Some listeners may find this content disturbing. This episode discusses domestic abuse as well as suicide. Please proceed with caution. This is Taylor Armstrong in her own.
Words, Taylor, thank you for continuing to show your story. So, now it happens, you've been out it and you talk to your friend, We're going to have to tell him.
So what happens then? So we start going to couples counseling with doctor Sophie at doctor Sophie's urging, and well, I let doctor Sophie Sophie urge Russell into it, and so we started going and slowly doctor Sophie was He's so amazing. But he would say, Okay, you know there's talk around town that there's some things going on, and you know, Russell, let's talk about this and is there any reality to that? And so he did it in such a slow way that it didn't seem like he
was going to get ambushed on the show. It was just you know, there's people talking around town and I don't know are these things true? And he created a safety plan for us where he so with our landline phones. But like if you too start to get in an argument, then you need to go into two separate rooms in the house and both get on the phone with me and we'll talk through it.
I can't believe Russel was even open to talking to this person, much less like coming up with any kind of strategy. I mean, it's that he would even have this self awareness to be open to like, you know, this has to change.
I'm not sure he was open to this has to change, but he was definitely. I think that Doctor Sophie is saying things like, you know, there's people that are talking. I'm more worried about this. He's getting discovered. Perception of him before we finally told him, you know, it's it's coming out on the show.
And how to go once he told him, once he really knew.
I think he was scared. I mean, it was, of course angry as can be and in denial and then litigious. He started, you know, firing off emails to Evolution, which I was aware of, and then he sent one to Camille also threatening a lawsuit or whatever. I didn't know about that one, but I knew about the Evolution one, and I think he at that point he was in panic mode, thinking that he could somehow keep it off the show. Which we both still How was the at that point? What was the abuse?
Like the physical abuse was still happening even though he'd been How did I know that the abuse obviously still happened?
But was he still was it still physical? Wasn't he? Was he more concerned now that he'd been outed? He that it matters? I guess, But well, no, you know, I don't feel like the ranting got any better. Maybe it even got worse, because it would be like him blaming me for now potentially destroying his career from this being on his reputation, so definitely, so a lot of that, and well, I mean, ultimately you know how all of it ends.
Well, it's you're I can't believe you're such an open book. I think it's whatever. It's so great, but whatever. To like just is it's kind of shocking how much you're
willing to talk about it. Because again, like as a viewer, you I felt like I was watching it and somehow like getting it, but I didn't get it at all as a viewer of reality television, like this discussion is so different than and I knew I was watching the episode when Camille said what she said, and so it was the shock, but like the details of it are just so horrible. So so okay, so you get divorced or you obviously you file for divorce, and yes, of
course I know what happened. Next Russell commits suicide, right right, So I mean I don't even know.
So I hadn't filed for divorce, then you hadn't. No, no, So let's see. So it was my the last time he hit me, it was my birthday and we had thrown a huge party and that day we were checking we checked into a hotel in Beverly Hills and he gave me like all these gifts, and he wrote me a card and it was like a front and a back of a card, and it was all about how he was going to change, and he knew that, you know, he hadn't been a good husband to me, and he
had never done anything like that. And you hear people talk about the honeymoon phase after someone's abusive to you and then they're super nice to your bringing roses the next day. He was not like that with me. There was no honeymoon phase. So he would be abusive and then or or whatever, but then the next day it was no remorse. Now we definitely did not have that honeymoon face. So when I saw that happen on my birthday, I thought, Okay, maybe things aren't going to change because
I've never seen this side of him. Maybe he really is going to be the good person that I know he can be. And it gave me so much hope. And so then we went to my birthday party. So we checked in the hotel, he gives me the gifts in the card, and then we went to my birthday party, had a great time, and Lisa vander Pump's daughter had just gotten had her bachelorette party on the show, and we went to Vegas and we went to the Chip
and Dale's. You know, it was just silly and we got up on stage and you know, they're all oiled up and it was, you know, twenty year old girls bachelorette party, and we were filming the whole thing, obviously. So we go to the birthday party, we have a blast. We get back to the room, we're in bed and he says, I know you slept with the Chippendales in Vegas, and I was like, what are you talking about out
and it was just like unfathomable. I thought, wait, It's only been like a matter of hours since he said he's not going to be this person again, and it's my birthday and he's already back to being this person. And he's just braiding me, and you know, saying how what a slut I am and all, you know, all those kinds of things. And I mean, first of all, this is absolutely ridiculous. I'm gonna go sleep with the
Chip and Down and you were filming the show. I mean, the whole thing was I just like, are you sarious? Like we're not really going here, are we? This is ridiculous, This is absurd. I mean I was with Lisa, like and then I'm just explaining everything when I shouldn't even have. I should have just been like, I'm not having this conversation with you, but that wouldn't work with him.
