'In the beginning he was a normal being that cared about family, loved to joke, loved to have fun, but then a few months after we were married I saw his instability,' she said. Reports of Mateen's flashes of anger and aggression align with what Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told CNN on Sunday night. 'He said if he ever messed with him again, you know how it'll turn out,' Callen said. Smith and Callen say they stopped talking to Mateen when he pulled a knife on them after they made a religious comment. Smith later told The Canadian Press that Mateen said he ' couldn't drink when he was at home - around his wife, or family. He told us he had a wife and child.'Ĭhris Callen, who performs at Pulse under the name Kristina McLaughlin, told The Canadian Press and CNN's Anderson Cooper that Mateen had been going to the bar one or twice a month 'for at least three years.'
'But I remember him saying things about his dad at times.
'We didn't really talk to him a lot,' he added. 'Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent,' one witness, Ty Smith, told the Sentinel.
