Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Coy and today we have very special
Speaker 1: guest reality star mister Rays in the Building.
Speaker 2: Star og Media Moguls is in the building.
Speaker 3: Man of many titles and many jobs. Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, And that's kind of how the industry is, right.
Speaker 3: That's how LA is. You can't just be a one
Speaker 3: trick The rent is always do. You got to be
Speaker 3: able to make it move when when jobs ain't moving.
Speaker 1: And if you're a millennial, you've been through so many
Speaker 1: shockwaves from like you know, COVID, the writers strike. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's just there's always something. You know, before that there
Speaker 1: was the Alway crash of real estate. So now you
Speaker 1: just you know, you have to have multiple jobs.
Speaker 3: We have to be able to adapt and improvise and overcome.
Speaker 3: Like when I was doing reality television, then COVID came
Speaker 3: and nobody was swimming anything. So I went to grad school,
Speaker 3: got my master's and I wrote a book that ended
Speaker 3: up being a bestseller on Amazon. Uh. Then when the
Speaker 3: writer strike happened, there was no more TV happening again.
Speaker 3: So I went and learned how to be a producer,
Speaker 3: so cause there were still projects being produced, but there
Speaker 3: was no actors acting. So I was able to learn
Speaker 3: how to be a talent producer and learn the you know,
Speaker 3: the inner workings of how to warn a production thanks
Speaker 3: to Hellionaire Productions. Shout out to Jamie. And then even
Speaker 3: when things got back to normal, I decided I wanted
Speaker 3: to work in the community and do stuff, you know,
Speaker 3: help give back and help some Los Angeles students go
Speaker 3: to school so they can have the same kind of
Speaker 3: HBCU experience that I had. So I've been working with
Speaker 3: United Negro College Fund and the Black College Expo and
Speaker 3: just I just God has blessed me to be multi
Speaker 3: talented and be able to exist in a lot of spaces.
Speaker 1: Since we talking about a lot of spaces. Yes, don't
Speaker 1: you tell me what you're gonna feed me. I am starving, guys.
Speaker 1: It is lunchtime over here, so I will be eating
Speaker 1: the full dish and the little crumbs.
Speaker 2: So what are you gonna have me eating today?
Speaker 3: So we're gonna make mister Ray's tacos. Since we're in
Speaker 3: LA and everybody eats healthy out here, We're gonna use
Speaker 3: checking oh excuse, We're gonna use turkey meat. We're trying
Speaker 3: to eat healthy, eat right for our blood type out here.
Speaker 3: So we used turkey. I got some secret ingredients. We
Speaker 3: got our tomatoes, our onions, our cheese, our lettuce, our sauca.
Speaker 3: This is a special hot sausa. If you have sinuses,
Speaker 3: this will clear you out. Okay, in both ways, I am.
Speaker 3: I'm scared that what are your secret ingredients?
Speaker 2: Come on?
Speaker 3: So anywhile broke in college, I ate on a budget,
Speaker 3: but I came from very humble beginnings. But I still
Speaker 3: ate well. And then of course when you get to college,
Speaker 3: my dad was like, okay, you on your own. You
Speaker 3: need to get you a job or you know, work
Speaker 3: on campus, get some extra money because we're paying for
Speaker 3: you to be in school. So I wanted to eat
Speaker 3: how I ate it home, So I had to improvise
Speaker 3: with a couple of things. So there was a top
Speaker 3: China carry out right near us. There was the grocery
Speaker 3: store right near of food. It was called food Line
Speaker 3: in Virginia shout out to Virginia State University. So I
Speaker 3: would go get the meat, the tacos. We would watch
Speaker 3: one O six in park. When I used to come
Speaker 3: on in six o'clock, we watched one on six in
Speaker 3: Park and I would make tacos for us to eat
Speaker 3: and then we would go back to schools. Back then,
Speaker 3: in college, I was the mascot, so we had band practice,
Speaker 3: so I had to go learn the dances and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. So we would eat tacos, watch one O
Speaker 3: six in park, and then go back to campus. So
Speaker 3: this was my version of a gourmet taco. Well, go ahead,
Speaker 3: so I use soy sauce. I know it sounds crazy,
Speaker 3: but I had so many soy sauce packets from eating
Speaker 3: Chinese food to go in college. I used to use
Speaker 3: it as a seasoning because I was like, it's amazing.
Speaker 3: It's amazing, So my hands are clean.
Speaker 2: Go for it.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're not gonna end up touch the meat a
Speaker 3: lot though, right, No, I'm not touching that I've seen.
Speaker 1: It's actually put their hands on the meat and then
Speaker 1: they touch their hair by accident.
Speaker 3: Those are the same people who probably don't know the
Speaker 3: difference between a wash face cloth and a body cloth.
Speaker 3: So you know, chicken cooks, turkey and chicken, all those
Speaker 3: cook pretty fast.
Speaker 2: So you don't need the oil, right because it's I
Speaker 2: guess it has its own fat.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna use a little bit of oil, not a lot,
Speaker 3: just a drop, because it's yeah, it's a little bit
Speaker 3: on that side, that's a lot, right, Well, you gotta
Speaker 3: get it cooking. Now, we don't see I'm judging.
Speaker 2: I'm a I'm a I'm a side side host.
Speaker 3: I want to see when the soy sauce.
Speaker 2: When when the soy sauce enters the pan? So he
Speaker 2: got the Okay, I'll narrate. So, Okay, he's he's brown
Speaker 2: in the meat taco seasoning.
Speaker 3: See, when you're not using beef and you're using like
Speaker 3: turkey stuff like that, you really have to season your meat.
Speaker 2: And we like good meat, right, a whole packet. We
Speaker 2: learned on one episode that we're not supposed to use
Speaker 2: the whole packete us.
Speaker 3: Some chef I'm from I'm from Virginia. We cook, Okay,
Speaker 3: we seasoned, we cooked, We brown our meat. Make sure
Speaker 3: it tastes great. It's supposed to be a party in
Speaker 3: your mouth. Yeah, exactly like that. Good all right.
Speaker 1: So take me back to what was going on in
Speaker 1: the tackle making days.
Speaker 3: So in Virginia State University, I was in school. I
Speaker 3: was a mass calm major. I'm just using a little
Speaker 3: bit of a little onion powdered.
Speaker 1: Little onion powder after he added the entire taco seasoning.
Speaker 2: Packet Italian power. Are you gonna add garlic powder?
Speaker 3: No, we ain't doing all that now.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, I feel like those two are married for life.
Speaker 3: But yeah, college was a great time. It was the
Speaker 3: best four years of my life. Figured out who I was,
Speaker 3: came and started living in my truth. I think that's
Speaker 3: where mister Ray was developed. Know. I grew up in
Speaker 3: a pretty conservative family. You know, I'm the young this
Speaker 3: boy of the four siblings. My dad and I are
Speaker 3: best friends. My grandmother and I are best friends. I
Speaker 3: grew up in Virginia with my father and my mother
Speaker 3: was actually here in California. So every summer, every summer,
Speaker 3: fall break, Christmas break, spring break, I was out here.
Speaker 2: So wait a minute, So your dad raised you by himself.
Speaker 3: I have a stepmother as well. Yeah, yeah, I have
Speaker 3: a step mother and a stepfather. So I got an
Speaker 3: East Coast family and a West Coast friend. So I
Speaker 3: ain't new to La. I been here. I'm a co native,
Speaker 3: uh since nineteen You're the youngest, I'm the baby, I'm
Speaker 3: my mom's only Oh, my dad has other children. I
Speaker 3: have half.
Speaker 2: Siblings, but you're the youngest.
Speaker 3: I'm the baby of all.
Speaker 2: And then I'm.
Speaker 3: Guessing they separated.
Speaker 2: And then they.
Speaker 3: Separated, and then my father remarried, and my mother moved
Speaker 3: back here and she remarried. Okay, so I was. I
Speaker 3: grew up. I was. I was living a good life.
Speaker 3: I got to, you know, live in Virginia, come to
Speaker 3: La every break. So like Hollywood, it wasn't new to
Speaker 3: me when I got into it. I knew where everything
Speaker 3: was pretty much. And I had friends out here.
Speaker 2: Oh he's at in the soil, a little bit of
Speaker 2: so and soft.
