After a court battle between Norma and Tyrese went sour after over Tyrese feared that Norma was going to take their daughter, Shayla, to Israel for vacation and never return, Norma then decided to speak out and here’s what she told MadameNoire:
“I just have come to a point where I felt that I really want to have a voice and speak up for myself. It’s been a long time that I have been going through this and I just want to move on and move forward.
I’m not a flight risk. It was sad for me seeing myself called ‘Satan’ in the press. It really hurt my feelings. I would never take my daughter to live in a different country away from her father. And if I were going to do that, I wouldn’t be asking for her passport.
For me to run off with my daughter to Israel is ludicrous. I wouldn’t even live there. I’m a British citizen. I feel like that wasn’t explained.
Seven years [of silence] is long enough. It’s not in my nature to try to harm someone else. I’ve always tried my best to keep it moving and keep to myself, but I’ve also become very aware that there are other women out there who are going through similar situations.
I will do my best to make it known that emotional violence, verbal abuse and mental abuse is something serious and it happens to many women.
Yes, there was [physical and emotional abuse in my marriage]. Definitely. If you have this conversation with many women, they can tell you the exact same thing. Sometimes it’s so covert that you don’t know it’s happening until it’s happening.”
Now here is what Tyrese revealed on Power 105.1 about their marriage:
“That marriage was a marriage, but it wasn’t really a marriage…She’s from London, and we had a baby on the way. When immigration is calling you gotta do what you gotta to do so that someone you have a child with doesn’t get banned for ten years. I did it to keep her in the country.
I don’t want to say what I did, but I did it to keep her in the country. You know, I was raised without a father. So imagine me having to travel all the way to London just to see my daughter. That’s not going to open. So what can we do to fix this? And we did it. She sacrificed. I sacrificed. We gotta do what we gotta do. There’s a child involved. The baby is not coming on her own. That’s the truth.
We had a very extensive prenuptial agreement. We had a plan. We know why we’re getting married. Everything that’s mine is mine, and vice versa. So we’re going to do this, and we gotta do what we gotta do on behalf of our angel.”
Last year (2014) the police were also called to Norma’s house after she refused to let Shayla leave with Tyrese during his scheduled pick up time after she claimed that Shayla was sick. Tyrese left the premises, but later he reportedly took her to court for failing to adhere to the court ordered visitation arrangement and her also claimed that she was being honest about their daughter being sick at that time.
Norma also said that she and Tyrese started dating when she was in college and that he actually convinced her parents to allow her to leave London and move to the U.S. with him. Unfortunately, their romantic trek across the waters didn’t have a fairytale ending and here they are now.
Overall it sounds like the intentions behind their marriage were good, since they both were trying to create the best possible parental environment for their daughter, but it just didn’t work. Tyrese and Norma are a prime example of what so many exes deal with in regards to co-parenting after they split. We hope they can figure this thing out soon because there is always an innocent bystander in these situations, the child that they both clearly love very much.
