While Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam didn't grant her clemency from serving a life sentence for the murder of Johnny Allen until 2018, Brown was already married to Long before she was released. (FYI: Brown would now be considered a 16-year-old human trafficking victim, but in 2004, she was considered a prostitute and went to prison after she fatally shooting 43-year-old Allen, who had hired her for sex, per NBC News .)
Cyntoia Brown is now a free woman and the focus of Netflix's new documentary, From Murder To Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story, but one thing she's not? A single lady. Heres what you need to know about her and husband Jamie Long's marriage:
Their romance began when Long wrote Brown a letter.
Long told TODAY that he was inspired to write to Brown while she was incarcerated after seeing her story on YouTube. "I felt it in my spirit to write a letter and here we are now," he explained.
Apparently, Long also decided to burned the edges of the paper, and that stuck out to Brown. "So I decided, I'm gonna write him back," she said. "And then, of course, he was really cute."
"I felt it in my spirit to write a letter and here we are now," Cyntoia Brown-Long and her husband talk about how they cultivated a relationship while she was incarcerated. pic.twitter.com/N1Kdd6eROc 3rd Hour of TODAY (@3rdHourTODAY)
Brown also said during at Q&A interview in 2019 that Long came into her life at a particularly low point. "It was at a time where all my appeals had been denied. They give you three appeals in the state of Tennessee. You get your direct appeal, you get your post conviction appeal, then after you use all those appeals, you can petition the federal courts," she said, per BET . Besides letters, Brown said she and Long stayed in touch over the phone.
Long felt an instant connection when they met in person.
The couple first saw each other after four months of correspondence, according to their interview with TODAY. "As soon as I laid eyes on her, I was like, 'That's my wife,'" Long said on the show. "...I didn't tell her that she was my wife, but I knew." Brown said that she "felt it," too, but that she didn't really think it was possible, because all of her appeals had been denied.
The couple got married by proxy.
Brown and Long got married over the phone, according to the Tennessean . (Under Tennessee law, people who are in prison can apply for a marriage license to wed by proxy, which allows a couple to get married without being in the same room, the newspaper reported.) In Browns case, a person stood in for her at the wedding ceremony.
Interestingly, Brown did not marry according to regular department policy, the Tennessee Department of Corrections confirmed to the Tennessean. Instead, she informed the warden at the Tennessee Prison for Women (where she was incarcerated) that she got married over the phone via a proxy at some point before her release in 2018.
Long is a Christian rapper.
He goes by the name J. Long. Before having a solo career, he also used to be in an R&B/hip-hop group called Pretty Ricky that released songs like "Grind with Me" and "Your Body." Check 'em out:
He helped Brown find religion.
"My chances [of being released] were slim to none," Cyntoia said, per BET. "He [Long] wrote me around that time, and he told me that God was bigger than any sentence, than any judge, and any jury."
Long has been married before.
Justin used to be married to singer Pamela Long from girl group Total, who spoke out about his new marriage. "This man is diabolical and he is such a manipulator. The way this man pursued this woman is the way he did me," Pamela told The Neighborhood Talk . The couple were married for six years, and Pamela says he cheated on her.
Hes really, really into music.
Long told E mcee magazine in 2017 that "it was like I was destined to be in music. I can remember falling in love with the drums when I was about two years old." He also said, "Everyone in our family played instruments or was a singer. I loved everything that had something to do with music."