LOVE DURING LOCKUP Talsey burns fiancee’s house down, she sends him thousands in jail, Santiba responds
It appears as though Talsey McCullough may be making a bid to return for another season of Love During Lockup. Talsey is currently back in jail in Georgia facing a felony arson charge after allegedly burning his fiancée’s house down in February of this year. Despite the small bump in their relationship, Talsey’s fiancée Kayla Miller is standing by her man.
Kayla shared a series of video jail calls with Talsey on Instagram this weekend (embedded at the bottom of this post). In the three clips, Talsey trashes his prison patron Santiba, reveals how much he got paid to make that last phone call for WE tv cameras, and expresses his gratitude to Kayla for holding him down.
Talsey begins with a numbered list of topics that he wishes to discuss. I will let him speak for himself:
When I first came home [from prison], Santiba was stalking my Facebook page. She was being rude to every female friend that I had. I ended up blocking her before I even met Kayla. Those are facts.
The second thing is, um, Santiba would have never heard from me again at all. It’s been two years since I ghosted her, and I haven’t reached out to her one time until the show paid me six hundred dollars and begged me to call and do a farewell call with her. And that’s the only reason I called. And I guess they put it on the show and acted like I had been reaching out to her or something.
Third is the house burning down didn’t have nothing to do with no other guy, you know what I mean?
Fourth is the messages that came from my mom, there were lies in all that, and she has since apologized to Kayla for it.
Talsey talks about how he spent eight years in prison. He says the experience gave him post traumatic stress disorder, which he has not received treatment for.
Once Talsey was released, he pushed the limits of his parole. “They told me, ‘Just don’t fail a drug test,’ right? So I didn’t fail a drug test,” Talsey says. “I started drinking, and I become a raging alcoholic. And I moved in with Kayla…I’d get drunk and take my anger and stuff out on her instead of getting help, you know what I mean? Things went downhill.”
Talsey iterates that he and Kayla were doing well before he brought everything crashing down. “We had a great relationship, y’all. We had a great business. We were happy. We were healthy. I just — I let my demons get the best of me.”
Talsey clarifies early in the first clip that the arson incident was not because of another man. He later addresses another rumor that the fire was caused by him attempting to manufacture methamphetamine.
“I’ve never cooked meth,” Talsey says emphatically. “I don’t know how to cook meth. Never even tried, you know what I mean? From what I hear, it’s $3,500 for a kilo from the Mexicans and, hell, why would I?”
He also insists that Kayla does not use meth. He mentions how great she looks on Instagram as evidence.
#LoveDuringLockup We have mug shots for Talsey and his fiancée Kayla after he allegedly burned their house down. He was charged with arson and she was charged with hindering apprehension or punishment of a criminal. Plus, Santiba responds to their arrests! https://t.co/AZuPXnUhW9
— Starcasm (@starcasm) February 27, 2022
Talsey admits that he was using Santiba for money while he was incarcerated, but he insists that she didn’t send him nearly as much as she claimed on the show. “Santiba sent me twenty dollars a week for a few months, and I got out and she acted like I owed her my soul.”
Santiba’s financial support was nothing compared to Kayla’s. “Since I been in jail, since the house burned down and all this stuff, Kayla’s spent probably two hundred dollars a week on me, making sure that I have commissary, video chats, all that stuff — not including the thousands of dollars she spent on my clothes,” Talsey reveals. “Because, as y’all know, when the house burnt down I didn’t even have a pair of socks. I didn’t have nothing. But she’s still been graceful enough to stand by me through this.”
Talsey repeats some of what he said later in the series of videos, and also appears to confess to burning the house down:
She spent thousands on me since I been in here…and that’s after I burnt the house down and took everything we had. You know what I mean? That’s love right there! And we still talk every day! And we’re still gonna talk every day, you know what I mean? And I’m blessed. I got a whole bunch of stuff — brand new shoes, Polo stuff, cologne, glasses, all this stuff. She’s helped me replace it all because she loves me, and she’s my friend. And I love her too.
Despite everything that has happened, Talsey remains positive. “The past few months, y’all, have been the hardest of my life,” he admits. “I messed up. I hit rock bottom hard enough to shatter, but God’s been good enough to put me back together better than ever. He really has.”
The healing hasn’t been all due to grace, however. “I’ve taken over a hundred classes of self help, domestic violence, drug abuse, all types of stuff,” Talsey says.
The last video includes a final statement from Talsey that attempts to throw shade at Santiba by saying he didn’t care enough about her to ever burn her house down:
Last, but not least y’all, I heard that Santiba posted on there, or some of her friends did or something, that she dodged a bullet and I woulda done the same to her. That’s the dumbest sh*t I ever heard in my life, I swear! In order to commit a crime of passion, you have to care about somebody. You know what I mean? If anybody dodged a bullet, it was me! Because she’s been stalking me for years, y’all! Won’t leave my family alone, talkin’ mad sh*t about Kayla and myself when nobody cares about her. Nobody has ever cared about her.
Santiba and Kayla have been embroiled in a rather bitter social media feud over the past couple weeks. Santiba recently went live on YouTube with Kiki and Kibbitz to talk about that feud, and also to respond to Talsey’s videos. Below I will include all three Talsey clips, followed by the live video with Santiba:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CeaK10WAH7G/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CeaOacDrOLH/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CeaPYm7OpwP/
Asa Hawks is a writer and editor for Starcasm. You can contact Asa via Twitter, Facebook, or email at starcasmtips(at)yahoo.com
