TBT: Tonesa Welch

Bunnie welcomes Tonesa Welch, also known as the First Lady of BMF. Tonesa shares her journey from growing up in Detroit to her rise in the drug trade, her relationship with H, and how she got through abuse and betrayal to come out on the other side. Tonesa opens up to Bunnie about what she learned from her time in prison and her passion for prison reform advocacy and gets raw about navigating grief along the way. Watch Full Episodes & More: www.dumbblondeunrated.com

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Bunnie XO?

  Is this thing on?

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Bonnie, who used to be a former sex worker and now hosts the podcast Dumb Blonde.

• 0:05Bunnie XO?

  Most little girls grow up wanting to be doctors and lawyers and shit. And I was like, I want to be super hot, make a lot of fucking money and be a rock star's wife. That was my goal as a child and here we are.

• 0:16Bunnie XO?

  What's up, you sexy motherfuckers? Today, I am really excited about this podcast, especially because we're doing it during Mob Wife March. But this is something a little different, someone who has a different story. But it's so amazing and it's so cool. And I just really admire this woman. She's a motivational speaker, producer and director, survivor, mother, boss, and the first lady of BMF, Miss Honisa Welch.

• 0:42Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 0:43Bunnie XO?

  Did I do okay?

• 0:44Speaker 02

  You did okay. Thank you.

• 0:47Bunnie XO?

  I'm so happy to have you here.

• 0:49Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thanks for, I'm honored. Thanks for having me. Thanks for asking me to be here. You're beautiful.

• 0:55Bunnie XO?

  Oh, so are you. You walked in, I was like, she is so cute. She's sort of like this tiny little package. Like you are just so cute.

• 1:01Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:02Bunnie XO?

  So, okay, so for people who don't know who you are, you are the first lady of BMF. And I don't know if anybody that listens to my podcast is a BMF fan. I'm sure they are. I know my husband is. Jelly is a BMF fan. Like he has made me watch every season and all that stuff. But besides that show, there's a real story behind that TV show. And it's your story and it's your story to tell. And that's why I want you on the podcast.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:32Bunnie XO?

  So we're gonna start from like the very beginning. Detroit, baby, right?

• 1:37Speaker 02

  Detroit, yes.

• 1:39Bunnie XO?

  So where did you grow up?

• 1:40Speaker 02

  I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, on the west side of Detroit. You know, middle class family, grew up with my three brothers, my mom and my stepdad. Normal, middle class family. Hey.

• 1:52Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Didn't think that never, just hey, I'm living that normal, innocent life, you know?

• 1:57Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:58Bunnie XO?

  Never any drugs, sex and rock and roll. It was just like.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  None of that, yeah. Come from a household, my mom was adopted, but still the sweetest mother ever. Once she got her children, no drugs in the house, no violence, none of that I seen, you know? Everything seemed pretty normal. What happened to me, I don't know.

• 2:18Bunnie XO?

  You know, I completely understand it because I was very attracted to the street life too. I ran away from home at fourteen and started supporting myself. So your story really resonated with me because, you know, we both kind of came from similar backgrounds. And then just to go out and live completely opposite of how we were raised is wild. But sometimes we just have a journey to fulfill and that's why we came here, you know? So moving on from that, you know, you're, I think you got pregnant around eighteen. Can you take me on that journey?

• 2:48Speaker 02

  I got pregnant at eighteen. I had my first son at nineteen. And that was from my high school, well, my high school sweetheart, well, he's always out of school. But we started dating when I was fifteen years old. He was in his last year of high school. And then he was my boyfriend from then on. College kid, smart, never got into trouble, anything, you know, just hey. I just knew I was attracted to this older boy and he got out of school and he would still come pick me up after school. But dated him all through high school.

• 3:23Bunnie XO?

  Oh, and then you guys ended up having a baby together, which is your first son?

• 3:27Speaker 02

  He went on to college, followed him for a minute and then, yeah.

• 3:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, and then she was like, no, I'm gonna do my thug doesle.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Do my thug, yeah.

• 3:35Bunnie XO?

  And then what is your oldest son's name? I forget.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  Marlon.

• 3:38Bunnie XO?

  Marlon, okay. And then, so take me on this journey of when you were nineteen, you went to, what was the name of the club?

• 3:47Speaker 02

  The Rooster Town.

• 3:48Bunnie XO?

  The Rooster Town, which was like a popular venue.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  It was a popular venue in Detroit, but it was popular for more of the people on the east side of Detroit. I don't know if you have any viewers that's from Detroit, know about the east side versus the west side. But it was a east side club. And I was nineteen years old, had never been to a club like that. I don't think I ever went to a club. That's probably my first time going to a club.

• 4:13Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  And I went near him, it was like I went and I always say like a revolving door. You know how you go through a revolving door? I felt like my whole, when I reflect on my life, I think about, wow, you went in as one person, but once you. The night ended, you came out as a different person, the way I seen things.

• 4:32Bunnie XO?

  And why do you think that was? Was it just like the glitz and the glamour?

• 4:35Speaker 02

  The glitz and the glamours. It was beautiful, you know, uh, in my eyes, it was beautiful. Might not be right, but to me, it was beautiful. The people looked amazing, you know? I was this girl from, like I said, the west side of Detroit, grew up, went to high school, dated one guy all the way through high school. It was a different world to me. When I seen him, I'm like, whoa, I want to be a part of this. You know, I don't belong over here. I want to be a part of this. Everybody looked amazing, from the jewels to the hair, to the clothes. And I always call myself like a fashionable person when I was like growing up through school and stuff like that. So, but seeing that fashion there, you know, in Detroit, you feel like we're very fashionable.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  But seeing that fashion, I wanted to be a part of that, you know, just turned me right out. Right out. This is where I need to be.

• 5:29Bunnie XO?

  Mama got, little mama got turned out. Um, so after going to that club, how long after that did you meet Harold?

• 5:37Speaker 02

  I met him and he was at the club.

• 5:39Bunnie XO?

  In the club that night?

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was from the east side and um, Harold is, um, they call him H. In Detroit, they call him H. And he was known to be like very fashionable, you know, um. So just looking at him also, he was like, he was young and most of the people there were a little older than him. But he was older than me, but they were older than him and that was his crowd, his group of people that he hung out with. And so he kind of stood out to me because of what he had on. But you know, then he, uh, he caught my eye. We caught each other's eyes, but I was still young and very impressionable. And I was like, wow, okay. Yeah, just seeing him, you know, like everything he had on, from the jewels, from the clothes, you know?

• 6:25Speaker 02

  It was just something different than I was used to.

• 6:28Bunnie XO?

  Did he pursue you immediately?

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, yes.

• 6:30Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, he was like, I want her.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Something that I never had seen before. He didn't give up, yeah.

• 6:36Bunnie XO?

  And whenever he and in the in the movie that you have you the lady of BMF on BET plus, you guys can watch it anytime. Um, it shows like Carol going to your dad's house and to your parents' house to pick you up. And your dad just does not like him. Stepdad, correct? Yeah, your stepdad just did not like him. And could he tell that he was not good for you?

• 6:58Speaker 02

  He could tell right away, but you know, we don't want to listen to our parents.

• 7:01Bunnie XO?

  Ever.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  I didn't.

• 7:02Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, they don't know anything.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  You don't know anything, you don't know, you know, so yeah, right away. It was kind of like, uh-uh.

• 7:08Bunnie XO?

  Can you take me on this relationship with H? And this journey?

• 7:12Speaker 02

  Um, at first it was very, you know, very exciting. He uh, took me out a lot. He treated me very nice. Um, he bought me things right away, you know, um. You didn't have to wait, you know, I'd have to wait on my little check or my mom to buy me things. You know how when you're in high school, your mom shops for you? We were very close and we would go shopping every weekend. But with him, it was like, he wanted me immediately to look, play the part, you know, look the part.

• 7:43Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  So immediately he started buying me things, you know?

• 7:46Bunnie XO?

  Do you think it was kind of like a form of grooming you?

• 7:49Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't know, you know, when you think of grooming, you're thinking like a pimp grooming his.

• 7:55Bunnie XO?

  Right, no, I mean like grooming you for the lifestyle.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, basically, I think so, yeah. He could have been, you know, I don't think if maybe thought in his head. But um, I think I really know that when he first, he was very attracted to me and he just wanted, you know, it's always a guy from the east side probably wanted a girl from the west side. And I was different from probably the girls that he usually had been dating. I still had an innocence about me, even though I had a child, you know? I still felt like I had that and getting with him. He knew that and he, like you said, maybe so, well, it probably was a grooming, you know?

• 8:33Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. So he's buying you all these gifts, you guys officially are together. What happens after you guys get together?

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Oh, we just, I felt like it was just a whirlwind romance and we, you know, I'm excited about his lifestyle. I'm excited about the people that he's hanging with. I'm doing that now. I had started, um, like the shopping, the cars, you know, the trips and things like that. And then after that, I wanted to become a part of his world, whatever he was doing. I wanted to be a part of that.

• 9:09Bunnie XO?

  When you talk about his lifestyle, what do you mean?

• 9:11Speaker 02

  He was in, into selling drugs, you know, so.

• 9:14Bunnie XO?

  What was he selling heroin?

• 9:15Speaker 02

  Um, heroin at first and then it wa- it came, um, cocaine then next, yeah.

• 9:21Bunnie XO?

  Isn't it wild to think back, um, because I too dated, you know, drug dealers back in the day and, um, you're around all of these drugs at such a young age. You're touching them, you're literally inhaling the fumes, packaging them and it's like you are so, we have like not a care in the world at that age. I won't even be in the same room as drugs now.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  Now I don't wanna be around the same type of people. But then it was the excitement. It was like.

• 9:49Bunnie XO?

  The naivety, I guess.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Very na- yeah, because I think of the laws now, I, when I, you know, I do a lot about into prison reform, understanding the laws and things and I'll be like, God, I could have been one of those people that got caught up and still would have been in prison, cause it is people that I know that we're fighting for now, that been in prison for thirty years that has done less than me. You know, so when I think back about it, I'm around all these drugs immediately, having no fear. It was because you don't understand. You're very naive. You're ignorant to what could happen to you. All you thinking about was the excitement. I was very excited about it all. It made me feel just as powerful that, you know, as he did.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Like I looked at him as, you know, he moved rooms and I wanted to move rooms too. I wanted people to, hey, look at me. Look at me too, you know?

• 10:39Bunnie XO?

  Just boss mentality.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Boss mentality, right? You know? And that's what came with it. It came with the boss mentality, the status, you know? We're in a city like Detroit and, um, I wanted to be a part of that. And it just, I had no fear, like you said, no fear.

• 10:54Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, no fear. So when did, did you start moving drugs for him?

• 10:59Speaker 02

  You know, my, I don't, people like for him, like, we were, I think we're more so partnership.

• 11:04Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 11:05Speaker 02

  You know, wasn't for him, like, he would send me out and then I would go do, you know, like, hey, you go take this run, you take this bag, you do this. I wanted to be his partner.

• 11:15Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  No matter what he wanted me to do, you know, no, you stay here, you do this. No, I want to be right there with you.

