Nov. 15, 2025
A TikTok Influencer Owes Her Husband’s Ex-Wife Nearly $2 Million For Stealing Him From Her
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RSS Feed North Carolina is one of 7 states that has an Alienation of Affection Law, which allows a spouse to sue a third party when they can prove they had a loving marriage until that third party maliciously seduced their spouse. The wronged party doesn’t even have to prove there was an extramarital sexual affair… it is solely about someone stealing a partner’s affection, that leads to the destruction of a marriage. Amy and T.J. go over the fascinating facts of this case and bring up one of the most famous examples of someone attempting to use the law against an American Idol alum.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks, it is Saturday, November the fifteenth, and this week huge headline that a woman was ordered to pay one point seven five million dollars and who does she have to pay it to? The woman whose husband she allegedly stole with that, Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ ropes. This is making more headlines, yes, because of that, but also a TikTok influencer, I guess a pretty influential one is involved in this story. But the story was everywhere this week.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this was crazy TikTok influencer Brene Canard, and she has almost three million followers. So yes, she is consequential, certainly given just her reach. But she is now married to Tim Montague. The problem was he used to be married to a Kira Montague and Kira says that Brene stole her husband and a jury agreed and awarded that astronomical amount of money as an award settlement.
00:01:10
Speaker 1: Well, folks are scratching their head. You're hearing it right. Yes, a woman whose husband ended up in a relationship with another woman sued the quote unquote mistress and she won. Now a lot of people here then go, what the hell was going on a lot of people here, then go wait, this sounds familiar. These laws have been around for a long time, but not in a lot of places, and North Carolina still has it on the books, Brot.
00:01:35
Speaker 3: Honestly it is.
00:01:37
Speaker 2: I did some deep diving on this one because I hadn't heard of this. You mentioned a famous case which we will get into, where it came to your attention, alienation of affection that is on the books in North Carolina and six other states. So there are seven states in this country that still continue that. I but since you said, yeahwa, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah. And the interesting thing is when I go, yeah, when I started googling it, basically this used to be common practice, but every other state has abolished, like took the extra step of banning or abolishing this law, taking it off of basically their books.
00:02:27
Speaker 3: In each other state.
00:02:30
Speaker 2: It was rooted in this notion that mostly it was women who were considered property of women. So if another man came and stole your wife, he stole your property, so to speak. So there was a way to basically have some way to make someone pay for stealing your property.
00:02:47
Speaker 3: That was what it was rooted.
00:02:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you're talking about rooted in ancient times. As it goes back to ancient times in certain parts of Europe, I believe it was where you could actually kill. You were allowed to kill the man who slept with your wife. Now it evolved over time to become something where you could be compensated, because as we know, it's not necessarily always the case here. Now it's supposed to be love and romance, and you do it because you're sparing your soulmate. But these are business transactions in a lot of ways and have been historically. So, yeah, your property is lost, you're losing something. You need to compensate me for it so I can go now purchase a new wife. That is what we're talking about. That stuff made its way to the United States in different forms, but this country for a long time, just about everybody had one on the book career, every state.
00:03:32
Speaker 2: And just for the mere fact that forty three states have taken this off of their books says a lot about what this law is.
00:03:41
Speaker 3: I was surprised.
00:03:42
Speaker 2: I mean, this is obviously, like you said, an ancient law, so to speak. It's antiquated at the very least. So it's fascinating and frankly a little shocking to see it actually play out and have someone oh one woman, oh another woman almost two million dollars right now.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: We're saying it this way, but it can be a man owing another man. This can go both ways. And that was a part of what they thought was equality, if you will, Robes, because he came about that's saying, hey, if it's good for this side, it's good for that side. So yes, the woman can sue, the man can sue. So this was supposed to be it was supposed to be something well, this was supposed to be progressive, if you will, back in the day that women could also.
00:04:25
Speaker 3: Oh the irony. Okay, yeah.
00:04:27
Speaker 2: So basically, this law allows a spouse to file a lawsuit against a third party if they believe that person caused the other spouse to end their marriage. My problem with this is literally, there is no culpability for the person who was in the marriage who broke the contract of marriage. Isn't that what divorce settlements are all about. Isn't that what those remedies allow for. So it's interesting to me that in this specific case, the husband who's was just as much a part of all of this literally gets out of this without any sort of scolding or financial responsibility. I mean, I know he's married to her now, so I guess they're going to share that financial burden.
00:05:12
Speaker 3: But it's still like, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
00:05:15
Speaker 1: Well, you cannot, and the law does not allow for the spouse to soothe the spouse, So the spouse can't. You're getting divorced from someone, So we're gonna do with all of our back and forth and how we're splitting up finances, and I all that back and forth is there. You can't then tell your spouse, well, you cheated on me, so now I can sue you elsewhere that's not allowed.
