Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up.
Speaker 1: It's June and that means it's Black Music.
Speaker 2: Month, and every year on Questlove Supreme and now The
Speaker 2: Quest Love Show, we honor it by bringing you an
Speaker 2: episode every day that celebrates black music, it's history and
Speaker 2: its impact. My team and I have selected episodes from
Speaker 2: our archive that we feel are specially.
Speaker 1: Relevant to the celebration, offering history, insight a little fun
Speaker 1: along the way.
Speaker 2: So be on the lookout for four brand new episodes
Speaker 2: throughout June, each connected to the past, president future of
Speaker 2: Black music. We're going to highlight trailblazers, innovators, ultra conduits,
Speaker 2: and revolutionaries whose word continues to shape.
Speaker 1: The world around us. Happy June, Happy Black Music Month.
Speaker 3: Put him right now for a moment in his room,
Speaker 3: Give him a treat, and put him in his room.
Speaker 3: Little ship, you got me by the nose, Mossy fucking
Speaker 3: scared of me. This nigga don't know because he's so pretty.
Speaker 3: Motherfucker already told is going. I'm not gonna cut.
Speaker 1: I'll be no curse. We super were here for.
Speaker 2: Let's get in it, ladies and gentlemen of qus Ology.
Speaker 1: Okay, Based on that.
Speaker 2: Energy, people warned that this episode just my top Thejesus
Speaker 2: Mirror episode as the most realist, most problematic, the most
Speaker 2: realist in QULS history.
Speaker 1: And I'm here for it. I'm manifesting it again.
Speaker 2: This quest a lot of supreme your your paradise of
Speaker 2: sometimes awesome and occasionally useless information or edumacation. Are our
Speaker 2: two brethren unpaid Bill and and.
Speaker 1: Sugar Steve are?
Speaker 2: I guess you could say they're holding down their illustrious
Speaker 2: careers right now so they won't be joining us. Uh.
Speaker 1: So this is filing to be a pow wow with Hello, Laya,
Speaker 1: how you doing? You're a right now?
Speaker 3: I was waiting for you to say, with the blacks.
Speaker 1: Come on now be the ojs. We're a trio today
Speaker 1: we are what a trio?
Speaker 2: With that said, ladies and gentlemen, I will say that
Speaker 2: our illustrious guest is indeed okay. So since the title
Speaker 2: is somewhat self proclaimed, uh it was the title of
Speaker 2: her first memoir, which was The Mother Black Hollywood. I
Speaker 2: would like to say that probably that title for her
Speaker 2: might be somewhat reductive, because I feel that she's more
Speaker 2: than just the Mother Black Hollywood. You know, for a
Speaker 2: woman or a human of her stature. And I don't
Speaker 2: believe in numbers sometimes, especially when like he is trying
Speaker 2: to remind me how old I am. But I will
Speaker 2: say that for over four decades, our guest has been
Speaker 2: going strong in ways that you know, her contemporaries can't
Speaker 2: even compete with.
Speaker 1: And I will say that she is.
Speaker 2: She is conquered and taken every medium by storm. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna I had to write them all down, so let's
Speaker 2: go with it.
Speaker 1: You'd be pro musical.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy nine, pre Broadway dream Girls, where she
Speaker 2: was the title of fie wright Bette Midler's background singers
Speaker 2: were called Harlett's Right, So yes, she has a harlot
Speaker 2: in Bette Midler's show.
Speaker 1: She's landed many a scene stealing moment.
Speaker 2: And practically every show that she's ever be a TV
Speaker 2: or movies name him Murphy Brown, Dream One, I Love
Speaker 2: Dream One.
Speaker 1: That's one of my favorite shows.
Speaker 2: Living Color Rock, Hang with Missus Cooper, A Different World.
Speaker 2: She's on Helen on Fresh Prince of bel Air. She
Speaker 2: was deemed Davenport on Different World, Tina Turner's Mom and
Speaker 2: What Love Got to Do With It?
Speaker 1: Yo. She was even in Friends. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Black people, right, I didn't even know that black people
Speaker 2: were in Friends, Lucky's Mom and Poetic Justice.
Speaker 1: Yo.
