Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Jasmine Guy Talks Relationship With Tupac, Jada Pinkett Smith, Freaknik, Hollywood + More
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Wait tail as up in the morning.
- 0:02Speaker 2: Breakfast Club Morning, everybody is DJ Envy just hilarious, Charlamage
- 0:08Speaker 2: the guy. We are to Breakfast Club and we got
- 0:10Speaker 2: a special guest in the building, the legendary Jasmine Guy.
- 0:13Speaker 1: Welcome back.
- 0:14Speaker 3: Good morning.
- 0:15Speaker 1: How you feeling.
- 0:16Speaker 3: I felt great.
- 0:18Speaker 4: I love doing your show the last time, and I
- 0:23Speaker 4: got a lot of positive feedback.
- 0:25Speaker 1: I love you come on.
- 0:27Speaker 4: It was a different kind of interview though than they
- 0:29Speaker 4: used to. My daddy was like, you were a little
- 0:33Speaker 4: too comfortable. You act like they were at your house. Champagne, right, yes,
- 0:40Speaker 4: champagne whatever that was.
- 0:42Speaker 3: I didn't even like it, and I was drinking that.
- 0:45Speaker 4: But my father said that you would put more in
- 0:48Speaker 4: when I was looking at Kadeen.
- 0:51Speaker 3: That's what he said.
- 0:53Speaker 4: He said, whenever you looked at Kadeen before, more in there.
- 0:56Speaker 4: So I'm I'm thinking, I'm just drinking one glass probably,
- 1:07Speaker 4: but I'm drinking anywhere.
- 1:09Speaker 3: It's something in the morning. Embarrassing, is that you talk
- 1:13Speaker 3: you just back there just laughing.
- 1:18Speaker 4: No, No, it was good because you ask questions that
- 1:21Speaker 4: people don't usually ask. You know, we get the same
- 1:24Speaker 4: questions over and over, especially about a different world, and
- 1:30Speaker 4: I just like that it went into other areas of
- 1:33Speaker 4: my life and my career and his too, because anybody
- 1:39Speaker 4: can look at any interviews we've done and get those answers.
- 1:42Speaker 3: It's the same answer, you know what I mean? So
- 1:45Speaker 3: can we talk about something else?
- 1:48Speaker 4: You know, we bring it to another element that hasn't
- 1:53Speaker 4: been explored with us.
- 1:54Speaker 1: And you've done so much more since since.
- 1:57Speaker 5: Absolutely, like right now you want your first yearlations.
- 2:03Speaker 3: She went for the Chronicles of Jessica Woos. Yes, that
- 2:06Speaker 3: was a trip.
- 2:07Speaker 4: So I was going to Mexico to hang out with
- 2:10Speaker 4: my girlfriends and I land and I get all these
- 2:15Speaker 4: checks from people saying congratulation on your Emmy nomination, and
- 2:20Speaker 4: I really thought people would messing with me.
- 2:22Speaker 3: I didn't even call them back. I said whatever.
- 2:26Speaker 4: I wouldn't even And then when I realized I really
- 2:31Speaker 4: had been nominated, I thought it was for the show Harlem. Okay, okay,
- 2:38Speaker 4: Chronicles of Jessica Woo I had done. It was before COVID.
- 2:43Speaker 4: It was a long time ago and I only worked
- 2:45Speaker 4: on it for a day. It was a very interesting
- 2:49Speaker 4: project to me because the production company was a couple,
- 2:55Speaker 4: a small black production company. The superhero in the in
- 2:59Speaker 4: the p had autism, but her powers that whatever put
- 3:05Speaker 4: her on the spectrum made her a superhero. Their daughter
- 3:10Speaker 4: had an autistic child anyway, So I said, well, I'll
- 3:14Speaker 4: do it because I know after this they're going to
- 3:16Speaker 4: need distribution.
- 3:18Speaker 3: And who knew that's what you know.
- 3:23Speaker 4: What I'm saying, my love for them and what I
- 3:28Speaker 4: know about you know, pitching ideas. You're gonna need a name.
- 3:31Speaker 4: I know, I've heard it all. And I said, well,
- 3:34Speaker 4: I'll be your name. This is gonna be good. And
- 3:36Speaker 4: it was a short series, like a wepisode series. The
- 3:40Speaker 4: other Oscar nomination I got was also from an independent
- 3:45Speaker 4: black company and it was my nephew Emmett, and I
- 3:49Speaker 4: played em matills aren't on the night that he was
- 3:52Speaker 4: taken from their home, and I was like, oh shit,
- 3:57Speaker 4: I do not want to go to Mississippi.
- 3:59Speaker 3: And I'm telling you.
- 4:00Speaker 4: We stayed right down the street from where he got abducted.
- 4:05Speaker 1: Missippi still got that same energy.
- 4:07Speaker 3: Thank you. I was gonna stay. I felt ghosts.
- 4:12Speaker 4: Yeah you know, And I did it and they got
- 4:16Speaker 4: nominated for an Oscar night when the director called me.
- 4:19Speaker 4: He was a graduate student from NYU Film School. His
- 4:24Speaker 4: mentors with Spike Lee and Casey Lemmon's right, beautiful brother,
- 4:29Speaker 4: and the and the crew and everybody.
- 4:31Speaker 3: I had a great artistic experience.
- 4:35Speaker 4: But when he told me we, you know, we got
- 4:38Speaker 4: nominated for an Oscar, I thought he was messing with me.
- 4:42Speaker 5: That's not a lot though, Like about how you know,
- 4:45Speaker 5: I guess black actors and actresses are conditioned in Hollywood
- 4:48Speaker 5: that when they get told that they're even nominated, they
- 4:51Speaker 5: don't believe it.
- 4:52Speaker 4: Well, when you ignored long enough, you got the message.
- 4:56Speaker 4: I got the message. If you're not nominating a differ world,
- 5:00Speaker 4: Debbie Allen, Susan fails our wardrobe department, any other actor
- 5:06Speaker 4: on that show. I stopped focusing on y'all giving me
- 5:09Speaker 4: my props.
- 5:11Speaker 3: I know who gives me my props.
- 5:13Speaker 4: And I told the actors, I said, we just gotta
- 5:16Speaker 4: be good, you know, forget all these accolades or whatever.
- 5:21Speaker 4: They obviously do you know how many times they said
- 5:25Speaker 4: to me, even on I think I did. Dennis Miller,
- 5:29Speaker 4: remember Dennis Randa a talk show. He started with, so
- 5:33Speaker 4: how does it feel being between number one and three?
- 5:38Speaker 3: And I was stunned because I just sat down.
- 5:41Speaker 4: You know, you come out all cute and whatever, and
- 5:43Speaker 4: I was like he said, that wasn't a good leader
- 5:45Speaker 4: in question, I said, no, it wasn't.
- 5:48Speaker 1: You're talking about cognye and cheers.
- 5:50Speaker 4: Everybody said we were number two because we came between them, Okay.
- 5:55Speaker 3: And that was the first question. That was the message.
- 5:57Speaker 4: That was the message that we got this actors as
- 6:01Speaker 4: you know, performers, and we never got our props for
- 6:06Speaker 4: not not just the acting, but it was Debbie Allen,
- 6:10Speaker 4: Susan fails me.
- 6:11Speaker 3: Three black women in charge of that show. You know
- 6:15Speaker 3: what I mean? We could have been on the.
- 6:17Speaker 4: Cover of Essence, and I just knew who really saw
- 6:22Speaker 4: us and who really understood us.
- 6:24Speaker 1: Why was that work for?
- 6:25Speaker 4: That's the same white motherfuckers.
- 6:30Speaker 1: Old up to day.
- 6:37Speaker 3: You came to the right shows. You can't say that word, so.
- 6:43Speaker 2: You can go back here the same white motherfuckers make
- 6:47Speaker 2: sure you forget just.
- 6:48Speaker 3: The same world. Just look.
- 6:50Speaker 4: Okay, So Carcy Warner, our producers also produced a show
- 6:58Speaker 4: with Whoopy Goldberg called Bag That Cafe Grace under Fire
- 7:02Speaker 4: in the Roseanne Show and the cos of the show, right,
- 7:06Speaker 4: so we're one of five.
- 7:09Speaker 3: They never asked us to do anything.
- 7:11Speaker 4: They asked Roseanne Barr to sing the national anthem in
- 7:15Speaker 4: which she grabbed her crotch because she can't sing. But
- 7:19Speaker 4: we got five singers on our show that you could
- 7:23Speaker 4: have had, don me kree. You know, never when we
- 7:27Speaker 4: got offered.
- 7:28Speaker 3: Things that would have I don't know. I just got things.
- 7:35Speaker 4: We got things on our own, and I never felt
- 7:37Speaker 4: a part of that network. Then when I saw what
- 7:41Speaker 4: happened with Friends, I was like, Yo, that would have
- 7:46Speaker 4: helped us. It would have helped us with work after
- 7:49Speaker 4: the show. It would have given us some props, you
- 7:53Speaker 4: know that we could have used for future projects.
