Christopher “Big Black” Boykin passed away on Tuesday at the age of 45 after suffering a heart attack, E! News confirms. His ex-wife, Shannon Turley, took to Twitter early Wednesday to announce Big Black’s death.
“This is Shannon, Big Black’s ex-wife. I’m heartbroken to tell you of Black’s passing. He’s everything to me and Isis and we will miss him.”
Isis is the former couple’s 9-year-old daughter. According to E! News, Big Black and Turley got divorced in 2009.
Turley spoke with ET one day after Boykin’s death, and shared the most memorable thing about her former husband.
“He was a great father. That was the best thing about him,” she revealed. “He worked his ass off. Nothing was handed to him.”
Turley says their daughter is “having a hard time dealing” with the loss, but they are getting great support from their family, and Isis is “doing a little bit better.”
According to Turley, the reality star had spent the last few days in the hospital and the staff told her that his condition had gotten worse. She drove immediately to the facility with their daughter, but weren’t able to see him before he died.
“We were trying to make it there and we were about twenty minutes away, and right when we got there, it was too late,” Turley shared. “It was tough. We were right there.”
“[Isis] wanted to see him, so we went in the room and she didn’t really understand what was going on. But I think she’s understanding it now,” she added. “She’s just having a hard time trying to figure out what exactly is going on. [But] she has a lot of family around her right now. A lot of love.”
Boykin had been suffering from congenital heart failure for a decade, according to his ex.
“He’s had a defibrillator in his chest for over 10 years,” Turley revealed. “No one would know. It’s been hard. The past year, he’s been in and out of the hospital a few times.”
Turley said that doctors had had been telling Boykin “for the past year or two,” that he’d likely need a heart transplant, but he hadn’t been ready for the operation, and his heart giving up came more suddenly than expected.
“He was just tired,” Turley shared. “He did what he could.”
Boykin and Turley remained close despite their divorce, and the TV personality was staying with his ex-wife and their daughter before his confinement in the hospital a few days ago.
“He lived with us, so we all got to be together,” she shared. “We had so much fun together.”
Turley and Isis visited him in the hospital two days before he passed away.
“He gave me a kiss on my hand. That was the last thing we did,” Turley recalled, adding that she’s relieved their daughter got to see him when he was happy and “totally peaceful,” before he died. “It was the way that God had planned it.”
Turley says that she and Boykin’s brother are planning his memorial service.
“He didn’t want a big thing. He wanted it to be private. So we will probably keep it that way,” she said. “A lot of family is flying in [to the Dallas area] tonight.”
Turley shared that if there was one thing she could tell Boykin today, she’d “just tell him I love him. [But] he already knows.”
Big Black got famous in MTV reality series, Rob & Big, that also starred professional skateboarder Rob Dydrek. The show aired for three seasons until 2008.
“My heart is broken. I don’t want to write this post. I don’t want to believe that this is reality,” Dydrek posted on social media. “I am so thankful for you.”
“We truly were brothers that lived an unexpected unforgettable adventure,” he continued. “I just can’t fathom that it would end so suddenly. You will forever be in my heart.”