Speaker 2: The way she tells him to shut the fuck up
Speaker 2: in Poetic Justice is my favorite. That is my favorite
Speaker 2: use of shut the fuck up I ever heard anyway.
Speaker 2: Name it, Death Presidents, Girl Six, The Preacher's Wife, The Temptations, Castaway, Strong.
Speaker 1: Medicine, Pixar's Cars.
Speaker 2: She was Tony's Mom and Girlfriends Family Reunion, Right, Pethan
Speaker 2: Brown's You Want a Man and That's O, Raven Boston,
Speaker 2: Legal Princess and the Frog Think Like a Man, Baggot's
Speaker 2: claim a gazillion animated voice over.
Speaker 1: Yo. She even Erica's mom in the On and On video.
Speaker 2: She's so bad, yes, And I'm wearing my bother you
Speaker 2: shirt right now as we speak.
Speaker 1: Yo.
Speaker 2: She was even in this this unknown local syndicated production
Speaker 2: of some show called Blackish.
Speaker 1: You guys might have heard of it.
Speaker 2: She has written two very informative books on her life.
Speaker 1: She's the reason why I believe in audiobooks. Before.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying I was one of those snobs that
Speaker 2: was like, you know, you know those people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: the book is better. You know, you see the movie
Speaker 2: and they're like, oh, the book is better. And then
Speaker 2: there are people that book shamy because I don't have
Speaker 2: a tangible thing to read, and they're like, well, you're
Speaker 2: not reading the book.
Speaker 1: Yoused to listen to audio.
Speaker 2: But no, during the pandemic, I've read like seventy books more.
Speaker 2: I'm more edgu macated than I've ever been. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 2: this this introduction has been ten minutes long.
Speaker 4: Please welcome, and we still haven't finished with her discography.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, it's just too much. The name even Disney
Speaker 2: rides with her voice in it. Please welcome to Quest
Speaker 2: of Supreme. Jennifer Lewis, Thank you for coming.
Speaker 3: Hello, Welcome. Yes, it's great to be here. It's great
Speaker 3: to be here, Scot. I'm loving all of these conversations
Speaker 3: about the book and my career. Might as well get
Speaker 3: it out of the way. I received I just received
Speaker 3: my star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Speaker 1: Yes you did.
Speaker 3: I am still flying high from it. Right before the
Speaker 3: Hollywood Walk of Fame, I went on one of my
Speaker 3: trips around the world. I went to ang called Watt
Speaker 3: in Cambodia. I took a helicopter through the Himalayan Mountain
Speaker 3: range and set my eyes on Mount Everest. I'm trying
Speaker 3: to say that without crying. What was that experience like, Well,
Speaker 3: let me give you this story.
Speaker 1: Hit me.
Speaker 3: It was one of the most beautiful moments of the trip.
Speaker 3: The captain of it. It's a private jet, A have
Speaker 3: a Crombie and Kent. It does these trips around the world.
Speaker 3: And because I only get so much time free, I
Speaker 3: have to get on a jet like that, you know,
Speaker 3: and go and do as much as I can. I'm
Speaker 3: trying to see the entire world before my knees give out.
Speaker 3: I don't want to go to mach Peach you and say, oh,
Speaker 3: the incors were up there. No, bitch, I'm climbing this motherfucker.
Speaker 1: You climb it.
Speaker 3: I just she wouldn't. No. I climbed Anchor watches now
Speaker 3: and I had this little Jordaanian boy take me up.
Speaker 3: Petra in Jordan's the Heels of Moses. Most beautiful thing
Speaker 3: I've ever seen in my life, you understand me. I
Speaker 3: have seen the cultural treasures of this world. The Grand
Speaker 3: Mosque in Abu Dhabi. I just took a. I just
Speaker 3: played camel polo in Dubai and took a helicopter over
Speaker 3: all those islands, the palm trees and the crowns, and
Speaker 3: I also, this is what happened. The captain of the
Speaker 3: pilot said, ladies and gentlemen, if you'll look off to
Speaker 3: the right of the plane, I believe I see the
Speaker 3: peaks of the Himalayan mountain range and there was there
Speaker 3: was Everest sitting above the Cumulonimbus clouds. And I said,
Speaker 3: as I was filming outside of the plane, I just
Speaker 3: was saying to myself. There was a yoga teacher right
Speaker 3: next to me, one of the passengers, and she overheard
Speaker 3: me say, dear God, I've wanted to climb to the
Speaker 3: top of that mountain since I was thirteen years old.