Speaker 3: Now, this is the college hookup we had used to
Speaker 3: I used to use packets of this. I'm telling you,
Speaker 3: you're it's gonna be so good. I am definitely curious, cause,
Speaker 3: you know, a black colleges, we have to make do
Speaker 3: with what we have. A lot of soy sauce. It's
Speaker 3: gonna cook down. You're not gonna taste it.
Speaker 2: They gonna see this.
Speaker 3: Man. I hope it's delicious. It's amazing. It is amazing.
Speaker 2: That much.
Speaker 3: No, it's not. I hate dry meat.
Speaker 2: I yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: I just caught that. But No, in college, we were
Speaker 3: just cooking on the budget. We were trying to make
Speaker 3: things taste good with what we have. We used condiments everything. So,
Speaker 3: you know, I just I came to California in the
Speaker 3: summers and I would watch my grandmother and my mother cook.
Speaker 3: And because my grandmother retired from Compton High School, she
Speaker 3: had a lot of Hispanic homegirls had a lot of
Speaker 3: friends out here. My grandmother got the hookup everywhere she went,
Speaker 3: still does, and they made the best tacos. And I
Speaker 3: would sit and watch those women make tacos, and then
Speaker 3: I would go back to Virginia. You know, we eating
Speaker 3: pig feet, port neck, all kinds of stuff, and they're
Speaker 3: not gonna taco but like Chipotle was the boom of
Speaker 3: Mexican food in Virginia, I promise you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you said that in college you discover your true self.
Speaker 2: What does that mean?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I grew up in the era of
Speaker 3: being very conservative, don't ask, and you don't tell your
Speaker 3: business to nobody. So when I was casting for college
Speaker 3: here on my first show that I did, we trited
Speaker 3: filming in the fall of my senior year and it
Speaker 3: aired that spring. I admitted what I admitted, my sensuality
Speaker 3: on national television. At the time, I thought the world
Speaker 3: was over. I was trying my best. I was blowing
Speaker 3: on beans, like you cannot air that my I have
Speaker 3: not said. I have not told my parents. I have
Speaker 3: not told my family. Like saying you're gay and being
Speaker 3: gay are two different conversations, And at that time, I
Speaker 3: just actually knowing it. Knowing your gay is okay, you
Speaker 3: know you're gay, you know what you like. But saying
Speaker 3: it verbally to someone else other than yourself in the mirror,
Speaker 3: it's a crazy experience, okay. And I wasn't really ready
Speaker 3: for it, and it made me the first black gay
Speaker 3: reality personality ever on BET. So. I know I made history,
Speaker 3: but I thought I was about to be history because
Speaker 3: I didn't know how my dad was gonna react. But
Speaker 3: it actually allowed us to get so much closer and
Speaker 3: talk with each other and to share everything. There's nothing
Speaker 3: you can tell my dad right now today that he
Speaker 3: doesn't already know about good, bad, embarrassing, whatever. We talk
Speaker 3: like that. That's that situation taught us. But I know
Speaker 3: that's not like that for everybody. I did have some relatives.
Speaker 3: It was a little feisty about it, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: what do you matter. What do you care? This is
Speaker 3: my body, this is my life.
Speaker 2: Were they mad because you said it on national television?
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they had to deal with You know again,
Speaker 3: I came from I was from Virginia, so everybody knew everybody.
Speaker 3: Everybody knew everybody's family, everybody worked together, went the church together,
Speaker 3: was at the grocery store together. Like everybody knew everybody.
Speaker 3: So it was It's not that it was a secret either,
Speaker 3: Like if you knew me, you knew you. I'm saying Dad,
Speaker 3: was he shocked or was he like, boy, it wasn't
Speaker 3: shocked at all. I don't ever, You're not gonna make
Speaker 3: me believe that my dad was shocked. I think he
Speaker 3: was just more so disappointed that I did not have
Speaker 3: that conversation with him first, because he thought that we
Speaker 3: were closer than that. We're close, But how do you
Speaker 3: tell your black dad hed dad as the only as
Speaker 3: the youngest boy, I like men, how many other boys
Speaker 3: does he have? Oh I have a step brother, Oh
Speaker 3: step I'm the namesake. I'm the third. There's two other
Speaker 3: rays in front of me, him and my grandfather. And
Speaker 3: it's just, you know, I just think it was that
Speaker 3: you have a step brother.
Speaker 1: So you're technically the youngest boy, the youngest boy of
Speaker 1: his Yes, yes, okay.
Speaker 3: My brother was having kids when I came to live
Speaker 3: with my dad and my stepmother, and then my oldest
Speaker 3: sister was having kids when I came. So I grew
Speaker 3: up with four of my nieces like we were brothers
Speaker 3: and sister. Yeah, so they're like, they're like, they're like
Speaker 3: between the ages of twenty eight and thirty five. Three
Speaker 3: of my nieces actually have sons. So I'm great uncle Ray.
Speaker 3: We aren't gonna say great uncle Ray, but I'm a
Speaker 3: great on go to three boys, uncle to five girls,
Speaker 3: and I have one nephew through my sister. Wow, I
Speaker 3: know it's a lot. Okay, So I don't need kids.
Speaker 2: Oh you don't want kids.
Speaker 3: Don't I'm forty. I don't want kids. I don't want
Speaker 3: to look like I don't gole pick it up my child.
Speaker 3: I'm forty.
Speaker 2: I have a three year old.
Speaker 3: So see you already have one at forty though, yeah, thirty,
Speaker 3: it started late. I started thirty seven. Well, see, this
Speaker 3: is my traveling era. This is my hilarious random.
Speaker 2: Era, forty years of Okay, I'm not gonna say.
Speaker 3: My nieces and nephews are my kids. Yeah, I'll trust me.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna sell you on that responsibility. So what
Speaker 2: are we gonna do next?
Speaker 3: Are we? So we're gonna get a taco?
Speaker 2: Yes, I gonna I'm gonna get two.
Speaker 3: We'll get yeah, I am too. Yeah, come on, let's
Speaker 3: let's not act like I was trying to be classy
Speaker 3: while we while we do our you don't have to
Speaker 3: be classy. So you gotta let me know if you taste,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna fall it. Go for it. Okay. Ooh, you
Speaker 3: can't get.
Speaker 2: To it's not at all.
Speaker 3: I told you it's good right, It's the meat. It
Speaker 3: is what makes the taco my goodness.
Speaker 2: Okay, may hook me up a little more.
Speaker 3: You want some more? Okay? And we also have cheese
Speaker 3: and onion. I told you were gonna like this. Which
Speaker 3: one you wanted? There? There you go? Thanks, put some
Speaker 3: more of your.
Speaker 2: Other one, thank you? Okay, So we just freak stout
Speaker 2: lettuce and tomato.
Speaker 3: So yeah, you put lettuce tomato right with the cheese.
Speaker 3: Let it melk. Let me taste the meat.
Speaker 2: Meat girl, boy, listen, listen, let me tell you something.
Speaker 2: That meat, that meat I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 2: if I want to give you that credit or that
Speaker 2: seasoning credits.
Speaker 3: No, that was the that was my secret ingredient. But
Speaker 3: I think it's the soy sauce cause it wasn't even
Speaker 3: boom it's And that's the thing when you even though
Speaker 3: you wanna eat healthy, you still want to have some season,
Speaker 3: get some you know, some juiciness.
Speaker 2: Let me just tell you something, guys, the soy sauce
Speaker 2: in the taco meat probably made like a world of
Speaker 2: a difference. And I promise you I will never make
Speaker 2: tacos without it.
Speaker 3: I told you the.
Speaker 2: Secret ingredient isn't a secret ingredient anymore.
Speaker 3: Right, the world now knows that mister Ray's the hot.
Speaker 2: Sauce with me taco the soy sauce.
Speaker 3: I say, a hot sauce. Oh no, we haven't got
Speaker 3: to the hot sauce yet. Hot sauce is amazing. Oop.
Speaker 2: Sorry, we're getting excited.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like, yeah, someone's house right now.
Speaker 3: I feel like we're sitting like you comfortable here. I'm
Speaker 3: very comfortable to add sour cream to this. You know what,
Speaker 3: As I've turned forty, uh, dairy products sometimes are not
Speaker 3: my friend in the middle of the day, so I
Speaker 3: pick and choose my sour cream battles.
