23-year-old singer Justine Skye has opened up today about her own experience with domestic violence, and seemed to accuse up-and-coming rapper Sheck Wes of abuse via her subsequent actions on social media. In a recent post on Instagram, the Roc Nation singer‘s revelation came as a partial explanation of the singer’s video for “Build,” which addresses the issue.
In the initial Instagram post announcing the video, Skye wrote:
“As DV Awareness month comes to an end.. the issue doesn’t just disappear. Recently I’ve had one of the scariest/heart breaking experiences in my life and it’s still hard for me to talk about. I felt stupid, angry, depressed.. blamed myself. Trying to figure out how someone who claimed they loved me so much could find such evil within themselves to hurt me mentally and physically. Learned a lot about the people I chose to call my “friends”.. and about myself. I was one of those people who would be like “No man would ever put their hands on me! .. blah blah blah..” We all think we know what we’d do until it’s happening to you. Now, I’m not looking for sympathy and never thought this would be part of the story I’d be telling of my self.. unfortunately it is, but I won’t let it be what defines me. I had to find the strength within myself and I’m hoping that through this video I can motivate whoever else is going through this or worse, to do the same. You are strong, you are loved and you deserve so much better ?”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpQwfERnxB8/
While she hadn’t initially revealed the name of her accused abuser, over the weekend, she liked several fans’ tweets which identified the “Mo Bamba” rapper as the likely culprit.
Though she left the identity of her abuser ambiguous at first, astute Twitter users noticed under her profile’s “Likes” section that she had liked a tweet noting “it’s probably tough as hell for her to watch her abuser’s star rise the way his has recently.” Expanding that tweet reveals it to be a response to a thread outing Sheck Wes as her abuser. The thread also references another tweet the singer liked which directly accused him.
https://twitter.com/buttaflymusic/status/1064168562565267456?s=19
While Sheck has yet to respond, the tweets accusing him were right about at least one thing: His star is certainly on the rise, thanks largely to the huge viral success of his song “Mo Bamba,” which has become so popular that it formed the basis of a sketch on last night’s episode of SNL, earned him an audience with NBA star LeBron James, along with a spot on Travis Scott’s Cactus Jack label and subsequent Astroworld Festival.
Meanwhile, Justine herself responded to the sudden uptick of interest with another tweet explaining her earlier silence and expressing the hope that her stand and “Build” video could inspire and encourage other survivors. “I never said who it was because I knew it wouldn’t matter to a lot of you,” she wrote. “It’s just something for you to talk about today. That’s just the reality of it. But I made a video about it in hopes that it can inspire someone else get away for their abusive partner.. That was my goal.”
https://twitter.com/JustineSkye/status/1064256041674665984
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information comes to light.