00:05:37
Speaker 4: So the spouse who was cheated on.
00:05:39
Speaker 1: Your only option for going after somebody is the person you think alienated the affection of your spouse. And it's very specific. It's fairly hard to prove. It comes up more often than you would think, but you have to meet certain criteria and one of those number one roads. And I don't know how hard this is for most people, to prove that you had a solid, committed, loving, real marriage to begin with.
00:06:06
Speaker 2: Yes, that had to be the case, and this other person literally, through malicious intent, seduced your partner into leaving the marriage.
00:06:16
Speaker 3: And that is a part of it.
00:06:17
Speaker 2: And so when you start reading the details of what allegedly happened in this case, you could see they clearly laid this out. I do want to point out it was a little gross in researching this and googling it, seeing attorneys and law firms, and I get this is the business they are in.
00:06:32
Speaker 3: But they said, you know, considering.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: A divorce or in the middle of a divorce, did you know about this law, and almost incentivizing financially incentivizing people who were in the middle of a divorce to see if this law applied to their situation and whether or not they could sue, Like encouraging people to be litigious if there was some sort of extramarital affair.
00:06:54
Speaker 1: What do we call it on the street. You call them ambulance chasers. Yes, okay, this is just in different form.
00:07:01
Speaker 4: That's all. They don't.
00:07:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're recruiting their advertising saying yes, yes, yes, this is possible. And again how difficult that is to prove because you had a loving marriage and then this person. This isn't just about cheating, it's not.
00:07:15
Speaker 3: You don't even have to have had sex, and yep.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: So this is not a about sex, is not it. You have to prove that your marriage diminished from the loving thing that it was to something else and it was directly this other person's.
00:07:28
Speaker 3: Fault, and it was of malicious intent.
00:07:30
Speaker 2: Right. So, in this particular case, Akira Montague's husband, Tim Montague, was Brenee Canard's manager, and Brenee, of course, is the TikTok influencer who has nearly three million followers. Akira accused Brene of engaging quote in behavior designed to seduce her husband, and she listed what she claims Brenee did, including wearing short skirts, bending over in front of her husband with said short skirt on or belief flirting with him and this is actually specifically referenced, flicking her tongue to expose her tongue rings in a flirtatious manner.
00:08:09
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean those are specific things. Someone flirted with someone who was not available, and that is wrong. And it's amazing to hear those things listed as evidence.
00:08:19
Speaker 2: That exactly, and that was the evidence that was in addition to the fact that she said Canard used the personal information she gained from their friendship to seduce her husband, and she said that Canard and her husband exchanged numerous sexual videos and text messages and met in the Montague's marital home making these videos.
00:08:44
Speaker 3: In fact, I believe she found one of the videos, and that is.
00:08:47
Speaker 2: How she knew or first realized that her husband was no longer interested as much in her. In fact, she said that her husband began to withdraw emotionally from her as a direct result of Yard's seduction, and then she also went on to say that he began concealing his financial matters and expenses. I'm quoting this, including hiding the many outings, dates, transactions, and payments involving Canard.
00:09:13
Speaker 1: You're proving a relationship, but you still have to approve. You have to connect these dots, and apparently she was able to do it, or at least able to do it enough that a.
00:09:22
Speaker 4: This is a jury.
00:09:23
Speaker 3: Yes, it was a jury of her peers.
00:09:25
Speaker 4: Able to prove this enough? How you do that in court?
00:09:29
Speaker 1: I would be fascinated to watch one of these, but to prove that the marriage suffered the emotion you lost emotionally and it was directly this person's fault. Again, you spoke about the sex thing that can happen, and two people never engaged in an affair, never engaged in a physical a sexual affair, you could still be sued for alienation of affection.
00:09:50
Speaker 2: I have to tell you this is the first I have ever heard of this, and you mentioned there is another famous case.
00:09:55
Speaker 3: But here's what.
00:09:55
Speaker 2: Canard was actually found liad before engaging in criminal conver sation with Tim Montague, an alienation of affection during his marriage. That is, that was the allegation, and that is what she found. Was found liable.
00:10:10
Speaker 1: For criminal conversation. I don't know why they call it that. It's a bizarre term to use, if you will, but what we're talking about sex, that's what they call it. They had criminal conversation. It's not sex. It's just sex, that's all it means.
00:10:26
Speaker 4: But it was an interesting way to put it there.
00:10:28
Speaker 2: Oooh yes, And so she actually the penalty for criminal conversation was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and then she got another one point five million in damages for the actual alienation of affection.