Speaker 3: And she looked at me and said, look at you.
Speaker 3: Now you're above it. Shit, God, damn I And when
Speaker 3: I saw it with my own eyes, you know, they
Speaker 3: put the helicopter down at eleven thousand feet and we
Speaker 3: only have seven minutes to take pictures of Everest and
Speaker 3: that whole world, of the base camp at the base
Speaker 3: of Everest. It was unbelievable. It was it was stunning,
Speaker 3: it was majesty. It was God itself. You understand me,
Speaker 3: a little colored girl from Kenlock, Missouri who ate dirt
Speaker 3: at a little girl and set a little booty on
Speaker 3: our wooden hall to shit in nineteen below zero in
Speaker 3: Saint Louis, Missouri. We went on to India, Catman Do
Speaker 3: and I still in front of the taj Mahal. It
Speaker 3: was an unbelievable trip. And then to come back to
Speaker 3: the United States and become a part of a cultural
Speaker 3: treasure in Hollywood. It's been a ride, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 3: And let me tell you, I walk around in a
Speaker 3: state of Greece. I never gave one hundred percent, y'all.
Speaker 3: I gave two thousand because I didn't know how not to.
Speaker 3: I was born with this charisma and this gift, and
Speaker 3: I have tried to honor it all my life. It's
Speaker 3: been a hell of a ride with my bipolar disorder,
Speaker 3: but I contained it. I stayed. As I said in
Speaker 3: the ceremony accepting the star. It was not the work
Speaker 3: I did on camera and on stage that has put
Speaker 3: this broad smile on my face that defines my success.
Speaker 3: It was the work God did off It was the
Speaker 3: journaling it was the therapy. It was after five years
Speaker 3: agreeing to get on medication. I don't want to have
Speaker 3: a push medication, but I take it. And when I
Speaker 3: talk like this, I tell everybody this ain't the truth.
Speaker 3: This is my truth, This is my story, this is
Speaker 3: my song. So if you ask me, I'm gonna tell
Speaker 3: you this is how I did it. Ha ha, And look
Speaker 3: at me. Now I did it.
Speaker 1: This is already the greatest episode of in the five
Speaker 1: year history.
Speaker 4: So when you were talking about medication with your bipolar disorder,
Speaker 4: what led to the decision to get on it after
Speaker 4: years of not being on what?
Speaker 1: How did you make that decision?
Speaker 3: Let me tell you something. Human beings changed for two reasons,
Speaker 3: and two reasons only because we are habitual creatures. One
Speaker 3: is a deadly disease. Two, you just got to get tired,
Speaker 3: sick and tire of being sick and tired. It wears
Speaker 3: you out right, It will wear you out to continue
Speaker 3: a habit over and over and over again. And see,
Speaker 3: I had a sex addiction, and little girl, there's only
Speaker 3: so much sex you can have, for God's sake. But
Speaker 3: here's the thing about the medication. It took my therapist
Speaker 3: five years for me to come to that decision, because
Speaker 3: I thought it would take my edge. I told her,
Speaker 3: I said, he look, I'm Jennifer motherfucking Lewis, bitch. I
Speaker 3: don't even know goddamn medication. Ain't nothing wrong with me? Well,
Speaker 3: missus Lewis, Yes, there was something wrong. I was not happy.
Speaker 3: The mania of bipolar disorder is dangerous. You understand, you
Speaker 3: do dumb shit like speed in a car, and you're
Speaker 3: not thinking that you could hit a whole van full
Speaker 3: of children. Come on, now, I don't do roll rage
Speaker 3: no more. Because a friend of mine said to me
Speaker 3: once when I flipped somebody out, I flipped somebody off
Speaker 3: when I was younger. My friend turned to me, Jennifer
Speaker 3: and said, Jennifer, oh, what if that person's mother just
Speaker 3: died and they just heard about it, and you you
Speaker 3: telling them to go fuck themselves? What's wrong with you?
