Being Held at Gunpoint Changed Demi Tebow’s Life for the Better
By Movieguide® Contributor
After Demi Tebow was crowned Miss South Africa, hijackers stopped her car and held her at gunpoint, which “changed the trajectory” of her life for the better.
“I stopped at the red traffic light…I got surrounded by multiple men,” Tebow explained on “The Squeeze” podcast on Aug. 7. “I had a gun pointing to my head, and I immediately surrendered, got out of the vehicle and tried running away, but when I tried running away, the man on my side of the vehicle grabbed me by my wrist and said something like, ‘Get in. You’re going with us.’”
“And my instincts kind of just kicked in in that moment or it wasn’t necessarily just instincts. Like things that I had learned in the past just came to the top…one was never go to the second destination and two, the throat.”
Tebow was able to get away, but as she ran down the street in bumper-to-bumper traffic, people in their cars saw her but did not offer help.
“People had their windows open,” she recalled. “They could hear what I was saying. They could see the terror in my eyes and having a gun pointed to my head was mortifying, like that was absolutely awful but the worst part of that story I think — as I’ve healed from it and learned from it — wasn’t necessarily that moment of being surrounded by a bunch of armed men, but it was running up that avenue begging for help and nobody would stop to help me.”
“I remember running up that avenue looking over my shoulder, not knowing if my perpetrators were going to be shooting me in the back or coming for me. I don’t know what their intent was,” she said. “…It wasn’t until I eventually reached the intersection where a a young girl, she’s 19 years old in this old little beat up car pulled over and like opened her door and led me to safety, and I’m thankful for that girl for so many reasons.”
Tebow is grateful to her not only for her kindness but for teaching her that she should never be one of those people who ignores others in their time of need.
“That moment has honestly, I feel like changed the trajectory of my life in such a big way, you know, I think there is so much of that moment that got that was painful but that has been turned into purpose and I think you know in a lot of cases if we are willing for that pain to be used for purpose it can be used,” she expressed.
“It doesn’t mean it’s not going to take some time and work and help and restoration and healing, but now I get to serve on multiple boards here in the US and around the world for campuses that care for survivors of human trafficking and to be part of long-term restoration programs for women all over the world that have gone through some of the most unimaginable evils.”
After the incident, Tebow felt like being carjacked made her look weak. Since she had a public image as Miss South Africa, she had a further burden on her shoulders because of how she perceived herself.
“I somehow convinced myself that it was my fault,” she explained. “…Later, I learned by actually going to therapy and getting help, I learned that you know it’s easier to blame yourself than to blame somebody else because you have more control over that.”
Tebow talked about the incident and her trouble with identity after being crowned Miss Universe in her book, “A Crown That Lasts.”
Movieguide® reported last month:
Tebow, former Miss Universe winner and wife of NFL star Tim Tebow, has firsthand experience with what it’s like to put your identity in temporary things.
“I think this message really comes from thinking that I knew who I was, but I totally rooted my identity in something that was absolutely temporary,” she explained. “The night I handed over my crown as Miss Universe to the very rightful next winner, I left that stage, got in the car rushed to the airport to catch my flight back to South Africa, and I realized I forgot something on that stage.”
“And it wasn’t just that beautiful pearly diamond crown, sparkly crown, but I realized later on…I had forgotten the most important thing [which] was my identity,” she described.
“The base of my book is based in how we so quickly and so easily root our worth and our value and essentially our identity in things that are temporary,” Tebow said. “And I did that with so many things throughout my life, and it just sent me on a roller coaster of constantly not feeling like I’m enough. Not feeling like I’m worthy. Not feeling like I’m valued.”
She was “on a spiral of just not having any confidence, and you know the way that we are formed that our identity is formed is by like life circumstances. The relationships that we have. The experiences that we have. But when we root our identity in our life circumstances at some point or another, it’s going to send us on this roller coaster of all these unanswered questions.”
Tebow had to discover what she really wanted to plant her identity in — and eventually, she realized that it had to be God.
“I realized it needed to be in something that was fixed, that was never changing, that was bigger than myself and that was always trustworthy and, you know, for me personally that has been my faith,” Tebow said. “That is the only thing that I have found that can live up to. Those four things — that is fixed, trustworthy, never changing and bigger than myself.”
When Tebow shared about her book on Instagram, she told prospective readers, “My prayer is that God uses my experiences, stories and lessons — including the ones I’ve learned the hard way — to help you claim your true identity, become more confident in God and live out your unique purpose too!”
Tebow and her husband, Tim Tebow, help many important organizations and are driven by shared sets of values. One of their “non-negotiables” is that “everyone matters.”
“Every single person matters to God, therefore every single person matters to us,” Tim said earlier this year about why they help with foundations around the world.