00:10:42
Speaker 3: Who that was an expensive well, second marriage, I guess for that.
00:10:47
Speaker 4: But what is Canard? She?
00:10:50
Speaker 1: Of course she had a response to this. I thought the response was bizarre. I didn't exactly understand it. But also we didn't get too much into this. She was, she was out there. She wasn't hiding that she was involved with this guy. That was the part I didn't quite piece together that.
00:11:05
Speaker 3: Well, well, she did not.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: It took her a while to admit that this was going on, that she was even in a relationship with him before she was confronted. And then I will say the two of them actually got married pretty quickly after their divorce was final because she she had been further complicating this, Canard had been married to Montague's cousin, so there was a lot of legs to.
00:11:31
Speaker 3: All of this.
00:11:33
Speaker 2: Specifically, and certainly she had to pay the price, and she's claiming she'll never pay it. She said she'll never get paid. That was part of her response. Good luck getting this money from me.
00:11:45
Speaker 4: I don't know.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: That means you appeal and I don't know how this eventually goes.
00:11:49
Speaker 4: You know what?
00:11:50
Speaker 1: This is what happens. And the reason I know this is because I was recently watching an OJ Simpson documentary to where they the family of Ron Goldwin were awarded all this money, they said, yet we're awarded it, but there's no follow up from the court to make sure it comes to us.
00:12:05
Speaker 4: I just heard this.
00:12:06
Speaker 1: There's nothing necessarily holding anybody responsible for paying that money. So maybe that's it, and that.
00:12:15
Speaker 4: Just came in.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: Well, you look at like even go to an extreme case of OJ Simpson being found, like you said, libel in the civil case, the family members of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman had never got a penny ever, like, not one cent from OJ Simpson because even though he was told he owed them X amount of dollars, he just found ways of making money in other ways, through property, through whatever, so he never ended up having to actually make that payment to them. And that's certainly what it seems like, maybe the case right now with Cannard for sure. So we mentioned that there was another famous case. Do you all remember American idol Alum and certainly a singing phenom phantas just goes by Fantasia, She was involved in a very similar or the threat of a very similar lawsuit in the exact same state of North Carolina. When we come back, we'll tell you all about that and welcome back and continuing our conversation on this alienation of affection law that is on the books in seven states, including the state of North Carolina. And we have obviously this recent case with a TikTok star and her now husband being the ex wife of her now husband, being awarded one point seventy five million dollars because the jury believed that this TikTok influencer, Brene Canard seduced her husband, literally stole her husband from her, and so she was awarded one point seven five million dollars. Back in twenty ten, Fantasia of American idol fame was threatened to be sued by her then boyfriend's wife soon to be ex wife, Paula Cook, and reportedly Fantasia offered her one hundred thousand dollars just to make it all go away, and Paula Cook said, uh uh, that's not good enough, and she had plans, she said, to move forward and sue Fantasa. You remembered this story from way back when I did not, Oh, ye.
00:14:27
Speaker 1: As well, I first got familiar with this and she was, I mean that many years ago. She was again cobviously she's a superstar, but she was still at the height of a lot of her post American idol stardom around that time, and this was a tough It was a why do I remember this from It's around the time she was doing color purple on stage because I was working with her and dealing with her at that time, and this might have been why I got familiar with it. But it's a it was an ugly, ugly hit. It may just sounds awful when you hear those details, but her story was one the other person couldn't prove a lot of those details. The criteria that you need to prove alienation of affection.
00:15:07
Speaker 2: To your point, it's a tough thing to prove. So Paula Cook, this was a messy divorce between Paula Cook and her then husband, Antwin Cook. So they're in the middle of their divorce proceedings and she says, I she announced to everyone that she was going to sue Fantasia for alienation of affection because she said that Fantasia was the reason why her husband was leaving her and going on with Fantasia. Now, Fantasia had claimed she initially didn't even know that he was married. She knew that he was married, but she thought they were separated and that they were already living a part that she wasn't doing anything untoward. And turns out the judge in that divorce case ruled that Antoine Cook was in fact separated from his wife before he and Fantasia started dating. So the date in which they began dating and the date in which this marriage was good or not good played a huge to the point that it had. You have to prove that your marriage was in a good place when this happened.
00:16:06
Speaker 1: You know another part of this, I'm not sure. I don't think we did mention that you also have to you have to prove that the person outside your marriage was actually aware that.
00:16:17
Speaker 4: You were married.
00:16:19
Speaker 1: Right, it's if you didn't know any said he was single and no, you can't be health appul filmed.