- 7:57Speaker 3: I pitched a lot.
- 7:58Speaker 4: I have my own production company after a Different World.
- 8:02Speaker 4: All of my projects were rejected, but then I started
- 8:06Speaker 4: to see.
- 8:06Speaker 3: Them that was wow, which ones yeah that.
- 8:14Speaker 4: I had a TV idea about a young woman that
- 8:18Speaker 4: inherited a sweatshop in the garment district from her gay
- 8:22Speaker 4: friend that died of AIDS, and but she still saw
- 8:26Speaker 4: him as a ghost.
- 8:27Speaker 3: I had even talked to Rue Paul about being my ghost.
- 8:30Speaker 3: You know.
- 8:34Speaker 4: They was just everything was a reason not to do it.
- 8:37Speaker 4: But then I would see a white girl do it.
- 8:39Speaker 4: Then I had this idea about what was the name
- 8:43Speaker 4: of that spy show? It was a French movie, Independent movie,
- 8:47Speaker 4: and oh, okay, So I thought this would be fierce
- 8:53Speaker 4: well Robin Gibvens. So I wrote up a treatment for
- 8:57Speaker 4: a pilot version of it. No Robin Gibvens, but a
- 9:03Speaker 4: white American girl doing it. So I was like, well,
- 9:05Speaker 4: I know my ideas are valid, but I just started
- 9:09Speaker 4: divorcing myself like a bad relationship.
- 9:13Speaker 3: Stop asking for what you know you're not gonna get.
- 9:17Speaker 4: I didn't have a parking space like Don Johnson after
- 9:20Speaker 4: Miami Vice.
- 9:22Speaker 5: You know, he was the star of the number two
- 9:24Speaker 5: show on the network, one of the biggest shows on television.
- 9:27Speaker 5: Producer on it too, right, no o oh, thoughts you
- 9:30Speaker 5: reduce on it? No, but even even still, a star
- 9:34Speaker 5: of that show can't have a parking spot.
- 9:37Speaker 3: I had a parking spot, but he had a production deals.
- 9:40Speaker 4: When I'm saying after he did Miami Vice, he had
- 9:43Speaker 4: a production deal, you know.
- 9:45Speaker 3: And I don't know.
- 9:49Speaker 4: I just thought that we were we were ready and
- 9:52Speaker 4: well equipped to move on into other areas. I definitely
- 9:56Speaker 4: wanted to be a producer because I had met so
- 9:58Speaker 4: many people on the different and I wanted to bring
- 10:02Speaker 4: this writer with this director, you know, And the ideas
- 10:07Speaker 4: that I had were not being done. The Dorothy Dandrews story.
- 10:13Speaker 4: I pitched that for years. I had to educate first,
- 10:18Speaker 4: who's the earthy dying dright? I told him it wasn't condescending.
- 10:26Speaker 4: And I didn't want to say the black Marilyn Monroe
- 10:28Speaker 4: because that's all they understand is a black version of
- 10:31Speaker 4: what we already know. So I don't use that term
- 10:35Speaker 4: when I'm pitching. And the movie got done. It just
- 10:40Speaker 4: got done without me. And after a while, I said, Okay,
- 10:45Speaker 4: I understand, you.
- 10:48Speaker 3: Know what I mean. It's like a bad relationship.
- 10:50Speaker 4: After a while, you gotta understand, Okay, I ain't what
- 10:55Speaker 4: you want.
- 10:58Speaker 6: This is, and this is and so is all of
- 11:02Speaker 6: this and other things. I'm sure as what leads up
- 11:05Speaker 6: to Uncensored. Jasmae God Like.
- 11:08Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, I'm still like.
- 11:09Speaker 4: I did uncensored because I did Intimate Portrait on lifetime.
- 11:15Speaker 4: I did Unsung, but they were in different decades of
- 11:18Speaker 4: my life. I mean, Intimate Portrait must have been in
- 11:22Speaker 4: my forties and then fifties, and now I'm in my sixties.
- 11:28Speaker 4: And I said, I may have a different perspective on
- 11:31Speaker 4: my truth. Same things happen, but I feel differently about them.
- 11:37Speaker 4: I have a different perspective, and I'm not. I'm trying
- 11:40Speaker 4: not to be so precious about my private life because
- 11:44Speaker 4: I really do this. When people get like, you know,
- 11:47Speaker 4: that's that's mine. I feel like I do enough with
- 11:52Speaker 4: my work for the public. That is my gift to
- 11:57Speaker 4: the audience, That is my way of communicating. You don't
- 12:00Speaker 4: need to know who I'm sleeping with their business, don't.
- 12:04Speaker 3: Need to be in the street.
- 12:06Speaker 2: You from that era, though, Like that era was you
- 12:09Speaker 2: didn't really see your favorite celebrity, favorite actress, favorite actor,
- 12:13Speaker 2: and when you did, everybody went bashit crazy because you
- 12:16Speaker 2: never did. Like our favorite celebrities growing up as kid,
- 12:19Speaker 2: we didn't know who they dated. We didn't know where
- 12:21Speaker 2: they went to eat, we didn't know where they lived,
- 12:23Speaker 2: We didn't know any of that. And that was part
- 12:25Speaker 2: of the mystique of them being a superstar, real celebrity.
- 12:30Speaker 3: But it's also private.
- 12:32Speaker 4: I don't feel like I didn't understand why celebrities were
- 12:38Speaker 4: saying private things. When nobody even asked you that.
- 12:48Speaker 3: You'll make you talk.
- 12:51Speaker 4: I'm like, why are you nobody asked? Nowadays, I so
- 13:00Speaker 4: with the oh, and I also get an Instagram.
- 13:04Speaker 3: I mean, I've had an account, but.
- 13:08Speaker 4: My makeup artist said when he went on my social
- 13:11Speaker 4: media that it was vented.
- 13:14Speaker 3: Not the vwork that I had not post.
- 13:17Speaker 4: I said, I don't know what to post. I don't
- 13:21Speaker 4: know what's interesting because work fulfill so many parts of me.
- 13:29Speaker 4: If I'm not working, I really don't have nothing to say.
- 13:32Speaker 4: What I did today, I colored, I did crossword puzzles.
- 13:36Speaker 2: People are into that, They're into your life outside of
- 13:39Speaker 2: just acting into what does Jasmine guy do? What does
- 13:43Speaker 2: she enjoy?
- 13:43Speaker 1: What is she like? You know, because we know who
- 13:47Speaker 1: you are on.
- 13:50Speaker 3: Like a humerus, boring.
- 13:52Speaker 2: People want to see that. They want to understand that.
- 13:54Speaker 2: They want to see what your life like. If you
- 13:55Speaker 2: just sit outside and you you knit all day, what
- 13:58Speaker 2: are you knitting?
- 13:59Speaker 1: Why? And to be honest, what calms you down?
- 14:00Speaker 2: Because maybe what calms you down helped calm me down.
- 14:04Speaker 2: Maybe something that you do can help guide me through
- 14:06Speaker 2: my life. So people are into what people.
- 14:08Speaker 6: Do, and now we need some boring shit because like
- 14:12Speaker 6: everybody's wilding out here I'm talking about So I'm interested
- 14:15Speaker 6: in what you be knitting.
- 14:19Speaker 3: I want to see my next staff can.
- 14:24Speaker 4: No, but it's kind of like that. I like calm
- 14:27Speaker 4: I love my friends. My favorite thing in the world
- 14:31Speaker 4: is when my friends come by my apartment. And I
- 14:33Speaker 4: live in Midtown in Atlanta, so I'm accessible because in
- 14:37Speaker 4: New York I used to have an apartment on seventy
- 14:41Speaker 4: eighth Street between Columbus and Central Park.
- 14:44Speaker 3: Everybody come through there.
- 14:46Speaker 4: If you lived in Queens, if you lived in Jersey,
- 14:49Speaker 4: you're gonna come by my and I love that, and
- 14:52Speaker 4: so that's one of my favorite things is having my
- 14:56Speaker 4: people over.
- 14:56Speaker 3: And I've been cooking to I've been watching TV.
- 15:01Speaker 2: People like to see what the judgmine got cooked.
- 15:03Speaker 1: What's your favorite meal?
- 15:04Speaker 3: Well, I'm trying to make the perfect chicken wing for me.
- 15:09Speaker 4: No, I've made them and make them every week, but
- 15:13Speaker 4: for me, other people eat them and they're okay, but
- 15:17Speaker 4: I want a certain consistency.
- 15:20Speaker 3: I think.
- 15:20Speaker 4: I'm I can't get a deep fire because of my apartment.