Speaker 1: Now you don't consider sauce so like instead of hot sauce, like, baby,
Speaker 1: we just salsa it.
Speaker 3: I don't mind salt so like. I do have friends
Speaker 3: that prefer saucer. And then I prefer the green.
Speaker 2: I know he wants me to try this green.
Speaker 3: It comes it's so hot tall so oh my god.
Speaker 3: You put a lot in Chicago and this place called
Speaker 3: Burrito Beach and they had it and it was so good.
Speaker 3: And then, oh my god, it's amazing. Dad. It don't
Speaker 3: put too much. Friend, it's coming out so slow.
Speaker 2: That's so Jesus.
Speaker 3: All right, here we go.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm hungry, guys. I know you want to hear.
Speaker 3: The story, but hung I want to see how you
Speaker 3: like to taco.
Speaker 2: I know I'm gonna like it. I'm gonna I'm enjoy
Speaker 2: my first couple of bites before I get to hell.
Speaker 3: M mm hmmm the meat alone, me have the golk cup.
Speaker 3: It's the green. Oh no, it wasn't the green like
Speaker 3: the show. Oh hmm.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something. You killed it on the meat.
Speaker 3: Okay, that the best taco meat I've ever had. Oh
Speaker 3: my goodness, thank you. See I'm in my cooking era.
Speaker 3: I'm in my traveling era. I'm trying to get engaged. Era.
Speaker 3: Got the best way of somebody's harder to this stomach.
Speaker 3: Chased the green. It's a kick to it.
Speaker 2: Who you know what? I like it.
Speaker 3: That's flavor. It's hot, but it has a flavor to it.
Speaker 3: But just put a little dabs on it.
Speaker 2: We're gonna take a quick pause because I'm really right.
Speaker 3: We don't want any Ecco cameratersbody to eat.
Speaker 2: We're gonna eat for a second, and I'm gonna get
Speaker 2: into the shopping.
Speaker 3: But this is why everybody came over to my apartment.
Speaker 3: I made these tacos, and I used to tell all
Speaker 3: my friends save your save your soy sauce packets. That
Speaker 3: was so cord. We're gonna come back. We throw the commercials. Okay, ol,
Speaker 3: guys were back.
Speaker 2: All right, guys were back. Sorry. The food was so
Speaker 2: good that I had to call time out.
Speaker 3: Guy.
Speaker 2: We was really hungry, and I ate.
Speaker 1: I do want to do a special shout out to
Speaker 1: the soy sauce. I will say I've never thought to
Speaker 1: put soy sauce in taco meat. But if you've cooked
Speaker 1: with ground turkey, you know that it's typically dry. And
Speaker 1: I was clowning mister Ray because he was putting so much.
Speaker 3: I was scared.
Speaker 1: But it actually makes it a lot more softer and
Speaker 1: me that or you didn't overcook it. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but the meat came out really good. The flavoring was
Speaker 1: really good. So if you're at home, try the soy sauce,
Speaker 1: add the onion powder. As far as the hot sauce,
Speaker 1: I did try it. I got a little bit excited
Speaker 1: at the end. I thought I could handle it. My
Speaker 1: mouth is on absolute fire.
Speaker 3: Your notes will be so clear. If not afternoon delicious tacos.
Speaker 1: So now that we have the tacos out the way,
Speaker 1: you can come closer. Try not to eat into everyone's ears.
Speaker 2: Sorry guys.
Speaker 1: All right, so you do your first reality show, BT
Speaker 1: comes out. Begged all these guys not to air it.
Speaker 1: They're like, you signed these releases, golm down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, They're like, we have the footage. It's airing next week.
Speaker 3: Like it's not changing.
Speaker 2: What was the check looking.
Speaker 3: Like back then? Because we were the first black reality
Speaker 3: TV series, we are the the beginning the beginning of
Speaker 3: all reality TV in terms of black reality television. I
Speaker 3: think I don't remember the exact amount, but b ET
Speaker 3: paid us a weekly. We got paid weekly. They're gonna
Speaker 3: laugh at this because again we were the first black
Speaker 3: reality show and we were in college. We got paid
Speaker 3: one hundred dollars a week in cash. I remember that,
Speaker 3: and I believe when we signed on we got paid.
Speaker 3: I don't remember exactly how much, but I know while
Speaker 3: we were in production and while we traveled to promote
Speaker 3: the show, like when we were in New York from
Speaker 3: montal Suston Park, Miami for Spring Bring New York for
Speaker 3: the Runway in LA for the awards, we got a
Speaker 3: per diem while we were there. So it wasn't like
Speaker 3: they just had us out there too, and we were
Speaker 3: feeding for ourselves. So way different from they didn't get paid.
Speaker 2: Now, they didn't have you starve.
Speaker 3: Well, no, no, no, no, no, we didn't have any
Speaker 3: of that. I will say that we came up at
Speaker 3: the very humble beginnings when BT first went over to Viacom,
Speaker 3: so we got a lot of exposure. We got to
Speaker 3: go to so many things, but because our cast, we
Speaker 3: were so hungry to be out there and wanted to
Speaker 3: just see the world and everybody to see us and
Speaker 3: represent Virginia State. We did a lot on our own.
Speaker 3: We would go to the local radio stations and ask
Speaker 3: for donations and fundraise so we can get to certain
Speaker 3: places because B and T will be like, well, if
Speaker 3: y'all get here, we'll take care of you. Oh that's it.
Speaker 3: And we would just do whatever we needed to do
Speaker 3: to get there.
Speaker 1: And then when they say it will take care of you,
Speaker 1: they'll put you up a hotel.
Speaker 3: The hotel, car transportation will take care of everything. The
Speaker 3: issue was just sometimes it was traveling. Like I know,
Speaker 3: we had to make our own way to Miami for
Speaker 3: spring Bling, but we got to spring Bling. I got
Speaker 3: to We stayed at the best hotel right on the
Speaker 3: beach in Fort Lauderdale, and we met like Ello Cool
Speaker 3: J and Keisha Cole when she first started like we
Speaker 3: were the college kids backstage, like you know, we were
Speaker 3: still in class. Yeah, so that was awesome.
Speaker 2: And during all of this going on.
Speaker 3: I should listened to my dad. He was like that
Speaker 3: TV stuff gonna still be there, but your classes, you
Speaker 3: got to graduate. You gotta come up out of there. Uh.
Speaker 3: I did over indulge. I had a great time. We
Speaker 3: were always on the road because the show aired in
Speaker 3: the spring, and I graduated because I ended up feeling
Speaker 3: in class and had to graduate in the fall, so
Speaker 3: I finished the class. I took a three week summer
Speaker 3: school class. I got an a in that I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna say that teacher's name, but but you still you
Speaker 3: still graduated. Yeah, it's still coming out in May. But
Speaker 3: the shady part of it was they didn't let me
Speaker 3: know till like the day before graduation that I wasn't
Speaker 3: clear to graduate. So my family had played this huge
Speaker 3: cookout and everything, so we still had to cookout. We
Speaker 3: still ate and had a good time. But I had
Speaker 3: moved out here to La started working at BT. I
Speaker 3: had to fly back in December to walk across the
Speaker 3: stage and at first I wasn't going to it. I
Speaker 3: was like, they tried it, But then I was like,
Speaker 3: you know what rules are the rules? I needed to
Speaker 3: be responsible, learn how to manage my time. So that
Speaker 3: was a lesson learned for sure.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so after that whole experience, what was your
Speaker 2: next big play?
Speaker 3: I went to work at Beet in the corporate communications department.
Speaker 3: I was there as an intern and then I ain't
Speaker 3: up staying for about two three years and then.
Speaker 2: From b as a paid internship.
Speaker 3: I was fresh out of college and I was on
Speaker 3: b ET and working at b ET, so there was
Speaker 3: money involved. Back then, I was getting paid as talent
Speaker 3: after work, getting paid as an employee during the day.
Speaker 3: Then who I've done so many things from b ET.
