Enough: Life After Hiding from Reality
Taylor Armstrong, the Real Housewives star, looks back on how she turned her "mess" into her "message."
(Photo Credit: Marla Taylor/Taylor Armstrong Foundation)
Taylor Armstrong has believed in ending the cycle of abuse and gender-based violence since she was able to read.
Her earliest recollection as a child is pulling her father's hair to prevent him from abusing her mother. He abandoned her when she was three years old.
In many ways, Taylor's tale is still just beginning as her memoir approaches its tenth anniversary.
Taylor's book, Hiding from Reality: My Story of Love, Loss, and Finding the Courage Within, promised to "pull back the curtain on the years she suffered in silence through domestic violence," not just during her marriage to the late Russell Armstrong, but also from trauma she experienced as a child that permeated her adolescence and adulthood.
Hiding from Reality was released less than six months after Russell’s death, something RHOBH co-star, Brandi Glanville, harshly criticized on the show’s season two reunion show. But that decision wasn’t Taylor’s—it was the publishers.
While she was grateful for the opportunity to share her story, Taylor wished she had more time to write about her experiences, rather than being on such a condensed timeline during which she was expected to grieve.
In an interview with The Blueprint, Armstrong looked back at not just the past ten years, but also the preceding six years, when she was in an abusive relationship.
A Stepford wife debuts on the Real Housewives
Taylor's marriage was getting increasingly abusive when she was announced as one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. When RHOBH debuted in 2010, Taylor was taken aback and heartbroken by the stranger staring back at her, not realizing "how much of a shell of myself I had become" as a result of her abuser's incessant criticism.
"'You laugh too much, he'd say. You don't laugh nearly as much as you should. Your dress is too long, your dress is too short,'" she explained, "so you stop laughing as much."
The show is frequently filmed at parties, restaurants, and charity events. These environments were where Taylor first noted the striking differences between her marriage and the relationships of her co-stars, such as Ken and Lisa and Kyle and Mauriccio.
“On the actual show, it was so obvious that we had a very unhealthy relationship and it was very one sided on the power plateau,” she admitted, noting that the equality in her co-stars’ marriages “was an additional eye-opener for me that things were not as they should be.”
Taylor's loved ones were concerned about her on-screen behaviour since she was monitoring herself to such a degree, describing her as a "drone."
"I'd just become a ghost of who I used to be," she explained. A Stepford Wife-style robot took the place of the effervescent, fun, friendly woman.
Over the years, one of the most common questions Taylor’s been asked has to do with signing on to do a reality show while navigating so much behind closed doors. Taylor, on the other hand, believes the show provided her with a mirror into her own world and has no regrets about signing up. She reasoned that the show would, at the very least, protect her.
“People don't act out in public,” she explained. “Abusers don't abuse you at the mall. They wait until they get you home or in the car.”
While Taylor's violent marriage was the focus of the second season of RHOBH, co-star Lisa Vanderpump made several comments about her weight. Taylor didn't have an eating disorder and ate on a regular basis.
Taylor couldn't stop losing weight because of the stress she was under as a result of Russell's abuse—ranging from hours of shouting to pounding her head against the side of their car.
"It was because my whole body was just churning all the time replaying the tapes of him screaming at me the night before, and then not knowing what was going to happen—if the fight was going to ensue again when he got home from work—how bad could it get?" she stated in our interview.
She still has post-traumatic stress disorder, despite the fact that it has lessened with time.
“People around you get real frustrated when you try to take them on the rollercoaster ride of domestic violence with you,” she said, referring to her feuds with RHOBH co-stars Vanderpump and Grammer, who were threatened with lawsuits by Russell for addressing his abuse on-camera and in the press.
“It's just unfathomable to people with healthy relationships that anyone would ever tolerate something like that,” Taylor said, adding that “it starts to get really frustrating for the people around victims.”
While Taylor acknowledged that bringing them along for the voyage isn't fair, the truth is that “the more support [victims] have, the more likely they are to find the courage to leave and to finally create a new life for themselves.”
‘My life was spared’
Taylor’s abuser died by suicide shortly after their separation. While Russell faced severe financial debts leading up to his death, Taylor noted that with their relationship finally over, “he certainly found himself in a situation of a complete loss of control.”
She explained that when murder-suicides typically occur, “it is statistically significant that there was typically domestic violence in those relationships.”
“So I consider myself incredibly blessed to have my daughter's life and my life and that that did not occur for us,” she said. “I think that's another reason that I'm so strong in my conviction to be an outspoken advocate for domestic abuse victims because my life was spared.”
The part of her story Taylor considers most heartbreaking was the realization that if she could recall something so traumatic as a little girl—like her father abusing her mom—so would her daughter, Kennedy—who Taylor dedicated her book to, noting “the cycle stops with you.”