- 15:23Speaker 4: I can't have it on the on the patio. So
- 15:27Speaker 4: I've tried all different kinds. They're good, and I've done
- 15:31Speaker 4: the marinading and everything. Also, I've learned meatballs. I got
- 15:35Speaker 4: a good meatball let people like and it's a it's
- 15:41Speaker 4: real import I'll make you some turkey Teresa no, Chriso
- 15:51Speaker 4: sport too.
- 15:51Speaker 3: I make you some. But I gave a cheesecake.
- 15:56Speaker 4: So I'm using my mother's cheesecake recipe and I'm just
- 16:00Speaker 4: doing them over and over until I get it.
- 16:04Speaker 3: My daddy is my guinea pig.
- 16:05Speaker 4: He has to try out my food and give me notes,
- 16:09Speaker 4: tell me if it's dried, tell me if you know.
- 16:11Speaker 4: And my friend Jamala loves my cheesecakes. So I made
- 16:16Speaker 4: one for the house, gave it to her and I
- 16:20Speaker 4: was like, you know, let me know how it is
- 16:23Speaker 4: or whatever. She gave her mother one piece and she
- 16:26Speaker 4: ate the rest of it because she's had three whole
- 16:31Speaker 4: cheese cases.
- 16:34Speaker 3: Yes, I love anything.
- 16:35Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, Jamala, let me tell you what's in this,
- 16:38Speaker 4: because you kid. So she wrote a book about her daughter.
- 16:42Speaker 4: It's a children's book called Mommy, I Think I Have Diabetes.
- 16:47Speaker 4: She found out her daughter as diabetes, but it was
- 16:49Speaker 4: from her daughter.
- 16:51Speaker 3: This was a truth story.
- 16:53Speaker 4: She made a children's book, and I said, your second
- 16:57Speaker 4: book is going to be Mommy. I think you got
- 17:01Speaker 4: you beating.
- 17:02Speaker 3: Whole cheesecakes right.
- 17:08Speaker 4: I'm glad you like them and whatnot, but you know
- 17:11Speaker 4: you can't beating the whole one.
- 17:13Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta ask you know you mentioned earlier that
- 17:15Speaker 2: you know when you do these interviews, people ask the
- 17:17Speaker 2: same questions about a different world. Are you tired of
- 17:20Speaker 2: being of talking about a different world since you had
- 17:23Speaker 2: I mean that was thirty years ago, but.
- 17:25Speaker 1: Then I sat seven thirty seven.
- 17:27Speaker 3: Wow.
- 17:27Speaker 2: But then I see you on the HBCU tours going
- 17:30Speaker 2: from school to school. I see you having those conversations.
- 17:32Speaker 2: Are you just done with talking about that part of
- 17:34Speaker 2: your life?
- 17:36Speaker 4: I'm not done with that part of my life because
- 17:38Speaker 4: people are exploring, They're asking me the same things. What's
- 17:42Speaker 4: your favorite episode? They want me to see the wedding show?
- 17:45Speaker 3: That wasn't my.
- 17:45Speaker 4: Favorite episode, that's your favorite episode. I love when the
- 17:50Speaker 4: kids ask questions. So we go to these schools. We
- 17:54Speaker 4: have a moderator this past when we just spell them
- 17:57Speaker 4: in Morehouse and Clark, we have seven of us. I
- 18:00Speaker 4: love that too. Usually it's no more than four of us.
- 18:04Speaker 4: And when the kids get to ask the questions, their.
- 18:10Speaker 3: Questions are different. They're not asking those same things.
- 18:14Speaker 4: I mean, really, you could do your research and know
- 18:17Speaker 4: the answer already, of course, but the kids are like
- 18:21Speaker 4: when you were nineteen.
- 18:23Speaker 3: Blah, blah blah.
- 18:25Speaker 4: When you first left home, what did you think about
- 18:30Speaker 4: your character?
- 18:31Speaker 3: I mean intelligence, especially them Spellman girls.
- 18:36Speaker 4: First of all, they acted like we were rock stars.
- 18:40Speaker 3: They were just open shame when we came out.
- 18:44Speaker 4: Then one girl said Miss Charnell, Miss Charnell, I want
- 18:52Speaker 4: to thank you for being a presence for dark skinned girls.
- 19:00Speaker 4: Miss Jasmine, thank you for showing me confidence. And Miss
- 19:06Speaker 4: cree thank you for being the odd ball.
- 19:11Speaker 3: That was her.
- 19:16Speaker 1: There you go. Thank you.
- 19:17Speaker 4: Yeah, she was saying, I see you and you helped
- 19:22Speaker 4: me see me.
- 19:25Speaker 3: And you don't know you're doing all that when you're
- 19:27Speaker 3: just playing your role, you know, But.
- 19:30Speaker 4: I know Debbie knew. I knew Debbie knew what she
- 19:32Speaker 4: was doing when she hired.
- 19:35Speaker 3: Korea and Sean. Now, that second season, it was very deliberate.
- 19:41Speaker 1: I was just talking.
- 19:41Speaker 5: About I was, yeah, what were you saying? We had
- 19:50Speaker 5: a whole conversation about who was the most beautiful on
- 19:53Speaker 5: a different world, and you know, he turned into that.
- 19:55Speaker 1: I was like, man, Kimberly Reeche was the one.
- 19:57Speaker 3: He was the one.
- 19:58Speaker 1: You think they should you.
- 20:00Speaker 2: I think there should be another show or maybe they
- 20:02Speaker 2: should relaunch it. And the reason is, last time I
- 20:04Speaker 2: tell you. The reason I went to college and HBCU
- 20:07Speaker 2: and Hampton was because I seen a different world and
- 20:09Speaker 2: I wanted that experience coming from Queen's right, I was like,
- 20:12Speaker 2: I want that. I don't know if people see that anymore,
- 20:16Speaker 2: if they see what a college looks like in the
- 20:18Speaker 2: experience and not just you know, the partying, but real life,
- 20:23Speaker 2: real situations and everything going on. I think that's missing.
- 20:27Speaker 3: It is not there.
- 20:29Speaker 4: And I thought when we did, you know, because when
- 20:34Speaker 4: I did a Different World, we were coming off school
- 20:36Speaker 4: days and it was you know, months in between the projects,
- 20:42Speaker 4: so it felt like we're a part of a wave.
- 20:45Speaker 4: I didn't know that it crested and was over because
- 20:49Speaker 4: Fox started with Rock Dutton Show, some bad show even
- 20:55Speaker 4: you know, before Martin, and once they got launched, they
- 20:59Speaker 4: dropped those black shit. Same with c W. You saw
- 21:02Speaker 4: what happened with the game. But I thought we were
- 21:05Speaker 4: part of a new, I don't know, a new entertainment
- 21:10Speaker 4: phase for black people.
- 21:13Speaker 1: It wasn't renaissance, but it was over after.
- 21:16Speaker 4: College we left, but they just snatched everybody off. They
- 21:19Speaker 4: couldn't wait to get our time slot.
- 21:22Speaker 1: Yeah, I've had a lot of conversations about that.
- 21:24Speaker 5: I feel like after the nineties it was an intentional
- 21:27Speaker 5: It was intentional and strategic by Hollywood to change the
- 21:30Speaker 5: image of black people.
- 21:31Speaker 1: I really feel that way.
- 21:32Speaker 3: We think so too. Charla made it.
- 21:34Speaker 5: Went from great scripted shows and people had jobs and
- 21:37Speaker 5: caribs to reality television.
- 21:40Speaker 4: Wait, they don't have to pay nobody until you make
- 21:42Speaker 4: it big or whatever. And now even with Harlem, and
- 21:47Speaker 4: I loved that show and I love doing it, and
- 21:50Speaker 4: I don't understand the streaming thing. Amazon had us for
- 21:53Speaker 4: ten ten episodes of first season eight, the second season,
- 21:58Speaker 4: this season six. So what you're doing, I don't know.
- 22:04Speaker 4: We have to do twenty two episodes a season. What
- 22:08Speaker 4: you're doing is you can't give anybody long enough work, right,
- 22:13Speaker 4: So the writers on a series, they're given enough four
- 22:16Speaker 4: or five months they're getting.
- 22:18Speaker 3: Paid, but now six, that's two months working.
- 22:26Speaker 4: I don't know, And I don't know why they're doing
- 22:29Speaker 4: it with Harlem because people like that show, you know
- 22:31Speaker 4: what I mean.
- 22:34Speaker 3: And it shows Harlem in a beautiful way.
- 22:36Speaker 4: It's vibrant and alive, and it's not gray and boarded
- 22:42Speaker 4: up like the Harms like you know, it ain't coulle
- 22:47Speaker 4: high and cornbread. Earl and me, Harlem, it's the celebration.
- 22:52Speaker 4: So I don't know why they're not committing. I find
- 22:56Speaker 4: it selfish that you don't give a show enough legs
- 22:59Speaker 4: to succeed.
- 23:02Speaker 3: And let Tracy Oliver do what she do.