00:16:24
Speaker 3: And that makes a tremendous amount of sense.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: So yeah, the court determined, I don't know how you figured out that Fantasia's then boyfriend and his wife were separated in September of the year before versus June of twenty ten, which she was claiming. So they were arguing at what point they were separated, at what point their marriage went sour. It's I'm amazed when you look and see the week's this week's decision by this jury that they were able or that she was able to prove that her marriage was good.
00:16:55
Speaker 3: How do you prove that to a jury.
00:16:59
Speaker 4: I wish I wish we'd have got ensued.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: I would love to have gone to court and proven our case. It's something we never got to do, and you can't do it in the court of public opinion. But these things, look, people have, Look, marriages and break up all these things can be messy. And North Carolina gives your way to make it even messier if you will, at least from a public standpoint. Look, that woman felt she was wrong. She has the right to do what she did, period point point. That's nothing else to talk about it. Should we still have these laws on the books. That's to be debated, potentially, but they're there in some places. They it's bizarre. They just seem bizarre to think that anyone could steal something from you. It's not yours, right, We're still talking about people and oftentimes women, as property of some kind.
00:17:47
Speaker 4: It's it's it's bizarre.
00:17:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in this case, it was the man who basically is being regarded as a piece of property. You took what was mine I guess I just take issue with the whole concept of a relationship that anyone is someone else's property, or that your mind or that I'm yours. We can choose to be together, we can choose to make different decisions based on what's best for us, and yes, you may have to deal with the messiness of divorce and pay the price of that. But to actually have a judgment against you but not the other person, it takes two to tango, like the whole thing, the idea that and I think this is what's so funny in the idea of as you mentioned equality, that women could then use this law for their own purposes. I do find it a little disturbing because it goes back to that old playbook that so many I've always I've always been uncomfortable with this concept that somehow a woman's going to be upset at the other woman instead of being upset at her own husband.
00:18:48
Speaker 3: If that's who made.
00:18:49
Speaker 2: The value you, that's who went into a contract with you, a legally binding contract with you. That is the person who I feel like you betrayed you in the sense that you that's the person who vowed to be with him.
00:19:02
Speaker 1: Does it feel like it takes some responsibility off the spouse. Yes, by saying, well, he just couldn't help himself. He was just pressured into that. No, really, it seems in this case that's the argument that's being made.
00:19:17
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating to me that these laws are on the books in some states.
00:19:23
Speaker 3: It's fascinating to me that a jury actually awarded this woman that much money.
00:19:29
Speaker 1: Oh shit, Oh, I didn't forgot to mention. This is not even close. There was another one in North Carolina. A woman got thirty million. There was a thirty million dollar case. I don't think it was that long ago. I believe it was twenty eleven. Forgive me, but I don't have that right. But it's not that long ago. She was married to a guy who was like a trucking company tycoon or something. There sue this other woman. Sure nough thirty million dollar ward. Also in North Carolina, Fletcher Cox, I think it was his name, NFL player. This was more recent. I think it was twenty eighteen. They settled out of court, but a guy sued him saying that he was having an affair with the wife, and the NFL player got Yeah. In North Carolina. Wow, Yeah, thirty million. That is what I forgot about that.
00:20:11
Speaker 2: And you know what, It's funny because when you look at the states, when you google where this is still a legal course of action in all the states, it just says recognizes, recognizes, recognizes this law. North Carolina, it adds, recognized this alienation of affection and is one of the states.
00:20:27
Speaker 3: Where it is still frequently litigated.
00:20:29
Speaker 2: So for whatever reason, maybe it's the attorneys in North Carolina who understand this is an avenue where people can seek some sort of financial They can reclaim some sort of financial gain because of what happened to them or are wrong that they believe was done to them. This is an avenue where you can say, hey, yes, I can financially get some money. And obviously the lawyers line their pockets at the same time.
00:20:52
Speaker 1: But you call I mean for the people on that side. Well, the woman who whoever whatever she might have gone through a cure at Montague, Yes, what she went to look if she feels she was in a loving relationship, she feels that her husband in that relationship would still be good and solid had this other person not entered their lives. And I don't know, we think about you said the vow, and I guess that's right. I'm trying to find some way of being on the side of the law in North Carolina.
00:21:22
Speaker 4: I'm trying to.
00:21:22
Speaker 1: Find a way to go okay, that there is value in doing it this way. I'm struggling with that, but I don't want to take away from what she's been she's been through and feels. But if you can understand and respect and honor how she feels, it doesn't also necessarily mean you need to give her two million dollars from the person outside of America.
00:21:43
Speaker 2: And I just think I would also just want to end with the perspective that there is a reason why the majority of states in this nation chose to get.
00:21:53
Speaker 3: Rid of this law.
00:21:54
Speaker 2: For whatever reasons, each individual state had to get rid of it. But there are only yes, seven and states in this country where you can sue for this this uh seemingly art well, it's not seemingly archaic law that is modern and certainly paying out in.
