INTERVIEW: Ressa Tessa Talks New Book 'What(TF) Do I Do Now?, Life After Going Viral, Finding Self-Love + More

Charlamagne Tha God (0:05)

We gon finish or y'all done?

DJ Envy (0:08)

Morning, everybody, it's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha God, we are The Breakfast Club. Long LaRose is here as well. We got a special guest in the building.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:17)

Yes, indeed.

DJ Envy (0:17)

We have Teresa Johnson. You know her as Ressa Tessa. Welcome.

Teresa Johnson (0:21)

Thank you.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:21)

How you feeling?

Teresa Johnson (0:22)

Thank you, I'm feeling good.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:24)

Is it pronounced Teresa?

Teresa Johnson (0:25)

Yeah.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:26)

Okay. I've never seen Teresa spelled like that.

Teresa Johnson (0:27)

It's sponsored by Percocet. My mother was on Percocet when she came up with that spelling, but yes, Teresa.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:35)

She told you that?

Teresa Johnson (0:36)

No, I just made it up.

Charlamagne Tha God (0:38)

Yeah.

Teresa Johnson (0:38)

Because how else would she come up with that spelling?

Charlamagne Tha God (0:41)

And you have a book out right now. That's right.

DJ Envy (0:43)

The book is What the Fuck Do I Do Now?

Teresa Johnson (0:45)

Yes.

DJ Envy (0:48)

Well, let's start from the beginning.

Jess Hilarious (0:50)

Why wasn't it Who the F Did I Marry after your series?

Charlamagne Tha God (0:52)

Maybe y'all need to back up a little bit and give people some context. I was going to say go to the back.

DJ Envy (0:56)

So about a couple of years, you were trending all over TikTok, and you could break down the reason why.

Teresa Johnson (1:02)

So I did a 50-part series on TikTok called Who the Fuck Did I Marry?

Charlamagne Tha God (1:07)

I watched all 50 parts. Me too.

Teresa Johnson (1:09)

And it basically talked about how I met, dated, married and divorced my ex-husband who turned out, who I believe is a pathological liar.

And so the book, What the F Do I Do Now? It's kind of playing on the F part, but the book is not about the 50-part series. So that's why it's not called Who the F Did I Marry? The book kind of, the way I can explain it, it's like two parts. So part one takes you like the beginning of who I am, the mistakes I made leading up to when I met him. So then you watch the series and then you can start with part two and kind of see all the lessons I learned going viral, business lessons, the toll it took. So the book is way more in-depth than the 50th anniversary.

Charlamagne Tha God (1:57)

You know what's funny? She was micro dramas before micro dramas when you think about it. You know how people swipe to watch the micro dramas? That's what you did with it.

DJ Envy (2:03)

So how did you meet this individual?

Teresa Johnson (2:05)

I met him on Facebook Dating and on Hinge. We really connected on both because he had two different names.

He had two different names and so he had his actual government name and then a nickname on the other and the pictures were different. So that's why I didn't initially...

Charlamagne Tha God (2:24)

So you were talking to both of them, not knowing that they were the same people at one time.

Teresa Johnson (2:26)

Not knowing that they were the same and then he was like, you do know that we met on Facebook. And so we thought we would joke about it. Okay. Not realizing that's actually a red flag, but at the time, you know...

Long LaRose (2:38)

At the time, it felt like Faith just kept bringing it all up together.

Teresa Johnson (2:40)

Yeah, it did. It did.

DJ Envy (2:42)

What was the moment when you knew it was a lie, it was fake, he was a liar? Because a lot of people might not know the story, so break down the story of what happened.

Jess Hilarious (2:50)

Because she knew that he was lying, but you was giving him the benefit of the doubt. You kept on trying to hang in there.

Teresa Johnson (2:56)

I didn't know how deep the lies were, because people lie. I kind of thought it was white lies.

Charlamagne Tha God (3:02)

Yeah.

Teresa Johnson (3:02)

I didn't know I was dealing with pathological lying until after we were married. We got married January 5th.

DJ Envy (3:09)

How long were y'all dating before y'all got married?

Teresa Johnson (3:12)

From March 2020 to January 5th, so almost a year, but not quite a year.

Charlamagne Tha God (3:17)

So it was pretty fast.

Teresa Johnson (3:18)

Because it was all in COVID.