Latest / Corie Sheppard Podcast / Wendy Fitzwilliam on Fame, Miss Universe, Motherhood & Why Trini's “Mash Up” Our Own

Transcript

Wendy Fitzwilliam on Fame, Miss Universe, Motherhood & Why Trini's “Mash Up” Our Own · Corie Sheppard Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: The lovely homeless gentleman looked up and said, I don't know how that is, Miss Trinan to be winner.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Your superpower can be people underestimating you.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just winning from Trinidad.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm at first time in Barcelona.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I want to see everything.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, Well, we have to send you with security.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, I'm good.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need security.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then a guy turns and he looks at me, he says, Miss Universe.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: And just in seconds, people just closed in.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: As Trinbagonians, we are insanely jealous of each other.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: So when we excel, we mash up each other.
• 0:36
  Corie: So you have trouble number X still.
• 0:37
  Corie: I mean if I get any trouble, you can still get my trouble.
• 0:42
  Corie: You know, Cory Chapter Corey.
• 0:47
  Corie: Step on the core, step on the podcast.
• 0:52
  Corie: Don't let it stop.
• 0:53
  Corie: It's gonna be technically.
• 0:59
  Corie: Welcome to the Cory Chapter Podcast.
• 1:00
  Corie: Thanks for everybody who's been tuning in.
• 1:02
  Corie: Welcome to all the new listeners.
• 1:04
  Corie: I have a guest with me today who many might know as Miss Universe.
• 1:08
  Corie: We know finding out that she's our stink and dirty alum, right, David?
• 1:11
  Corie: We find out recently.
• 1:12
  Corie: A newbie, a newbie.
• 1:14
  Corie: Well, in the crowd, no, when you're graduate, you're graduate, right?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the Baptist Humophile.
• 1:23
  Corie: We have with us today, Miss Wendy Petsule.
• 1:25
  Corie: How are you, ma'am?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: I am great.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Lovely to see you to meet you.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Same here.
• 1:29
  Corie: Lovely to meet you.
• 1:31
  Corie: This is the only one I will say we've been planning this for a while.
• 1:34
  Corie: Yes.
• 1:35
  Corie: We've been trying to do it for some time.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Schedules.
• 1:38
  Corie: We'll say that Wendy was busy, right?
• 1:40
  Corie: And it was now a disorganized inefficiencies and so on on my end, right?
• 1:44
  Corie: We'll just say that Wendy.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because Wendy's to quote my people back broad.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but take load.
• 1:51
  Corie: Well, let me start by thanking you first because Wendy had done a very public endorsement of this podcast, which I have screenshot in my phone and so on in my dad.
• 1:59
  Corie: I was spending two hours talking about this.
• 2:01
  Corie: Really?
• 2:01
  Corie: Yeah, I remember putting out an episode of a guy from Diamondvale.
• 2:05
  Corie: You know what Diamond Vale thing, you know?
• 2:08
  Corie: Yes.
• 2:08
  Corie: And name of Quasi Hopkinson.
• 2:10
  Corie: Yes.
• 2:11
  Corie: And I saw, imagine my surprise, Wendy Fatulam is saying this podcast is so great.
• 2:15
  Corie: And act publicly, so I just want to thank you in person.
• 2:18
  Corie: I appreciate that.
• 2:19
  Corie: So no.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it was.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I wouldn't comment if it if it was not.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked at that particular podcast.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: I look at all of your podcasts, but that one a couple of times.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and my mind started to race after that, which in the most creative way, you know, I do a couple of uh other projects consultancies that I think you birthed something you don't even know.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: That might be true.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe he'll be back here in about a year talking about.
• 2:49
  Corie: Well, all right.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: But no, but seriously, you know.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and what I appreciated about that one is the it was so easy the conversation.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I was in the living room um of a battery pad, lyman with two fellas who knew each other, had not seen each other for a while, and were catching up.
• 3:10
  Corie: Yeah, and that's why I was so worried.
• 3:12
  Corie: That's why it felt like I was like, oh God, I forget to do a podcast, I just come and talk to Quaisy for us, you know.
• 3:18
  Corie: But it taught me a lesson in terms of what people really want to hear and so on.
• 3:21
  Corie: Because I mean, Quasey have stories, you could just Oh gosh, yes.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and he is a phenomenal storyteller, you know, so it's not just the stories, it's the way he's like, Queen.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, which is he has a lovely voice.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, of course.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: But apart from the lovely voice, you know, hoppy is hoppy.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, that's how I got into stink and dirty.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because in my head, stink and dirty was a play pen.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's a lovely fed where you don't walk, you whine.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And my son and his friends pig into stink and dirty peers.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I wouldn't, I was like, you know, and he no, not a chance.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And Hobby's like, Queen, you gotta come to my fet, you know.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: You don't come to my fet.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Darling, for sting and dirty, mash me.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Seriously.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I had the time of the time, I can barely remember it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: But let me tell you, I was like, Hoppy, why do you do this to me?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I try one of your fets.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Same story with Duckwalk in the early days, same story with the squatch, Cruz and Barbados.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to go back and conquer it.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so you conquered it.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it flapped me.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: It conquered me.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: So next year, I'm coming for stink and dirty.
• 4:33
  Corie: But David win that?
• 4:35
  Corie: David ain't going out place.
• 4:36
  Corie: So let's tell him this.
• 4:38
  Corie: He ain't going nowhere.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of David, David used to go everywhere.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is how I know David.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I can understand David wanted to take it easy now.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And when David has a camera in his hand, be careful.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Hello.
• 4:50
  Corie: Also, we're starting to get to this common grammar.
• 4:52
  Corie: We're both afraid this gentleman are starting to understand what it is now.
• 4:56
  Corie: So here now, yeah.
• 4:57
  Corie: Any world you would imagine, fetting with your son, that must be something.
• 5:00
  Corie: If he in Stink and Dirty, you didn't say all your person do this.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, yes.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Not at Stink and Dirty, because that, as I said, was his domain.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: But Aylan is away at school, has been for a few years, and he could not do uh carnival this year.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but we grew up or he grew up very much attached to my hip in every way.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like from birth business meetings, uh parties, um, cocktails and ambassadors.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't matter where it was, he was in it.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we do spend a lot of time together, and I don't think we're unique in that regard.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because when I started a fet, I started a fet with my father.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: I remember um going to you remember the band launch, band launches back in the day.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: They used to be blockers.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Very true.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Reek Victor Reek and um Raul Garib used to be just on the street and you'd have a good time.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: There'd be a little bar trucked in a corner somewhere, and everybody cute and liming and whatever.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember going to a couple of those.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Daddy was very close to the Reek family, and um some guys who were not particularly close to him, but he knew through them, was like, Fitzy, who is this girl?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And Daddy's like, You blind, dumb, deaf.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: You can't see that face is my face, like that is my daughter.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, go easy.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I started partying with my father.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I never stopped, you know, until I lost him a couple of years ago.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Literally, uh up until maybe three months before dad passed.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: We were still swinging killer.
• 6:35
  Corie: That's another very West Indian thing.
• 6:37
  Corie: We have a tendency to it, it might be a fet, it might be a public thing, but it's a family vibe and environmentally.
• 6:43
  Corie: Very much so.
• 6:43
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and as a Trini, I did not appreciate that until like friends from elsewhere, um, not so much West Indians, because I find culturally there's similarities in that regard.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you are in St.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Kitts, Barbados, wherever, Guyana, you um, it's a public holiday and you go to the beach or you go to a river or whatever, you will see intergenerational liming.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, parents, grandchildren, grandparents, everybody.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Tut moon having a good time.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's okay for a grandparent to have a bear with their grandchild.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's very much us.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, it's we are that's not how uh a lot of the planet, not all of it, but many people socialize.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it was only when like friends would come for carnival, particularly after Universe.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I played mass with my mom.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people didn't realize that.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she was in hearts with me for uh many years.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember um a gentleman I was dating at the time was like, so we can do this in front of my mother.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Do what?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what everybody else is doing.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, just us.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: The other 200,000 people on the streets of Porter Space.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I mean, we're not doing anything wrong.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Look at mommy, she's dancing, having a good time too.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's um, I think very special about us.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Something that we don't appreciate unless you leave here.
• 8:10
  Corie: I guess yeah, you see the difference when you happen.
• 8:12
  Corie: Absolutely.
• 8:12
  Corie: Now, one of the things that most people do do is like I was reading like Letters to Elon.
• 8:17
  Corie: And there's a line you said, right?
• 8:19
  Corie: That I'm writing a very adult book.
• 8:21
  Corie: History at the time?
• 8:22
  Corie: Yes.
• 8:23
  Corie: It was very adult.
• 8:24
  Corie: Yeah, the book.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is very adult.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:27
  Corie: No reservations about where you're writing in that book, knowing that at some point he could be.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: No, and I wanted uh, you know, because uh that book was my journal, and I I um decided to publish because my manager, who's still my manager, Tyrone, uh said to me before we knew how the book would turn out.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I uh um ironically, I told Ty about my pregnancy before my mother.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's his manager.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and he was very excited.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Oh, Wens, you must write a book and just write down everything you're feeling, experiencing, and uh, and we'll call it let us say he named the book, Tyrone.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I said, Okay, we'll see.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, he's just he said, Don't edit while you write, just write, which is what I did.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, and you know, my story is mine, yes.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but there are lots of elements of my uh experience becoming a mom that I think many women and men experience.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I knew a lot would have been said about my pregnancy, and my son would eventually read about the interviews.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I wanted him the newspaper people to quote one of my girlfriends, them people.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I wanted him to understand his story from me, from you know, from his mom.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: So even if I did not publish, Elon would have had uh letters to Elon uh for him.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um but in uh reviewing, you know, I would say about how old was Elon?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: 18 months when I started to really turn it into a book.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh I read a little bit of it for uh the same manager, Tyrone, and he was in love immediately.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he said, yeah, we have to do this, and that's where it started.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And Tyrone is um Jamaican and British.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so he has strong ties to uh Jamaica, um, and that there's a publishing house there that was very much interested in it.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um but eventually I decided to go with the Trinidadian publishing house.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha publishing house.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And when I uh shared with both publishing houses a little snippet of the book, they they couldn't get enough.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, wait, give me a minute.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, because I can't do emotive writing in um on a computer.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Still, Aylan says that is a function of my age.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right, it's a good idea.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's like the fact that he's like, well, two things about you screams, Gen X.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: One, the fact that if you're writing anything that's you know emotive, emotional, you have to do it at long hand on a notepad.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I can write reports and contracts and things like that on a computer, but once I'm writing anything emotionally, you have to write it long hand first, and then he was like, that makes absolutely no sense.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe he's a judge with no serious.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: So he's like, oh lady.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other thing is parking a car.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: I still have to, even though you have the um the camera and the screen in front of me, you can just look at it in reverse.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: I have to look over my shoulder and make up seriously.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Even though I'm looking at the screen, I look at the screen, I look over my shoulder.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, my eyes are much better.
• 11:48
  Corie: I have the opposite problem.
• 11:49
  Corie: I don't watch the screen at all.
• 11:50
  Corie: No, so when I go in a car that I have no screen, I go and bong something.
• 11:53
  Corie: Oh, really?
• 11:53
  Corie: Me watching nothing.
• 11:54
  Corie: If it have no screen and no beeping and saying me, I'm watching it in no different direction.
• 11:58
  Corie: And bam!
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no, not me at all.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so yeah, so so that's how letters to Ailen uh came about.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it is a very um honest uh expression of everything I experienced because that experience becoming a mom also helped me deal with things that I didn't want uh to deal with uh or didn't realize that I had to deal with in terms of my relationship with my mom, in terms of um, you know, my relationship with my son's father, how I see relationships, you know, being psychotically independent.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: And having I'm having to release a little bit of that, and not a little bit, a hell of a lot.
• 12:48
  Corie: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:48
  Corie: Suddenly, book, you have a maniacal schedule.
• 12:50
  Corie: I ain't seen that with an eye.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I always do.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I again, your upbringing, you know.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you we learn how to be in relationships from the uh experience we get at home, firstly, and also we learn how to be, just to be a human being.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and my parents, I think I would like to think I've taken a lot of the best of the both of them.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've taken some of the not so great things.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's just how it goes, and you're aware of it and you work on it, etc.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: But like, and I don't think my experience is very unique in that regard.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I have really amazing parents, you know, and I think of course I'm biased.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: I declare that up front.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: But um, they were married for almost 10 years, for nine years before I was born.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: So they were very ready to be parents, one, right, and two, um, as a result, they invested a lot of time and effort into raising their two daughters.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't think they were very unique in that regard.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my neighbors had the same experience growing up in the vehicle with me.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, my neighbors are still my parents.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I see.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: If I do anything, they see any report about me they don't like, oh, they're not shy.
