but it was manifesting in different ways,” continues Braxton, who was often shown to be on edge and irritable on her shows. “It was coming out in how I dealt with things emotionally, how I looked at situations, how I conducted myself.”
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Braxton, who also hosts the podcastUnder Construction with TamarBraxton, says she started to feel boxed into an increasingly negative onscreen persona. Things came to a head during the filming of her WE tv docuseriesTamar Braxton: Get Ya Life!,which she says sensationalized her life as a single mom and her admittedly rocky relationship with former boyfriendDavid Adefeso.
What precipitated her darkest moment — hersuicide attempton July 16, 2020 — was the thought of her son Logan, she says.
“I didn’t want to continue being a disappointment for him,” Braxton says. “How can his friends' parents respect me if this is what they see every day? I wouldn’t let my kid go over to a child’s house if this is what was portrayed on television. In my sickness, I thought that if I can take the embarrassment out of his life, maybe he would have a chance to have the best life.”
She has gained clarity since: “I know now that that probably would have destroyed him, that the best life that I can set for him is to be the example, get counseling and show him how to communicate,” she says.
At the time, Braxton was home with then-7-year-old Logan (whom she shares with her ex-husband, music executive Vincent Herbert) and her then-boyfriend Adefeso, who found her unresponsive, and she was rushed to the hospital.
“That time of my life was so dark and so heavy,” she says. “I didn’t see how I was going to come out on the other side. I didn’t even know that there was another side. But I chose to change my life.”
“Most people think, ‘Oh, she went to a hotel, probably took a bunch of drugs, was on a binge.’ It didn’t happen like that. It was just everyday life, trying to figure out how to get through the day and then …” Braxton continues, stopping short of reliving exactly what happened.
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Reflecting on it all, she says, “I’m not where I was, but there’s still work to be done.”
And she is vowing to stick with it. “Monday, Wednesday day and Friday, I am with my life coach, and Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays, I’m with my psychiatrist,” she shares.
Understanding that she has “a responsibility,” Braxton says: “I chose to live my life out loud; I have to do the work because people are watching me.”
Wardell Malloy, Braxton’s longtime friend, sees her doing that work: “Tamar is human, with real emotion and real pain,” he tells PEOPLE. “She’s in the process of healing and being the best Tamar Braxton she can be for herself and her son.”
Now, Braxton is committed to motherhood and being the best version of herself.
“I’m dedicated to being the best mom, the best person I can be,” she says. “I am moving forward.”
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go tosuicidepreventionlifeline.org.
source: people.com
