When Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez got the phone call April 19 that her fiancé, Aaron Hernandez, had committed suicide in prison, she was in such shock that she didn't believe what she was hearing.
"I thought it was a hoax, that this was some cruel person playing a trick on me," Jenkins-Hernandez said in her first public remarks since Aaron's death.
Jenkins-Hernandez made the comments during an interview with Dr. Phil that's set to air in a two-part special May 15-16.
According to a promo from the show, Jenkins-Hernandez is going to set "the record straight about her fiancé's mysterious jail cell death."
Jenkins-Hernandez, who talked to Hernandez the day before his death, said she had no idea Aaron was going to kill himself, even though he had written in a suicide note where he told her "indirectly" what "was coming."
In her final conversation with Hernandez, Jenkins-Hernandez says that Aaron actually sounded upbeat.
"I felt like we were looking so bright. We were going up a ladder to a positive direction," Shayanna told Dr. Phil. "Our last talk had nothing to do with suicidal thoughts."
According to the show, Dr. Phil touched on multiple topics with Jenkins-Hernandez, "including rumors about Hernandez's purported secret romantic life, and if she thinks he killed himself so that she could collect millions of dollars."
Hernandez's prison love life has become a hot topic over the past few weeks, with reports suggesting that he may have had a male lover in prison.
When authorities found Hernandez's body on April 19, they found him with three suicide notes, and part of the mystery surrounding his death revolves around the contents of the third note.
One note was written to his fiancée (Jenkins-Hernandez), one note was written to his 4-year-old daughter, but it's still unclear for whom the third note was written.
The contents of that final note have become somewhat controversial because of what Hernandez might or might not written.
According to a report from Newsweek that came out on April 21, the final note was intended for Hernandez's prison boyfriend, a 22-year-old man named Kyle Kennedy. However, Hernandez's lawyer, Jose Baez, has vehemently denied that claim, although he still hasn't revealed for whom the note was actually intended.
As for the millions of dollars that Dr. Phil is going to ask Jenkins-Hernandez about, it'll definitely be interesting to hear what she has to say. In a suicide note to his fiancée that became public last week, Hernandez mysteriously told her, 'YOU'RE RICH.'
However, it's not clear what it was that Hernandez was referencing.
It's possible that he was alluding to the fact that he might get roughly $6.5 million in held contract money from the Patriots now that his murder conviction from 2013 has been vacated. Although Hernandez was found guilty of killing Odin Lloyd -- and was serving life in prison for it -- the former tight end's conviction was vacated on Tuesday thanks to a legal principle known as "abatement ab initio."
According to a death report obtained by the Boston Herald, Hernandez may have been very aware of the fact that his death could result in a payout to his family.
An inmate who was in prison with Hernandez said that the tight end recently talked about a "rumor" that if a convict dies with a pending appeal, then the court would view him as not guilty, which is exactly what happened on Tuesday when Hernandez's conviction was vacated in the Lloyd case due to the fact that he died with a pending appeal.
With the conviction now vacated, that could pave the way for Jenkins-Hernandez to possibly collect on benefits and money from both the NFL and the Patriots.
