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Life

09th Oct 2018

Rebecca Humphries: a force for any woman told they were ‘crazy’ for questioning a man’s behaviour

Jade Hayden

rebecca humphries

Over the weekend, images emerged of comedian Seann Walsh kissing Strictly Come Dancing partner Katya Jones.

The pair were on a night out in London last week when they were caught together, the photos published in major publications, and shared widely across social media.

On the outside, the controversy could almost appear as nothing more than a series of unfortunate, Strictly-curse-based events.

Guy signs up for popular reality TV show. Guy spends a lot of intimate time with very attractive professional dancer.

Guy and dancer mutually decide that they’re going to accidentally become more than just professional work colleagues the night that they go out in London together and make what’s been called a “drunken mistake.”

People slip up, they cheat. It’s shit, but it happens.

But then came Seann’s now-ex-girlfriend Rebecca Humphries’s statement on Twitter, which suggested that there was a bit more to the situation than an alcohol-fuelled evening and an honest mistake.

She said that it was “incredibly good” of Seann and Katya to apologise in the media, because she had received nothing apart from the support of her friends, family, and strangers on the internet.

She said that he “aggressively” told her she was “psycho/nuts/mental” for suggesting that something inappropriate was going on.

She used words like “control,” “vulnerability,” and “instincts”, urging others to trust their gut if they sensed something was off.

She said that she was writing her statement for any woman who “deep down feels worthless and trapped with a man they love.”

Rebecca didn’t just speak out about the incident (as she would have been well within her right not to), but she dissected an entire relationship in a few hundred words.

It was her own relationship too – a five-year-long one that included living together, attending public events, and owning a cat.

And still, at the same time, her description of the control, the doubt, and the ever-threatening feeling of a dwindling self-worth felt instantly familiar to any woman who had ever been in a similar relationship herself.

It doesn’t take a special kind of man to tell a woman she’s “crazy” for questioning his behaviour, it just takes a man who’s desperate for control.

It does, however, take a special kind of woman to stand up, call out that behaviour, and present it for what it is.

For some, doing the above isn’t an option. A lot of women don’t have a close network that they feel they can confide in. They don’t feel safe airing their suspicions or their fears, and they don’t feel like they can leave.

Others can – and both scenarios may lead to entirely different outcomes, but that doesn’t discount the unwavering strength, both internal and external, it requires to survive.

And while we don’t – and probably won’t – know what happened on the inside, we do know that that Rebecca Humphries is a woman who trusted her gut, spoke out, and let the nation know that her boyfriend cheated on her on her birthday.

She’s not a victim, she’s a hero.

And yeah, she deserves to keep that cat.