Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Kerry Washington Talks New Book, Finding Biological Father, Jamie Foxx's Advice, Scandal + More

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INTERVIEW: Kerry Washington Talks New Book, Finding Biological Father, Jamie Foxx's Advice, Scandal + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Breakfast Club Morning, everybody in stee j n V. Charlemagne
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: the God. We are the Breakfast Club. We have Laura
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: la Rossa our special guest host, and we got a
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: special guest in the building, La Kerry Washington's welcome. Washington,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: congratulating on the new book.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, How are you?
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: I'm really good? Yeah, Yeah, I'm good.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: God Yeah, new book out Thicker than Water. Congratulations. Learned
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: so much about you with this book. First, maybe it's
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: just me be it' supid. I didn't know you were
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: from the Bronx.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Really, I did not know that. I didn't know you
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: were from then and born and raised. And my mother
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: was born in the Bronx. My mother grew up on
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Simpson Street and I grew up on Pugsley Avenue course
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: from Stephen's in high school.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: You know what I say.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: I say, the craziest people in America come from the
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: Bronx and all of Florida.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Why what Why? I agree on Florida, but why the Bronx.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: One of the most talented people that come from the Bronx.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: That is very true too.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Now, how did you know now the time to write
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: thinking it was.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: So what I write about in the book is that
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: a handful of like five years ago, my parents sat
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: me down and shared with me some new information about
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: myself that really kind of challenged the way that I
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: thought about myself, that I thought about my family, turned
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: my world upside down. And at the time, I had
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: actually sold another book, Idea, which was based kind of
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: inspired by the show that I was on, Scandal, and
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: it was like, these are the ten things that I
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: learned from Olivia Pope. So that was a really fun,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: kind of self reflective but not very deep, deep soul
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: searching book. But every time I sat down to write
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: that book, all I could think about was this new
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: information I'd been given and how it impacted my family
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: and my sense of self. And so I wasn't going
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: to write a book at all. I tried to give
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: the publisher their money back, but they wouldn't take it.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: And then a few years later I was like, I
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: think I have to at least try to write this.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: Book because you said your parents didn't want you to
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: reveal Yeah.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so my my my parents told me that they
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: were sort of forced to tell me that my dad
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: is not my biological father.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: How did that affect you, because I mean, he's still
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: your dad. At the end of the day, we seen
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: the picture, you know, had had.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Jokes on Instagram.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So how did that affect anything after you
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: were told?
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: So, I think immediately when they told me it was weird,
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: to be totally honest with you, I felt like excited.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: I felt excited and grateful because I had always felt
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: like there was something going on in my family that
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: I couldn't put my finger on. But it was like
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: a dynamic of distance or like there was I just
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: knew that I didn't know what. I didn't know, but
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: I knew that that there was something between my parents
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: and I. And because I didn't know what it was,
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: a lot of times I blamed myself for that or
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: maybe thought I was crazy for thinking it, maybe thought
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: maybe I'm just not open enough, like I was always
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: trying to figure it out. So when they told me,
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: it felt like, I don't know, it felt like I
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: could breathe. It felt like, oh, this is this is
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: a real opportunity for me to jump into this new
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: kind of understanding of myself and my life. And you know,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: it was it was really exciting.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Did you care because it's you know, I did care.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: I did care because I did care partly because I
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: felt like, yes, my dad is always going to be
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: my dad. But the reality is now fifty percent of
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: my genetics became a big question mark. And that's important, right,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: like in terms of health care, in terms of you know,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: in terms of understanding my medical history. But even like
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: you know, I don't know what I might get, you know,
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: in the whole nurture versus nature dynamic. There might be
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: parts of me that I get from this donor, this
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: sperm donor that I've never known was from that side
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: of my family. Like I just thought this, I guess
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: partly I've I've struggled to feel comfortable in my skin
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: for most of my life. It's part of why acting
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: has kind of saved me a business, because I always
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: I would find myself in these characters. I would kind
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: of grab onto their identities, and there was like a
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: sense of freedom and wholeness in becoming other people. But
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: this felt like an opportunity to try to be comfortable
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: in my own skin.
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: When you would ask questions about like just different things,
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: like hey, you go to the doctors and they say
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: you know what illnesses are on your mom. So when
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: you would ask your dad your mom those questions, how
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: would they answer it?
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: As if my dad was my father. They were going
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: to take this to their grave. And I get it.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: I totally understand, right, like you, yeah, I think they
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: they felt like, well, first of all, let me just
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: say this, my parents are renegades, right, like a lot
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: of us. Now we know people who go to sperm
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: don or sperm banks, right, it's like very common relatively now,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: and you get a whole catalog. You can pick the
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: color of the eyes and what Ivy League university they
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: went to. But when my parents did this in the
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: mid seventies, nobody was doing this. This was highly experimental,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: highly secretive. It was a big risk they were taking.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: It wasn't like they had complete health screenings for the donor.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: They had no idea who the donor was. They said,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: we asked two things. Let them be healthy. Who knows
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: what that means at the time, right, but like we
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: want him to be healthy, and we want him to
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: be black. Because they wanted this to be a secret.
• 5:22
  Speaker 6: So yeah, yeah, there's are you okay?
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, Because you know, sometimes we put
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: things in these books, and you know, we bear our souls.
