How Lil Mo Beat The Opioid Addiction She Developed In Abusive Relationship With Ex-Husband
She's clean and finally getting away from an abusive ex.
Instagram Musician and reality star Lil Mo shocked her fans this week by confessing to serious pill problem. In a social media post, she shared how she has gotten clean after a long-time opioid addiction.
The drug problem wasn’t the only struggle the "Love and Hip Hop" star has been facing this year either. While news of her messy split from her third husband Karl Dargan was public, the details of her relationship with the professional boxer have been largely kept private. Now she's sharing that had to get a restraining order against Dargan because of the physical abuse issues in their relationship.
Now the mom of five is planning for her future. Who is Lil Mo?
1. Lil Mo was mentored by Missy Elliott.
When Lil Mo, whose given name is Cynthia Karen Loving, was first looking for a label, her demo caught the ear of producer Merlin Bobb at Elektra records. Bobb sent the recording to Missy Elliott who was intrigued by Mo’s sound and started working with her after Elektra signed her. Mo continued to record and perform with Elliott while she was working on her first album. She also collaborated with Ja Rule and Ol' Dirty Bastard. She released five albums of her own between 2001 and 2014.
2. She’s done the rounds of reality shows
In addition to her music career, Mo has been a regular on some serious reality shows. She first showed up on "R&B Divas" in 2013. It was during that period that she married husband Karl Dargan and the pair had their son Karl Jr. in 2015. Her next reality turn was on "Love and Hip Hop: New York" in 2017. On the reunion show at the end of her season, she revealed that she and Karl were expecting another child together only to share with fans later that she lost the baby to miscarriage.
The relationship was strained and they went on "Marriage Boot Camp Reality Stars Edition" in 2019 to try and make it work.
3. She was taking all kinds of drugs just to keep going
In her Instagram post, she described her addiction to pills, saying she spent incredible amounts of money on drugs just so she could be what she called a functioning addict. She mentioned taking oxycontin, Adderal, and tramadol plus "whatever was brought into my house by the devil." She also said she finally bottomed out and realized she needed to get clean but the process wasn't easy. "I was ashamed when i hit the bottom," she wrote. "i wanted to die so bad. But i was HIGH and thinking it was OK cuz i could afford it. Im LIL MO. I’m famous. Famous people do drugs."
4. Her relationship with her husband was toxic
It wasn't just the drugs that were tearing the singer apart. Her five-year-long marriage to boxer Karl Dargan was abusive. The two have been separated since May, when she scrubbed him from her Instagram feed, according to Bossip. Now she is saying that the split required a lot of legal intervention because he had been physically abusing her. "Was in and out of court because i was being PHYSICALLY abused. The judge finally Granted my FULL PFA (protection from abuse) which covers the whole world," she wrote in her Instagram post.
5. The abuse was really scary
She also shared a hair-raising story about being in fear for her life. "Until the day i heard the words “I’ll blow your fcukin head off and throw you over this balcony”!! Then i ran for MY LIFE!!" she wrote. She didn't elaborate on who was threatening her life but if it was her husband, it's a good thing she got herself away from him.
6. She has big plans for herself and her kids
Mo's IMDB bio says that she has five children to think of as she plans for the next phase of her life. Her two eldest kids, Heaven Love'on Stone, 17, and God'iss Love Stone, 14, are from her first marriage to Al Stone. They split in 2007 after six years of marriage. Her middle boys, Justin McKenzie Phillip Bryant, 10, and Jonah Maddox-Phillip Bryant, 7, are from her second marriage to Phillip Bryant that lasted from 2008-2014. Her youngest is Karl Dargan Jr. was born in 2015 with her now-ex Karl Dargan.
She didn’t elaborate on what she has up her sleeve for the new year but she did say “2020 gonna be a BIG year for MY children and I.”
We're rooting for you Lil Mo! We all wish Lil Mo the best of luck with her continued sobriety and her plans for her family in the new year.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer about being a GenX feminist and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.