Speaker 3: I went and actually worked with my father. My father
Speaker 3: retired from Amtrak in DC. A lot of people don't
Speaker 3: know this, and I was living in DC. Nobody knew
Speaker 3: what I was doing because you know, I had, you know,
Speaker 3: working on the train and working at Amtrak. You can't
Speaker 3: It's in our union guideline that you can't post yourself
Speaker 3: and post you know, train business. Yes, so I mean
Speaker 3: some people who occasional would post themselves in a uniform.
Speaker 3: I personally was not trying to post myself in a uniform.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to draw a lot of attention that
Speaker 3: I was, you know, in DC and working. But people
Speaker 3: knew that I had a government related job. So I
Speaker 3: did that. And while I did that, I worked out
Speaker 3: of New York at WeTV as well, So I was
Speaker 3: just digital hosts and correspondence so the Braxton Family Values,
Speaker 3: swv LA Hair, all those shows. I was like the
Speaker 3: wee TV Andy Coo when I interviewed everybody. I did
Speaker 3: the digital reunions, I hosted the award shows. I was
Speaker 3: execut produce all of those things. I edited most of
Speaker 3: those things. We TV paid very well because did you
Speaker 3: have to pitch yourself for that or did they just
Speaker 3: reach out to me. I was in a bar and
Speaker 3: I met this lady that she was over listening. She
Speaker 3: was listening to my conversation. I was talking about the
Speaker 3: Braxton Show, the Braxton Family Values, and she kept laughing
Speaker 3: and like button in my conversation. She was like, you
Speaker 3: are so funny. Here's my car. Can you call me
Speaker 3: on Monday? So I looked at the car and I
Speaker 3: said we TV. I was just like we TV. So
Speaker 3: I called my sister. She was like call them people,
Speaker 3: see what they talking about. And it was like she's like,
Speaker 3: I'm the head of original programming and in digital marketing,
Speaker 3: and she said, and I would love to have you
Speaker 3: like commentate. All of our shows will pay you, you know,
Speaker 3: per episode, will bring you up to New York. I said,
Speaker 3: I'm work the trade for free girl. So I was hustling.
Speaker 3: I was working. When I was free, I was doing
Speaker 3: we TV and it was great money. It was a
Speaker 3: good time. I got to meet some of everybody, and
Speaker 3: that's how befriended my gird girlfriend, Tracy Braxon, who unfortunate
Speaker 3: is no longer here with us. But I got to
Speaker 3: work with my childhood icons s WV. They had a show,
Speaker 3: so it was just it was a good time. So
Speaker 3: I was being professional, had a corporate nine to five
Speaker 3: with benefits, and then I was still pursuing my passion,
Speaker 3: and that's all my dad wanted me to do. Pursue
Speaker 3: my passion. But make sure you got some savings, make
Speaker 3: sure you got benefits, because you know, as we get older,
Speaker 3: we get sick. You know, I never would have thought
Speaker 3: COVID would have happened back then, but like, I'm glad
Speaker 3: I have health insurance. At what point did you quit Amtrak?
Speaker 3: When I got the call to come and do love
Speaker 3: and hip hop Hollywood, so I was already I came
Speaker 3: out here to visit my mother. My mother was having
Speaker 3: some personal things going on, and I wanted to be
Speaker 3: out here just to be of support for her, and
Speaker 3: she was having she had something was going wrong with
Speaker 3: her heart and she had to have a surgery, and
Speaker 3: I wanted to come out here just be near her.
Speaker 3: And I started thinking about it. I was like, you know,
Speaker 3: I've been doing this sweet TV stuff. It's going really well.
Speaker 3: I make just as much money there as I do
Speaker 3: it Amtrak. Maybe it's time for me to yeah, oh
Speaker 3: shoot it. I love that you kept a hustle.
Speaker 1: Yeah going, So then you.
Speaker 2: You entertained quitting, right, So walk me through that.
Speaker 3: My boss found out that I was in l A,
Speaker 3: not that I was found out. I took a leave
Speaker 3: of absence. My boss called me and said, you need
Speaker 3: to report to work tomorrow morning. At eleven am. I
Speaker 3: was sitting in Studio City at Cafe Rue smoking a hookah.
Speaker 3: It was like six o'clock. I will never forget this day.
Speaker 3: I said, I'm in Los Angeles. I would have to
Speaker 3: fly back, get a flight, fly back to where I lived,
Speaker 3: and then get to DC. They said, if you can't
Speaker 3: be here, we're riding you up. And you were on
Speaker 3: a leaf I was leaving. I was, I was. I
Speaker 3: took like a thirty day leave absence to be here
Speaker 3: with my mother. This was like the twenty ninth day,
Speaker 3: Like thirtieth. Going into the thirtieth, I said, you know what,
Speaker 3: it was like, I will ever forget y'all. It was
Speaker 3: like Halloween. I was like day before Halloween. I was like,
Speaker 3: fuck this job. I called my UNI rap I said,
Speaker 3: I quit. I ain't coming. I quit.
Speaker 2: Now. Did you think you were reacting on emotion or
Speaker 2: you were just I.
Speaker 3: Was already fed up with that situation working at Amtrak.
Speaker 3: I think Amtrak is an awesome company. Unfortunately, the people
Speaker 3: that they had in management I thought were idiots. They
Speaker 3: were there was a that's nice, they don't watch this interview. Okay,
Speaker 3: most of them fired for their idiotisms. You said they
Speaker 3: have been fired. Yes, you keeping up with the current events. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I still because I still friends with the people that
Speaker 3: I came in with and I worked the railroad. I
Speaker 3: just was at a point in my life where I
Speaker 3: was like fuck that, Like, no, you're not gonna talk
Speaker 3: to me like that, and then you're not FNNA. It
Speaker 3: was just a hostile work environment across the board for
Speaker 3: everybody from upper management to us, and I was just like,
Speaker 3: you know what, fuck this. I'm about to be on
Speaker 3: love and hip hop yeah and the table. Yes, I
Speaker 3: was like I was already thinking about because I was
Speaker 3: trying to transfer to LA and they were making it
Speaker 3: difficult for me to transfer. I was trying to keep
Speaker 3: my job and come to LA and do the same thing,
Speaker 3: because what I do outside of work shouldn't it doesn't
Speaker 3: affect No.
Speaker 1: But I am definitely curious. What were you doing for Amtrak?
Speaker 3: I was in customer service, so I was basically like
Speaker 3: the one board customer service manager. You would say, so no, no, no,
Speaker 3: So I would actually be on the trains. I was
Speaker 3: in charge of the dining car cruise.
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, ride Amtrak. I don't know if I had.
Speaker 3: I worked at the long distance Trains. My regular train
Speaker 3: went from DC to Chicago. So I would leave on
Speaker 3: a Friday, be there Saturday morning, leave Chicago that after noon,
Speaker 3: be back to DC Saturday Sunday morning. So yeah, n trains,
Speaker 3: so you wouldn't even know I was gone. I would
Speaker 3: leave Friday and be back Sunday for brunch like nothing happened,
Speaker 3: you know. So that's my friends. I always joking me,
Speaker 3: like you don't want to have a job, like you're
Speaker 3: always at an event still, And I was like, because
Speaker 3: the way I work, Wow, we work three on three
Speaker 3: days on you still track?
Speaker 2: No, I want to try am track.
Speaker 3: I think after that last phone call I had with
Speaker 3: them over the track, they don't want to hear from
Speaker 3: Meuse that.
Speaker 1: The last time you were was that the last time
Speaker 1: you were actually on the Amtrak train?
Speaker 3: Oh No, I got back on the train road the
Speaker 3: train plenty of times after. What they gonna do to me?
Speaker 2: How much is an Amtrak ticket?
Speaker 3: It depends where you're going. So like if you take
Speaker 3: the exceler that's more of the high speed and that's
Speaker 3: the more expensive ticket, so you can get from DC
Speaker 3: to New York in like three hours. But if you
Speaker 3: take a regional train that's like more of the old
Speaker 3: school cars that you see in movies and stuff, that
Speaker 3: could be like a five six hour train.
Speaker 2: Which one is the nice one? Don't they have like rooms?
Speaker 3: Excel? Oh that's the sleeper cars. The sleeper see the
Speaker 3: sleeper cars and they have deluxe rooms. Get me saying
Speaker 3: this stuff like I.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, so yeah, google your Amtrak.