Yeah, it's just I mean, because it was always probably I mean this, yes, obviously it would be absurd to think of you having you're with the Chippingdales guy, but it was always absurd, like you had fourteen dollars of coffee, so you you know, it's like, so you get to the point where you know it's not going to help try to explain it away, right, It's like, doesn't matter what you say at this point. He wants to rageolutely.
And so it just he just escalated and then he rose up in bed and he punched me in the face. And because my head, I didn't have anywhere from my head to go back, you know, because I was laying flat down in the bed. So that's when he fractured my orbital floor. So then I your orbital floor, so if you look at your skull and where the eye socket would be, underneath, there is the orbital floor holds
or the orbit of your eye. So he fractured that, which is actually and I believe it was Mayweather who had that injury in a boxing match, but it's it's a common, you know, injury with with that area. But yeah, so he fractured my orbital floor, and then that I went to see.
You call the the guymond one was it?
And at first I thought, Okay, it's not a big deal. And then the next day when I would move my eye around, it was like pinching underneath because the fracture so like the so my eye was getting kind of stuck in it, and so I went I had just had lasick and I could was having trouble seeing out of that eye a little bit. It was like blurry.
So I went to see Carrie, as was my doctor at the time, who did my lay sick because my and they told me my flap was wrinkled and so they were going to have to try to do a repair on it. And he said, this is interesting. So Russell went with me and he said he did. Yeah. So he said, the doctor said, how does this happen? And Russell had told me, tell him you were pushing
Kennedy on a swing and she kicked you. And so I told the doctor that and the doctor said, really, what kind of doctor like he would even say to you and that.
You you like kind of work with him to make up the lie. To the doctor, I feel like I'm he I feel like I'm Drew Barrymore because every time you see her on a talk show, she's like this, but it's just the stories.
Yeah, crazy, so go on, yeah, so no, no. So the doctor said, well, what kind of shoes does Kennedy wear? And he knew yeah, And I said, well at tennis shoes And he's like, oh, okay, were you pushing her from the front of the show. Come on. Is it just a laced doctor.
Yeah, but he's like, oh, were you pushing her from the front of the russe standing there?
Yeah, And the doctor was like okay, like and just kind of like all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna let you I'm gonna let you go with this. But this is bullsh He goes, well, I'll tell you this. I've only had to do a flap repair one other time, and it's from a police officer that was arresting someone and got punched in the face. Were you scared when he said it? Russell was there? Oh? Yeah, But at the same time he said it very purposely obviously, yeah.
Yeah.
And how did Rustle react to Oh? Nothing, I mean he was good. He could be you know, poker face on all of it. So then I went to go see the ocular plastic surgeon and this is how this is how horrible it is when you're in these situations. So after all the injuries that he that I had gone through with him, I go to get the radiography back on my eye and now I can see the orbital floor fracture and they're telling me I'm gonna have to have reconstructive surgery. Have a titanium implant in my
orbit now. And it wasn't until that moment that I confirmed for myself that I was being abused. It literally looked took me looking at an X ray of a fracture in my face to go, I'm being abused and not talking myself back out of it. So once that happened, I asked him to move out, and he completely changed. It was so fascinating. One of my friends of years prior said to me, if you just stand up to him, he'll start backing down. But you just being the weak one all the time. But I was too afraid to
stand up to him. So once he moved out, he started becoming like so willing to do anything to put things back together to keep me. So now it's public, right because I was filming the show when he fractured my robttal floor. But now I have to have reconstructive surgery, so I have to let the producers know I'm going to be out, you know with this.
So he when you finally said and you saw it, almost see a picture. It just be outside of yourself, right, see it? That's what it feels like you're saying, like actually see it, like proof there. It is black and white in a picture. But so were you still scared, Like so now you say move out, it's over. Once you realized it for yourself and you said this is I'm done with this, were you still afraid of him? Yeah?
I was afraid because you know, when well with control, with abusers, which it's all about control, right, So when you finally decide to leave, it is the most dangerous time abuse her because now they've lost all control and they've lost everything that was giving them their power. So when he moved out, I slept with one eye open, you know, and always made sure the alarms were on. And Julie was there with me and my assistant and I had to live in nanny so she was there.
So I felt like we had enough people there flanking the situation if he were to just to go into a rage at the locks changed and took the precautions. But yeah, it was very scary because now he's lost the control. He's terrified of what's going to happen. He didn't want me to press charges and what are you going to Probably not, but I was friends with some people in the police and they had said, if you don't press charges. They're going to press charges anyway, because
this is too much of a public case. I mean, they can't have this happening on television. There was nothing
done about it. So that was a big fear, is not knowing how he was going to ultimately react and if it was going to be He's going to come in with a gun kill me, you know, or you know, just just with that fear of communicating with him at this point or was it did you a little bit because he would call me, so we would have conversations about like how to how he's going to support me and things like that, and he was very willing to meet with me or talk to me on the phone,
and you know, trying to lacate me, keep me under control. And here I think, maybe for the first time, feeling a little bad that I was going to have to have reconstructive surgery, like actually going wow, I really heard her this time, as opposed to before when it was that I deserved it or I caused it. So I think all the pieces were coming together for him, and
he was getting more panicked than anything. And fast forward, we had had a meeting, well, I got my I had my reconstructive surgery, and then we had had a meeting scheduled at his office to talk about Kennedy, and I mean, I would picture you just scared to see his face at this point. Yeah, so that's why we were meeting in his office and there so we had this meeting and he would not miss a phone call or anything with me, because, as I said, he was panicking.