Speaker 3: I never now, baby, I let people go. Somebody's got
Speaker 3: to say something to stop you from ruining your life.
Speaker 3: And I say to everybody, with seven point six billion
Speaker 3: people on this planet, you've got to ask for help.
Speaker 3: Somebody's there, don't you dare spending your life in those
Speaker 3: dark rooms like I did? You wake your ass up.
Speaker 3: Sometimes when I wake up, I have to pull on
Speaker 3: sojourn a skirt. Sometimes I have to say, Harry, where
Speaker 3: are you at? Sometimes I have to pull up Mandela's
Speaker 3: photograph to remind myself of how fragile his shoulders were
Speaker 3: and that I'm standing on him. You don't go to
Speaker 3: South Africa and go over to that island and see
Speaker 3: that cell huh, and not walk out of there and
Speaker 3: come home and say I, Oh, you don't get to
Speaker 3: do You gotta give back, Jenny. You got to tell
Speaker 3: the world what you've seen, don't you dare? We are
Speaker 3: as sick as our secrets, So don't keep noting. God
Speaker 3: damn it. You tell somebody I don't care what it is.
Speaker 3: And if they don't listen, to go tell somebody else.
Speaker 3: Go ahead.
Speaker 4: The other question, great question I had in regards to
Speaker 4: you talking about your sex addictions. How did you determine
Speaker 4: what was the line of location between Okay, I'm a
Speaker 4: person who enjoyed sex versus okay, this is an addiction.
Speaker 3: J'ah when you start picking up men. I was so
Speaker 3: bold in my ship, and I was so well I
Speaker 3: know I still am, but I was knocking honey, I
Speaker 3: was a brick house. Some motherfucker couldn't touch me. In
Speaker 3: my twenties, I was so pretty. I got to take it.
Speaker 3: But I had got have skin like a baby's ass,
Speaker 3: and I was honey. I was at the top of
Speaker 3: my game. I was on Broadway. I'm largeout, I had
Speaker 3: that thin ass waistline. I still got it, but I
Speaker 3: needed to come down from those Broadway shows. When you
Speaker 3: can get a standing ovation, you think you you think
Speaker 3: somebody wants it to end. No, so I went and
Speaker 3: did another show in my bedroom. You see with more adoration.
Speaker 3: Let me yes, and let me tell you something. You
Speaker 3: get tired, You get tired. I didn't think about because
Speaker 3: of the mania. I wasn't thinking of the dangers of
Speaker 3: that taking a strange man to your house. I don't
Speaker 3: know if y'all might be too young to remember mister Goodbar,
Speaker 3: the movie with Diane Keith, It's too much Wait.
Speaker 1: When we first got cable, my parents whenever that was like,
Speaker 1: go to your room and me, I'm like, what is
Speaker 1: this a good part?
Speaker 3: Something is like, yeah, well it was dangerous. And let
Speaker 3: me tell y'all something. I never thought I'd run around
Speaker 3: quoting the Constitution. M but I undersand this, and it
Speaker 3: is my motto. We all have a right to the
Speaker 3: pursuit of happiness. I wanted to be happy. I was
Speaker 3: depressed for many years and didn't even know it. They
Speaker 3: didn't happen. Words like bipolar shit. I went on opera
Speaker 3: long time ago, told them sixty million people out my pole.
Speaker 3: I lie, I'm tripole in these streets. Okay, new shit,
Speaker 3: tripoll the new shit. There's another poll over there. But listen,
Speaker 3: you have to be in it to win it. I
Speaker 3: gave up many times in my career, but I didn't quit,
Speaker 3: you hear me, I didn't quit. Yeah, I tell these kids,
Speaker 3: you must dream the dream and focus only on that
Speaker 3: so that you can be well with your soul.
Speaker 1: You know what.
Speaker 2: I'm gled you said that because okay, so I too
Speaker 2: was trying to figure out And here's you know. The
Speaker 2: disclosure is, yes, I mean I've been in and out of.
Speaker 1: Not in and out of.