00:22:12
Speaker 3: This specific case in North Carolina. Who knew? At least I didn't. But with that hope you learned something. Everyone. I may be robot alongside TJ. Holmes. We will talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks, it is Saturday, November the fifteenth, and this week huge headline that a woman was ordered to pay one point seven five million dollars and who does she have to pay it to? The woman whose husband she allegedly stole with that, Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ ropes. This is making more headlines, yes, because of that, but also a TikTok influencer, I guess a pretty influential one is involved in this story. But the story was everywhere this week.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this was crazy TikTok influencer Brene Canard, and she has almost three million followers. So yes, she is consequential, certainly given just her reach. But she is now married to Tim Montague. The problem was he used to be married to a Kira Montague and Kira says that Brene stole her husband and a jury agreed and awarded that astronomical amount of money as an award settlement.
00:01:10
Speaker 1: Well, folks are scratching their head. You're hearing it right. Yes, a woman whose husband ended up in a relationship with another woman sued the quote unquote mistress and she won. Now a lot of people here then go, what the hell was going on a lot of people here, then go wait, this sounds familiar. These laws have been around for a long time, but not in a lot of places, and North Carolina still has it on the books, Brot.
00:01:35
Speaker 3: Honestly it is.
00:01:37
Speaker 2: I did some deep diving on this one because I hadn't heard of this. You mentioned a famous case which we will get into, where it came to your attention, alienation of affection that is on the books in North Carolina and six other states. So there are seven states in this country that still continue that. I but since you said, yeahwa, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah. And the interesting thing is when I go, yeah, when I started googling it, basically this used to be common practice, but every other state has abolished, like took the extra step of banning or abolishing this law, taking it off of basically their books.
00:02:27
Speaker 3: In each other state.
00:02:30
Speaker 2: It was rooted in this notion that mostly it was women who were considered property of women. So if another man came and stole your wife, he stole your property, so to speak. So there was a way to basically have some way to make someone pay for stealing your property.
00:02:47
Speaker 3: That was what it was rooted.
00:02:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you're talking about rooted in ancient times. As it goes back to ancient times in certain parts of Europe, I believe it was where you could actually kill. You were allowed to kill the man who slept with your wife. Now it evolved over time to become something where you could be compensated, because as we know, it's not necessarily always the case here. Now it's supposed to be love and romance, and you do it because you're sparing your soulmate. But these are business transactions in a lot of ways and have been historically. So, yeah, your property is lost, you're losing something. You need to compensate me for it so I can go now purchase a new wife. That is what we're talking about. That stuff made its way to the United States in different forms, but this country for a long time, just about everybody had one on the book career, every state.
00:03:32
Speaker 2: And just for the mere fact that forty three states have taken this off of their books says a lot about what this law is.
00:03:41
Speaker 3: I was surprised.
00:03:42
Speaker 2: I mean, this is obviously, like you said, an ancient law, so to speak. It's antiquated at the very least. So it's fascinating and frankly a little shocking to see it actually play out and have someone oh one woman, oh another woman almost two million dollars right now.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: We're saying it this way, but it can be a man owing another man. This can go both ways. And that was a part of what they thought was equality, if you will, Robes, because he came about that's saying, hey, if it's good for this side, it's good for that side. So yes, the woman can sue, the man can sue. So this was supposed to be it was supposed to be something well, this was supposed to be progressive, if you will, back in the day that women could also.
00:04:25
Speaker 3: Oh the irony. Okay, yeah.
00:04:27
Speaker 2: So basically, this law allows a spouse to file a lawsuit against a third party if they believe that person caused the other spouse to end their marriage. My problem with this is literally, there is no culpability for the person who was in the marriage who broke the contract of marriage. Isn't that what divorce settlements are all about. Isn't that what those remedies allow for. So it's interesting to me that in this specific case, the husband who's was just as much a part of all of this literally gets out of this without any sort of scolding or financial responsibility. I mean, I know he's married to her now, so I guess they're going to share that financial burden.
00:05:12
Speaker 3: But it's still like, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
00:05:15
Speaker 1: Well, you cannot, and the law does not allow for the spouse to soothe the spouse, So the spouse can't. You're getting divorced from someone, So we're gonna do with all of our back and forth and how we're splitting up finances, and I all that back and forth is there. You can't then tell your spouse, well, you cheated on me, so now I can sue you elsewhere that's not allowed.
00:05:37
Speaker 4: So the spouse who was cheated on.