• 14:09
  Corie: They're on it.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Are they on it?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: They let me know.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: If they think they need to protect me, someone does or says something about Wendy.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, they close rants.
• 14:22
  Corie: I like it, I like it.
• 14:23
  Corie: We need that.
• 14:24
  Corie: Yes, we need that.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't think I am unique in that, in that regard as a Trinidadian.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is largely my training experience.
• 14:32
  Corie: Yeah, well, reading it, um a new parent for the second time, right?
• 14:35
  Corie: Which is congratulations.
• 14:38
  Corie: And good luck, boys or girls.
• 14:39
  Corie: But boys, two boys here.
• 14:41
  Corie: One is 13.
• 14:42
  Corie: The next one is what, boy, three weeks, four weeks old?
• 14:44
  Corie: Like new new.
• 14:46
  Corie: Wow.
• 14:46
  Corie: So I read in this for research purposes, right?
• 14:48
  Corie: I say, all right, remember you write a book, at least Braunstrady book before you think.
• 14:52
  Corie: But then I capped only book because it's such a hear that.
• 14:55
  Corie: Well, it it's it's almost like I in this position now watching this little boy.
• 14:58
  Corie: I mean, isn't it?
• 14:59
  Corie: I'm in a completely different position now in life, mentally, well, physically for sure, mentally and all the other things.
• 15:05
  Corie: And looking at this one and then watching 13 year old interact with him, and then when I see the book, it's just so raw, so honest.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and you see, because so, yes, in terms of the the experience of raising a baby, because as I said, this book's I started writing it when Adam was about 18 months old, and I finished when he was about two, almost two and a half.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: But um the the it's also the relationship between mother-father, lovers, husband, wife, how you see a woman in pregnancy, uh, you know, postpartum, all of those things are important too.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I thought, because I do have friends, um, older friends who are uh uh relatively conservative, like we all do.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Some liberal, some conservative, and one in particular, and he was the um at the time I published a book, he was the governor general of Barbados, um, Uncle Clifford.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: He was uh but he was the Chief Justice before that.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: So he cut kind of an assamodoma.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Relatively conservative, a Barbadian gentleman, very, very proper.
• 16:11
  Corie: You know what you mean.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Clifford, so Clifford husbands.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: He um his son uh went to university here, studied engineering, um, and dated my neighbor, and they were like about 10 years older than me.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: So when I went to Barbados to study, they the family took me under their wing, you know, because I had a Bijan friend.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and because I was studying law, and and Anthony is his dad's only boy.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's a family of three kids, two girls and um Anthony.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one of the girls studied law, the oldest one, the other one did business and marketing, and Anthony did uh engineering.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I think Uncle Clifford just took to me because I was studying law too, and his kids were over him.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And to some extent, on a Sunday, I would hang out with him, you know, sometimes he would take me for a drive, and we would talk about the law, whatever I was studying, whatever was going on at the time.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, a couple of times, this is what I mean.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like I got in trouble in Barbados.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: I did a photo shoot um for the advocate newspaper, and they had me in a fabulous brown dress.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Look at me, a very brown child.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the and the dress was almost my colour, and I was in a tree, and they were very stylized, very chic photographs, but in the Barbadian context, tremendously controversial.
• 17:30
  Corie: Look new.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, basically.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: And Uncle Clifford was like, Miss Fitzwilliam, never cause me that.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: You're coming this Sunday for lunch?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's not like would you like to come?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's like you were.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought when Uncle Clifford read Letters to Elon, he would be horrified.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: When I did my Barbados launch of the book, because I launched it across the Caribbean, we did four Trinidad, Jamaica, Bahamas, and Barbados.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when I did the Barbados launch of the book, he bought several copies to give us gifts as the GG as a governor general, but he also hosted a ladies' uh tea for me and invited some of the the the uh movers and shakers, the women movers and shakers in Barbados to tea to just discuss the book with me, almost like a little book club.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was not the launch event, this was just something he wanted to do because he said, you know, Wendy, I at first your book made me very uncomfortable, and then because I knew you, and I read certain passenger passages with my wife, with Ruby, um um Lady Clifford, uh uh Lady Husbands, and he said it allowed them to have conversations.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a gentleman whose children are now in their 40s and early 50s, and he said that you know, after the birth of each of his kids, the um there was a period of adjustment with his wife, almost like rediscovering her, and he felt a little bit of resentment in her.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: They never could identify it, speak about it.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he said the book allowed them the opportunity to do so because in reading it, Andrew Ruby would say, You see?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: In a fabulous major.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I mean, and he said it allowed them to have conversations which sort of reintroduced into their marriage almost like a third or fourth honeymoon.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, as with every kid was a honeymoon.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like every two.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: But and and and that's what I mean by so being vulnerable.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have discovered uh often uh there's tremendous value.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now in the early phases or stages, it may be very distressing.
• 20:00
  Corie: I can imagine.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: And tough.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the easiest road always.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but vulnerability and honesty usually pays off in spades.
• 20:08
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:08
  Corie: I mean, I gasp a few times.
• 20:09
  Corie: I was like, oh, all right, we go in there, all right.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: We just like blunt.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you see, because as I and I think I say this in the book, um, I am public-private, meaning that I don't um flaunt relationships very much.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, if you look at my social media, I only have social media because at the time I was launching that book.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right, of course.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was not on any social media at the time.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: When I wanted to Google something, I would call my sister and tell her, look it up for me.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Wendy, you know you could do this yourself.
• 20:41
  unknown: Right.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um and Atto, Pato Bolden, uh, you know, and Atto's a friend since early days, right?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: His Fatima days.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um anytime he would come to Trinidad, he would send me a note, usually a um a message, a WhatsApp message or whatever, and say, Tolly, I'm coming to Trinidad your home, you're in town, okay, me lime or whatever.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I got a call from Ato, a call, not a message.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Very true.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, but uh basically uh saying, Tolly, you on Facebook?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, nope, I'm not.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, well, you better track Facebook because he sent me a note on Facebook um saying he's kept the usual.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm coming home, you're home, I want to see you.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um and the person responded saying, Oh, nice, is this really Ato?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And the person And the person is responding as me.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I learned if you are well known and you leave you know those assets, yeah.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Assets like that out there for the world, they will take full advantage.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so um that's really why I started.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And because if you notice, when I'm promoting something, that's when I'm active on social media.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, I'm I like Instagram, I'm not a Facebooker or any of the others.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I would I catch my news now on Instagram.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can get like full articles, everything.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm not like a big I can't post my whole life.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: To me, that's like a full-time job.
• 22:09
  Corie: You know what I mean?
• 22:09
  Corie: It is, it is, it is, it is.
• 22:10
  Corie: It is.
• 22:11
  Corie: And when you talk about that public-private part, it's something that's very interesting to me.
• 22:15
  Corie: Because when it's when I sit with artists, for instance, they have a kind of like gentle thrust into this public world.
• 22:21
  Corie: Whereas with you, I'm not sure if it's just an overnight, like it's off a cliff.
• 22:24
  Corie: Now everybody knows who you are.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: But kind of.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: So because I started modeling when I was 11 years old in Trinidad, but my first paid modeling gig um was sitting for boss school, which is not the norm, which has taught me exceptional discipline.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: That and Bali, my friend, the ability to sit still and smile.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: However, amazing training for those two things.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then shortly thereafter, there was a very popular Trinidadian model called Kadhafi Romney.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: And she saw me, I can't remember where, liked my look, and I started to do little shows around Port of Spain with her.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Alison Brown came to St.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph's Convent to judge a lip-syncing competition.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Remember when that was hot?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Hot dog?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, yeah.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Rolling out, rolling now.
• 23:09
  Corie: He said don't call him hot dog no more.
• 23:10
  Corie: You say don't call him hot dog no more.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Marlon.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: But in those days, he was hot dog, and that made him very popular and fabulous, you know?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so um I was known a little bit in Trinidad, but like a girl around town, if you know what I mean, like a model.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like before universe, I had a model for mailing.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um while I was at school in Barbados, I'd done television commercials, I'd done TV commercials here.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Occasionally there's a concert mall, it doesn't even exist anymore.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Which is one that I did in Form 6 that still pops up all over the internet.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: When I went to Barbados at school, my father told me that um he'll bring me home for uh Easter, uh, the July August vacation and Christmas, but I can't come home for convert.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, what?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Riplash.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, wait, when do you have to find yourself a job?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you see how God works?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't find myself a job.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was liming at a nightclub at Harborlights, and the an account executive at an advertising agency saw my look like me, asked me if I wanted to be in an advertisement, and I was like, Does this thing pay?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Yes, we will pay you because it was for a rum company.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: He said, We will pay you in both cash and rum.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, What?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is not a win, a win-win if I ever hear one of my eyes.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: I did that math.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: That check could have got me four tickets.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right back and forth to border Spain.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:36
  Corie: It's too kind of well secure.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: A case of rum every month.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that made me a very, very popular girl on campus.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the duration of the contract.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was like, well, yes, sign me up.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I did a little bit of work in that regard before, but like most models, you uh a random face of people, if they see you, they know you.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Not like the universe was very different.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Also, even Mr.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: An Tobago, you know, like people knew I was Mr.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: An Tobago, but I what I love about my people is that we are not really fan-obsessed at all.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: You try not to be.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're not.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, but when we do, it's it's in the frenzy of the moment.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, uh a good example like Marshall.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a super fan of Marshall.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: But Marshall walks, I won't tell you what part, but he walks up almost every morning, and people leave him alone more more or less.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: They'll say, Hey Marshall, which is the same thing I get.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: How you're doing, but but it's not like crazy, you know, that madness.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we don't really have paparazzi here, for example, except and accept your friend there.
• 25:47
  Corie: The real McCoy.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And Andre, an Andre.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe a couple.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: So as a Trinidad, then you know, you just don't have uh that experience per se, even if you're a relatively well-known Trini.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then during universe, you sort of take it as part of the job.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I was the last title holder to live in Los Angeles, which means that in the LA context, you are C-level celebrity as Miss Universe.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: People know you, they like you, but you have you're dealing with the Brad Pitts, the Denzel Washingtons, the Zendayers of the World.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, you're not that important.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: You get invited to everything, but nobody's running you down.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: People may take photographs of you on a red carpet, but your picture is not going to be the picture.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: On the cover of Star or Enquirer, it's going to be on the style page.
• 26:40
  Corie: Of course.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: So uh LA, you're protected to some extent.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: My first experience of real celebrity uh was actually just before my homecoming.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, because it takes about three weeks to plan a homecoming.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm working in this time, you know, I'm uh uh in LA going to premieres, whatever.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: My very first trip is Miss University was to Spain, Barcelona.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that I went sightseeing before my official duty started, nothing.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, I'm just went from Trinidad and I'm first time in Barcelona.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: I want to see everything.
• 27:18
  Corie: Right.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, but we have to send you with security.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, I'm good.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need security.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: And my travel manager, like Mrs.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: William, we will send you with a driver, just one guy.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is that okay?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we're looking at what is this famous um uh cathedral that was just completed, familiar something, something plenty.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Long name.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, they're looking at that, taking pictures with my travel manager.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Rose, we're having a good time, and then a guy turns and he looks at me and he says, Miss You Niverso?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And within seconds, with thank God, that's a very popular tourist site.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: So there are a lot of police around because it was just my driver.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: This one security guy.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: I black the security.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: The one security guy.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, thank you.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: This one security guy, and um, and and and my five foot one travel manager, and I'm like a like a lighthouse in the middle of a wall.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: And just in seconds, people just closed in.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't so much after a while about me, it was about like getting close to me.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: I noticed they were competing with each other.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you know what I mean.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that was like my first taste, right?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and that was early in the game.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was Miss Universe only for about a week at that point.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, wow, this is serious, you know what I mean?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, and then so I'm back to LA doing my thing, and then the accountant for Miss Universe, the the chief financial officer, the company, um, sits you down with an accountant, a lawyer to make sure your your taxes are in order, everything.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: They're very good that way.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's a machinery that really takes care of you, which is good.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the uh um chief financial controller for the Miss Universe organization at the time, Gail, was like, you're so sweet, you're so lovely.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: I have this friend, he's an accountant too.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: His roots, he's Caymanian and American.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to introduce you.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, well, a blind date.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: And she says to me, Well, I guess we can call it that.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Well, okay, I just tried apple pie for the first time.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Let's laugh.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because trainies don't, if you think about it, when you come from a small country like ours, there's no such thing as a blind date.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Even if I don't know you personally, I've seen you around before as well.
