(Photo: Rick Kern/Getty Images for Netflix)
The TikTok creator’s memoir is about healing, ownership, and building a lasting brand.
Two years after captivating millions with her marathon TikTok series “Who TF Did I Marry?”, Tareasa “Reesa Teesa” Johnson is proving that viral moments don’t have to end with social media. Instead, she’s transforming one of the internet’s most talked-about sagas into a new milestone.
Johnson announced that she is releasing a new memoir titled What TF Do I Do Now? on Aug. 18, which shifts the spotlight away from the man who inspired her famous 52-part series and back onto herself. While the original videos chronicled the unraveling of her marriage to a man she alleged repeatedly lied about his identity, finances, and family, the book explores the deeper emotional work that followed.
“The ‘Who TF Did I Marry?’ [series] was really about this year and a half of my life with this one individual, but there’s so much more to me that led me to make the decision to be in that relationship,” Johnson told PEOPLE. “There were times while writing chapters that I cried. I had some moments where I second-guessed how vulnerable I wanted to be.”
The 41-year-old TikTok star says that vulnerability became the foundation of the memoir.
“It takes a type of vulnerability that I did not know before, and yet I’m proud that I pushed through,” Johnson said. “I’m proud that I pushed through instead of being like, ‘No, I’m not saying that,’ or, ‘No, I’m not putting that in there.’”
She added that writing the book required a level of honesty beyond what audiences saw on social media.
“We’ve been taught, ‘Hey, you wanna keep it to yourself. Don’t share it, it’s private, a secret,’” Johnson said. “Some things are private, but in writing this book, my goal was to make sure no one feels as alone as I did… I want the reader to resonate with something in that book. To do that, I was gonna have to be very raw.”
The memoir also forced Johnson to confront difficult truths about herself.
“I have a history and relationships that I’m not necessarily proud of,” she admitted. “This is your habit. This is how you behave in relationships, and maybe that’s why they haven’t been successful, because there are things about you that you need to change.”
“No longer do you have to limit yourself,” she said. “Social media can open the door for a much bigger world than you ever thought. If you have an idea or a story, think bigger, because social media can actually be your step toward book, television, podcast, or movie deals.”
Ultimately, Johnson hopes readers walk away with a renewed sense of possibility.
“I hope they don’t feel alone,” she said. “You don’t have to give up on the dream that you had. We’re just simply going to edit the dream.”
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Source: Black Enterprise
