‘Am I Toxic? … I Don’t Know’: Gary Owen Says ‘Miserable Women’ Think His Strained Relationship with His Kids Is a Consequence of Cheating on His Black Ex-Wife Kenya Duke
Gary Owen says “miserable women” are lashing out at him over his strained relationships with his family and ex-wife, Kenya Duke.
In particular, he said that women have responded to his “Club Shay Shay” interview by saying he deserves to feel ostracized by the former couple’s three children.
“There’s a lot of toxic people out there. I’m probably, am I toxic? I don’t know,” he quipped on his “Get Some” podcast days after his discussion with Shannon Sharpe.
The Ohio native explained, “One thing I learned is there’s some miserable women out there, because the fact that I’ve been like I haven’t seen my kids and I want to see them and there’s all these women saying, ‘Well, when you cheat, that’s what happens. That’s the consequences.’”
“I was thinking, so every guy that we know ever had an affair or slept with is a piece of s—t dad? ’Cause let me tell you somethin’, there’s not too many wholesome parents out there,” Owen continued.
Duke and the “Think Like A Man” actor have been at odds since she filed for divorce in 2019. The decree was signed off in March 2021, ending their 23-year union. They are parents to three children, sons Emilio, 33, and Austin, 23, and daughter Kennedy, 21. In the hour-long sit-down, he revealed that three and a half years have lapsed since he was on speaking terms with his children. He implied that his infidelity may have contributed to their fallout.
He said it was not until he sat down with Sharpe that he realized, “I have no relationship with my mom, my dad, my stepdad, my siblings, or my kids. And I’m going dang, I even asked my manager, I go, ‘Am I doing something wrong here? Is it, like, me? Am I the common denominator in all this?’ ‘Cause I would say from the outside looking in, it looks like I would be.”
“I’ll take the blame. I didn’t ensure that my relationship with them was so strong that no matter what anybody said to them they can be like, ‘Nah, my dad is good.’” – @garyowencomedy pic.twitter.com/hmyGsF1p1A
— Club Shay Shay (@ClubShayShay) May 8, 2024
Owen claims his manager said that admitting his shortcomings led to “the people that aren’t good for your life, they kind of drop off. Which I’m not putting on my kids or anything, but I’m saying like my mom, my dad, and things like that.”
His ex has suggested otherwise. She hit back at his discussion twice since it’s release a day before her 49th birthday this month — the first time to say that Owen was using “false narratives for sympathy and attention.” Duke later wrote that his fans had accused her of interfering with the relationship between her former husband and their kids. The producer said those assumptions were the complete opposite of the truth.
“I am not sure why any parent would be okay with people talking crazy about their kids when they created the issues or the mother that has try to help (maybe he doesn’t feel I have done enough),” she wrote in response to critics.
“When all 3 of the kids aren’t in contact with a parent something that was traumatic to them happened. No child is waking up to say I don’t want to have contact with a parent. I don’t think these interviews help the relationship but they do help the narrative a celebrity wants out there.”
Despite people debating his performance as a father, the “Meet The Blacks” actor said the silver lining to speaking about his personal affairs on the retired NFL player’s platform is that family members have reached out to him, suggesting that they talk. However, his children are not on that list of loved ones.
Owen continued, “Nobody’s talking to me, and I’m going — I just don’t think if you ask other people, and maybe other people, you can ask them — I don’t think I’m an a- -hole. I don’t think I treat people bad. I think I’m just a d—k and one to be around.
“Sometimes I feel like, I’ll just speak for my parents, I feel like they gotta almost blame me for how the relationship turned out, and that’s why I think I fight so hard for my kids to have this relationship, and I’m quick not to say, ‘Well, f—you then, I’mma do me,’ because that’s what my dad said to me, so I was like, I don’t want to do that.”
Owen is currently engaged to the mother of his 10-month-old twin sons, Brianna Johnson. Duke previously accused her of being one of the women he had an affair with during the marriage, though Owen has never clarified the timeline of when he and Johnson began dating.