• 29:37
  Corie: But if you had a last name, you could connect it with somebody.
• 29:39
  Corie: Or you know somebody who knows that person.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and and in our world, you tend to see people around.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: So before a guy approaches you, he's had a few weeks to work up the nerve, whether it was in my time at Genesis or Catalyst or wherever they're partying now.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: By the time a guy makes the move, he's comfortable enough.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's gotten a little bit of current.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: He knows relatively.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: In places like America, big countries, big cities like LA, you may not see that person.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Again, they zoom in fast.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, Gail says to me about this guy, and I decided suppose this man is boring.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I do not know.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go to um, let's go to uh the Six Flags theme park out there.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a very safe name.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: If he's not interesting, I am having a ball on my roller coaster is my ride.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: And if he's fun, we're having fun together.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, we go to um I can't remember the name of the the um Six Flags theme park in California, but anyway, we drive out there.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Magic Mountain.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, David.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Been everywhere, yeah, everywhere.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because I kept thinking Great Adventure, the one in New Jersey.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right, but uh, but Magic Mountain, we go to Magic Mountain, and um and lovely guy, we're having a great time, actually, very interesting again.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Some kids were like, Miss Universo, and then so now we are trapped on this, right?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: We had a great time.
• 31:14
  Corie: So wait, where is security was this time in Baghdad?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because I just went on a date with this guy.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm in my head, I am safe.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: I am in California.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: When you have Gwyneth Perltrow and Halliberry to run down, but you worried about me for.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: So in my head, I am cut.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: I am not so much.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he was like, after he dropped me back to my apartment, he's like, You are lovely.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: It was great knowing you per sense in other way.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: You and you're crazy.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was lovely, but you're hitting the road.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: I ain't gonna wrong, I ain't given wrong.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: With that crazy.
• 31:53
  Corie: Yeah, I think people might underestimate like people watching this universe and think now or watching pageants generally, they see it differently than what we saw back then.
• 32:01
  Corie: Because back then it was the it thing.
• 32:03
  Corie: One TV station, it was it was everybody was so isolated and tuned into the stuff.
• 32:07
  Corie: Correct.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and like uh everything else, universe has evolved with the times.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: So uh and all entertainment has.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: So if that's your thing, so like I judged universe in 2023 in um New Orleans.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I took my son, uh, and and the the the the the fan base for Miss Universe is intense and rabid.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: The pageantry world, it's like um MME or whatever.
• 32:37
  Corie: Or you're football, yeah.
• 32:39
  Corie: When you look at um oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:41
  Corie: That kind of fandom, WWE.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, WWE is that kind of like intense all in.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they never let you go.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and there are certain parts of the world, so like in America, Miss Universe is very popular.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: In southern USA, so it's popular everywhere, but in the southern USA, they're very openly excited about Miss Universe and like Miss USA and stuff.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um in Asia, it's wildly popular.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: The African continent.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: So to this day, it's not like I am, you know, they're title holders after me, like the recent girls particularly.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they are in movies, they're everywhere.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they have they're on social media 24-7.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: They have a few million followers online and ta-ta-ta.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: And still, you know what I mean.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: I remember doing a business meeting right after the pandemic in New York.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was it we happened to be closing a deal at a Thai restaurant.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the staff kept, these people have no idea who I am.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: They're from Latin America.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we were in New York, and um, and and and the staff at the restaurant, beautiful high-end restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, uh, like and then they and every time they put something on the team, they bound and they backed away from me.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the guys was like, Who are you, royalty?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: And my Trinidad and Colleague was like, Well, and I was like, What?
• 33:58
  unknown: Shut up.
• 34:00
  Corie: I would have everybody tell now.
• 34:02
  Corie: I'm gonna walk with somebody who can tell that story on my behalf every day.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, not at all.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: In certain environments, you that's not about that, if you know what I mean.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: And things are going well.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's certain places or like you know, you go to a place like Dubai, the British exp, uh, or immigrants rather, have no clue who I am, they don't care until you go to a restaurant.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: And again, the staff are usually from, you know, India, Sri Lanka, um, Philippines, Malaysia, and they just they're like, you know, still.
• 34:40
  Corie: It's a good strategy, no, Wendy.
• 34:41
  Corie: So you do the business meeting as just sitting, and when you go out, it's so deal sealed.
• 34:45
  Corie: Because at that point in time, any doubts they had any day, by the time you go to the door with them, it's like, all right, we gotta do business with this one, not always.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't always work that way.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: No, but uh being underestimated, uh uh, and uh because you raise a very important point there, uh Corey.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you are smart, you will use it to your advantage.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 35:07
  Corie: Yeah, I could see how it connects.
• 35:08
  Corie: I could see how it connects.
• 35:10
  Corie: So in those early days for you, you modeling and doing that already.
• 35:12
  Corie: Yeah, you you went into Miss Trinidad and Tobago intentionally, like that's something you wanted to do, dreamed of.
• 35:18
  Corie: No.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, so I loved fashion.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: I still do, always love fashion, and I enjoyed modeling tremendously.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Beauty pageants, I was never such a big fan of beauty pageants.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now I loved pre-becoming Miss Universe, there were only two that I paid attention to that I knew.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Penny, of course.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was a little girl when Penny won.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, she was everything, you know, like a real-life Barbie.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um and I don't remember what year Lupita won, but in the early 90s, a a young woman from Mexico, Lupita Jones, and Lupita was just so regal and had her act together.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I looked at that show and I was like, I would look at Miss Universe if I was at home and it was on, but if I was outlining or whatever, it wasn't it wasn't a priority.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas I had volumes of style with Elsa Clan.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like VHS tapes, 20 of them with that half hour, with that half-hour um show.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: So fashion was more my thing.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um what I remember, the reason why I love Lupita so much is because Lupita's apart from the fact that she's gorgeous and just uh came across as a together woman, not like a little girl, um, her prize package was amazing.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Apart from the cars and the furs and the da da da, she also won a scholarship to FIT, the Fashion Institute of Technology.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: And as a little girl going on vacation uh during the July-August vacation, we would always go to New York, even if we went anywhere else, Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, wherever.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: We always went to New York because my dad had several siblings in New York.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I would, when my parents are in Manhattan shopping, um, sometimes daddy would drop me off at FIT because there are summer classes, and I would audit a class, which is really storming.
• 37:07
  Corie: Yeah, just copy audit is crazy.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they would allow you to do that to figure out if you want to, yes, if you want a career in this, or you want to study this particular area of the industry, whatever.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I audited many classes.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: I always loved fashion.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but Peter E.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Lyman partner, Peter and I bonded over a dress, a Harper's Bazaar cover of Whitney Houston in one of John Galliano's, who was the ultimately the designer at Christian Joe, his first cover of Harper's Bazaar, Whitney Houston, in this amazing bias dress.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh my god, I have to have that.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: And at this point, I'd been modeling for mailing for a few years.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was now in Form 6.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Form six, yes, or first year UE.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Can't remember, one of the two.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I went to Peter's store to get the silk, and I was like, I have to get this dress.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when Peter, so I used to go in there all the time to buy some, but that's when he took a real interest in me.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's like, Where does this little girl come from?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: How does she know what a bias cut is?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's estimating the fabric at X, and I'm like, no, no, no, we would need more than that.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you look closely, open the magazine, you can see inside there like at least three layers.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: We have to do this thing well, and he was like, and that's how we bonded.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: I understand.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then we became friends, and we sort of hung out and that kind of thing a little bit.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: And if you think of the 1990s in Trantobago, almost every Miss Universe was a good friend of Peter Elias.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess he was just like.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: Our Lee, Peterkin, Lorca, Glad Gadcliffe, uh quite a few, me, a couple of others.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: In those days to become a Shrine Tobago, um if Kim liked your pictures and you know your your biography, your stats, that's how you became a finalist.
• 38:51
  Corie: I see.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so that was the process.
• 38:53
  Corie: It was you beat everybody like hands down, it was licks like dirt, they had the pageant here and it beat everybody.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, no, well, it yes or no.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I it was popular.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my runner-up, or rather, the young lady who represented us at Miss World was also very popular, Mandy that year.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that year, they decided because we were trying to um name three queens as opposed to a first, second, and third place uh individual, they announced me as the representative for Miss Universe at the at the Trinidad competition before they announced our Miss World representative.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of Trinadians, it'd be traditionally Miss Universe was the winner.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: The winner of Mr.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Antibago would go to Miss Universe, the runner-up to Miss World, and then the uh third place young lady would go to Miss Caraval and a couple of other uh competitions.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that caused a big stake.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: It did.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yes, and they were like, oh my gosh, just because she's a gorgeous darkie, they want to mash her up, they change the order, but what it honestly, it was about trying to ensure that the the three girls were seen as all queens.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: I understand, right?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it didn't I was going to Miss Universe anyway, but for minute Trinidads were like, what went on there?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah, um, and and all people were generally very supportive of me uh from the jump.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I um this is something else I learned.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: You see, I always now when I leave home, even when I'm sweaty and messy after workout, I will always have big sunglasses on me.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you do.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because yes, I went to the beach like normal with my friends, my sister, ta-ta-ta.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we stopped at a little ice cream shop.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: There used to be a little ice cream shop in Syndrome spent the traffic light opposite St.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: Mary Street.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: And messy from the beach, you know what I mean?
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: Dark skin, sands, uh, and and and and and salt.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna be ashy.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, like Dawn King, and you're gonna jump out of the car to go and get ice cream.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the lovely homeless gentleman lying down outside the ice cream shops looked up and said, I don't know how dice Miss Trinan to be gonna dog like bone.
• 41:10
  Corie: Oh, you said that too.
• 41:11
  Corie: Oh, yes, look, God love long live St.
• 41:13
  Corie: James.
• 41:14
  Corie: St.
• 41:14
  Corie: James is the big business.
• 41:20
  Corie: At all levels.
• 41:21
  Corie: At all levels.
• 41:22
  Corie: We're telling you some.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and in fairness to him, right?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: I he didn't invite me into his life.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: I showed up in his newspaper or wherever.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Very so pleasant.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm representing his country in a few months, right?
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: At an international competition, and I show up looking like literally I just rolled off the beach or out of a river.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: And because I had.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: Just rolled out, of course.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: So after that, they're little things.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and not just as a winner, you know, I always say competing in a pageant in hindsight is like finishing school.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because you have to be very comfortable interacting with people of all stripes, like my homeless friend in uh St.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: James, um to your prime minister, to the your potential sponsors and what they need from you, etc.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be quick on your feet, right?
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because you have to be able to answer questions charmingly quick.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: You have to think first.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you also have to present yourself well.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and now we're not guessing.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, people beat up pageants and the beauty industry generally, I think just because women dominate it, because there are very frivolous things that men do too, and you also get nearly the amount of licks that we do.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: And nobody's like cursing out Mike Tyson for being brawny and beating up men.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Got it, got it.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's true.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: So why beat up a woman for being cute and enjoying her cuteness?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm stuck.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: It makes sense.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: It makes sense.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: Place in perspective.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh that helps you because it the process of becoming Miss Universe is an interview process.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you see the last interview.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the live telecast is.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: The last of several interviews.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: But it is a three-week, well, to win your national competition, so that's the first stage.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: When you get to the location of the competition, it's three weeks of interacting with the writers of the show, the owners of the show, the staff.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's a job interview.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not just a big line, it's not just the line.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: You practice the actual show in the morning, and every afternoon you're at an event.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so uh in our case, when we hosted the competition, the president of the country hosts the girls one evening, or um a company hosts you for something else.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: You're at an orphanage, you're all over the place.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's a job interview.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Got it, got it, got it.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you wouldn't think so.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: And when you say it's because that's your life.
• 43:46
  Corie: So every morning you had to practice the show.
