Brave TOWIE star Leah Wright has revealed that she thought she was going to die at the hands of her abusive ex after he head butted her and grabbed her by the throat.
The mother-of-three told how she was unable to scream or breathe before her parents eventually called the police on the man.
In an interview, television star Leah shockingly revealed details of the violent attack that finally gave her the strength to leave the abusive relationship.
Fighting back tears, Leah – the cousin of TOWIE royalty Mark and Jess Wright – said: ‘He came home after a night out, again he didn’t have a key, he was playing music very loudly on his Ipad.
‘He came home and he’d obviously had a big drink, and I asked him to be quiet. He had the iPad on and was humming along in the bed, enough to wake the children up. I went to grab the iPad off of him and he smashed it in his face and created a nose bleed for himself.
‘I went into shock and froze. With that he jumped on top of me, head butted me and poured his own blood onto my face and into my mouth.
‘I couldn’t scream, his knee was in my stomach, I couldn’t even make a sound. He grabbed me by the throat. This wasn’t the first time but this time I actually thought I was going to die, I can’t explain how bad that was. I thought, I can’t breathe, I can’t even scream for help, but who’s going to help me? And then obviously I woke up the next day and previous times when he’d been physically abusive, and I’ve shown him pictures he’ll just twist it around, and say ‘well you shouldn’t have done that’ or ‘it was your fault’.’
That was when she got in touch with a domestic abuse helpline.
‘I told them what happened and they said enough is enough we’re going to take it out of your hands and tell the police to take him away, is there a safe place you can go?
‘My parents were round the corner and I remember sobbing to my dad and my dad was ‘I am so proud of you, this needs to happen now, this can’t go on any more’.
Leah details her torment in a heartbreaking video released to the charity’s YouTube page. She has spent the last few months working with specialist charity Refuge to help other women experiencing and escaping domestic violence.
During the clip, she also details how her abuser was able to track her every move after uploading software onto her mobile phone.
It was only after she went into the Apple store that she discovered that he was able to read all of her messages and emails, and even had access to her photos.
She said: ‘A friend was convinced that he was tracking me. I remember going to Apple and the woman in Apple cried. She confirmed that I had every piece of tracking software on my phone. He’s reading your text messages, your emails, your WhatsApps, he’s got access to your photos, and when I confronted him about it he would scream at me.
‘He said ‘well you can have access to mine’ and I told him, ‘but I don’t have access to it? So why are you able to have access to mine, it’s private. I have private conversations to my mum on there.’
During the video, where she highlights all the red flags at the beginning of the relationship that she wish she had known, she talks about the financial abuse she suffered.
How she was sold this dream about not having to work because he would take care of her financially, and then when she did earn her own money it all had to go to her abuser.
She said: ‘In the beginning you are completely love bombed. He convinced me that he had a good career, and that I didn’t need to work, let’s get settled into a home close to his family. That was the first red flag that I didn’t see, which I now see as a huge red flag.
‘For me it started slowly. I come from a very traditional family, where my father always took care of the house, while my mum was a home maker. But his normal and my normal seemed to be very very different. It started with him not giving me any money. I opened up a bank account and he would then say, ok, when you get to a supermarket, you need to tell me what you have so I can give you the exact money.
‘It was the most humiliating experience the first time, the second time, the third time, most of the time, when you’re having to stand there in front if a cashier and say, I have bread, I have milk, and I’ve got this, and the cashier is looking at you like you’re a crazy person.
‘And still at that point I still thought maybe this is normal, maybe this is how he works. I just thought ok, let’s keep rolling with this, I’m not in any potation to say, I haven’t got money of my own, I don’t want to upset him this is obviously how he wants it to be. And then it got to a point even with petrol. He’s put in enough petrol to get me from A to B if I wanted to see my family it would always be ‘You’re racking up mileage on the car’ I couldn’t even have a coffee because I didn’t want to ask him for money for a coffee in case he got angry.’