And so I went to his office and his lights were off and he was a workaholic, like he worked non stop, and that was very unusual for him. And then not to show up for my meeting, calling calling, calling, phone, going to voicemail, and so then I thought, okay, maybe forgot whatever, so kind of went on with my day and then something about it just wasn't didn't feel right
to me. And I knew some other people in the office, so I kind of went down before I left the office and was talking to them, just kind of biden some time, thinking maybe he had a lunch meeting. So then I he never came back, and I it just something about it that just was didn't feel right to me at all, especially because the way he had been reacting, you know, always making sure he was on task with me.
So I started making a couple of phone calls for people that were close to him that he worked with, and no one had talked to him all weekend, and so I just had this weird feeling, and I decided to go over to the house where he was staying. And I was in the car with my assistant, my daughter, and I called one of my closest friend's husbands is a world championship kickboxer, So I called him and asked him to meet me at the house, and he did, and then we were ringing the gate. No one came.
Finally someone else let us in the gate, and we went up to the house, up to the bathroom. We're knocking on the door, no answer, no answer. Kennedy Kenny was in the car with my assistant, and so then we went around to he had a large, big bathtub and the bathroom windows and we were kind of looking in to see if we could see anything. And so then finally the my friend put his hands. It's those roll out windows, so he put his hands underneath them to pull it out, pride the window open. And then
that's when we saw Russell hanging. No, you're like comforting me. It's it's so horrible. Yeah, and and know that I've I've shared my stories so many times over the last I mean, this was twenty eleven, and so when I tell it now, it's almost as though I'm up here and I'm telling someone else's story because I.
Feel like, I know, I feel like I'm sure people are having this reaction to you know, I've watched you on TV. You never know, like you know, even in like reality TV, like what's really going on with people?
Yeah, yerible horrible and you know, but I do when I do tell it, it's so important because my life, you know, my life was spared and my daughter's life was spared, and murder suicide is not uncommon when there is domestic violence involved. And so because I was left here, I feel like I was left here to tell my story and to make sure that I help other people not end up in the same situation as I did.
I mean, I can only imagine you must be saving people's lives every day. I mean, just because you're so honest about it. I have never heard it described in this kind of detail. I don't think maybe I don't know movies or obviously.
But yeah, yeah, you know, and the other sad reality of it is I ran into the street and hysterics and I was on the ground, and you know, shock
are just everything that you can imagine emotionally. And I was screaming, hysterically crying, and my friend, the kickboxer, was on the phone with nine one one, and then all of a sudden, I said, oh my god, Kennedy and he lived on a cul de sac, so we're dead end street, and so I thought, I have to get her out of here before all these emergency vehicles start coming. She'll never get down the hill, you know. So I kind of switched gears in a mom mode for just
enough time to get her out of there. And she said to my assistant, she said, did my daddy do something stupid? She was five at the time. We got her out of there, and you know, it's so heart wrenching to me that nine to one one tapes are public. I'm not really sure what the point of that is, but the go public. Do people listen to it?
Yeah, I don't remember that. Oh yeah, that's stup.
You can hear me screaming like and then you can hear me referring to Kennedy, and you can hear me saying I need my psychiatrist, doctor Sophie. But like, I don't understand that all nine one tapes, and if I'm wrong, somebody will correct me. But I believe they're all public and I just I don't find any reasoning in that whatsoever. So then it was all just a blur. My mom drove up my friends this pretty how much did your
mom know? Well, she was there when I had the surgery, so yeah, she knew and tell you a very sad thing about the day of the surgery. And this really goes to the cycle of abuse and how much control and abuser has over you. So my mom and my best friend were sitting in the recovery with me. I was kind of coming out of morphine, and Russell walked in the door of my hospital room with flowers and jen.
I can tell you it is one of the hardest things for me to share with people, is that in that moment I wanted him to crawl in bed with me and stay with me. So that's how that cycle is so powerful. I mean, even looking at the person that put me there and wanting him to get in bed and comfort me. And I looked over at my mom, my best friend, and I thought, I can't do this to them any longer. I mean, I'm I don't know
what I'm thinking. Maybe it's the morphine, but the fact that I had that thought, I just thought, I'm never going to get out of this if I don't get out of it for somebody else. And they wheeled me down to see Kennedy. She was too young to come up, and she's sitting on my lap in the wheelchair, and I just thought this has to end. I mean, I can't do this to everybody else, even though I'm willing to potentially get back with this maniac.