• 43:47
  Corie: Every single day.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: So why when you arrive wherever you are, every single day you practice.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, because I was the first title holder to win after the internet blew up internationally, so there was no social medias yet.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I was the first title holder, the world could follow her ear in real time.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the internet blew up in the United States around 95-96, and the rest of the world it was 97 into 98.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I was the first title holder.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: If I was doing an interview on CNN in London, everybody could see it.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody could see it.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's before that is if in London.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: Before that, right.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if you think about Penny's time, like when Penny was on the cover of Ebony or Jet, when she hung out with Michael Jackson, Trindadium saw that months later.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Three months later or whatever, those magazines made it to us.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: But with me, the world live my year with me.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was the first side holder.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: They could do so in real time.
• 44:37
  Corie: Right.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 44:39
  Corie: Yeah, very big difference.
• 44:40
  Corie: Very big difference.
• 44:41
  Corie: In the competition, you have a sense that you're gonna beat everybody anything.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, I had a sense that I was doing well.
• 44:47
  Corie: Okay.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: And why?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because you are your country when you win the competition.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: So Trunan and Tobago, come here.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: Trunan and Tobago do that.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: The sponsors of the show choose the delegates that they want to represent their product.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you know the product placement during the show, you see the little ads.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: The company doesn't choose the delegates to do those infomercials.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's the sponsors, the company.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's aligned with what they're trying to do.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if it's cosmetics, jewelry, whatever.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: And at first I was a little bit annoyed by it, but all of them were choosing me.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, but wait, I have friends here, we're learning how to sample with Miss Brazil.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Why on earth do I have to go and sit down on a boat and in this blazing sun?
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: When everybody else in the AC having a good time.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then I realized, wait a minute.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this means that they like me.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and not just the the fans of the competition, you know.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when I arrived in Hawaii, a little bit messed up.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: I arrived in Hawaii slightly.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a post-stink and dirty experience that explained that.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I almost missed my flight to Hawaii.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but uh all the Latin girls, as because my competition was in uh Hawaii, we assembled in Dallas, which all took American airline, so the Latin girls met in Dallas and we all went to Hawaii together.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if you see these women dressed to the nines, full drag, full face of makeup, and Mendy looks like she was at life nightclub.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: The night before, having a good time.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but when those plane doors opened, I saw all of these fabulous girls, Miss Panama, Miss Nicaragua, ta-ta-ta, walked off the plane in front of me.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: They pulled Venezuela aside and they pulled me.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: We were on the same flight, and they and they interviewed the two of us.
• 46:37
  Corie: I see.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that I was like, okay, this is serious.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Arlene Peterkin had prepared me what to expect.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of like the company, how it works, what you do at the competitions.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: I knew about the rehearsals, etc.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: But what I didn't appreciate was the the constant um observation of both the company and the media.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're popular, they pay very close attention.
• 47:04
  Corie: I see, I see, I see.
• 47:06
  Corie: So you're being watched all the time all the day.
• 47:07
  Corie: I am so at any point in.
• 47:12
  Corie: Yeah, I suppose you just have to be conscious of it.
• 47:13
  Corie: That's right.
• 47:14
  Corie: Yeah.
• 47:14
  Corie: You ever felt like the pressure of, okay, I have to fill penny shoes like now again close to the not once.
• 47:19
  Corie: No.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll be feeling that from the time I see you watching this.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know how Peter sold this thing to me?
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: Peter said to me, You're a a lawyer, you're gonna be a lawyer soon, because I was in my final year at law school, or about to enter my final year of law school when I competed at Mishra and Tobago.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: Here, so I was already at Hugh Wedding.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: Finished the undergraduate degree, and I'm at Hewitting.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm now a professional.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and uh he says to me, You're never gonna have a chance to do something like this again.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was the worst that can happen.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: You'll win Mishran Tobago for sure, because he was very confident.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: You'll win Mishran Tobago, and the competition is in Hawaii.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: When are you going?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: Who is going to pay for you to go to Hawaii for three weeks and hang up?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought to myself, this is the same girl who got a little job in Barbados to make sure she could come to the city.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, ding, ding, ding, ding.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: You like this?
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 48:08
  Corie: He didn't sell pants the same way up to today.
• 48:11
  Corie: When you go by Pizza, you can't leave it out something.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's a very good salesman.
• 48:16
  Corie: No joke, no joke.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, very, very good salesman.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I I was, I wanted to do well.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to represent my country very well.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: And he made me, Peter made me write, which I still do.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, whenever I have a goal, I'm right right now, I'm working towards something.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: On my mirror, in my bathroom mirror, are um two sticky notes, uh, just saying with with my goals.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I look into that mirror, I read it.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I've done that ever since.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because he made me, he said to me, No, you're going to win this thing.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because when I'm like a little bit scattered, he was like, You're winning, Miss Universe.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: He was much more confident than I was.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: And he made me write it.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: He made me say to myself every day, he said, Write down the three to five reasons why you're going to win that competition.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you say it to yourself every single day.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I did.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said, I was having a good time and you're competing.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: You can see the performance of all the other girls off camera.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you know who's very strong, who is not.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: You develop friendships.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard when you're in it to see exactly who's competing at the top of their game.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to remember when you're looking at it on TV, you're getting ready.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: If you are not on stage, you're getting ready for your next segment.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you're not looking at the show.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know what's going on on stage.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: So um, so so I knew I was doing well because of the way the company started to treat me.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of saying Trinidad and Tobago, this, that, and the other, it was the sponsors wanting me to do their um infomishals.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the company learnt my name.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden, they were like, Wendy, come here, pay attention.
• 49:50
  Corie: Wendy, and I was like, I'm not calling everybody else by name so you can see.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's how I knew I kind of knew I was in the top 10.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's a lot of buzz after the presentation show, which is like the preliminary competition, which is where they actually choose the top 10.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's also the costume competition, which you don't see on TV.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: They just announce the winner, usually on TV.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's how I knew okay, are you doing well here?
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because of the way the company started to treat me.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're competing, you have no idea.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the universe is like like a football match, you know.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: All these people dressed in gowns very elegantly, being fabulous.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as you go to commercial break, serious matters.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: Venezuela, Venezuela, Mexico, Mexico, Trinidad, like madness.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: And as soon as they're like the the uh uh the house announces 10 seconds, we're back from commercial, silence.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody who's just waving flags, and all of a sudden they're like when you come back from commercial.
• 50:52
  Corie: Well, that fandom, I'm in that fandom home too.
• 50:54
  Corie: Well, let me talk for certain genders, right?
• 50:55
  Corie: There's a certain genders who's watching Miss Universe until turn and the baby out.
• 50:58
  Corie: We don't play these games, you know.
• 50:59
  Corie: I mean, the TV on and you're watching.
• 51:01
  Corie: And I remember you probably hear this story way too many times.
• 51:04
  Corie: I'm sure people just come up to you and tell you like where they were when you win, right?
• 51:07
  Corie: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:07
  Corie: So let me tell you mine, right?
• 51:08
  Corie: We just go to the corny part one time.
• 51:10
  Corie: I'm home in St.
• 51:11
  Corie: James and Mike, we're watching Miss Universe.
• 51:13
  Corie: I mean, we every year it was a normal thing that we're it's it's on the TV and you watch it.
• 51:20
  Corie: So every year after that, we get robbed.
• 51:22
  Corie: So we then waiting to see when they're gonna give me rightful due.
• 51:25
  Corie: And I remember watching my cast airplane night for nothing.
• 51:28
  Corie: So I'm watching, and it's like, when do you win this?
• 51:30
  Corie: And when do win that?
• 51:31
  Corie: We have a chance.
• 51:31
  Corie: And I remember home sleeping because I cast their plates on the grandmother's like, Corey, we win.
• 51:37
  Corie: And it's like immediate tears, like ugly cry, just waking up out of sleep, and it's like, yeah, sure, it's blood.
• 51:42
  Corie: Many, many people explore like and the whole neighborhood at that point in time was an uproar in St.
• 51:47
  Corie: James.
• 51:48
  Corie: Can we say fragrance hotel?
• 51:49
  Corie: You can say noise like hell when you see, yeah.
• 51:52
  Corie: It was one of those things.
• 51:53
  Corie: And I'd like, I was looking at you in the moment, and I'm trying to figure out like how you're in ugly cry, like they train you're not.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: Are you mad at the ugly cry pictures all over the internet?
• 52:01
  Corie: Nah, it was never, it was never that.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, yes.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, and sadly, our government did stamps of me after, and they used one of the ugly cry pictures.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you know why they chose that one?
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: So they didn't choose a cute one of me doing this, they chose the cute one of me, um, not so cute one rather, of me uh crying, like crying, and because uh that was the only one the company forgot to take off the Mr.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: Nad and Tobago sash.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: So when they crown you, Miss Universe, they remove your country sash, because you know these are Americans, they're very good at public relations and marketing, and they want that Miss Universe Sash, but they forgot because remember my win was chaotic, the other girls were super excited.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you practice that win over and over, not with an actual delegate, but when we're practicing the show, um, the choreographer of the show steps in and he's always a guy crown.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: And those days it was Scott.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we know what to do.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: Let them prown him, sash him, um, give him his flowers, one wave, and then you come in and congratulate.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: Or you let them, no, not even.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: You do your walk as the new Miss Universe first, and then the girls congratulate.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: But they were so excited that I won.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because I told you I was a lima.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: I still have, I still keep in touch with these women, a lot of them.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, so they're like, our girl.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no crown, no sash.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: People fall in over each other.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: I remember this garlic.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: I remember right now.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: Go back and look at that video.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: The outgoing title hola, Brooke, who's still like our mother, she corrals all of us to this day.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: Brooke was like, pulling people away, get away, you step back.
• 53:43
  Corie: I didn't realize it was rigorous, like you know what you're supposed to do.
• 53:45
  Corie: Yes, yes.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a it's a Americans leave nothing to chance.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're looking at a television show or a concert, you know, um, like Ricky Martin.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: Remember when he blew up after the World Cup?
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: This was 98, around the time.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I was at Miss Universe at the time, and he did Live in La Vida Luca, and he did the World Cup song at the time.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: He became huge again.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Postmaned.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: Huge.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he was uh CBS had a concert, a special, a Ricky Martin special, filmed on Governor's Island or one of those islands or Ellis Island, one of them.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I had was doing an event in the Hamptons.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was in New York at the time.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: And CBS sent a helicopter to pick me up in the Hamptons.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: Think about the cost of sending a helicopter to pick me up in the Hamptons to go to this Ricky Martin concert to position me in that audience to blow a kiss at Ricky Martin.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, nice! Because they wanted to capture Miss Universe.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: Ricky's doing his thing, and he winks at me, and I that.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: But Americans leave nothing to chance.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to production, you cannot beat them in production value.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: Even wars.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:53
  Corie: Of course.
• 54:54
  Corie: Funny should bring that up.
• 54:55
  Corie: Funny should bring up wars.
• 54:56
  Corie: Because if I remember right, and it's a final like I was watching Tiger Woods the other day.
• 55:00
  Corie: We all love Tiger and saying I see this thing the other day.
• 55:03
  Corie: Is it sad to see some of these things he's going through?
• 55:05
  Corie: But so I'm arrested again the other day, and he on the phone with Trump, you know what I mean?
• 55:09
  Corie: Basically, so you have Trump number like still if I get in any trouble, you can still give him a show.
• 55:14
  Corie: No, no, no, no.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I have to tell you, he was uh um up until 2015, and I'm sure you uh uh can appreciate this.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: If he's when he's for you, he's like all for you until he's not.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh wildly, because I look at me and what's going on now in America, and I'm like, okay.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: But Mr.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: Trump really liked me as a title holder.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: There were four of us during his time.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: So um uh Amelia Vega from the Dominican Republic, uh um Jennifer Hawkins from Australia, um, and Diana when Venezuela won back to back.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was like 2008, 2009, 2008 winner.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh not Dianara, Danara, I think is her name, and me.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he would just have us do.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, so long after I gave up my title, I'm a professional woman, doing my and he would insist that I come and do this.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: Do that.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, judge this.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: We have an event wherever.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing a beauty book, kid.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: I need you in this book.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but how soon do you need me in this book?
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like now.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we need to do a shoot with you.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like day after tomorrow.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: But can we do it next week?
