Bishop Eddie Long's Alleged Sex Scandal Victim Centino Kemp Reveals Suicide Attempt
One of the alleged victims in the sex scandal surrounding Bishop Eddie Long, the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church pastor of Atlanta, Ga., spoke to a local news channel about his attempted suicide.
Centino Kemp, the fifth person to accuse Eddie Long of sexual misconduct, gave an interview to Atlanta's Fox 5, which was broadcast Tuesday.
Kemp said his alter-ego called "Wild Child Kemp" saved his life by convincing the young man to stay alive, when Kemp attempted to commit suicide three weeks after lawsuits against Long were filed in Atlanta.
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He was admitted to the DeKalb Mental Health Center, Fox 5 reports. He reportedly told therapists he had been "sexually and physically abused for six years by Pastor E. Long."
"I was in a dark place, I can say that," Kemp, who sported a leather outfit studded with metal spikes during the interview, told the reporter.
"I would just tell you, everything is not as it seems. Nothing is real. And everything that glitters isn't gold," he said when asked about his relationship with Long.
Long was accused of sexual misconduct in September 2010 by four young men, all former members of New Birth. They filed a lawsuit against the pastor claiming that he had lavished them with gifts, trips and money while coercing them into sexual contact.
Long denied the charges of sexual misconduct and vowed to fight them, all the while maintaining that he tried to serve as a father figure to the young men and offer them support, financial assistance and guidance.
In the midst of the case, just as a settlement was being discussed, Kemp, who was never a member of the church and lived in Florida and North Carolina, appeared in Atlanta, joined the suit "unofficially," and received $94,000 without ever officially becoming an "accuser," Fox 5 reports.
In May of 2011, an out-of-court settlement was reached between Long and his accusers in which each was to receive undisclosed sums of money as long as the case was not discussed. Sources estimate the cost of the settlement to have been around $15 million.
In the latest development in the case, the lawyer for three of the accusers, including Kemp, dropped her clients in mid-October after they violated their confidentiality agreement.
Lawyer Brenda Joy (BJ) Bernstein and co-counsel Jay Sadd reportedly decided to drop Jamal Parris, Spencer LaGrande and Kemp because of a conflict of interest, as Long's attorneys claimed the three men violated the settlement terms through interviews with the media and on Twitter. They state that Paris and LaGrande violated the terms when they participated in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB-TV, which later re-appeared on CNN, and that Kemp failed to adhere to settlement terms when he tweeted in reference to the case.
Kemp was accused of lashing out against the pastor on Twitter in September. He reportedly tweeted at the time: "I was literally your hooker," and, in a tweet directed @BishopEddieLong, "why that's all I want to no (sic)."
"I am sick of living a lie and hideing [sic] my pain in a fake [...] smile and your walking around like its ok..." Kemp also tweeted at that time.
