Deavan Clegg has had a whirlwind of a year — even more so than most of us in 2020.
She had to flee Korea for the US with her kids during the pandemic.
Deavan ended her marriage, was bombarded with vicious threats towards her and her daughter, and ended her 90 Day Fiance career.
Her daughter, Drascilla, developed a mysterious medical condition that turned out to be Bell’s palsy.
Deavan also found a new boyfriend, but received hate and threats for that, too.
Now, she is opening up to 90 Day Fiance blogger John Yates in a lengthy interview on his YouTube channel.
(Yes, it’s 70 minutes, but it’s really worth checking out if you have the time — Yates is the best at this kind of talk)
The interview includes details about Jihoon, behind-the-scenes details from filming the show, her new boyfriend, her kids, and more.
Deavan did a new interview
Chatting remotely with incomparable 90 Day Fiance blogger John Yates, Deavan is opening up about Jihoon, Topher, Drascilla’s diagnosis, and how she really feels about her reality career.
On her split from Jihoon
Deavan confirms in her interview that she has filed to divorce Jihoon … but that she is still waiting for him to sign the papers. Meanwhile, in contrast with some of the claims that Jihoon has made, she says that he has blocked her and her entire family on social media.
As for visitation
Deavan affirms that Jihoon is “more than welcome to come [to the U.S.]” to see Taeyang. Right now, South Korea has a very sensible two-week quarantine as the COVID-19 pandemic rages like a wildfire … mostly in America … and Deavan cannot do that to herself or to her kids right now, so it’s up to Jihoon to make the trip.
And he’s … given a random fan Deavan’s address?
“We’re uncomfortable with the fact that he is giving fans our address when he can ship things from Korea, he can buy things from Amazon in America and ship it here,” Deavan says of the situation, noting that this is not the best way for him to give things to little Taeyang.
It’s scary!
“There’s no reason to involve an outside party that we both don’t know,” Deavan notes. “He’s never met this person. I’ve never met this person and we were very scared. We have had to relocate twice.”
Remember …
Deavan says that some of Jihoon’s hardcore fans have not only shown up at her house but have threatened her and her children. We here at THG can personally attest to having seen 90 Day Fiance fans say horrific things about Deavan and about her daughter, Drascilla. Also, Deavan has a dangerous relative who should never know her address. NO ONE should give out someone’s address, ever. It just takes one violent person to turn a situation of harassment into a tragedy.
About Topher Park
Deavan and her hot new boyfriend are currently living together. While some fans think that she has moved on super quickly, she reminds them that what they’re seeing on TV was filmed many, many months ago … and adds that she and Jihoon “had been mentally out of love for a very long time.”
She has a lot of nice things to say about him
Deavan praises that Topher is great with her kids and adds that Taeyang is “super-attached to him.” Of course, that seems likely to only enrage Jihoon’s most diehard fans.
How and when did they meet?
Deavan reveals to John Yates that she and Topher met by happenstance at LAX when Deavan was gearing up to fly to Korea to see Jihoon. Topher, at the time, was going to see his then-girlfriend. They chatted for a bit before boarding their plane, but it wasn’t some sort of “stroke of fate” situation — they weren’t seated together on the flight or anything like that. It wasn’t until after Deavan and Jihoon split that they were back in touch. Topher recognized Deavan through a mutual friend on social media, discovering that they are from the same hometown in California. Both of them were now single and, well, one thing led to another.
About that confusing, polarizing episode where Drascilla darted off
“The scene you guys saw on the show was not actually where it happened and TLC has probably came out and said that as well and they have apologized to me,” Deavan says, referring to some shady editing that caused many viewers to uncritically accept what they were seeing instead of realizing that they saw two largely unrelated events treated as cause and effect — Drascilla darting off briefly at a playground followed by Elicia chewing out Jihoon as if he’d nearly gotten her killed.
Deavan once again explains what happened
“ … We were actually done filming, we had hung up our microphones, everything, cameras were being [taken] down and I was putting [Taeyang] in the car because we were going to get food,” she repeats to John Yates. “[Jihoon] was in charge of watching Drascilla and as I’m putting [Taeyang] in the car I look up and she was off, [Jihoon] was on his phone and that’s really what happened.”
Producers had them record what they said at the time
Their claim to Deavan and Elicia was that they would put up an explanatory card, as they have for other stars, explaining what happened. Instead, they turned viewer opinions against Deavan and Elicia purely because it would be more dramatic and polarizing. Irresponsible.
Speaking of Drascilla
Deavan says that her daughter’s high energy levels and rambunctiousness are the results of producers plying her with sweets and asking her to do things, citing that they were giving her “three year-old a bunch of snacks and candy.”
Production’s job is to make things interesting
“ … Producers who are constantly giving her sugar, who are constantly doing this and telling her to run around and do this stuff because it would be funny,” Deavan recalls. “So I don’t think people realize that’s the job of a producer … .”
About Drascilla’s Bell’s palsy diagnosis
“I started panicking and you know, I studied medicine in school so you know, everything was going through my head and then everything was just going back to Bell’s palsy,” Deavan says of when Drascilla told her that she wasn’t able to smile properlly. “No one knows exactly why it’s caused, they think it happens from a viral infection. People saying it’s from stress, that’s not true.”
Drascilla still can’t fully close one eye
Deavan says that her daughter is doing a lot of facial exercises to restore function to those muscles on that half of her face, and she hopes that Drascilla will soon make a full recovery.
The goofy translator was the show’s fault
“They thought it would be better to use the translation device that way they could hear it out loud but it actually just kind of backfired,” Deavan said, noting that she and Jihoon had had much more success with a text-based app that translated but took longer and didn’t play as well on TV. Also, she wants viewers to know that she did study Korean for two years … but it looks like the show wasn’t interested in showing that.
Things got pretty bad
We all know about Deavan’s child-abuse allegations against Jihoon — describing how he attacked Drascilla, ripped out chunks of her hair, and hit her before threatening his own life and Taeyang’s. Deavan didn’t delve into all of that detail (which was leaked; she is saving her photographic and video evidence for court), but she did address it indirectly.
She blames herself for a lot
“The things that happened, I hold myself accountable one hundred percent,” Deavan affirms. “I was supposed to protect my family and I went to Korea when I shouldn’t have and I am very hard on myself and I’m very critical of myself of that. …”
As for her reality career …
Deavan announces that she is “a hundred percent done” with 90 Day Fiance and TLC. As we have already reported, she will not be part of the Tell All.
But …
She is working on a documentary to share her story, one that fans can expect to see come out in December or January. She will not be the first 90 Day Fiance star to do so.