- 23:06Speaker 2: I had so much influence, you know, Jamaine dup previous
- 23:09Speaker 2: said yesterday and on it. They did a Freaknik documentary,
- 23:13Speaker 2: Oh have you ever been a Freaknick?
- 23:15Speaker 4: No, I was in that la during that time, but
- 23:17Speaker 4: I've heard about it. They shutting down NY twenty. There
- 23:21Speaker 4: were a lot of babies made during that sure.
- 23:24Speaker 2: They said that actually Different World made Freaknick even bigger.
- 23:28Speaker 2: I guess you had an episode where the girls talked
- 23:30Speaker 2: about going to Freaknik and not telling their parents.
- 23:32Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the younger crew like Jada and them.
- 23:36Speaker 2: Yeah, And they said that amplified it a thousands, so
- 23:40Speaker 2: many people.
- 23:40Speaker 1: Watching Different World. It was like, we're going down to
- 23:42Speaker 1: freaking as you call some people to get pregnant. Paying
- 23:50Speaker 1: child's a question with God.
- 23:52Speaker 5: You find a sense of vindication in this award at
- 23:55Speaker 5: this stage of your career.
- 23:58Speaker 3: No, you know what I felt.
- 23:59Speaker 4: I was really surprised at how happy I was when
- 24:02Speaker 4: I when I got it, I really felt like I
- 24:06Speaker 4: won that award for a different world in Atlanta.
- 24:11Speaker 3: Wow.
- 24:11Speaker 4: And I say Atlanta because when I got to New York,
- 24:15Speaker 4: I had been trained that I had been poured into,
- 24:19Speaker 4: you know, with my dance schools, my teachers and performing
- 24:24Speaker 4: our school.
- 24:25Speaker 3: I went to my church, you know.
- 24:30Speaker 4: And then and I also knew that even though I
- 24:35Speaker 4: was glad that the show won, you know, Jessica, Wo,
- 24:39Speaker 4: I just felt like it was for a different world.
- 24:42Speaker 3: It's for what nobody you know.
- 24:45Speaker 5: Got back then you dedicated your award to a different word.
- 24:47Speaker 1: That's the reason why, just because you felt like, yeah.
- 24:49Speaker 4: I was like, this is ours because I know what
- 24:54Speaker 4: made that show good. And I know we didn't get
- 24:57Speaker 4: our props from white people. Five sixty Image Awards do
- 25:07Speaker 4: Soul Train Awards.
- 25:11Speaker 3: Because they know what that does.
- 25:12Speaker 4: It gives you power in the Hollywood system. We're not
- 25:17Speaker 4: giving them that. That's so disrespectful to me. It's not
- 25:22Speaker 4: like a person I could cuss out. It's just a
- 25:25Speaker 4: cloud of white people, like white Hollywood. Because if that
- 25:32Speaker 4: show would just look at what they do with friends
- 25:36Speaker 4: and what they did with living single, just look at
- 25:38Speaker 4: the publicity, how much money they made, they were at
- 25:45Speaker 4: the Golden Globes.
- 25:46Speaker 3: They got movies. We are no less talented.
- 25:52Speaker 4: And the writing was awesome on the Different World because
- 25:55Speaker 4: they're doing deep subjects, and hey, I have to keep
- 25:58Speaker 4: us funny because the network wanted us funny. They said, well,
- 26:04Speaker 4: if we're gonna do this age show, how are we
- 26:07Speaker 4: gonna make it funny? Well, maybe Whitley's gonna lose her
- 26:10Speaker 4: virginity during what's the B line?
- 26:13Speaker 3: That's gonna not make it so heavy?
- 26:16Speaker 4: You know, they have to do that for everything the
- 26:19Speaker 4: Riot show that they have to still mix in the humor.
- 26:23Speaker 4: And I think we did that well and that Susan
- 26:26Speaker 4: fails Hill. I'm so proud of lean Away and Easta
- 26:34Speaker 4: Ray to see them as showrunners and starring and.
- 26:40Speaker 3: This and that.
- 26:41Speaker 4: I'm like, Oh, they are fierce, and I hope they
- 26:44Speaker 4: get their props.
- 26:46Speaker 5: But I wonder, how do you think this recognition of
- 26:49Speaker 5: the award contributes to the broader conversation about diversity and
- 26:53Speaker 5: representation in Hollywood, especially for like O G veteran actresses
- 26:57Speaker 5: like yourself who've made significant contribution old a decade.
- 27:01Speaker 3: Okay, so what like.
- 27:03Speaker 1: What did this do? Like?
- 27:04Speaker 5: The award has to do something being that jaminer, I
- 27:06Speaker 5: can still be so good at this stage in her
- 27:09Speaker 5: career that she's still Oh.
- 27:11Speaker 4: Yes, it does feel validating. And I even said when
- 27:17Speaker 4: I accepted the award, you know, thank you for keeping
- 27:21Speaker 4: me in this community, because the creative community is my world,
- 27:26Speaker 4: whether it's in the New York or LA or Atlanta.
- 27:30Speaker 4: You know, valup my people, and you know, with the
- 27:35Speaker 4: pandemic and then six seven months on strike, I'm like,
- 27:41Speaker 4: I need to work.
- 27:42Speaker 3: I need to be with my people.
- 27:45Speaker 4: You know, I need other creatives. I need stories at lunchtime.
- 27:51Speaker 4: And that goes for everybody that goes for him makeup, wardrobe.
- 27:55Speaker 4: Everybody is expressing themselves and there's a spiritual connection to that.
- 28:02Speaker 3: So I did feel that way.
- 28:03Speaker 4: But it has been good to see my peers like
- 28:10Speaker 4: Regina King, Victoria Mahony, Sally richardson the Girls that I
- 28:16Speaker 4: was like acting with doing, like directing and killing it
- 28:22Speaker 4: like that, and Tasha.
- 28:24Speaker 3: Smith directed the last episode. I did a Harlem her
- 28:28Speaker 3: that's a nature of nature.
- 28:34Speaker 4: As my girl, we needed it. It was a very
- 28:43Speaker 4: long day. It was a long shooting day, and her
- 28:47Speaker 4: energy was and what I was so impressed with was
- 28:53Speaker 4: her technical acumen. She really knew her cameras, you really
- 28:58Speaker 4: knew what she wanted. She had to map out a
- 29:02Speaker 4: ten page scene, which is very long for you know,
- 29:07Speaker 4: anything for movie or TV scene.
- 29:11Speaker 3: And I don't know, she just did a beautiful job.
- 29:15Speaker 4: It was the only episode I've done on that show
- 29:18Speaker 4: where I saw other people, because all my episodes that
- 29:20Speaker 4: were Gray Spyers. She's my daughter, well i'm her mother,
- 29:24Speaker 4: I should say she's and everybody was there at this event,
- 29:29Speaker 4: so I got to see Debby Smith was there, Whoopee
- 29:34Speaker 4: was there.
- 29:37Speaker 3: I don't know what was exciting. I was kind of
- 29:40Speaker 3: fanned out too. Yeah, it's amazing.
- 29:42Speaker 2: I've seen a clip that was released from You Uncensored
- 29:45Speaker 2: and it talks about being a mixed child. Was that
- 29:48Speaker 2: very difficult in the industry going at that time where
- 29:51Speaker 2: you're going up for auditions and people are saying, well,
- 29:52Speaker 2: she's not white or and then well maybe she's not
- 29:55Speaker 2: black enough.
- 29:55Speaker 1: Was that difficult?
- 29:57Speaker 3: Well?
- 29:58Speaker 4: I always defined myself as black, but I didn't get
- 30:01Speaker 4: roles because I was too light sometimes or I got
- 30:05Speaker 4: like the my first after I left Alvin Ailey, I
- 30:09Speaker 4: did musical theater, Broadway and whatnot, and then I started
- 30:13Speaker 4: taking acting classes and going out for auditions, and I
- 30:22Speaker 4: played three hoes before I go with Ley. I'm just saying,
- 30:25Speaker 4: I asked my agent. I was like, is this normal? Yes,
- 30:31Speaker 4: I played a prostitute on the Equalizer. I played a
- 30:35Speaker 4: hoe on Loving, which was a soap opera back then,
- 30:38Speaker 4: and then on my third when I said, okay, is
- 30:42Speaker 4: this and I was nailing them whatever it is about
- 30:48Speaker 4: ship before I got back to my former I was like, okay.
- 30:53Speaker 5: But.
- 30:56Speaker 1: You into to be able to like really play a hope.
- 31:03Speaker 3: The way they write it.
- 31:06Speaker 4: They usually write I usually do sarcasm well, and they're
- 31:11Speaker 4: usually snarky.
- 31:13Speaker 3: You know. Now the other activities the.
- 31:17Speaker 4: I mean on the Equalizer, I was the whole that
- 31:21Speaker 4: they bought for.
