Keshia Knight Pulliam’s marriage to Ed Hartwell fell apart after just two months, Hartwell told “Page Six TV” exclusively.
Speaking to the media for the first time since sensationally filing divorce papers on Monday, Hartwell, 38, said that their marriage was torn apart by jealousy, disagreements about starting a family and suspicions about infidelity on both sides.
Hartwell, who married “Cosby Show” star Knight Pulliam, 37, on January 1 after dating for four months, said that they stopped having sex once the romance soured — but claims she was so fixated on getting pregnant he suspects she went behind his back to do it.
He told us that after they wed, “she wanted a baby really fast, and what I was trying to explain to her was that — from my beliefs, from seeing other successful people — that when you first get married, especially since we didn’t have a long courtship, that we should actually focus on each other and not just have a baby. That’s something she really did want to do.”
Hartwell added that in February he “had a sit-down” with his wife, who became the youngest-ever winner of an Emmy award for her role as Rudy Huxtable on the once-beloved NBC show.
“I said, ‘I think we probably messed up. I think we moved too fast,'” he told us, “‘Our lives and wants are headed two different directions.'”
During the heart-to-heart Hartwell confessed that his ex, whom he dated for four years, had “lost a baby” and it made him realize he still “cared about her.” Knight Pulliam was so upset after Hartwell’s admission that she virtually disappeared from his life.
“[Knight Pulliam] wasn’t mad that I still cared about her,” Hartwell, who played for the Baltimore Ravens, said. “All she was a mad about was, ‘You don’t want to have a baby, but you’re mad about her baby. You can’t talk to her 13-year-old daughter. And there was a big fall-out.”
Hartwell added that his wife fled to visit a spiritualist and “started going out with friends all the time and not telling me when she was coming home or sometimes not coming home at all.”
After the confrontation, Hartwell — who has a 9-year-old son, Ed Jr. with his ex-wife, former “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Lisa Wu — says Knight Pulliam was willing to have a baby by any means possible, through in vitro, adoption or naturally.
“What I learned about her is that if she wants something, she wants it now and she’s going to go get it. That’s one of the reasons we actually stopped having sex,” he said.
The former linebacker, who has asked for a paternity test for Knight Pulliam’s unborn child, moved out of the house, and was surprised to discover Knight Pulliam was pregnant — but returned home to support her.
“As time kept going past and the days went past, some things just weren’t adding up. So for me it’s not me saying she’s a bad person,” he said. “She wants what she wants, I want what I want: she wants a baby, I want to find love and happiness. But at the end of the day, I think if things don’t add up, I think it’s fair for me, if things don’t add up, to want a test.”
“I can’t say she’s been unfaithful. I can say she’s stayed out, she’s not came home, she’s went out-of-town … for three days, I don’t know what’s going on. I can say that,” he said. “I can’t say she was unfaithful. I can say she wanted to get in vitro, I can say she wanted to do some things to make sure she got pregnant. I just want to make sure it is mine.”
Meanwhile, he denied allegations made by his soon-to-be-ex wife on “Entertainment Tonight” on Wednesday night that he cheated on her, and accused her of stretching the truth to make herself look better.
“One thing I have found out about her — and it’s not to bash her — is that she can tell a half-truth to make sure that she seems like, I don’t want to say the victim,” he said. “But that she’s the one that’s right.”
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