Pepa Says She Struggled To Respectfully Show Allegedly Abusive Relationship With Ex-Husband, Rapper Treach In Biopic + Salt Says Her Struggle With Bulimia Lead To Group Ending

Pepa Says She Struggled To Respectfully Show Allegedly Abusive Relationship With Ex-Husband, Rapper Treach In Biopic + Salt Says Her Struggle With Bulimia Lead To Group Ending

Cheryl “Salt” James and Sandra “Pepa” Denton‘s biopic about the legendary group lands on Lifetime this Saturday (Jan. 23), and the ladies are getting candid about telling their story.

The three-hour movie will show the rise to fame, personal struggles, as well as why the group eventually broke up.  The ladies said that they wanted the movie to tell the story of what really happened behind the scenes. Sandra “Pepa” Denton said during an interview with The New York Post,

“Nothing was off-limits.”

Cheryl “Salt” James added,

“It was important for us to be vulnerable and honest while making this movie.”

Sandra “Pepa” Denton admitted she had a hard time trying to respectfully show her allegedly abusive relationship with ex-husband Anthony “Treach” Criss of Naughty by Nature in the film.

“In the movie, I didn’t just want to focus on the negative things between us.  I wanted to be fair to [Treach] and show that despite the bad, he was a good guy, too.”

Salt of Salt-N-Pepa

Cheryl “Salt” James reveals that she developed an eating disorder which she says played a part in Salt-N-Pepa’s disbandment in the early 2000s.  She says that her struggle with bulimia was the hardest trauma she had to relive in the movie.

“I developed bulimia from the pressure of performing and having to live my life out in the public eye.”

Although Pepa was open to talking about her former relationships, Salt said she was not.

She said during an interview with Entertainment Tonight that she didn’t want to address her relationship with her father, or her past with her ex-husband Gavin Wray, with who she shares two children.

“They’ve been, in the past, delicate relationships. Nothing so much with myself or with Pep, because it’s our story,”

They divorced in 2019. She told theJasmineBRAND during an exclusive interview: 

“I’m newly divorced… for about a year. And I went through a really difficult divorce. It was hard… one of the darkest times of my life because it took so long. I was with my husband for… my daughter’s 27… so 28 years.”

“It was me trying to fill someone else’s void. And I didn’t realize that I was doing that. Sometimes we make ourselves small to fit in someone’s box and accommodate them.A lot of times we do that with men. And when I was coming out, it was a long process of me coming out of the dark part of being divorced.”

She added that faith and her Salt-N-Pepa partner, Sandra Denton, a.k.a. Pepa,  helped her get through her difficult time.

“A lot of it had to do with my faith. A lot of it had to do with being around my girlfriends who I know love and support me and them being available to talk. I talked to Pep a lot, I cried a lot. I didn’t try to rush through emotion and the death of my marriage. I really focused on healing and being consistent with whatever I had to do. I took a few classes, I did a little therapy. Whatever you have to do to get yourself out of it, you will one day eventually get past it.”

While certain topics were off-limits for the biopic, Salt said that viewers will still learn plenty of unknown things about the group.

Pepa added that she was as hands-on as possible.

“As much as I could be involved, I was involved. When we got approached to do a movie on Salt-N-Pepa, our legacy, I was like, ‘Yes, it’s the time! Oh boy, we got some stuff to tell you.’ I’ve been wanting to do it for years.”

She continued:

“My first reaction was, of course, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’ Salt-N-Pepa has so much story. We pioneered the story that we have that has never really been told. We knew what kind of story it was. We only talked about it in interviews, never really got to see it visually, and the timing was right, so I was like, ‘Yes.’”

Salt N Pepa

Salt also said:

“It’s exciting, and it’s something that Pep’s been wanting to do for years. I’ve been afraid to do it because it’s so personal, but Pep ain’t having it. She’s like, ‘We have to tell our stories.’ So here we are.”

“The reservations that I had was definitely the story being as true to life as possible. You can tell your story and then by the time it goes through a writer, director, and a movie company, sometimes it’s not exactly what you want to portray. Also when you’re telling your story there’s other people in your life that are involved you have to be… I felt like I had to be delicate about incorporating other people’s stories in my story.”

What are your thoughts on Salt N Pepa’s biopic, will you be watching? Comment and let us know

Authored by: Demi Lobo