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but then we got to go on these press runs.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: We may not be ready to talk about these No.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting because I actually feel like I think
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: I am a little bit emotional today because it's the
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: book is really out in the world. But I I
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: think I'm having an easier time processing it than a
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: lot of people because I've been living with it for
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: five years, you know, over five years, so and for
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: other people it's very new information. But I feel, you know,
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: every time I talk about it, I feel a little
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: bit more liberated. I feel a little bit more free.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: I wanted to ask, you know, you know, you talk
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: about your eating disorder and dealing with how you felt
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: about your body and your looks. I wanted to know
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: what got you in that point. And the reason I
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: ask is I have four daughters. Charlemagne has four daughters,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: and I always want to make sure I try my
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: hardest to give my daughter as many compliments as possible, right,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: because you never want them to feel that way, But
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: sometimes I don't think that matters because it's also how
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: they look at themselves. So what got you to that
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: point where you didn't like what you've seen in the mirror,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: or something that you weren't happy about.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: It's such a good question. I have daughters too, right,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: So it's something that I think about a lot. I
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: think that the food, it's like any other kind of
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: addictive behavior. It's not about the drug. It's not really
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: about the food or even really about the relationship with body.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: It came from a compulsion to try to fix my
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: came out from a compulsion of trying to escape the
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: feelings I was having or numb them. And so I
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: think for me, it was this sense that I write
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: about in the book of feeling like I had to
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: be perfect, like I had to be better than who
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: I was in order to be deserving of love. And
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: some of that came from like why do I have
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: this weird dynamic with my parents? Like what's going on?
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: Maybe if I was better, prettier, smarter, thinner, then I
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: might be more lovable. So I don't even you know,
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, I do think it's important to teach our
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: kids to make healthy choices when it comes to exercise,
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: to make healthy choices when it comes to food, to
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: teach them about nutrition, about how food works in the
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: body all that's important. But I think helping a kid
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: to feel unconditionally loved, to feel safe physically and emotionally
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: like those and to help a child have their fears
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: and process their feelings and not feel like they need
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: to escape their feelings, those are the things that I
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: think help us have the tools to live in life
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: on life's terms, as opposed to grabbing at addictive behaviors
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: to escape life.
• 8:14
  Speaker 6: Are you? Are you your parents only a child?
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: I am Also you went through this like kind of alone,
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: even though they were still there.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a lot of pressure. Yeah. I mean,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: I think that was one of the big things for
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: me is when I was in college and the food
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: stuff got really bad and I just was that was
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: really the first time that I started to ask for help,
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: because I think up until that time, I felt like
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: self reliance is the point, like you're supposed to kind
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: of go it alone, be strong, get through life. And
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: that was the turning point for me where I was like,
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: I think I need some help.
• 8:46
  Speaker 6: What did you experts? Did you ask your parents?
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to think. I think I asked an aunt
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: what I called an aunt of mine first and was like,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: I think I have a really messed up relationship with food.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: But the thing what's hard about eating disorders is a
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: lot of people will tell you like, oh, everybody eats
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: when they're depressed, or everybody goes to the gym when
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: they're upset. That's okay. But I knew, like to the level,
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: to the extent that I was in that behavior, that
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: it was self destructive. I knew this wasn't just like
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: a cute kids on a sitcom eating a little ice
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: cream because they were sad, like this was. This was
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: a different level of pain.
• 9:23
  Speaker 6: What was your go to anything?
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Anything fast food?
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess I was in college, so it was
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: like normal stuff you can get your hands on in college,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: like pizza. But really, again, like it wasn't about the food, right,
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: it was about the numbing and.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: The why not drugs? Alcohol?
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: Good question, that's a good question. There's time, there's time
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: for me. I can go there, Lord have mercy. I
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: think you know, it's funny. It's like I couldn't be
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: a perfectionist and do the drugs and alcohol thing. Like
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I still the thing about the eating disorder and the exercises, Yes,
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: I could hide it so I could still be a
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: great student, maintain my be seen as a perfectionist, Still
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: have the lead in all the plays in college, Still
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: come across as a good girl, but secretly have this behavior.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: And I knew, you know, I also have a lot
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: of alcoholism in my family. So I had this sense
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: that if I went there, I would lose the good
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: girl image. I could do this other thing, and it
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: actually kind of led me to the good girl image.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: Now I'm jumping all around because I want people to
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: read the book Thinking and Water. But you talked about,
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: you know, always driving for perfection. Yeah, but you said
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: Jamie Fox taught you a very valuable lesson.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, can you explain what that was?
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Jamie. I mean, I've been really lucky.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: I've been lucky enough to work with Jamie twice on
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Ray and Janego Unchained Classics by the way, Yeah, truly,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: he's He's the best. And Jamie's taught me a lot
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: about a lot of things. But one of the things
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: is in my work as an actor, to you have
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: to let go of that perfection idea. Because we were
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: doing a scene together in Ray. It was the scene
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: where I find speaking of drugs, where I find all
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: his heroin works the first time as his wife, and
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: you know, we had done it in the morning, we
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: had hit it out of the park and I was like, oh,
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: we are on fire. This is incredible. And then as
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: the day went on, I kept trying to do it
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: exactly the way we had done it earlier that morning,
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: so that it would be in that perfect place that
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: it felt so good. And that's the beginning of death.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: As an actor, like you, you can't try to recreate magic.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: You have to keep cultivating new magic, right, Like, you
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: have to truly be in the moment. And Jamie really
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: helped me to realize I was frustrated in the scene
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: and he was like, you got to you gotta keep digging.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: You got to let go of this morning. And that
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: was a really powerful lesson.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: Why was it easier to find that in acting as
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: opposed to real life?
