Shayanna Jenkins was engaged to late convicted murderer and former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez at the time of his 2017 suicide in prison. On Jan. 15, Netflix debuted Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, a three-part docuseries exploring his life, from his difficult childhood, his time in the NFL, Aaron’s murder trial and time in prison. It also delves into his sexual orientation and suicide by hanging at age 27 while serving his sentence. Now Shayanna is giving her first interview since the docuseries dropped, shedding tears and telling her side of what she knew about her fiance.
Shayanna, 30, sat down with Good Morning America‘s Amy Rohbach to reveal how she’d like people to remember the man she loved, and the father of her seven-year-old daughter Avielle Janelle Jenkins-Hernandez. The interview airs on Monday, Jan. 27 on GMA, and we’ve got five things to know about Shayanna.
1. The couple met in college. Before we get into the heavy details, let’s take a light-hearted walk down memory lane. Shayanna Jenkins met Aaron Hernandez in 2007 at the University Of Florida where he played for the Florida Gators. They were COLLEGE SWEETHEARTS, which is basically unheard of these days.
2. Shayanna and Aaron had a baby! The late footballer’s fiancé gave birth to daughter Avielle Janelle Jenkins-Hernandez in November of 2012 before officially tying the knot. Aaron popped the question that same month. Even though the couple never married, Shayanna legally took his last name in 2015.
3. She was a ride-or-die kind of girl. When news broke out of a 2013 Miami shooting, Shayanna stuck by her man’s side even though Aaron was suspected of killing two men and severely injuring a third during a car ride to a strip club. The man who survived, Alexander Bradley, claims Aaron shot his eye out. Aaron was found not guilty of the double homicide.
4. Her unwavering loyalty created a family rift.
That same year, Aaron was charged of murdering Shayanna’s sister’s boyfriend, Odin Lloyd. Shaneah Jenkins reportedly reached out to Shayanna for comfort, but was turned away by her strange and “secretive” behavior. When the case went to court in 2015, the sisters were on opposite sides of the trail.
MONDAY ON @GMA: Aaron Hernandez’s ex-fiancée – and mother of his daughter – tells her story for the first time. What does she say that’s not in the explosive documentary? Find out Monday only on @GMA. pic.twitter.com/zkwtT0cr7t
— Good Morning America (@GMA) January 24, 2020
5. She testified during the trial. Shayanna was granted immunity in exchange for her testimony. She told prosecutors that Aaron asked her to “go downstairs in our storage and remove a box from our home” the day after Odin was killed and threw it away in a “random dumpster.” In 2017, she confessed to finding a gun in their shared home but didn’t confront him about it.