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Lil Mo has been through a lot of life changes in the past year, from kicking an opioid addiction to leaving an abusive marriage, she’s overcome. Recently, she stopped by “The Breakfast Club,” she shared how she left the relationship and what she’s learned about herself in the process. See what she had to say about all of this transition and her healing below.
Lil Mo: This time last year, I was here promoting “Marriage Boot Camp” and I was here with my now-ex. We were really married.
Charlamagne: You not saying his name?
Lil Mo: I mean I can but I don’t give free shout outs. And with that, it’s just because we have no communication, no nothing. I have a PFA which is a protective from abuse in the state of Pennsylvania. Saying his name isn’t —I don’t want to give him any type of power or leeway. Even when we were here last year, we wasn’t together but we had to promote the show.
DJ Envy: I’ve known you for years. You came to the house with my kids and you were swimming in the pool.
Lil Mo: Before we came to your house, we was fighting at the mall. He kept on saying, ‘I’m not going.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m going. And we’re going to take these kids.’ I love being around y’all. Y’all are family. He was trying to give me some stress about that. Just stupid. Any time it became something with family or if I really wanted to go somewhere or do something, that resistance was there. I guess it’s like hard to explain. Now looking back, it’s a jealousy thing. I put him position that he should have been bigger than what he was. He let everybody pass him.
Abuse
Lil Mo: That nigga spit on me. ‘F*ck you stupid b*tch.” And it’s one thing to say that when you’re having sex but it’s another thing when you mean that sh*t and your kids is there. You feel me? When he spit me. That was August 26th. When I left for good good, it was in March 2019. My kids had just went to school so it was like 10 o clock in the morning. And he just started wylin. I was like, ‘I think you high. And I know you with a b*tch.’ You don’t even have to tell me. I don’t have to smell no perfume or see hair on you. I can feel your spirit my n*gga.’
It was the last, last straw. Once my kids went to school, and I know they could tell stuff was going on. You could feel the toxicity. I used to hate going home. And I knew the amount of opioids I was taking just to start my day, I was like ‘Nah, this not me.’
I can’t fight him. He’s a professional boxer. That nigga fight his ass off. He could punch you with 5 pounds of pressure and you’ll be sleep. He was acting like he was going to spit on me again. And I was like, ‘Yo, we not doing that again. I will f*ck you up in this house.’ I knew I was on the first level somebody underneath us could hear us. And sure enough someone called and said there was a disturbance. And my father-in-law at the time said, ‘Cynthia, just calm down.’ I was like, ‘Why do I always have to be the one to calm down?’ He come in any time he want, do whatever he want. No, I’m not calming down. Enough is a f*cking enough. And that nigga was like, ‘I’ll blow your f*cking head off. I’ll throw you over this balcony. I’ll kill you dead.’
So I was acting like I was going to call somebody and he grabbed my phone, threw it at the wall and went and punched the wall. I was just like if I can get this door open, I’m out. My manager—he’s my manager now. His name is Woo, he was on house arrest. And you not gon pull up on him. And surely enough that’s who saved my life. I ran over there with a t-shirt on. I was like, ‘You’ve got to help me.’
I believe it’s drugs, mental. And I believe he’s fighting some demons that I’ve honestly tried to help him fight. But when you realize that those are assigned to him and he has to want to do better.
Even with me, I would wake up, I would take a Percocet 30, Adderall, all this stuff just to start my day. This is expensive and it don’t make you feel no better. I thought I was cool. I was a functioning addict because I could wake up and take a pill. But I got all my teeth. I don’t look like I take pills. I didn’t have the gray skin. I was still able to perform but my soul? I was a dead woman walking.
Angela Yee: Did he ever punch you?
He wouldn’t never hit me in my face but yeah.
How she kicked her addiction
Lil Mo: My manager, Woo, took me to my mother’s house. He said ‘I’ma take you away from society.’ And literally locked me in the basement and said you not coming out until you’re clean. It’s not even about getting clean because the temptation be still there. Cuz you’ll be like, ‘I’ll just do this so I can get through the day.’ I wasn’t one of those people who would be moping around. I’d bleach the whole house. I had sh*t to do. So I’d be like, ‘This will help me get through my day.’
But the withdraws. Nigga! I felt like my soul left my body and I felt like God had forsaken me. I went throw a whole withdrawal, depression. I told him, ‘I’m just ready to die at this point. Make sure my kids is good.’ But then, like a couple of weeks later—I couldn’t eat. It gets to the point your body is craving the opioid. I told him, ‘Maybe I need to go to the hospital.’ He was like, ‘Nah.’ They put me in a cold shower. I was like, ‘Oh my God. It felt like death. Death…F*ck. I don’t know why the f*ck I allowed myself to go through that.’
On Karl Dargan
The light side would be that he was funny at times. Far as being a dad to our son and the kids, like I won’t say that—I believe that he is the way he is because he was raised on survival, not love.
On herself
I’ve never seen my parents argue. I’ve never heard my dad curse. It’s certain things I’ve never seen but when I started accepting it, I knew it was not right. But I was so embarrassed. I have the Jezebel experience. My dad told me I was a whore for marriage, which is you’ll just marry anybody just to be married.
Bitch, you done been married three times. These niggas. What is up with your spirit and soul that you keep attracting worse and worse? But I always be feeling like, ‘I can save this nigga.’ Everything I said I wasn’t going to be growing up—I’m going to get married and have kids so they won’t be bastards— but look, ‘Bitch a single mother of five.’
I sacrificed three years of my life without my daughters. They was like, ‘Nah, we don’t want to come out there. We don’t want to leave our friends. We’re in AP classes.’ They wasn’t impressed. To be around my family is the greatest love of all.
…
The root of my trauma, this is what I learned in the “Marriage Boot Camp” house, a lot of people don’t admit it but PTSD. As great as I grew up you would never think– parents been married for 40 something years, grew up in church, perfect attendance. You would never know that from the age of four, I was molested. It was somebody from my church. He molested me and he molested my sister. Even with all of that, I protect men. And the ones I be protecting be the ones that hurt me the most. Why am I repeating this cycle?
…
I know I’m good enough but I never felt appreciated or f*cking worthy till now. I’m right below it.
How she explained to her kids.
They knew what was up. My sister said my kids was playing one day and my son Jonah, who’s going be 8, he was like, ‘Is that a perc?’ And I was like, ‘Nah, f*ck that.’ It was becoming too common and it’s not a joke.
An almost overdose
I had a scare like almost an overdose. When somebody sell you a fake pill. And you’re like, ‘Wait a minute. This don’t feel right?’ And I was like, ‘Please God, don’t let me die.’ And I know God was like, ‘Here she go again asking me not to let her die when she did this to herself.’ It gets too redundant. It has to get to a point where you get sick of your own sh*t. Everybody around me prospering you think God forsaking you. It’s like no, you got to get in alignment for your blessing. Because I let that toxicity.
I’m woman enough to admit that maybe he was a bad guy to me but maybe I was a toxic one to him. I aided and abetted everything. When he caught the gun charge, I called the f*cking jail. ‘Yo, y’all gotta let him out because we gotta go to Fab’s birthday party.’
The interview gets going from the onset of the interview. You can watch the whole interview in the video below.
