Tamar Braxton speaks for the first time since her suicide attempt.
On July 16, Braxton was found unresponsive in her Ritz-Carlton hotel room in downtown Los Angeles by her boyfriend, David Adefeso. The singer-actress was immediately taken to the hospital. Afterward, some friends like #NeNeLeakes spoke out on her behalf, saying the star was currently on the road to better health. Now, Braxton, 43, is opening up for the first time about the traumatic moment. On Thursday, the star wrote that she is on the “path to healing.”
“First and foremost, thank you,” Braxton started her statement off with. “Thank you to each and every individual who has prayed for me, thought of me, sent me their love, and has showered me with their support. In this present moment, it is my only responsibility to be real with myself and to be real with the ones who truly love me and care for my healing. I have without fail, shared with you my brightest days, and I know that sharing with you what has been my darkest will be the light for any man or woman who is feeling the same defeat I felt just only a week ago,” said Braxton.
“Every one of us has a desire, whether small or big, to make it out of where we come from to an ideal future place that includes, freedom to be who we choose, security for our children and families, and fortune to share with the ones we love. We believe these things can co-exist with just being happy. I believed that, that as a black woman, as an artist, an influence, a personality I could shape my world, and with whom I believed to be my partners, they could help me share my world,” Braxton said. She then added that for more than 11 years, “there were promises made to protect and portray my story, with the authenticity and honesty I gave.”
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She went on to say that she was “betrayed, taken advantage of, overworked, and underpaid,” which is why she wrote “a letter over 2 months ago asking to be freed from what” she “believed was excessive and unfair. I explained in personal detail the demise I was experiencing.” Braxton said that her outcry was “totally ignored” and she continued to carry on the various “demands” of her career. “It was my spirit and my soul that was tainted the most. There are a few things I count on most to be, a good mother, a good daughter, a good partner, a good sister, and a good person,” Braxton said.
“Who I was, begun to mean little to nothing, because it would only be how I was portrayed on television that would matter. It was witnessing the slow death of the woman I became, that discouraged my will to fight,” Braxton wrote. “The pain that I have experienced over the past 11 years has slowly ate away at my spirit and my mental,” she continued.
Now in better spirits, Braxton says she will do “everything in my power to aid those from mental illness, including those of us who’s mental illness was only a result from the toxic systematic bondage that dwells television.”