- 31:23Speaker 3: The guy that just came out of prison.
- 31:26Speaker 4: Oh my god, this scene was nasty, and I'm like surprised,
- 31:31Speaker 4: and I come out and I'm supposed to do him
- 31:34Speaker 4: because he's just been in prison. And then in the
- 31:37Speaker 4: scene he starts coughing and I say, you catch something
- 31:42Speaker 4: nasty where you've been and he grasps me by the
- 31:46Speaker 4: hair and slams me.
- 31:52Speaker 1: Trauma.
- 31:56Speaker 4: I got a little too snarky. But the thing I
- 32:00Speaker 4: didn't know that that should have been blocked.
- 32:03Speaker 3: I didn't. It was one of my first acting jobs.
- 32:07Speaker 4: So because I'm a dancer, I was able to go,
- 32:10Speaker 4: you know, slam myself down. All you have to do is,
- 32:14Speaker 4: you know, and make it look like he was just
- 32:17Speaker 4: and then fall. And I did it over and over
- 32:21Speaker 4: and the director was like, are you okay. It wasn't
- 32:24Speaker 4: until after that I talked to some of my actress
- 32:27Speaker 4: friends and they were.
- 32:27Speaker 3: Like, nobody blocked you. Nobody. I said no, it was
- 32:33Speaker 3: just like a you know, a dance move or whatever.
- 32:35Speaker 3: But yeah.
- 32:37Speaker 4: Then when I auditioned for Whitley, first of all, they
- 32:43Speaker 4: didn't even have her name yet. It was Sydney slash Whitney,
- 32:46Speaker 4: a black Southern bell. I'm might things that make you
- 32:49Speaker 4: go a black Southern bell, you don't know say Anyway,
- 32:58Speaker 4: she was.
- 32:58Speaker 3: Hitting on her professor for the a in the scene
- 33:03Speaker 3: another horrorle. We're ruffles.
- 33:09Speaker 4: But when I got on the set, now she's a
- 33:11Speaker 4: virgin and she doesn't know what's going on.
- 33:14Speaker 3: It's just interesting because.
- 33:18Speaker 4: You play things based on who they tell you you're
- 33:21Speaker 4: supposed to be, and then as actors we often do
- 33:25Speaker 4: backstories and you know, make up something that got us
- 33:29Speaker 4: to this point. So we have something to lean on.
- 33:33Speaker 4: But yeah, I was thinking, Wow, I guess I'm just
- 33:36Speaker 4: gonna be. It wasn't that I was playing a horror prostitute.
- 33:41Speaker 4: It was just that I wanted to play all kinds
- 33:44Speaker 4: of characters.
- 33:44Speaker 3: Yeah, I've always wanted that.
- 33:47Speaker 2: YE got to ask a question, This is a personal question.
- 33:50Speaker 2: When you started off dancing as a child, right, did
- 33:53Speaker 2: you know what direction you wanted to go into? So
- 33:55Speaker 2: I got two girls that dance, right, and then I
- 33:58Speaker 2: travel all over the country day dance with these these
- 34:00Speaker 2: little babies, and I mean they are amazing. One one
- 34:03Speaker 2: first prize overall seven year old. Oh, one thousand girls,
- 34:06Speaker 2: first prize. But yeah, they get busy. They take it serious.
- 34:10Speaker 2: Six days a week, four hours a day, gymnastics, flipping,
- 34:13Speaker 2: backflip dancing.
- 34:15Speaker 1: Whoa, it's a lot.
- 34:17Speaker 2: But I've learned to love it, like really enjoy it.
- 34:20Speaker 2: But you know, as a dad, I always think like, well,
- 34:22Speaker 2: what's next after dancing? Like what do you do as
- 34:25Speaker 2: a dance Like when you get to high school and college?
- 34:28Speaker 2: Like what happens from that? Did you know what you
- 34:30Speaker 2: wanted to do going into alvin ALEI?
- 34:32Speaker 4: And Okay, So when I was a little kid, I thought.
- 34:37Speaker 4: I just kept asking for more classes, like once a week.
- 34:41Speaker 4: Saturday turned into three turned into five, you know. And
- 34:45Speaker 4: when I saw Alvin Ale and I saw revelations, I
- 34:49Speaker 4: realized that I could do this as a job. I
- 34:52Speaker 4: didn't realize that you could dance as a job other
- 34:55Speaker 4: than be a dance teacher.
- 34:56Speaker 3: That's all I was seeing.
- 34:59Speaker 4: And I I told my daddy, I said, I think
- 35:02Speaker 4: I have my calling.
- 35:05Speaker 3: I want to dance with Alvin Ailey.
- 35:07Speaker 4: So from twelve to seventeen, that was the trajectory, kind
- 35:13Speaker 4: of on the level where you are with your girls,
- 35:16Speaker 4: because I danced every day. After that, I went to
- 35:19Speaker 4: perform in arts high school, I joined Atlanta Ballet. I
- 35:24Speaker 4: went to North Carolina School of the Arts over the
- 35:27Speaker 4: summer because I knew that I was not technically proficient
- 35:32Speaker 4: enough to get into the Aley company, but I was
- 35:36Speaker 4: also performing. I played Anita in West Side Story and
- 35:40Speaker 4: I was young. I was like thirteen, and I could
- 35:44Speaker 4: already act and I could sing. But it was that
- 35:49Speaker 4: because you know, you can't fake dancing. You could either
- 35:52Speaker 4: dance or you can't. I mean, it's an athletic, you know.
- 35:57Speaker 4: So that's when I knew, do they want to do
- 35:59Speaker 4: it as a profession.
- 36:01Speaker 2: They don't know right now. One is seven, one is ten,
- 36:03Speaker 2: and they just enjoy it and they want more. And
- 36:06Speaker 2: it's not just ballet, it's not just open for and mad.
- 36:09Speaker 2: It's just it's everything. It's it's jazz, it's it's tap,
- 36:13Speaker 2: it's now they just started getting in their hip hop.
- 36:15Speaker 2: But for me, it's like I enjoy it because I
- 36:18Speaker 2: know where they are right. I know they're not gonna
- 36:20Speaker 2: want to go to their friend's house. I know they're
- 36:22Speaker 2: not gonna want to go to the mall because they
- 36:23Speaker 2: enjoyed so much.
- 36:24Speaker 1: School's over at two forty.
- 36:25Speaker 2: From three to seven, they dancing, seven, they come home,
- 36:28Speaker 2: do homework, They tired, and I enjoy it because I
- 36:30Speaker 2: like watching them like I'm the There's not too many
- 36:32Speaker 2: dads out there for some reason, but I'm the one
- 36:35Speaker 2: that's I know the routine and I'm spinning with them
- 36:38Speaker 2: because I if they enjoy it, I enjoy it. But
- 36:40Speaker 2: it's I feel like more people, more kids should get
- 36:43Speaker 2: into it because.
- 36:43Speaker 1: It's it's it's a it's a great art. Yeah, it's
- 36:46Speaker 1: a great art.
- 36:47Speaker 4: And they gave me my foundation for everything, discipline, being
- 36:54Speaker 4: on time, confidence, like even when I got a different world.
- 36:57Speaker 4: I remember one of our our scripts, she came up
- 37:02Speaker 4: to me and she said, are you a dancer?
- 37:04Speaker 3: And I was just standing there and I was like, yeah,
- 37:09Speaker 3: Like what gave me away? What?
- 37:12Speaker 4: I was always on time? I was always there waiting
- 37:15Speaker 4: for everybody else. I did not understand the way they
- 37:18Speaker 4: did it and all the breaks they take. I'm like,
- 37:22Speaker 4: what are we breaking for? We ain't done nothing right.
- 37:26Speaker 3: Dancers are the mules of the business.
- 37:31Speaker 1: Wow.
- 37:32Speaker 4: If the actors are coming out every now and then,
- 37:34Speaker 4: if we like when I did Fame, we were in
- 37:38Speaker 4: rehearsal or performing all day ten hours, actors going to
- 37:43Speaker 4: trailers are coming back. When we did School Days, you
- 37:47Speaker 4: couldn't be in that movie if you couldn't dance, sing
- 37:49Speaker 4: an act first of all. But that meant we all
- 37:52Speaker 4: came from theater we shot, we filmed the Uh well,
- 37:58Speaker 4: I mean we recorded the song on want to Be
- 38:00Speaker 4: Alone tonight after we filmed that day, and then they said, okay,
- 38:05Speaker 4: now you're going to the studio, and we went and
- 38:08Speaker 4: we learned the song and did it, and then we
- 38:11Speaker 4: learned the choreography and performed it. But that's how we do,
- 38:18Speaker 4: especially in New York and especially in theater. All my
- 38:22Speaker 4: dancing friends can sing and act. All my acting friends
- 38:25Speaker 4: can dance to sing. We had to be triple threats
- 38:28Speaker 4: to continue to work. You think them divers from Dreamgirls, Loretta, Divine, Shirley, Ralph, Jennifer.
