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Shannon Turley Pictures: Ex-Wife Of Christopher ‘Big Black’ Boykin In Spotlight After His Death

By Nathan Francis
Published on: 03:41 PST, May 11, 2017

Shannon Turley is remembering her late husband, Big Black from the MTV show Rob & Big, as a devoted father to their young daughter.

After the death of the MTV star this week, attention has turned to Christopher Boykin’s wife, with many pictures circulating showing the couple smiling together in happier times. And despite their divorce several years ago, the two remained close until the actor’s final days.

Christopher Boykin passed away this week after a battle with lung and heart problems. His death brought an outpouring of love and support from Hollywood and Boykin’s former co-stars, and now, the 45-year-old’s former wife is offering a glimpse into the family’s grief.

In an interview with Radar Online, Shannon Turley said that Big Black’s death has been particularly hard on their 9-year-old daughter, Isis Rea.

“She doesn’t really know what’s going on. She’s only nine. She’s confused,” Shannon said.

Christopher Boykin’s wife added that the entire family is having a difficult time dealing with his passing.

“We’re not doing very good,” she added. “We’re really distraught.”

Shannon Turley also remembered the late actor and comedian as a hard worker.

“He was a great father. That was the best thing about him,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “He worked his a** off. Nothing was handed to him.”

Christopher Boykin was a U.S. Navy veteran before he struck up an unlikely friendship with professional skater Rob Dyrdeck that led to Big Black becoming a television star, A.V. Club noted.

“A Navy veteran, Boykin met pro skater Rob Dyrdeck when the latter was casting a security guard for a skating skit, and the two quickly became close friends. When Dyrdek approached MTV about turning his life into a reality show, he pitched the pair’s odd couple friendship—contrasting his own boisterousness with Boykin’s soft-spoken calm—as the central hook for the show.”

The relationship between Dyrdek and Boykin would later become strained to the point that the two barely spoke, Dyrdek noted.

“It was a strange period,” Dyrdek said in a 2016 interview (via People magazine) about life after their MTV shows were off the air.

“I had been a pro skateboarder for years, so me transitioning to mainstream fame was relatively smooth, right, where for him, the idea that man he was like working security two years earlier and now he’s on television, it was a much different dynamic. But I think we both struggled with I didn’t want to be known as like Rob from Rob & Big … and I think he didn’t want to be known for like the sidekick. So that created a lot of that tension between me and him.”

Christopher Boykin’s wife also offered some new insight into his death. She noted that Big Black had been in the hospital for several days as his condition worsened and his lungs and heart began to fail.

“Fluid was building up in his lungs…they couldn’t do anything,” Shannon said.

Turley said that Christopher Boykin’s condition took a sharp turn for the worse early this week and she got a call from the hospital to come in.

But Turley didn’t make it in time.

“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 reflected. “It was tough. We were right there.”

In her interviews, Shannon Turley also dispelled rumors that the couple were living separately. Several media reports noted that Christopher and Shannon were no longer together, but Shannon told Radar Online that they were were living together at the time of his death, despite their divorce.

[Featured Image by Noel Vasquez/Getty Images]

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