Reesa Teesa posted nearly eight hours of video on TikTok to tell the story of a messy marriage and divorce she allegedly had with a “pathological liar.” Millions of views on each of her 50 videos suggest that people are listening from start to finish.
On a platform known for dances and seconds-long hits of dopamine, Teesa's story shows that people can pay attention after all.
More and more viewers are watching the 50-episode TikTok story “Who TF Did I Marry?”, a saga in which Teesa, the series' narrator, recounts her turbulent relationship with Legion, a man she is convinced of that he is a pathological liar.
In it, Teesa says she describes a love full of warning signs, “you would have thought I was color blind because I ignored all of it.” She tells the story without frills and in the hope that her traumatizing story can help others, based on her gut feeling to trust and avoid a similar fate.
“If just one woman watches these videos and says, ‘You know what? Something's wrong with me. Let me look into this and it will be worth it,” Teesa said in an interlude video.
In the videos, Tessa tells her story to the camera as if she were on FaceTime with a friend – sometimes wearing heat-resistant curlers and sometimes while driving. When Teesa met Legion in March 2020, she says she fell in love with him and his desire to provide for her financially. He told her during their first phone conversation that he was a former football player and divorced regional manager who had recently moved from California to Georgia, and on their first date he talked about wanting to get married, start a family and own a house – goals , which Teesa also dreamed of.
Within months, Legion moved into the townhouse Teesa had rented so they could weather the coronavirus lockdown together, she said. After finding out she was pregnant, Teesa said the pressure to calm down also increased due to religious expectations.
They looked at several houses, Teesa continued, but never closed a deal after Legion refused to provide proof that he had the money to support his $700,000 cash offers. She recounted how Legion said he was transferring money from his offshore account to buy her an Audi Q8 and said the SUV would be delivered to their home, but it never arrived.
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Throughout the series, Teesa is quick to admit the mistakes she made while dating her ex-husband even though he didn't keep his word: “I'm not a stupid person,” she said in a video. “But it just never dawned on me what you need to investigate now.” She also emphasizes that the pandemic has made the trajectory of their relationship and the delays they experienced, according to Legion, more believable.
She had a miscarriage, which Teesa later considered a blessing. No house was purchased, she said. And Teesa said she bought a car, a Nissan Altima.
They got married in January 2021, she said, but the lies didn't stop.
When she filed for divorce, she reportedly learned that he had never lived in California and was divorced at least twice before marrying her. Through government files and conversations with his family members, Teesa said she discovered he lied profusely about his family – he pretended to have two sisters and two half-brothers, he lied about family members dying of Covid when they were years before had died, and acted as if he had two sisters and two half-brothers who were on the phone with relatives every half hour or more.
Legion lied about his money and his job, Teesa said: He was a forklift driver, not a regional manager or vice president.
After the series ended last week, it became the talk of TikTok, compared to other stories told online that were later adapted, like “Zola” and “Dirty John.” Viewers began suggesting the titles “Legion of Lies” or “Surviving Legion” for the eventual book or Netflix or Lifetime movie that the series would inspire.
Some have asked for “proof of funds” to be placed on goods. (Official T-shirts were announced Tuesday, but they say “I survived the Legion” and “#WhoTFDidIMarry.”) Other commenters said Teesa's dreams deserved to come true: owning a BMW to take the trip to London and Paris you mentioned, tell the story and find an honest, loving partner. (She announced Wednesday that she will be traveling to London and Paris and will be documenting her trip on TikTok.)
“People always say, 'People's attention spans are so short now.' … I actually think it takes more brain power to have to scroll every 10 seconds and process a new face, a new topic, a new caption, a new comment section,” said Coco Mocoe, a 28-year-old podcast host and digital Los Angeles Media Trend Predictor. “People crave the ability to find creators where they can put down their phone, find the video and just put it aside while they listen and brush their teeth or do the dishes.”
After Universal Music Group removed its songs from the platform, TikTok's desire for content that didn't rely on TikTok sounds and pop music grew, Mocoe added.
Fans rooted for Teesa because of her kind and sincere demeanor despite everything she's experienced, said Alex Pearlman, a 39-year-old TikTok creator and stand-up comedian from Philadelphia.
“It also reminds you that it is him [Legion] a person. And that’s rare in a story,” he said. “Usually someone is a villain. And she says, 'No, that's the man I married.'”
Amber Wallin, a 32-year-old comedian, host and podcaster from Los Angeles, made her own comedic video that received millions of views as she questioned her husband in response to the series. Wallin suggested that Teesa's honesty and thorough reasoning for missing warning signs might have helped many viewers sympathize with her rather than condemn her.
“We have all been in a state of despair during the pandemic,” Wallin said. “Who among us didn’t do something ridiculous when we all thought the world was ending?”
With her growing group of supporters, Teesa has become something of a case study for entertainment producers, said Meridith Rojas, 36, co-founder of Los Angeles brand studio Free Electron.
“People want to be on TikTok, so if you give them something they can really get into, they’ll stop scrolling,” Rojas said. “That’s what this creator did.”