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: Well, I guess I hadn't learned how to apply that
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: to the rest of my world. You know, there was
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: like it was in a vacuum, was isolated kind of moment.
• 11:51
  Speaker 6: It's a good question.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, that is the lesson though, right is that,
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: like the answer is never about perfection, It's always about
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: like what's the best possible version of my life in
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: this moment of me, in this moment, I.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Was going to ask what you know with doing this book?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: What made you finally say, you know what? I'm ready
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: to open up because you've always been so private about
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: your life other than acting.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: What said?
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: What was the moment he says, this is why I
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: want to do it, and this is why I want
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: to do it now.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: I think part of it, honestly, is that I have
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: been always very private with my kids, very private with
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: my husband. You know, we don't put our kids online.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: We don't really talk about our marriage on the internet
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: but or the press. But I've been very public in
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: my relationship with my parents. My parents come to premieres,
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: they come to award shows, fashion shows, red carpets, magazines.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: So suddenly I felt like when they gave me this
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: information and they asked me not to share it, I
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: was now being complicit in their life, Like they had
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: built this false narrative and now they were asking me
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: to buy into it. And I was like, I don't
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: want to be out in the world doing an interview
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: where people are like, oh, wow, you're on looks so
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: much like your dad. Which by the way, he weirdly does,
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: and not be able to be honest right, Like I
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: just wanted. I wanted to be able to have my
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: truth and not feel like I had to live under
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: their shadow. And I felt like, if somebody's going to
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: tell this story, I want to tell it because it's
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: my story. So I didn't want to just do it
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: on a talk show or I wanted to really have
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: the narrative.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Now, you did say something I heard you say that
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: parents do the best that they can and then it's
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: up to us to parent ourselves after that, explain that well.
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: I think.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: One of the things that I've truly come to terms
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: with in writing this book is that every choice my
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: parents made was out of love. They weren't trying to
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: be cruel, they weren't trying to hurt me. They really
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: thought that this was the best choice. And by the way,
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: doctors back then said it, like artificial inssemination was so new.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: They would say, we do this thing and then you
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: go home and have sex, and then you have plausible deniability.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: And nobody knew forty years ago there would be these
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: home tests twenty three in ancestry. You had no idea,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: so they were like, go home and have sex, then
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: the kids you end of story, nothing to talk about, right,
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: And so it I think my parents didn't want me
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: to feel different. They didn't want me to feel weird.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: They didn't want me ironically, they didn't want me to
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: feel distance from them, even though that's what wound up happening.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: So I know that they made loving choices or choices
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: out of love, even if they didn't feel loving to me.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: But I think we have to for me and my journey.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: It's been like, it's been good to understand who they were,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: to have compassion for their choices, but I can't blame
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: them for where I am now. Like now that I
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: have awareness, I have to say, like, Okay, they gave
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: me everything they could with as much love as they
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: could in the places where I feel like I don't
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: have the tools that I needed. I didn't get the
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: tools I needed in that household. Part of being an
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: adult is to say, how do I give myself those tools?
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: How do I ask for help in therapy, in you know,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: reading coaches, like how do I now close the gap
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: between what they gave me and what I need? That's
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: my responsibility as an adult. If I just sit here
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: and continue to complay about what they didn't give me
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: that I'm keeping myself a child.
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: What's that? What's the conversation like with your kids?
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: Like once you decided to take this world to your
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: kids and even deciding to write the book, and now
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: you're you know, because your kids, I'm sure they're friends
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: and everybody knows who you are. So how do you
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: have that conversation with them? And kind of how are
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: they responding to things?
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: You know, it's funny, like I was saying before, this
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: is so common now, like it's not news to my kids.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: They were so unimpressed. Like, you know, they're in their classes.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: They have kids with two dads and two moms, So
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: they have friends from sperm donors, friends from egg donors,
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: friends who are adopted, friends who were born from surrogates.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: Like they also like we're a blended family, right, They're
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: big sister. You know when you we look at the
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: three of them, their big sister has four parents. Like
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: having me having another parental figure in my story is
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: not weird to them. For my parents, they came from
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: a world where what makes a family was very different.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: But the ideas of what makes a family now is
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: much more open, so you know, they they know obviously
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: the conversation I have with my seventeen year old is
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: very different than the conversation I have with my six
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: year old, right, But you know, I'm we I want
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: to be a home where we're open and honest and
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: where they feel like they can ask anything.
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: What about when you decided to because I know in
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: this book you talk about the abortion that you had
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: at twenty. Yeah, that is something that is like in
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: your twentieth but I mean it's around Saved the Last
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: Dance time, right, so you were, you know, highly successful
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: at this time. I know, But it's in a chapter
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: that I call black famous because I was, I mean,
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: you know how we are like white people didn't necessarily
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: know that the girl from Save the Last Dance was
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: the same girl from Ray was the same girl.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: From Last Cave of Scotland. So we knew, I you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: but so yes, I was, my star was on the rise.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: But it wasn't. I wasn't like I could still go
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: to the grocery store and it was all good.
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: Do you remember the next like, because I know that
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: there's probably like a lot of like medicine and different
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: things that you take when all that's happening, But when
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: you really were able to like sit and talk to
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: yourself after that, What was the conversation you had with yourself.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: After my abortion? Oh, that's such a great question. I
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: don't remember. I don't remember. I mean, are you asking
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: in terms of, like, how did I feel about making
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: that choice?