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, yeah, it has to be day after tomorrow.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, um, and and not only uh Mr.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_01: Trump, most of the company really uh looked out for me, took care of me um during that time and even after.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I I've judged Mr.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: Vice now several times, six times in total.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's because I'm a good judge.
• 56:52
  Corie: Oh, okay, all right.
• 56:53
  Corie: You're looking for trainees to win every six.
• 56:55
  Corie: Every time you win a trainee should win fine, nice me.
• 56:58
  Corie: Well, you know, it's interesting you said that because I was looking at an interview with you with Winsford Williams and on stage in Jamaica.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 57:04
  Corie: And you said that this must be 10 years ago.
• 57:06
  Corie: This was when like I I guess it would have been at the time when Trump was gonna run the first time.
• 57:10
  Corie: And you said that.
• 57:11
  Corie: You said he's a man when he fear for you, and when he again says it could be.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: And look at what we you know, when you see things now, it's just And you know, if you you are reading letters to Ayl and Corey, and in that book, because the Miss Universe Beauty book launched literally two weeks before Ailan was born, and he teased me incessantly at that beautiful launch because all the other title holders was the first time the company had brought all their living title holders together.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I show up, everybody else died to themselves.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_01: I want to note all these women are lean and fabulous from the title holders from the seas, and they're ready.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_01: And when these shows up at the beautiful book launch, seven and a half months pregnant.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: Barely looking down, everybody.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: In my in my fierce Greek goddess dress, and God empire was like what then?
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: And my black wedges.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: And again, as I said, you know, Universe has a rabid fan base, and this is like 2006.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: I have not been Miss Universe now for many years, and the media, I guess because it was in New York, the beauty book lawyer was in New York, the company likes me as well, the PR company that did Miss Universe's PR.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: So most of those guys were still there.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and as I said, I was the first title holder to live my year in real time with the wolf.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um press.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think so.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: Trump was seasoning he was like everybody else dad themselves to note.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_01: You are knocking down everybody here with your summer, and the media can't still can't get enough of you, kid, is what he said to me.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I said to him, I said, you know, um uh Mr.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: Trump, there's a lot of power in this room because like all the bankers around on their way home, everybody just was fighting to get into Trump Tower, right?
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody in New York who heard about this thing, all of a sudden, everybody who was not invited, remember, this is a book launch.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, coming.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_01: Left, right, and center.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_01: Security, you know, reach.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's because every living Miss Universe was there.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, and you have to remember New York City is a city of immigrants.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: So these are not the people who yes, these are all of us the West Indians, the Latin Americans, the Africans, the Asians, everybody showed up.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, kid, you still got it.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_01: You still got it.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I sat in, and I talk about that in the book, like you know, the the the the harnessing that power that evening when he eventually because it we had to shut down the event after a while.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_01: It took us a minute to actually launch the book because there were so many people.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_01: They took us upstairs to a little VIP area.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: He came up, he hung out with us, and I was like, wow, I I I talk about this, you know.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: The kind of if you've harnessed that kind of power, that energy, you can either do great things with it or not.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, because uh it was uh unreal.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said, Americans and Mr.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_01: Universe Organization being an American organization understand how to create buzz energy, of course, of course, which leads to power and control.
• 1:00:25
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:26
  Corie: You saw it when what was his show again, Apprentice?
• 1:00:28
  Corie: When he did some years after, like you're glued to this thing all the time in terms of how he controls the room, how he gets everybody energized and things.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the same thing, like the universe going crazy during the commercial breaks, and then it's very controlled.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it what he appreciated about me, I think, because I was a granny of Miss Universis.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: When I won, I was 25.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: Granny.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, most of those men when they're 18, 19.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I was already um in my family at law school, had already done quote a few times, spent interviews, ta-ta-ta.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he liked the way I handled media.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: So he sent me to do shows that Miss Universe before me would never do.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like they would never send Miss Universe to do O'Reilly's Bill O'Reilly's show, the O'Reilly Factor.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: Or in those days, Bill Maher had a show called Politically Incorrect.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: That they brought in a um a media specialist because it was so paranoid.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: But uh being a trainee, having to think on my feet, going through law school, prepared me.
• 1:01:29
  Corie: I suppose I want to get back to the original lawyer, but maybe as you bring up interviews, there's one particular interview that like when I see you handle it, I was like, how are you staying poised in this thing?
• 1:01:39
  Corie: I see the most random people like Magic Johnson, Coolio, and Bernie Mac.
• 1:01:43
  Corie: You remember this?
• 1:01:44
  Corie: Are you watching this?
• 1:01:45
  Corie: And I was like, that had to be unfortunate.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a very early one.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, Sinbad and Magic Johnson, because they both had talk shows at the time.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: And those were my first two bookings in LA.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, coming out of the win.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: Straight out of my win.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: Or was that?
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was at the end of the day.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was one cool well, it was fun, but and again, because they sat me next to Magic, and I think Coolio was here.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember the configuration.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: Bernie Mack was next to me.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_01: And these guys are wild.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my!
• 1:02:14
  Corie: Yeah, they didn't have this pause that Miss Universe had.
• 1:02:16
  Corie: It looked like on here off here as well.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: So again, but but but you know, um the the structure of those kind of interviews is that the host speaks to you first and then you do like a sort of communal thing.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: But Coolio was just insane.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like he was just like like a snake, like a cobra, like in my face, and he's like, damn.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: Damn.
• 1:02:38
  Corie: Were you so poison for the part ways like by never?
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, I'm a trainee.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I this is a woman who came through only dog like bowing.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: At convent when I was in what was that?
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh um form four or five at school panorama, a young man from St.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: Mary's, who I found out later on had a crush on me, but at the time I thought it was pure hate.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_01: Was that I don't know who she thinks she is now.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_01: I stood up at the bottom of the stairs at the north sand.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know how far that is from the top of the stairs?
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm at the top of the stairs.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm coming down the stairs with my friends, and he leveled me.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you can handle that and not bowl your eyes up, to this day, if I see that man and he's so lovely now, you know, all of his friends be know each other to the I avoid him like the plague.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_01: He's supposed to remind him.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_01: Run, no, no, no, no, no.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_01: Run when I see him that dress down, my friend, I will never forget.
• 1:03:38
  Corie: Yeah, so then when you say he anote.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_01: I had to but I had to hold myself together.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna cry in front of everybody.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: We don't appreciate how evolved we are.
• 1:03:48
  Corie: I guess, I suppose, I suppose.
• 1:03:54
  Corie: I see, I guess, I guess, I guess.
• 1:03:56
  Corie: So those convent days, you have law in minus your career, that's why you want to see.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: I always wanted to do law.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be a fashionable lawyer.
• 1:04:02
  Corie: Got it.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I wanted to study fashion design, but my father, you have to remember, in those days, a good West Indian is not going to allow their child to do that first.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: You have to do, they were only, we are like like Indians from India and West Africans from West Africa.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_01: There are only four real professions, and they go in this order back in the day: doctor, engineer, lawyer, accountant.
• 1:04:27
  Corie: Okay, accountant, yeah.
• 1:04:28
  Corie: It's real listen, I didn't know.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but CPA.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, got to be a good idea.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:33
  Corie: Yeah.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: A CPA.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and the CPA was like, lovely, a nice consolidation prize, we will take it.
• 1:04:41
  unknown: Right.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: So because I stupidly, as a child, looking at television with my parents, because they were good this way, my parents um were very uh strict and not at the same time with my sister and I.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_01: They allowed us to make uh decisions, we just had to live with them.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to take piano lessons, you want to do ballet, if I pay for a term or a year, you're doing it.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: You're not skipping, you're not sick, you're doing it.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_01: So with SA in our time it was common entrance, it was the same thing.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_01: The subject, the the schools, my both my sister and I chose for common entrance meant that if we didn't get top marks, we were going to any school of government chose to send us to because we chose only first choice schools.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_01: And mommy was like, Let me explain how this works to you.
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you because my mother's a teacher, right?
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_01: She's saying, My friend, darling daughter, if you do not make 95% overall in this exam, you are telling the government of Trinidad and Tobago that they could put you wherever they want to because the people who uh made your second choice and your third choice, their first choice, have first dips on those schools.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you will always be kicked out of the system to whatever is left.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: My sister and I both.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_01: Me first, then my sister goes and brave.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: Schools and my first choice was St.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_01: Augustine Girls High.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm born and bred in Degomartin.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a Roman Catholic.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: My mother's an old convent girl.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: Mommy was like, How are you getting there?
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, But mommy, I loved Anna Mahayes, the principal of SAGs.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_01: Very strong woman, but a total girly girl, dressed fabulously, always so chic, but like rules at school with an iron fist.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, beautiful grounds.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_01: I love the grounds of Sag.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: And every SAGS, every time I'm going to the airport or to daddy's friends in Tonapuna, I would pass by SAGs and the uniform.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_01: How chic that is.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: My friend, education was the last thing on my mind.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: That drop waist, uh tunic, and the different color belts based on the house you are in, the very narrow belt.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, that's for you.
• 1:06:53
  Corie: But this is for me.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_01: Clearly.
• 1:06:57
  Corie: Oh, yeah, this hour again.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then I loved um Synchrosis Convent too.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because my mother was a convent girl and I knew of St.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_01: Roses Convent, and I loved Holy Name's uniform as well.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's very chic, cold grey skirt.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_01: Not warm grey, like a nice cold gray that suits my colour.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_01: The white shirt and the blue tie.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very chic.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_01: You put those colours together any time of the day or night, it works.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: Loved Holy Name.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_01: My godmother was the teacher there, so I was like, this is a great option too.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_01: Mommy was like, friend.
• 1:07:29
  Corie: It's the most interesting way of picking schools I have ever heard.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_01: My sister was a little bit more responsible.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_01: But and then I'm from Diamond Vale, so Digo Martin government uh secondary was my fourth choice.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_01: And again, that's a very good school.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's many kids' first choice school.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: That was a government, um, five-year school in Trinidad to have a six-four.
• 1:07:49
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:50
  Corie: Very good school.
• 1:07:51
  Corie: And you always have a real good reputation.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_01: Always, very, very good school.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_01: So mommy was like, knock yourself out.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to get the grades.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what I mean.
• 1:07:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like my parents were strict, we had to do our work, etc.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: But they would give us the leeway to make our decisions and then figure it out.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: They would guide us, but they would never step in and clean up our mess.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 1:08:12
  Corie: So you pick one of the top three, you decide that is law.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yes, so law.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I I I used to look at this as an English show on television.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I can't remember the name of it now, shame on me.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: Old age.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh and this was like a courtroom drama, and I just liked that as a child, and I love fashion.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I told my dad I wanted to be a fashionable lawyer, I'm gonna study law.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and I have no regrets.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've never practiced law in the the traditional sense, like you know, with a law firm, arguing cases, that kind of thing.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um even my in-service training as a student attorney, I did a TNT during its divest month.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_01: So when TiNTech was becoming a power generation, uh sorry, distribution company alone.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it um sold its distribution arm to what is was now uh power.
• 1:09:02
  Corie: Power generals of the generation.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: Correct, right?
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um I worked with the commission during that time for a couple of years as well.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I've always enjoyed law.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_01: I use it all the time, but I've never practiced law in the uh traditional sense.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_01: I always say to young people who when they ask me, if you have the um inclination, you have some interest in it, and you're not sure what you want to be, instead of doing a liberal arts degree, and some people will kill me for this, but I think as Trinidadians, we are very much exposed to the arts, to everything.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um you do a law degree.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_01: A law degree just saves you insane time.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_01: Wendy, where are you saying this like this easy law and all easy thing?
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_01: So the trick with studying law, this is very important, particularly for the young people who will listen to the trick is it's not hard, it's common sense.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's just voluminous, it's a lot.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, unlike other courses of study at university where you can ramage, have a good time, spend your whole life at the smoker's table.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or in in the cafeteria instead of going to classes, and then one month before, just before the pues blew me a cramp, cramp cram.
• 1:10:20
  Corie: And that's every business major for sure.
• 1:10:23
  Corie: That does a month.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_01: When pue bloom, guys when we say engineering and law, particularly, you have to be consistent.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Engine's much harder, particularly for my brain, right?
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because that is straight math and that's not me and physics.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you just have to be consistent, you have to keep up with your work all the time.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you don't, there's no way you could catch up in a month.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the trick.
• 1:10:45
  Corie: So the trick is not to do law.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:10:48
  Corie: Yeah, go into law.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like most other things in life, Corey, is to do it consistently.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose, right?