It was then that Leah’s friends starting to become concerned and made her realise that all was not right in the relationship.
She said: ‘That pattern of, where are you going? Who are you going with? Those questions started to happen. I’d started to make friends, and build friendship groups, it helped with my confidence, that I could have my friend over for a coffee even if I couldn’t go out.
‘I’d make an excuse and say ‘come to me, and we’ll have a glass of wine’ but they started to notice the phone calls of me having to say ‘can I have money, I need to go to shops’ they would say ‘why do you need to call him’ I was like, ‘it’s his money.’
‘As friends do, and the more friendly you get, people would start saying ‘It’s not right you know’ and I thought of ways where I could earn my own money.
‘I thought it would be a good idea. I had friends who had market stalls and sold jewellery and they said you could do little jewellery parties, like years ago, tupperware parties, make money from them.
‘I would go to these parties and he would send his family member with me and any money I earned, they would report straight back to him, and I would have to give him that money. And it just got worse. And there were more red flags. I sort of lost myself.’
Leah reached out to a family member who worked in recruitment and started at the bottom of their company. She worked hard and started to earn good commission but every penny had to be put in the joint account, which was then transferred into other accounts by her abuser.
She said: ‘I was so lucky, I was able to reach out to a family member who owned a recruit company, and I phoned her and said ‘I need a job, I’m desperate’ luckily she gave me a job and I loved it. I knew I had to work from the bottom and knew it was going to be a long process and I remember doing really well. I was so proud of myself, I’ve got this job, I’m doing really well, I’m getting money. But then it soon started as he could see I was earning money. He said, I need to see a spreadsheet, because in recruitment it’s commission based. I would get a basic that would go into the joint bank and then my commissions would vary from month to month. He didn’t like not having that control of seeing what I was earning. I would have to do a spreadsheet showing him that commission, and that had to go into the joint bank account.
‘When I would look at the joint bank account he would funnel it all out to other accounts in his name, that I never had access to. Even on my own money. I just thought I’m back here again, I still can’t mange to grab that control back, and that’s when the physical abuse started.’
Essex favourite Leah, who is part if the popular Wright family, joined the ITV reality show in 2011 following the success of cousins Mark and Jess, their parents Carol and Big Mark, and Carol’s mum Nanny Pat, who died in 2015. She quit four years later after being snapped up to do presenting work before opening her own recruitment business.
She has stayed put of the limelight ever since. In March 2021 she lost her beloved father Edward Wright who died at the age of 66 following an eight week battle with Covid.
Speaking exclusively to about having to tell her beloved father Edward and brother Elliot what she’d been through after hiding it from her family Leah said: ‘When my dad found out he went outside and was sick.
‘He started crying. He was a very very strong man, I’d never seen him cry. I kept saying sorry. I’d kept it from Elliot too despite the fact that we are so close. He was incredible when he found out and put me in touch with a lawyer who was a huge advocate for domestic abuse.
‘When my dad died in March 2021. We watched him die on FaceTime. He was in a coma and it was the most horrific thing to watch him die on FaceTime and I was just sitting there sobbing. I’ve lost my hero, the man who made me feel safe. He made me feel like I could do this. What am I going to do without him? But he gave me that inner strength to fight.’
On working with Refuge she added: ‘I’m really proud to be working with them, because they are also highlighting financial abuse and controlling and coercive behaviour which wasn’t even recognised before 2016.
‘I’m speaking out because I want to help other women who have been through something similar. What are the first signs of abuse? I was blindsided, and I’m not stupid, and won’t have anyone call me stupid anymore. I know we talk about red flags and ignoring red flags. He did all the classic signs, taking me away from my family, it was all dripped, the financial abuse, the manipulating, if you leave I will do this. We need to make women aware of those early signs and also that there is help out there.’
Readers can watch Leah’s full video, living with an abusive partner and fighting for freedom, on Refuge charity’s YouTube page here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaaQyQHQsFM&t=7s