Nollywood actress, Monalisa Chinda has said her ex-husband, Dejo Richards is a woman beater, who kept hitting her for five years she was in the marriage.

In a tell it all interview with Top Naija, Chinda narrated how she decided to leave the marriage when her pastor refused to mediate or intervene in her violent relationship with Richards.

On how she tried to keep it together before finally deciding to move out of her marriage, she said, “I wasn’t in a hurry to leave the marriage, I gave it five years… Maybe if the marriage wasn’t violent, I would have stayed from day one from pushing off the head to slap to every slightest provocation….”

Continuing on how the marriage crashed as a result of continuous beating and safety of her child, Tamara, Chinda said, “When I had Tamar, I thought that would calm situations. But it didn’t. I knew this was not going to stop. So Tamar clocked one, the violence didn’t stop… So I said if I don’t go, this man is going to kill me and this girl. So I had to turn to God… I don’t believe in separation of any sort. I don’t believe in divorce. Why did I talk to God directly? Because I told talked [sic] to my church then, they didn’t do anything about it.

“I had a pastor. He didn’t do anything about it, not even calling him to order… And nothing changed. I turned to Holy Spirit now I said I’m going to leave. And I’m ready to face any consequences be it the media…

“One day, something happened… He came back and asked for something, it wasn’t available and next I heard was a bang on my head, slaps… My daughter was crying. Neighbours were screaming ‘you will kill her o! You will kill her o! Every day we no go hear something for this compound!’… That night… the friend came over and stopped it… The morning after, I’d packed my things and taken Tamar to go to my very good friend’s place… a colleague of mine who opened her home to me and my daughter… I had to go back again to get Tamar’s, few of Tamar’s things cuz I didn’t have any money…. and then he blocked me and immediately I went into tongue-speaking in my heart saying this man should not kill me today. And after that beating that day I almost died. I decided to never to come back there again.”

Monalisa is a 44-year-old Nollywood actress and producer, who began acting in 1996 after her major appearance in ‘Pregnant Virgin.’After her graduation from the University of Port Harcourt, where she bagged a degree in Theatre Arts, she featured in a 2000 blockbuster, ‘Above the Law’ and has gone on to feature in several Nollywood movies.