In an exclusive interview obtained by Pulse, sultry singer, Tiwa
opens up on her two years marriage to husband and ex-manager, TeeBillz.
Following the accusations by Tunji TeeBillz Balogun, hubby and ex-manager of songstress, Tiwa Savage, the Mavins recording artist has opened a can of worms on their marriage that lasted two years.
Read exact words of Tiwa here>>>
With the recent outburst of your husband on Instagram, why are you just about to respond to the allegations?
The
honest truth is I was in my bedroom when my friend walked into the room
with a couple of other people and woke me up; and basically just
started narrating what had happened. When someone wakes you up from
sleep you… The honest truth, my first thought was I thought maybe they
found him dead.
When they said they didn’t know
where he was, my thought was, and everybody’s thought was, we need to
find him. He’s suicidal, we need to find him, we need to make sure he’s
alive and he’s well. So, my initial thought was not… I didn’t even know
what he had said. It was just ‘Let’s find him, let’s make sure that he’s
okay and he’s alive’. So I couldn’t respond to anything because I
didn’t even know the extent of what he had said till much later. Someone
actually took my phone away from me. They didn’t want me to see what
was said online. I was just scared for his life. I was just panicking.
At what point did you find out that he was okay and that nothing is wrong with him?
At
about 10-11, we got a call. We were in my bedroom – Banky’s mum came
and she was praying, we were all praying. I know that his family in LA
were praying as well. About 10-11am, we got the call that he’s been
found on Lekki bridge and at least he was safe. He was, I believe in
Banky’s house, and he was okay.
ThisDay writer, Azuka Oguijugba interviews Tiwa Savage in
I remember
very well 2 years ago we were all in Dubai for your wedding ceremony and
yesterday was supposed to be you anniversary. I saw on Instagram you
posted videos of you guys celebrating your new single which was trending
yesterday, TJ wasn’t there. At what point did all these events started?
My
marriage and relationship has been very public and at one point I
decided that I didn’t want to make it public anymore so I’m always
nervous when it comes to his birthday because if I post, they read
meaning to it. If I don’t then they’ll say we’ve broken up or there is a
problem in our relationship.
In this case I knew
the anniversary was coming and I was either going to post or not, but
the honest truth is that for the past two months, TJ and I have not been
together. And it was something that we were trying to work through but
for me I knew that this marriage wasn’t going to work. It’s been like
that for the past two months, I didn’t know if I should post and keep up
appearances or if I should face reality.
Tiwa Savage cries during interview on Teebillz.
Did he try to contact you on your anniversary?
I
haven’t spoken to TJ in about a week now, he had left the house. We
were supposed to get some documents for my son, his passport actually.
So I was calling TJ on Sunday night because the interview was on Monday
and he had booked the interview for Jam Jam online, so I wanted to know
the time and other details but he was reading the messages and he wasn’t
responding.
I remember I sent a message that
reads, ‘TJ please let’s at least be friends and good parents to Jamil
and whatever is going on between us please let’s do this for Jamil’, but
he still didn’t respond, so I left it and I know one day we’ll apply
for his passport.
At what point did you realize the marriage won’t work?
I
have covered up for a lot of hurt in our relationship. I was in Jamaica
recently and just before I went to Jamaica, I found out that I was
pregnant again. We both discussed it and tried to figure out how to
manage the situation, because it was another baby so soon. So I went to
London and got on a 10-hour flight to Jamaica to shoot a video with Busy
Signal.
But on the morning we were supposed to
shoot the video, while I was doing my make-up, I started bleeding
uncontrollably, so I started panicking and I called TJ. I took pictures
and sent it to him, they rushed me to the hospital, I had complications
but I still couldn’t reach him, so Thompson who was with me, had to help
me sign all the documents in the hospital.
So
I got discharged from the hospital and still tried to call TJ to let
him know what happened because he didn’t call to see how I was or know
what happened.
I got back to Nigeria and while we
were sleeping, his phone was going off and it was middle of the night
and I kept on seeing the name calling him ‘Edible Catering’. And it
didn’t make sense because why would a catering company be calling my
husband at that time of the night and yes as a woman, I picked up his
phone and I went through his phone got into his Whatsapp and there’s
this long conversation with this same ‘Edible’ number.
And
I’m seeing stuff like ‘Can we meet at the hotel tonight’, ‘Do you live
alone’, and ‘Is it ok if I come by’. The last message I saw was, ‘I had
to leave at 7am today because you were still sleeping’. Then he
responded saying, ‘Yea because you knocked me out last night, it was a
great night’.