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: Yes, because I think prior to making the choice, maybe
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: it's different after right, or maybe it's not.
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: I don't know, but I'm just wondering.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I never questioned whether or not it was the right choice.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: It didn't feel easy, But I mean, to be honest,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: I remember feeling really grateful that I was able to
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: make that choice because I knew that that would have
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: had a huge impact on my life, on my career,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: on my mental health. I knew I wasn't ready, and
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: I felt really lucky to live in a country where
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: I had the right to make that choice, where I
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: had agency, free agency over my body, and could, you know,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: make decisions about my family and my family planning that
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: were the healthiest decisions for me.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Changed the discustry.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I shared it,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: because I feel like those rights are under attack. And
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: you know, in that moment, I talk about it as
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: a loss of personal privacy because I got wreck Even
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: though I went to the abortion clinic under a pseudonym,
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: under a fake name, I got recognized. So you really
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: did that, yeah, yeah, and so. And for me, it
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: was like I had a sense of the loss of
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: my privacy in that room. And that's what's happening to
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: so many women right now. The right to have an
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: abortion is part of our right to privacy. And when
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: we attack a woman's ability to make choices about her
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: own life that are not anybody else's business, we really
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: chip away at her ability to be a full human being.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: I want to have a more question about your father.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: How did finding out your father wasn't your biological father
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: changed your views on parenthood?
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Man, Well, one thing I say in the book is,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: and it's what I feel, is that you know, in
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: a community, in our community where people have historically had
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: such difficult relationships, right where there's this history of dads
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: maybe not being present. You know, in the neighborhood that
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: I grew up in, I grew up in one of
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: the few households where the dad was around, and you know,
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: my parents were still married, and the fact looking back
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: that that my dad really did choose me, that he
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: was there, he's been there for me the whole time,
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: that he's been this you know, parental force in my life,
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: that he's my dad, that he chose me, that I
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: belonged to him and he belongs to me. It almost
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: meant more than it ever did before. And I feel
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: really grateful, you know, because the back then when I
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: think about the mid seventies, and you know a lot
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: of even today, like people not being able to have
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: a baby breaks a lot of marriages up right, Like
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: a lot of people they don't make it through that
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: hurdle or over that hurdle is the right metaphor. But
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: my parents, they like they made the choice. They wanted
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: me so badly. They made the choice to take on
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: this incredible risk and do something that nobody else was
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: doing and to keep a four decade secret because they
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: just they really wanted me in their life. And so
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: I think as a parent, it makes me just remember
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: not to take any moment for granted. As a parent,
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: like that each one of us, I know this sounds
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: so hokey, but like each one of us really is
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: a miracle, you know, like the odds of like that
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: egg being in the right place at the right time
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: with that sperm and making it like every single one
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: of us from the moment we arrived, we're a miracle.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: But for my parents, I was like, this crazy prayed
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: for a miracle, and I just I want to make
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: sure you know, there may be a lot of things
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: that I don't agree with in terms of the choices
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: that my parents made, but the fact that I knew
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: I was loved and wanted is something that I tried
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: to take from my experience as a child and put
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: it in my kids' lives.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: And it's safe to say that culture is secrecy that
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: so many black families have.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: You don't have that in yours.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think we're really chipping away at it.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's funny. My mom says, we were doing
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: an interview the other day and they said, like, what's changed,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: what's the family like now? And I said, we're much
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: more open, We're much more honest, And she said, I
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: thought it was so beautifully put. We're no longer afraid
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: to hurt each other, right, because that's part of intimacy,
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: is to take the risk to be yourself to maybe
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: not agree to say something that might hurt somebody, but
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: you choose to be in truth no matter what. So yeah,
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: there's a lot more transparency in my in my family. Now.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Now you contemplated suicide at one point.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: The reason I asked is, I'm sure there is people
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: in this book.
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: I know it's like zero to sixty, But you're not
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: understand how good this is going to do for so
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: many people because we watch you, especially like with women,
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: I know we watch you in them that you have,
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: the way you speak to see that like you you've
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: actually been through things and now you're at a place
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: where you're able to talk about it and you know
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: what I mean, It's going to give so many people
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: that I feel in of like, Okay, cool, I can
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: do this.
• 22:11
  Speaker 6: I got this.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: I think there's also an important lesson, Yeah, it's there's
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: also an important lesson I think in never comparing your
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: insides with somebody else's outsides because you're right like from
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: the outside. I felt like it was part of my job,
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: particularly you know, like when Scandal first started, there was
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: all this talk about how there hadn't been a black
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: woman on network drama in almost forty years, and I
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: had this sense that I was I wasn't just like
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: making a show for my own success. It was for
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: the culture. It was like it was bigger than me.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: It's heavy, and so I didn't I never wanted to
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: be flawed because I felt like, you know, if I
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: don't do this right, if we don't get this right,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: it'll be another forty years before there's a black woman
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: on the air. And luckily, because audience is tuned in,
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: that wasn't the case. You know, soon we had you know, Cookie,
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: and we had an a lease on How to get Away,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: and we had all these other shows, even like Priyanka
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Shopeer's show. Right Like suddenly black and brown girls were
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: allowed to be the lead on these shows. And so
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: I felt like I had to maintain And before that,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: before Scandal, there was always the sense that you had
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: to maintain appearances. And I think I learned that from
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: my parents too, right, because they were always maintaining appearances
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: even though I didn't even know what was happening behind
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: the curtain. But getting through it again was that asking
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: for help and what.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Got you there first of all, and then how did
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: you get through it? Because I'm sure, there's people listening
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: now that might be in that same zone and trying
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: to work themselves through it every day. So what got
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: you to that point where you felt that way? And
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: then how did you get over that obstacle?
