Tamar Braxton confirms suicide attempt, blames "toxic" reality TV for damaging her mental health

Jezebel

The veteran reality star posted a lengthy statement to Instagram Thursday, two weeks after she was hospitalized after boyfriend David Adefeso reportedly found her unconscious and unresponsive at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. In it, Braxton confirmed she attempted to take her life, writing: “It was only God’s grace and his mercy on my attempt to end my pain and my life that I am here to utilize my voice." Braxton spent much of her statement railing against the reality TV industry, pointing out that reality shows and producers prey on Black women and other women of color in particular. “Reality TV personalities have no union, no coat of protection, no formal representation that protects our labor, our rights, our voices,” she wrote. “They promise us opportunity but produce exploitation, which has only developed a poor portrayal of black people in show business.” Braxton, whose WE TV reality show Tamar Braxton: Get Ya Life! was scheduled to premiere Thursday before being moved to Sept. 10, also wrote in her statement: “I believed that, that as a black woman, as an artist, an influence, a personality I could shape my world, and with whom I believed to be my partners, they could help me share my world. Over the past 11 years there were promises made to protect and portray my story, with the authenticity and honesty I gave. I was betrayed, taken advantage of, overworked, and underpaid. I wrote a letter over 2 months ago asking to be freed from what I believed was excessive and unfair. I explained in personal detail the demise I was experiencing. My cry for help went totally ignored. However the demands persisted. It was my spirit, and my soul that was tainted the most. There are a few things I count on most to be, a good mother, a good daughter, a good partner, a good sister, and a good person. Who I was, begun to mean little to nothing, because it would only be how I was portrayed on television that would matter. It was witnessing the slow death of the woman I became, that discouraged my will to fight. I felt like I was no longer living, I was existing for the purpose of a corporations gain and ratings, and that killed me. Mental illness is real. We have to normalize acknowledging it and stop associating it with shame and humiliation. The pain that I have experienced over the past 11 years has slowly ate away at my spirit and my mental."