Love and Hip Hop With Scars of Conversion Therapy
The casts of Love & Hip Hop, across the franchise, are known to delve into some pretty personal details from their pasts, eventually revealing them on the show. In an upcoming epsiode, one of the cast members dug deep to relate a traumatic experience that has since scarred him for life.
Cast member Jonathan Fernandez, an openly gay man, revealed in a clip that he underwent horrific "gay conversion therapy" as a child, which saw others go to extreme means to attempt to change who he is.
In the emotional clip, Fernandez, who works today as an image consultant, explained that he was injected with hormones and his body was constrained, throughout the process.
"It wasn't just [being injected with] hormones... they used to lock me in a room," he told his sister Jasmine. "They would constrain my body — I would have to be in there for eight hours."
He added that he would then be brutally interrogated about his wardrobe before being physically harmed through what "felt like shocks." Hernandez continued that he was sent to undergo full-on conversion therapy by his mother after she learned he was being bullied at age 10 as he "didn't fit a conventional gender role." He claims she sent him off because she didn't want him to continue to be bullied.
His sister, upon hearing his revelation, said she had no idea to what extent he was suffering, at the time. When she asked why he had never spoken up about the experience, he told producers that he was just embarrassed.
"I was so young when this happened, and to be honest, I was embarrassed about everything," he said. "Jasmine knew a portion of what happened to me, but I never mustered up the strength to tell her the whole entire thing."
Watch him tearfully detail the horrific ordeal in the sneak peak, below:
(Photo: VH1
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