Accuser in Bishop Eddie Long Scandal Writes Tell-All Book
One of the accusers who was involved in the Bishop Eddie Long sex scandal, published a new book this week that details their alleged abusive relationship, the Christian Post reports.
Centino Kemp is one of the five accusers and claims Long, an Atlanta-based megachurch bishop, had an abusive gay relationship with him when he was a teenager. The five accusers and Long, who has denied the allegations, settled out of court but Kemp decided to speak out in his new book "First Lady," which was co-written by T. Benson Glover. The tell-all biography is currently Amazon's eight most popular non-fiction book for Kindle, the websites' e-reading device.
Kemp, 22, was not a member of the New Birth Missionary Church, which Long headed in Atlanta. According to Fox News's Atlanta station, Kemp was not on any of the lawsuits against the bishop and he says, "I didn't accuse nobody of anything." But Fox points out less than three weeks after the lawsuits against Long were filed, Kemp tried to take his own life and told a therapist that he had sexual relations with Long for years.
"I was in a dark place, I can say that," Kemp told the news station.
The lawsuits were brought on in 2010 when the four members of the church were teens. They accused the bishop, who is married and has four children, of giving them expensive gifts and convincing them into sexual acts during overnight trips. The cases were settled out of court in 2011.
In Kemp's book, the young man describes how he was allegedly assaulted by Long and talks about his troubled childhood and how being gay has impacted him while growing up.
"With heart wrenching passages about a young boy who was reared in a tight-knit small church community, the book unveils a portrait of a gorgeous mother 'with a stunning red-bone complexion' and a Haitian father who himself was also an author, but largely absent from his son's life," the Examiner reports.
Although he admits to being gay in "First Lady," Kemp told Fox news that he is "genderless."
"I would just tell you, everything is not as it seems," Kemp said in regards to his relationship with Long. "Nothing is real. And everything that glitters isn't gold. I'm just Centino. I don't consider myself a gender. I'm not a transvestite, transgendered. I'm a boy, and I like being a boy."
Fox notes that Kemp was given $94,000 from the settlement and that his friends question if he really had a relationship with Long.
"He came here, had his story together, and he got money off of it," Willie Alexander told Fox. "He sits up all night on the Internet and watches Eddie's online sermons." He added that Kemp has a tattoo on his wrist that says "Eddie Long" but to him, it looks recent, even though Kemp insists he's had it for a while. Kemp claims his friends are upset because he stopped giving them money.
"He wants to be famous. He's star-struck. I just, he wants to be famous," Jayson Cobb, a friend of Kemp, told Fox.
After Kemp collected his settlement money in May, he moved in with Alexander but disappeared after a few months.
Fox's Atlanta station confirmed that Kemp told health officials at a mental institution that he had been "sexually and physically abused for six years by Pastor E. Long." He was at the facility for two days before he was asked to be discharged and told staff he was with "crazy people. I'm not like them."
Kemp went on to tell Fox that his alter ego, Wild Child Kemp, saved his life.
"I need to get up out of here, I can live. I don't have to be suicidal taking pills, because I have better opportunities than other people here. That's when like, Wild Child, was like, 'You need to get up, let's go,'" Kemp said.
Long is trying to get back at least $300,000 from three of the men and alleges they violated their confidentially agreements, Fox notes. The pastor, however, is involved in another lawsuit, which was recently filed by church members who claim he convinced them to invest money in a company that had a $3 million capital deficit. The Post notes the Ponzi scheme was run Ephren W. Taylor who held a number of financial seminars in October 2009 and took more than $1 million in investments from 12 members of the New Birth church.