• 11:21Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  I can do this too. I always thought that, you know, I was talking to my brother, um, not too long ago, and he said, I don't know what it was, and he was, he's older than me, and he said, I don't know what it was. Even when you were a little girl, you always had that kind of, like, street mentality. You, I just didn't realize it, you know, probably even when I was playing, you know, in school or playing with my young, my, um, people in my neighborhood. Like, even when I was in high school, I didn't really want to hang with the high school people. I wanted to be, because I had the older boyfriend, I wanted to be with the older crowd.

• 11:54Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  You know, that's where my head was, like, oh, y'all too young for me, I want to do this, you know, so.

• 12:01Bunnie XO?

  I'm grown.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  I'm grown. I always felt grown. I always felt like I had to take on the responsibilities of everyone else. You know, even though I had the three brothers, they were older, I always thought I was the big mom of the house.

• 12:14Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  Even for my mom and dad now, this is how this gonna go.

• 12:17Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Running the household, so I wanted, took that out into the streets with me.

• 12:23Bunnie XO?

  So you guys were moving weight for the east side, and then you guys, you convinced him to start expanding it to the west side?

• 12:29Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:30Bunnie XO?

  Can you take that?

• 12:30Speaker 02

  And downtown, I don't know why I said that. I just, I was like, why are we stuck over here on the east side when there's a lot more players on the west side?

• 12:40Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  And he thought about it because he didn't, you know, east side people at that time, they didn't, you know, they didn't, we didn't coexist with one another, you know, the east side's staying on the east side and the west side's staying on the west side. But I felt like I'm your connection now to the east side. Um, I was popular because of myself and my brothers, even though they wasn't in the street, they were just, you know, my, one, my one brother always gave the parties, and my other brother was just the, the handsome, had all the girls. And so we were kind of popular, so I knew that if you came over there, I could find a people for you. And I knew that they would spend the money and and to me back then, we were the wealthiest side of.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Um, Michigan of Detroit, even though it might not been because you do have some amazing east side. Beautiful pockets and beautiful homes, but it always seemed like to me the west side was the more people that had the money. You know, and so I said, let's go again.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  Come over here, baby.

• 13:44Bunnie XO?

  So everything wasn't always flowers and butterflies, though. H also became.

• 13:50Speaker 02

  Very abusive.

• 13:51Bunnie XO?

  Can you take me on that journey?

• 13:54Speaker 02

  You know, uh, I I'm really can't remember like, you know, it was later on. The more power, the more drugs, the more money, then the more violence, you know, um. And just started happening, you know, and you, when you look back, you'd be like, wow, this is. You know, you thought it was a one time and then you look up, it's, you know, repeatedly it's happened more and more often. You know, you think it's like, okay, maybe he was high or maybe he was frustrated or maybe something was going on. But later on in life, I realized that, you know, this is how he grew up and now he's he's a grown man taking out. What happened to him on me, you know? It was a psycho.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  And I was, you know, you stay, you think you're gonna try to fix this person or you think because um. They make you feel like I love you, you know, nobody else love you, I take care of you. You know, I felt like I can't go anywhere if I if I left, that he probably would kill me or do something, you know. Because it got to that point and got very violent, you know.

• 15:02Bunnie XO?

  What happens next? He comes home, he uh. Puts his hand on, hands on you one, one more time and what happens in that scenario?

• 15:11Speaker 02

  You know, um, it got to the point like, why am I doing this? Cause I was, I always knew I was a strong person and I don't know what it was about him that in the beginning I allowed it or why was I, you know, fearing him and I thought about it, I'm like, okay, that's enough, you know? You, you have these sons around here, they're watching this. You have to protect yourself, you know? I'm out here protecting everybody else watching his back. You gotta protect yourself. So I really waited. I knew he was gonna come home this one time and I said, okay, I'm preparing myself. You know, I had, in my mind, I thought like, I'm gonna kill him tonight.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  I didn't think about the consequences of it. I just knew that he was gonna come home and that was gonna be the last time he put his hands on me. And so it happened exactly like I thought. He was gonna come home, he was gonna, you know, be violent, jump on me. And I had already put the knife under my pillow and I just waited. I pretended I was asleep and I waited and that's when I stabbed him. I really, I really wanted to, like I said, I really wanted to kill him. I, I, I was fed up, you know? I'm glad I didn't because even when they arrested me and I went to the county jail

• 16:35Speaker 02

  and that's back then, that was when the person had to press charges on you for the, um, for it to stick. So he didn't press charges, but I realized when I was in the county jail and the officers were saying, you better, bitch, you better hope not, I'm sorry. But I was saying, bitch, you better hope you didn't kill him, you better hope you didn't kill him. And as I'm laying in my bunk, I thought about it. Why don't you just leave? Why don't you just leave? What if he is dead? Cause I didn't know what happened. I knew the police came, they took him away, but you don't hear anything else. And I said, what if he dies? I won't get to see my kids anymore. You know, so that kinda, that really scared. That really had affected me for a while.

• 17:19Bunnie XO?

  You know. Too that that you got pushed to that point.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, why, you know.

• 17:28Bunnie XO?

  You know, during this time, you and H actually had a child together too also. So you had two babies at this time.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, we had three. I had two. Yeah, we had three. And I'm sitting there like, why, why am I allowing this? And then why do you get to the point where you have to kill a person before you decide to leave? You know, like I was, I had plotted it out like, oh, he's gonna die tonight. I think I told my friends, oh, he's gonna die tonight. And I didn't have the kind of friends would say, oh, girl, don't do that. You just need to leave.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  You need me to help? You need me to come over? I mean, it was so many things that happened in our lives. He would blow up my car. I would go blow up his car. It was just getting to the point of craziness.

• 18:07Bunnie XO?

  Tip for tat.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  Tip for tat. And I had the friends, type of friends that wouldn't say at that point in time, just leave. You don't have to take this. You, you out here, you selling more than he can sell. You doing your own thing. You matter of fact, you doing more. And that could be hap- that could have been happening too. You know, you had these men to get very insecure and jealous of your power also. He didn't have no more control over me, you know, and which once a man start thinking they're losing control, what do they do? You know, they do things like that. And I think all of that played a part. I was becoming more popular on the west side. People were, I was getting a lot of attention. I wasn't looking like this nineteen year old girl anymore. I'm looking like this pretty fabulous.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  Stylist, grown woman. I'm wearing, you know, these clothes, these jewels. I'm looking, I'm having a power too. And I think we that started a lot of it, even though he grew up into it, that was the way that he could control me by beating on me.

• 19:10Bunnie XO?

  Men are something else, let me tell you. They build you up to tear you down.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Tear you down, yeah.

• 19:14Bunnie XO?

  It's wild. It's a cycle. I, I was in an abusive relationship myself and I got to the point that you did where I was just like, I told him I bought a gun and I was like, if you put your hands on me one more time, I'm gonna blow your fucking brains out. And like, you really mean it.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  You really mean it, your heart.

• 19:28Bunnie XO?

  You get to that point where you're just like, I don't care what the consequences are, you're not gonna hurt me anymore.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Right. Like I said, it wasn't until I was laying in that cell, in that county jail, thinking about it, like, wow, if you go to prison, you're gonna go to prison for the rest of your life. Because back then, we didn't have the laws that, you know, we have in place for women now. You know, we're become where we're victims. You know, so many women were getting locked up, they didn't know anything about, um, you know, self-defense or anything like that. They think, oh, you should have left. You stayed there. They think of it as, you premeditated it, you know, but sometimes it, it happens in an instinct, you know, you're just like, oh, I'm gonna kill him.

• 20:10Bunnie XO?

  Crime of passion.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Crime of passion, yeah. Like, I got, this is the only way I can get out.

• 20:14Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  You know, I work in domestic violence with a lot of women and they feel like there's no way out. And I've been there, I was younger and I thought it was no way out. How can I get out of this? He's always gonna find me. If you're watching the movie, they didn't show a lot of it, he will always, always come find me, no matter if I leave, he would always come find me. No matter where I was at, I, and it was like that all the time, you know? Just moving, moving, moving, then here he come, here he come, then I'm back in that, I'm back in that cycle. Because then you get addicted to the toxicity, I guess, or the fighting, you know, you feel like, you know.

• 20:51Bunnie XO?

  It's the oxytocin of whenever you guys do get, it's, it becomes like a drug.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  It does. And you think in your head, this person really loves me.

• 21:00Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, they're so possessive, so jealous, that's love.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  You, we think it's, it's love and it's not love, it's control.

• 21:06Bunnie XO?

  No, that's all it is. It's really control and it's their egos.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  Their egos, yeah.

• 21:11Bunnie XO?

  You're, you're literally just stroking their ego by staying in that relationship. Yeah, absolutely. So, even though you got out of jail and he got out of the hospital, you guys still stayed together.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, in the movie, it looks like we we got right back together, but it was a minute, you know, um, that, that's what I say.

• 21:32Bunnie XO?

  They just wear you down.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  It's wear, wear you down, these kids, I love my kids, and he's crying, and you feel like, I gotta save this person too, you know? Like, I felt, you feel in the back of your head that he has nobody but you.

• 21:46Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  I understood, you know, by him talking to me all the time, how he grew up. I didn't grow up like that, so I'm like, somebody gotta love this little man, you know? It'd be me, I'm thinking I'm saving him, but it really is like, I always say, it was like, it was somewhere, and as a little young girl, that I was damaged somewhere. You know, I was dealing with a lot of issues that I didn't understand that, you know, that I felt like I needed to stay there, you know? I didn't never, like I said, never seen my parents do this, so what made me feel like I had to save this person?

• 22:21Bunnie XO?

  Were you ever close with your father, your real father?

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Not my biological father, and you know, as we grow older, we do find that all is probably daddy.

• 22:31Bunnie XO?

  It's a wound.

• 22:31Speaker 02

  It's the wounds, the wanting, not the love.

• 22:34Bunnie XO?

  Trauma bond.

• 22:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, trauma bonding, not thinking, like, I knew my, um, stepdad was, I thought he was just the meanest person ever to me, but I think as I grew older and understood, he was always trying to protect me, always, and I thought, I don't wanna be protected, I don't wanna do this. You know, I was always fighting it.

• 22:55Bunnie XO?

  But you stayed with H because he protected you.

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:58Bunnie XO?

  Isn't that wild?

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:59Bunnie XO?

  It's like, we don't want it from the parents, but we want it from.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:02Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  So I wasn't, I didn't, um, have the relationship with my biological dad until I was much older. Actually, they showed in the movie, and it was probably at that point, you know, I was much older, and my mom, like, you know, maybe this is the missing part.

• 23:19Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  Maybe this is what you need, you know?

• 23:21Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, to help fill that void.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:24Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely. It's always cathartic to bring the parents back, even, you know, if you've never had a relationship with them, and even if you don't even like who they are as humans, at least you get that sort of closure. Closure.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Closure, right.

• 23:36Bunnie XO?

  Like, okay, this is.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Why?

• 23:37Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Cause I, it was a question, why, why didn't you come see me? Why didn't you love me? And he was like, he thought it was best, once my mom married my stepdad, cause they got together when I was a baby. And he thought it was best, but I'm thinking like, no, you thought it was best for you or for him. But it wasn't best for me.

