UPDATE: Haitian soulful singer, Rutshelle Guillaume and Rap Kreyol artist Roody Rude Boy, slowly but surely started creeping up on to the Haitian music scene as the “it” couple this year. The couple has been featured on many newspapers, radios, TV shows, websites and most recently braced the cover of Ticket Magazine together. Not since Ansy & Yole Derose and Lolo & Manze, have we seen a musical couple in the industry so everybody got really excited really fast and swallowed it up. The relationship turned out to have more similarities than meets the eye and started to feel like Deja vue all over again to those in the know. What some people didn’t know; Yole was abused as well through the most part of her marriage to her since deceased husband, Ansy Derose.
So what went wrong? It all started with an audio that was circulating on social media of Rutshelle cursing out a couple radio personalities for a report they did on her alleging she and then boyfriend Roody Rude Boy had separated due to her infidelity. A voice note of her started circulating where she vigorously denied the break up and even stated the couple was actually getting ready to go to work that morning as she recorded the audio and no such break up had occurred. Fast forward a few weeks later when Roody Rude Boy posted a statement on his social media page stating they were no longer an item however no reason was given as to why at the time. Rutchelle on the other hand went radio silent and even kept her profile picture of the couple until Roody finally started speaking out.
Roody posted on social media he was ready to speak out on the situation that ended the couple’s relationship and had an interview scheduled where he would be putting everything out there. The interview which was supposed to take place on Monday, October 5th ended up being canceled. On the Wednesday morning of that week members of the media received photos of Rutshelle with a badly bruised face and a blood shot eye. According to many media personalities in receipt of that message; Rutchelle sent the photos herself and Roody was the culprit who attacked her in the middle of the night while she slept in a jealous rage. Roody on the other hand said in a later interview that it was Trouble Boy who started the circulation of the photos. After the photos came out; fans, media and basically everybody started taking sides. Victims of domestic violence started speaking out, victims of infidelity started sympathizing with Roody and although most of them stated they didn’t agree with him laying hands on her, they said they understood his frustration.
Roody Rude Boy was threatening to expose Rutshelle’s infidelity with one of his good friends, “Trouble Boy” in an upcoming interview. He alleged he found Whatsapp conversations of the two on her phone which he later released and insinuated there were many other episodes of infidelity throughout their courtship. Roody never publicly denied nor confirmed he abused her until he finally released an apology letter followed by a song titled “Pran Swen li.” In both the apology letter and song he described how hurt he was not by what she did but whom she did it with. He even added a voice note to the track of Trouble Boy saying he’s not serious about her and that their relationship was just of a sexual nature to put it mildly. His apology was short of being genuine, more like an attempt to further humiliate her. Soon after releasing the track he went on a few interviews addressing the situation and finally admitted publicly that he indeed hit her and said it was not in her sleep, like the media previously reported. He stated the relationship was always violent and abusive on many levels.
Rutshelle on the other hand released photos of her working in the studio not bothered by the whole situation. She later on gave an interview and said Roody cheated on her several times in the past and even saw the girls listed on his cell phone under pseudonyms. She implied her actions were justified because as a woman she has a boiling point (paraphrasing) There are minor details we’re sparing you in this article because they’re not merited. However there are some things we need to highlight of the aftermath.
For a few years there’s been campaigns preaching against violence on women in Haiti. The government even took the opportunity to speak out on that. (Although it’s the same government who told a female protester to go fuck herself or to take a man in the bushes and have him do it because she needed penis) This would have been a great opportunity to make an example of how domestic violence would be handled in the country. Every year in Haiti a lot of women die in the hands of their significant others/abusers and no one ever answers to any of those crimes.
Rutshelle’s actions and how she conducted herself after the fact remains very questionable. She tried her best to justify her actions but fell short. The release of the photos of her bruised up face with a big grin on her face were tasteless but we’re going to keep in mind that everybody reacts to trauma differently so we’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and hope and pray she seeks professional help because her heart is badly bruised as well and she needs to fix that before she gets into a new relationship.
Roody we hope seek help as well because it’s never acceptable to raise your hands on any one especially a female.
Trouble Boy we have no words for.
One thing that did come out of this all three of them generated a lot of hits for the media and their social network handles; too bad none of these hits generates income… food for thought.
