90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After? viewers were relieved to see Michael Ilesanmi consider leaving Angela Deem.
It’s not just that she’s a bad person. Viewers have witnessed her emotionally and verbally abuse him. On this season, and in years past.
But, as many had suspected, Angela’s abuse of Michael also includes physical violence.
Why did production conceal her domestic assault of her husband, editing it out of earlier episodes and only reveal it now?
We will begin with the horror show that 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After? Season 7, Episode 14 showed us.
Michael spoke about how he and Angela were headed to meet with some of his family so that she could apologize.
But the clip that we saw included never-before-seen parts of their nighttime confrontation outside of Michael’s home.
Simply put, Michael came out to confront Angela for screaming, cursing, and damaging his car. That much, we knew.
This time, we saw Angela lunge at Michael, laying hands on him. She shoved him backwards.
They are married. What we just witnessed was domestic violence.
Angela spoke to the camera, refusing to take the “blame” for abusing her spouse on camera. For any of her behavior.
Why? She blamed it all on Michael.
In a particularly sinister twist, she insisted that Michael had “triggered” her. That particular excuse is truly jarring.
Contrary to its all-too-popular misuse, triggered refers to things like PTSD, disordered eating, OCD, and more. It does not simply mean “to make angry.”
Someone who is a survivor of domestic abuse, for example, might find a reality TV scene of domestic violence triggering. It might cause them to relive the worst moments of their own lives.
To hear a domestic abuser use the term to “justify” their own violence is truly appalling.
But that scene, from Episode 14, is not what they played for us weeks ago.
During a pair of episodes, beginning in late September, we saw Angela drive — fuming — to Michael’s home.
He didn’t even know that she was in Nigeria. She gave him a rude awakening, announcing her presence by screaming to the whole neighborhood.
Angela decided that Michael’s refusal to come outside was a personal affront.
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Most people would very sensibly remain indoors if a dangerous lunatic were screaming in the street.
But Angela decided to force his hand — by tearing off pieces of his car, including the license plates.
It is not uncommon for abusers to target the possessions of their victims. In this case, Angela went after Michael’s car.
She apparently injured her forearms during the attack, peeling off a sticker and the tags.
Then, Angela called out a threat — that she would “break the windows next” if Michael did not emerge from the safety of his home to face her.
Angela’s threat managed to force Michael out of hiding.
He emerged from his home, asking an understandable question.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded of his wife. As far as he had known, she was still in America.
But look at what was so different in both of the episodes that previously showed this fight.
We didn’t see Angela lunge at Michael, shove him, or lay hands on him.
Instead, we saw Michael accuse her: “You came to my place without telling me.”
“Are you mad?” Michael demanded to know.
He was not asking if she was angry. Instead, he was asking if she had lost her whole entire mind.
But, interestingly, the original edit of this scene depicted Michael as the would-be aggressor. His own brother had to hold him back. We didn’t see Angela’s violence against him, which came before this.
Now, there is an obvious reason for which editors would trim Angela’s domestic violence from the show: money.
Reality TV shows can and will edit out certain unsavory moments to protect profitable stars. Angela may be a despicable person, but she makes headlines, ratings, and money.
This franchise has done this before. In early 2020, they edited out a Tell All revelation that Lisa Hamme called then-husband Usman Umar the N-word. The raw footage leaked, and the show fired her. But it almost remained a secret.
It is sadly no surprise that production would pull out the stops to conceal Angela’s physical abuse. What is surprising is that they’d now spill the beans, later in the same season. Why?
Perhaps Angela and production had a falling out. She is reportedly impossible to work with (no surprise there). Perhaps the show or production realized that it was no longer worthwhile to protect her.
But maybe there’s something else going on that we don’t know about. It will be interesting to see if Shaun is allowed to address this at the Tell All.
