A man – or a person in general – is going to treat you exactly how you carry yourself. And I find with a lot of these girls is that they make themselves openly, readily available to these men for nothing, and letting their cards on the table, saying basically “here I am, take me,” and you find yourself being accepted like that and then these men lose respect for you. You have to make them want you just as much as the next man. I’ve had guys that are just regular Joes that call me, text me every single day of the week, five times a day [just as much] as an Indiana Pacers or a Lakers guy. I find that however you would treat the next guy is exactly how you would treat this guy not just because he’s famous but because he shouldn’t be treated any less.

DX: Have you heard from Mos? How does he feel about the literary limelight he’s in?
AWS: Mos and I have actually been on great terms in the last few days. [Laughing]. I don’t know how he’s feeling lately but the last time we spoke, he didn’t have much to comment on it. And I said to him “read the book before you knock it” because at the same time it would look like I’m contradicting myself to have chosen to marry somebody in 96 hours without knowing them, and then turn around and speak negative or badly about them; it doesn’t really say much for me as a person. I want him to understand: it’s not what you think it is; I’m not bashing you, I’m not talking bad about you; however, it is a life story book and it does detail my life up until recent, and I wasn’t gonna leave anything out. And I could have gone into gruesome details about what happened between him and I when– I don’t want to say assault, I don’t want to say abuse, I don’t know what choice of words to use – I guess when the altercation happened.

DX: Was he physically violent? Let’s clear that up.
AWS: He was forceful, he touched me, yes he did. I’m a little skeptical on what to say. Headlines are saying “wife-beater,” “abusive.” I don’t want them to get the impression that he’s a wife-beater or he’s abusive - I’m also not justifying it. It was a situation where he got aggressive. He came home from shooting a movie one night and pinned me down to the bed and was on top of me, spitting and yelling, ranting and raving. I kicked him to get off of him; I ran to the door to get help...

DX: What was the cause of his anger?
AWS: We were on set shooting a movie of his in Brazil. And I’ve been on the set with him every single day and night for almost two weeks. And my body is not used to staying up late and being maxed out 14 hours a day. So while we were shooting, I decided I was gonna leave and go back to the hotel to get some rest. I couldn’t tell him because he was in the middle of a take. So I told security to tell him. I went to the hotel, I took a shower, I went to sleep, because from when we got married up until this point in Brazil, it was chaos. My life basically became his career; our marriage became his career. I took the advantage to relax, be alone with myself. He got home at seven o’clock in the morning from set, got on top of me and just lost it. To this day, I will never know his purpose because I immediately flew back to Canada by myself from Brazil and filed for divorce.

DX: You had no discussion in the meantime?
AWS: I had no discussion because this wasn’t the first time he put his hands on me. It happened once in New York three weeks before Brazil. And I was through with it. Because prior to Mos, my very first relationship was with a gentleman who I cried many, many nights to Mos about, who was very, very abusive and Mos knew that getting angry at me, yelling at me, and lifting a hand on me, was a deal-breaker. It was a no-question, no nothing because I’ve been there and I almost lost my life in my first relationship. So I wasn’t prepared to take that risk again. So I got my stuff, packed it and returned to Canada. We reconciled four times after that. I notice that a lot of people are saying that I’m his ex-wife. There has been nothing close to a divorce yet.

DX: You stated that you received a settlement of $115,000 but at the same time he will not sign the divorce papers?
AWS: He thinks I want a divorce because of money. His perspective is “Why? Is this the price I have to pay for coming to Canada and falling deeply in love with you?” He suggested counseling and I have been with it a few times; not all the time but a few times. And he paid me what he was supposed to pay me. And again, settling for that kind of money I hope kills a lot of curiosity and a lot of allegations from people saying I married him for his money; because truth be told, he’s done three major screenplays since we’ve been married and the judge was willing to take a pen and paper and go right down the half of the sheet, and I said no, I don’t want his money. I didn’t marry him for his money. I just want to walk away to put myself through school, to find myself a nice little place and pay off my mortgage for a year, get myself a nice little car that I can pay off; not a penny less, not a penny more. And $115,000, Mos spends that on a hotel room in a week.
DX: Is there a double-standard in the Hip Hop industry? As we’ve seen, when an ex-girlfriend releases a book, no matter what the she says, she is attacked. And the men these women write about are never seen as antagonists, no matter what they do; whether they cheat, beat their wives, pay for sex, etc.
AWS: He has a #1 hit or eight weeks on the Billboard chart. I’m not a Hip Hop fan, I’ve never been a Hip Hop fan. Strangely enough, as hypocritical as it sounds, my child’s father and my husband are both very-well known Hip Hop artists. I’m not particularly a fan of the music because I do find it extremely degrading. Again, I’ll go back to what I said earlier. How a woman projects herself is how she’s received. When I did the “Drop it Like it’s Hot” video, I was cast as the lead girl; flew all the way to Los Angeles on a five hour flight to do that video. And when I got to Los Angeles I found out that I had to drop it like it was hot. And the outfit that they had selected for me, they had to call other girls in on the spot around the local L.A. area to come and take that spot because I will never stand in front of the screen and degrade myself like that. I’ve been cast on hundreds of videos, and I’ve probably turned down out of 100, 95 of them. Continued on page 4 »