Ahead of the premiere of TV One’s new original film, When Love Kills: The Falicia Blakely Story the cast and crew are speaking out about the horrors of domestic violence. Based on a popular episode of TV One's For My Man, When Love Kills depicts the true life tragedy of a teen mom in Atlanta who found herself the victim of mind manipulation and physical abuse at the hands of a man who was supposed to love her. Instead, he got her entangled in a life of stripping, prostitution, robbery and eventually, murder. “When I was 14, I dropped out of school – a lot of people don’t know that. By the age of 16, I was bartending in a strip club, by the age of 20 I was stripping…so I understand how Falicia got there,” says film director Tasha Smith. “By the grace of God, I ended up here, but she ended up in jail for the rest of her life.”
Before Falicia was convicted of murder, she was a young girl looking for love and validation in all the wrong places. In an effort to reinforce the film’s underlying message that real love doesn’t hurt, TV One, in partnership with the National Domestic Violence Hotline, will air a public service announcement during the film presentation.
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