Credit: Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto, Youtube
Million Dollar Listing: New York alum Luis D. Ortiz is facing allegations of physical and emotional abuse from former girlfriend Nikita Singh.
During a new interview, Nikita, who shares a three-year-old daughter, Leela, with the former Bravo star, who’s recently been featured on Netflix’s The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals, claimed Luis allegedly exhibited violent outbursts, starved her, and humiliated her before their 2020 split.
“I went through hell with Luis. He told me when we moved in together that I was so lucky – that anyone would die to be in my position. But once I was there – and financially dependent on him – I suddenly started being told things about how I needed to act and behave. He told me I was ungrateful and that he could take it everything away,” Nikita recalled to The Sun on March 16. “I had to take care of him and Leela, and anyone else who came into the house. But I was being degraded and humiliated at every turn. If I said something had happened, it was false – in my head.”
According to Nikita, Luis allegedly kept her from food but told her the supposed abuse was “all in her head” and that anything that felt aggressive to her was nothing more than a joke.
“I would go days without eating because there were only baby pouches in the apartment – but I remember him he telling me my hunger wasn’t real. Then things would start flying. He was physically violent. I can remember one occasion when he wrestled me to the floor and my head smashed on a door handle,” she claimed.
But after the reported abuse, Luis would “tell [her] that it didn’t happen” and that she “was being over sensitive.” Meanwhile, she was scared for her life and felt that if something bad were to happen, Luis would lie to her family.
In addition to the alleged abuse, Nikita said Luis, who she began dating in 2016, humiliated her by forcing her to wear his old clothes.
Although Nikita split from Luis after Leela’s birth in March 2019, she revealed he ultimately convinced her to move back in with him in Puerto Rico, saying he wanted to be involved in the child’s life and promising to help Nikita start a business.
“But that turned out to be a lie – a trap to persuade me to move in,” Nikita shared. “We moved into an isolated apartment in Puerto Rico. He had us out in the middle of nowhere. I had 20 dollars and had to ask him for everything. If I asked about my business, I was being ‘ungrateful.’ There was never enough food in the house for me and Leela, so I would go without – sometimes for days. My belongings and clothes disappeared and I had to wear Luis’s old things instead. But when I asked for my possessions I was told I was ‘small-minded’ and too concerned with material possessions. I was constantly verbally abused and told that I wasn’t good enough.”
Even on her birthday, Nikita was deprived of a celebration.
“I remember on my birthday, he told me that we wouldn’t celebrate because I hadn’t ‘earned it.’ He told me with a straight face: ‘You don’t deserve it’ and added ‘maybe next year,'” she recalled.
Nikita also said Luis spit on her and twisted her arm as they drove in a car, which prompted her to have a panic attack.
Luis and Nikita later moved from Puerto Rico to the United States. And despite the alleged abuse, Nikita remained with Luis for one more year.
“It wasn’t until a year later, when a pediatrician recognized signs of abuse, that I was offered help and we were finally able to escape from him and fly to Britain. It was concern for Leela that was my saving grace, because that got me out,” Nikita revealed.
After her arrival to the U.K. in late 2020, Nikita was accused of kidnapping Leela, but in October of last year, the allegations were dropped. The following month, Nikita set up a second GoFundMe page (her first was launched amid the kidnapping claims) to raise funds after being “financially depleted” by her legal battle with Luis.