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: I mean the biggest When you say there might be
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: people listening who feel that way, it's like, my heart
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: breaks because I just know how hard it is to
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: feel that alone and that hopeless. So if anybody's listening
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: and is feeling that way, the one thing I would
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: say is to ask for help, you know, is to
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: really ask for help because you are you feel alone,
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: but I guarantee you you are not alone. And for me,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: that was the big thing was I mean number one
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: was the first time that I truly got on my
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: knees and talked to God and was like I need help,
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Like I don't I because I felt like I really
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: don't have any tools. I don't I don't know what
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: to do. So it was the first time that I
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: think I humbled myself enough to feel like there's there's
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: got to be something bigger than me that points me
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: in the direction of healing, and I started reaching out.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: I went to therapy for the first time, group therapy
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: one on one, like I just really started committing to
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: trying to walk this road of healing.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Yah, I want to I love yourself awareness.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Did you realize you were black famous when you were
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: black famous?
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Or was that in hindsight?
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: No, in the moment, because because I knew, you know,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: it was like I knew I could walk down the
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: street on fifty seventh and Madison and be fine, but
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: if I was in the Bronx, it was like, oh
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: my God. Or like at the time, I was a
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: substitute teacher in New York City public schools. That was
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: one of my many side hustles when I was trying
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: to make a living as an actor. And it was
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: funny because I would get hired into the school and
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: the principals who were white, you know, the principle's vice principals,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: they would be like, so nice to meet you. Great,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: they bring me to the classroom. They had no idea
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: who I was. But then I would be asked to
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: leave a school because by the second day, all the
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: kids were cutting class to see Chaneil from Save the
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: Last Dance because they knew who I was because I
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: was substitute teaching in Harlem. So it was like that dynamic.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: I understood that certain people knew who I was and
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: other people didn't.
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: Do people Sorry, do people walk up to you and
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: bust out in the moves from Save the Last Days?
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: Like it was that a thing?
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Then?
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Yes, for sure, for sure it was the thing that.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: But even just yesterday I saw Kiki Palmer and she
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: literally did like the monologue from the movie that I
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: do sitting in the clinic with my baby. I was like, got,
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: do you remember this, Kiki?
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: She was like, that was my Shiit.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: What's more fulfilling being black famous or white famous?
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: I think you have to have both. That was one
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: of the things that that Chris Rock taught me, like
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: you you can never ever forget your core original first audience.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: You cannot because that that other audience will come and go,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: they'll be ebbs and flows. But black people will hold
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: you up throughout you. If you stay with us, we
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: stay with you.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's what made scandal Is such a hit.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, I mean we were part of the birth
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: of black Twitter at the time. So I one of
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: my best friends from high school. She's a brilliant social
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: media person, Alison Peters She actually convinced me to go
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: on Twitter, and I was like, what why, I don't know,
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: and she was like she had come out of viacom
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: and was like, it's really important, you need to do this,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: And she and I kind of talked the I mean
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: I talked Shonda Rhimes into talking the cast into being
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: on Twitter. And we were one of the first shows
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: to do live tweeting and to really have event television
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: at a time where people were no longer watching shows
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: in real time unless it was like a basketball game,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: And so that conversation around the show was our grassroots movement,
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: like we had black Twitter on fire. People like Oprah
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: eventually were like, I only started watching Twitter because it's
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: I only started watching Scandal because it's the only thing
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: people talked about on Thursday nights on Twitter. So yes,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: in that first season, it was absolutely because black audiences.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: You know how culture follows us, So black audiences made
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: it that you had to be there to tune in,
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: and suddenly it trickled out into the rest of the world.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: How often do people come up to you to fix it.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: All the time? And to be honest, Because the show
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: was inspired by a real woman, Judy Smith, who's a
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: real DC fixer, who never slept with the president, but
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: was a real fixer. And I have her on speed dial,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: so people also will come to me to get to her, wow,
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: because they know she is truly able to fix down.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Have you needed I haven't needed her, but I've sent
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: other people to her. Yes, but I've talked to her.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, like not on like I'm in jail. It's
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: two Am helped me out, but like you know, if
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: there's a rollout of a movie and I'm like, I
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: don't know, this directory is a little bit of a problem.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: What do you think you know I've done. I've had
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: those kind of conversations with her. Yeah, but people, do
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: you know? It's funny, like it'll happen in political moments,
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: Like a lot of my political work now is inspired
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: by the fact that in twenty sixteen, the morning after
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: the election, when that awful, rapist, racist person was elected,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: that when I woke up all over social media people
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: were like, you have to save us. What are you
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: gonna do? Please Olivia Pope? And it was funny for
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: a minute, and then I was like, we have a
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: real problem in our culture because we we don't realize
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: is that Olivia Pope is an imaginary character on a
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: television show, and that every single person who wrote one
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: of those tweets they have more power than Olivia Pope
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: because she can't vote, she can't register voters, she can't volunteer,
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: she can't knock on doors. But it's like we've given
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: our power over to imaginary people because we have this
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: hero worship, right, So we're not stepping into our power
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: because we're looking for somebody else to solve our problems
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: for us. So a lot of the work that I've
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: been doing has been trying to figure out how to
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: turn the spotlight that's on me onto those grassroots organizations
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: and people who are really doing the work.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: When people saw you with the Vice President the other day.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, probably she's back, she's at the White House.
