Toya Wright and estranged husband/producer Mickey “Memphitz” Wright have been confronting some of the most difficult issues in their relationship on this season of WE tv’s Marriage Bootcamp reality series, but Memphitz got even more personal on the show’s most recent episode when he opened up about the death of his father at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan.
During an intense discussion segment on the show, the couples were asked to share traumatic childhood experiences that have shaped the people they’ve become when Memphitz began to reflect on his father’s brutal murder. “I already come up in a racist town, so it’s like for a racist KKK member to kill my dad, I have a fuse so short, it’s not good,” he said. In 2007, KKK member Dale V. Mardis confessed to dismembering the body of 46-year-old code enforcement officer Mickey Wright Sr. before burning a portion of his remains and scattering the rest in various junkyard vehicles that were later crushed. Mr. Mardis pled no contest to Mr. Wright’s murder and was sentenced to life in prison in 2011. Mr. Wright’s remains were sadly never found.
Memphitz got the chance to confront his feelings towards his father’s killer during a reenactment segment on Marriage Bootcamp, where counselor Jim Carroll stood in as Mardis. See the outcome of the emotional confrontation in the video clip below.
Things just got a little too real. #MarriageBootCamp https://t.co/UQi2O1t4Wt
— WE tv (@WEtv) July 23, 2016
WANT MORE FROM ESSENCE? Subscribe to our daily newsletter for the latest in hair, beauty, style and celebrity news.