00:05:39
Speaker 1: Your only option for going after somebody is the person you think alienated the affection of your spouse. And it's very specific. It's fairly hard to prove. It comes up more often than you would think, but you have to meet certain criteria and one of those number one roads. And I don't know how hard this is for most people, to prove that you had a solid, committed, loving, real marriage to begin with.
00:06:06
Speaker 2: Yes, that had to be the case, and this other person literally, through malicious intent, seduced your partner into leaving the marriage.
00:06:16
Speaker 3: And that is a part of it.
00:06:17
Speaker 2: And so when you start reading the details of what allegedly happened in this case, you could see they clearly laid this out. I do want to point out it was a little gross in researching this and googling it, seeing attorneys and law firms, and I get this is the business they are in.
00:06:32
Speaker 3: But they said, you know, considering.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: A divorce or in the middle of a divorce, did you know about this law, and almost incentivizing financially incentivizing people who were in the middle of a divorce to see if this law applied to their situation and whether or not they could sue, Like encouraging people to be litigious if there was some sort of extramarital affair.
00:06:54
Speaker 1: What do we call it on the street. You call them ambulance chasers. Yes, okay, this is just in different form.
00:07:01
Speaker 4: That's all. They don't.
00:07:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're recruiting their advertising saying yes, yes, yes, this is possible. And again how difficult that is to prove because you had a loving marriage and then this person. This isn't just about cheating, it's not.
00:07:15
Speaker 3: You don't even have to have had sex, and yep.
00:07:17
Speaker 1: So this is not a about sex, is not it. You have to prove that your marriage diminished from the loving thing that it was to something else and it was directly this other person's.
00:07:28
Speaker 3: Fault, and it was of malicious intent.
00:07:30
Speaker 2: Right. So, in this particular case, Akira Montague's husband, Tim Montague, was Brenee Canard's manager, and Brenee, of course, is the TikTok influencer who has nearly three million followers. Akira accused Brene of engaging quote in behavior designed to seduce her husband, and she listed what she claims Brenee did, including wearing short skirts, bending over in front of her husband with said short skirt on or belief flirting with him and this is actually specifically referenced, flicking her tongue to expose her tongue rings in a flirtatious manner.
00:08:09
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean those are specific things. Someone flirted with someone who was not available, and that is wrong. And it's amazing to hear those things listed as evidence.
00:08:19
Speaker 2: That exactly, and that was the evidence that was in addition to the fact that she said Canard used the personal information she gained from their friendship to seduce her husband, and she said that Canard and her husband exchanged numerous sexual videos and text messages and met in the Montague's marital home making these videos.
00:08:44
Speaker 3: In fact, I believe she found one of the videos, and that is.
00:08:47
Speaker 2: How she knew or first realized that her husband was no longer interested as much in her. In fact, she said that her husband began to withdraw emotionally from her as a direct result of Yard's seduction, and then she also went on to say that he began concealing his financial matters and expenses. I'm quoting this, including hiding the many outings, dates, transactions, and payments involving Canard.
00:09:13
Speaker 1: You're proving a relationship, but you still have to approve. You have to connect these dots, and apparently she was able to do it, or at least able to do it enough that a.
00:09:22
Speaker 4: This is a jury.
00:09:23
Speaker 3: Yes, it was a jury of her peers.
00:09:25
Speaker 4: Able to prove this enough? How you do that in court?
00:09:29
Speaker 1: I would be fascinated to watch one of these, but to prove that the marriage suffered the emotion you lost emotionally and it was directly this person's fault. Again, you spoke about the sex thing that can happen, and two people never engaged in an affair, never engaged in a physical a sexual affair, you could still be sued for alienation of affection.
00:09:50
Speaker 2: I have to tell you this is the first I have ever heard of this, and you mentioned there is another famous case.
00:09:55
Speaker 3: But here's what.
00:09:55
Speaker 2: Canard was actually found liad before engaging in criminal conver sation with Tim Montague, an alienation of affection during his marriage. That is, that was the allegation, and that is what she found. Was found liable.
00:10:10
Speaker 1: For criminal conversation. I don't know why they call it that. It's a bizarre term to use, if you will, but what we're talking about sex, that's what they call it. They had criminal conversation. It's not sex. It's just sex, that's all it means.
00:10:26
Speaker 4: But it was an interesting way to put it there.
00:10:28
Speaker 2: Oooh yes, And so she actually the penalty for criminal conversation was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and then she got another one point five million in damages for the actual alienation of affection.
00:10:42
Speaker 3: Who that was an expensive well, second marriage, I guess for that.
00:10:47
Speaker 4: But what is Canard? She?
00:10:50
Speaker 1: Of course she had a response to this. I thought the response was bizarre. I didn't exactly understand it. But also we didn't get too much into this. She was, she was out there. She wasn't hiding that she was involved with this guy. That was the part I didn't quite piece together that.