Taylor had a live-in nanny, Gloria, who worked as both a confidante and a defender of Kennedy. By taking her upstairs to play or out for a car trip, Gloria helped shield Kennedy from as much abuse as possible.
“The unfortunate truth is, Kennedy knew a lot more than I thought she did,” she said, adding that her biggest regret is that she “didn't have the strength to take us both out of that situation at a much earlier age," something she will never forgive herself for.
Fortunately for Kennedy, her mother has developed a far healthier relationship with John Bluher, who became Taylor’s lawyer after Russell’s death. The two fell in love and were married in 2014.
Taylor Armstrong and husband, John Bluher. (Credit: Marla Taylor, Taylor Armstrong Foundation)
Taylor emphasized the striking contrasts in her marriage to John, stating that they're tremendously equal, best friends, and have a great deal of respect for one another—qualities in a relationship that she hopes her daughter can emulate.
“Being with John shows me I can’t believe I tolerated someone treating me so horribly,” Taylor remarked. But lacking a sense of self and unsure of what she deserved, she found herself willing to ignore the warning signs “because I didn’t think I wasn’t deserving of any better and I don’t know if I really knew there was anything better out there.”
While Taylor has grown stronger over time, she still has regrets about not getting her daughter out of a dangerous situation sooner, and for spending six years of her life with someone who did not treat her well.
In an excerpt from her memoir, Taylor wrote of the “after”—the part of abuse that often gets overlooked, despite often being extremely difficult:
“The terrible truth is that I felt lost without the control that Russell had imposed on me for the nearly six years that we were married. Disturbingly, I missed that control. I didn’t know what to do once I had no one there to tell me how to dress, act, and behave; what to want; and who, even, to be. In some ways, I missed the abuse. I missed the pain. I missed being scared. Not because I liked feeling any of that. But because it was the life I had become accustomed to, and without anyone to be afraid of, to apologize to, and to cover for, I felt completely lost.”
The red flags were there right away for Taylor, and she walked right past them. After hearing from survivors across the globe since sharing her journey, Taylor noted they all have one thing in common.
She wants domestic violence victims, particularly young people, to know that no matter what you do, “you’re never going to be able to make an abuser happy.”
“Unfortunately, no one’s ever written to me and said ‘all of a sudden, the abuse just stopped.’ Because it doesn't. Because violence escalates,” she explained, adding, “I've never heard someone say that it just got better all of a sudden on its own.”
Domestic violence transcends socio-economics
One thing Taylor has learned from her advocacy work is that domestic violence transcends socioeconomics—abuse can happen whether you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck or shopping along Rodeo Drive.
“When people first learned that somebody in Beverly Hills was being abused, it was impossible . . . it just was something that people had a hard time believing,” she said. “Unfortunately, it hits every demographic.”
The common sentiment in Taylor’s community was that nobody with “means” would “go through something like this,” forgetting that financial control is a critical component to maintaining abusive relationships.
“Even for my friends, they were like, ‘I don't get it. You have a nanny, you have the big house, and you're on a television show, why would you ever tolerate something like this?,’” she explained.
“I know it's an unfair position to put people in, to say, ‘You gotta stick by my side,’ but that's part of what love and friendship is, is being there for each other,” she said.
“My abuser used to tell me, ‘if you leave, I will drag you through the court system. I have all the money, you have none,’” she remembered, noting that he restricted access to their bank accounts, only allowing her a black American Express card simply for the purpose of tracking her location.
Taylor’s friends thought they had an easy solution: stockpile cash until she could leave. What the outsiders didn’t understand was that Russell, like many other abusers, refused to give Taylor access to cash, preventing her from opening a separate savings account in case she fled with their daughter.
Besides, when it came to someone with the resources Russell encouraged Taylor to believe he possessed, saving money wouldn't matter.
“He'd tell me, ‘I will bankrupt you. You'll be living in a cardboard box. You'll be considered an unfit mother and then I'll take Kennedy from you,’” Taylor said of Russell’s constant barrage of threats. She stated that she wasn’t willing to share custody with someone who was a “complete rage-a-holic”, and that while he never abused Kennedy, he did abuse Taylor in front of her, leaving her fearful of what might happen in the future.
Financial control and child custody are often two significant factors that hinder victims from fleeing domestic violence.
"When an abuser loses control, the most dangerous time is when the victim walks away for the last time," Taylor said, adding that victims "walk away about seven times before they eventually leave."
However, there are legal services available to victims of domestic violence, services that Taylor noted prevent abusers with more financial means from crushing victims in court.
Now, Taylor has gone from being rescued to becoming the rescuer. A public speaker, she shares her story with other survivors at colleges and universities, at charity events, and with clients in emergency shelters one-on-one.