Speaker 3: I am a railroad baby, though I'm a proud third
Speaker 3: generation railroad baby. My grandfather worked on the railroad. My
Speaker 3: father was a conductor on the railway. He was there
Speaker 3: forty two years, like conductor as he drove it. Well,
Speaker 3: no conductor, he was in charge of the train. So
Speaker 3: the engineer drives the trade. But my dad he also
Speaker 3: started the human rights and diversity department for Amtrak, and
Speaker 3: I think that and that was after I came out
Speaker 3: on television, So I think by our situation helped him
Speaker 3: see things differently and able to share with other employees
Speaker 3: across the country how you can deal with diversity in
Speaker 3: the workplace because he was dealing with it in his home.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you get the love and hip hop offer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we ain't trying to promote amtrack just so you
Speaker 1: guys knows the show. But anyway, so you get the
Speaker 1: love and hip hop offer, You're like, f the day job.
Speaker 2: Peace.
Speaker 3: You tell your dad right away. Oh, I was excited
Speaker 3: to call me. I was. He already knew I was.
Speaker 3: My dad knows me, and I'm gonna tell you where
Speaker 3: to go and how you can get there. When I
Speaker 3: get to that point and I was like, Daddy, i
Speaker 3: quit amstrak And I was like, damn, damn them, I'm
Speaker 3: done with it. I'm about to be on this show
Speaker 3: and whatever I need to do to do to make
Speaker 3: it work. I'm gonna make it work.
Speaker 2: And what did he say?
Speaker 3: He was like, you grown, okay, cool, He wasn't mad.
Speaker 3: He already saw things that I was experiencing because I
Speaker 3: wasn't rare. We call them railroad babies. They felt I
Speaker 3: was getting special treatment, I implied for those jobs I
Speaker 3: interviewed for those jobs. I was qualified for those jobs.
Speaker 3: And because my father was such a big name at
Speaker 3: the company, I often got heat for that or they
Speaker 3: felt I wasn't deserving of it, but they would still
Speaker 3: want me to train the people there was less qualified
Speaker 3: to do the job. Okay, So what did your mom
Speaker 3: think about you staying? She was happy? I don't think
Speaker 3: she was happy. What I think my mother was more so,
Speaker 3: Oh you're doing TV again? Like this again? Like you know,
Speaker 3: my mom is a is a very studious person, so
Speaker 3: she want to you know, she's in the medical field.
Speaker 3: So TV and people being in your business and being
Speaker 3: out and around a bunch of people, that's not my mother.
Speaker 3: She's a total opposite. My dad is me. We're socialites,
Speaker 3: like to be everywhere, busybodies. That is not my mother.
Speaker 3: So she was like, none of that sounds interesting to me.
Speaker 3: But if you want to do it. Okay, Love and
Speaker 3: Hip Hop wasn't my best chapter, but it definitely reintroduced
Speaker 3: me to people ten years later.
Speaker 2: Well, I gotta ask, is Love and Hip Hop scripted?
Speaker 3: I think certain cities and I think certain scenes are
Speaker 3: I think. Let me not say, I think. I can
Speaker 3: only say I think about other franchises. I can only
Speaker 3: speak for Hollywood, and I feel like with Hollywood and
Speaker 3: now I feel like I know with Hollywood there was
Speaker 3: truth in every scene, but everything was exaggerated. Yeah, a
Speaker 3: lot of surprises though, but stuff you would expect, you know.
Speaker 1: So okay, so what's the day in the life when
Speaker 1: you're shooting like a Love and Hip Hop?
Speaker 3: So the best part for me because I was only
Speaker 3: get guy on the cast. Well, no, it was others,
Speaker 3: but I was the one that got glambed. So they
Speaker 3: would come to the house, they would do your makeup,
Speaker 3: cut your hair.
Speaker 1: Only, Oh, you're the only guy that got glam Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't think the other gentleman got glam like that,
Speaker 3: not that I know of the haircut, get your face
Speaker 3: done up because I'm like, want be on TV TV.
Speaker 3: Then they pick you up an SUV take you to
Speaker 3: the scene. I this is in a contrary to what
Speaker 3: people say, Oh they get you drunk, they don't get
Speaker 3: you drunk. I asked for drinks, like if I got
Speaker 3: to be in here with these people talking about I
Speaker 3: don't know what we've about to talk about. I don't
Speaker 3: know who about to pop up. I don't know what's
Speaker 3: about to pop off. Let me at least be relaxed.
Speaker 3: Let me let me hit my little pan right quick.
Speaker 3: Let me get it. Let me get like folk shots
Speaker 3: and Hennessy so I can be relaxed. You know, they
Speaker 3: never bent your arm to make you do so when
Speaker 3: people say they make you drink, they give you the
Speaker 3: option enjoy it. Yeah, we enjoy it. Yeah, you got
Speaker 3: a light liquor option at the dark liquor option, whichever won,
Speaker 3: because at end of the day, were all over twenty
Speaker 3: one where adults were grown. If you don't want to drink,
Speaker 3: you don't drink.
Speaker 2: Now do you ever put parameters on like who you
Speaker 2: will and won't pay.
Speaker 3: With once you get to be in the senior position
Speaker 3: on the show? So I did it for three seasons.
Speaker 3: So by the time my third season rolled around, I
Speaker 3: could say that I'm gonna feel comfortable with X, Y
Speaker 3: and Z and then they'll try to rework it and
Speaker 3: rearrange it. But honestly, but don't they love those scenes
Speaker 3: the most. They love them. But I can tell you
Speaker 3: that it was difficult for Love and hip Hop because
Speaker 3: my first two seasons we were produced by one production company.
Speaker 3: My third season, which was the last season of Loving
Speaker 3: hip Hop, we had a whole brand new production company.
Speaker 3: We shot for ten months. So these are brand new
Speaker 3: people who don't know us, They don't know who got
Speaker 3: beef for who, they don't know anybody's backstory, who they
Speaker 3: might have been beefing with last year, but they're cool
Speaker 3: with this year, or they were cool last year, they
Speaker 3: not cool this year.
Speaker 2: A long time.
Speaker 3: It was because it was a brand new cat. It
Speaker 3: was a brand new production company. Oh my god. They
Speaker 3: were trying to figure out different ways to shoot because
Speaker 3: even the style and which way the way that we
Speaker 3: shot was different. Like we went through three different green
Speaker 3: screen looks that season. The lighting was off so we
Speaker 3: had to redo it again, or this had they were
Speaker 3: adding cast members in and things were just coming up
Speaker 3: on the blogs and we had to like go back
Speaker 3: and redo things. And when I said redo things like
Speaker 3: we back then would shoot a scene and something would
Speaker 3: go down, and we would go online texting and tweeting them,
Speaker 3: Oh my god, this just happened. They tried it, and
Speaker 3: blah blah blah, blah blah blah, and that was that night.
Speaker 3: Would go on and on back and forth online and
Speaker 3: then they'll be like, hey, we need to capture that.
Speaker 3: We need to do another scene, and you recap what
Speaker 3: happened that night after you finished it filming, talk to
Speaker 3: them about what happened and what y'all were talking about.
Speaker 3: So you gotta go back in that moment again. I
Speaker 3: don't miss it.
Speaker 2: You don't know.
Speaker 3: That wasn't the best chapter of my life. I didn't
Speaker 3: like necessarily my edit, and it's nothing that I can
Speaker 3: say that I did wrong, And they didn't make me
Speaker 3: look a certain way. I just didn't like the lack
Speaker 3: of what they showed. They only showed me. They wanted
Speaker 3: to make me the confrontational gay character that argue with
Speaker 3: all the other gay characters and only got in women's business. Well,
Speaker 3: our show is eighty percent women. I'm the gay guy.
Speaker 3: I'm friends with the women. So if they're talking to
Speaker 3: me about it on an off camera. I'm gonna talk
Speaker 3: about it. It just was. It was stressful. I got anxiety.
Speaker 3: I have alopecia. My hair fell out while we were filming,
Speaker 3: so one part of the season I looked like mister Egghead.
