Bishop Charles H. Ellis III, the longtime leader of one of Detroit’s most influential Black churches, acknowledged Monday night that he had “an inappropriate relationship” with a former church member, but he denies many of the explosive allegations she made in a series of now-deleted TikTok videos.
The former member, Melody Walker, said the relationship began in 2002 when she was 22 and Ellis was 47, and continued off and on until about 2018. She described the experience as painful and spiritually damaging, saying Ellis took advantage of her as a young single mother who had just moved to Detroit and had no family or support.
“When you’re 21 or 22 and you finally meet somebody that is a support system, you will hold on to them, married or not,” Walker said. “I felt like he was my friend. But at the same time, he exploited my brokenness and my weakness and my need for support and to have a friend. He didn’t have to do the things he did in the name of benevolence. He could really just have been a good spiritual father and not made it what it was.”…