- 38:38Speaker 3: Lewis you built for it? You know?
- 38:41Speaker 4: So when we go out there, we're not even asked
- 38:45Speaker 4: to work at our full potential, you know what I mean.
- 38:49Speaker 4: And your babies are gonna be like that too, and
- 38:51Speaker 4: whatever they do, because that kind of training is like
- 38:56Speaker 4: an athlete.
- 38:57Speaker 5: I want to talk about another training you've probably got.
- 39:00Speaker 5: You know, you carry yourself with a certain sense of legalness,
- 39:03Speaker 5: right and when you look at Debbie Allen, when you
- 39:06Speaker 5: look at fore Lisha Rashad, they have that same regal energy.
- 39:10Speaker 1: What did those two teach you?
- 39:12Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, everything, I mean, Debbie was ahead of me.
- 39:17Speaker 4: So every time people told me, well, you're mostly a dancer,
- 39:23Speaker 4: we don't know about you acting, or you're a comic actress,
- 39:27Speaker 4: we don't know about you doing drama, in my mind,
- 39:29Speaker 4: I go Debbie dead. I just let them tell me
- 39:33Speaker 4: what they thought I couldn't do. And it wasn't just
- 39:36Speaker 4: that I knew I could. She's already done it.
- 39:40Speaker 3: She just did it.
- 39:42Speaker 4: She had two lines in the Fame movie when you
- 39:46Speaker 4: see her next she's directing, choreographing the show she's producing.
- 39:55Speaker 3: You can't let other people tell you what you can do.
- 39:57Speaker 3: You don't know.
- 39:58Speaker 4: And the other mantra had, especially like when people were
- 40:03Speaker 4: certain choreographers.
- 40:05Speaker 3: You know, it's not a nice world, the dance world.
- 40:09Speaker 4: So they're reading me or cussing me out, whatever, And
- 40:12Speaker 4: I would say, you don't know, you're not God all
- 40:16Speaker 4: I in my mind, So I wouldn't cry because I
- 40:20Speaker 4: was like, don't you know, don't you stand up here
- 40:22Speaker 4: and let him make you cry, because he's saying, you know,
- 40:26Speaker 4: you think you're something, you'll never be anything.
- 40:29Speaker 3: And I was like, you don't know, you're not God,
- 40:32Speaker 3: that's right. How you gonna proclaim my destiny? You know?
- 40:38Speaker 4: So you have to be able to talk to yourself.
- 40:41Speaker 4: And Debbie is the same way, Felicia is the same way.
- 40:44Speaker 4: They have a sense of self. Because Debbie told me
- 40:48Speaker 4: about how they rejected her at North Carolina School of
- 40:52Speaker 4: the Yards because she didn't have a body for dance,
- 40:55Speaker 4: because she got a booty in whatever.
- 40:58Speaker 3: And she said and I took this booty all the
- 41:00Speaker 3: way to Broadway.
- 41:01Speaker 4: Darling. You know, okay, you don't want me in your school,
- 41:06Speaker 4: Well I'm gonna go to Howard and then I'm gonna
- 41:10Speaker 4: be on Broadway and then and then and then. You
- 41:14Speaker 4: can't let other people tell you what you are and
- 41:16Speaker 4: what you're not. Yeah, And I refuse that. I refuse
- 41:20Speaker 4: that on just a general level. Like there were little
- 41:25Speaker 4: dancers in my class that were great dancers, but a
- 41:28Speaker 4: little chunky or whatever. And I heard how the teachers
- 41:32Speaker 4: talked to them, you know, destroying them.
- 41:37Speaker 3: How dare you?
- 41:38Speaker 4: How dare you take your responsibility and do that to her?
- 41:42Speaker 4: You'll know what she's gonna be, and you're only gonna
- 41:46Speaker 4: go with skinny, tall people.
- 41:50Speaker 3: I just don't like that.
- 41:51Speaker 4: If you don't teach kids in art form, don't add
- 41:54Speaker 4: your bitter two cents to it because you didn't with
- 41:58Speaker 4: your fat ass.
- 42:00Speaker 5: That's not that's not politically correct. The political correct term
- 42:03Speaker 5: is big back.
- 42:04Speaker 3: No, it's not just do women say that or is
- 42:08Speaker 3: that a malt.
- 42:11Speaker 1: Discovered.
- 42:11Speaker 3: I'm not saying term ud think I'm gay he discovered.
- 42:20Speaker 3: I'm no, that baby got big bag go down right
- 42:27Speaker 3: coming from us that's.
- 42:32Speaker 4: It just comes up every now and then, and if
- 42:35Speaker 4: they don't see me with a man, like when I
- 42:37Speaker 4: was I was at an Oscar party of Georgia's and
- 42:42Speaker 4: I was dancing with Debbie and all the fame dancers
- 42:46Speaker 4: were there, like, you know, she keeps all her people.
- 42:49Speaker 4: They got me, you know photo the week me and
- 42:51Speaker 4: Debbie and they're talking about me and the hair salon.
- 42:55Speaker 3: I knew it.
- 42:55Speaker 4: I think they together, and Norm calls me he loved it.
- 43:00Speaker 3: I said, well, I'm single. I don't like that. He said, yeah,
- 43:04Speaker 3: that's some funny.
- 43:05Speaker 4: I said, funny for you because you're like, yeah, I'm
- 43:10Speaker 4: with Debbie and she's with Jasmine. And then it came
- 43:14Speaker 4: up when I was at a last you know, I
- 43:18Speaker 4: don't know what it is.
- 43:19Speaker 3: I don't care, but it's just I don't want to
- 43:23Speaker 3: have to undo it. Yeah. And then you know, in
- 43:28Speaker 3: New York it was I got hit on and stuff
- 43:31Speaker 3: and I was like, okay, but what made you think
- 43:34Speaker 3: that I like bother me?
- 43:38Speaker 4: You know, I was just developing into my womanhood.
- 43:47Speaker 3: I didn't.
- 43:50Speaker 4: And it was funk night and I would go there
- 43:53Speaker 4: by myself. Sometimes you can't always have somebody come with you.
- 43:56Speaker 4: You know, and so some sometimes I think it's because
- 44:00Speaker 4: I'm alone. And then, you know, my best friend at
- 44:05Speaker 4: a Lea's, we were walking through the park and unbeknownst
- 44:08Speaker 4: to us, we were walking in the.
- 44:10Speaker 3: Wooded gay area.
- 44:18Speaker 4: The valley, the jail, the okay, somebody's saw it there
- 44:34Speaker 4: and you didn't know we were in a certain area
- 44:36Speaker 4: or whatever, because I don't know. And then when I
- 44:40Speaker 4: got back to the school, they were like, you know,
- 44:42Speaker 4: they're saying that you and so and so, and I
- 44:44Speaker 4: was like, I don't even have a boyfriend.
- 44:48Speaker 3: How can I have a girlfriend? Okay, like I can't
- 44:52Speaker 3: even work. You know, it doesn't bother me.
- 44:55Speaker 4: But when I was younger, it did because I was
- 44:58Speaker 4: still developing.
- 45:00Speaker 3: And it was pulling up on you. I was developing
- 45:03Speaker 3: as a young woman. Yeah, would you ever do a memoir?
- 45:07Speaker 5: I know, I mean, you know you got done sensitly
- 45:08Speaker 5: coming out this weekend, But would you ever do a memoir?
- 45:12Speaker 4: I would need I would need some help, you know,
- 45:15Speaker 4: I would just need some help. I can't write it
- 45:17Speaker 4: myself by myself.
- 45:19Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, most people get help with them memoir.
- 45:22Speaker 5: Because I loved reading Jada Pinkett's book Worthy, because like,
- 45:26Speaker 5: you know, and we were saying early and you were
- 45:27Speaker 5: saying it was such a privacy in the nineties.
- 45:29Speaker 1: So to get those stories from that era.
- 45:32Speaker 5: When she talks about you and you know, poking, just
- 45:36Speaker 5: yourll friendship, just that friendship of black Hollywood.
- 45:38Speaker 1: It's just like man.
- 45:40Speaker 3: And now I was like.
- 45:43Speaker 4: Privileged enough to hang with them because there's so much
- 45:46Speaker 4: younger than me, you know, and it was just easy.
- 45:52Speaker 4: You know, her birthday party and we went to The Dragonfly,
- 45:56Speaker 4: which was funk night that night.
- 46:00Speaker 3: He was an, I like me some funk.
- 46:03Speaker 4: Obviously, I'm like, it's fuck Nay, you're a Dragonfly. But
- 46:08Speaker 4: and you know, accepting of me because so I think,
- 46:16Speaker 4: hold is Jada fifty?
- 46:17Speaker 1: I don't know, let me look it up.
- 46:19Speaker 3: I think, well, I'm sixty two.
