Tanya Young Williams EXCLUSIVE: Mrs. Pilar Sanders
Tanya Young Williams and Pilar Sanders talk Abuse, Divorce and her Arrest: A Battered Woman Fights Back with Her Truth
3 Part Interview with Mrs. Pilar Sanders
by Tanya Young Williams
Part 1: Domestic Violence with an Audience – PrimeTime Style
The life of the professional athlete’s wife is seen as a fairy tale on the outside. For the elite professional sports couple, it’s an extravagant life filled with beautiful homes, luxury cars, designer clothing, fine dining and preferential treatment on a daily basis. Pilar Sanders lived this life style and because the man that proposed to her was the breadwinner, she has been labeled “gold-digger” as their marriage has deteriorated to the point of divorce. Pilar says, “I married Deion because I was so in love with him”.
Pilar Sanders is a native of Upstate New York and attended Syracuse University before accepting a modeling contract during her senior year of school. Soon thereafter she married Deion Sanders. Deion Sanders, also known as, Prime Time, is a Hall of Fame NFL football great had been previously married (he has two children from that marriage). Pilar and Deion have been married for 14 years and are now embroiled in a nasty divorce that is more outrageous and dramatic than their short lived reality show, Primetime Love.
Like any other woman, a woman who marries a professional athlete walks down the aisle filled with the hope that the vows spoken will be kept by both parties and the marriage will last “until death do us part”. Yet, unlike other women, the woman who marries a professional athlete enters a union that is stereotypically riddled with pending infidelity, narcissism, excesses in spending, partying, gambling and other reckless vices. The life is filled with “yes men”, groupies, scores of business associates and leaches also known as “my boys”. The busy, high-profile life of this athlete is filled with constant “people pleasing” outings including, games, charity events, corporate outings, and hundreds of red carpet appearances. Then, there is the social calendar that’s filled with weekend trips with “my boys”, clubbing until all hours of the morning with “my boys” and creating pie-in-the-sky business ventures that fail miserably.
I spoke with Pilar because she wanted to get her side of the story out – finally and completely. Whereas, Pilar believes that many journalists are fans of her husband, she trusted that I would approach this story fairly because of the similarities in our lives. I am also the estranged wife of a former professional athlete; I also experienced domestic violence; and I am also embroiled in a testy divorce. There are two sides to every story, you decide for yourself, who and what you believe.
Pilar claims that Deion “was a good provider not a good father”. However, as of late she claims, he hasn’t been a good provider nor a good father. In fact, in their May 15th court appearance, the judge ordered Deion to pay child support in the sum of $10,500 and to pay $3500 for the mortgage of a home Pilar owns. This arrangement is temporary and will be further addressed in their next court appearance. Pilar’s divorce filings also claim that Deion has been an absentee father with very little interaction with his children prior to March 2012, unless it was sports related. Though she claims to be a very private person, she believes that Deion is receiving special treatment due to his celebrity status. She is only speaking now in response to the media blitz Deion has embarked upon to tarnish her reputation as a woman and as a mother. She says, “I’m not a perfect mom … my main focus is that my children are safe and they continue to be healthy and that they get over this emotionally unscathed as possible.”
As a celebrity spokesperson for the National Domestic Violence Hotline; as one who is often called upon to discuss domestic violence matters on television; and as a victim of domestic violence, I have become very learned in the this area. Domestic violence is emotional, psychological, physical, or sexual abuse of another that you call spouse, partner or family member. Domestic violence also includes financial control. All domestic violence is about power and control. Despite Pilar’s arrest, she claims that she is a victim of repeated domestic violence – physical, emotional, psychological and financial – at the hands of her estranged husband Deion.
Q: What information is in the media that you would like to address or correct?
A: That he (Deion) attacked me on the 23rd. I never attacked him. He choked me. It wasn’t the first time. He is a violent person. Anything that you see him say, my goodness, count it as a lie. I’m flabbergasted every time I see him do another media piece. Its sickening.”
Q: You’ve stated that Deion has abused you in the past. In what ways?
A: Many ways. Financially it started before Christmas and continues until today. He just stopped providing for the family. He cut credit cards. He cut financial support … No resources at all, whatsoever. Even when we’re still in the house, my daughter would beg for clothes, he wouldn’t buy her any clothes. It would come to a point where she would say, dad will you get me a sandwich from Subway and he would be like, no – that’s a five dollar sandwich. He would tell her go ask your mommy. What he would try to do was use every piece of leverage he could ever get a hold of and try to use against me and try to turn the children against me. So what he was telling the kids was that basically, if you stay with me I can provide for you, your mother doesn’t have money, you’re not going to be able to get clothes, you wont be able to get food, who knows what type of place you will be at, but here, you will have everything you need and want.
Q: The court gave you temporary custody of your daughter and gave him your sons. What’s the “father-daughter” relationship like?
A: There is no interaction with my daughter … She wanted to start dancing again. So I said “okay we will start dancing.” She asked her dad if he would pay for dance lessons or ballet shoes or tap shoes or anything at all and he refused. He would say no ask your mother. Knowing very well that he set up our family so that he would be the sole provider and that’s what he wanted. He got much pleasure out of seeing disappointment in my children’s eyes when they would ask how is mommy supposed to get this and that and you are not giving her any money.
Q: Has there been physical abuse from him in the past?
A: Yes, there has on more than one occasion. And he’s done it in front of people. He did it in front of two of our producers on our show, Primetime Love … It’s so idiotic and its funny and its not funny. During the shooting of it, I have a very light personality, with that, there were a lot of parts that were just naturally funny and it just kinda happened. So he called shooting down and he called a meeting with myself and two producers from Los Angeles and we went to our back room where the sitting area is – he said “there has to be a good cop and a bad cop and there is only one comedian here and the comedian is me.” I just started laughing and said, “Oh my God you are ridiculous” and I say, “I can’t help it if I’m funnier than you”. Then he leaped across the table and grabbed my neck and squeezed it to the point that I thought that he poked a hole in my trachea. The two producers didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t get him off of me. They couldn’t do anything so I started kicking him in his groin. That’s the only thing that got him off of me … There were other times when he grabbed me and ripped jewelry … When he was verbally abusive, I didn’t recognize it as abuse. I took his nasty behavior as his personality, I just thought he was a really mean jerk. He was just rude to people because he’s rude to a lot more people than me.
Deion Sanders denies any physical abuse towards his estranged wife and is unaware of the incidents she cites. He also asserts that he has always wanted the prenuptial agreement to stand, thus he did not offer Pilar the assets, excluding the house, and custody of the children. Deion’s representatives have stressed that he loves his children equally and prides himself on being a good father.
Saturday, May 19th Part 2: The Divorce – A 19 year old woman, PacMan Jones and Social Media
Saturday, May 19th Part 3: “The War of the Roses” at the Sanders mansion