Speaker 3: I had no eyebrows, no bear, no hair. I'm like,
Speaker 3: of all the shows, I'm on, Lord, why would my
Speaker 3: hair fall out while were filming this? And you know
Speaker 3: a lot of people don't love to hip hop have
Speaker 3: different demons within them. And dealing with people's energies and
Speaker 3: their demons, and dealing with your own demons, it gets
Speaker 3: to be a lot because you know, we can't at
Speaker 3: the time, we can't say what's real, what's not. It's exaggerated,
Speaker 3: what we talked about, what we really don't care about.
Speaker 3: You know, we have to stay in character and promote
Speaker 3: the show cause we need the ratings so we can
Speaker 3: get paid, so we can come back and do another season.
Speaker 3: And you just get in that cycle of just being
Speaker 3: in character, and it bleeds over to your real life.
Speaker 3: I've lost relationships, I've lost some friends. I got into
Speaker 3: it with some relatives over things, just from the frustration
Speaker 3: anxiety of coming from out of that space ten months
Speaker 3: is a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now that was ten months for one s one
Speaker 2: particular sea.
Speaker 3: That was one particular season. But most of the time
Speaker 3: we filmed six to seven months.
Speaker 2: Geez. And then we're during when you're off season, what
Speaker 2: are you doing?
Speaker 3: You really only off from Thanksgiving to the top of
Speaker 3: the year because at that point you're waiting for your
Speaker 3: renewal notice. So you wrapped, You've done the reunion, all
Speaker 3: that's airing. It's like when we wrap, we're st we
Speaker 3: pretty much when the show premieres, we're still filming, and
Speaker 3: then the reunion raps about. It was always in the fall,
Speaker 3: so from Thanksgiving, I remember always going home to Virginia
Speaker 3: f cause I needed to just air my spirit out.
Speaker 3: I will be home from Thanksgiving to Christmas or maybe
Speaker 3: New Year's. Around Christmas time, they'll start calling you like, hey,
Speaker 3: what's going on? Who are you talking to? Have you
Speaker 3: seen this online? January we would get our pick up notices.
Speaker 3: That's when you gotta go through your contract and negotiate
Speaker 3: your pay and we be filming by March, so you
Speaker 3: were it was a quick turnaround.
Speaker 1: Now are they paying enough to like where you don't
Speaker 1: need any other side hustles or anything.
Speaker 3: Everybody's salary varies on Love and Hip Hop. Some people
Speaker 3: come in and making bare minimum. Some people come in
Speaker 3: making because of who they are and their name, They're
Speaker 3: making super high. Someone like a Ray J and a
Speaker 3: Kay Michelle, They're doing great. I was a new cast member.
Speaker 3: I came on with Keisha Cole and Brooke Valentine. I
Speaker 3: always say season four was the best season outside of
Speaker 3: the first season. But I came on I was already
Speaker 3: doing WE TV, and I already had a name, and
Speaker 3: I was already had a following from Love and Hip Hop.
Speaker 3: So Rape, my episodic Rape, was way different from what
Speaker 3: I heard some other people who came on with me,
Speaker 3: they were new as well, And then it depends on
Speaker 3: who your lawyer is. You got to negotiate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know so, but you didn't have any of
Speaker 1: the side gigs outside of.
Speaker 3: Love and Hip Hop. I overlapped. I did WE TV
Speaker 3: for the first two seasons as well with Love and
Speaker 3: Hip Hops. It benefited them, and it benefited the shows
Speaker 3: getting I mean, who else was getting promoted on two
Speaker 3: networks like that.
Speaker 2: And it's a smart move for week Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 3: It was awesome. My last season, I just did strictly
Speaker 3: Love and Hip Hop because I mean it was very
Speaker 3: time consumer.
Speaker 1: Because you are between two different cities right for WEE TV,
Speaker 1: and I was.
Speaker 3: Still doing my stuff out of New York and then
Speaker 3: filming out here, and then I actually did a digital
Speaker 3: talk show for we TV while we were filming Love
Speaker 3: and Hip Hop. So I was filming in Santa Monica
Speaker 3: then going wherever they had us filming for the show.
Speaker 3: It was a lot. And then COVID came and I
Speaker 3: finally got to sit my ass down.
Speaker 2: And that's when you started writing.
Speaker 3: Right started writing, I had, I think it was doing
Speaker 3: the show and dealing with the different adversities that I
Speaker 3: had to deal with on the show. Because as you
Speaker 3: can see, I'm a very friendly person. I'm my energy
Speaker 3: is amazing, but on the show, I had to be
Speaker 3: confrontational to secure my spot. I had to speak on
Speaker 3: things that I really didn't care about. I had to,
Speaker 3: you know, be in competition with people that I normally
Speaker 3: would never even deal with or be around. You know.
Speaker 3: So once I only got to sit down and just
Speaker 3: relax and just get my life together and figure out
Speaker 3: what I was gonna do next. COVID was in full swing.
Speaker 3: So I was like, I'm gonna get my master's. I
Speaker 3: have one, always wanted to go back get. I'm the
Speaker 3: minimum degree in my family right now. Most people in
Speaker 3: my family have two or three degrees. I was sitting
Speaker 3: on that one and I was like, Okay, I can
Speaker 3: go to school. Let me. It's all remote. Everything's remote
Speaker 3: during COVID. I'm gonna get my master's in media management.
Speaker 3: That's what I have been doing. And then I wrote
Speaker 3: a book about my life. I mean, just me being
Speaker 3: from Virginia moving to Hollywood, being the first black gay
Speaker 3: reality start on beet for the first ever black reality series,
Speaker 3: like that will always be my calling card. I love it.
Speaker 3: I'm proud of it. Now I understand it. Just back then,
Speaker 3: I did not understand what it meant to be a
Speaker 3: voice for a community that I didn't identify with yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was that was gonna be my next question.
Speaker 1: So back when it first happened, how did it hit?
Speaker 1: It was so fast, Like did you go through any
Speaker 1: type of depression or.
Speaker 3: No? Back then we had MySpace and black players, So
Speaker 3: my inbox was full because back then it was just
Speaker 3: Corambo and I were the first two. It was just
Speaker 3: us he was on MTV. I was on BET. We
Speaker 3: was having fun. I had fun. So I lived. That's
Speaker 3: another book, but no, I've lived and I had a
Speaker 3: great time. I went to all the Black Prides. I
Speaker 3: was able to go to high schools. I did the
Speaker 3: BT wrap It Up campaign, from all the HIV STD awareness.
Speaker 3: I got to meet so many people at such a
Speaker 3: young age. I did so many different things, from on camera,
Speaker 3: behind the camera, working at BT, working with e TV,
Speaker 3: like I've mastered my meeting.
Speaker 1: And then, what was your original major? I'm sorry, so
Speaker 1: your original major was public relations? No matter what you
Speaker 1: were going to end up in entertainment.
Speaker 3: I felt it because I was on the radio when
Speaker 3: I was in my senior year of college. I was
Speaker 3: on Power ninety two. It was the afternoon drive co host. Okay,
Speaker 3: so I felt it. I always knew something was gonna happen.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure everyone in your family also didn't weren't
Speaker 2: surprised at all.
Speaker 3: I don't think they were, some of them, LA, I know,
Speaker 3: how did you not know? I mean, come on, I
Speaker 3: could look at all pictures of me with my hand
Speaker 3: on my hip, like, come.
Speaker 2: On, no, I'm talking about you being in entertainment though.
Speaker 3: I was a character. My family would definitely tell you
Speaker 3: I was a colorful character, always did my own thing
Speaker 3: and was always getting into something. You know, I've definitely
Speaker 3: matured since then, but Little Ray was something okay, okay.
Speaker 2: And so now after the pandemic, you you write the book,
Speaker 2: You write the book during the pandemic. How hard was
Speaker 2: it to put it out? What was those steps? Looking?
Speaker 3: Like? I did it through Amazon. I had a publisher
Speaker 3: help me, but we did it through Amazon, and it
Speaker 3: ended up being number one for six consecutive weeks on
Speaker 3: four different like Amazon book charts, E book and physical
Speaker 3: book Like I had a number one best seller out
Speaker 3: the gate and mind you, this is no love and
Speaker 3: hip hop. We're in COVID. Nothing's going on. My book
Speaker 3: stayed on the Amazon bestseller list for almost a year
Speaker 3: and a half.