- 46:20Speaker 4: So when I'm on the show, I'm twenty five, twenty six,
- 46:24Speaker 4: twenty seven.
- 46:25Speaker 3: They eighteen nineteen. Yeah, so now it's not a big deal.
- 46:31Speaker 3: But back then, I wasn't hanging out with no you know.
- 46:35Speaker 4: I remember I went to a restaurant with Cree and
- 46:39Speaker 4: as we were walking to the restaurant, she said, do
- 46:42Speaker 4: they card? I said, card, I mean, I'd never I
- 46:45Speaker 4: had never been carded because eighteen, you know, I said,
- 46:50Speaker 4: how old are you? She said, I just turned eighteen.
- 46:54Speaker 4: I said, what the hell am I doing hanging out with?
- 46:57Speaker 3: Are you kidding me? Condeemed too. I saw them as kids.
- 47:05Speaker 4: I like grown ass men when I was young, thirty
- 47:09Speaker 4: thirty two, so that you know, it's like eighteen.
- 47:14Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 47:14Speaker 4: But now that they have embraced me yet, I appreciate
- 47:20Speaker 4: it because they kept me current and kept me interested
- 47:26Speaker 4: because they.
- 47:28Speaker 3: Jada and Cree are out the box thinkers. You know.
- 47:32Speaker 4: They bring creative ideas to the table that I never
- 47:35Speaker 4: would have thought of.
- 47:37Speaker 3: And I love that.
- 47:38Speaker 4: And and of course you know, keeps me laughing, Park.
- 47:45Speaker 3: And I would like that too. He always had ideas.
- 47:49Speaker 4: I felt so unaccomplished, you know, because he would say
- 47:55Speaker 4: something and then do it.
- 47:57Speaker 3: I would tell him an idea.
- 48:00Speaker 4: And not write it and not finish it, or it's
- 48:03Speaker 4: still like on my shelf. Mostly I wanted him to
- 48:10Speaker 4: know that I felt he was a great actor. And
- 48:14Speaker 4: I heard the murmurings of, oh, he's just being himself
- 48:18Speaker 4: or whatever. They're just writing on his fame as a rapper.
- 48:21Speaker 4: I said, everybody that raps ain't acting on there There
- 48:26Speaker 4: were a lot of rappers that had movies that man
- 48:29Speaker 4: can act. Yeah, I mean his performances were I have
- 48:34Speaker 4: to change. And I just wanted him to know that
- 48:38Speaker 4: and not listen to that. One time in Newsweek, they
- 48:41Speaker 4: used to have little blurbs like Star of the Week
- 48:46Speaker 4: or Celebrity of the week, just a little blurb, and
- 48:49Speaker 4: they said, and surprisingly handsome rapper.
- 48:54Speaker 3: I said, what the fuck is surprise? How insulting he was?
- 48:59Speaker 3: Find of shit? It wasn't.
- 49:07Speaker 4: Why was that surprising? He's supposed to be ugly because
- 49:11Speaker 4: he's a rapper. I found it racist. Then when I
- 49:15Speaker 4: got to when I won one of my Image awards
- 49:18Speaker 4: and I go to the press tent, there were two
- 49:22Speaker 4: little white girls there and all they did was ask
- 49:26Speaker 4: me about what I felt about Tupac getting an Image award.
- 49:31Speaker 3: Now, meanwhile, I have my award, it's my.
- 49:34Speaker 4: Sixth one, and I'm not even prepared to you know
- 49:39Speaker 4: how they'd like to bring up dirt when you had
- 49:41Speaker 4: a bread carpet.
- 49:43Speaker 3: And I was thinking, what are y'all doing here?
- 49:46Speaker 4: This is our party, you know, and you're crashing our
- 49:51Speaker 4: party and asking me to tell some dirt about somebody
- 49:55Speaker 4: else here. So I wasn't in the most receiving way.
- 50:01Speaker 4: They kept asking me if I thought he deserved an
- 50:04Speaker 4: image of Ward and I said, well, I don't know
- 50:07Speaker 4: what the controversy is. Well, you know, because of Dolorus,
- 50:12Speaker 4: Tucker and this, that and the other, and I didn't know.
- 50:14Speaker 4: And I said, well, can you tell me which songs
- 50:18Speaker 4: you're referring to? At the time, I had only heard
- 50:22Speaker 4: Dear Mama, Brenda had a baby and keep your head up.
- 50:25Speaker 4: I honestly didn't know what the controversy was about, because
- 50:29Speaker 4: these are all uplifting female And she said, well, I
- 50:35Speaker 4: don't know which song.
- 50:37Speaker 3: I haven't heard the CD.
- 50:39Speaker 4: I said, well, why don't you do your homework and
- 50:42Speaker 4: then come to me and asked me. I was so mad,
- 50:47Speaker 4: And in the back of the house there were two
- 50:50Speaker 4: brothers like this. They were from Jetton Ebony, you know,
- 50:54Speaker 4: because I'm like, how dare you come to our party,
- 50:58Speaker 4: insult our guests and don't even know what the hell
- 51:02Speaker 4: you talking about?
- 51:05Speaker 3: But I'm supposed to know.
- 51:08Speaker 4: They were on the radio those three songs, and they
- 51:13Speaker 4: come in like they.
- 51:14Speaker 3: Well, we just are bad. We just that may hell.
- 51:19Speaker 4: Oh my god. I was so glad. So the next
- 51:21Speaker 4: day I was in the LA times, I have my
- 51:24Speaker 4: ward up like this and my nostrils and I don't
- 51:30Speaker 4: know what they said, but my publicists called me and
- 51:33Speaker 4: she was like, you know, there are there are white
- 51:36Speaker 4: actresses that don't get hired because their breasts are too big.
- 51:39Speaker 4: I was like, first of all, I don't have to
- 51:44Speaker 4: run everything by you for me to speak. You know,
- 51:48Speaker 4: if you wanted to be.
- 51:49Speaker 3: By my side, you should have been by there. But
- 51:52Speaker 3: what was she gonna do? Interrupt me? You disrespecting us,
- 51:56Speaker 3: You disrespecting me and they and the faint.
- 52:01Speaker 4: He saw that article and heard that I stood up
- 52:05Speaker 4: for him, and.
- 52:06Speaker 3: She never forgot that.
- 52:09Speaker 4: And I think that's part of why she was cool
- 52:12Speaker 4: with him staying with.
- 52:14Speaker 1: Me after you got shut Yeah.
- 52:17Speaker 4: Because she didn't based on what they knew about me
- 52:20Speaker 4: and seeing me on the show, she didn't realize that.
- 52:23Speaker 3: I was like that, you know what I mean?
- 52:26Speaker 4: And they're very much soldiers in that. One of her
- 52:32Speaker 4: friends said, oh, you a soldier now, and I was like,
- 52:36Speaker 4: I'm sorry, are we at war?
- 52:39Speaker 3: I didn't know what she meant.
- 52:40Speaker 5: By were you afraid during that time? Like when you
- 52:42Speaker 5: took Pokin after he got shot? Did you feel like
- 52:44Speaker 5: what if they come looking for him.
- 52:46Speaker 4: And yeah, there were times because of the the regularity
- 52:53Speaker 4: of my going in and out of my apartment, I
- 52:57Speaker 4: felt like it would be easy if I had been
- 52:59Speaker 4: on radar for anybody.
- 53:01Speaker 3: To you know, follow me or come up. And so
- 53:05Speaker 3: there was that.
- 53:07Speaker 4: And I didn't live in a secured building like a
- 53:10Speaker 4: doorman building, and I was scared of but like I
- 53:19Speaker 4: had never seen a real bullet wound, just you know
- 53:22Speaker 4: on TV like NYPD Blue and when I.
- 53:25Speaker 3: Played a badass in this movie.
- 53:27Speaker 4: But I was concerned about that, you know, actually caring
- 53:31Speaker 4: for the wounds and making sure he was gonna be okay.
- 53:37Speaker 3: Yeah, he should have been in the.
- 53:38Speaker 4: Hospital for at least two or three more days on antibiotics.
- 53:42Speaker 1: Everybody has walked out.
- 53:43Speaker 2: He signed himself out, so you had to help him
- 53:44Speaker 2: out and help meet and help him get himself back together.
- 53:46Speaker 4: But he when he left Bellevue, he went to his
- 53:50Speaker 4: girlfriends and he realized it was equally accessible. He just
- 53:56Speaker 4: felt like a sitting duck in the hospital. But everybody
- 54:00Speaker 4: knew who he was at his girlfriends. Nobody knew that
- 54:04Speaker 4: we were friends. So him coming to my apartment was
- 54:07Speaker 4: more diary of Frank I just put food under the bookcase.
- 54:14Speaker 3: But yeah, it was on the down load.
- 54:18Speaker 4: I didn't know what kind of publicity might have come
- 54:23Speaker 4: from that, but it wasn't anything I was interested in publicizing.