• 29:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: What do you do to relax and release? I see
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: a lot of videos that you do in yoga? Yes,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: I mean you see you doing yoga on your head
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: like it like it's a dance all artist. So what
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: do you do to release a relax? Yeah?
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: I think it's a lot of I love pilates, I
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: love yoga. I honestly go for a lot of walks.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: I do walking and hiking, even with my husband in
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: a box. No, not as I don't live the Bronx anymore,
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: but I do. I mean I do walk in the
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: Bronx if I'm there.
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: But in terms of like, don't don't shade the Bronx.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: The Bronx is a beautiful place. Listen, the Bronx is
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: a beautiful place to grow up.
• 30:13
  Speaker 6: We love it. But where do you know? We don't
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: don't go walk there?
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: What?
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: I just honestly maybe with Cardi b because I don't know,
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: but I want to know people where. It's like we
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: got to protect you at all calls and I just
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: don't hilarious. Yes, but listen, I mean I I walk.
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: I like to walk wherever I am.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: I feel like walking is part of how you acclimate
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: to an environment. So I always tell people, like when
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: I'm in a place filming, I warned security security, right, Yeah,
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: I mean I we walk. I don't care where we are.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: I don't care if we're in Jamaica, I don't care
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: if we're in the Bronx. I don't care if we're
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: in Colombia. I shot a filming in South America and
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: Columbia last year. We walk. I walk. It's part of
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: how you ground yourself and where you are, and it's
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: part of how I relax and feel like I am
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: where I am. But also honestly, just spending time with
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: friends and family, like being with my kids, being with
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: my husband. Those are the and I do a lot
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: of walking and hiking with my husband. Those are like
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: it's like part date night, part business meeting, part therapy session.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: Like I got a couple of questions. You talk about
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: traveling in the Black Famous chapter, you talk about going
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: to Africa, Yeah, to become African. How did that trip
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: change you? So?
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: I was filming Last King of Scotland. That was my
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: first time on the continent, and it was great because
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: I do feel like sometimes as black people in America,
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: we go to Africa with all these like do I
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: belong here? Do I feel at home?
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: What is my relationship here? And I just had to
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: put all of that aside because my focus was on
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: just kind of dropping in and becoming a Ugandan woman.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: And I really did feel at home there. I did.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: I felt I felt so lucky to be able to
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: be so immersed in the culture that I wasn't there
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: like you know as a tourist, you know, and I
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: took it when I was there. I don't know if
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: you've heard about this experience. It's not in the book,
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: but we were hiking in the ruin Zori Mountains, which
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: are the mountains that border Rwanda and Uganda, and it's
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: where the only wild gorillas live. And you can go
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: out with a gorilla trukker and find the gorillas in
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: the jungle and spend time with them. You go with
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: like a tour guide and these truckers and these guys
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: with AK forty seven's just in case people travel from
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: all over the world to have this experience because it
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: is it is one of the most intense spiritual experiences
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: I've ever had. The second one is my experience with
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: the whales that I write about at the end of
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: the book. But it was like to be in the jungle,
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: to be with these creatures, and you realize we really
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: do share like ninety seven ninety eight percent of our
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: DNA with these animals, and they are You start to
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: think like, oh, they're so human, but no, like we
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: are so gorilla. And the craziest thing that happened was
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: when they give you this in this orientation in the morning.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: They're like, if a gorilla gets close to you and
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: is looking at you, the most important thing to do
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: is not run. You have to to feel safe, act
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: like a gorilla. So I was. I didn't hear it
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: through that lens because for me, I was like a
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: young actor who had done animal exercises at school, like
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: this was my opportunity for this was my Meryl Street
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: mow wow. So when the gorilla case from the tree,
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: I was like, I squat down. I mean, everybody in
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: my group was like, what is she?
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: When I tell you that is the best performance of
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: my life, I was, I was.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: The gorilla, the gorilla was me. I started, I picked
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: off a leaf, started chewing on it, and we have
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: the most incredible experience because this gorilla gorilla kept getting
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: closer and closer to us, and this little baby gorilla,
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: she was so curious. She was like, what, We've never
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: seen a human like this. She was like, this one's
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: one of us.
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: But they just they got closer, the trucker said than
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: they'd ever had a gorilla get to a group before.
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: I mean, the guy with the AK forty seven came
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: right next to me because they were terrified, but I was.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: Like, don't stop, don't stop. Yeah, it was incredible.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: The only person like a gorilla.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, how you don't need to tell you that, just because.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: The experience that we got out of it. I mean
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: they said it to everybody in the group, but I
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: was the best actor.
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: In the wow.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: And I went to the whales because you mentioned whales.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was kayaking with whales in Hawaii. Jesus,
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I wanted.