• 23:59Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  You know, and after that, after I understood it, we talked about it, then, you know, as I grew, you know, until he'd left this earth, we grew closer. So I had two amazing dads that even once I would, they, you know, we all got together, they became good friends. You know what I mean?

• 24:19Bunnie XO?

  That's amazing.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Um, even when I, when I went to prison, my biological dad didn't understand the whole lifestyle. And so we didn't tell him I was going to prison, but he got very ill when I was in prison. And my stepdad was the one that made way sure that he wouldn't checked on him all the time to let me know what was going on. So when I would call home, you know, the, if I don't know if anybody know about the prison phones, they say this whole recording.

• 24:48Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  So I had my nephew on the other side with my biological dad. My dad, he's got the phone and they're like, okay, the, once the recording said, this call is from an inmate or such and such. They would have my biological dad, the phone, who was very ill at this time, to let me say what I had to say until the day he died, he still didn't know I was in prison.

• 25:08Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  He didn't even realize that. He went into the dementia. And then he, uh, passed away before I came home.

• 25:17Bunnie XO?

  That had to have been as heartbreaking as it is.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  It was very heartbreaking. I wasn't able to, uh, go home to his burial. You know, that was heartbreaking. That was another breaking point for me. It's realizing, like, you put yourself here, you didn't get to see, you know, him pass away. Those are the moments that when you're in prison, that you realize, hey, you gotta do something about this.

• 25:42Bunnie XO?

  Something's gotta go.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I had a, um, Prison counselor, and I have to tell this story. It was, um, I went, I was, I was called out custody. So at the end of my prison term, I could go out and work in the, you know, in the city, the around, surrounding city. So it's called out custody. So when they told me that my father had passed, the chaplain that came and told my father had passed, and he's told me I was able, you know, I, um, I could go home to the funeral, but I had to go make the arrangements with my counselor. I had a hard time with my counselor.

• 26:18Bunnie XO?

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• 27:01Bunnie XO?

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• 27:25Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Dr. Mary Claire Haver, board certified OB-GYN and menopause specialist. My podcast, UnPaused, is the place for bold, unfiltered conversations about what it really takes for women to thrive in the second half of life. Every week I sit down with medical experts and leading voices to talk about the health issues that matter most, because UnPaused isn't just about the years you live, but how well you live them. Listen and follow UnPaused with me, Dr. Mary Claire Haver, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Um, so when I went to tell her, I said, hey, I know you heard that my dad died. I want to go home to the funeral, go to the funeral. She said, Can I curse?

• 28:08Bunnie XO?

  Oh, yeah, no, we cuss up a storm here.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Fuck you bitch, fuck your family, fuck your dad, fuck your mama and fuck your motherfucking kids. You shouldn't have came to prison bitch, now get the fuck out my office.

• 28:21Bunnie XO?

  And this woman is a counselor?

• 28:23Speaker 02

  A counselor in the prison. When I first went to this prison, I went to two different prisons. Yeah, and you think, okay, I'm here to be a real abilitated, but she gave me such a hard time. When I first went on the prison grounds, I was walking the yard, it's called the yard, you know, trying to just figure out like what's going on in my world here. And uh, one of the guards came up to me, said, you're new here, right? And I said, yeah, he said, you're gonna have a hard time. You know, I, I didn't have a fear of the women, that wasn't, you know, I had been in the streets forever, so I'm not scared of the women. Been in mu- more danger than this, I can handle this. And he said, no, you gonna, he said, who's your counselor?

• 29:06Speaker 02

  I told him, I said, her name is Miss Stockings. I've reached out to her since I've been home, and just to ask her why. And he says, she's gonna give you a hard time. You're a nice looking woman, and she's gonna give you a hard time. And when I tell you, the last part of my bit was the hardest time of my life. By her saying that, that was almost coming home, but I had to deal with her for like eighteen months straight. Taking my visits, taking my commissary, taking my phone calls, it was just madness all the time.

• 29:39Bunnie XO?

  Did she do it out of love, or was she just an evil?

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Oh, she was just an evil.

• 29:43Bunnie XO?

  It's so hard for me to wrap my head around somebody being that evil to a human.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  It was, it was the hard, and I used to pray all the time. I met an older lady had did. And by the time we met she had already been down like twenty something years. And she would always tell me, she said, don't let her see you cry, don't let her see you break. I'm like, I'm not gonna cry, that's what I'm not gonna do. But she's like, whatever you do. And so every time something would happen, she was like, that's going to yard, and she would walk and pray with me. Like, you're gonna get through this, you're gonna get through this. But every day, can you imagine like, oh, I'm not gonna make it through this. I'm not gonna make it through this. I don't made it through the battles of the street. But here I come here.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  You gotta fight your way through it every day, you know, not even a good night's sleep, because you don't know when you're gonna become. She's gonna come wake you up out of your sleep, or you have. I have sons who she took away my phone privileges. I can't even call home to see how they're doing.

• 30:42Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  And that was all through that, it was just my breaking point. Like, you know what, you're out, never, ever, ever put myself in this predicament again in life.

• 30:52Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  So, yeah.

• 30:53Bunnie XO?

  Let's circle back to, to talk about what actually put you in prison. We're gonna paint, I wanna paint a picture, cause you have such an amazing story. And just the redemption and what you've done after you've gotten out of prison too is just beautiful.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 31:07Bunnie XO?

  And I want everybody to just know every facet of what you've had to go through to get to where you are today.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:13Bunnie XO?

  So you and H got back together and you guys expanded your business.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 31:17Bunnie XO?

  And into Texas?

• 31:19Speaker 02

  Went to Texas, well, Chicago first, then Texas, yeah. And then he got caught up.

• 31:24Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  And when he got caught up, it was me left to hear him for myself, you know? It was decide if you wanna, what do you wanna do? If you wanna stay, you know? You wanna go to work or you wanna continue on doing what you were doing? By this time, I'm addicted to the lifestyle, I'm addicted to the money and all of it. The, you know, the, like you say, the power of it, the people looking at me and ask, you know, they have to come. You know, everybody has to come to me and get things and ask me for things and do this. So I'm like, I wanna do this. So you go on and handle that and say, no, I want to, I'm like, I got this, I got this.

• 32:03Bunnie XO?

  So he goes to sit down for seven, seven years.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  Seven years.

• 32:06Bunnie XO?

  Correct this time? And before that, he had brought in two people to help you guys with your business. And who were those two people?

• 32:13Speaker 02

  Those people were Southwest T and Demetrius Finley, you know, the leaders of the BMF. And as for your, um, listeners that don't know, you can go back and relate to the music, like with Rick Ross. I wish I was Big Meach.

• 32:26Bunnie XO?

  Big Meach, Larry Hoover.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Blowing money fast, you know, all the rap music that's surrounded around the two brothers. So, yeah, he brought them around. And because the business was expanding and it was like, okay, we can't do this all alone. And then we already had some people, but you still have to bring in more people as the business is expanding. And so he told me, he said, hey, I'm, I got the, I met these two young guys, you know, I'ma bring them around. You see what you think. I said, okay. So we set up a meeting point. And that's when I first met them. And.

• 33:01Bunnie XO?

  Terry says that it was love at first sight.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 33:05Bunnie XO?

  How did you feel whenever you first saw Terry?

• 33:08Speaker 02

  I I just thought they were young kids, you know, I'm nine years older than him. And when I looked at him, I was just like, okay, a group of young kids he's bringing in to work, you know, not not like they're juvenile, but they were, I think Terry's like eighteen, nineteen, something like that. And I didn't think nothing of it. I just like, oh, okay. You know, introduction, look for a minute, you know, um, say, all right. And I just didn't think nothing of it. And they continued to work um around us. And Terry was around us a lot more than Demetrius was, the big Mitch was. And so that's why when me and him, Terry, I mean, um, I'm sorry, H used to always have Terry.

• 33:51Speaker 02

  Like, watch her back, do this. And so we became like, he was my confidant. He was the person that if I'm always, you know, you always got to complain, you're always talking about something, you're always complaining about, I'm always complaining about H. So he was there, the person that was there to listen. And.

• 34:10Bunnie XO?

  You guys developed a friendship.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  We developed a friendship, a closer friendship than H knew about, so.

• 34:16Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:16Bunnie XO?

  So H goes away for seven years, but he doesn't leave you with much money.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know. That's not that I don't want people to say.

• 34:25Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  H is a type of person, he has a lot of money, but he um, he's not gonna leave you enough that you could just splash.

• 34:34Bunnie XO?

  Be squanderous.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, I was good in a way. I still just wanted my own.

• 34:41Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  You know, I wanted my own. I wanted to be independent because I knew once he was.

• 34:46Bunnie XO?

  A chance to be free.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  Just to, that's what I was gonna say, just to be free because I knew, like, it took him about a year or so before he was sentenced and he had to go away. I knew once he went away that this was gonna be the end of us.

• 35:00Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  And it helped me break away from him. It was much easier.

• 35:04Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 35:05Speaker 02

  I had already knew that when he come home from prison, that I was gonna be on on on my own away. From him. I didn't know I was going to develop this romantic relationship with Terry. But I knew I wasn't gonna be back with my ex husband who was H.

• 35:20Bunnie XO?

  And you just wanted to do your own.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  I just wanted to do my own. I just wanted to be independent. I just felt like I could. I felt like he was holding me back.

• 35:27Bunnie XO?

  Right. And women also, before a relationship ends, you've already in your mind.

• 35:32Speaker 02

  I'm already in my mind.

• 35:33Bunnie XO?

  But because it's a toxic relationship, an abusive relationship, he's not letting you go while he's out on the streets. That's how I had to get rid of, I don't want to say get rid of, but that's how I actually was able to break it off with my abusive ex was he went to prison. And it was like, I remember the day he went to prison, I was really upset, but at the same time, I was like.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Girl.

• 35:53Bunnie XO?

  Thank God.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  Thank God, you're free.

• 35:56Bunnie XO?

  I'm not, I don't have to worry about.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  You don't have to.

• 35:58Bunnie XO?

  Fighting and fucking fighting and.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  It's weird that you said you'd be upset, like, oh, my God, he's gone to prison. I feel bad. I'm like, you know, you sulking at a minute. They're like. What is going on?

• 36:14Bunnie XO?

  It's like your, your wings spread out immediately, yeah.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  And you realize who you are, you know, he, he was kind of holding me back. So, yeah.

• 36:23Bunnie XO?

  So, take me on this journey. You are single, ready to mingle technically.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  Mingling, honey.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  Just out there like a free bird, like air. I was hanging, you know. Um, just everywhere. I was traveling. I was just all, you know, at the clubs. I was, you know, me and my girls, we were just mobbing out. As they call it. We thought we were the baddest.

• 36:53Speaker 02

  Yes, and that's how we felt. And I was, like you said, you feel free. You don't have nobody to answer to anymore, you know? I'm the boss now. I can do what I want to do. And Terry was always kind of somewhere in the back, you know, somewhere in the back. You know, kind of watching or, you know, or shamingling with us, if you want to say, but it was never a thought of me being romantic with them. Like I say, it was younger and then as time went on, that. Happen later on in life. Now how they have it in the BMF Stars movie. You know, I was very upset about that because why would, you know, you put me in a movie. Like he's a kid, like he's in high school. I'm chasing behind this high school kid.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  Cause I had already developed myself as a boss. I was dating a boss. Why would I chase a high school, you know, I guess women do it, but not I, not me.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Having me having sex in at my job or. You know, around my children with this kid who's still carrying around his school books.