Speaker 2: I mean I've you know, I've had a therapist. I
Speaker 2: guess you can say in and out. I've been doing
Speaker 2: therapy for like thirty years. But you know the thing is,
Speaker 2: when the pandemic came really you know again, like I don't.
Speaker 2: I feel like a person shouldn't have to be at
Speaker 2: rock bottom to make the change. So that's why I'm
Speaker 2: really glad the pandemic happened because it wasn't a rock
Speaker 2: bottom moment. But that was definitely somewhat of a paradigm
Speaker 2: shift for me and taken mental health seriously and all
Speaker 2: those things. But you mentioned something, and I noticed that
Speaker 2: probably the time that I might be liable to get
Speaker 2: in an argument. I mean, not a fight, not like
Speaker 2: pugilism or anything. But there's a moment after I get
Speaker 2: off stage where I can't describe the feeling and you
Speaker 2: you said that, and I was like, oh, so I'm
Speaker 2: not I've you know, I just thought like, well, me're
Speaker 2: Sometimes you're just an asshole. After the thirty minutes after
Speaker 2: roots show, it's almost like after a root show, I
Speaker 2: purposely look for a place to just sit silent and
Speaker 2: literally come down.
Speaker 1: And I can't explain it.
Speaker 2: And the thing is is like right after a show,
Speaker 2: that's when people were pulling for you and a mair,
Speaker 2: let's talk to rite and I can't explain. And the
Speaker 2: thing is, it's like, because these people aren't entertainers, it's
Speaker 2: hard to really explain to them the process I go through,
Speaker 2: which is kind of why. It's almost like an a that
Speaker 2: feeling of when you're done a show, and that how
Speaker 2: you feel is such a description less addiction that I
Speaker 2: can't describe that. I figured out that for the at
Speaker 2: least the last thirty years, I've been doing DJ gigs
Speaker 2: after the Root show because I love music and because
Speaker 2: I love DJ, but basically I need to slowly come
Speaker 2: down off that high normalcy. So usually after Roots show,
Speaker 2: I will DJ for three hours so that way I
Speaker 2: don't have to talk to people. I'm playing music and
Speaker 2: I come down. But and sometimes when I'm not DJing,
Speaker 2: I wonder what that is, And I thought I was
Speaker 2: the only person going through that, because again, if you,
Speaker 2: I feel weird in talking about the mental health space
Speaker 2: thing and have my occupation because I always feel like
Speaker 2: people look at me like, eh, here's the world Stiny's violin,
Speaker 2: Like if people are in a certain profession, they might
Speaker 2: not they might feel unworthy of having problems or whatnot.
Speaker 1: Like people might not at.
Speaker 5: This point, the world knows entertainers have trauma. Right, I'm
Speaker 5: just let me interject here, yeah, yes, please please, Yeah.
Speaker 3: First of all, we are not normal creatures. Yeah right,
Speaker 3: we are artists. We are different, Are we better? Are
Speaker 3: worse than anyone? No, we just are who we are
Speaker 3: and we form who we form the artistry. It's like
Speaker 3: Lena Simone said, an artist's duty is to speak to
Speaker 3: the times. Need A Simon didn't hide her pain and
Speaker 3: need A Simone laid it on the piano. We have
Speaker 3: to learn where to put that quest. You have to
Speaker 3: put that somewhere. You have to compartmentalize that you expressed
Speaker 3: it beautifully. It's called a glory train. Love you hear
Speaker 3: me talking to you. It's a glory train. And nobody
Speaker 3: can stay on that train too long. You got to
Speaker 3: come off. You got to get in the grass, and
Speaker 3: you got to surround yourself with nature and have that gratitude.
Speaker 3: It is a gratitude moment, so use it for that.
Speaker 3: You don't have to go crazy. Most people go and
Speaker 3: get drunk and party and carry on. Okay, you get
Speaker 3: a couple of those a month, but then sit the
Speaker 3: fuck down and talk about those feelings. Write them down
Speaker 3: so that the next time you feel it you have
Speaker 3: something to balance it. Nobody's coming with the answer, nobody's
Speaker 3: coming with the recipe. You got to pay attention to
Speaker 3: the self. It is the journey within that will get
Speaker 3: you where you need to be because what you will discover,
Speaker 3: HM is how short life is. Listen to me, you.