But you're thinking of your mom, Like your mom seeing him come in with flowers, your mother must have been I mean, I know your mom.
Mom.
I can't even imagine, like how she felt at that moment, you know, Like.
And he apologized to my mom and my best friend. I think they didn't even respond. I think it was just they were in shock and I was. Actually it was a blend of two feelings. When he walked in the door, I was scared, you know, you like, or what's going to happen. I don't know if he has a gun behind the flowers, or what could potentially go wrong, but then that feeling of wanting him to get into
bed with me. When I reflect on that, I could think, yeah, and to think that that's the person in that moment I thought would comfort me. It really is like the sixth sense of what the psyclo of abuse is, like.
Yeah, it's funny, I like and be like, no, I know full story that he killed himself, hate his spaking guts.
Yeah, I don't know. You and I as moms, I don't if I were in that position. I mean, my mom I think was just so in shock when he walked in and in shock about everything that had happened, that she didn't respond and probably was would have been fearful to respond to him, not knowing what his his mom going to be. But as us being moms, you know, I have no idea because I feel like my rage would have been so great. I don't I don't know
how I would have reacted. But yeah, thank thankfully we're not ever going to be in that situation.
That's the that make my daughter listen to this one. I think all daughters should.
I hope. Uh.
Okay, So after Russell committed suicide, I'm trying to remember how you're still filming the show at that point or it was wrapped. Okay, So I had had the orbit before reconstruction, and that was a big part of the finale.
So we were all at the finale. Doctor Sophie went with me. And then now I've had the surgery and so there's not really anyone that can say they don't believe me at this point. You know, people saying they didn't believe you. Yeah, there was a time when it was kind of like Camille and Adrian were saying they were having doubts. I will say, I'm not going to say they didn't believe me, but they were a long time ago.
Try kind of as you're saying it, it's kind of coming back to me.
Yep. And Lisa and Kyle were definitely on my side and then but like Camille and Adrian, they were just asking a lot of questions. I don't know when I look back though, if it was out of fear for them that they didn't want to admit that they knew because now they see how crazy he's how culpable in it, or no, maybe like fearful, like we don't he can come for them, Yes, like we're not going to say he did this because we don't want to a be involved, talked to you, even asked.
Them over about it. Well, Camille came out years later. Unfortunately he talked to them anymore.
You know. Well, I'm on great terms with all of them, so I don't you know, it's so far Orange County to Beverly Hills. People think it's like I just took to exactly, So it's not. We don't see each other like we would if I lived here. Are you forgiven that the questioned you or that they Yeah, for sure, And I do think part of it was out of fear that they didn't want him coming after them, and
I think that was I think they were. Everybody was kind of in shocked to begin with, and that this was all getting ready to come out on the show, and fearful of what the result was going to be. And it was just a myriad of emotions. But that finale, I've had the surgery, now he's living out. Then I find him hanging, and then there was a reunion. So then that I blocked this. I can't imagine that I forgot this. That please. Yeah. So then I was trying to think of the chain of events. It was a
little bit of a blurback then. So I had the surgery in July, I find him hanging in August, and October would have been our sixth wedding anniversary. So then the show air, oh I know. So then they were trying to decide whether the air the show or not. And you see in the first episode before the show airs, all the girls get getting together at Adrian Muluf's house and they're on camera, but they're discussing whether the show should air or not. And Camille was a hard no
on wanting the show to air. Why because she's the one that outed everything and probably thought she might be villainized. I'm putting words in her mouth, but you know that people would say, I can't believe you would out someone's abuse. Was she villainized? I don't remember that either. I don't know. I was kind of in a fog at that point. But later, unfortunately, Camille had an abusive situation of her
own and she went through it. I think she told me for like an hour or something, and she came back to me and just said the terror that she felt in that one hour, that she just felt so absolutely horrible to think about all that I had gone through, and she was just extremely apologetic and hate that she had to experience it to really recognize the terror that exists during those moments. But she was extremely supportive and sad and definitely forgiveness happened. But other than that, everyone
was just very supportive. I mean, you know, coming to the funeral and being supportive of of me and checking in on me. I didn't leave my house for quite some time, and Kyle and Lisa came over and they're so funny, and we did fun silly things with Kennedy and just tried to put the pieces together which were falling apart all over the place. I had armed security with me all the time and in my house even
and back then the paparazzi were really relentless. You know, it's changed a little with all the iPhones and everybody posting their own stuff, but they were all over my streets. I mean they were. I couldn't leave the house there were It was insanity. It was truly. My house was like ground zero for all these paparazzi and everything, and so it was just like people had to come see
me because I couldn't leave and go anywhere. The first time I left, I had to go to Fores Lawn to plan the funeral, and so my bodyguard at the time, they put me under a blanket. My god, I know, in the back of the escalade and in the garage, and then my assistant was in the front and we pulled out and then here they come, and so there's a huge and you know, they all have priuses back then,
so they can always keep up with you longer. And then I'm going an escalade the because gas guzzler, but so you know, we were weaving in and out of traffic, and it was just it was insanity, Like I never thought I'm gonna be able to escape these people. I can't even leave my house. And so that was just adding on top of the shock and the recovery and the suicide and then now I'm dealing with all of this and trying to figure out how to put the pieces of my life back together. And it was just awful.
