Safiyya Vorajee has spoken to Married At First sight star, Paul C Brunson, about a past abusive relationship in which she claims she was physically assaulted and manipulated
Safiyya Vorajee has bravely spoken out about a toxic ex – who she met before Ashley Cain – on Paul C Brunson’s We Need to Talk podcast. Safiyya, 37, who tragically lost the daughter she shared with Ashely – Azaylia – to leukaemia when she was eight months old in 2021, said she was initially “love bombed” by her ex, who she stayed with for four years, until things took a very serious turn.
Telling Paul she ‘really wanted to be in a relationship’ before her ex began ‘constantly criticising her’, Safiyya said: “I’m like: ‘Oh my god like, yes, I found this guy.’ But then he started chipping away at me mentally without me even noticing. I just thought everything I was doing was wrong.”
Holding back tears, the dental nurse then shockingly claimed that her ex “whacked” her in the face after a disagreement in the car. Safiyya continued: “We were driving in the car, obviously I can’t remember what the conversation was about or disagreement was about, but then he just whacked me straight in the face and then I stopped the car he opened the car and pushed me out the car jumped into the driver’s seat and then I was just left and he drove off with my car.”
Despite Safiyya’s mum “begging” her not to go back to her ex after she found out about the violent incident, Safiyya admitted she returned and stayed with the man for four years.
Explaining that he told her how sorry he was and that he loved her, Safiyya said it wasn’t until she was approached by another woman, who told her that she too was seeing the man, that she found the strength to leave.
She shared: “I didn’t go mad at her. I didn’t do anything. I said to her: “Will you do me one favour? I’ve been in the worst place of my life for the last four years please can you come with me to my house and say this in front of him because no matter what you send to me what you give me he will manipulate me and tell me it’s me going crazy.”
After pretending not to recognise the woman, Safiyya’s ex “smashed all the kitchen cupboards” Safiyya said after she left the house, with the woman, who she “took safely back to her car.”
However, Safiyya returned to the house as she continued: “As soon as that door opened I literally thought he was coming to come and attack me in fact he was the opposite he’d sat there and told me it was because I work too much and he didn’t have anybody to spend time with and I was like ‘Wow wow’, I am not buying this anymore.”
Safiyya ended up calling the Samaritans where she said she talked to a volunteer for two hours before finally leaving the home she shared with her ex, getting an injunction against him and giving a statement to the police for her “protection”.
When asked why she thought she stayed in the relationship for so long, the candid star heartbreakingly concluded: “I thought control meant love and the crazy thing about it is, I just can’t believe that’s what I thought love was.”
* For confidential support, call the 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Freephone Helpline on 0808 2000 247 or visit womensaid.co.uk
If you or your family have lost a friend or family member through fatal domestic abuse, AAFDA (Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse) can offer specialist and expert support and advocacy. For more info visit www.aafda.org.uk
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