• 37:57Bunnie XO?

  Right. You just feel like you deserved more.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Just more respect. Why didn't, why couldn't you, you know, you know, if you didn't want me involved in your story, I get that. Okay, I understand, but. Don't do me like that. Give me some type of respect because no matter what, when I tell my story and I talk about them. I give them respect. I can only tell the story how it happened. You know, wouldn't be truthful if I didn't tell you how I met them. I'm sorry that you met me under my ex-husband. That's how I met you. I can't, you know, tell it the story any different. You know, then it wouldn't be truthful. It wouldn't be my story. It wouldn't be the way I seen it. I lived through it.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  So the way I lived through it, that's how I met you guys. I wasn't a person that was chasing this kid. And like I always, what I said now is I was already kid, the kid, like you know how your beautiful truck outside, you know. When you pull it up, it's already you. It's already fancy. I felt like when. They met me, I was already that person. So you didn't have to tear your meat, didn't have to develop who I already was. I was already, you know. In the streets doing my thing. When I came around, I was already with the jewels, the furs, the cars, the homes. So when I tell the story, like tell it the way it is. Don't make me or my ex-husband, which is my children's father, I'm sorry.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  Look bad because he never speaks on them. They put him in the movie and made him look so bad. They put me in. The movie not felt.

• 39:32Bunnie XO?

  When when she says movie, just. Uh, when she says movie, she's talking about the BMF show, actually, not her movie.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  Not my movie. Yes. Yeah, not my movie.

• 39:40Bunnie XO?

  So I just want to clarify.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a.

• 39:42Bunnie XO?

  There's, there's, um, Lady of BMF movie that you can watch on BET plus. And then there's BMF, which is their series, which we'll get into that in a little bit and talk about that.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that's how it happened. So in in one day, you know, he's under me and I don't know what I was going through. Maybe.

• 40:02Bunnie XO?

  So you you actually got your own plug.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:05Bunnie XO?

  And started.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Started doing my own thing. Yeah.

• 40:09Bunnie XO?

  Big mama.

• 40:10Speaker 02

  Big mama, right? Little mama, little mama and little body, big mama.

• 40:14Bunnie XO?

  Right?

• 40:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:16Bunnie XO?

  Pinky in the brain.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah, yeah.

• 40:19Bunnie XO?

  Like the Wizard of Oz, you know, behind the curtain. But it's like you just have no fear when you're that age and it's.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  None. And I think back sometimes I had so much drugs or was around so much drugs. And I think like, when I reflect back, like, girl, you could have never came home. I would never been sitting on this couch.

• 40:36Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  You know, uh, if I had got cotton with the things I had.

• 40:41Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  You know, and why did, like you said, no fear, the people we surrounded ourselves with. I wanted to be, they look, no, they don't look dangerous enough. I need to go over here, you know? I wanted to be with the risk takers, you know, every time you got away with something, you felt even better.

• 40:58Bunnie XO?

  It's a rush.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, the rush, like a drug rush or something like, whoa, okay. We can do that again all the time. What are you doing at your heart spot out here? And then like, okay.

• 41:07Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 41:08Speaker 02

  Did that, you know, then there goes your ego, bigger and bigger. Now I'm feeling more powerful than a man who are age. I can do this. I can do this on my own. I don't need nobody. And that's how I start feeling.

• 41:20Bunnie XO?

  And so during this time is when you and Terry hook up and you actually helped put them on.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 41:27Bunnie XO?

  Can we take me on that journey?

• 41:29Speaker 02

  It was like, you know, they like they. It was like, why, you know, I had all this money. I had been with this man who has all this money. And even when he went to prison, he still had money. And I couldn't understand, y'all, you know, like, dear, you've been in this life for a long time. By this time, I'm knowing you about five, about seven years. Where's the stability? You know, what's going on? You were up, down, up, down. He never had, they never had like a abundance of drugs. They never had a great plug. That's what I would call like. There's a reason for that. Yeah.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  They didn't have a plug. You watched the movie. There's a reason for that. Yeah. And so I looked at him, he was there and I was like, God, you know, this was all the time. And I was talking to him, he was like, I don't know, I just can't get it, you know, together. And I'm sitting here trying to always groom this person. I didn't realize that I'm grooming him. And one day. You wanted to make him a boss. I wanted to make, he was my friend, you're with me. I had this special love for him, you know, not the romantic love yet. And I wanted him, you know, I felt like this is my friend, this is my dog. We, we always riding together, we hanging. I wanted him to be on the level I was, you know? And so I said, I'm, I gotta help you, like, tell me what it is, you know? So I said, I'm gonna help you.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  I'm gonna help you get it. And then once you get it, you better keep it. You know, I did tell him, I said, I, and, and I forgot I had said this, it just, I don't know why I said it. You know, I felt like a millionaire, I felt like, you know, nature's a millionaire. So I'm gonna help you be a millionaire. And I said, I want you to change. Don't change for the money, stay as, you know, stay as you are. But I'm gonna help you become a millionaire. And that's what happened. You know, I gave him the plug. You work it, you do this, you know, and kind of like was, you know, he was really listening and it was working. Um, and then it just took off. And one day it just took off and he was like, you could sit back now. I'm like, oof, well for me, cause I was tired.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  You can't like, you're like, I'm tired, I'm, you know, sometimes you be, cause you always think like, that day might come. You know? I had been around him. Watching so many other people go down and I'm always, you know, just there, you know, getting by, getting by. You know, and I'm like, okay, you gotta quit this one day. You gotta get, you know, my boys are getting older. You gotta quit this. And when he said it was like a sign of relief, he can take over now, like who.

• 44:01Bunnie XO?

  But you obviously trusted him.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:04Bunnie XO?

  Like, and you thought he was capable of being able to run it.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  I knew he was. I knew Terry was very smart, you know, and I knew he was capable of it. But I think he had so much, so many other responsibilities. Like, um, in the movie, they make it seem like, um, Amich was the most powerful one, but actually it was Terry. And Terry was actually carrying on that burden for him and me. So I think that was, you know, when you don't have enough drugs. It's kind of hard to, uh, be sharing with somebody, you know, I'm gonna make this money and I gotta share, you know. This little bit with you. And I think that was the thing that they could never get it going, you know.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  And so, once he start getting the supply, the bigger supply, he, he brought Amich in. Now we can really work. We can keep moving. We can push better. And then from there, once you start meeting one connect, it's kind of like clickish, you know, everybody knows, you know, like you said. Everything is a click to me, from the police to attorneys, drug dealers, pimps, that everybody, and everybody kind of whisper and knows. So once you selling so much weight that goes to the next connect, they hear about you, a word on the street, I hear you take it to the next city. Your name is already ringing. His name started ringing in that circle. And then they took it on to the next level, to the next level, to the next level.

• 45:31Bunnie XO?

  What was your relationship with Amich? Did you guys ever have a relationship as far as like a friendship?

• 45:35Speaker 02

  You know.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  It was on and off, but I believe that when, you know, and I'm not afraid to say it at this point, I used to didn't, I believe it was a lot of jealousy, you know, because he had this little, Terry was the younger brother, then he, Terry is, now Terry's not under him anymore, Terry is spreading his wings, Terry's with this older woman, and they couldn't believe it, and like, um, you know, so I'm grooming him to be not this little boy anymore, this young man, because by the time we started our relationship, I think he was about twenty, he was like twenty-five, he was just my friend at first, but I'm telling him like, you gotta dress like this, you gotta do like this, you gotta do.

• 46:20Bunnie XO?

  Gaming him up.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  Gaming him, I really, you know, I am gaming him up, and I think that was a little jealousy there, and so he felt like I was taking his brother, and now he doesn't have the control. Now we're doing everything, you know, this has become my friend, and they're not together anymore, so I think it was a lot of jealousy in that, I mean, with the whole family, he's no longer running over there, he's hanging over here with me and my people.

• 46:47Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha. So, the business is taking off, you guys are making money hand over fist, you're getting to lay up and, you know, be mama bear to the babies, and just live the life, and life is really good for a while there, and then Terry starts showing signs of kind of like getting a little too big for his britches, and you're saying, hey.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Hey, yeah.

• 47:12Bunnie XO?

  Take me, take me on this part of the journey.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I mean, you know, if you've been around, I've been around a long time, you know, if we, when we first started this conversation, I was young, I was nineteen, twenty years old, so I had been to this road, I've been on this rodeo a long time, you know, I've already seen so many people fall, but the bigger they got, the more the eagles and the things they were doing, it was like I had never seen. Like I've been in a game so I never seen people that show people like hey, it was like they were writing it on their shirts. And wearing T-shirt, we are drug dealers.

• 47:47Bunnie XO?

  Well, because they were, they had named themselves BMF, correct? And that it was like the chains.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, but the BMF came because they wanted, they did legitimately want to do, you know, start a record label.

• 47:58Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 47:59Speaker 02

  But the way that they went about, Meach went about doing a record label, you, you're selling, don't forget you're doing illegal things.

• 48:06Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  And you can't be out there thinking like, first get the company, start the company. Let go of the drugs and then you can do whatever you want to do, but you can't mix the two and it was always, everything had to be over the top.

• 48:20Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  And that grew, that started a lot of tension and that's when me and Terry started that, because I'm like, you go, you guys gonna get me indicted. You gonna get me indicted, you guys gonna get me indicted. And I was saying like all the time, and so I don't know if I manifested that, but in my mind, I knew it.

• 48:37Bunnie XO?

  You can feel it, the women's intuition.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, and no matter how many times I could have a good time, but after the good time, I go right back to it. This is gonna end soon, this is gonna end soon, and it's fast. They always say it was a long time, you know, the longest running BMF wasn't. BMF with them started like in two thousand two and by two thousand five, we were indicted, two thousand one, two, and we were indicted. And all those times, I don't even know how it lasted that long, because I had already felt like they were doing too much. And I was very quiet, like even when, um, people from my hometown didn't know, they always thought that I'm getting taken care of by the man. They didn't know that I was doing my own thing, so in the back, in the shadows.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  Even when the prosecutor and, you know, indicted me, she said, oh, I know about you. You know, I know about you, you think you, you think you don't got away with some stuff this time. She's like, but I'ma get you, I'ma get you, like, I didn't know, sugar. You know, you can't get me because I had already, you know, pulled back and by the time they started, it was a little, it was a lot for me.

• 49:45Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  But. When I sit back and look at the whole thing, I had jumped into the fire, into the fire pen, because I had left H and jumped into this and never really pulling back and I was just moving. I was damaged by this time already, just damaged. Not really fixing who I was. You know, you gotta think you're, you're already out of this abusive relationship. You didn't fix yourself, you just jumped into another mixed up, crazy, toxic world. And that's what, I was just always on that roller coaster, always on that roller coaster. So, that's what happened. It was like.