And I was getting interview requests from everyone you can imagine, up to Barbara Walters and and thinking like I am not ready for this. Onslaught of answering all of these questions. It was all so fresh and I was in shock, and there were so many other problems that were going on from a logistical perspective with finances and because I had no access to money, and just trying to figure out how I was going to put the pieces back together.
And my daughter was at a very expensive private school, as you know, and so it was like on top of the shock, the recovery, the paparazzi and the press, and then you know, my financial situation and trying to figure out how to put my life back together and not let my five year old daughter see that I was a complete and total wreck, and it was just it really feels like back then, it was like I felt like I was just sitting in my backyard and drink chardenay and listen to the eagles and just stare
and think, I have no idea what I'm going to do because there were too many, too many things going wrong and nothing was going right. What about his parents? Where were they? His parents, of course had mental health issues and they were divorced. But they were they ever there for for you or for no I mean, very sweet people, but definitely not capable of assisting in any way. My mom was there when I woke up the day after the suicide. My house was filled with like my
best very best friends. They were one of my best friends was in bed with me, my other best friends standing over me. My other best friend was she works for KTLA. She's outside trying to manage the press like they were in full blown like recovery mode for me immediately. And then people coming to visit me at the house and flowers from every place you can possibly imagine, and so I had a lot of support, thankfully. Is there then, like everything else I guess people talk about. No.
Then that slowly starts to fade in terms of like, Okay, now it's not so new anymore, and you're still dealing with the aftermath. Right now, all of a sudden, it's not everybody standing over you and flowers pouring in. Right then you have to deal with the reality of your situation in this little girl who now has lost her father and she was how old at the time, five she understood?
Wasn't you know? Does she remember this? I don't know how much detail she remembers. I'm sure because it was so so much trauma and unfortunately, the stories everywhere, so you know, she knew at a very early age. All that had happened. When it first happened, I had told her that your daddy died because he was sick in the head, and I just want to I didn't. She
did not know it was a suicide. But then fast forward, when I finally did start taking her out of the house, the paparazzi be chasing us and going, how does Kennedy feel about the suicide? And I'm like, you guys, come on now, I mean, you know you need to do this to a five year old. I mean, so, it just it was so bad back then and it's not
like that anymore. So that's a good thing. But I had no privacy and no ability to really heal, just because I was dealing with so many problems I was left with, and then just the stress of everything that was going to come out on the show.
I mean like, I feel like, if you could go get through that, you could get through anything. That sounds like the worst possible. I cannot imagine how you were living through that.
Yeah. Well, I always say that people will say you're so strong, you're so strong, But the truth of the matter is that when you go through something a tragedy, you know, you find strength inside you that you didn't know you have, and then you can take that and kind of put it in your back pocket and so the next time you're faced with challenges in life which you're going to be right and the universe doesn't go Taylor's been through enough. We're not giving her any more problems.
But I'm able to go. I got this. I mean, whatever's coming ahead of me is I've got that strength that I didn't know I have. It's part of my arsenal. You know, my warrior shield is very banged up. And if you want to go into battle, going with me because I got you on this one, I love you. Yeah.
It's good though, and it also is it's important because there is life after and so knowing what I've been through and when people are struggling and they want to share their story with me, I think you had the most amazing woman. I think you're the most amazing woman.
I mean I again, like as a viewer, it's such a different experience, like to actually talk to you, and I've known you for a while with your friendly but I think you are incredible, especially now letting me share it. Oh please, Well, I mean it's this is I do part two? So we're actually supposed to talk about part two in your New Life. We just spent so much
time on part one. Yeah, I do want to know because I have met your husband and I know he to Kennedy, and I do want to know about you know, this happy ending or I don't know what to call it, but but this next chapter. And you know, how you manage like even trusting somebody else, another man, you know, and how like how is that? How was you must have been? How it means you do date after this? Like how did you even meet anyone? Yeah?
You know?
Or I'm sure you were afraid to leave the house for a long time, Yeah, for sure. And and the and the realization that I'm never going to meet anyone authentically, that nobody's ever going to get to know me for me. They're gonna know what they saw on TV, what they seen in the tabloids, they.