00:11:05
Speaker 3: Well, well, she did not.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: It took her a while to admit that this was going on, that she was even in a relationship with him before she was confronted. And then I will say the two of them actually got married pretty quickly after their divorce was final because she she had been further complicating this, Canard had been married to Montague's cousin, so there was a lot of legs to.
00:11:31
Speaker 3: All of this.
00:11:33
Speaker 2: Specifically, and certainly she had to pay the price, and she's claiming she'll never pay it. She said she'll never get paid. That was part of her response. Good luck getting this money from me.
00:11:45
Speaker 4: I don't know.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: That means you appeal and I don't know how this eventually goes.
00:11:49
Speaker 4: You know what?
00:11:50
Speaker 1: This is what happens. And the reason I know this is because I was recently watching an OJ Simpson documentary to where they the family of Ron Goldwin were awarded all this money, they said, yet we're awarded it, but there's no follow up from the court to make sure it comes to us.
00:12:05
Speaker 4: I just heard this.
00:12:06
Speaker 1: There's nothing necessarily holding anybody responsible for paying that money. So maybe that's it, and that.
00:12:15
Speaker 4: Just came in.
00:12:16
Speaker 2: Well, you look at like even go to an extreme case of OJ Simpson being found, like you said, libel in the civil case, the family members of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman had never got a penny ever, like, not one cent from OJ Simpson because even though he was told he owed them X amount of dollars, he just found ways of making money in other ways, through property, through whatever, so he never ended up having to actually make that payment to them. And that's certainly what it seems like, maybe the case right now with Cannard for sure. So we mentioned that there was another famous case. Do you all remember American idol Alum and certainly a singing phenom phantas just goes by Fantasia, She was involved in a very similar or the threat of a very similar lawsuit in the exact same state of North Carolina. When we come back, we'll tell you all about that and welcome back and continuing our conversation on this alienation of affection law that is on the books in seven states, including the state of North Carolina. And we have obviously this recent case with a TikTok star and her now husband being the ex wife of her now husband, being awarded one point seventy five million dollars because the jury believed that this TikTok influencer, Brene Canard seduced her husband, literally stole her husband from her, and so she was awarded one point seven five million dollars. Back in twenty ten, Fantasia of American idol fame was threatened to be sued by her then boyfriend's wife soon to be ex wife, Paula Cook, and reportedly Fantasia offered her one hundred thousand dollars just to make it all go away, and Paula Cook said, uh uh, that's not good enough, and she had plans, she said, to move forward and sue Fantasa. You remembered this story from way back when I did not, Oh, ye.
00:14:27
Speaker 1: As well, I first got familiar with this and she was, I mean that many years ago. She was again cobviously she's a superstar, but she was still at the height of a lot of her post American idol stardom around that time, and this was a tough It was a why do I remember this from It's around the time she was doing color purple on stage because I was working with her and dealing with her at that time, and this might have been why I got familiar with it. But it's a it was an ugly, ugly hit. It may just sounds awful when you hear those details, but her story was one the other person couldn't prove a lot of those details. The criteria that you need to prove alienation of affection.
00:15:07
Speaker 2: To your point, it's a tough thing to prove. So Paula Cook, this was a messy divorce between Paula Cook and her then husband, Antwin Cook. So they're in the middle of their divorce proceedings and she says, I she announced to everyone that she was going to sue Fantasia for alienation of affection because she said that Fantasia was the reason why her husband was leaving her and going on with Fantasia. Now, Fantasia had claimed she initially didn't even know that he was married. She knew that he was married, but she thought they were separated and that they were already living a part that she wasn't doing anything untoward. And turns out the judge in that divorce case ruled that Antoine Cook was in fact separated from his wife before he and Fantasia started dating. So the date in which they began dating and the date in which this marriage was good or not good played a huge to the point that it had. You have to prove that your marriage was in a good place when this happened.
00:16:06
Speaker 1: You know another part of this, I'm not sure. I don't think we did mention that you also have to you have to prove that the person outside your marriage was actually aware that.
00:16:17
Speaker 4: You were married.
00:16:19
Speaker 1: Right, it's if you didn't know any said he was single and no, you can't be health appul filmed.
00:16:24
Speaker 3: And that makes a tremendous amount of sense.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: So yeah, the court determined, I don't know how you figured out that Fantasia's then boyfriend and his wife were separated in September of the year before versus June of twenty ten, which she was claiming. So they were arguing at what point they were separated, at what point their marriage went sour. It's I'm amazed when you look and see the week's this week's decision by this jury that they were able or that she was able to prove that her marriage was good.
00:16:55
Speaker 3: How do you prove that to a jury.
