Tisha Campbell is getting candid about the financial hardships she faced during her divorce and how she pushed through without looking back.
In a new interview with The Breakfast Club, the actress opened up about going bankrupt while ending her marriage to Duane Martin, whom she was with from 1996 until 2020. The former couple shares two sons, Xen Whaheed, 23, and Ezekiel Czar, 15.
“The story was I had $21 in my pocket and a knife cost $7 and I wanted to pay for the knife, but it was Christmas and I had a choice to try to get some extra toys for my kids at the Rite Aid or something,” Campbell shared around the 13-minute mark.
When co-host Loren LoRosa asked if closing the bankruptcy case helped her move on, Campbell replied, “I think it’s a lifetime of stuff and I don’t really understand how we went through the bankruptcy, honestly. I was kind of separated from it, so I don’t really know how we got through it, but it really is just taking yourself outside of it and keep it moving forward.”
With both of her kids facing challenges—one with ADHD and the other with autism—Campbell said her focus has always been to keep moving. “I can’t look backwards. I can’t. So I just don’t,” she said.
She also shut down the myth that celebrities are immune to struggle. “I don’t really pay attention to the crowd noise. I can’t, I can’t afford it,” she said. “The way that I look at life, it’s like a football game. Whoever’s on the field running with me and got that ball with me or running the field with me, I’m good.”
“I don’t pay attention to the cheerleaders—those are the fake friends. I don’t pay attention to the crowd noise because they’re there, that’s their job to boo and to cheer. So I can’t pay attention to any of it. I have to just block it out and keep moving forward.”
Per In Touch Weekly, Campbell and Martin originally filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in January 2016. Their case officially closed in July 2024.