Heard about from those people exactly, and that I'm a quote unquote victim. And you know, so there's that whole side to it. And then also to your point, I thought, I will never trust another man as long as I live. So after the suicide, all this financial stuff came to bear where he had emptied out all the bank accounts. I didn't have access to the bank bank accounts because you know, as I told you earlier, he had financial control over me. So all these lies and things kept
coming up that I was all the money. Well that's a good question. So this kind of came out a little bit later for me. But so I had to hire a law firm to look for the money to get into the bank accounts. And when we had an offshore asset protection trust in the Cook Islands, and as far as I know, he told me and it was, you know, going to be a large sum. And so I had a hire a law firm to help me try to get into these bank accounts and to get to the assets. And so I wt those guys going.
And then Russell was being sued by a public company when he died for one point five million dollars, So that lawsuit came to me, and so now I'm fighting that with a corporate law firm. And this is getting to chapter two. So a friend of mine said, I went over they hid me again and took me to his house and he said, I'll never forget. He was making me dinner and he was stirring, and he said, listen, you can wallow in this ship for the rest of
your life. You can ruin your life and Kennedy's, or you can put on your big girl pants and do something about it because nobody's coming to save you. And all I had heard prior, which I so appreciate too, is it's gonna be okay, Like we love you, you know, all those kinds of reassurances, but to have somebody for you, right, but just have somebody say to me, no one's coming to save you, so you better figure out what the hell you're gonna do next. I mean, he was just
very blunt about it. And as much as that seems like tough love, I walked away thinking, Okay, this is actually on me. So he said, I'm gonna make one phone call for you, and he called, No, come on, get the hell out of here. Come on. He called my husband John. Wait, why did he call him? What was John? I'll tell you, Scott to be kidding me. I know. So John an attorney and he also was with on Wall Street for twenty years, so he's done a lot of corporate litigation sec work, like so the
public company situation all in his wheelhouse. He has was GC for major companies. He was at Lehman. So he George said, you got to help this girl. You've met her socially at my house a couple of times, but like, she needs help and she's never going to get out of this alone. So here comes John and we thought probably almost for two years I'm gonna say, like literally, because every time he would call me it was bad news.
But so he started managing the two law firms. He was like, listen, you can't charge this scirl this this public company is going to bury her. There's no way she can fight at this level, you know, financially. And then they're looking for the assets on the other side with this other law firm. So now he's got the two law firms under control to the point where he's.
Like he had worked with was he expecting at this point? I mean, you're like, well, I pay this guy too. No, I'm I going to pay this guy. You knew from the get go that he wasn't going to charge you. Yes, he was doing it as a favor to my friend George.
Wow. Yeah. And George is the kind of person that when you ask for a favor, you say yes, yes, got introduced me to George. He would like him. So so we start that path. But every time he would call me, it was bad news. He would call me and say, they got into another bank account and it's empty, or we got into you know, it took a very long time to get into the trust because those are
well protected. Empty everything was gone, and I a joke and say, I felt like at that point, I like I couldn't put the puzzle pieces together because I knew that we were spending a lot of money every month, and I'm like, where was the money coming from and where did the money go? Like, so I've got that on top of the grief and every and trying to
put the pieces back together. So I'm like trying to figure out how am I pay for my house, my daughter's school, like everything that's going on, and they kept he every time he would call me his bad news, and so I'd be like, what, you know what he would call and he'd be like, you know, I'm like, I don't want to make any decisions today, and you're the only one that can make the decisions. So he
was very matter of fact with me. But I remember at one point he told me that he went to my friend George and said, I can't work with this girl, like she's crazy, and George's like, she's going through a lot, so you're just gonna have to stick it out, like we got to make this work for her.
So there was neverways there like at least like a friendship would start, Like from the beginning, did you feel like, even though you always used to fight with him, did you feel like he was like all.
I he became a friend and obviously yes, and you know, he stood on my side through all of that when I think most people would have said, I can't deal with this girl. And that's where the trust was developed in thinking that I would never trust a man again, that now I have this person who's stood on my side with no compensation and is managing these law firms to help protect me. Yeah, most people would have been like doing it for free. She's yelling at me every time I call.
Yes, it's not my fault, like yeah, yeah, you know.
And so and he'd never even heard of housewives, so he was like, oh, these these women really are crazy, you know. So that compounding and then the tabloids and so as things progressed with us it was actually speaking of the tabloids. We were in a restaurant in New York with other people. I think it was at my book maybe my book signing or when I was signing my book contract, and we were leaving and he threw the paparazzi were outside and he threw a jacket over
me and had his arm holding it over me. Well, of course they took a picture and cropped out all the other people and it looks like he and I are leaving a restaurant together with his arm around me, right, And there was no relationship whatsoever back then. So you know, fast forward, people were like, oh they were dating. We were not dating back then, and we were still like very much in the logistics mode. Uh yeah, so that
is how that unfolded. But yeah, the trust just developed over time, and then the appreciation for everything he was doing for me and he's a good person, but they love definitely didn't come for a while, a long while. I think he was straight. Well, I know he was starting to have feelings for me, because we've talked about it.