- 54:27Speaker 4: So I just shut the family down.
- 54:30Speaker 3: I was like, did you tell anybody where those you knew?
- 54:34Speaker 1: You know?
- 54:35Speaker 3: Because I didn't do that for that reason.
- 54:38Speaker 4: It was a personal reason, and that was one of
- 54:42Speaker 4: those moments where you know, y'all don't get that, and
- 54:46Speaker 4: they they respected it all these years until the documentary,
- 54:50Speaker 4: they've been wanting to, I guess, thank me, but their
- 54:57Speaker 4: love and I'm part of that.
- 55:01Speaker 3: Family now has been enough.
- 55:03Speaker 4: I don't need public thanks for what I did on
- 55:06Speaker 4: a personal level. So it's interesting the documentary said, Okay, Jasmine,
- 55:16Speaker 4: you can talk about that part of it now, because
- 55:19Speaker 4: I really thought, well, just you know, I'll go to
- 55:22Speaker 4: my grave with certain things. Not because I'm ashamed, but
- 55:27Speaker 4: I don't like the exploitation factor of things that you
- 55:30Speaker 4: do in your personal life for your kids or for
- 55:34Speaker 4: people you love or whatever.
- 55:35Speaker 5: You know, it was your story, I mean, he said
- 55:38Speaker 5: in the doc Jaya talked about it in her book.
- 55:40Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a she called me and tell me
- 55:43Speaker 3: what was in the book. This is all I said.
- 55:46Speaker 3: I didn't talk about this about that.
- 55:48Speaker 4: And I really was calling her more for support because
- 55:52Speaker 4: when I wrote a fane's book, I didn't know all
- 55:56Speaker 4: the other stuff you have to do for a book,
- 56:01Speaker 4: bok tours, you know, And I just wanted to make
- 56:04Speaker 4: sure she was And there was a kind of loneliness
- 56:09Speaker 4: to her story to me, No jaj there's a loneliness
- 56:17Speaker 4: like the bigger and richer and you get more isolated,
- 56:22Speaker 4: you know, there's more things you can't do and you
- 56:25Speaker 4: always have to I don't know, so I just I
- 56:30Speaker 4: just didn't want her to feel that loneliness. She could
- 56:32Speaker 4: talk to me about whatever, because that was some It
- 56:36Speaker 4: was a lot of personal information. Her gauge is way
- 56:40Speaker 4: past mind. That's what I mean about the younger ones.
- 56:44Speaker 4: They showed me that I don't have to be that
- 56:47Speaker 4: old school about my press.
- 56:51Speaker 3: Let's go say you.
- 56:52Speaker 6: You didn't say you know, when Tupac stayed with you,
- 56:55Speaker 6: you saw that like you ain't gonna go in it
- 56:57Speaker 6: like that.
- 56:58Speaker 3: I didn't tell nobody.
- 57:01Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean when my family saw the documentary, my
- 57:05Speaker 4: best friend said what I told two people and they
- 57:10Speaker 4: both lived in New York because why tell somebody that
- 57:14Speaker 4: can get to me, because I did. I was worried
- 57:17Speaker 4: that anything could happen, you know. And those two people,
- 57:22Speaker 4: two of my friends that lived in New York, that
- 57:24Speaker 4: was it. So all my other friends, I just because
- 57:28Speaker 4: two weeks is on a long period for me not
- 57:33Speaker 4: to call you. I wasn't missed yet, you know, maybe
- 57:37Speaker 4: had It's been a month.
- 57:40Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 57:41Speaker 4: So now when that documentary came out, a lot of
- 57:43Speaker 4: my friends were like.
- 57:47Speaker 3: When did this happen? Were you staying? How come I didn't.
- 57:50Speaker 4: Know HD his girlfriend at the time. I have a
- 57:53Speaker 4: problem with that because that's part guy. So you know,
- 57:57Speaker 4: I have no idea child. I wasn't doing.
- 58:01Speaker 3: Twenty one, you know what I mean. I'm not like
- 58:05Speaker 3: your girlfriend.
- 58:06Speaker 4: And it was dire, it was I mean, he was
- 58:10Speaker 4: in trouble, yeah, and he was still open, like it
- 58:15Speaker 4: wasn't healed yet, you know. So I wasn't thinking about that. Yeah,
- 58:20Speaker 4: they got back together a thing.
- 58:22Speaker 3: They got back together.
- 58:24Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure you talk about this only since that.
- 58:25Speaker 5: This is my last question, like, when's the last time
- 58:27Speaker 5: you spoke to him? Like before you die, do you
- 58:32Speaker 5: remember the last conversation in your head or the last
- 58:34Speaker 5: time you saw him.
- 58:35Speaker 4: I was visiting a Feeny and Stone Mountain when they
- 58:39Speaker 4: had a house there.
- 58:42Speaker 3: And he came through. Now this is after he had
- 58:44Speaker 3: been in prison for eleven months. Okay, I've seen him
- 58:47Speaker 3: for a while. Yeah, so I saw him at the house.
- 58:50Speaker 3: That was the last time.
- 58:54Speaker 1: You remember the conversation or you don't, that's personal.
- 58:58Speaker 4: It was just like hey, you know, and he was like,
- 59:02Speaker 4: I'm strong now because he was.
- 59:03Speaker 3: He was, you know, infirmed.
- 59:07Speaker 4: So he wanted me to see his you know, little
- 59:10Speaker 4: prison push up muscles.
- 59:13Speaker 3: Because we're all black from doing it on you know,
- 59:16Speaker 3: he wanted. I was like, yeah, you look good.
- 59:20Speaker 4: And then he went out with his friends and you know,
- 59:23Speaker 4: I hung out with a fainting The thing that really
- 59:26Speaker 4: hurt my feelings about him getting shot like that. When
- 59:32Speaker 4: he was with me, I thought I was helping him
- 59:37Speaker 4: go to the next part of his life, like grow.
- 59:45Speaker 4: I was like, you're gonna get You're gonna go to prison,
- 59:48Speaker 4: and then you get shot again. And I knew that
- 59:55Speaker 4: second shooting wasn't the wounds he had the first time,
- 1:00:00Speaker 4: wearing his appendages.
- 1:00:02Speaker 3: Not in his lungs. I'm so disappointed.
- 1:00:14Speaker 6: Yeah, and he told me he was gonna it wasn't
- 1:00:19Speaker 6: gonna make it past twenty five.
- 1:00:21Speaker 3: I always thought he was just talking shit.
- 1:00:23Speaker 1: All the time.
- 1:00:25Speaker 3: That's legend. Put that in the book. I was like,
- 1:00:27Speaker 3: I'm not writing a book about you. I'm telling you that.
- 1:00:34Speaker 3: I'd be like, I'm never telling anybody anything about this experience.
- 1:00:40Speaker 4: Nah, you need to you know, blunt in the baptib like,
- 1:00:44Speaker 4: you need to put this in the book.
- 1:00:46Speaker 3: What am I?
- 1:00:46Speaker 4: You're fucking now, I'm you're a chronicler. Yeah, And he
- 1:00:52Speaker 4: kept telling me he was like twenty one, and I
- 1:00:57Speaker 4: really didn't understand that world.
- 1:01:00Speaker 3: He knew. I wasn't from it.
- 1:01:04Speaker 4: I thought it was ridiculous for him to say he
- 1:01:06Speaker 4: wasn't going to live past twenty five. I treated him
- 1:01:11Speaker 4: like I treated my little cousins that make these statements
- 1:01:15Speaker 4: about life.
- 1:01:18Speaker 3: So that hurts.
- 1:01:22Speaker 2: I can't wait people to hear your story.
- 1:01:24Speaker 1: You live the life guy. You got to watch him
- 1:01:26Speaker 1: since this Sunday.
- 1:01:27Speaker 2: March twenty four, Central TV one.
- 1:01:30Speaker 3: You gonna make me. I'm gonna take my lashes off
- 1:01:32Speaker 3: because I'm going to know yea with lashes if you.
- 1:01:38Speaker 1: Take them off and put them on ebit, No, I
- 1:01:40Speaker 1: forgot I got you.
- 1:01:42Speaker 3: I watch the going.
- 1:01:44Speaker 4: Make sure they know it's not roaches or a spider
- 1:01:46Speaker 4: because they like you, just put them on.
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: All My lesson for Jasmine guy.
- 1:01:54Speaker 5: Ladies, always the pleasure when guy love you so much. Lady,
- 1:01:58Speaker 5: you are a cultural We appreciate you so much, we
- 1:02:01Speaker 5: value you.
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: Just thank you always.
- 1:02:03Speaker 3: Now, thank you.
- 1:02:04Speaker 2: It's Jazmine Guy, It's the Breakfast Club.
- 1:02:06Speaker 1: Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning. The
- 1:02:09Speaker 1: Breakfast Club