Photo: s_bukley / Shutterstock
She was a teen runaway in 2016.
By Rebekah Kuschmider — Written on Aug 27, 2020
Sister Sister star Marques Johnson revealed that he married his partner, Miya Dickey, in an Instagram post on August 27. "We can’t believe the day has finally come! The day when the two of us were bonded together before Jehovah to become one. Jehovah has blessed us with a true happiness that is unmatched!" he captioned a wedding photo of the pair.
However, there's just one tiny issue that social media users everywhere have with their union. Johnson, who turned 39 on August 4, is nearly two decades older than his teen bride.
Marques Johnson first came under scrutiny when he announced his engagement to Miya Dickey in June of 2020. Normally, an engagement is seen as happy celebrity news, but someone on Twitter raised the very good point that Dickey is only 19 years old. "Can someone please explain why Marques Houston, a 38-year-old [sic] geezer, is engaged to a 19-year-old girl who he allegedly knew before she was 18?"
Back in June, Houston scrambled to explain how he was engaged to a 19-year-old whom he has known since 2018 — when she was only 17. Not only that, but the news of their engagement caused allegations that he and his manager, Chris Stokes, sexually abused younger musicians to resurface.
Who is Marques Houston's wife, Miya Dickey — and why is their relationship so controversial?
Who is Miya Dickey?
In a long post on Instagram, Houston explains that he met Dickey through his friend and manager Chris Stokes. They are all Jehovah's Witnesses and they met through church-related activities. Houston admits to having known Dickey before she was legally an adult but says they didn't fall in love until she was 18 years old.
"We fell in love and got engaged in March of 2019. My dad Michael loves her, and the people I am closest to all love her as well. Most importantly we have Jehovahs blessing," he writes. "And that’s the story. No twists, no turns, no scandals, just true love. There is nothing that can come to light, because there’s no darkness in my life."
Only, there are some twists and turns in the story that make it more complicated than Houston suggests.
What was Miya Dickey's childhood like?
According to reports, Dickey is actually a teenage runaway with a turbulent early life. Dickey's birth mother is a woman named Paula Harris. For undisclosed reasons, Harris lost custody of Dickey in 2012, when Dickey would have been about 11 years old.
She was then adopted by an unnamed family in California. But in 2016, she ran away from them and was reported missing. At the time, it was assumed she was with Harris or possibly Harris's mother, Barbara Dotson.
How does Miya Dickey know Chris Stokes?
Somewhere in all her travels, Dickey became friends with Chris Stokes' daughter and grew very close to the family. Dickey even calls him her "spiritual dad" in social media posts and Houston explained the complicated situation in his Instagram post.
"Miya is like a daughter to Chris Stokes because we are all like family. Being a Jehovah’s Witness, we all showcase true love like family," he wrote. "That’s it. Chris’s real daughter, Chrissy Morales became friends with Miya in 2018, where we all first met Miya at a Jehovah’s Witness convention. It was then that Chrissy and Miya became friends."
What are the allegations against Marques Houston and Chris Stokes?
Stokes and Houston both have sexual assault allegations against them.
Typically, teen girls having friends who grow close to the whole family is perfectly fine. But Stokes getting too close to young people is more suspicious. Years ago, former B2K band member DeMario “Raz-B” Thornton released a video wherein he and former labelmate Quindon Tarver made allegations of sexual abuse against Stokes and Houston. Both were in their teens at the time this allegedly happened.
Stokes, who is Thornton's cousin, managed the band, as well as managing Houston at the time. In 2008, Thornton claimed that the two men molested him. In 2010, a tape emerged where Thornton and Tarver could be heard discussing what happened to them at the hands of Houston and Stokes. On the tape, Tarver told Thornton that he had been “penetrated” by Houston “and it hurt…”
No investigation has ever followed the accusations.
What does Miya Dickey do for a living?
Dickey is allegedly also listed as an art director on films the two men produced. Houston has an answer for that, too, saying "The fact that she was listed on one of our films was a misprint or someone being messy. Anyone can post on IMDB. And there’s no way someone that young could even work on a film set in the position of Art Directer because that position requires years of experience."
However, it's also possible that Stokes or Houston gave Dickey a job on paper for financial reasons. We don't have information about her current family or income situation but her background doesn't suggest great affluence. The art director job title may have been a scheme to pay her through legitimate channels.
When did Miya Dickey become a Jehovah Witness?
Miya Dickey became a Jehovah Witness on January 28, 2018. She posted a picture of herself on her Instagram celebrating the milestone, captioning the photo, "Yesterday we celebrated my two year mark of serving Jehovah fully and wholeheartedly! Thank you to my family for making yesterday so special!"
Is there something more sinister going on with Miya Dickey and Marques Houston's relationship?
The story about Stokes and Houston allegedly molesting teen boys and the situation where Stokes welcomes a teen girl into his closest circle raises questions about abuse and grooming.
While the allegations from Tarver and Thornton are isolated stories and even if Houston wasn't involved with Dickey before her 18th birthday, the implication that he was hanging around waiting for her to be old enough to date is pretty creepy.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.