Kim Lee could hardly contain her emotions in the auditorium at Capital Normal University on Nov. 25, where she had eloquently shared her story of bravery with students just a few seconds prior. Staring at the signatures and blessings on heart-shaped greeting cards presented to her by students in an ornamental box, Kim Lee burst into tears. Following an interim of silence, audience members passed a box of tissues to her seat.

Life has turned upside down for Lee in the past few months since her celebrity husband Li Yang, the magnate founder of Crazy English language training centers, knocked her to the floor, slamming her in the face in front of their three-year-old daughter. Pushed over the limit, she called police and posted pictures of her swollen forehead and bruised legs on Weibo (China's equivalent to Twitter).

The photos shocked netizens all over the country, who largely knew Li as the educator who invented the iconic "yelling" strategy to memorize English phrases and sentences.

In the media circus that ensued following the allegations, Lee found, as a victim, she had no more advantage than her husband. In a TV interview, Li claimed his American wife and the children from their marriage were part of an experiment conducted for his career in English teaching and cross-cultural communication. He also argued that the controversy stemmed from Lee's misunderstandings of Chinese culture, which have led some to believe that he expected his wife to accept the violence and remain silent.

In her Weibo, Lee said she could not bear her husband using the media spotlight as an opportunity for self-promotion, which she said hurt her even deeper than her physical injuries.

"I'm American and Yang is Chinese that is not the problem, the problem is violence," Lee said.

"If I can help to change the concepts that domestic violence is 'common, acceptable, should not be disclosed, the fault of the wife, and part of Chinese culture', then I feel both honored and obligated to do so," Lee said in an email to the Beijing Fan Bao Culture Development Co. Ltd, a anti-domestic violence organization in Beijing. "Domestic violence is not culture. Domestic violence is a crime."

11月25日，在首师大的会议厅内，仅仅几秒之前，李金还在和学生们分享着她的勇敢和辩才，而现在她却无法抑制自己的情感。看着那一片片由学生呈上的，装在装饰盒中写着签名和祝福的心型贺卡，李金不禁哭了。全场顿时安静下来，席间的听众将一盒纸巾递到了她的座位上。

在过去的几个月间，生活变得一团糟。李的名人丈夫，疯狂英语的泰斗级创始人，李阳，将她甩到地上，并在他们三岁女儿的面前，扇她巴掌。忍无可忍之下，她报了警，并将她肿起的额头和淤青的双腿拍成照片，传到微博（中国的Twitter）上。

举国的网友看到照片后大为震惊，在他们眼里，李阳就是那个发明了标志性的“喊英语，记词句”的教育家。

在控诉之后，媒体蜂拥而至，然而，李发现，作为一个受害者，她与她的丈夫相比，没有任何优势。在一次电视采访中，李阳声称，在他的这次婚姻中，他的美国妻子和孩子是他进行英语教学与跨文化交流试验的一部分。他还争论到，他们之间的争议源于李对于中国文化的误解。这引得一些人认为李阳希望自己的妻子在遭受家暴后保持沉默。

在她的微博中，李表示她无法接受丈夫利用媒体的聚光灯做自我的宣传。她说，比起那些身体上的伤痕，这对她的伤害更深。

“我是美国人，李阳是中国人，这不是问题的所在。真正的问题是暴力，”李说道。

“如果我能帮助改变关于家暴一些概念，如家暴是‘寻常的，可接受的，是不可外扬的，是妻子的错误，是中国文化的一部分’，那么我会为此自豪，并知使命重大，”李在给北京帆葆文化公司的一封电子邮件中写道。该公司是北京一家反对家庭暴力的组织。“家暴不是文化，家暴是犯罪。”