• 50:23Bunnie XO?

  Was this the time that he had brought your children in to start working for him?

• 50:27Speaker 02

  It was my oldest son, my three nephews and my cousin. They all got involved in it. And at the time, I say, when I, when I pushed back, my son was in Detroit. We were in Los Angeles by this time. And I didn't know, like, why, I'm thinking like, Terry, don't go back to Detroit. You go back to Detroit, you're gonna get in trouble, you're gonna get us indicted. Don't go back Detroit, look, you know, look, just keep that behind you.

• 50:55Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 50:56Speaker 02

  It's no longer, act like it's no longer this, you know, in that world for you. But my oldest son, he always was very close to my mom. And he thought he was the prince of Detroit. So, he didn't, he didn't want to come like to LA like that. So, Terry and them had their whole secret relationship. Terry was bringing in my whole family, in which.

• 51:18Bunnie XO?

  Even after you told him not to?

• 51:20Speaker 02

  Not to. Mm-hmm. Don't get my family involved. I had the whole conversations with my sons and my nephew. Don't get involved in this. And, you know, it's still, even though he brought him in, I still felt a lot, you know, responsible for it. You know, I held a lot of regret, even when I went to prison and they went to prison. Because I feel like, I still, even though without Terry, I still myself was in the streets. So, even if me and Terry hadn't gotten together, that was my life. After Harold went to prison, my ex-husband went to prison. The streets was still my life, no matter if I had the little job, side job, you know, the, you know, the throw, I think I'm throwing people off.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  After work, before work, the streets was my job. That's what I did. That's the only thing they knew, you know, that's, I made it seem so easy.

• 52:08Bunnie XO?

  Right. You feel like you made the appeal.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I made it appealing. You know, I said if I was a doctor, a lawyer, attorney or something, maybe that, that wouldn't have been so appealing to them.

• 52:19Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 52:20Speaker 02

  But I made it so easy. The money was easy. They wanted that power and ego too, and they fell right into that hole with me. So even though I can be upset with him, I still have to take the responsibility for myself, like, look lady, no matter who you would have been with or what, you were still doing your thing and you showed them that it was easy, no matter how much you fought for them not to be in it, you still showed them that this was the life and I made it look easy.

• 52:50Bunnie XO?

  Hmm. That's heavy. That's heavy. It's a, it's a heavy cross to bear because it's like,

• 52:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:57Bunnie XO?

  you know, you want to have accountability, but you also want to be able to point fingers at Terry too.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  Wanted to, but you still have to understand that, you know, you chose this life too. You brought them in at a younger, a young age.

• 53:11Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 53:12Speaker 02

  You know, Terry wasn't the first one. My ex-husband was, you know, a, a street guy. So what would I expect? You know, it's, it's like seventy percent of women that are in the streets or incarcerated, seventy percent of your offsprings, one of them are gonna end up in prison.

• 53:30Bunnie XO?

  Hmm. Wow.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:32Bunnie XO?

  That is, that statistic is.

• 53:34Speaker 02

  It's, it's high, right?

• 53:36Bunnie XO?

  It's high. It's horrible.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  It's very high.

• 53:38Bunnie XO?

  That's insane. So before you guys got indicted, you had taken a trip back to Detroit.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:45Bunnie XO?

  And H had caught up with you. Is that a true part of your story?

• 53:49Speaker 02

  That's a true story.

• 53:50Bunnie XO?

  Can we talk about that? Because that was brutal.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was brutal. But you know, I knew that, you know, even like, we would have the conversations and even though he would try to act cool about it, I. I just knew. I knew him and I didn't trust him like that. And um, not that I didn't trust him before, I just knew him. No matter how I said, oh, he's trying to uh, catch up with me. So I wouldn't tell anybody when I would come back to Detroit. But I had a couple of friends that I were very close to and um, my one friend, she uh, always like, when you come to Detroit, let me know, let me know, let me know. And I knew, you know, something told me all the time, why she,

• 54:33Speaker 02

  you don't wanna see me that bad, you know, but I just, I felt it in my soul and in my spirit, it was telling me, no, something off. But I told her, okay. I did it at first, I told her, okay. And I did show up. You know, she invited me out, you know, and um, her and Harold had this secret relationship. My ex-husband went for the viewers and know, they had this secret relationship. But he did it, you know, after we talked about it, he did it because of that. He was get, that's the way he was getting, trying to get back at me. He was gonna, he was gonna date my friends. He was gonna date, he was gonna date uh, Terry's ex-baby mama, but he was like, nah, he tried that, looked at her like, I can't do that.

• 55:16Speaker 02

  He can't, I can't, you see how he did it? But, yeah. The shade. The shade, right?

• 55:26Speaker 02

  But he said, um, so he was, that was intentional on his part. And he did it to get, that's the only way he could convince me, cause he would always try to convince me to come meet him, come see him. I'm like, nah, I'm not doing that. And so she convinced me to go out when I come back to Detroit and that's what happened. I pulled up to the bar to meet her. And I changed my mind. It's something like God was just talking to me, don't go in, go home, don't go in. I looked at the bar, I'm like, I'm going home. And before I could get home. He uh, that's when he crashed into me. He actually had the gun.

• 56:06Speaker 02

  And he, I don't remember this part, but as you know, um, time went on, he, we talked about it. He say actually put the gun out and pointed it to like my head and something said, don't do it.

• 56:18Bunnie XO?

  Oh my goodness.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  He said it was like a person, huh?

• 56:21Bunnie XO?

  He beat you up, just to clarify.

• 56:22Speaker 02

  He really beat me.

• 56:23Bunnie XO?

  Pulled you out of the car.

• 56:24Speaker 02

  Pulled me out the car, beat me really bad. And then at the, at the end of the beating, it was supposed to be the shooting. You know, he's supposed to shoot me, but he said something. He said, when he looked around, nobody was around. The street was very dark. But he said he could hear it clear as day, don't do it. And he said he walked away, I mean, jumped in his car and left, left me there. And then the next thing I knew, I'm in the hospital.

• 56:50Bunnie XO?

  This is the mother of your children, you know, like how could you?

• 56:56Speaker 02

  They don't think about that. They just think about the anger and the, they think of it as jealousy, you know? They think of it as betrayal. No, the betrayal started a long time ago, you, you know, when you were beating me be- years before that, or cheating on me before that. And he thought that, you know, he thought I left because of Terry. No, it, I left because of

• 57:20Bunnie XO?

  You.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  You. You, I, Terry, if Terry never existed, I wasn't gonna be back with you, you know?

• 57:28Bunnie XO?

  What is your relationship like with age today?

• 57:31Speaker 02

  It's good. You know, we don't talk all the time. He's actually um, about to get married, you know, um, we could coexist, you know, even though the boys are um, older, we could talk, have conversations. He's the one that actually, when I was about to do the first Trap Queens and talk about it, I had to sit down with, um, I sat down with my sons and asked them if they feel okay with it, cause I never talked about my abuse. You know, it was a thing that I just walked, you know, walked the life and it was inside of me. Nobody never really knew how I felt about it. How eternally, how it um, turned out. But um, after talking to him, I said, hey, I'm, I'm gonna tell my story. And he said, you should.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  And I said, I'm gonna have to tell you, he said, you should. He said, women should know that this could happen to them. He said, I'm not that person no more. And

• 58:25Speaker 02

  He apologized so, like, he told me stories that I had never heard about him. And the apology that he gave me, like, it was so receiving to me, like, I never, you know how people say, you don't, you don't need that apology? If you never get the apology, you don't, you don't need to get, you, you're okay. I thought that, but once I got it from him, this most sincere apology with, behind the story, you should tell your story. I'm no longer that person. I'm not shame. You know, I can talk about it, anything that you, you, if you need me for it, just let me know. You know, you know, I wanna show men that they, he said, he was in prison and he would hear the stories

• 59:08Speaker 02

  and he would just be embarrassed and his body would cringe. And like, how did I do that to somebody I love so much? You know, he said, I loved you so much. And he said, I couldn't understand why I did that to you all the time. But he said, well, I was sick. I grew up in, in it. My father did it to my mother and I thought I was okay. And then it was the cycle that I did it to you. And, um, after I got that apology, it was just like, okay. At first, I, I'm, like, it, it, it changed something in me with him. You know? At first, I just would talk to him, but like, I wouldn't still wanna be around him. I couldn't have that conversation. But after that apology and the explanation and telling me, gave me the freedom to speak about it.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  I felt, I felt a relief, a real relief.

• 59:57Bunnie XO?

  That's amazing. That is really cool. Well, I'm happy H redeemed himself. I wasn't expecting that answer.

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  No, he came to the, uh, screening. And he spoke a little bit, you know?

• 1:00:10Bunnie XO?

  Even, even though he's, you know, the truth is out there about him, to be able to face it like that, that's some real man shit.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:00:17Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, that's amazing that he did that.

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  He did.

• 1:00:19Bunnie XO?

  My abusive ex would never. He's still trying to shame me, telling me the abuse didn't happen. Can't wait for that day. So let's circle back to when you guys did get indicted. How much time did you get? How much time did your son get? And how much time did Terry get?

• 1:00:35Speaker 02

  My, I got fifty-seven months. That's almost five year, five years, three or four months. My son got eleven years. My nephew, one of my nephews got eight years, one got nine years, one got eleven and one got thirteen. And um, yeah, and Terry got thirty years. But he came home on the CARES Act, so he's home, but Demetrius is not home.

• 1:01:01Bunnie XO?

  Um, so, you know, you you spoke a lot about being in prison, what you had to do, you know, dealing with the counselor and how you had a change of heart and in prison is pretty much like your lowest.

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  That's your lowest. It's, I mean, it felt like, you know, um, I end up working in a prison chapel. I don't know how that happened, you know, the counselor, you know, at the first counselor gave you, you know, end up working in a chapel. In federal prison, everybody has to have a job. And it was only one out of six hundred women. There was one job, one person for one job at the chapel. And it was given to me. So I thought that was God putting me on a path. I was in the middle of the desert. I was in prison, like in Victorio prison. And if anybody know about Victorio prison, it's in the middle of the desert.

• 1:01:52Bunnie XO?

  I grew up in Vegas, so.

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you know about it. And I felt like that this was, I was stripped, like I said, stripped of everything. This is my time to reflect on how did I get here? I walked on that yard. I was in the middle of the first night. I was in the middle of a sandstorm. And I looked up at the sky and I told God, please help me. Why am I here? Please change me. Let me figure out why I'm here. So when I got the job in the chapel, I was around, I I knew God. We called on God all the time. You know, when you're in the streets, you probably, God, let me get through this. Okay, God, I'm I'm out, you know.

• 1:02:31Bunnie XO?

  One more time.

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  One more time. You know, you got all this drugs. You driving or you doing something. Come on, God, thank you, God.

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  Blessing him for the wrong things, you know. And when I end up in prison, I realized that I had to call on him much more than I ever had to call on him in my life. I was in the middle of the desert. I was the only one that worked in a prison chapel. So now I had to face God. I I didn't realize in my whole. Life, how many different religions or that I was there and I just seen all these books and all these things that I had to deal with every day. I felt like I was stripped. I had nobody. I, you know, even though you have family on the outside, you have your children. But once I got, once I was in prison, I was alone. No matter how many women were around me, I felt alone.

