“It was horrifying because I had been sleeping next to this man, living with this man, married to this man and I truly had no idea,” Tareasa Johnson tells Inside Edition. Her ex-husband says her entire story is "a lie."
A Georgia woman’s TikTok series about her failed marriage has become a major sensation, racking up hundreds of millions of views and piquing the interest of countless viewers who could not turn away from her 50-part saga. She spoke with Inside Edition about why she believes her videos gained popularity.
Tareasa Johnson told her story of marrying a man she says is a "pathological liar" in a 50-part TikTok series she called "Who TF Did I Marry." The series has amassed over 400 million views.
In it, Johnson says she met her now ex-husband on a dating site in 2020. She says they spent the COVID-19 lockdown together in her Atlanta home and tied the knot the following year.
In part 15 of her video series, Johnson says she got married on Jan. 5, and by Jan. 31, she knew she was in trouble.
“There is nothing my ex-husband will not lie about. He has lied about every aspect of his life,” Johnson tells Inside Edition. “He will lie about people being alive, he will lie about people being dead, he will lie about money. He has lied about every aspect of his life, a complete fictitious life that he made up. So that's why I call him a pathological liar.”
In her series, Johnson told viewers her ex-husband told her that he played football at San Diego State University and worked at Apple. “He was claiming that he was going to buy a house for us to start a family,” Johnson says.
Johnson claims her ex-husband lied to her family members that she had a baby on the way when she actually had suffered a miscarriage.
“I can't explain why he lied, but he absolutely told family, friends, and some relatives that we had in fact had a child to the point where they had, I found evidence, that they had sent him at least money for gifts for the child that did not exist,” Johnson says.
When Johnson was recovering from her miscarriage in the hospital, she says she texted her then-husband and his assistant, David, to tell him she was trying to contact him. But she says she later learned that there was no David. It was her ex-husband all along, she claims.
She says as his lies unraveled, she kicked him out of their home.
“I only discovered about 5% of his lies at the point of him being kicked out of the house,” Johnson says. “It was not until he was already out of the house, I had already filed for divorce, and I had an opportunity to speak to his older brother, that is when I really found out just how depraved and how diabolical the lies were.
“I had been sleeping next to this man, living with this man, married to this man and I truly had no idea,” Johnson says.
Johnson says there was a time when she was fearful of her safety after he left the home.
“When he had left the house, he was gone for a while, there was a period where someone had told him, hey, legally, you do not have to leave, you can come back. And so he had been calling me every day, multiple times a day, to the point of harassment, telling me he was coming back home,” Johnson says. “So during that period of time where I was on pins and needles, terrified to go home because I was afraid that he was going to show up.”
Johnson says she has not fully forgiven herself.
“I'm still, that's still a work in progress because I do feel like I should have known better,” Johnson says. “I'm not a dumb woman. I feel like I'm very intelligent, but I really and truly had no idea the things.”
She says she had no idea her story would have such reach on social media.
“In the spirit of transparency, really and truly, it kind of was eating away at me holding it in and internalizing it. And this all started because I saw a video where someone had asked, what's the worst thing that your ex has ever done? And without thinking, I just thought, okay, I'm gonna stitch this video. And I'm going to tell the story of how he claimed his grandmother died during COVID,” Johnson says.
Then her first few videos began gaining traction.
“Then I made another video the day before this whole thing started, where I said, things my pathologically lying ex-husband lied about. And I only listed three or four things. And that went off. And there was a lot of feedback of, 'You should tell your story.' And literally, it was literally the middle of the night where I said, you know what? I'm ready to own it out loud,” Johnson says.
Johnson says she tries to remind people that the troubles she went through took place during the pandemic and the loneliness she felt at that time played a part in her wanting to be in a relationship.
“I was definitely quarantined during the lockdown, but then also I did not talk to a lot of people about my suspicions, which is something that I point out in the series,” Johnson says. “I take ownership for the fact that when I met him and I put up with a lot of things, it was more out of a desperate need for, I was ready to get married, I was ready to have a family. And that's why it is very important to me that I take accountability for my part, because I did not expect for him to lie to me to the levels that he lied. But the fact of the matter is, I let him in my life because there was a sense of loneliness, there was a sense of desperation.”
She says she is glad she shared her story.
“It's it's been overwhelming. The amount of people who have said thank you because it has helped them. And again I really hoped it had helped one or two people. And the numbers are far greater than one or two. That is what makes it worth it,” Johnson says.
Johnson tells Inside Edition that although she feels she can trust someone enough to fall in love, she is currently on a healing journey.
“I want to make sure that I am whole, that I am healed because the last thing I want to do is bleed on someone who did not cut me,” she says.
Her ex-husband tells Inside Edition, “The whole story is a lie. None of that ever happened.”
Johnson recently signed with a top talent agency.
