Milana Tyulpanova
Photo: Mikhail FROLOV
Recently, we increasingly hear the word “abuse”, which means any violence against a person, including psychological. At the same time, the so-called abuser does not show himself immediately, but gradually complete control, threats, aggression and isolation from the outside world enter another person’s life. We have collected stories of famous women who managed to survive all the horrors of toxic relationships.
valeria
The star does not hide that her marriage with her second husband, producer Alexander Shulgin, with whom she gave birth to three children, at some point turned into a nightmare. At the same time, the singer did not immediately realize that she was in a toxic relationship and that her husband was a real manipulator.
Valeria with producer Alexander Shulgin. Photo: Alexey Boytsov / RIA Novosti
“The only person I had contact with at that time was my ex-husband. He quickly isolated me from my entire past life: from all my friends and relatives. He just cut off everything that was dear to me… it happened gradually. He was not noticed immediately. At some point I realized that I have no one,” Valeria said in an interview with Svetlana Bondarchuk.
Valeria and Joseph will celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary this year
Photo: Personal page of the hero of the publication on the social network.
According to the artist, Shulgin repeatedly raised his hand at him and once, while intoxicated, stabbed him in the leg with a fork. There was no one to tell the horrors of the mother of many children, since the producer isolated the entire environment. But in 2002, Valeria still divorced Shulgin in court. By the way, during the divorce proceedings, the star met producer Joseph Prigozhin; They had the same lawyer. And this year, Valeria, 55, and Joseph, 54, will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary.
Milana Tyulpanova
The daughter of the former senator from St. Petersburg was married to the famous football player Alexander Kerzhakov for two years. The first betrayal on the part of Kerzhakov occurred just three months after the wedding. But Milana, in love with her, turned a blind eye to everything. Furthermore, the domestic despot, as Tyulpanov would later call Kerzhakov, forced her to stop communicating with her friends and even with her own mother. By the way, Milana’s mother immediately realized how abusive her son-in-law was. Quarrels between spouses, as a rule, were accompanied by aggression on the part of the athlete. And once, during one of her scandals, Kerzhakov almost threw his wife out of her window, strangled her, beat her, and also threatened to kill her if he told anyone what had happened. Tyulpanova would later describe this incident in her autobiography, “Kill the Victim in Yourself.”
Alexander Kerzhakov
Photo: Alexander GLUZ
In April 2017, a few days after the death of her father Vadim Tyulpanov, Milana gave birth to a son. By this time, her marriage to Kerzhakov had turned into a nightmare. Problems with her husband, the death of a loved one, the birth of a child: at some point Milana suffered a nervous breakdown. She tried to drown out the terrible conditions with alcohol and antidepressants.
As a result, Kerzhakov himself initiated the divorce and called Tyulpanova a drug addict. Furthermore, he wanted to deprive his wife of parental rights and take away her son, as he did with her previous lover, Ekaterina Safronova.
“To some extent I am grateful to Sasha for ending our family. I wouldn’t leave. She would continue to humiliate me and trample me deeper and deeper into the mud,” Tyulpanova said.
According to Milana, she endured the harassment because she loved her husband very much. Kerzhakov and Tyulpanova sued for a long time, but in the end her son Artem stayed with her mother. And Milana herself not only wrote a book on how to recognize an abuser, but she also created a center to help women facing domestic violence.
Yulia Parshuta
The singer still remembers with horror her relationship ten years ago with a young man who turned out to be a real despot. After three years of living with the abuser, Parshuta ran out of patience, but leaving the sadist was not easy.
Yulia Parshuta
Photo: Personal page of the hero of the publication on the social network.
“He tried to strangle me, he tried to throw me off the 14th floor, break my legs. The worst wasn’t even that. The worst thing is that I understood that he would find me everywhere,” Parshuta said in an interview with Agata Muceniece.
At that time, Yulia was already popular and stayed with her abuser for some time, because she was afraid that he would make public all the terrible details of their relationship. And when the former member of the Yin-Yang group decided once again to break the vicious circle, the young man announced that he had cancer. Parshuta was shocked to realize that he could not leave the boy in such a difficult situation. He told her about the chemotherapy, how bad he felt and even gave her a medical report. Yulia later showed the document to a doctor she knew, who said it was fake.
Yulia Parshuta
Photo: Personal page of the hero of the publication on the social network.
To get away from an unsuitable comrade, Parshuta needed the help of a friend and strong Chechens to transport her. An acquaintance also helped the singer find an apartment with several levels of security. But even this did not stop the ex-boyfriend from trying to contact Parshuta. Fortunately, after a while the young man disappeared from the star’s life.
Elena Ksenofontova
Elena Ksenofontova
Photo: Personal page of the hero of the publication on the social network.
The actress went through 200 court hearings with her former common-law husband, lawyer Alexander Ryzhikh, who tried to deprive her of custody of their common daughter Sophia. Ksenofontova lived with Ryzhikh for nine years in a civil marriage. In 2016, the actress decided to break up with her abuser, but he filed a lawsuit accusing her of assault. Elena explained that her husband tried to strangle her, but she only resisted… Furthermore, according to the actress, Alexander often insulted her, humiliated her, blamed her for all of her failures, and could not talk about her for months. For another four years, Ryzhikh filed new claims, and Ksenofontova beat the courts. Only in 2020 was the dispute ended and the court ruled in favor of Elena.
