LisaRaye McCoy-Misick called herself the “First Lady”, though that title is normally reserved for the wife of the British governor.
The American sitcom star married Michael Misick in 2006 after a lightning romance and thought at first that he was “president” of the British colony. The couple even shot a pilot episode for a TV show about a celebrity who becomes a First Lady.
The former hip-hop dancer met Mr Misick at the Trumpet Awards ceremony in Atlanta in 2005 and a month later he proposed.
He told her he was worth “either $80 million [£49 million] or $180 million”. But Ms McCoy-Misick, 32, divorced her husband after discovering that he had fathered a child with another woman and, in January, stunned the islands by testifying about the couple’s lavish lifestyle before the commission of inquiry into alleged corruption. Because she lived in Los Angeles, Mr Misick would rent a plane to ferry her to and from the Turks & Caicos at a cost of $50,000 each way.
His government then leased a $165,000-a-month Gulfstream jet that the couple allegedly used for holidays to Africa, Milan and Prague. She testified that she spent $200,000 a month on a credit card that he gave her, shopping in places such as Liberty and Harrods in London.
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“I had to change my wardrobe from my Hollywood lifestyle to a First Lady lifestyle, so I had to get hats and gloves and different suits and only wear white,” she said. She also helped to design their $8 million mansion, spending $1 million on interior decoration, while Mr Misick arranged for her to receive around $300,000 to become “the face” of Turks & Caicos in tourism adverts.