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: To believe you walk in the bronx. Now, yeah I do,
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: calling the bronx the.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Jungle, yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: So I was.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: Kayaking with whales in Hawaii and we had this incredible experience.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: It was just me and one other guide and this
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: calf a baby whale jumped out of the water and
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: landed so close to the kayak. But I think the
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: mom was upset that the baby was being a little
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: too playful, so she came around to swim under my
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: kayak to warn me. And you know, if you're on
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: the water and something like swims under the boat, your
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: boat rises and comes back down. This well was the
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: size of a school bus, so when she swam under me,
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: my kayak went up and it just stayed up and
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: up and up until she passed under me, and then
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: she kind of turned and pulled her eye out of
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: the water to look at me. And it's just those
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: are those moments where you just feel so for me,
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: where I felt so connected to nature, to the you know,
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: to everything that has come before you, because this eye,
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: this like giant eye is taking me in and kind
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: of warning me like that's my kid. Don't do the
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: wrong thing. No I didn't.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: I couldn't.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: So yeah, that was magical. That was really really magical.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: And I learned, you know, I was shaking for like
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: two days, but I learned. On the way back, I
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: was talking to my guide and I was like, that
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: was amazing to see the calf and the mom and
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: the dad. And he said, no, no, no, it's not
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: the dad that with whales when you see them in
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: a group of three, that's not the father. That's actually
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: the whale that wants to mate with her next year.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: That he accompanies her on the migration back home, almost
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: like an act of chivalry to prove himself like I'm
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: the man you want to get with next year.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, I got a couple of questions. I know
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: you got to Go.
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: In the chapter Miracles, you talk about the indie film
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: our song. Yeah, and somebody labeled you. They dis labeled
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: you simply a miracle. Yeah.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: What kind of confidence did that give you?
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Wow, I don't know if it gave me confidence I felt.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: I think it made me feel excited about the possibilities
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: of what could come. But I remember feeling and in
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: some ways I still feel like, I don't know if
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: I'll ever be as good as I was in that movie,
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: because I was so hungry, and it was like the
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: first time. It was my first movie ever, and I
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: felt like it was the first time with the history
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: of everything we were talking about, you know, kind of
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: all the mental health issues, you know, all the stuff
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: that I've been dealing with. I always wanted to be
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: somewhere else or be somebody else. But when I was
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: making that movie, I finally felt like I was in
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: my purpose, Like I was really exactly where I wanted
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: to be. I talked in the book about being a
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: kid in the Bronx, and we lived in the path
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: of the of LaGuardia Airport, and so I would always
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: see planes fly over our apartment when I was a kid,
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: and wish that I was on those planes going somewhere else,
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: living somebody else's life. But when we shot our song,
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: we were in Rockaway by Kennedy Airport, and so we
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: would be we would see planes, we would see planes
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: fly over, and I never wanted to be anywhere then
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: where I was. So, you know, I think I felt
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: seen when he said that, when he said I was
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: a miracle, I was like, no, this opportunity was miraculous.
• 38:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, when all of this is done, like everybody gets
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: the book, they get to read it.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: Everybody should get the book, book, read the audio book.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: It's me and my own words. So that's fun.
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: What is the like the hug or the message that
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: you want people to get from this book.
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question, I think, And this is
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: something that I've written in the book. But there's a
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: saying I heard a long time ago that I really
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: love that we are as sick as our secrets. Sure,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: and that when I think, when we can let go
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: of the things that keep our true selves hidden, we
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: can let go of our shame. So I want people
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: to know that you deserve to live in your truth
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: and be in your truth. Not everybody has to know everything.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: Not everybody has to write a book and come on
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: the breakfast club and talk about their suicide. But you
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: deserve to be loved for who you are. So find
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: those safe spaces. Maybe it's a pastor, maybe it's a therapist,
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: maybe it's a best friend, maybe it's a spouse. Trust yourself.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: Find those spaces where you can really really be yourself
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: and be loved unconditionally. Because that was one of the
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: things that I said to my dad. You know, I
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: knew when my parents told me. I realized that they
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: they had been living under this lie for so long
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: that every time I had said I love you to
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: my dad, whether it was conscious or unconscious, there must
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: have been a part of him that thought, she loves
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: me because she thinks I am her father.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: And there must have been a part of him that thought,
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: if she knew I wasn't her father, maybe she won't
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: love me. That's part of why they didn't tell me.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: And so I had the opportunity, once they gave me
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: that truth, to actually for the first time, love my
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: father unconditional. And that's what we all deserve, that's what
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: we all want. We want to know that no matter
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: what we do or how we act or what we've
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: done in the past, that we're lovable and that we're loved.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: And I feel like my family's in that place now.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: But you only get there when you expose your truth,
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: when you're vulnerable enough to show people who you are
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: and they love you anyway, then you know that you
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: are worthy of of unconditional love.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: But I think your father proved that, you know, just
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: because you just because somebody provides FERM doesn't meet them father.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: He's an actual Yeah.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: It's a big thing.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: That's right, that's right, And it's even like people will say, like, well,
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: do you know who your biological father is? And I'm
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: still wrapping my head honestly around that language, Like I
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: know that scientifically it is true, but I still refer
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: to him as the donor because I don't have a
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: relationship with him. I don't know that he's a Again,
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: scientifically he's my father, but I have a dad. I
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: love my dad. It's not that it's an uncomplicated relationship,
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: you know. I talk a lot about how complicated those
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: relationships are. They're not perfect. I'm not perfect, But it's
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: that ability to walk through hard things that builds real intimacy.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: So I think I just I want people to know
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: that everybody deserves to be loved unconditionally, that you deserve
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: to live in your truth, and that we can do
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: hard things even when we feel like we can't. If
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: we align ourselves with the people who are really in
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: our corner, we can do hard things.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Do you want to know who the donor is?
