Photo: The Hollywood Gossip
As a faithful viewer of every single season of Basketball Wives that featured Evelyn Lozoda and every episode of Chad “Ochocinco” Johnsons, Ochocinco: The ultimate catch I had been following their romance with half an ear for a while now including their recent wedding in Miami.
When first words of the reality TV star, Evelyn and footballer, Chads domestic violence story exploded on Twitter early Saturday 11th August I was dumbfounded along with the rest of the world.
Chad Johnson had been arrested for domestic violence after allegedly headbutting Evelyn, his wife, after a heated argument ensued regarding a receipt for condoms that Evelyn allegedly found .Evelyn was admitted to the hospital with a gash on her forehead the same day.
Over the course of the next two days Chad was unceremoniously dropped from his football team, the Miami Dolphins. VH1 cut production for the pairs reality show and Evelyn filed for divorce from Chad claiming her marriage was “irretrievably broken” Evelyn and Chad had gotten married in St. Maarten in Miami on the 4th of July 2012, with the wedding filmed for their VH1 reality show.
By Monday the story had exploded over all media outlets worldwide however duly noted, with not nearly the same fury and uproar as the Chris brown and Rihanna story had generated a few years ago when their domestic violence incident went viral. Instead of concentrating on the abuse that occurred between Evelyn and Chad and the seriousness of the matter, people are focusing on just how LONG they were married for, counting her days and paralleling her marriage to that of Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries since filing for divorce from Chad.
This story and the luck of a serious response that it has generated since it broke in the media cannot be societies 2012 answer to domestic violence and its victims. Although the attack may not have been as severe as Rihanna’s was back in 2009, the outrage and support for Evelyn should be no different. In order to headbutt someone there has to be a level of narcissism in someone’s character as not only do you hurt the other person physically but there’s a fair amount of self endured pain too. All of the table jumping and bottle throwing in the world cannot prepare a woman for a fight against a man who makes his living tackling people on a field.
Evelyn could be a friend, a sister, it could be you, it has been me. She was loud, unruly and confident on TV. But she was not only that CHARACTER portrayed, but also a loving mother, a loved daughter and a sister. She should be rewarded for breaking a cycle instead of being ridiculed for leaving an abusive situation. What type of example are we setting? Stay and be abused so that you can say you were married longer than another reality TV star?
The crux of this sad story is not that another reality star was married for less than another but rather that the usage of violence to handle an argument, no matter how severe the injuries, or not, should not be tolerated from anyone, famous or not.
