For the first 3 decades of her life, Michelle Knight must have thought herself cursed. She grew up in a low-income family that could barely afford a decent meal to feed the children. Knight run away afterwards suffering sexual abuse at the easily of a relative. Her dad finally sent her to school, where she got significant and delivered a babe boy.

Child services took abroad the boy after he suffered an unfortunate injury. On her way to fight for the boy'southward custody, Michelle met Ariel Castro, the man who would hold her convict for over a decade. Michelle somehow survived her time in captivity and now goes by Lily Rose Lee.

Michelle is happily married and hopes to reunite with her son

Michelle Knight And Miguel Rodriguez

Melanie Acevedo/People

Michelle Knight is happily married to Miguel Rodriguez. Knight toldPeople that she didn't recollect anyone would want to be with her following the decade-long abuse she suffered at the hands of Castro.

She tried to land jobs, but the high-profile nature of her case discouraged employers from hiring her. Knight never lost hope: she congenital her cocky-esteem and marked a new first in her life by changing her proper noun to Lily Rose Lee.

Knight's met Miguel Rodriguez via mutual friends on Facebook. The pair talked for a while earlier bumping into each other at a eating house. Lee and Miguel had a connectedness, but an apprehensive Lee feared going through another Castro-like experience. She toldPeople:

"I had some fears that whatever intimacy might feel like what Castro had done to me, what others had washed to me. We waited; nosotros took our fourth dimension. When it did happen, I realized I didn't have anything to fear. The experience was entirely different. What fabricated the difference was dearest."

Rodriguez and Michelle married precisely three years after police rescued her from captivity. In May 2020, Knight posted the following tweet in commemoration of iv years of marriage:

"Many of y'all are asking me how am I doing today. Well I am doing AWESOME! I am only loving life! For many of you it marks the end of my 11 years of captivity. Simply for me, it represents my beginning! Today, I celebrate my iv-year ceremony if beingness married to the dear of my life."

Michelle contemplated suicide during her captivity, but the want to encounter her son, Joey, kept her going. "It definitely got me through all those years," Knight toldGood Morning time Britain. "If it wasn't for my son beingness out there and hoping to come home to him, I don't know what I would have done."

Joey's adoptive family has prevented Michelle from contacting her son. Nevertheless, the family unit sends her Joey'southward pictures and keeps her informed of his progress.

Knight toldToday that she hopes that she'll run into Joey one day. "I'one thousand going to allow him be and when he's ready to come see me, I'll be willing and waiting with open artillery," Michelle said. Unfortunately, Michelle can't take more than children due to the abuse she suffered under Castro.

Knight only had two days to live when police showed up to rescue her

Michelle Knight

Knight was the most hated captive under Castro as she refused to call him by his proper noun and regularly spoke back to him. She faced the most inhumane treatment but didn't break.

"He wanted to break me and that's something he couldn't exercise, because you lot can't break someone who already broken," Michelle toldNBC. "You lot can but brand them stronger."

Michelle got pregnant several times, merely Castro abused her until she miscarried. "He's the reason why I can't take children at present, and that's the virtually suckiest feeling ever," Knight toldABC News. Michelle talked most some of the means Castro got her to expel:

"Showtime, he'll starve me, he'll give me soda all the time to prevent milk, he'll throw me downstairs, utilise edgeless objects to arrest it… he'll use anything to make it go abroad. I solar day he came into the room and I was sleeping and he jumped on my breadbasket."

Knight weighed 38 kilos when police rescued her in early May 2013. Authorities initially believed her to be a child rather than a fully grown woman. Doctors concluded that she probably would take died had the police been ii days tardily.

"I was very ill, I found out I had a bacterial infection eating away at my stomach and they told me I had simply had two days to live so things weren't looking really bright," Knight toldSkillful Forenoon United kingdom.

Michelle left her hellish prison house with diminished vision, a permanently damaged stomach, unable to have kids, and harboring psychological and trust bug. She immersed herself into therapy, which helped her forget her tormentor and forge a successful life.

"Don't allow the darkness control your calorie-free in your life," she toldABC News. Michelle has since released two books: Finding Me and Life Subsequently Darkness. Finding Me went on to become a New York Times bestseller. Michelle posted the following message on Instagram in early on May 2021:

"Yesterday marked viii years since my rescue. Many of yous would say that information technology the day of my freedom. Only for me, it's so much More than than that! It'southward the twenty-four hour period that I truly began to Live! It's the day that the sun kissed my face and the world opened up! It the day that I married my soul mate, my husband."