So obviously I woke
him up and was like what’s going on, and he said to me, it’s not what I
think. Then I asked if all these happened on our bed, then he said no it
was at a hotel but nothing happened that they were just chilling.
The
thing that hurt me the most was that this happened while I was in
Jamaica in a hospital and I was sending him pictures but he didn’t
bother to respond because he was chilling with another woman in a hotel
room.
At that point, I packed my stuff, I took my
son and I went to my friend’s house, her name is Tiwa as well, I stayed
the night there and she asked me one question, ‘What’s the next step?’.
And I said to her, ‘I’m done’.
Has he been cheating on you before now?
I
don’t think we have enough time to cover that, I don’t even know where
to start or which one to say first. I’ve covered up for so long because I
wanted people to believe this story that TJ is the head of the house,
he’s the one that takes care of me, a loving husband, I wanted people to
believe that and I wanted him to feel like a man, so I covered up so
many times.
Since my son has been born, TJ has not
spent one naira. I paid for the hospital bills, I paid for his flight
to come to London, I paid for the apartment we stayed for two months,
the clothes, the nursery, the grocery. Even when we were in London we
didn’t just go shopping for my son, we shopped for TJ as well so that
when we come back to Nigeria he’ll have new things because his excuse
most times is, ‘I don’t have money, I don’t have money…’
So
I try to pay for everything because I have to pay for everything,
otherwise where would we be? So at least he can go out to hustle or
focus on the contracts he’s looking for. And he’ll still tell me he
doesn’t have money to buy diapers but he has money to get haircut twice a
week, he has money to do laundry, he has money to take women to hotel
rooms.
Is it possible that you do everything for him but still don’t respect him as a husband?
That’s
a lie! I’m not going to sit here and lie to you that every time I come
home I cook… and I’m not going to make excuses and say it’s because of
my career that’s why I’m busy. I’m the same person that works and puts
money in the house, I’m the same person that works long hours to make
sure we have a roof over our heads. I come home late most times and very
tired, sometimes I’m out of the country. There’s no time that I come
downstairs to make something to eat and I don’t make for TJ and because I
know what my schedule is, I had to hire a cook and I don’t think
there’s anything wrong in that. Most times he leaves home and doesn’t
come back till 7am at times 2pm the following day, so how am I supposed
to cook for someone that’s not in the house?
You come back drunk,
angry; we were living on eggshells because we never know what mood he’ll
be in. At times I even pray that he’s with another woman, so that way I
know he’s still alive and has not gotten drunk in an accident or
something else.
When you sacked him as your manager, what job did he start doing?
I’ll
never discredit or take away the fact that TJ hustled for me; I’ll
never deny that he worked hard for me or that he believed in me. But the
first time I realized there was foul play was a time when he booked me
for a wedding in London and our company policy is that you don’t go for a
show till you’ve been fully paid. So I got to London already and I
called the accountant to confirm if payment has been made and she was
like they still haven’t paid o, so I called TJ again and said these
people haven’t paid and he said ‘no its fine, just go, just go and
perform don’t worry everything is fine’.
Fortunately
for me, I know one of the organizers, I pulled him aside and was like,
‘bros what’s going on, why haven’t you guys paid’, and he was like,
‘what are you talking about, we’ve paid about four months ago’ and we
tried to confirm and realized they paid into TJ’s personal account and
not company account. Then the other thing was TJ would declare that they
paid N3m meanwhile they paid N4.5m, and out of the N3M he’s still
receiving his management fee of 40%. So you are basically stealing from
your wife and he doesn’t feel anything. So I had to perform at the
wedding for free because TJ had already squandered the money.
He also accused your mum of ‘witchcraft’?
My
mum is based in the UK and when I had Jamil she moved back to Nigeria
with us. If anyone has ever met my mother, she’s not like that. She’s a
sweet lady, she’s very British so she doesn’t hang up on traditions and
she doesn’t judge. Infact a lot of times my mum will say to me, ‘Tiwa
you are the wife, be patient, don’t shout, don’t curse, a woman builds
the home.’
Whenever we have issues, TJ always runs
to tell my mum and she always calms him down so she’s been nothing but a
great support for me. So I’ll love for him to tell me if there’s
something that my mother has done because I have no idea.
How about his allegations that you slept with Don Jazzy, Dr Sid and 2face?
I
would say for the record, I have never cheated on my husband. Not with
Don Jazzy, not with Dr Sid, not with 2face or anybody, and I’m willing
to take a lie detector test for that. And he knows it in his heart.
