When I was a kid and moved to a new neighborhood in Philadelphia, I became friendly with a neighbor about my age. She attended an all-girls Catholic school and was going to a play there, and she asked if I wanted to tag along — so I did. The play was very High School Musical-esque, filled with kids from our area I had never met before. Nothing miraculous happened, and frankly, I didn’t think anything about that night until years later when I met my husband.
We started talking about where we grew up and what we were like in high school, and my husband told me he joined the theater group to impress his girlfriend at the time. I did stage crew at my high school, so I asked what play he was in — and he named the one my neighbor took me to three years earlier. I unknowingly watched my husband in a play and had no clue we’d marry each other a decade later.
Though a far more harrowing tale, Roshin Ali was unknowingly in her soon-to-be husband’s orbit as a teen too. Ali ran away from her home in Jackson, Tennessee, to escape her abusive father at just 13 years old. In a truly disturbing story, Ali detailed that her alcoholic and gambling-addicted father often took out his casino losses on his family with physical and emotional abuse. He did not let his children outside the house, an exclusive New York Post interview detailed, and when he came home from losing all their money and found them playing outdoors, he threatened to kill Ali and her siblings.
“We immediately ran into our bedroom because we were afraid that he was going to start beating on us like he normally does whenever he comes home upset,” Ali explained on TikTok. Her sister barricaded the door with her body.
@roro.nicole #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #viral #viralvideo #trending #roronicole #storytime #missing ♬ original sound – RoroNicole
The father grabbed a knife and began stabbing the door, got in, grabbed Ali’s sister, and dragged her off to beat her with a cable wire.
“We can literally hear her begging him not to kill her. He duct taped her hands together, her legs together, and then placed duct tape on her mouth so nobody could hear her screaming,” she shared with the Post.
“Then my mom walks into our room and she looks at us, and she goes, ‘Y’all are next.’”
Ali and her brother escaped through their bedroom window and ran to the nearest park while their father called the cops and reported her missing.
When the authorities found her, Ali explained what happened, and she and her three siblings were placed in foster care.
“I truly believe if it was not me running away from the house that day and officers being involved, I don’t think that we’d still be here alive,” she told the newspaper.
Roughly 12 years later, grown-up Ali got a job at the sheriff’s department and caught the attention of Tyler Schrupp, who couldn’t stop staring at her. Eventually, the two started talking and began sharing stories about their lives.
“We started putting the dates together and then she described the area,” Schrupp told the Post.
“That’s when I started to be like, ‘Okay, I was a part of that. It’s crazy that back then I was looking for you, and now we’re sitting here talking,’” he said.
The backlash online from people was more intense than she anticipated when she shared a “jokey” trend video of how she met her now fiancé, with some accusing him of “grooming” her.
@roro.nicole This feel illegal. #trending #fyp #viral #officer #foryou #explore #foryourpage ♬ Illegal – PinkPantheress
But truthfully, the two didn’t meet until years later, which led Ali to set the record straight with her story.
The two got engaged in August 2024 and have a 5-month-old son together. They are slated to get married in 2026.