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  And I had to call on this man and get on my knees and call on him like I'd never called on him before. My whole family, it was like I was in a fire once I got indicted. I felt like I had. Like a fire had took over. You know how when people say I lost everything? I felt like I lost everything. Now I'm alone. I'm in prison. I gotta do all these years. I'm mad, I'm bitter, I'm angry. I'm full of regret. I'm, I'm feeling so sorry for myself. Like, how you feel sorry for yourself? Talking to me, you know, why are you feeling sorry for you? You belong here. You had gotten away with so much in your life. You belong here. Cause at first I'm thinking, I'm mad at Tyrion and Demetrius.

• 1:04:08Speaker 02

  How can, you know, as time went on, I'm like, well, how are you gonna be mad at him? You've been selling drugs way before that. You just got away with this. You know, I was just getting away. I was just, you know. God was had been saving me a long time. He'd been saving me through the abuse, through getting caught up with all the drugs. It was finally he said, I gotta chastise you. You gotta come here. Yeah, I'll sit you down, baby. And when I was sitting down and I was all alone, I realized that how messed up I was. This criminal mind and this thinking, my heart and my soul, I was, I had to get it together because now I have five young men in prison.

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  I can't talk to them. I can't hear their voice. I was in prison. I had to just imagine my son's voice, my oldest son. Even though my nephew was there, but it's different, your son. I feel bad for all of them. But I'm responsible. Now I don't hear my oldest son. He's twenty one and he gotta spend eleven years of his life in prison. I got two sons at home, just kind of fending for theirself. They're young men. They never had been without. Their mother.

• 1:05:20Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  And I'm sitting here in prison. I had to get it together.

• 1:05:23Bunnie XO?

  Did H step up with them whenever you went away or?

• 1:05:27Speaker 02

  Remember H was after the seven years, a few years later, H went back into prison.

• 1:05:32Bunnie XO?

  Okay, so you guys were both in.

• 1:05:33Speaker 02

  We were both in prison, so yeah. So, um, yeah, my younger sons, they were out in the streets. They didn't have to be, I could say, go home to my mom. Now we're gonna stay here closer to you because they wanted to come visit me.

• 1:05:46Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  But still, they couldn't be live their life no more, you know? Then I started.

• 1:05:50Bunnie XO?

  They did the time with you.

• 1:05:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, they doing the time with me because they gotta come visit me. They gotta feel that hurt. They don't have a father. They don't have no brother. They don't have a mommy. They just out there alone.

• 1:06:01Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  And I felt that when I was in prison.

• 1:06:04Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:06:04Speaker 02

  So that was the turning point of my life and I've said that I needed to go there.

• 1:06:09Bunnie XO?

  I think that's amazing that you were able to look inward and reflect. Because some people go to prison, like you said, and they get angry and just hate everybody.

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  Hate everybody, come home with the same chip, same attitude, blaming others and no. I had to look at me. Look at me.

• 1:06:28Bunnie XO?

  So you did your time.

• 1:06:29Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:29Bunnie XO?

  And during this, you weren't allowed to talk to Terry, but you went in already mad at Terry because of listening to some tapes.

• 1:06:35Speaker 02

  Listening to the wiretaps, yeah.

• 1:06:37Bunnie XO?

  What did you hear on those wiretaps?

• 1:06:39Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:06:41Bunnie XO?

  Because I don't think you guys really got into that.

• 1:06:43Speaker 02

  We never talk about that. Nobody ever talked about it, but it was such, you know, like, it's like.

• 1:06:49Bunnie XO?

  You guys know I've always got a million things going on and sometimes I wonder where my day even went. I was listening to Cal Newport talk about something called shallow work in his class on the MasterClass platform. Basically, constantly jumping from one thing to another makes it harder to focus, even when you think you're being productive. And let me tell you, that really hit home. It made me realize I need to be more intentional with my time. Plus, they have over 200 classes led by the world's best instructors. From Michael Lewis on storytelling to James Clear on building better habits. If you're looking to invest yourself or give a gift to that friend who's always eager to learn, this is something they'll use. Audio mode lets you listen during workouts or commutes and lessons are easily downloaded.

• 1:07:29Bunnie XO?

  downloadable right now. Plans start at just $10 a month billed annually backed by a 30 day money back guarantee. Masterclass keeps adding new classes. So there's never been a better time to get in. Right now you can get up to 50% off any annual membership at masterclass.com slash B U N N I E. That's up to 50% off at masterclass.com slash bunny. Head to masterclass.com slash bunny to see the latest offer.

• 1:07:54Speaker 02

  The women, um, he, he, he was just crazy. It's like he built this person up. You thinking this person is loving you. You taking everything that I've given you. And you take it and you about to have a baby, you know, and then you dating somebody that's very close to me. Like if you watch, you listen, I wrote this poem. How could you do this to me? You were like my sister, but it was them too. He was in a relationship that's somebody I can't, I raised. So you were looking at her as a child and I raised her. So you end up dating her. And on these wiretaps, you saying that you're leaving me. Then you have another woman that you, she's pregnant by you and the one, the other woman he's pregnant by you win.

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm thinking of myself like, you know, you built yourself, you have a class about yourself. For some reason men go by, where'd you go find this woman? Like, you know, you know what I'm saying? And you don't want to think like, you know, but it makes you, it, it, and then the, the thought of it made me angry. Like, these go get you a bad bitch, like, you know, and then you have, you begging, like literally begging her. To have, she wanted, she was telling, I'm getting a divorce and he's on there talking about, you better not get rid of my baby. I'm like, well, what y'all gonna do with me? Right. When, when you tell me, what am I supposed to do? You already dating this child I look at as a child. You taking the hard on money that I give, gave you because when I got you.

• 1:09:23Speaker 02

  Your, your child's mother lived in the worst part of the neighborhood. And I'm like, help her get out the neighborhood, put your kids in a private school, do better, do be a better father. I'm sharing my money. I'm sharing this with you.

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  So how could you betray me like this and everything that you were doing that I was asking you not to do? Like going back to Detroit. The women, the, the, just everything that I'm saying, don't do that, don't do this. It was all on the tapes. It was like. Just ringing, ringing in my ear like, and that's all I could hear, like. Every day you, I'm upstairs, you downstairs, you in my house, you know, when you hear a man in your house with another woman, something. It is not like this was all his riches. This was something I built too. I'm going, I'm in prison for this now. You know, I gave you this, you know, if, if I always think like if I didn't come into your life, we're with, you know, not like. Bragging or something, but I don't know where we, where would you be?

• 1:10:25Speaker 02

  You know? It was such a betrayal and that, and especially when you know these, I mean, I didn't know the woman that. She was having this child, but I knew the other one, like I said, I literally raised her. It was like you were watching me groom this young girl to be with her. And that was, that was very hurtful and then.

• 1:10:47Bunnie XO?

  It's kind of gross too.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  It's gross. It was really gross. It was embarrassing. It was gross. Then my sons, I'm thinking about dang, I don't put my sons in this life and you do this foul shit to me. Like, it's so many women in the street men could treat cheat with or do your thing with. Why do that so close?

• 1:11:08Bunnie XO?

  So close to home.

• 1:11:08Speaker 02

  So close. Like I'm up, you know, like I said, I'm in one door, they in the next door. Y'all downstairs, I'm upstairs. You don't think like that. You thinking this person is your, your dog, your homie, your real best friend.

• 1:11:20Bunnie XO?

  Betrayal, trauma is the worst.

• 1:11:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the worst.

• 1:11:24Bunnie XO?

  You don't ever get over it.

• 1:11:25Speaker 02

  You don't ever get over and I, and I, and the worst is not seeing a person, but listening to emotions. When you hearing your, your man talk to another woman, you could tell when they're bullshitting with her. I was hearing all these emotions, like you were in love. And you had me, you felt like you was just stringing me along, you know?

• 1:11:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, that's yeah, I've been through it. So I understand exactly what you're talking about. I still look at my husband cockeyed to this day. His affair happened fucking five years ago.

• 1:11:55Speaker 02

  You still.

• 1:11:56Bunnie XO?

  But I still look at him like, I saw the text messages. I saw the, the girl built a whole case on him.

• 1:12:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:02Bunnie XO?

  And sent it to me whenever shit went south.

• 1:12:04Speaker 02

  When it went bad, yeah.

• 1:12:05Bunnie XO?

  And when you see the pictures, the videos, the songs.

• 1:12:08Speaker 02

  Songs, the voices and you know, the songs he was saying, these are my favorite songs.

• 1:12:13Bunnie XO?

  Oh, don't get me started. I still can't.

• 1:12:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:18Speaker 02

  I'm like, turn it off.

• 1:12:19Bunnie XO?

  Oh, literally, we'll be somewhere and the fucking song will come on because it's Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone. Nothing compares to the Chris Cornell version. Anytime I hear those, I literally look at him and I'm just like, you motherfucker.

• 1:12:30Speaker 02

  Mine's a secret lover.

• 1:12:32Bunnie XO?

  Oh, no.

• 1:12:33Speaker 02

  So I'm in the kitchen cooking and they're, they're, they're in the kitchen with me and he playing, because he called himself a DJ. So he would play the song. So you really antagonize him. You're playing with my emotions and I'm not really knowing that you're doing this.

• 1:12:48Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, that's a different kind of.

• 1:12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you could hear them on the conversations talking about me. Like, you're really talking about me? Like, you're really talking about me?

• 1:12:57Bunnie XO?

  Don't talk about me with other women.

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  With other women. And I used to always tell them that because that was a saying with my father, my stepdad was like, do not put your feet under another, at least a man's table and talk about the man you got at home. Don't do that. You don't need to do that. And that kind of stuck with me as I grew up. You know, you don't do that. And I would tell him that because he would try to talk about his, um, child, his children's mother. I'm like, don't put your feet under my table talking about her. You had two children by her. Something about her that you liked. We don't need to, and then to hear you on the phone talking about me was crazy. But then I had a moment of insanity. My mom had passed and he came home a couple of months later.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  So I thought, you know, like you said, trauma bonding, thought like this was history. Let me get back with him. I think like five months, I think it lasted about five months. And I was like, what the hell are you doing?

• 1:13:49Bunnie XO?

  With Terry.

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  With Terry. With Terry. And I think, like you say, you start hearing the music. I've started looking at him. It wasn't like we never got married.

• 1:13:58Bunnie XO?

  You don't trust.

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's no trust. And I could see if, like I told him, we never, you never even married me. You know, you wasted so many. I wasted so many years of my life on you. You know, we never got married. So it was like, why did I? I wasn't good enough to marry. So let me just remove myself out your life, man. I just said, I needed to get back to who I was. I feel like in all of this. And all that, I lost who I was. And I know, no matter what I did in my past, I still was a strong. Independent woman that I knew, once I put my mind to something, I can do it. I don't need. A man like that, somebody so insecure. I need a strong, powerful man to be with the strong, powerful woman.

• 1:14:43Bunnie XO?

  That's right, baby. No, that's right.