Speaker 1: Want to know how?
Speaker 3: You want to know how I live? I live like
Speaker 3: I got five minutes left? What if? What if you
Speaker 3: add fo fge minutes left? Who would you call? H?
Speaker 3: Think about that? Shit? What it? And I live like that.
Speaker 3: I ain't gonna lie to you. Sometimes it's something as
Speaker 3: as like when my assistant leaves, I want to swim,
Speaker 3: but the shadows have come over the pool, so it
Speaker 3: gets a little chill, and I stand there and go, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't want to get in this pool. Jenny, get
Speaker 3: in the fucking pool and relax yourself. You gotta talk
Speaker 3: to yourself. But guess why I got in the pool
Speaker 3: because when I woke up, I wrote it down. You
Speaker 3: will swim today, you got That's what living on purpose
Speaker 3: is about. You can't go Will and Nelly through this, bitch.
Speaker 3: It'll teach you a lot. This is why that you
Speaker 3: are in charge. Write the ship down. You write your
Speaker 3: story instead of like I said, going Willy Nelly, skipping,
Speaker 3: temptoeing through the fucking tulips. That's what look. Life is
Speaker 3: not a rehearsal. Live this, bitch.
Speaker 5: Can I just say real quick, excuse me, let me,
Speaker 5: let me just say this. And I hate to be
Speaker 5: all corny and go to the book that you have
Speaker 5: out the Walking in Your Joy? But I just realize,
Speaker 5: am I saying that right?
Speaker 3: Walking in your joy? Yes, that's walking in my joy
Speaker 3: and my joy?
Speaker 5: But it's so interesting because a lot of people write
Speaker 5: books and they say things, but I like that you
Speaker 5: have some real practical things, like what you just said
Speaker 5: to a mirror about living in those five minutes. And
Speaker 5: then you wrote something else that caught me and you said,
Speaker 5: when you're feeling down, you come up with a song
Speaker 5: about your how much you love yourself and how much
Speaker 5: people love you.
Speaker 3: That's I'm realizing.
Speaker 5: Although I haven't finished the book, can people like depend that?
Speaker 5: Like you pretty much got little workable jewels in here?
Speaker 5: Not just like girl, live your best life. It's actually
Speaker 5: like no, exactly exactly, but here's the work.
Speaker 3: Work is how am I gonna live my best life? Right?
Speaker 3: And that? And that's the work. That's what you write
Speaker 3: down in the morning, y'alls. I don't know if you know.
Speaker 3: But when I wrote The Mother Black Hollywood, I started
Speaker 3: writing in a journal in the seventh grade. No I
Speaker 3: because I knew I was gonna be a star and
Speaker 3: I would need my book. That's seventh grade continuously, I
Speaker 3: am sixty five. There are sixty seven journals of Oh
Speaker 3: I'm so jealous. That is why don't we do this matter?
Speaker 3: Why don't we start? And stop? And I got about
Speaker 3: six damn it so good detail she saw. The Black
Speaker 3: Hollywood is so good because of the details. I can
Speaker 3: tell you that I had hot apple pie with your
Speaker 3: only Ralph on this it's dated. Damn you see, you see,
Speaker 3: you see, so nothing is wasted. Live your life. And
Speaker 3: when I got into therapy the first time, my therapist
Speaker 3: looked at me when I told I'd written all those journals,
Speaker 3: she said, that's what saved your life, little girl. I
Speaker 3: believe it. I didn't know I was saving my life. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but that journal served in me learning at an early age.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know I was doing it. To be
Speaker 3: in charge of me and leave other people alone, Jill.
Speaker 3: People come and go for a season, let it go
Speaker 3: when they're no longer of reflection of you. You're not
Speaker 3: gonna be comfortable around them. If the toxic shit is
Speaker 3: going on, the lies and the chaos, y'all get the
Speaker 3: fuck out of there. You ain't there. There are many
Speaker 3: rooms to go to, there are many cities. Leave the room.
