This Influencer Owes $1.75 Million For Wrecking a Marriage

What’s your wildest cheating-revenge fantasy? Keying your ex’s car? Finding true love with the other person who was cheated on? How about suing the cheaters for $1.75 million? That’s how one North Carolina woman named Akira Montague got even — and now her ex-husband’s new wife, content creator Brenay Montague, has been ordered to pay $1.75 million for allegedly ruining Akira’s marriage.

According to Akira, Brenay had an affair with her husband, Timothy Montague, and “flaunted” him on social media while he was still married to Akira. Brenay, on the other hand, claims Akira had given her “consent” to pursue their relationship. It’s an extremely unusual case that brings together revenge fantasies and archaic laws, and we need to unpack it. Let’s try and understand how on earth we got here, shall we?

Who are these people?

Brenay is kind of the only famous person in this group — she goes by @lifeofbrenay online and has almost 3 million followers on TikTok. She’s based in North Carolina and usually posts day-in-the-life content, including get-ready-with-me videos, mukbangs, and cooking and shopping vlogs. In May 2021, Brenay married a man named Devon Mayo and seems to have befriended Devon’s cousin, Timothy Montague, and Timothy’s wife, Akira. (Timothy was also, per NBC, working as Brenay’s manager.)

According to Akira’s complaint, she became good friends with Brenay while they were married to Timothy and Devon, respectively, and began to confide in her about her marriage to Timothy. The four of them would regularly hang out — their friendship was documented in some of Brenay’s TikToks, where she and Timothy are often front and center (occasionally with one of their spouses looking aloof and left out near the edge of the screen). Here they are, enjoying some banter over dinner prep while Akira appears to be cooking quietly in the background:

So … how did this all begin?

In December 2023, according to The News & Observer, Brenay moved in with Akira and Timothy while she was having marital issues with Devon. During this stretch, Brenay continued to make social-media content with Timothy, and he often appeared in her livestreams, where people sometimes commented on their seemingly flirty dynamic. She also seems to have posted photos of Akira and Timothy’s children to her platforms, which Akira later claimed in her lawsuit were “without [her] knowledge or consent.”

In February 2024, Brenay posted a “life update” to Instagram, where she shared that she and Devon were divorced but still friends. (Timothy and Devon both appeared in a video she posted the following day, in which she goes shopping for her new apartment.) Per The News & Observer, Timothy and Akira officially separated a month later, on March 5, 2024.

When did Timothy and Brenay get together?

In June 2024, Timothy seems to have made his first official appearance on Brenay’s TikTok as her boyfriend. (They did the “numbers challenge.”) They’ve been posting openly about their relationship pretty much ever since.

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Why did Akira sue Brenay?

In May 2024, local police issued an arrest warrant for Brenay, who’d allegedly threatened Akira — according to the warrant, she told her, “I will kill you,” “I will beat your [expletive],” and “I know where you stay.” Brenay eventually agreed to a deferment of prosecution in December 2024 in exchange for 12 months of unsupervised probation. She also agreed to complete anger-management classes and have no contact with Akira.

A few days after the May arrest warrant, Akira filed a civil lawsuit in Durham County Superior Court, seeking $3.5 million in damages from Brenay for alienation of affection and criminal conversation. North Carolina is one of six states that allows people to sue the person their spouse had an affair with, and Akira wrote in her filing that “the Defendant has intentionally, wrongfully and unjustifiably interfered with the relationship between the Plaintiff and her Husband.”

She also accused Brenay of humiliating her by posting videos with Timothy on social media. Her lawyer told reporters that Brenay “flaunted her relationship with a married man. And, of course, it went viral and my client was humiliated because of that.”

And how are Brenay and Timothy doing?

It’s unclear how far back Brenay and Timothy’s flirty videos go, but it does seem like none of this has stopped them from enjoying their newly coupled-up life. Timothy makes frequent appearances in Brenay’s day-in-the-life videos, and in September — a few months before the trial began — they got married. While Brenay didn’t reveal exactly when, she made a TikTok vlog of them going to Dave & Buster’s to “celebrate,” teasing her following that they “already knew why.”

Meanwhile, Brenay’s rapidly deteriorating friendship with Akira seems to have taken an even darker turn. In September, one month before the trial began and around the time Brenay referred to their marriage, Brenay was arrested for allegedly cyberstalking Akira. She was released from Durham police custody after posting a $2,500 bond.

What happened during the trial?

The trial began earlier this month. Timothy was called as a witness, and he claimed he’d never loved Akira and likened their relationship to “roommates,” according to The News & Observer. Akira’s testimony, on the other hand, suggested their marriage was very real — the couple had matching “True Love” tattoos, and her attorney, Robonetta Jones, showed several affectionate text messages Timothy sent Akira, as well as photos of them on vacation together.

Timothy’s sister, Imani Montague, and his mother, Tameka Green, also testified. Imani lived with her brother and his ex-wife and described the environment as “always hostile,” claiming that she had to drop out of college due to the stress their marriage caused her, per The News & Observer. His mother reportedly testified that Timothy and Akira’s relationship was often on the rocks, saying that “when it was bad, it was bad.”

Brenay also took the stand and said that she’d been under the impression Akira was uncomfortable with her and Timothy’s relationship. She also recalled a conversation she had with Akira, in which Akira allegedly said she “wouldn’t even mind” if Brenay and Timothy got together, and then said to her then-husband, “Tim, I found your wife.”

What about Brenay’s ex-husband, Devon Mayo?

Devon also took the stand earlier this week. He alleged that Brenay and Timothy had a relationship all the way back in 2014, when they were in high school. Almost ten years later, while he and Brenay were married, Devon said he overheard Brenay and Timothy talking about rekindling their relationship one night in December 2023 while he was trying to sleep. He also claims to have heard Brenay and Timothy having intimate relations more than once in his home in January 2024.

What happens now?

Well, after six days and more than 700 pages of evidence, the trial is over. On November 10, Brenay was ordered to pay Akira $1.5 million for alienation of affection and $250,000 for criminal conversation. Speaking to a crowd outside of the courthouse on November 10, Akira’s lawyer said that her client had “received the justice she deserved.” Following the decision, Brenay repeated her claim that Akira had been fine with the affair, telling reporters, “She gave her consent. She said it was okay, because she knew her marriage was over with, and it was done.”

In a statement to People, Brenay wrote, “The truth will always be the truth and it’s easy to believe the lies, especially when playing the victim card. [Akira] may have won the battle but not the war. God will have the final say.”

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