She stated that many of her clients are starting a new life without a family member, which has left them with shattered spirits and low self-esteem. Taylor notices the fear in their eyes as she listens to their stories.
While leaving can be one of the most difficult things for a victim to do, Taylor explained that they are surrounded by social workers, marriage and family therapists, and legal teams who help them “to at least see the light at the end of the tunnel as opposed to waking up every day in fear or replaying the tape from last night.”
She pointed out that many emergency shelters also offer job training and placement, as well as relocating assistance, planned housing, and utilities assistance to individuals attempting to get back on their feet.
Taylor also teaches young people not to ignore patterns that emerge in their relationships, because abuse is multifaceted and does not always manifest itself as physical violence.
“Verbal abuse is just as scarring, if not more,” she said, noting that her eye might have healed, but she still lives with “the things that he used to say to me, calling me a whore, or saying I'm having affairs with waiters, and just things that were so outlandish.”
Recognizing those patterns in the beginning, Taylor says, is key.
“I think that is turning your mess into your message, know your worth, know your self-value and know what you deserve to receive and what you need to give in order to be in a healthy relationship,” she said.
Thanking Dr. Sophy
Dr. Charles Sophy provided marriage counselling to the couple before Russell's death. Sophy, an osteopath, is also a psychiatrist and the former medical director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.
Taylor referred to Sophy as her saviour, noting the two still text once or twice a week.
“I have no idea how he doesn't have a heart that is shattered into bits from the things that he sees with abuse with children and the foster care system,” she said.
Sophy made an appearance on the show not only for therapy sessions, but also to sit down with Taylor and the other housewives to foster a dialogue about the events leading up to Russell's death.
After the filming of a season two tea party hosted by Vanderpump, Taylor knew she needed help. Camille Grammer, who Taylor confided in off-camera about her abuse off-camera, let the toothpaste out of the tube in front of production—leaving Taylor to tell Russell that he was about to be outed as an abuser on cable TV.
The “We don’t say that, but now we said it,” line that shocked the world would change Taylor’s life forever.
She immediately reached out to Dr. Sophy, believing that the conversation with Russell would either go one of two ways—they’d end up divorced or she would end up dead.
“My abuser used to threaten to kill me all the time. And then after he would say, ‘I’m afraid I'm going to kill you someday,’” she said, calling those confessions that came “in a moment of sanity” some of the scariest moments of their relationship.
Taylor believed, whether naively or hopelessly, that after Russell's actions were exposed on tape, he would take responsibility for them, enroll in anger management, and become a role model for other men in "turning things around."
“But he was a narcissist, so he would never have admitted to any of it,” she noted.
It was only a matter of time until the world knew the details of Russell’s abuse—how he once knocked Taylor’s jaw out of its socket or how he punched her so hard that he broke her orbital floor, resulting in Taylor requiring reconstructive eye surgery.
"Dr. Sophy was amazing at safeguarding me throughout that period," she claimed, noting that he would frequently talk Russell "off the ledge" so that things didn't get out of hand.
Taylor says Russell had a lot of respect for Dr. Sophy, who she credits with saving her life. “I can never give him enough gratitude and love for that.”
How the #MeToo movement might have changed her story
Taylor's abuse was broadcast on television more than five years before the #MeToo movement began to dispel the taboo surrounding discussing gender-based violence and power inequalities in relationships.
Much of the coverage at the time of Russell's death focused on why Taylor didn't leave sooner, which isn't useful in determining the source of an abuse narrative. Others questioned if the assault had occurred at all, which was devastating for Taylor to hear following her orbital floor reconstruction surgery.
By putting the onus of responsibility and accountability onto the victim, society is asking questions of the wrong person.
Instead of asking victims, "Why do you allow this behaviour?" reporters should ask perpetrators of violence, "Why do you engage in these behaviours?"
Those aren’t healthy questions for victims, and they feed into dangerous narratives.
“For someone to say, to a victim that they're questioning whether it really happened, that was really disappointing for me, because I think that puts a message out to existing victims that you may be questioned, and people may not believe you, and that doesn't encourage them to take care of themselves and to leave,” she explained.
“Questioning domestic violence survivors is just not healthy for victims that are going through it.”
She calls the #MeToo movement “revolutionary,” noting it showed the general population that “it can happen to anyone, and it happens for so many reasons.”
“You think of it happening to up and coming people, but seeing that it happens to executives and politicians, it was a real eye opener, even for me to see that some of those people would have tolerated that when they're surrounded by so much power,” she said.
"That's happening to me, and if it's not okay for you, it shouldn't be okay for me either," Taylor said of #MeToo giving power to those who aren't generally in positions to speak up.
“We're doing a great job with advocacy for victims, and we can always use more, but I think advocating for the abusers to get healthy or realize what is the root of the problem would be a really powerful movement as well,” she said.