Laravel echo strange characters

Hey i wan't to echo something with belongsTo but the output gives me some strange characters back.

class Leviews extends Entity
{
public $table = 'reviews';


public function ravatar()
{
  return $this->belongsTo('User', 'author', 'username')->select('avatar');

}

now when i echo the data with {{ $item->ravatar }} im getting this

{"avatar":"avatars\/1.jpg"} 

and it should be

avatars/1.jpg    

what im doing wrong?

edit here is the Controller

<?php

use Carbon\Carbon;
use Lib\Reviews\LeviewsRepository;
use Lib\Services\Scraping\Scraper;
use Lib\Services\Validation\LeviewsValidator;

class LeviewsController extends \BaseController {

/**
 * Leviews repository instance.
 * 
 * @var Lib\Leviews\LeviewsRepository
 */
protected $repo;

/**
 * validator instance.
 * 
 * @var Lib\Services\Validation\LeviewsCreateValidator
 */
private $validator;

/**
 * Leviews scraper isntance.
 * 
 * @var Lib\Services\Scraping\NewScraper;
 */
private $scraper;

public function __construct(LeviewsRepository $lreviews, LeviewsValidator $validator, Scraper $scraper)
{
    $this->beforeFilter('csrf', array('on' => 'post'));
    $this->beforeFilter('logged', array('except' => array('index', 'show', 'paginate')));
    $this->beforeFilter('news:create', array('only' => array('create', 'store')));
    $this->beforeFilter('news:edit', array('only' => array('edit', 'update')));
    $this->beforeFilter('news:delete', array('only' => 'destroy'));
    $this->beforeFilter('news:update', array('only' => 'updateFromExternal'));

    $this->repo = $lreviews;
    $this->scraper = $scraper;
    $this->validator = $validator;
}

/**
 * Display list of paginated news.
 *
 * @return View
 */
public function index()
{
    return View::make('Leviews.Index');
}

/**
 * Display form for creating new news items.
 *
 * @return View
 */
public function create()
{
    return View::make('Leviews.Create');
}

/**
 * Store a newly created news item.
 *
 * @return Redirect
 */
public function store()
{
    $input = Input::except('_token');

    if ( ! $this->validator->with($input)->passes())
    {
        return Redirect::back()->withErrors($this->validator->errors())->withInput($input);
    }

    //escape double qoutes
    $input['title'] = htmlspecialchars($input['title']);

    $this->repo->store($input);

    return Redirect::back()->withSuccess( trans('main.news create success') );
}

/**
 * Display single news items.
 *
 * @param  int  $id
 * @return View
 */
public function show($id)
{
    $lreviews = $this->repo->byId($id);

    if ($lreviews->full_url && ! $lreviews->fully_scraped)
    {
        $lreviews = $this->repo->getFullLeviewsItem($lreviews);
    }

    return View::make('Leviews.Show')->with(compact('news'))->withRecent($this->repo->latest());
}

/**
 * Displays form for editing news item.
 *
 * @param  int  $id
 * @return View
 */
public function edit($id)
{
    $lreviews = $this->repo->byId($id);

    return View::make('Leviews.Edit')->withLeviews($lreviews);
}

/**
 * Updates the news item.
 *
 * @param  int  $id
 * @return Redirect
 */
public function update($id)
{
    $input = Input::except('_token', '_method');

    $lreviews = $this->repo->byId($id);

    if ($lreviews->title === $input['title'])
    {
        //dont check for title uniqueness when updating if
        //title was not updated.
        $this->validator->rules['title'] = 'required|min:2|max:255';
    }

    if ( ! $this->validator->with($input)->passes())
    {
        return Redirect::back()->withErrors($this->validator->errors())->withInput($input);
    }

    //escape double qoutes
    $input['title'] = htmlspecialchars($input['title']);

    $this->repo->update($lreviews, $input); 

    return Redirect::back()->withSuccess( trans('main.news update success') );
}

/**
 * Delete specified news item.
 *
 * @param  int  $id
 * @return Response
 */
public function destroy($id)
{
    $this->repo->delete($id);       

    return Response::json(trans('main.news delete success'), 200);
}

/**
 * Updates news from external sources.
 * 
 * @return void
 */
public function updateFromExternal()
{
    $this->scraper->updateLeviews();

    Event::fire('Leviews.Updated', Carbon::now());

    return Redirect::back()->withSuccess( trans('dash.updated news successfully') );
}

}

and here the view

    @if ($options->enableNews())

                @foreach($lreviews as $k => $item)

                    {{ $item->body }}
                    {{ $item->ravatar }}

                @endforeach

    @endif

{{ $item->body }} is without strange characters