Khadeen Ellis might have known that Devale Ellis was “the one” weeks into dating, but for the actor his moment came later and after a huge scare.
The couple stopped by “The Breakfast Club” on Feb. 7, where they dished on the years of work they have put into their relationship, which has helped sustain their marriage through life’s ups and downs and unexpected twists and turns.
One of the areas they have mastered is effective communication, but that was not the case years ago when Devale thought his then-girlfriend had been kidnapped. He recalled being an NFL rookie signed to the Detroit Lions while Khadeen was still in their hometown of Brooklyn pursuing her master’s degree. However, in this story, the “Sistas” breakout star says his real-life leading lady had gone out with friends, but when she failed to let him know she had made it back home, he knew something was wrong — or at least he thought so.
“I’m in the locker room, I’m getting ready for team meetings, and I don’t get no phone call, can’t [concentrate] at all,” he said. His teammates noticed that he was unlike his usual self, so he filled them in on what he was going through.
“I’m trying to keep it together, like, ‘I haven’t heard from my girlfriend,’” he told them. But instead of sharing encouraging words, they told Devale, “‘She probably out getting her back blown out!’ They saying all sorts…this is the locker room, this is the locker room. They was clowning me big time.”
The already distraught football player said matters were made worse when he began to get phone calls from family members. “After that, her mom called me and said, ‘Hey, we haven’t heard from Khadeen.” He immediately broke down.
“Then my mom calls me, ‘Um, Devale, I think you should come home,’” she told her son. “So now I’m thinking they found her and they don’t want to tell me because I’m by myself in Detroit. So I go to the security office, the NFL security office and I’m like, ‘Yo they can’t find my girlfriend.’ And they’d been having issues with people breaking into people’s houses, taking people’s family members; this happens in the league a lot.”
The “Dead Ass” podcast co-host went on to say rather improbably that his team jumped on board and was quick to exhaust their own resources for what he thought was a life-or-death situation. “They called the FBI, they broke into her phone, they called campus security, broke into everything like text messages, everything. They like, ‘We have nothing. We found nothing, we don’t know where she is.’”
Khadeen had been sleeping at her uncle’s house the entire time. She said the protective family member implored her to stay with him and her aunt after spotting her in the neighborhood in the early morning hours after her night out. Unbeknownst to her, she had inadvertently left her phone in the car and had been unreachable for eight hours.
Khadeen chimed in to recall how she learned that her friends and family thought the worst had happened to her. “The minute I turned the phone on it’s like 48 text messages, 30-something voicemails… Her [Khadeen’s mother] co-worker was like, ‘Khadeen is that you!’ And then it was like, my mom is in tears, like, ‘Don’t you ever do that again. Devale is on his way home.’”
Just as Devale was en route to the airport to catch his flight back to Brooklyn, Khadeen called him. “I pick up and I’m like, ‘Who this?’ And she’s like, ‘Hey babe.’ I’m like, ‘Babe! Babe!’” and, well, the rest is history.
This is just one of many personal anecdotes the couple shares in their new book, “We Over Me.” In it, they share the “messy, behind-the-scenes work of what it takes to succeed and support one another in their search for individual purpose while growing in their marriage. The Ellises might not have all the answers, but they do know that good love takes friendship, grace, and service.”
The couple has been together for 20 years, married for 12 years, and share four sons, Jackson, 12, Kairo, 7, Kaz, 6, and Dakota, 1.
