Shayanna Jenkins Hernandez, the fiancee of the late Aaron Hernandez, sat down with Dr. Phil for her first public comments since Hernandez committed suicide in late April. The interview will air in two parts next Monday and Tuesday, but here are a few comments from the conversation.
Shayanna Jenkins
In the interview, Shayanna said that she had no idea her childhood sweetheart had plans to hang himself in his jail cell, despite his suicide letter which said that he told her “what was coming indirectly.”
“I felt like we were looking so bright. We were going up a ladder to a positive direction,” Shayanna said of their last conversation.
Shayanna also said she didn’t believe it at first when someone called to tell her Hernandez had committed suicide because he appeared so optimistic when they last spoke.
“I thought it was a hoax, that this was some cruel person playing a joke on me,” she said.
Hernandez took his own life on April 19, five days after he was acquitted in the double murder of Daniel Jorge Correia de Abreu, 29, and Safiro Teixeira Furtado, 28, in 2012.
Hernandez was photographed blowing a kiss to Shayanna and their four-year-old daughter it what would be the last time he would ever see them in person again.
Dr. Phil also asked Shayanna about the theory that Hernandez killed himself so that she could collect the remainder of his contract with the New England Patriots. New England released Hernandez when he was arrested for the murder of Odin Lloyd in 2013 and it’s estimated that he had around $6 million in salary and signing bonus left to be paid. On Tuesday, a judge vacated Hernandez’s murder conviction as he died before exhausting all of his appeal opportunities, opening the door for a possible lawsuit against the Patriots to collect the remaining money.
The Dr. Phil interview will also reportedly explore the rumor that Hernandez had a “purported secret romantic life” in prison with inmate Kyle Kennedy.