Speaker 1: And then what was the ch Like, how did you
Speaker 1: I wanted monthly? Yeah, you get paid monthly, but I
Speaker 1: want to know the whole experience of like you put
Speaker 1: you take a chance on yourself, you get this book.
Speaker 3: I didn't think anybody was gonna read it because I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm not one of those overly large reality stars like
Speaker 3: I don't even consider myself a reality star. I was
Speaker 3: on two very popular reality shows, one in which I
Speaker 3: was a main character and the other I was a
Speaker 3: co character. But I was a part of two different
Speaker 3: eras of two different types of shows that were monumental.
Speaker 3: And I always say, if I go back on television,
Speaker 3: it has to be bigger than what the last thing
Speaker 3: I did was. And I was like, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: not out here wild on the blogs doing all that craziness.
Speaker 3: They're not gonna want to read my story. And they did.
Speaker 3: They read my story. I talked about everything. I talked
Speaker 3: about my party boy days. I talked about the days
Speaker 3: where you are in LA and you don't know what
Speaker 3: the next gig is and you don't know how your
Speaker 3: rent's going to get paid until you get something stable,
Speaker 3: and then you know. You see your friends around you.
Speaker 3: Some of them are elevating and some of them are declining.
Speaker 2: That's that's I think one of the trickiest.
Speaker 3: Waters to battle.
Speaker 1: I think it's seeming like some people go and maybe
Speaker 1: they're not even friends, because I think friends are more
Speaker 1: happy for Yeah, when you see someone and you don't
Speaker 1: really know their story or the intricacies of it, and
Speaker 1: you're like, Wow, this person's past me and I'm still
Speaker 1: trucking along. What like they just woke up, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a hard battle, especially if you've
Speaker 1: been it for a long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and my family is really a huge part of
Speaker 3: my life. You follow me on any of my socials,
Speaker 3: I'm always talking about my family, Dad, my mother, nieces, nephew, sisters, cousins, grandparents.
Speaker 3: And I never allowed myself to wild out to get popular.
Speaker 3: I never wanted to do anything where my family would
Speaker 3: be embarrassed. I never did anything where I would hate
Speaker 3: for my nieces or nephews a google on their path
Speaker 3: and be like, oh, this is my uncle looking at
Speaker 3: you know. I'm always self conscious of the projects I
Speaker 3: do and the things I participate with because I know
Speaker 3: I got other people looking at me. That's important to me.
Speaker 3: I don't worry about what the stranger says. My family
Speaker 3: is watching me. I want them to be able to
Speaker 3: promote me and them to be proud of me, you know.
Speaker 3: So that I feel like that kept me from doing
Speaker 3: a lot of things a lot of other people were
Speaker 3: doing to go viral and be popular and be out there.
Speaker 3: But I don't see them now.
Speaker 2: So it's going back to the book.
Speaker 3: You produce the book.
Speaker 2: Look at us, we're trying to pick at it.
Speaker 3: Where's the tackle shells? Keep the back.
Speaker 1: So you produce the book, it becomes a bestseller. Are
Speaker 1: you shocked at like how much money you're making taking
Speaker 1: a chance on yourself.
Speaker 3: That book really surprised me. No, it was just crazy
Speaker 3: because the hot sauce too. But the most amazing thing
Speaker 3: was that I was I learned a lesson. I was
Speaker 3: always I was doubting myself at that time. I'm not
Speaker 3: doing the same things these other people are doing to
Speaker 3: be out there. Though I'm on that platform, I'm on
Speaker 3: these platforms, I'm verified on everything, but you know, I'm
Speaker 3: still at this. I felt like a stagnant level. And
Speaker 3: my Instagram had gotten hacked, so I had no Instagram.
Speaker 3: Uh there was. I was at zero. I had to
Speaker 3: start all over while the book, the book had just
Speaker 3: came out, the book still so I got made a
Speaker 3: new page, built it back up to what it is now.
Speaker 3: That book sold, People supported it, They bought it, took
Speaker 3: pictures of it, sent it to me. People will call
Speaker 3: me and not minister to me, but talk to me
Speaker 3: about things that they were going through, they related to
Speaker 3: my book and like I said, for it to be
Speaker 3: for me to be who I am. And there were
Speaker 3: some other reality stars, but books out way bigger shows,
Speaker 3: way bigger names than me. Mine outlive them all and
Speaker 3: outsold them as well. And that just goes to show
Speaker 3: the type of people that follow me and support me
Speaker 3: and who I am and where I stand in this business.
Speaker 1: And then now receiving the checks, let's talk the money part.
Speaker 3: Now. Books are interesting because when you do a book
Speaker 3: through a publishing company, you got to give them their
Speaker 3: money back that they put into marketing as well.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so they marketed a book, so you you
Speaker 1: you got to.
Speaker 3: Pay them their back, their part back, and then after
Speaker 3: you once you give them, once they get their cut back,
Speaker 3: everything else is yours.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Now, do you ever go back and thinks in your.
Speaker 2: Head like, damn, I wish I would have just done
Speaker 2: it self published or do you feel.
Speaker 3: Like, I mean, you really could do self published book
Speaker 3: on Amazon? But you really can. I see so many
Speaker 3: and they do well. But it was just it was
Speaker 3: a learned it was something. It was my therapy. I
Speaker 3: needed it.
Speaker 1: No, I get that, and I'm not trying to hold
Speaker 1: them under the bus. But I am genuinely curious, like,
Speaker 1: do you think that having it published for them made
Speaker 1: a difference?
Speaker 3: You know, because I did all the promotions.
Speaker 2: That's why I want to know.
Speaker 3: So looking back at it, I could have done it myself.
Speaker 3: But I will say, even though the Amazon website takes
Speaker 3: you through it, how to upload it, how you can
Speaker 3: change your titles, I mean your cover title, how you
Speaker 3: can go in and edit, you know, do the edits.
Speaker 3: It's still a learning process. I say. If you are
Speaker 3: going to do a self edit, take time to learn
Speaker 3: that site about self publishing, so you know how to
Speaker 3: get the barcode correct, how you know how you because
Speaker 3: you can really set your book up from your iPhone
Speaker 3: if you wanted to just upload the manuscript. That's the
Speaker 3: main thing, is the manuscript. Make sure a spell right.
Speaker 3: But they have a proof checker who go through it
Speaker 3: and you, yeah, just pay for the service.
Speaker 1: You heard it here first, guys, there's award winning publisher
Speaker 1: top number one.
Speaker 2: You said six.
Speaker 3: It was a best seller for six weeks on four
Speaker 3: different in charge. It was for college or university student life,
Speaker 3: a l LGBTQ and for black biographies. Like I could
Speaker 3: not believe it.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 3: But we were in COVID. We were all at home,
Speaker 3: like we had nothing to dow anyway. Well it's still
Speaker 3: it's still a huge fee. It's yeah, those good money.
Speaker 1: And trust me, during COVID, people everyone made their own decisions.
Speaker 2: I always go like, damn, did I make the right
Speaker 2: decisions during COVID. We did produce eating while broke during COVID.
Speaker 3: I was in Atlanta during COVID. We was outside. You know,
Speaker 3: Atlanta did our clothes, they just put them all they
Speaker 3: told us they put the thermometer to your head and
Speaker 3: just made sure you wasn't hot. And that was it.
Speaker 2: Eighty five South we did. We taped down there LA
Speaker 2: five South Lake, Chico and DC and all those guys
Speaker 2: down there were like we were on break for about
Speaker 2: a week.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: LA was shut down for two years.
Speaker 3: Man. I came back to LA and Hollywood looked like downtown. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, LA was shut down for so long that I
Speaker 2: got married and had a baby.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't think.
Speaker 2: I didn't think, you know, I knew we were gonna
Speaker 2: eventually go outside, but it started to become a real norm.
Speaker 2: But to hear Atlanta had a whole differ experience.
Speaker 3: We were outside, we would get you could get drinks
Speaker 3: to go from the restaurants. We was at. Shout out
Speaker 3: to sea. What was I don't think they're opening to
Speaker 3: Atlanta anymore. We were at sea. What's smoking? Hookah? Dad
Speaker 3: said the clubs was open.
Speaker 2: LA was none of that.