Did you have did you miss at that point? Did you feel it in yourself at that point or no?
Nothing? I was like, you gotta be kidding me, you know, it was there was nothing there whatsoever. And then we were having we were having dinner and dinner meeting and with a sunglass manufacturer actually, and she was sitting acrossmus We were hobviers in Orange County, and all of a
sudden we looked at one another. We were sitting on the same side of the booth and she was across most and we looked at one another, and I was like, wait a minute, and I just I remember like looking away, thinking what was that, And it like, all of a sudden, he just looked like a completely different person to me, and I felt some weird emotion come over me, and I thought, wait, what is going on with me? Maybe
it's the margarita but and the sun glass manufacturer. She goes, should leave you two alone, and I was like no, no, no, no, no, I don't know. I was like, wasn't that obvious. It was so bizarre that it just happened like that.
It's so funny because I say to Rachel, my daughter all the time, like, you know, she's she's like, I like the bad boy. I'm like really because I thought that I did, And then I met your father and he I had no interest. He was just like the nicest guy. But I was like, no, there's no spark. There was no spark there. And one day I remember like, I don't know, he kissed me and I was like,
first I didn't want him to, but he did. I mean, it wasn't like whatever we can And I remember thinking like, wait a.
Second, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm like, I feel like.
With women like you as a woman, you having somebody that you are that is so reliable, that becomes sexy, good to you, kind, you know, different from you're describing me like the night and shining armor. Who's going to come in and you don't be daddy and you don't have to work anymore and I'm gonna all of the love bombing, right. It's like I would like for my own daughter, like find the spark with a guy because he is so kind and good and reliable and gentle
and all of those things. Because that's what happened with Jeff. I really was like thinking, it's we don't have that. I don't want to hang from the chandeliers and which not just saying that. I'm not saying that I never did but what sparked it was like, wait a second, this guy is so wonderful to me, and like that is still to this day, you know, it's like, guess
I just love him. We've been through it, but absolutely this is not about me making me think for the first time, I know, was that the change right then? I just thought because I was also seeing another guy. But I remember thinking, wait a second, like I love Jeff Fessler, like he's the best, and like he was a friend, you know, for more than anything. I was sending him away. I was like, I don't feel it, like let's just be friends and we need to be rocks.
He want to just be whatever, And then he kept coming around. I was like, five, we'll be friends again, and this wouldn't stop. Wouln't leave me alone. But he wasn't like a I mean, he was always just gentle and kind and an accountant. He had used to be accountant, so we would like do my taxes, I don't know, and I was like.
He's such a great guy.
I wish that I could feel that, and one day I did, and I still think, like to this day, I wish I hope for my daughter that yes, it's great to have a spark and all of the sex and the excitement and all of it, and you have to just like more important than that is, you know, like for me, like a spark now is I get sparked from peace, from like peace in my life, and as I get older, even more appreciative of that, you.
Know, absolutely. I mean that's sacks are super fun, but I mean we all know they fade. Eventually, they fade, And I don't know, I hope she makes I want her to make wise decisions, you know.
Twenty three. I'm going to make her again watch and listen.
Listen.
I hope that all of my friends make listen and make their daughters listen, because I you know you do. It's not like you're the first to tell the story of abuse, but you're so open about it. How does Kennedy feel about the fact that you're sharing all of it now?
I don't think that Kennedy is affected by it, probably because there's so much out there about it that it's she's probably I'm not I don't want to put words in her mouth, but it's been told so many times that maybe for her too, she doesn't feel like she's really was in it, that she feels like she was
up here, you know, looking down on it. But and she has a great boyfriend who's very sweet, and you know, she's also very strong and very independent, and I think part of that is knowing what I went through and knowing that she would never allow that in her life. So the cycle truly does stop with her. Wow, my mother, she does. She grappled with the fact that was her father.
Ever, I mean, I'm hoping, don't you tell me anything about Kennedy, But like, I'm sure it was a lot for her.
You know, we were talking about earlier about when she would stand in between selling me when she was a toddler and me not recognizing that she kind of knew what was going on. And I was taking her to school one day after the suicide and she was in her car seat by me and my psychiatrist, doctor Sophie had told me bring him up on occasion and try to put memories in her mind so she doesn't think people just disappear, you know. Then we just don't talk
about it anymore, you know. So I said, we were a stop by, and I said, do you miss Daddy? And she goes no, And she goes no, inn oh, and I said, well, sometimes I miss Daddy. And I said, remember that time we were at in Hawaii and I tried to give her a reference about Sam Castles and she goes, Mommy, why would you miss the boy that
screamed at you all the time at five? And I was so happy that she was behind me in her car seat because tears are running down my face thinking, oh my god, she knew way more than I thought. I thought I had protected no way.