“Think whatever you think is necessary, but I can’t and, most importantly, I don’t want to keep it to myself any longer! Not today. Because today is a victory!!! Four years. For four years I have been living in “short moments” from process to process, from meeting to meeting, from provocation to the next humiliation. Four years of litigation, preceded by nine years of physical and psychological abuse!!! For four years I was forced to tirelessly prove that I was not a hooligan, nor a murderer, nor a swindler; that she deserves to be called a mother, because she is not a drug addict, nor a drunk, nor a parasite, that she is mentally healthy and simply loves her children. And today is a victory,” the actress then wrote on social networks.
At the end of 2022, Ksenofontova married lawyer Alexei Kulikov, whom she met by chance at an exhibition. Since then, Elena never tires of confessing her love for her husband.
Alicia Lobanova
Alice divorced the famous oligarch, creator of the toy empire, Alexander Lobanov, at the end of last year. On the air of a famous talk show, Lobanov publicly accused his wife of poisoning him with drugs for several years and keeping him locked up in a villa in Los Angeles. Alice had her own version of it. According to Lobanova, she tried to help her ex-husband, who had health problems and, in particular, addictions. Furthermore, Alisa admitted to KP.RU that she faced abuse during her marriage.
Alicia Lobanova
Photo: Personal archive
-When did you realize that your relationship had become toxic? After how many years of marriage did this happen?
– My husband and I were married for 13 years, we not only had a wedding, but also a wedding – we made a commitment to God to be there all the time and help each other. After the wedding, I began to understand that I had addictions and for many years I tried to fight them: we turned to all kinds of great teachers in different countries. But, unfortunately, the addiction turned out to be stronger. I realized that the relationship became toxic almost immediately after the wedding. Those who lived with an addict will understand me. Every day you tell yourself, “We can handle this.” And you believe that your love can overcome any illness. Again and again you forgive, it seems that it is not his fault, but his craving for addictions.
Photo: Russia 1 TV channel
– How did this manifest itself? In what actions, words? Was there any manipulation?
– “I love you”, a minute later: “I hate you” – how to react to this? At some point the psyche simply cannot cope. Living from crisis to crisis and each time not knowing what awaits you that same night. I could write letters, confess her love for me and her son, exalt myself to heaven, say that I was the most beautiful in the world, and then scream that I was worthless, that I was terrible. And these double messages of the type “simultaneous love and hate” lead to a loss of control and the development of personal defense methods. Abusers often choose beautiful women to devalue and make them their slaves! My husband told me millions of times: “This is the last time, I will not do this again.” And again and again, the desire for dependent behavior turned out to be stronger than any communication, and then a breakup and manifestation of aggression towards the people closest to us. The abuser’s manipulations are aimed at depriving the person of his own needs, making him dance to his tune and subjugating him. The final point of our relationship was my husband’s appearance on Malakhov’s show, where he blamed me for all the problems in his life. Many people think that abuse is only physical violence, no, many times it is economic and psychological violence and a combination of the three types.
Alicia Lobanova
Photo: Personal archive
– Is it possible to immediately detect an abuser? And how?
– Many men do not show their true colors for a long time, showering them with beautiful gifts and courtship. The same thing happened in my story, while the candy-bouquet era was going on, I wouldn’t have thought that there was an abuser in front of me. They manifest themselves after having formed a puzzle in his head: “He is definitely not going anywhere,” as a rule, when they have already entered into an official marriage, when they have children. But you can recognize it: already at the beginning of the relationship, complete control appears: “Who did you look at?”, “Who texted you?”, “Why didn’t you answer the phone at night?” Many people confuse the violation of personal boundaries with jealousy as a manifestation of love. But this is not jealousy, but the desire to completely enslave a partner, to control their every step.
– Is it possible to confront toxic relationships in some way? Abusers are not born… Is it possible to correct a person or should we run away immediately?
– Leave that relationship immediately! This is not your fight, so you will always lose. And if a man is not satisfied with something in his life, he can turn to a psychotherapist at his expense. It’s important to take off those rose-colored glasses; Otherwise, playing savior becomes too self-destructive to your psyche and his life in general.
– Very often people suffer abuse. Why do you think? And how many years did you last?
-The fear I experienced during the 13 years of our marriage forced me to forgive him again and again and not file for divorce! My husband often threatened me, saying that without him I meant nothing in this life, he assured me that I could only be happy with him and that if I left, there would be big problems. He would sometimes shout angrily: “I will never leave you alone!” In those moments, the abuser seems omnipotent to us, capable of bribing everyone and getting you off the ground. It is not in vain that they say: fear has big eyes. This is really true! As soon as you become a strong person, as soon as you stop persuading and pleading, you immediately stop being a victim. But the bully will do everything to return you to this role again, so there is only one way out: leave. Today in different regions of the country there are crisis centers, free psychological help lines, they knock on different doors and they will definitely help you!
-What advice would you give to women who find themselves in toxic relationships?
– If you feel a complete loss of strength next to a man, complete self-doubt, you feel how your previous desires to live, study, work, communicate with friends are fading, you urgently need to end this relationship. But then a big problem arises: how to build new relationships when hatred and resentment against all men in the world arise. This anger destroys you mainly from within, so it is important to seek psychological help in time to survive this condition and be able to trust people again and build a healthy relationship with a man.