• 41:22
  Speaker 6: I was literally about to ask, I do.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: I'm searching. I'm looking, and again not because I need
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: a daddy, right like, I'm not looking for an emotional connection.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: I'm really open. I mean I say that now, who
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: knows once you never know, Like he could walk in
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: the room and I can be like, But I think
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: I'm just really curious about that fifty percent of me,
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: that genetic fifty percent of me. I think there is
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: a question. I know what I've gotten from my dad.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: I know from my dad I've gotten my sense of humor,
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: my imagination, my belief in the impossible, my ability to
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: tell a story. I know what I've gotten from my mom,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: my intellect, intellectual curiosity, my grace, my compassion. I don't
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: know what I've gotten from the donor. I'm curious what
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: part comes from him. And I'm curious just in terms
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: of my medical history. I feel like I owe that
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: to my kids, that they should know where they come from.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: But the emotional part of it, I'm open to let
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: it be what it's gonna be. Maybe it'll feel like
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: I have additional family. Maybe it'll just feel like I
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: have additional information. I feel good either way.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Did you talk to your dad about that?
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: About?
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what was it? He wasn't thrilled. I mean, he
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: hasn't been thrilled about any of this, to be honest,
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: you know, like even you know, we had the big
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: Robin Roberts special come on ABC the other night. I
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: watched it with my parents. It was me and my
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: husband and my parents, and we all watched it together.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: This has been a real healing process for the four
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: of us, and my dad still grapples with parts of it.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: You know, he also still you know, I say this
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: when I called my dad and said, like, I talked
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: to the doctor we did the DNA test. Doctor said
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: that you are there's a point zero z zero zero
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: zero zero zero one chance that you're my biological father.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: He was like, there's a chance that's where his brain lives.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: And I love that about him. I love that he's like,
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: until you find that guy, I'm the one that can't
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: say nothing to me. And I think I want him
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: to know that even when I figure out who that
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: guy is, he's the one. Yeah, that's right, that's right,
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: that's right, that's one hundred percent. But yeah, I think
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: I think it's just good to have more information and
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: I and I want him to know also that he
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: can do hard things right, that like his he's proving
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: to himself and seeing truly that he's loved unconditionally. That
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: having this other information doesn't make me any less devoted
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: to him.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: I was going to ask you, when you do meet
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: your other dead donor, is your mindset around like your
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: thought about him? Is it going to be different because
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: it's like he, you know, just gave the sperm and
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: didn't really. I mean, I don't know if they're allowed
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: to come back and try and figure out who the
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: who they listen.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: When my parents did this, it was the wild West,
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: no rules. When he did this, it was the wild West.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: It's not like he was like in love with My
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: mom looked at me at the hospital and was like, yeah, sure,
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: she's ugly. I'm out like there was. There's no like.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: I don't feel rejected by him. He didn't sign up
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: when he did that, when he donated his sperm, he
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: wasn't signing up to be in relationship. So I don't
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: feel somehow toward him in that way. In fact, I
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: feel some compassion that he might be like, I didn't
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: sign up for this. You know, I don't know, can
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: we you?
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: It's something you said in the epilogue, and I feel
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: like it can relate to so many people.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: You saved my life. It's not about my donor nor
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: about my parents. My life is my own. What did
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: that mean to you? And what could that mean to others?
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So when my parents told me this information, I
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: realized because they had built this narrative, this false narrative
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: about where I came from, I realized that in many
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: ways I had been the supporting character in their story
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: right like they were living this life. They were Earl
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: and Valerie, parents of this beautiful child, successful middle class
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: black family, like I was the supporting character in that fable.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: And when they gave me the truth, I felt like
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: part of why I wanted to write the book was
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: that it was time for me to step into being
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: the lead character in the story of my life, to
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: not let my life belong to them, to say, like,
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: I deserve to be on this journey, this quest because
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: I have my own story. Like, I get it, you
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: had four decades of living this your way. But it's
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: my turn to kind of take this narrative and figure
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: out what my life means for me. So I do
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: I love my parents. I do love being a supporting
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: character in their life, but that has to be a choice.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: I have to know that fundamentally my life is my
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: own and that they because I have the most incredible parents,
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: they now have the opportunity and have allowed themselves to
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: be supporting characters in my story. And a lot of
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: what I've learned about parenting has been about that choice
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: on their part, because they have allowed themselves to be
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: supporting characters for me in this moment, which is humbling
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: for all of us, but them in particular. Right, and
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: as I look forward at my kids, I realize this
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: is my moment. Like this book, I am the protagonist
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: of this book, but I'm also the supporting character in
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: the story of my kids, and I want them to
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: know that I have their back and that they have
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: to live their own life. They shouldn't be living in
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: the ways that make me comfortable. They shouldn't be making
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: choices that are for my own good. They have to
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: make the right choices for them in the way that
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: I'm making the right choices for me.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: Now, well, we appreciate you for joining us this morning, Thick,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: because than water is out right now. We also got
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: to say thank you too, because you know she I
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: was watching an interview and she detailed her own rollout,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: so she had interviews with She's happened with Tyler Perry,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: with Gabrielle Union, and she picked the Breakfast Club. Yes,
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: I think come.
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: See us on tour. We're going to be in Chicago,
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: d C, Atlanta, l A. I'm going to be in
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: conversation with Gabrielle Union, Tyler Perry, bellow me, young Tony Goldwyn.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: It's an incredible lineup, So come see us out on
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: the road.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Get her out of here. She's holding in a cough.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: That's right, it's the Breakfast Club. Good morning, thank you.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: Wake that ass up in the morning.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: The Breakfast Club