Gripping story about former USC couple goes viral as it unfolds on popular social media page

A Humans of New York serialized story unfolding on Facebook Thursday was so salacious and heartfelt, people set aside plans for the day to wait for the next installment.

And surprise, surprise the Cinderella-like story has ties to South Carolina and the University of South Carolina football team.

It was written by Venus Morris Griffin, a real estate agent, motivational speaker and author who lives in Augusta, Georgia.

The first of 13 parts began showing up on the Humans of New York Facebook page at about 9 a.m. Thursday, and immediately the comments poured in.

By mid-day, more than 10,000 people had commented, many in the same vein as Jill Wiseman of Austin, Texas, who said, “cancels plans for the day.”

By the time the last installment appeared around 9 p.m., the posts had garnered almost 40,000 comments and each post had been shared more than 500 times.

People were praising her strength and crying at the tough times.

Griffin describes herself as a simple girl from a dysfunctional family who met her Prince Charming at the University of South Carolina. She calls him Tripp, but it’s not too hard to figure out he’s Tripp Morris, once a cheerleader at USC.

“Tripp was the president of his fraternity. He’d take me to these parties, and he’d be the center of attention — all his brothers called him ‘Killa,’” she writes.

He told everyone he was injured playing football as a freshman, she said.

His parents owned an asbestos removal company, had a beach house and 35-foot fishing boat. He drove a Corvette.

“It was intimidating,” Griffin wrote. “I’d never been around that kind of money before. I worked as a waitress. I think I owned three outfits.”

She said after they married, they had season tickets to USC games and brought the whole family.

“He’d sweet talk his way past the security guards and get us in the locker room. He’d show us his old locker. He’d tell us stories, about how the coach used to tell the team: ‘If everyone played with half the heart as Tripp, we’d have won Nationals.’ “

But the team photos were on the wall, she said, and he wasn’t in any of them.

He said was sick on team photo day, Griffin wrote.

They had six children, all of them conceived through artificial insemination with a sperm donor. He was the perfect dad, but far from a perfect husband, Griffin wrote.

He was convicted of child molestation and is an inmate at Baldwin State Prison in Milledgeville, Georgia, Georgia Department of Corrections records show.

He is serving a 45-year-sentence.

USC athletics spokesman Steve Fink confirmed Tripp Morris was a cheerleader at USC in the late 1980s. The person he asked said, “What’s he done now? I thought he was in jail.”

A spokeswoman for Griffin said she would need to talk to her Hollywood agent before she could do any interviews.

Her story, while difficult, is one of hope. In the end, she divorced her first husband, had a lucrative real estate career and raised her children on her own, despite the disapproval of people she knew in town and in church.

She remarried and has another daughter. She’s a grandmother.

“Last night all my kids came over for dinner,” she wrote. “We were together in the living room, talking and laughing. That’s still my biggest joy: watching these people love each other, helping them navigate through life.”

This story was originally published March 3, 2022 at 3:12 PM.