Speaker 3: We were open. So when I flew back here, you
Speaker 3: back here, I was like, oh, hell no, I got
Speaker 3: to go back to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: When New York had all the horror stores, people in
Speaker 1: New York was it was scared straight.
Speaker 2: You couldn't get them to open the door for nothing. Man, listen,
Speaker 2: step back from the bag, drop it off, step back.
Speaker 3: When I went home to visit my parents in Virginia
Speaker 3: for KRIB we drove up from Atlanta to go because
Speaker 3: we were to go spend New Year's in DC. My
Speaker 3: dad and my stepmom had masks. When they was like,
Speaker 3: can't come in the house, but we when to come outside.
Speaker 3: I talked to you the driveway, y'all stay in the
Speaker 3: car like we really had Christmas through the window. Like
Speaker 3: then they put their gins in the trunk and I
Speaker 3: gave them theirs. COVID was a crazy time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember getting a Thanksgiving we was in Detroit.
Speaker 1: We got Thanksgiving dinners and the cars. We ate it
Speaker 1: for ourselves and where we were staying and thank you.
Speaker 3: COVID looked like a different world being in Atlanta because
Speaker 3: I was also that was also the election with Trump
Speaker 3: and Biden and Kamala, so I was outside helping promote
Speaker 3: Kamala and Biden. Back then we were trying to it
Speaker 3: was black Lives Matter. It was so many things going
Speaker 3: on during COVID and being in Atlanta and it being
Speaker 3: open and everyone outside that way, but looking at the
Speaker 3: news and seeing how LA was shut down and boarded
Speaker 3: up up north everyone had like fifty masks on and
Speaker 3: not outside and the people that were actually passing away
Speaker 3: from COVID, and then the whole uproar of the vaccine
Speaker 3: and then the election results and then the insurrection on
Speaker 3: the It was so COVID was so dramatic. It was
Speaker 3: it was that's a book right there.
Speaker 2: That's a book right there.
Speaker 1: And so now after COVID, you have this successful book,
Speaker 1: what's your next play?
Speaker 3: So after COVID, and.
Speaker 1: I'm doing your audio audio biography, realizing this is this.
Speaker 3: Is picking u where the book left off so I
Speaker 3: got into TV film production. I worked with Heillionaire Productions
Speaker 3: and we did a movie called Mama's Boy, which starred
Speaker 3: Lawrence Robinson. He's everybody's favorite IG crush person. He was
Speaker 3: in it with the young lady name right now and
Speaker 3: that's coming out later this year. And then we also
Speaker 3: did a film called The Influencer, which aired on All
Speaker 3: Black earlier this year, and that was my first film
Speaker 3: I did. When I met her the day of came
Speaker 3: right on set. I was an extra. She and I
Speaker 3: hit it off. She went to family, I went to
Speaker 3: Virginia State where both D nine and we just started
Speaker 3: working together. And then I went to Houston with her
Speaker 3: and filmed the Christmas movie that I actually ended up
Speaker 3: having a roll in with the Braxton sisters. So that
Speaker 3: was like a whole little three sixty moment and it's
Speaker 3: called Christmas Cover Up and that will be out later
Speaker 3: this year at Christmas.
Speaker 1: So, wow, you been busy, busy, I don't see you.
Speaker 1: You're not going back to reality TV.
Speaker 3: You know what I have. There's been a couple of
Speaker 3: things that I have been approached about through my management.
Speaker 3: One of them was actually I was really considering it.
Speaker 3: It would have been the third season of that show. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: that show got put on pause and it ain't been
Speaker 3: play ain't been pressed yet, so I'm assuming it's canceled.
Speaker 3: And then a show that I actually helped create had
Speaker 3: went through the whole pitch process and unfortunately, when the
Speaker 3: strike happened, all the network shut down and that project
Speaker 3: pretty much got shelved. But it was about to be greenld.
Speaker 3: I was super excited, Well it might come back. I
Speaker 3: don't know the timing for me now it fits for me,
Speaker 3: but I would love to work with those gentlemen again
Speaker 3: and put some money else in my spot because there
Speaker 3: was definitely something there. It was gonna be amazing. And
Speaker 3: as of recent something has come up that I'm interested in,
Speaker 3: but my focus is in TV right now. I have
Speaker 3: the name, they know who I am. I really am
Speaker 3: just advocating for HBCUs, especially now with this current administration
Speaker 3: and all these DEI things. They're wiping you away and
Speaker 3: trying to do away with I say, black education. It's
Speaker 3: very important for me to share my platform and inform
Speaker 3: people of types of financial aid so the children can
Speaker 3: go to HBC's Because hbcs were creative, creative for a
Speaker 3: specific reason things that are going on now is why
Speaker 3: we have HBCUs and they are important, they are relevant.
Speaker 3: I had the best transformative four years of my life
Speaker 3: in Virginia State, and I would love for kids, especially
Speaker 3: from southern California, to get to go down south and
Speaker 3: find out other things. You can put us out of taco.
Speaker 2: You know, exactly, exactly exactly, Okay, all right, so right now,
Speaker 2: your passions is definitely community service.
Speaker 3: Being a brother of Alpha Phi Alpha for.
Speaker 1: T and that's how that's how I ended up meeting
Speaker 1: you at the Do you remember we met Christmas Prey
Speaker 1: prey but it was a park.
Speaker 3: It was a bunch of us. It was Ray J
Speaker 3: torriy Omar Gooding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Omar was on the show did Man.
Speaker 3: When I first met Omar, I was like, that's the
Speaker 3: guy from Baby Boy. It's so cool with meeting people
Speaker 3: in person that you grew up watching and now we're
Speaker 3: in the same business, same industry, got the same management,
Speaker 3: and it's like, oh, what's up. You were trying my
Speaker 3: soy sauce tacos.
Speaker 1: Them things are slamming. So no, it's nice to hear
Speaker 1: that you are in your community service era. And that's
Speaker 1: actually where I met you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was doing you were doing community.
Speaker 3: I love it. It's fulfilling. I've had an awesome forty years.
Speaker 3: I've twenty eighteen specifically working in entertainment, and I just
Speaker 3: feel like part of my legacy and what I want
Speaker 3: to start building is that, you know, I met these people,
Speaker 3: I've had these opportunities, but somebody gave it to me.
Speaker 3: So if I can be a blessing to someone else,
Speaker 3: I know I'll get something later in life.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's where I am with that.
Speaker 1: I like that you heard it here first everybody, And
Speaker 1: please don't judge us for our taco eating break because.
Speaker 3: We fin go get some more them. Tacos was delicious.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna be eating tacos for dinner tonight.
Speaker 1: Okay, don't forget when you make your tacos at home
Speaker 1: to add soy sauce to it.
Speaker 2: I definitely think it does make the difference.
Speaker 3: Shout outs to.
Speaker 2: Miss the Red for the secret ingredient and not being
Speaker 2: stingy and sharing.
Speaker 3: It with us. Right, Guccie, I gave her some good
Speaker 3: tea good tie.
Speaker 1: And where can everybody keep up with you besides on
Speaker 1: the mainstream Because you have a lot of stuff coming out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Instagram is the best place to catch me.
Speaker 3: It's m I S S T E r r A
Speaker 3: Y eight oh four. I'm forever eight oh four boy,
Speaker 3: but I'm a Dina boy at HART. I definitely want
Speaker 3: to give a special shout out to everybody in Altadena
Speaker 3: Pasadena and everyone who has contributed to their relief efforts
Speaker 3: out there. Our community is still building day by day.
Speaker 3: Some people are just coming home seeing their place for
Speaker 3: the first time and just trying to figure out how
Speaker 3: to get it together. As it rains.
Speaker 1: Now, as it rains, I know, finally, yeah, exactly. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking time out of your day.
Speaker 2: To feed me.
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, that was good.
Speaker 1: You know you're more than welcome to feed me anytime.
Speaker 1: And then if I have a holiday, you're more than
Speaker 1: welcome because she.
Speaker 3: Do crab legs for her holidays, you know, black folks
Speaker 3: from the DMV, we love a crab leg.
Speaker 2: You know, I gotta do it that way, all right,
Speaker 2: Peace out, y'all. For more eating while broke from iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: and The Black Effect, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,