If you were like me, you were glued to OWN’s Iyanla Vanzant Fix My Life episode this past Saturday with Karrueche Tran. During this time, Ms. Tran tried to set the record straight and tell her story about her relationship with Chris Brown.
You’re also probably wondering why she can’t leave him alone. I mean, damn, what is it going to take? How much humiliation can she take from him?
I wanted to know more about this pretty young lady and how she allowed herself to get to this point in her life (and career?).
I wanted to know in particular her response to her public relationship as well as how she felt having her status alternate between the main woman and side chick; which seemed to change as often as Chris Brown changed personalities.
Admittedly, I cringed when I realized her attempt for media exposure contradicted against Iyanla’s attempt to help her see the light. However, I realized that she’s no different from the rest of us.
Many of us have had our hearts broken over and over again, but usually not in front of the entire world to see. It’s hard to understand why we continue to allow a man to hurt us over and over, but it’s worse when you realize how crazy you look doing it.
When you are young, living life without a care in a world, the last thing you should ever do is stay in a toxic relationship, especially with a man fighting his own demons.
Though her interview was great for entertainment, I think we can all learn something from it. No matter if you’re young (the best time to make these mistakes) or find yourself in the same situations over and over, here are 5 things you should take away from the Karrueche Tran’s interview with Iyanla Vanzant.
Photo Credit: Zimbio
1. When You See Crazy, Cross the Street.
I can’t say I feel too sorry for Karrueche Tran, especially since she knew what she was getting herself into. She admitted to Iyanla that she pursued Chris Brown and she also admitted that she was aware of who he was. I mean EVERYONE knows Chris Brown, and it’s not just for his music.
Why she didn’t turn around and hightail it out of there when she saw him, I’m not exactly sure. I can only guess that meeting a rich and famous man outweighed her safety risk or that she believed what many misguided souls out there believe, she was different.
At my age, if I see a man with three baby mommas, I’m not going to be the fourth. If I meet a man with a history of cheating, then I know he’ll likely cheat on me. And if I see the pictures of the bruised face of his ex-girlfriend…well you get the picture.
Now, I’m not saying Chris has physically harmed Karrueche, but I’m sure this has less to do with impulse control and more to with the fear of going back to prison. His tendency to be abusive, however, has manifested in other ways, especially how he sent his “love notes” to her on social media.
It’s bad when a man calls you a hoe to your face, but it’s worse when it’s tweeted to millions of followers (or sings about it on a track).
2. You need to check your clique.
I hope Christina Milian got in Karrueche’s face and told her to drop Chris Brown like a bad habit. I don’t want to believe she was as nonchalant about it as she made it appear to Iyanla. If so, Karrueche needs a new BFF stat.
That line about Karrueche being very private didn’t sit well with me. Even if she didn’t tell her what was going on in their relationship, I’m sure Christina saw the headlines just like we all did.
Every kick-ass woman has a line of women behind her encouraging and motivating her to be the best she can be. Your friends will be the ones to tell you that something’s just not right with your man.
They’re looking at your relationship with blinders off and they can see what you probably chose to ignore. Some are more direct than others, but true friends don’t want to see you hurt.
I once had a friend who told me that if she ever saw one of her friend’s boyfriends with another woman, she wouldn’t tell them. When I asked why she explained that women never believe their friends and will always take the side of the man. I knew right then I couldn’t count on this person to have my back.
As your friend, I’m going to risk the fallout because my conscience will not allow me peace if I don’t. If you choose to be mad at me because I told and not at him because he cheated, then that’s on you. My hope is that you will eventually come to your senses.
3. Stop being a fool for love.
Listen. Love can only take you so far. You can love a man until you’re blue in the face, but if he doesn’t love, value, or care about you – then you’re wasting time and energy.
You can still love a man, but not stay with him and continue to allow him to hurt you.
Karrueche told Iyanla that she could love Chris Brown the way he needed to be loved because of what he went through growing up.
Really?
When did she become a psychotherapist? At 24, I doubt anyone’s fully equipped to help someone who has years of built-up emotional turmoil. You’ll end up in his cyclone of destruction.
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If you learn anything from Iyanla and me, please understand you CANNOT help a broken man. Being with this man will destroy you. You can’t erase years of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse just because you love him hard enough.
It doesn’t work that way and if it did, we wouldn’t need therapists and rehabilitation centers. So stop punishing yourself. You can still love this man – just do it from AFAR.
4. Denial is Not a River in Africa.
There’s no cute way of saying this, but Ms. Tran is in denial. First of all, she thought going on Iyanla Fix My Life would help her to tell her side of the story. If that’s what she wanted, I’m sure she could have gone on any other show but that one.
Her manager tried to shut down the interview, not because Iyanla was doing something wrong, but right at that moment, he realized his biggest goof. This was not the platform for her to tell her story. Iyanla fixes lives, hence the name of the show.
While Karrueche is looking for a new set of friends, I highly recommend that she get’s a new manager as well.
In her naivete’ she still believes that Chris Brown loves her, which is hard to believe when he doesn’t seem to love himself. I was with Iyanla when she asked her “does he” when Karrueche tried to convince the world that he did.
I think he stayed with Karrueche knowing that no matter what he did, Karrueche wouldn’t go anywhere.
5. You Have to Love Yourself First.
Karrueche needs more counseling than Iyanla could ever give her in an hour. She has stayed with him in spite of Rihanna. She has been verbally abused on Twitter and the final straw is that he had a baby by some other woman (which he went through great lengths to try and hide by the way).
Though she said she had loving parents and grew up in a nice home, something along the way told her that she had to take this mess from Chris.
Look, we are who we attract. Somewhere in her short life, taking care of a broken man was ingrained in her head.
It doesn’t seem like her parents told her that she was worthless, but other messages could have gotten through to her. Maybe she witnessed her mother deal with abuse from the father and she stayed to keep the family together or for financial reasons.
They’re not together, so I’m sure there’s a story there. I wonder did either one of them tell her to leave Chris alone?
Maybe financial security was stressed to her throughout her life. Though she has a career of her own, I’m sure it’s nothing like Chris Brown’s.
I’m sure that most of what she has, her home, her circle, her fame are due to the fact of her affiliation with him (didn’t Iyanla say that she was famous by association?). Chris also confirmed it here in one of his tweets. That type of exposure is just hard to give up.
I don’t know what it is, but whatever it is, she stayed because of it. Most of us would have bounced if our friends found out about our man cheating on us, but to have it plastered on every media and news outlet for the world to see, that’s just too much for most people to bear.
If Karrueche truly believed she deserved better, she would have left him when she saw him hugged up with Rihanna at the basketball game or when he made a song about loving two women.
Let’s just hope she’s done with him for good this time.
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