Almost two months ago, on Valentine’s Day, Reesa Teesa never imagined her lengthy tale of heartbreak and loss would lead to her becoming a TikTok sensation. The Atlanta resident just simply wanted to tell her story.
At the time, Reesa Teesa (whose real name is Tareasa Johnson) was working as an executive assistant for a local law enforcement agency and felt compelled to share the tumultuous effects of a past marriage with a man she claims is a pathological liar.
Today, Johnson’s 50-part TikTok series, appropriately titled “Who TF Did I Marry?,” has built a massive following. She has nearly 4 million followers on the platform, and her series garnered over 400 million views. She’s appeared on “Good Morning America” and the “Tamron Hall Show”— while still working her same job. On Friday afternoon, she was a keynote speaker during the inaugural CultureCon on Campus at Clark Atlanta university.
“My life has been crazy just because of the fact that I’m still working,” she told the AJC a few minutes before her appearance at CultureCon. “Like today I took off to do CultureCon. It’s been good and brought a lot of great opportunities. It’s just that I kind of have this Reesa Teesa life then this 8-5 job as Tareasa.”
Tareasa Johnson is a natural communicator. She has a warm smile and friendly spirit that makes you want to talk to her for hours. In conversation, she speaks with the fervor of a teacher who doesn’t just know what they’re talking about, but wants you to understand as well―making the most of our roughly 7-minute talk.
A New Jersey native, Johnson has lived in Georgia, primarily Cobb County, since she was 10. She attended Florida A&M University and later graduated from Kennesaw State University with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. Before her current job, she worked at Georgia State Patrol for nine years.
As the online personality Reesa Teesa, Johnson is the same charming storyteller. Throughout 50, 10-minute videos, she tells the wild ride of meeting, marrying and divorcing her ex in a very straightforward, detailed way as if she’s reading from a personal diary.
For her, they were audio diaries. Sometimes filmed in her bathroom while getting ready for work. Sometimes filmed during her lunch break. Sometimes filmed while stuck in traffic. (”Lord knows, one thing about Atlanta, there is always traffic,” she said. “There’s nothing like sitting in traffic and getting your thoughts out”).
In her videos, she vividly explained emotionally traumatic situations— revealing she had a miscarriage with her ex (whom she nicknamed “Legion”), alleging that he lied about being an executive of a condiment company and used a fake Social Security number, among other things.
“I hoped that it would serve as a cautionary tale for someone. When you ignore red flags, these are some of the pitfalls that may happen. Obviously, I had no idea that it was going to go the way that it went. There was no preparation for that. I was just telling my experience, my story in a way that was comfortable for me.”
During her talk at CutureCon on Campus, titled “How TF Do I Storytell?,” she encouraged students to never feel rushed to tell their stories. Johnson, who attended an HBCU, was happy to share her advice with HBCU students on Wednesday. The first CultureCon on Campus featured workshops, panel discussions a job fair and more. It was open to all students at the Atlanta University Center seeking tips on how to build their paths in creative industries. The event is the latest extension of CultureCon, one of the largest conferences for creatives of color.
Johnson also wanted students to remember the power of sharing their stories.
“If I had put everything out, it easily would’ve been 100 [videos],” she said during the session. “If you watched the series, part 44 is where I realized my ex-husband’s identity had been exposed. The decision was, you can go ahead and quit, delete your TikTok, disappear, or you can finish and see it through. I decided to finish and see it through. I encourage people, if you’re going to tell your story, tell your whole story. See your story through—from start to finish.
Morehouse college students Kaden Shaw, Kullen Gilliam and Braxton Broady, who’ve named themselves the Teesa Squad, were seated at the front row during Johnson’s talk. Gilliam wore a white t-shirt with the words “Who TF Did I Marry?” drawn in the center of it. Broady and Shaw held posters celebrating the viral series.
They were up at 2 a.m. making the posters and the t-shirt.
“A lot of times on TikTok, you don’t really see people with such raw vulnerability,” Broady said of Johnson’s story. “I think that she talked about giving herself grace, the fact that she was able to admit when she was wrong was inspiring. A lot of the lessons and the things that she saw can be helpful to us.”
Now, Johnson is looking for a bigger platform to share her story. Maybe a book. Maybe a film. Maybe a TV show. Last month, she signed with CAA for representation. She said her and her team are always in meetings about her next steps. But at the top of her to-do list for now is learning to give herself more grace for what she endured.
“I’m way more resilient than I gave myself credit for,” she told the AJC after her CultureCon session. “Dealing with the online criticism was really difficult, to say the least, and yet (I’m) still standing on the story. In other words, I’m still not wavering while not pandering to the criticism—the people who don’t like how I look or like how I talk.”
