Strangers rallied behind Akira Montague when she took on a lady in court whom she had believed was certainly one of her closest pals.
Montague, a 27-year-old mom of two, won a $1.75 million judgment this month in opposition to the TikTok influencer Brenay Kennard, after accusing Kennard of getting an affair with Montague’s now-former husband, Tim Montague. A North Carolina jury discovered Kennard responsible for alienation of affection and prison dialog — that’s, for breaking apart the wedding and having adulterous intercourse — in one of many six remaining states the place a partner can nonetheless sue a 3rd get together for violating a wedding.
Akira Montague’s supporters celebrated the decision in the courtroom, with a few of them in tears because the plaintiff embraced the influencer Regina Terry, who posts as BlackGoddess82 on TikTok.
“It was like a moment of waiting to exhale,” Terry informed NCS, her voice cracking with emotion. “In that moment it was like a moment of relief that I helped somebody get their truth out.”
Terry was a part of a gaggle of principally Black feminine TikTok influencers who amplified Montague’s story on the platform. They had spent greater than a yr following developments in her case, with many posting new particulars in regards to the damaged marriage and lawsuit as they emerged. Some of them traveled from different states to cowl the trial. They posted updates earlier than and after every day’s testimony and throughout the breaks, giving the occasion the type of salacious Hollywood-style social-media protection that went with the Johnny Depp–Amber Heard libel trial.
Along the best way, what started as a parasocial relationship advanced right into a little bit of a sisterhood among the many influencers, which led to them sharing data and coordinating their actions with one another. More than certainly one of them caught the second throughout in the future of testimony when Montague, who adopted her legal professional’s recommendation to not converse publicly, walked by as they had been filming and paused so their followers might see she was in good spirits.
Montague was effectively conscious of the group due to their assist each on and offline. Terry publicized a GoFundMe web page to lift cash for Montague’s authorized charges and acquired bikes for Montague’s youngsters.
“All of the content creators, we met for the first time and we have been so close ever since,” stated Tierra Johnson, generally known as Barbie on TikTok, who traveled from her dwelling in Houston to see the trial. “We have a lot of supporters and covering this case has changed my life.”
Kennard, who testified that Akira Montague knew in regards to the relationship and had permitted it, informed NCS affiliate WRAL that the lawsuit “was nothing but lies.” Kennard and Tim Montague married this yr. She didn’t reply to NCS’s additional requests for remark.
Online, viewers criticized most of the influencers for being too concerned in the personal lives of individuals they didn’t know. Quanolia Phillips, identified on TikTok as Big Show, informed NCS that for her the case was “personal” as she too had dealt with infidelity in a previous relationship.
“I’m like this shouldn’t happen and it just go unseen, unheard of, because so many of us don’t voice when this thing has happened to us,” she stated. “We’re too ashamed or too embarrassed so we just write it off.”
“It was brought to social media for us to see it, and it started on social media,” Phillips stated. “And I’m a true believer if we do not want something out there, you would not put it on social media.”
Kennard launched her TikTok account in 2020 and now has shut to three million followers on the app, in addition to audiences on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat. She initially grew to become generally known as a Christian influencer — her Facebook intro nonetheless reads in half “God + Lifestyle + snapchat.” Then she morphed right into a extra worldly influencer, exhibiting off her elaborately designed faux nails or consuming giant quantities of meals she whipped up, in addition to quick meals (those that comply with her know her fondness for Chipotle), on digicam for the video style generally known as Mukbang.
But it was her large bosom, on show as she danced braless in one video with her additionally well-endowed twin sister Karrin, that caught many individuals’s consideration. “I think what interested everybody was that her style and her nails and everything was so over the top. And also, of course, her and her twin had the massive chests,” stated Cherish Young, one of many influencers who traveled to cowl the trial. “So it made the content just, like, ‘Well, who are they?’ You know, it was hard not to look at, but it was also the confidence of it and just her being very open and honest about ‘Hey, this is my body and I don’t care.’ She was a bubbly personality.”
Kennard’s early movies confirmed her spending time with Devon Mayo, whom she married in May 2021. She referred to him as “bae,” whereas posting loving tributes and movies of her cooking for him. Her movies ultimately started to incorporate Mayo’s cousin Tim Montague, and Montague’s spouse, Akira. They had been married since 2018.