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  So anybody, anybody know anybody? Single mama, single baby.

• 1:14:54Speaker 02

  Cause the DMs popping, but I ain't seeing nobody yet. So y'all keep coming, keep them coming.

• 1:15:03Bunnie XO?

  I'm so happy that you, that you had the heart to walk away and the knowledge and the self-respect. For yourself to walk away after, you know, try, retrying again for five months. Like, you know what? This isn't for me.

• 1:15:13Speaker 02

  It's not for me.

• 1:15:14Bunnie XO?

  So when you guys ended, did it end on good terms?

• 1:15:17Speaker 02

  And I thought, I thought it ended on, on good terms. You know, sometimes, you know, you say things to a person like, you know. This is, this not for us. It's not for me. I don't wanna, I don't wanna try this again anymore, you know? Maybe it's somebody out there for you. You know, I don't know, but I don't think that person is me. And so you think that it's okay. I didn't, it wasn't no, you know, fucking motherfucker or whatever. You know, none of that. It was just like. When I packed up and left, I just said, this is it. This is it for me. But I think when you, when you go back to a person, you show them. That. That they you they think they have something on you. They don't really think that you would leave for real.

• 1:16:02Speaker 02

  And that was that was my last time. It was like the it was so small with I can't even remember, but it was like. Hmm, it's not for me. And I look and when I look at pictures or somebody sent me some of people say something. We don't even match to me. We like.

• 1:16:21Bunnie XO?

  Listen, I never knew what the real Terry looked like until after I watched BMF and it was not what I thought.

• 1:16:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, not what she thought, right?

• 1:16:30Bunnie XO?

  Kinda like a turtle.

• 1:16:35Bunnie XO?

  You are fly.

• 1:16:37Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you. So we don't, you know, so I said, you know, you sometimes you gotta let people be with who they used to be with. And you I'm not her. You go back over there and be with the people.

• 1:16:48Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely. Go back over there and.

• 1:16:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so I and at but at that point, I didn't know it was a B. But, you know, um, I lost my son in July.

• 1:16:58Bunnie XO?

  Yes, I am so.

• 1:16:59Speaker 02

  I lost my middle son in July. It's hard for me to still talk about that, but um, not a text, not a flower, not nothing. I said, wow, you must be really angry. And you don't think a person's angry, you know, I think they should understand my. My anger is not an anger or disappointment. Like you said, it's self disrespect and how they depicted me in the. In the BMF series. So I can't speak about that because I'm living. They you did a whole show around a woman that's living. It's not like. My estate is mad, my children is mad. I'm upset about how. Y'all portrayed me in a movie and I didn't know that that's the way y'all felt about me, you know?

• 1:17:40Bunnie XO?

  Here you are, not to gloss over the fact that you lost your son, which I definitely want to touch on that, too. I just want to highlight really quick. Here you are, you know, let left Terry, thought everything was fine. And then all of a sudden you hear about this TV show that's in the works.

• 1:17:54Speaker 02

  Well, they teach her my their show had already been in the works. The show their show came out in twenty one twenty twenty one, like I think at the end of twenty or something like that. My son just passed. Twenty three in July.

• 1:18:06Bunnie XO?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 1:18:07Speaker 02

  So, um.

• 1:18:09Bunnie XO?

  Did they ever ask you to be a part of the show?

• 1:18:11Speaker 02

  You know, I had started working with Fifty Cent in two thousand sixteen on BMF Series.

• 1:18:18Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 1:18:19Speaker 02

  So I was sitting in writer's rooms, um, sitting with Randy, the showrunner. Uh, it's, it's a real big mess, you know, I can't talk about it right now, but.

• 1:18:31Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:18:32Speaker 02

  And then you don't fit, I doubt you're not into it. And that was another thing, Terry. They wasn't gonna even use Terry. Terry was in prison. I hired the lawyer for Terry to make sure that he got his proper, you know, um.

• 1:18:48Bunnie XO?

  So do you feel like you came up with the concept for the TV show?

• 1:18:52Speaker 02

  I didn't come up with the concept, but I, I know I was very intricate in helping build that story. I'm intricate in the story.

• 1:19:00Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:19:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, could you see, you created a whole storyline about me. It's not like you had me in season two and three or one, and I'm, uh, or season one and I'm out of there. That my, my character keeps coming, season two and season three, and they have another season because how are you gonna get rid of La La? La La is playing my character and they know she's a major part of that story. When I found out that, when I got the lawyer for Terry and I said, Terry, we go, we, we're in the contract together. Terry somehow got, once he signed his contract, he told them to not to use me. I didn't know he did this to me. I didn't know.

• 1:19:44Bunnie XO?

  It's just one betrayal after the other.

• 1:19:46Speaker 02

  And then I found out afterwards. So I kept it, I kept it to myself. I ain't say nothing. So I was trying to still work it. They were trying to work something still out for me and, um, then I didn't end up in it. And my son, my younger son owned the trademark who did it, the trademark in two thousand fifteen. When nobody wanted to touch BMF no more. Everybody was like, if you mess with it, you're going to prison. We don't want to touch it. So my younger son built this whole thing around. They're saying, I'ma show it now as a gang. As we were a family, we were a family unit. So he started selling merchandise, T-shirt. He had this whole.

• 1:20:26Speaker 02

  If you look at his page, that's, he'd been doing it for years. All of a sudden, when Fifty Cent got the contract with, um, Stars. Because before Stars, BMF series, it was gonna be a movie.

• 1:20:38Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:20:39Speaker 02

  And the movie didn't go through because somebody else owned the rights to doing the movie. He ended up making it a series. Then here come all of them, the mother and everybody. Now everybody want their BMF. You know, now here everybody comes. But that was the betrayal. So I didn't know until kinda.

• 1:20:58Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:20:59Speaker 02

  But you know what? I don't know. Thanks for the betrayal. He did me a favor. Because sometimes that's God moving you. You know, I might have not. If I wasn't becoming aware of all the betrayal, I might have still been under there, still under his kind of control. And not being able to do me. Once I realized and say, you know what? I had enough of this. I had enough of you, your whole family. I don't want no parts of this anymore. I sat back, I released it. A week later, I get a call and say, well, I'm still soaking it. I'm still upset. Anytime you break up anything, a relationship, you feel betrayed, you still gotta mourn that too. And once I went through that, I said, you know.

• 1:21:42Speaker 02

  I was still, my, my oldest son, he said, I'm talking, you got twenty-four hours to forty-eight hours to soak in this. And you gotta let it go.

• 1:21:49Bunnie XO?

  That's my motto.

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  That's what?

• 1:21:50Bunnie XO?

  I swear. I just told my kid that the other day. I said, you got twenty-four to forty-eight hours and you need to get the fuck up and stop crying over this.

• 1:21:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's his whole thing. I'm like, okay. And right after, I said, I can't let him see me doing this again. I got up, I mean, I, I kind of licked my wounds and I got a call, hey, we want to do, how about doing your movie? When he want to sit down and have a meeting with you about doing your movie? And I think that was what God wanted me to do because. He wanted me to have my own shine, my own light, my own redemption, my own story.

• 1:22:22Bunnie XO?

  Not under the men.

• 1:22:23Speaker 02

  Not under them. And I would have been mixed in, like I am mixed in there now and people don't understand the story until they talk to me or see me now. Everybody's, you know, okay, so we know who you are. We've seen your story, but it had to be, because my journey is so different. I have so many layers. I never wanted to tell the story like they told the story. I don't think it's entertaining to talk about a woman in abusive relationship. I don't think it's entertaining now to talk about selling, glorifying the drugs, selling the murders. You know, once you went through it and you caught, you know, you wanna,

• 1:23:01Speaker 02

  I changed who I, who I am. It wouldn't, it wouldn't have been a part of me. Like, I wouldn't have felt good about, like, I don't feel good about that story. It's theirs. I wished them the best on it, but I'm glad that I got the opportunity to do my own story and tell my truth.

• 1:23:19Bunnie XO?

  Yes. And it's a beautiful story, too.

• 1:23:21Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 1:23:22Bunnie XO?

  Can we circle back to your son that you just lost in 2023? Can we talk about that and what happened?

• 1:23:28Speaker 02

  If I don't get emotional, it's still kinda, um.

• 1:23:31Bunnie XO?

  It's so recent.

• 1:23:32Speaker 02

  It was in, um, in the first one, I think about, I can talk and then as soon as I start talking about it. Yeah, so I'm still dealing with that a lot. He, um, he wanted to go home. He said he wanted to be with God. And, um, but the week before, the week it happened, he, um, I was in Detroit, he was in LA and he called me, said, I need to see you. And I said, well, I'll be there tomorrow. And I flew to LA. We spent the most beautiful time together, just him and I. And we talked and we ate and we laughed and we had a great time. So I left on a Friday. And he said, promise me you'll never, you know, we won't go a day without talking to each other. You know, because when kids get grown,

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  everybody get grown and getting their life, you might not hear from them a couple of days, three days. So we made a promise, you know, we pinky and you're doing all that. I said, make a promise that we would never go a day without speaking. I said, okay. You know, not thinking like that. I said, okay. And he said, um, and so I got home, I called him, I said, I made it. He said, okay. Talk to you tomorrow. Siri came, didn't talk to him. Right, mm. And so, you know, still didn't think nothing of it. Sunday came. I was calling him, didn't talk to him. I panicked automatically. I'm saying, God, he's, we're not supposed to, this is not supposed to happen. We're supposed to talk every day. Something is wrong, something is wrong. So I ended up calling his wife, which I never do.

• 1:25:01Speaker 02

  And I said, uh, where's Jason? I haven't heard from him. And she said, well, he's okay. He's at home. He's, he's just going through a lot. And I said, well, what is he going through? You know? Well, he's just going through a lot. And then I said, okay, we were talking, we were chatting. I said, I'm about to run in Starbucks. I'll call you back. Let me call you back, because I needed my phone to app. Said, let me call you back. So about time I got my Starbucks, got back in the car, called her back. And she was like, he's gone. I said, who's gone? Said, Jay's gone. I'm like, gone where? She said, he's gone.

• 1:25:35Speaker 02

  Just that fast.

• 1:25:36Bunnie XO?

  So he took his own life. Oh, my gosh, I am so sorry.

• 1:25:41Speaker 02

  Just that fast.

• 1:25:42Bunnie XO?

  Mimi, can we get some tissues?

• 1:25:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:25:45Bunnie XO?

  I am so sorry.

• 1:25:46Speaker 02

  So.

• 1:25:47Bunnie XO?

  Do you want a hug?

• 1:25:48Speaker 02

  It's gonna make me feel worse.

• 1:25:51Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I'm gonna hug you, because I'm gonna cry too.

• 1:26:15Bunnie XO?

  Things are rough around here, okay?

• 1:26:18Speaker 02

  No, it's cute. Um, but yeah, so you know, I just think like.

• 1:26:23Bunnie XO?

  Was he battling a mental illness of some sort?

