You can’t help who you fall in love with, and we’ve all gotten the hots for someone we shouldn’t have at some time or another. But TikToker Jen Jen Gomez probably has us all beat in that department. Not many of us can say we fell hook, line, and sinker for a sexy Russian mobster and ended up serving a decade of jailtime.
Gomez kept the people of TikTok gripped by sharing her shocking life story, especially as she has such a light-hearted way of delivering it. According to Gomez’s engrossing, high-speed storytelling, she first met the man who “changed my life for the worst” when she was 17-years-old. Glimpsing him leaning by his Mercedes when leaving a party, she was immediately taken with his obvious wealth and style. Gomez’s friend, who also happened to be Russian, warned her to stay away from him, though, telling her that her family were familiar with his family and knew they were bad news.
“Lord have mercy, why did she tell me that, because that only made me more excited,” Gomez admits. Long story short, she got to know the guy — who was four years older than her, 21 at the time — and they embarked on a passionate one-month long relationship… Only for him to “disappear off the face of the Earth” without a trace.
That was that, but then 4-5 years later, Gomez was stunned to spot her mobster mister at a club. She recalls how thrilled she was to see him again, because “that could’ve been my guy, that could’ve been the mafia lifestyle I wanted to live… I always thought I was going to be a mafia wife. I don’t know, don’t ask me [why].” So she was blown away when he knocked on her door at 3am that night and explained all…
Mafia Daddy revealed that, five years prior, he had been facing charges — that he promised her were false — and so he had been forced to leave the country and return to Russia to flee the authorities. The reason he had returned now, once the statute of limitations had elapsed? Because he had never been able to stop thinking about her and still wanted them to be together.
“So, guess what?” Gomez said. “Instead of saying ‘Hold up, what happened? What was the situation you were fleeing from? Why did you flee in the first place if you were innocent?’ No, not what I did.” What Gomez actually did was to ignore all the advice of her family and friends, cutting them out of her life when they pleaded with her to part ways with this dangerous man, and entered back into a relationship with him.
Shutting her eyes to the many, many red flags about him, Gomez only saw the fact that he was an affluent, attractive guy with multiple businesses under his belt. “He just seemed to have it all together. What more could I possibly want?” she explained. In retrospect, what she could possibly want is not a man who would eventually flee the country again and leave her to take the rap for his crimes.
I know what you’re thinking, I’m thinking it too. Is Gomez for real? Her story is so wild that it’s easy to suspect that she’s making it all up. If she is, though, then she is a truly gifted actress and storyteller, peppering her recounts with various specific details and an authenticity that would surely pass any lie detector test. Or win her an Oscar. Whether it’s true or not, clearly TikTok is hooked. “Girl, this is a Netflix series,” one commented.
It’s not the first time TikTok has delivered a storyline right out of a smash-hit streaming show and it won’t be the last.