It’s a secret she’s kept since she was 18, but now Christina Milian is ready to open up about a horrific abusive relationship that almost ended her life. In a new tell-all interview with the Huffington Post, the Disney alum, now 34, got candid about her painful past.
“I’ve been holding on to this for too long,” she said. “I lived in fear for a long time. I’m here to save someone. I really want to help other people, especially the youth.”
She described the start of her teenage romance as being lighthearted, saying that her then-boyfriend often made jokes that would turn more serious. Slowly his jealousy and manipulation were taking a toll on her relationships with her family and friends.
“He didn’t say it, but his actions were like, ‘I’m going to break you down and you will have nobody to trust but me,’” she recalled.
Then he began to threaten Milian and the lives of those most important to her.
“He’d say, ‘If you leave me, I’ll bomb your mom’s house,’” she said. “He always made references to his gang relationships.”
Shortly after, the threats escalated into actual physical violence. Milian noted she would wake up to her boyfriend “kicking me and stomping on me.”
“When we had arguments he would choke me and kick me,” she said. “I stayed with him in a house in Laurel Canyon Hills, with no one around, and there were times when I ran half naked, with no phone, out of the house after him beating me up. I would run. Then, I would see his car lights coming at me, to run me over.”
And when Milian finally mustered up the courage to leave him, her abuser would say he was going to kill himself, shooting a gun while she was on the phone, and pretending to die.
“I’m on the phone and can’t do anything, so I called the police,” she explained. “He’d put fake blood on the floor and say he was dying. Another time he said that he found out that he had cancer and was dying.”
But the most terrifying moment of all, she told HuffPost, was when her ex pointed a loaded gun at her.
“One time he played Russian roulette on me,” she said. “He put one bullet in a gun and pointed it at my face. When you have a gun in your face, all you can think about is your family and people who love you.”
Thankfully, Milian was able to extract herself from the situation with the help of her mom. She boarded a flight and changed her numbers, noting that even after she left, he would travel to different countries to find her.
These days the single recording artist knows the signs, and won’t continue dating someone if he shows even the first hints of jealousy. She is working with the Stop Attack app to help other victims of domestic abuse.
“There are a lot of girls going through this,” she said. “It happens way more often than we think. This is your choice to live or die.”