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds like listen to Corey, David.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_01: You remember how we started this?
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I asked him how he got into podcasting because he sounds like a professional journalist.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, seriously.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_01: I look at your podcast.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Don Lemon doing a podcast, and he's been doing this for years on television professionally.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's because you love it and you took the time to learn your craft and you've done it consistently.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_01: So even before you sat down in front of a camera like this, same thing with law.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Anything you do.
• 1:11:25
  Corie: Yeah, I guess.
• 1:11:27
  Corie: But you're right.
• 1:11:27
  Corie: So that's something that I uh what you're gonna do is do it.
• 1:11:32
  Corie: Like it's so funny when you talk about your parents and the way they raise you and so little DNA's.
• 1:11:37
  Corie: Um I talk to my son about that all the time.
• 1:11:39
  Corie: It's like, brother, you could do whatever you want to do.
• 1:11:41
  Corie: You're lucky you're in a whole soul, you think, you're going fatima.
• 1:11:44
  Corie: He does well, so I try to reward him as much as possible.
• 1:11:47
  Corie: But brother, when you say you're signing up for something, you're better for it.
• 1:11:50
  Corie: You better do it because everything is coming at a certain amount of pain, and it's just it's just what it is.
• 1:11:54
  Corie: It's just what it is.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and and D, you know, when I was a kid, you brought up my sister Deanese.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Deonise is one year younger than I am.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, she came over to primary school from nursery school at the same time I did, because she was gonna stay there with by herself.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:12:09
  SPEAKER_01: A nursery school of about 30 children, but she's by herself.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_01: So she came over.
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Deonise is very naturally bright.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's no subject, she hears her language, it doesn't matter what it is.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_01: She spends a week in uh Spanish speaking, Mandarin, Portugal, whatever.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_01: She's like everything.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Math, you name it, right?
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so and at in primary school, I was always second in test because Dionys was always nice.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_01: At Conban, she comes over a year after me, and this was at the time now, they would have let her write the exam, but she got to um form five at the age of nine.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you had to be turning 11 in the year you would start um secondary school.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Secondary school to be able to write 11 plus common entrance at the time.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that my poor sister had to hang out in that class for uh two years, I think it is.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_01: My mother thought she was gonna fail the exam.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because she was all over DeGo Martin selling junior express in those days, to go into all the schools in the area.
• 1:13:11
  unknown: Right.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, I've done this, I'm bored.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, Sister Paul, God bless her, my former principal of St.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph's College Hospital, she allowed D to come to Convent, even though she was not yet in high school, um, like a day one or two days per week, and she would do Spanish with her, she would do my homework with me, but she would get to sit in a class or two occasionally.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that saved her.
• 1:13:32
  SPEAKER_01: O levels.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I write the exam, I do okay.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_01: I dropped French after form four because I was like, Sister Paul, again, the negotiator that I am, if you want me to do well in this exam, we have to let go of the French.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_01: French is keeping me back here.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you're telling us.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, I told her that.
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_01: I said, because Sister Paul was like as a convent girl, you have to do eight subjects.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're not doing seven.
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_01: I did my uh seven subjects.
• 1:13:55
  SPEAKER_01: I got five ones, two twos, and a three in math at St.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph's convent.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_01: A three is a fail.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_01: But because I got the five ones, she allowed me to go to six four, provided that I agree to rewrite math in January and get a one or two.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_01: My parents, when they got my results, relief, joy, they took us to dinner at Hilton.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Daddy was like, Where do you want to go?
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, back to New York.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, But you go to New York every summer.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Yeah, but this year, we're going to New York.
• 1:14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the money you would spend on anything else, but anywhere else we go, on hotel rooms, etc., I want you to give me that money.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because I have a list of things I have to get.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_01: A cute pair of kitty heels, various things.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I was I was very clear.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_01: But they waited until the results came out with Dionies after Dionies wrote, finished writing her um her exams, then at hiltiment.
• 1:14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're so confident Dionies is going to do phenomenally well.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like they didn't even think about it.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um results come out, so uh I remember five ones, two, twos, and a three and math, and they are ecstatic.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, when he has done so well, they're telling all their neighbors that are talking about.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Dionies the next year does nine subjects, not eight or seven, like a sister.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Nine subjects, and the ninth subject was economics.
• 1:15:27
  Corie: Oh nice, right?
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Miss Go Miss Lady gets um seven ones, two is right, yeah, because it was.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Then the econ and the ad mask.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right, yeah.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Two is and mommy's like, T, wonderful hugs and kisses, and she looks at the form, you know, they'd give you a form and they'd break down your profile, right?
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_01: So A, A, B, C, whatever, and then your final grade, the one, the two, whatever.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_01: She says, but T, why is there a B in that English literature profile?
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_01: I jumped.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I thought to myself, but I must be really dumb.
• 1:16:08
  unknown: Right.
• 1:16:10
  Corie: They really celebrates you must.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they really celebrated my five ones.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And D and E's got nine distinctions.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_01: And mommy was ecstatic, no doubt.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_01: She was very, very excited.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you're from the English literature, it's a relatively subjective course of study.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's not one and one plus two.
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_01: One on one equals two, sorry.
• 1:16:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and mommy said to this child, why I say a B in your English and literature book.
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, to me, there was life before that moment and after.
• 1:16:41
  Corie: You get through it in New York, take on the pulling back.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_01: They still do it.
• 1:16:45
  Corie: That's it for me.
• 1:16:46
  Corie: I was saying, all right, well, when B, your budget just went to the example.
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_01: I did no, but I was the year before.
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we had already done it.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Good.
• 1:16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now we go.
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_01: But what that so when we years later, my sister and I are doing top model, uh, Caribbean's ex-top model, CBS was very naughty.
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and all American um television stations.
• 1:17:06
  SPEAKER_01: In truth and in fact, there is no such thing as CBS Caribbean or NBC or ABC, whatever.
• 1:17:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's because they have to have satellites that reach their territories in this part of the world, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, particularly, they just blast the network.
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_01: They're already getting, instead of just giving away the satellite feed, let us just charge them or something like it, whatever.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, so we were in uh for season two, particularly, of Caribbean's next top model.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they wanted to pull the plug on our distributor of the show.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And as you know, in television, distribution is everything.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_01: And my mentor in New York at the time, he was the chairman and CEO of AOL Time Warner, but he had hired the chairman and CEO of CBS when he was starting his career.
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_01: He hired him for his first job in TV.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_01: So Les Moonvez was the CBS guy's name, the head of CBS at the time.
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he was his friend.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, this is really messy.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Legally, it was a mess.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and not from our perspective as Tronad and Tobago, but from the US, because the US has very strict laws with regard to like their unions paying talent correctly first.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are showing um programming outside jurisdiction, and their actors, their directors, etc.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_01: are not getting paid for that separate from whatever else, trouble.
• 1:18:20
  Corie: Yeah, union.
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, this is a mess, a legal mess, we have to clean up.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we Dick sets up a meeting for me.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_01: His name, the the um AOL time won a guy was Richard Dick Persons, um, and he was like my New York daddy.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_01: So he sets up a meeting for my sister and I with um with Les Moonbaz, who's the head of CBS.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and he and he's coaching us because Les is a busy fella, a little bit impatient.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_01: These two little girls from the Caribbean, the value of our franchise is what Les makes in half a day, if so much.
• 1:18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_01: So why bother?
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_01: But these people just make them go away.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and because the legality sort of costs not only CBS but all of the broadcasters in America a lot of money, we needed to clean it up intelligently.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so Dick was coaching us how to, you know, and Deanese put together a little presentation.
• 1:19:08
  SPEAKER_01: He was so impressed with Deanese's presentation.
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then he said to me, um no, Wenny Bird, which is what he's calling me, you're gonna let Dee leave this.
• 1:19:21
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna sit there with those long legs and you're gonna smile.
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then when the QA starts, and I was like, how chauvinistic.
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Dick was like, When he bird, I know my people.
• 1:19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Les is not gonna be in this meeting alone.
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna have his lawyer there, or two or three lawyers, because this could be real problems for every broadcast in America.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And y'all are two lovely young women from Trinidad into being.
• 1:19:50
  Corie: Maybe he coming loaded.
• 1:19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Chances are of a couple of the people in this meeting will not even know where Trinidad into being.
• 1:19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, of course, of course.
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_01: So they're coming loaded.
• 1:20:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm I I get he immediately he taps into my little trip on my shoulder.
• 1:20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm like, I am not dumb.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe I'm dumb.
• 1:20:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm back, back, right back to Dionysis form five.
• 1:20:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in lower six right back then.
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I give him a look like I was about to like lick him down with my eyes.
• 1:20:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he said to me, Oh, stop it.
• 1:20:23
  SPEAKER_01: We're trying to get the deal done.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_01: You are not dumb, and you are not short and fat.
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because Dionys always used to be, you know, paranoid about she's so chunksy, and he's like, chunksy?
• 1:20:38
  SPEAKER_01: You're like a normal human being, your sister is spino.
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you are not dumb.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, How many dumb attorneys you know?
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, So let go of the chip.
• 1:20:52
  Corie: I met Dennis and that same thing, Kirby.
• 1:20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and that was when I um realized that your superpower can be people misinterpreting, underestimating you, misinterpreting your femininity, your joy, because I'm a glass herful kind of human being.
• 1:21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm light on my feet.
• 1:21:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that is not to say that I don't go through my trials and social trips and I don't take them very seriously.
• 1:21:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I always um lean towards levity, towards I move through life having a good time.
• 1:21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the moment when Dick said that.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, but he's right.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not dumb.
• 1:21:37
  SPEAKER_01: She's not short and fat.
• 1:21:39
  Corie: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:40
  Corie: And San, yeah, it could sit with you.
• 1:21:42
  Corie: Yeah, it'll just leverage everything they have, you know.
• 1:21:45
  Corie: It's unique, it's a unique space.
• 1:21:46
  Corie: And when I look at um, there's a few more interviews that you did where where it it showed, like something showed in terms of your thought process.
• 1:21:54
  Corie: One very recently with John Benoit at I-95.5.
• 1:21:59
  Corie: Yes.
• 1:21:59
  Corie: So I'll get back into your corporate life, right?
• 1:22:02
  Corie: And that's something last time we tried to go.
• 1:22:04
  Corie: We had to no, everything going.
• 1:22:06
  Corie: We're going.
• 1:22:06
  Corie: We had time, right?
• 1:22:08
  Corie: Because last time we tried, hey, say he was an Ethiopia, you get to talk about that too.
• 1:22:11
  Corie: But when I saw you with John Benoit, something that you said, and you know, you're talking about how we look at ourselves sometimes, right?
• 1:22:17
  Corie: With you and your sister.
• 1:22:19
  Corie: And you spent some time talking there about how we look at ourselves as Trinidadians.
• 1:22:22
  Corie: It was something that was a little confusing to me, this carnival, right?
• 1:22:25
  Corie: Yes.
• 1:22:26
  Corie: Because um, I trying to do this thing, I trying to figure this out one episode at a time.
• 1:22:31
  Corie: I'm not sure that maybe if it's going good, people enjoy it, they're happy.
• 1:22:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:22:35
  Corie: But I don't ever feel like I'm ready.
• 1:22:37
  Corie: I'm not ready to sit with some of these people that are with, right?
• 1:22:40
  Corie: So imagine I get a call from Marshall Montano people and they say they're coming on the podcast and they think I'm not ready.
• 1:22:45
  Corie: I need about six months to get ready for that.
• 1:22:47
  Corie: You know what I mean?
• 1:22:48
  Corie: I'm not able, out of my league, you know?
• 1:22:50
  Corie: Yes.
• 1:22:51
  Corie: And while I was talking to him, I was trying to figure out this thing with um this public perception of him.
• 1:22:56
  Corie: I mean, maybe that was the center line.
• 1:22:58
  Corie: I try trying to understand like how he feels about it and where he thinks it comes from.
• 1:23:03
  Corie: Because it's not just him.
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's a a Trini thing.
• 1:23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and it's looted, but I am very willing to go with it.
• 1:23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was like, that's how I ended up on I uh 95.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because um I I'm I I know John, I've known John forever, uh, but we're not like lining partners.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I wanted somebody who would hold me to task and sort of push back a little bit on my uh uh point of view.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so when we started to talk about this, he said, come on the show and do it.
