Sidem Öztürk did her first official interview as Vybz Kartel’s fiancée with Fox 5’s Lisa Evers, where she shared details about her love life with the Gaza Boss and their engagement.
In the interview, Öztürk shared that she and Kartel were engaged in the summer of 2022 after seven years of talking. Last month, Vybz Kartel’s management exclusively shared with Urban Islandz that his new EP, True Religion, is dedicated to his new fiancee, who he has been dating since 2015.
“How it happened is, we were calling each other hubby and wifey, and he was like ‘we’re heading towards marriage so calling you wifey or hubby is not serious enough’, so he was like ‘you’re my fiancé, we’re gonna get married,” Sidem Öztürk said.
In the interview, Öztürk says that she previously studied psychology and left her job in the United Kingdom to move to Jamaica to be closer to Kartel.
“He’s smart, I love his heart, he’s got an amazing heart and it’s so giving, it’s so loving, I like to call him my angel,” she says giggling. “He’s just an angel in my life and I can’t deny the way he makes me feel and how happy he makes me feel so to actually be here in Jamaica, engaged to Addi, it’s a dream come true, I still haven’t processed it,” she said.
Öztürk shared that she had been corresponding with Kartel since 2015- about four years into his arrest. By this time, Kartel already had three children with his longtime girlfriend, Tanesha ‘Shorty’ Johnson.
Öztürk’s interview shares that despite the relationship being unconventional with Kartel not giving her a diamond ring and her preference being for a tattoo on their ring fingers, she is very happy although
“It does cause some difficulty and obviously I can’t see him when I want to see him and I can’t talk to him when I want to talk to him but when you know what you want and you know where your heart is at, it’s not that difficult,” she said.
“There’s glass between us so we don’t get to touch each other,” she added.
Meanwhile, Öztürk remains hopeful that the deejay would be freed in his ongoing appeal at the United Kingdom’s Privy Council.
Vybz Kartel also reacted to the interview in anticipation of critics. “Who vex? Drink water & mind yuh business!” he wrote on Instagram.
Vybz Kartel has been behind bars for over a decade, following his arrest 11 years ago in Kingston. The dancehall enigma was slapped with two murder charges in the months following his arrest. He was later acquitted on charges of the murder of Barrington “Bossie” Burton but found guilty of the murder of Clive “Lizard” Williams in 2014. The controversial case is still playing out in the court system as the deejay’s attorney points to widespread corruption in police handling of key evidence used in the trial.
Kartel, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, is now hoping for a favorable outcome of his pending appeal in UK’s Privy Council.