I've been there for years and years of My therapist always says, they always know, Like these kids, they just do. Like you think you're hiding stuff from your kids, your kids know what's.
Going on absolutely, And that was one of the hardest things for me to wrap my head around, is, oh my god, I stayed too long and now I was a child. My earliest childhood memory is my father beating my mother. So I'm like a psychology one oh one textbook that I would then follow that exact path, you know, which is unfortunately predictable that an abuser, someone who's in an abusive household is more likely statistically to become an
abuser or a victim people. You know, yeah, exactly. So having had that.
That's the whole other I that did got a father that beat up your mom, yep.
And my mom was so brave. She was young and she I remember it's so vividly. I remember what my pajamas looked like. And I had on blue zip up those plastic footy pajamas with a Teddy Bear right here. I remember it perfectly. And in talking and so my father was beating mother, and she grabbed me and we
ran out the door. And she never looked back. And she was young, really, she was young, and I mean so so brave to not go back, because I wow, statistics say most people go back seven times before finally leaving, but she didn't. And I just my mom. I always have mad respect for her for being able to do that. And she was very she was very young.
You think maybe if you had shared it with her, like when you were going through it, because I know you said you just you just don't want to shadow her. But I wonder if she would have I would have shattered her to think that you were going through something that she went through that was so awful. But I wonder if she would have helped, you know, like she would have. I don't know, who knows retrospect.
I didn't want to, like you said, hurt her, and I think that she knows. I'm pretty I would have been really hard to convince to leave them, so it would have been a constant battle for her. It would have put her through so much pain, and then seeing me not leave and over for Christmas and Thanksgiving and just staring at him, thinking what he's doing to me. He must be so proud of you now he must just be right. Yeah, I mean I know that she was really heartbroken at first, because I didn't go to
her with all of this. I mean, she didn't express that to me, but I know that she was. And but I'm so proud of her for being so strong. But going back to Kennedy, like, the cycle definitely stops with her. There's just no way she would allow someone to treat her poorly, nor could she wrap her head around how I would have ever done it. Good. No, so good. She's doing great, but it was a hard moment when she asked me about the screaming at me all the time, why would you be with a boy or miss a boy?
Well, hopefully, well that'll that will It'll always amaze her when she hears hopefully the story and always you how was that possibly? My mother is a warrior, you know, Well, so Taylor, now that you are such a you are a hero, an advocate and a warrior, and now you're like doing I mean, how long has your advocacy been going on?
Here?
Like if you've been talking, I know you have an event coming up. I want you to talk about it, yes, but how long? I mean you wrote your book? When I wrote my book very quickly. We put it out at the beginning of twenty twelve. Okay, oh so okay, so you had the book, so you put it out there. Yeah, and you have you been so you've been going around talking about this for a long time, a long time. So, and I also would like to say it came up at.
The at the reunion. Actually, so I needed the money for the book, you know, with everything I was going through, and so when I was offered the retainer for the book in advance, I should say I took it, but that part of that requirement would contractually was that I had to have it written before the reunion because they wanted to launch it then and that was soon. So we wrote it very very quickly. But I got some criticism at the reunion for writing it from Brandy.
Of course, I remember, yes, how's your book though something like that. It's like it's been a hot minute. I don't remember, but we've worked through that over the years. But that was I didn't have a choice.
I'm standing here, care you did have a choice, nothing but Bill's and a five year old, and I needed the money.
It's amazing, as she would have said that, I mean, things look so different all these years later, like wow.
Yeah, it was kind of it was in that moment I just thought, oh, you're you're a simple mom, like I could understand, you know. So yes, So the book comes out and I started doing the book book tour and started doing you know, slowly started doing some public speaking universities, corporations, so amazed.
Hy WCA, Well, tell us, okay, so tell us what's going on now? Tell us what's going There's a event coming up on the eleventh of November.
November thirteenth, thirteenth.
I'm so sorry, eleventhys that's okay, thank you eleven thirteen in her voice, and illinoise.
Please tell us about yes YWCA, which I love speaking with them, working with them. They are amazing, and you know, we all know how incredible their work is. And they are in Evanston, Illinois. So I will be there on November thirteenth in her voice, and it will be in my voice. Love it, I love it, I love it. I love you. I love you too. I'm so proud of you. Thank you, and thank you for letting me share my story with more people.
Yeah, Taylor, thank you so much for continuing to share your story. You are definitely helping to save people from the grips of their abusers and just know that they aren't alone. You guys, this podcast is about you, the listeners. Do you have questions when it comes to your chapter two? Not sure where to even start? Call us or email us all the infos in the show notes, follow us on socials. Make sure to rate and review the podcast.
I Do Part two an iHeart podcast where falling in love and loving yourself is the main objective.