• 1:23:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I I called him and I said, you know, I listened to a conversation you guys had, and my friends told me I should call you and share my point of view, and that's how I ended up on I-95.
• 1:23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And Marshall, uh, if you think of Marshall's upbringing, right?
• 1:23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Regardless of where his parents are at any point in his life, his life specifically, in terms of their relationship, when it comes to their children, both Marcus and uh Marshall, they all in.
• 1:24:14
  SPEAKER_01: And they all in all the time, right?
• 1:24:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, like my parents, that's why I'm saying my experience is not unique in this regard.
• 1:24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um so whether it's your your biological parents, the village, your grandparents, we tend to know that there is somebody there looking out for us, even on his darkest days.
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I so enjoyed Like a Boss because I want more of that.
• 1:24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now he's at an age stage where he can be a little bit more vulnerable and share a little bit more of the behind the scenes because he's done it, he's proven himself over and over again.
• 1:24:49
  SPEAKER_01: So he can.
• 1:24:50
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 1:24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, um there is something, and I haven't put my finger on exactly what it is about our psyche as Trinbagonians, where we are insanely jealous of each other in a way in which even you don't see occurring in the rest of the Caribbean.
• 1:25:10
  SPEAKER_01: When we do well, and and Marshall is a uh can be polarizing because he's so charismatic.
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_01: So all charismatic personalities are like that.
• 1:25:18
  SPEAKER_01: You either love them or hate them.
• 1:25:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's what charisma is.
• 1:25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure, sure, sure.
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I will use another example before I get back into Marsha.
• 1:25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Remember the young lady, I don't even remember her name, the athlete who did very, very well, a um um woman Trinbegonian, uh, was it at the Olympics or Wills?
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we covered put her on the front page of the newspaper, and then about two days later, she was in a gay relationship.
• 1:25:46
  SPEAKER_01: She is gay.
• 1:25:47
  Corie: Michelle Liahi?
• 1:25:48
  Corie: Yes.
• 1:25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Michelle Lee Ahie.
• 1:25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Lee Ahi.
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we outed her.
• 1:25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I I lived in LA.
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_01: I have seen many gay celebrities who, for their careers, move around California very much out and open with all the paparazzi that haunt every nook and cranny of the city of Los Angeles.
• 1:26:12
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't out them, they let them come to terms with their and they come out on their time, and then photographs start appearing.
• 1:26:20
  SPEAKER_01: You understand where I'm coming from?
• 1:26:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's again, Americans do these kind of things very deliberately.
• 1:26:25
  SPEAKER_01: I looked at Barbados and Rihanna.
• 1:26:27
  SPEAKER_01: In the early days of Rihanna's career, it's impossible almost to remember now because Bajans revere Rihanna.
• 1:26:33
  SPEAKER_01: But in the early days of her career, you have to remember Rihanna is the daughter of a Guyanese immigrant.
• 1:26:40
  SPEAKER_01: A Guyanese immigrant, listen to me carefully, and a what we would call poor white um Barbadian in a culture that is beautiful but very stratified by race and social status.
• 1:26:55
  SPEAKER_01: So Rihanna is not at the top of the food chain.
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Where she comes from, her little now it's Rihanna Drive, so you can see very clearly outside of Bridgetown, would be the equivalent in um the Barbados context of C Lots.
• 1:27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or B Thumb.
• 1:27:10
  Corie: Gotcha.
• 1:27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Once this young lady stepped out on her own with her family and started to do phenomenally well, her whole country fell in lockstep behind her.
• 1:27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Even when they were unsure as to whether or not they liked her, they loved what she was doing for their country.
• 1:27:31
  SPEAKER_01: So they fell in lockstep.
• 1:27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then they realized as she became, as she grew up and became more visible, very supportive of a country, the government embraced her, made her a spokesperson for the country, paid her good money, but she's a major who loves the country.
• 1:27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And she loves the country so much, too, because they they treat her with a certain level of respect.
• 1:27:54
  SPEAKER_01: They fell in love with her because they got to know her.
• 1:27:56
  SPEAKER_01: They gave her the grace.
• 1:27:57
  SPEAKER_01: She made mistakes along the way.
• 1:27:59
  SPEAKER_01: She talks about Mistakes now.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like all of us.
• 1:28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like all of us.
• 1:28:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's harder for somebody like Rihanna because she had to grow up in the spotlight.
• 1:28:05
  SPEAKER_01: When I did it, there was no social media.
• 1:28:07
  SPEAKER_01: When Brian R did it, there was no social media.
• 1:28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's much more difficult.
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_01: But they when they didn't like, they didn't destroy.
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 1:28:17
  SPEAKER_01: They broke, they they reprimanded her more or less privately.
• 1:28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I guess, yeah.
• 1:28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:28:22
  Corie: Close ranks.
• 1:28:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they close ranks.
• 1:28:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's something about us, and I haven't been able to put my finger on it.
• 1:28:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just, I want to know what is the cause of the crabs in a barrel syndrome.
• 1:28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:28:32
  SPEAKER_01: So when we excel, we mash up each other.
• 1:28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Marshall is a great example.
• 1:28:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a little bit of envy in terms of that consistent support.
• 1:28:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you think about it, Marshall has had some rough goes, but those have been public in terms of his family being there and supporting him.
• 1:28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Always having Lady and Monty and Marcus, that unit and their extended family, just always there.
• 1:29:01
  SPEAKER_01: He's always had that.
• 1:29:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that confidence he has is genuine.
• 1:29:05
  SPEAKER_01: And like all of us, he's made his mistakes.
• 1:29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 1:29:07
  SPEAKER_01: He grew up in the spotlight.
• 1:29:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's not easy when everybody constantly is kissing your butt.
• 1:29:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's hard.
• 1:29:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think his parents did a good job of um not in his professional capacity, but in his personal capacity of reining that in, which I have seen.
• 1:29:21
  SPEAKER_01: But unless you are privy to that family as a family, you wouldn't know that.
• 1:29:26
  SPEAKER_01: You understand what I'm saying?
• 1:29:27
  SPEAKER_01: So Liz, the manager, is very different to uh Lady, the mother.
• 1:29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very different.
• 1:29:34
  SPEAKER_01: And most people will not know that.
• 1:29:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one.
• 1:29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh uh two, once you are very successful in our context, there comes a point maybe like that's too much for you.
• 1:29:46
  SPEAKER_01: You either share that or we're pulling you right back down.
• 1:29:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you innovate, so another example, and I use this on John's show with Brian Copeland, who was the dean of the Faculty of Engineering and then the principal at UE for a period of time.
• 1:30:01
  SPEAKER_01: He is Mac Copeland's son, right?
• 1:30:03
  SPEAKER_01: He grew up in mass pan and making pretty costumes.
• 1:30:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was Kali Turan and Mac Copeland in South.
• 1:30:10
  SPEAKER_01: First man to put a king costume on wheels, they disqualified him from the Dimash Gras that year.
• 1:30:15
  SPEAKER_01: When was the last time you saw a king costume that is not on wheels?
• 1:30:19
  SPEAKER_01: So when we innovate, when we step out of the box, there's something in the psyche of Trinbagonians that licks from it.
• 1:30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Licks, pull you back down in that box.
• 1:30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing happened to Brian Copland too.
• 1:30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing happened to Brian Copeland, Brian Laura, Dwayne Bravo.
• 1:30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:30:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's Minchall.
• 1:30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my lord.
• 1:30:38
  Corie: Yes, of course, of course.
• 1:30:39
  SPEAKER_01: And everything we mashed up Minchall for, he went and he did it internationally and won Femis.
• 1:30:44
  Corie: And then we love, you know, so that's why it snuck so much when you said that.
• 1:30:48
  Corie: Because we love it when you when somebody else acknowledges it.
• 1:30:52
  Corie: There's a sign of love and reverence we have for the person.
• 1:30:55
  Corie: And I don't worry for Minchall or Marshall, like even talking to you, like we I was fortunate enough to get to talk to very unique personalities who I feel whatever the situation was, they would have figured it out and be where they are.
• 1:31:06
  Corie: But I worry about the average youth who's struggling in school or who's doing something until if there's this mentality or this tendency to want to shoot down something because it shoots at the time.
• 1:31:15
  SPEAKER_01: But that's why we do well internationally, because you have no choice.
• 1:31:19
  SPEAKER_01: So in entertainment, it's obvious, but there are Trinidadians running everything everywhere.
• 1:31:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember I went to uh Dubai, I was doing a consultancy through a company, Trinidad, with the government of Tanzania.
• 1:31:32
  SPEAKER_01: So Dubai was an easy stop, right?
• 1:31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and if you uh traveling on Emirates, uh you can spend up to 30 days without paying extra or for the ticket.
• 1:31:41
  SPEAKER_01: So of course I had friends in Dubai.
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I'm coming back, a two days or three days, this Emirati friend of mine was married to a Trinidadian, was married.
• 1:31:52
  SPEAKER_01: They are now divorced.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so I met his new wife, and she was like, You have my National Baby Go in Dubai, and you didn't let me know or introduce me.
• 1:32:03
  SPEAKER_01: She found me and invited me to her home after that.
• 1:32:07
  SPEAKER_01: And this so she and she invited the whole Trini community living in Dubai to have dinner with me.
• 1:32:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was absolutely wonderful.
• 1:32:14
  SPEAKER_01: But the head pilot for Emirates, a Trinidadian, Martin from Morocco St.
• 1:32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph, she is also from Maracas St.
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Joseph.
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Mariam is her name, uh, left Trinidad to study law, uh, sorry, medicine.
• 1:32:28
  Corie: Medicine.
• 1:32:28
  Corie: Right, of course, of course.
• 1:32:29
  Corie: What else?
• 1:32:30
  Corie: What else?
• 1:32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Medicine in the UK, and she was the first female surgeon uh in the United Arab Emirates at Trinidadian.
• 1:32:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're everywhere doing well.
• 1:32:40
  SPEAKER_01: So the the the the like everything else in life, there are significant disadvantages.
• 1:32:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think the disadvantage to us tearing each other apart constantly at home is that as a country, we could be much further along than we are right here.
• 1:32:55
  SPEAKER_01: So Mariam, me, others, shouldn't have to leave home to make a mark.
• 1:32:59
  SPEAKER_01: I want Mariam paying taxes in Trinidad and consulting with the hospital system in the United Arab Emirates.
• 1:33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do you understand where I come from?
• 1:33:07
  SPEAKER_01: I want my runners, I want um Dylan Carter, that beautiful child, to be able to swim at Marlins and excel here.
• 1:33:16
  SPEAKER_01: I want my footballers who do phenomenally well to be invested in here.
• 1:33:20
  SPEAKER_01: So the the the the negativity for me in terms of um our willingness to constantly tear each other down is that until we make it out there, we don't invest in ourselves here.
• 1:33:35
  SPEAKER_01: I still haven't figured out why we tear each other down.
• 1:33:37
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm just saying the negative impact of that wanting to tear this one down, tear this one.
• 1:33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody, Juve, everybody.
• 1:33:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's just our one nature, whether it's in business.
• 1:33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Look at how we try to mash up Lawrence Dupree for investing in the energy sector.
• 1:33:51
  SPEAKER_01: That was a clo open and shade.
• 1:33:53
  SPEAKER_01: It made perfect sense.
• 1:33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Do you start me?
• 1:33:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, everybody, all the other consumers in Trinidad in the energy sector.
• 1:33:59
  SPEAKER_01: But he was the first one out, and we had a run on him, the man's insurance company, try to mash him up.
• 1:34:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it that's what I'm saying.
• 1:34:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just an entertainment, entertainment is where it is most obvious.
• 1:34:08
  Corie: Yeah, I guess it's more visible for people.
• 1:34:10
  Corie: Gotcha.
• 1:34:10
  Corie: Right?
• 1:34:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that we have to figure out.
• 1:34:12
  SPEAKER_01: But the flip side and the beauty of all Trinidadians being the hardest crew, and to quote, is it Marshall?
• 1:34:19
  SPEAKER_01: And um the the 2024 song he sang, uh Bungie won that year with hard.
• 1:34:26
  Corie: Hard fett.
• 1:34:27
  SPEAKER_01: Fett, but what was it, Marshall?
• 1:34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like yourself.
• 1:34:31
  Corie: Right, of course, yeah.
• 1:34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like yourself.
