In a viral TikTok video, a woman says that her former friend planned to kill her and perform a cesarean section on her in order to steal her fetus. The TikToker also says appearing on Dr. Phil only worsened her post-traumatic stress disorder from the incident.
Angelique Cruz (@angeliquemonet0) has posted about her story on TikTok multiple times. Her most recent viral video about the incident was posted on Friday and by Monday had been viewed over 4 million times.
“You think you can hurt me?” Cruz wrote in the video’s overlay text. “I cried like this when I pulled the butcher knives out of my friends bag in front of the police. She was going to use them to cut my baby from my stomach when I was 9 months pregnant.”
Cruz identifies herself as a mother and a trauma survivor in her TikTok bio. “I went numb and became a whole different person that day forward,” she wrote in the video’s caption.
In January, Cruz posted videos explaining what she went through. She says that she was 18 when the woman tried to attack her and that she knew the woman, who purported to be pregnant as well. The woman came to Cruz’s home to deliver “baby presents” and stayed at Cruz’s home “all day long,” Cruz says in a TikTok.
“She said she had gifts she wanted to give me. So we went into a room, my room. She had me turn around, close my eyes, and told me to count to 3,” Cruz explains. “And right before she got to 3, I had a really really strong feeling that something was going to happen to me.”
Cruz says she turned around, and the friend put something into her bag. The TikToker says she felt unsafe but tried to continue to spend time with the friend as if nothing had happened. Cruz then says her friend seemed to stall for time—including setting Cruz’s closet on fire.
Cruz says she called the police and asked officers to look into the friend’s bag with her. She found “two large butcher knives” and materials to care for a newborn baby. The friend later confessed to having planned to murder Cruz and kidnap her baby to the police.
Cruz appeared on Dr. Phil in 2013 to tell her story, which she also recounts on TikTok. She says that the talk-show host victim-blamed her. In a clip Cruz posted of her appearance on the show, Phil McGraw explains a list of her “ignored instincts” that led to her being put in danger.
“All Dr Phil did was make me feel more [alive] then I have ever felt before,” Cruz wrote in the overlay text of a TikTok about the show. “My PTSD suffered more after this.”
Some commenters on Cruz’s viral TikTok from Friday said that they had feared “fetus abductions,” or being cut open while pregnant, in the past.
“When I was heavily pregnant I wouldn’t run errands on my own,” @agon848 commented. “My mother or boyfriend would go with me because I was terrified of something like that!”
“I’ve always been told to not be in public alone while pregnant, especially end of term pregnancy,” @heavy_dayz420 wrote.
Another commenter identified with Cruz’s story.
“My dad’s girlfriend tried to cut my child out of my when I was 12 [weeks],” @catybug_2020. “She had just relapsed and my dad didn’t believe me.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Cruz via Instagram direct message and to Dr. Phil via email.
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