00:16:59
Speaker 4: I wish I wish we'd have got ensued.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: I would love to have gone to court and proven our case. It's something we never got to do, and you can't do it in the court of public opinion. But these things, look, people have, Look, marriages and break up all these things can be messy. And North Carolina gives your way to make it even messier if you will, at least from a public standpoint. Look, that woman felt she was wrong. She has the right to do what she did, period point point. That's nothing else to talk about it. Should we still have these laws on the books. That's to be debated, potentially, but they're there in some places. They it's bizarre. They just seem bizarre to think that anyone could steal something from you. It's not yours, right, We're still talking about people and oftentimes women, as property of some kind.
00:17:47
Speaker 4: It's it's it's bizarre.
00:17:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in this case, it was the man who basically is being regarded as a piece of property. You took what was mine I guess I just take issue with the whole concept of a relationship that anyone is someone else's property, or that your mind or that I'm yours. We can choose to be together, we can choose to make different decisions based on what's best for us, and yes, you may have to deal with the messiness of divorce and pay the price of that. But to actually have a judgment against you but not the other person, it takes two to tango, like the whole thing, the idea that and I think this is what's so funny in the idea of as you mentioned equality, that women could then use this law for their own purposes. I do find it a little disturbing because it goes back to that old playbook that so many I've always I've always been uncomfortable with this concept that somehow a woman's going to be upset at the other woman instead of being upset at her own husband.
00:18:48
Speaker 3: If that's who made.
00:18:49
Speaker 2: The value you, that's who went into a contract with you, a legally binding contract with you. That is the person who I feel like you betrayed you in the sense that you that's the person who vowed to be with him.
00:19:02
Speaker 1: Does it feel like it takes some responsibility off the spouse. Yes, by saying, well, he just couldn't help himself. He was just pressured into that. No, really, it seems in this case that's the argument that's being made.
00:19:17
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:19:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fascinating to me that these laws are on the books in some states.
00:19:23
Speaker 3: It's fascinating to me that a jury actually awarded this woman that much money.
00:19:29
Speaker 1: Oh shit, Oh, I didn't forgot to mention. This is not even close. There was another one in North Carolina. A woman got thirty million. There was a thirty million dollar case. I don't think it was that long ago. I believe it was twenty eleven. Forgive me, but I don't have that right. But it's not that long ago. She was married to a guy who was like a trucking company tycoon or something. There sue this other woman. Sure nough thirty million dollar ward. Also in North Carolina, Fletcher Cox, I think it was his name, NFL player. This was more recent. I think it was twenty eighteen. They settled out of court, but a guy sued him saying that he was having an affair with the wife, and the NFL player got Yeah. In North Carolina. Wow, Yeah, thirty million. That is what I forgot about that.
00:20:11
Speaker 2: And you know what, It's funny because when you look at the states, when you google where this is still a legal course of action in all the states, it just says recognizes, recognizes, recognizes this law. North Carolina, it adds, recognized this alienation of affection and is one of the states.
00:20:27
Speaker 3: Where it is still frequently litigated.
00:20:29
Speaker 2: So for whatever reason, maybe it's the attorneys in North Carolina who understand this is an avenue where people can seek some sort of financial They can reclaim some sort of financial gain because of what happened to them or are wrong that they believe was done to them. This is an avenue where you can say, hey, yes, I can financially get some money. And obviously the lawyers line their pockets at the same time.
00:20:52
Speaker 1: But you call I mean for the people on that side. Well, the woman who whoever whatever she might have gone through a cure at Montague, Yes, what she went to look if she feels she was in a loving relationship, she feels that her husband in that relationship would still be good and solid had this other person not entered their lives. And I don't know, we think about you said the vow, and I guess that's right. I'm trying to find some way of being on the side of the law in North Carolina.
00:21:22
Speaker 4: I'm trying to.
00:21:22
Speaker 1: Find a way to go okay, that there is value in doing it this way. I'm struggling with that, but I don't want to take away from what she's been she's been through and feels. But if you can understand and respect and honor how she feels, it doesn't also necessarily mean you need to give her two million dollars from the person outside of America.
00:21:43
Speaker 2: And I just think I would also just want to end with the perspective that there is a reason why the majority of states in this nation chose to get.
00:21:53
Speaker 3: Rid of this law.
00:21:54
Speaker 2: For whatever reasons, each individual state had to get rid of it. But there are only yes, seven and states in this country where you can sue for this this uh seemingly art well, it's not seemingly archaic law that is modern and certainly paying out in.
00:22:12
Speaker 3: This specific case in North Carolina. Who knew? At least I didn't. But with that hope you learned something. Everyone. I may be robot alongside TJ. Holmes. We will talk to you soon.