• 1:34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:34:37
  SPEAKER_01: I that song, I want him to like remix that and bring it back over and over.
• 1:34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because that song, just like um Benji's like a trini, if you listen to the lyrics of that song, it epitomizes it is the DNA of the people of the Twin Island Republic.
• 1:34:54
  SPEAKER_01: We like ourselves.
• 1:34:55
  SPEAKER_01: We like ourselves.
• 1:34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody better than me.
• 1:34:58
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 1:34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like yourself, right?
• 1:35:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that liking yourself, so that's how we overcome our BS here.
• 1:35:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why we excel out there.
• 1:35:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because all of a sudden, when you get out there, it's easy.
• 1:35:10
  SPEAKER_01: I remember at St.
• 1:35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Rose's Convent, I never came higher in test than 12.
• 1:35:15
  Corie: Yeah.
• 1:35:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I was and and you was doing well.
• 1:35:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I was I'm doing well, but in a class of 24, 25 students, 12th, I'm a girl who never came anything lower than second in primary school.
• 1:35:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:35:27
  SPEAKER_01: But then if you think about it, everybody at St.
• 1:35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Rosa's Convent came first or second in test wherever they came from.
• 1:35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 1:35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 1:35:34
  SPEAKER_01: So all of a sudden you become very, very average.
• 1:35:37
  SPEAKER_01: The difference between me at 12th or 15th or 18th in test as compared to the girl at number one is just two percentage points.
• 1:35:46
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, of course.
• 1:35:47
  SPEAKER_02: Brutal, brutal.
• 1:35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Brutal.
• 1:35:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that is, I think, what makes us so amazing outside.
• 1:35:52
  SPEAKER_01: So the pekong, the mashup.
• 1:35:54
  SPEAKER_01: The fellow who told me on the street looking like a dog with a sole still on my skin, the the lovely homeless gentleman who told me only dog like wood.
• 1:36:03
  SPEAKER_01: He prepared me for my first movie premiere in LA.
• 1:36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was a Sandra Bullock movie, I'll never forget.
• 1:36:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm doing the red carpet and an interview.
• 1:36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what company.
• 1:36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Normally they tell you what company they're from.
• 1:36:17
  SPEAKER_01: This one put a microphone in my face, a young woman, and said uh to me, um, hi, Miss Universe.
• 1:36:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, do you ever do a photo shoot when you're on your period?
• 1:36:26
  SPEAKER_01: What's that like?
• 1:36:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you are not, if you don't have your wits about you, if you're not used to Pecong.
• 1:36:34
  Corie: Yeah, so Pekong comes to mind.
• 1:36:40
  SPEAKER_01: And on a red carpet, it's not just that mic and that camera, it's the other 50.
• 1:36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all it's into if you fall apart.
• 1:36:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you fall apart, make this goal.
• 1:36:54
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't.
• 1:36:54
  SPEAKER_01: I said, but darling, I have no idea what that is like, have you?
• 1:36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I kept it moving.
• 1:36:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now I could have only done that.
• 1:37:01
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't trained for that.
• 1:37:02
  Corie: Oh, yeah, but the kind of movement.
• 1:37:03
  SPEAKER_01: But the amount of licks I take.
• 1:37:06
  Corie: You learn that in the north stand.
• 1:37:08
  SPEAKER_01: I learned that in the north staff.
• 1:37:12
  SPEAKER_01: In the calf at SJC.
• 1:37:14
  SPEAKER_01: I learned that on the pavement when St.
• 1:37:16
  SPEAKER_01: Mary's and and and St.
• 1:37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Rose Home and finish at the same time.
• 1:37:21
  SPEAKER_01: Those boys come out there to while you up.
• 1:37:25
  Corie: That is training Grandway.
• 1:37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, my friend.
• 1:37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:29
  Corie: I appreciate you talking about that.
• 1:37:31
  Corie: It stood out when you said that.
• 1:37:32
  Corie: It felt like you went there to make it a point to say that.
• 1:37:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I wanted to do that interview because we uh, you know, and again, uh objectively, um the two top songs in our road march this year were um both amazing songs.
• 1:37:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and this is for all of our other soccer artists out there.
• 1:37:56
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to building a road march, even Marsha's groovy music.
• 1:38:01
  SPEAKER_01: So Like a Boss is a groovy song.
• 1:38:03
  SPEAKER_01: He had another song that yeah, you know, that he thought was going to be.
• 1:38:05
  Corie: Yeah, and he realized that's what people talk about.
• 1:38:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he realized all his merchandising, everything he had to change like that in seconds because Lycaboss took off like wildfire.
• 1:38:15
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot force a population in anywhere in the world into loving music.
• 1:38:20
  SPEAKER_01: Celine Dion talks about that all the time.
• 1:38:22
  SPEAKER_01: When she first heard My Heart Will Go On, her husband had to beg her, plead, crawl on glass to get her to sing that song.
• 1:38:29
  SPEAKER_01: She taught herself to love that song because that song is her biggest hit.
• 1:38:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, you have to love it.
• 1:38:36
  Corie: Or you have to love it.
• 1:38:37
  Corie: How much we have five minutes?
• 1:38:38
  SPEAKER_01: Three minutes.
• 1:38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Two minutes.
• 1:38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're almost done.
• 1:38:41
  Corie: But let me ask you quick because we messed up last time because of Ethiopia.
• 1:38:44
  Corie: So I know that you do work with the Ethiopian children's funds.
• 1:38:47
  Corie: Yes, that's right.
• 1:38:48
  Corie: What's the involvement?
• 1:38:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh largely the woman who runs Ethiopian uh Ethiopian Children's Fund, Anna Gitana, is a good friend of mine.
• 1:38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have a little Ethiopian network in the US, and Anna was introduced to me by my girlfriend in Ellie Galila and my liming partner Marcus, who lives in New York.
• 1:39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she was a very popular model.
• 1:39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she chose to give up her life in the West, and she fell in love with an Ethiopian and moved back to Ethiopia.
• 1:39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh her husband, um Anmasu ran uh the World Bank for a period of time in Africa, and now I can't remember, I can't remember which one, but anyway, Anna lives in Ethiopia, and when she was moving by because she's done so well, um, she was Valentino's girl, this one, that one, did TV, you name it.
• 1:39:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she was just before um Naomi and Cindy and those women, she was like the rung just above them.
• 1:39:40
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 1:39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Anna Guitana.
• 1:39:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um and the her government gave her a lot of land to develop um close to the village her father came from, about two and a half hours outside of Addis.
• 1:39:52
  SPEAKER_01: And she's done a fantastic job.
• 1:39:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I was there when it was just earth and one little building.
• 1:39:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:39:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:39:57
  SPEAKER_01: This would have been 2001, I think.
• 1:40:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, ah no, what do we put in here?
• 1:40:05
  SPEAKER_01: Which was the first time she invited me, and she used to do because she was in fashion, fashion shows in both Europe and on the African continent and in New York.
• 1:40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and she would have her friends who were well known participate.
• 1:40:18
  SPEAKER_01: So other models, so like Boris Um Kajou came and he did this one with me this year, and occasionally I would do it.
• 1:40:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how I was in why I was in Ethiopia.
• 1:40:27
  SPEAKER_01: She's done a fantastic job because the government gave her uh I can't remember, it's a lot, like 50 hectares or something like that.
• 1:40:33
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of land.
• 1:40:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:40:34
  SPEAKER_01: So she has the they grow their um uh produce their own food, their own milk, their cattle ranch, everything on this school.
• 1:40:41
  SPEAKER_01: They make their school uniforms on site.
• 1:40:44
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 1:40:45
  SPEAKER_01: She has a phenomenal school and after school program and the library.
• 1:40:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because the school is a nursery school into primary school.
• 1:40:54
  SPEAKER_01: They have to go to the government school in the area for high school, but her library takes care of them.
• 1:40:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the after school program comes in.
• 1:41:01
  SPEAKER_01: She's done a fantastic job.
• 1:41:03
  SPEAKER_01: And Ethiopia has just changed because the last time I was there was nine years ago.
• 1:41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:41:07
  SPEAKER_01: In 2016, into 2017, New Year's 2016 into 2017.
• 1:41:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Aylan loved it because they do Christmas on the 6th of January.
• 1:41:18
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, Mama, you mean Santa coming again?
• 1:41:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, no friend.
• 1:41:25
  SPEAKER_01: Christmas is 12 days.
• 1:41:27
  SPEAKER_01: And Santa there's our part of the world first.
• 1:41:29
  Corie: Yeah.
• 1:41:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then he comes over here.
• 1:41:31
  Corie: No, but it's a globe swing back.
• 1:41:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 1:41:35
  SPEAKER_01: He still believed in Santa in those days.
• 1:41:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, no friend.
• 1:41:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, calm yourself down.
• 1:41:41
  SPEAKER_02: Cool, cool, well, cool.
• 1:41:43
  SPEAKER_01: But then just nine, nine, ten years ago, Ethiopia, you know, there's still dirt roots everywhere.
• 1:41:48
  SPEAKER_01: Addis Ababa, the capital, uh, the main drug was always beautiful.
• 1:41:51
  SPEAKER_01: Ethiopians are very elegant people.
• 1:41:53
  SPEAKER_01: They know they're the first people.
• 1:41:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:41:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 1:41:56
  SPEAKER_01: Not arrogant, elegant and confident.
• 1:41:59
  SPEAKER_01: True, true.
• 1:41:59
  SPEAKER_01: And but pretty people.
• 1:42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if you're not a cute Ethiopian, God help you.
• 1:42:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:42:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Just beautiful people.
• 1:42:09
  SPEAKER_01: We had a bowl.
• 1:42:11
  SPEAKER_01: But dusty and not, you know, this time around.
• 1:42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like you would think you're in a cross between Prague, Addis Ababa, and Paris.
• 1:42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh nice.
• 1:42:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, just spectacular.
• 1:42:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's because they damned the Blue Nile.
• 1:42:26
  SPEAKER_01: They have one of the two sources of the Nile River.
• 1:42:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:42:28
  SPEAKER_01: Egypt is still fighting them over that, but that allowed them to electrify the country, and wherever you have electricity, development follows rapidly after.
• 1:42:37
  Corie: But it has nine short years, you know.
• 1:42:39
  Corie: Oh, yeah.
• 1:42:40
  Corie: That's that's short when it's important.
• 1:42:42
  Corie: Yeah.
• 1:42:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 1:42:43
  Corie: It gives me hope for all the things you talk about by John Benwell.
• 1:42:45
  SPEAKER_01: I always say, and particularly if you look like us.
• 1:42:47
  Corie: No, it's sons and all.
• 1:42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sons.
• 1:42:49
  SPEAKER_01: Take both of them.
• 1:42:50
  SPEAKER_01: But give the younger one a minute to catch up.
• 1:42:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I would suggest Bowley Corey for the older sons.
• 1:42:57
  SPEAKER_01: Where is he now at Fatima?
• 1:42:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in Fatima, but Form two.
• 1:43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, perfect.
• 1:43:01
  SPEAKER_01: You have time.
• 1:43:02
  SPEAKER_01: He's good too.
• 1:43:02
  SPEAKER_01: So when he's graduating from Form 6, if he does Form 6, then you take them to Ethiopia.
• 1:43:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because the younger one will be able to appreciate it.
• 1:43:09
  SPEAKER_01: I see, I see.
• 1:43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Africa.
• 1:43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And why I say that is because we've been selling such garbage when it comes to Africa.
• 1:43:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you're from our part of the world and you look like us, and that's our heritage.
• 1:43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 1:43:19
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, it's important to go to Europe too, but your first port of call as a black man in this part of the world, someone of African descent, should be to Africa, true any country.
• 1:43:32
  SPEAKER_01: But Ethiopia, the East Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Eritrea, Uganda, Mozambique, Blue Mind Beautiful.
• 1:43:39
  Corie: We're going when you're going.
• 1:43:40
  Corie: We're going when you're going.
• 1:43:41
  Corie: Because your parents, for instance, in New York, know you gave me Ethiopia expenses.
• 1:43:44
  Corie: But yeah.
• 1:43:47
  Corie: All right, good.
• 1:43:48
  Corie: Wendy, thank you very much.
• 1:43:49
  Corie: This was a pleasure.
• 1:43:50
  Corie: Absolute pleasure.
• 1:43:51
  Corie: Thank you so much.
• 1:43:52
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoyed it.
• 1:43:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 1:43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.