(Crying)
this really hurts. I’m not going to pretend like I’ve not read comments
and what people are saying about me, it hurts. And it’s not true.
So what do you think drove him to attempt suicide?
I
know that for any human being, when your finances are not straight,
you’ll be depressed and be bothered. So I know that for a while, since
he stopped working for me as my manager, he’s been struggling
financially, but that wasn’t my fault. I loved when we were working
together and everybody loved us, but he messed up by starting to steal
from me and being fraudulent, so I had no choice. I wanted to save my
marriage by separating the business from the home, but TJ loves to keep
up with the life, he wants to live a life that’s not true without a
steady income. He went to buy a car that he knew he couldn’t afford, and
I ended up paying the balance of about N3M and he says I took away his
manhood because he doesn’t want people to know am the breadwinner.
As
a woman I want him to be the breadwinner too, and that’s why I put the
balance of the car in his account so they’ll think it’s coming from him
and not me.
He also went to buy a Rolex watch and
he still couldn’t pay up the balance and so they called me and because I
don’t want it to get out in the press (people have threatened me with
that before) so I always find a way to put the money in his account so
he can pay off the debt.
He keeps on putting us in
debt all the time. He goes out to the clubs with women, spend money on
drinks, leaves without paying and the club owner would call me and I’ll
end up going to pay.
The last one that happened
that I think really triggered this whole thing was that he went to
borrow N45m from someone and he’s lost the money. I just found out. I
was in the studio recording and got a call that EFCC is investigating
that TJ is in big trouble that people may hurt him. So in my frantic
move to try and suppress the situation no one could help raise the N45m
he went to borrow.
Or
should we talk about the fact that I walked in on him taking cocaine in
my house when we were still leaving in 1004 then. It was just after we
got married and I didn’t even know he does cocaine, only to walk into
the kitchen and saw him snuffing. I screamed TJ!!! And he quickly hid it
and he started screaming at me! So the first thing I did was call his
parents. So I’m dealing with alcohol problems, the fact that you come
home late, infidelity, cocaine, debts, and a husband that’s jealous of
his wife’s success.
Didn’t you see these coming before you got married?
It’s
a combination of everything; I didn’t know about the cocaine, I didn’t
know about his third child in Nigeria apart from the two abroad that he
tells everyone. I won’t say I didn’t see signs, even a lot of people
warned me about the type of person TJ is, but I made a mistake and I’m
not ashamed to say it at this point.
Now that I’ve made a
mistake, do I want to wait 10 years or 15 years? If you are not happy
you can leave and I was scared will I ever find somebody, will I ever
find happiness, will I ever find someone else to marry me?
I
don’t care at this point if I never get married again. All I care about
now is being happy for Jamil. I care about being strong; I care about
not walking on eggshells.
And you know what?
I
do want a man that works, that can help me financially. Not saying he
has to be a millionaire or billionaire, but somebody that can help or at
least not put me in more debt.
Has he ever physically assaulted you?
No,
and I’ll never play that victim card. But it was a mentally abusive
relationship because all I hear everyday is how he made me, how he did
this and that for me, I created you, I took you from nothing. He didn’t
find me in a dustbin.
What’s the status of the marriage now?
It’s
finally over. It’s been over for a while and I’ve covered up for a
while. I think what happened is God sent because he’s made it easy for
me to walk away because of what he did on social media because he got so
many people angry, he called so many innocent names, he dragged many
people including his own family. So if I was to consider to make it work
a lot of people will warn me that if it happens again I can’t come back
crying. So he’s made it easy for me to finally walk away.
I’ll never stop him from seeing Jamil, never! But the only thing I’ll promise myself is to bring up my son to be a good man.
Till
now I don’t wish anything bad on him, even when he was abusing me.
First I was and still I’m concerned about him because I’m worried he
might see this interview and trigger something else or lead him to do
something bad but I don’t wish that for him.
Tonight
I’m still going to pray for him. If I didn’t care about him or his
well-being, I won’t have covered up for him for this long and even now
I’m still helping him find a way out from his debt.
But
if there’s anything that I’ve overlooked to Tunji, I’m absolutely
sorry. If have done anything wrong to neglect you or not make you feel
like a man, Tunji I’m sorry and you know I tried everything, you know I
love you so much and I’m sorry. I never wanted to divorce and I never
wanted it to come to this and I want him to get better. I’m not just
saying it for the camera but I’ll always pray for him!
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