In 2023, Kennard posted a number of movies of the 2 20-something {couples} doing issues like happening double dates and usually having enjoyable collectively. Yet some followers started to notice that Tim Montague and Kennard, who had identified one another since highschool, seemed to be very shut. In some movies Kennard gave the impression to be paying extra consideration to Montague than to her husband.
“All of a sudden we saw Timothy Montague coming into the picture, which we weren’t exactly sure why it was her, Timothy, and Devon,” stated Leah Williams, an influencer who goes by “CaramelLove07” on TikTok. “Then we looked up one day and she had made a video saying, ‘I am divorced.’”
That was in February 2024, and Young stated Kennard disregarded questions on her relationship with Tim Montague, saying he was her “manager.” The pair began making movies solely collectively and it grew to become fairly obvious that they had been romantically concerned.
In May 2024, Akira Montague filed go well with in opposition to Kennard, alleging that Kennard had used their friendship to seduce Montague’s husband. The go well with alleged that Kennard would overtly flirt with Tim Montague and that the 2 had even engaged in intercourse in the Montagues’ marital dwelling.
On her TikTok account, Kennard documented her relationship with Tim Montague, which began as the 2 typically playfully cavorting whereas in the presence of their respective spouses earlier than it grew to become simply the 2 of them. Once Akira Montague filed her go well with, in May 2024, Kennard started to submit extra in regards to the case, insisting that her former buddy’s narrative was to not be believed and that the “truth” could be revealed as soon as the trial occurred, although she didn’t provide specifics as to what that could be.
Akira Montague informed NCS that if she’d had her method, the case would have been utterly personal.
“I told my attorney, I don’t know about this. Like, I don’t want it connected to my kids. Can we see about getting a document sealed?” Montague stated. “And that wasn’t something that the opposing party wanted.”
Instead, the scenario grew to become a sensation in the short-form video world — as did the private historical past behind it. In an August 2024 TikTok, Mayo revealed that he and Kennard weren’t truly legally divorced but, shared that she had dated Tim Montague in highschool and that he had additionally been concerned in the previous with her twin sister.
Mayo additionally reportedly shared these particulars as a part of his testimony throughout the trial.
NCS has reached out to Karrin Kennard, Brenay’s twin sister, for remark.
Montague opted to not converse publicly throughout the authorized proceedings. As Kennard saved publishing content material about her facet of the go well with, profitable some supporters, different influencers say they had been impressed to function Montague’s voice, utilizing their accounts to behave as citizen journalists.
Phillips did certainly one of her first movies about the entire scenario in May, after Terry hosted a TikTok Live about it, throughout which Kennard, Mayo and Tim Montague joined the stream and turned it into an explosive argument. “I felt like I was Team Akira,” Phillips stated. “And I was also fighting for her in a way I did not fight for myself.”
Young, who traveled from Augusta, Georgia, for the trial, stated there was a shared sentiment among the many influencers that Kennard was bullying Montague, flaunting her relationship with Tim Montague in her face and trying to regulate the narrative by way of her posts on TikTok and Snapchat. Young tried to inject a number of the levity she often makes use of on TikTok into the movies she made main as much as the case, and he or she spent the trial delivering crudely drawn “court sketches,” which grew to become fashionable throughout the trial.
She is totally conscious, nonetheless, of how severe the case was for Akira Montague.
“I just hate bullying and I felt like the truth needed to come out,” Young stated. “I think that’s why my videos did so well, because I did bring humor to a situation that actually was very tragic and sad.”
“This man abandoned his children,” she added. “You know, a family was ruined, two marriages were ruined. It was actually a very sad situation.”
Katlyn Alexis, aka Lexi on TikTok, stated the scene within the courtroom was “intense,” particularly given Akira Montague’s ache over the betrayal. “It was a lot of emotions, like so many emotions,” Alexis informed NCS. “By day three, everyone was in there crying.”
“For them not to know me personally, but to stand up for me when I wasn’t able to stand up for myself, I really appreciated that,” Montague stated.
The courtroom victory didn’t deliver the story to an finish. Montague additionally has an ongoing prison cyberstalking case in opposition to Kennard, whose legal professional declined to touch upon the case.
Terry, with whom Montague shared that hug, stated she has been doxed and has acquired loss of life threats in opposition to her and her 12-year-old daughter from followers of Kennard due to her assist of Montague, however she has no regrets.
“I didn’t have any expectancy of me even having a conversation with her, and we haven’t had a conversation, but that hug was everything for me,” Terry stated. “And it was worth everything that I went through.”