• 1:26:26Speaker 02

  No, and that's, that's the part about it. Like, and people always think, like, that you see it coming. But talking to therapists and everybody, you don't. Sometimes you just don't. Sometimes it's a break. He probably knew, but he would never show me that. He, he never wanted me to see that. Or probably, his wife said he would go in and out, but she never thought that. You know, people in life get depressed, you know? It's life, and it's tough, and it's rough. It's, it's been rough on my family since the indictment, you know? They made it, people have made it really rough. But I thought we overcame it. I thought we were gonna be okay. And uh.

• 1:27:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, so.

• 1:27:11Bunnie XO?

  I'm so sorry.

• 1:27:12Speaker 02

  But I got, I just thank God. I said, well, thanks for giving me that time, you know? Thanks for him saying that. I wanna be with her, but you know. My son was so handsome, like gosh, he was handsome.

• 1:27:26Bunnie XO?

  He was.

• 1:27:27Speaker 02

  And um. Seeing him. You know, laying that casket, he looked so like he, he looked like the little, like a little boy, like he was so. Like so. Fresh and it looked like he was in such a peace. So I try to think about, like all the time, like he was out of peace, so whatever was so heavy on him. That he's at a peace. And I know the way my life has um been going. That he's up there just. Like an angel, just, cause he always said, he told me, then he said, forget about all this stuff. No, but you still just having a conversation, forget about all this stuff, take care of you, we are all grown.

• 1:28:11Speaker 02

  We are grown, take care of you, go be happy, mom. He said, you, you haven't been happy, you go be happy. I said, I'm happy, he said, no, you're not. Go be happy.

• 1:28:20Bunnie XO?

  I don't need that toilet paper.

• 1:28:23Speaker 02

  Go be happy. And I said, okay, he said, I just. It's just, cause he, he still called me mommy, said mommy, just go be happy. I said, okay. He said, we gonna be alright, we all gonna be alright.

• 1:28:36Speaker 02

  And I never thought. I keep thinking, why did I leave, but. That was just the journey, that was our time and. And just knowing that he said that he wanted to be with God, that's, that's the blessing of seeing him. He looks so beautiful, like beautiful, like at a peace, like. Like the angels in God had just came and took him themselves, he was that beautiful.

• 1:29:04Bunnie XO?

  Your life is such a testimony of just resilience and of what a strong woman really is. Has me just gutted right now. Um. Moving on from that situation. Of course, yeah, let's take it, let's take a deep breath, cause I got tears still coming out of my eyes.

• 1:29:28Bunnie XO?

  Moving forward from that, that beautiful, beautifully tragic story.

• 1:29:36Bunnie XO?

  You have some really awesome things that are happening in your life and you are doing some really awesome things.

• 1:29:42Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:29:42Bunnie XO?

  You said earlier that you are doing, you know, you help with prison reform. You have a few shows that have been out, which was, what, what, what are the three names again? You have the movie, you have the notorious.

• 1:29:54Speaker 02

  Notorious Queens.

• 1:29:55Bunnie XO?

  Trap Queens.

• 1:29:57Speaker 02

  Um, I just got a new book deal. Um, that my book will be out next year. Excuse me. I like I said, work in prison reform tomorrow. Oh, I'm sorry, guys.

• 1:30:09Bunnie XO?

  You're good, you're good. Take a deep breath.

• 1:30:12Speaker 02

  Um, just doing some amazing things, helping women, helping people, filing motions. Um, just in my community, giving back, helping with aspargments. You know, giving a lot of hugs and, you know, uplifting people, showing them, giving them hope. Because I am an older woman now and I don't want people to think you have to give up. You can, it's never know what can happen in your life. You know, I have been through some things and I always say, why me? But then I'm chosen to help other people and that's my path now. That's my journey that I'm out here and even before that happened to my son. That's what make me happy most is helping other people.

• 1:30:54Speaker 02

  You know, I, um, I didn't, well, I'm a nominee in the Image Awards.

• 1:31:02Bunnie XO?

  Yes, you're gonna win.

• 1:31:03Speaker 02

  I'm gonna win. I already have my speech.

• 1:31:06Bunnie XO?

  You're gonna win.

• 1:31:07Speaker 02

  I already have my speech.

• 1:31:08Bunnie XO?

  She's so cute. When she came in, I was like, you're gonna win. She said, I already got my speech.

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  I already got my speech.

• 1:31:13Bunnie XO?

  And that's how you know she's gonna win. She's a manifesting queen.

• 1:31:17Speaker 02

  Manifested and I'm already, you know, and even if. I don't, I already won.

• 1:31:23Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:23Speaker 02

  You know, just to be in that category, to be a nominee, somebody like we say, you come from the streets, you never know what your journey is, you know? We always think we don't get second chances, but now society is giving us second chances. And I know, I'm saying, I'm beyond my chances. I know I don't have more than second chances. And just to know that such a prestigious committee have looked at my story and seen that my journey and the path that I'm on and say, hey, we want to put you in this category to be a nominee. I already won.

• 1:31:57Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, and is there a way for us to vote?

• 1:31:59Speaker 02

  Well, voting is cut off already, so.

• 1:32:01Bunnie XO?

  I did vote whenever.

• 1:32:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, you voted, yeah.

• 1:32:03Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, I didn't know if it was still going or whatever.

• 1:32:06Speaker 02

  It ended, I think, Friday. What's today, Tuesday or something like Monday?

• 1:32:10Bunnie XO?

  Today's Tuesday.

• 1:32:11Speaker 02

  Tuesday. Um, so, yeah, and that's amazing journey. And I didn't want to write a book until that I had accomplished some amazing things, you know, that I said, I told my son, my oldest son, when I first came home, tell him, write a book. I'm like, I can write no book. To talk about what? I had, I knew I had to, some things that I had to conquer, some things I need, it was some more work that I had to do within myself. And when I talk about who I am and me, I wanted to mean value. I want people to see I overcame and that I changed who I was.

• 1:32:46Bunnie XO?

  Yes, ma'am. That is why I'm doing this series, because everybody, I grew up in a street life too, and everybody glorifies it, the movies, Hollywood, fucking social media, like, everybody glorifies drug dealing and, you know, I talk about, you know, being an ex-escort and, you know, to people, some people think that I glamorize it, but I don't, because I don't really go in depth about it, you know, and I just, that was a part of my life. So, being able to bring the women like you and Ramona and Renee and just really showing people that.

• 1:33:23Bunnie XO?

  The real lifestyle and the shit that you guys have had to go through and overcome and just the beautifully amazing women that you guys are so inspiring.

• 1:33:34Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:33:34Bunnie XO?

  Your story is so incredible.

• 1:33:37Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:33:37Bunnie XO?

  And it deserves to be heard and I hope you don't stop screaming it from the top ever.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  No, I'm putting in the work, you know, people do need to hear it, you know, we, we, we were first to go through the shame and the guilt and now it's like, hey, this is who I am. I'd rather me tell it than anybody else tell. I need you to know what happens. I am a, no, I'm not even a, what, a survivor.

• 1:34:03Bunnie XO?

  You are a survivor.

• 1:34:04Speaker 02

  I'm a survivor and people know and we all don't make it out, you know, so many women have been losing their lives and we all don't make it out. So this is a story that people need to watch. It's a cautionary story and it's also meant to be inspiring at the end, you know. It was tough. It was a tough life that I, you know, that I had and I want people to understand that, hey, don't think it's glamorous. They all glitz and glamorous, you know. I was blessed in a way that I had, I didn't have to still be in prison and do time, but I was one of those chosen ones to say, hey, this don't happen often. Don't happen often.

• 1:34:44Bunnie XO?

  That is amazing.

• 1:34:46Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:34:46Bunnie XO?

  Where can people find you online and do you have a website?

• 1:34:49Speaker 02

  I have a website. I have silentheart.org and that's with a Y, S Y L, not S I L. And then you can watch me on our social media. It's First Lady Tonesa TikTok. I think it's just my name. I don't know.

• 1:35:03Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I have to follow you over there. I didn't know if you had one or not.

• 1:35:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I just thought, you know, I'm not.

• 1:35:09Bunnie XO?

  Oh, well, help you. We'll teach you. Yeah, whatever you need.

• 1:35:12Speaker 02

  Thank you. But yeah, and most of it, you could just Google my name or just follow me, First Lady Tonesa. And Facebook is my name and Twitter is my name.

• 1:35:22Bunnie XO?

  And watch First Lady of BMF.

• 1:35:24Speaker 02

  Yes, and watch First Lady of BMF, The Tonesa Welch Story.

• 1:35:28Bunnie XO?

  On BET Plus.

• 1:35:29Speaker 02

  On BET Plus.

• 1:35:30Bunnie XO?

  It's well worth it, guys. I promise you. Haley and I watched it. And we loved it.

• 1:35:34Speaker 02

  Thank you, guys. Thank you.

• 1:35:36Bunnie XO?

  Thank you so much for coming.

• 1:35:37Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me. Thank you. I've too much enjoyed. I'm a talker, too.

• 1:35:41Bunnie XO?

  No, I love it. I love it. What do you mean? I felt so many feels through this whole interview. It was just like laughing and then like heart wrenching and there's just so much. And it's just really beautiful. And I'm so happy to be able to have a platform to help you scream it even louder.

• 1:35:57Speaker 02

  Anytime.

• 1:35:58Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, after you write that book and you do a book tour, come back and see me.

• 1:36:01Speaker 02

  I will come back. And you know, like, this is a crazy coincidence, because you know Jelly Roll is one of my favorite artists.

• 1:36:08Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, we're gonna FaceTime Daddy after this. He just said hi.

• 1:36:11Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes. I just went to his concert and then when I'm called, you call me, I'm like, oh, my God. No, this can't be real. Yeah, you were in Detroit.

• 1:36:18Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're gonna be on tour again. You gotta come.

• 1:36:21Speaker 02

  Oh, I've already seen. You gotta be in Wichita, Kansas. I'm thinking, is it September?

• 1:36:27Bunnie XO?

  Okay, just tell me.

• 1:36:28Speaker 02

  I don't know. I gotta wait that long, though.

• 1:36:29Bunnie XO?

  I know.

• 1:36:30Speaker 02

  Because you don't start until what, this summer?

• 1:36:33Bunnie XO?

  August.

• 1:36:34Speaker 02

  And then you're in Wichita, because by the time you Wichita would be the closest to me. Because my brother stayed there. So I already told him I'm going to Jelly Roll.

• 1:36:44Bunnie XO?

  We'll have our bus there, too, so you can come and just chill on the bus.

• 1:36:47Speaker 02

  Yay, we love it.

• 1:36:48Bunnie XO?

  I'll bring you backstage to Daddy. He'll fan out.

• 1:36:52Speaker 02

  Love it, love it.

• 1:36:53Bunnie XO?

  Ms. Tonesa, thank you so much.

• 1:36:55Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:36:56Bunnie XO?

  Tonesa. I'm so sorry, Ms. Tonesa.

• 1:36:59Speaker 02

  Thank you, and thanks for having me on the Dumb Blonde.

• 1:37:02Bunnie XO?

  The Dumb Blonde Podcast, baby.

• 1:37:04Speaker 02

  Yes, Dumb Blonde Podcast. Thank you, guys.

• 1:37:06Bunnie XO?

  I appreciate you. Thank you for tuning into another episode of Dumb Blonde. I will see you guys next week. Bye.