Black Ink Crew’s Ceaser Emanuel sought professional help after VH1 fired him for abusing a dog in a viral video.
Ceaser revealed he went to therapy to address his dog abuse in an interview with WGCI 107.5 in Chicago. The Black Ink Crew boss believed his unresolved trauma led to the violent outburst that got him fired.
“Honestly, I was going through a lot,” he said. “I don’t want to make no excuses but that was during COVID. [The] situation with my daughter just happened. My mind was going all over the place. I didn’t know how much stuff I was going through until after this dog situation I got therapy.”
He continued, “I didn’t know … how much loss, how many people died and I just kept working and kept building. I never really got to heal or anything … I done lost a lot of things.”
Ceaser tried to power through his issues for years, particularly while he was starring in Black Ink Crew. But everything came crashing down for him with the dog abuse scandal.
“Being on TV, sometimes you just get caught up in the machine that you don’t really get to mend anything that you going through,” he said. “So, you walking around with wounds that’s just open. And you trying to be a man – men ain’t supposed to cry, men ain’t supposed to do this – you not understanding you doing more damage to yourself than anything. And I feel like that moment just defined that I needed help.”
He added, “And that’s what I did … I ain’t alright. That s### shouldn’t have happened. I’m more intelligent and more sure than that. And that couple of seconds basically cost me a lot.”
Listen to the full interview below. Ceaser begins talking about therapy around the 12-minute mark.