Speaker 3: Fuck out it there. Shits simple. Don't sit there with
Speaker 3: all that drama and shitty practical things you can use.
Speaker 3: It's so boring. It's boring. I said, the greatest sin
Speaker 3: is somebody to say, oh, I'm bored, bitch, They're to
Speaker 3: have my.
Speaker 1: Money, okay.
Speaker 2: So of course, like in the last two years is
Speaker 2: the most that I've heard black people speaking on finding
Speaker 2: joy and finding their their mental health and all those things.
Speaker 1: Because previously it was a secret.
Speaker 2: I would never, like in two thousand and eleven, I
Speaker 2: would never share with nobody.
Speaker 3: That like it's trauma attached it a you right, because.
Speaker 1: You don't want to share, like people think I'm crazy.
Speaker 2: Whatever the thing is is that I know that for
Speaker 2: black people, their go to answer was always the church,
Speaker 2: especially of an older you know, I was born in
Speaker 2: seventy one.
Speaker 1: I know you were born before I was.
Speaker 2: For a lot of people in you know, pre eighties,
Speaker 2: people whatever, like their thing is always like I'll find
Speaker 2: God or I'll talk to my preacher. How so this
Speaker 2: is almost a phenomenally to hear of your your generation,
Speaker 2: of your experience, really not even diving into the pool
Speaker 2: of mental therapy. But I mean, you're going to the
Speaker 2: abyss of it, You're going to the deepest level of it.
Speaker 1: So what was it?
Speaker 2: What was the moment that told you that my mental
Speaker 2: health has to be addressed in and handled this way
Speaker 2: as opposed to I do consider that, I do consider
Speaker 2: organized religion as a vice akin to gambling sex.
Speaker 3: Joss, let me say this to you. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 3: line in the movie I did, Karina Karina where the
Speaker 3: where the little girl says, these people believe I'm paraphrasing,
Speaker 3: but they said, these people believe in God. And the
Speaker 3: people that somebody that said it was Jewish. And the
Speaker 3: question that was asked by a child was she said,
Speaker 3: why do these people sing about this? And the mother
Speaker 3: said because it makes them feel good? And the little
Speaker 3: girl said, what's wrong with that? Mother said, I guess nothing. Look,
Speaker 3: if you want to be an organized religion, that's okay.
Speaker 3: Let people do what they want to do. That's what
Speaker 3: gets me through life, to allow allow others to be
Speaker 3: where they are. What you gonna do, Go and make
Speaker 3: them a Buddhist, Go and make them a move them.
Speaker 3: You're gonna make them. What are you gonna do? Once again?
Speaker 3: Once again, pay attention to yourself. Everybody on this planet
Speaker 3: has one job and one job on self care. And
Speaker 3: if you need to cry to Jesus to do that,
Speaker 3: then you go on and cry to Jesus. But allow
Speaker 3: other people to cry to whoever the hell they want
Speaker 3: to cry to. That's what I don't like about religion.
Speaker 3: Everybody think their religion is the best one. So I
Speaker 3: don't believe in that. Lead people alone. Lead people alone.
Speaker 3: If they want to work, you, let them work to Jesus,
Speaker 3: let them work in Buddha or a Mohammed or Allah.
Speaker 3: Let people do who the fuck they want to do.
Speaker 3: I know who I am. I searched every religion in
Speaker 3: this world. I have been down the road let's travel,
Speaker 3: and when I got to the end, that wasn't not
Speaker 3: but the big ass mirror. You cannot run. Wherever you run,
Speaker 3: you will meet yourself. So there's no running. And I
Speaker 3: told them on the breakfast club, I got money to
Speaker 3: run and run. You can't run. You don't ask me.
Speaker 3: Don't ask me for now. I'm like, uh, what's his name?
Speaker 3: The baby? I love Dave Chapelle. I'm rich, bitch, don't
Speaker 3: ask me for shit? All right, there you go.
Speaker 5: What do you say to him to even like to
Speaker 5: what on Ameir's question? Like you're leading the pack of
Speaker 5: your generation in that way? Like he said, like you're
Speaker 5: it is kind of special. Do you see in the
Speaker 5: difference in the generational power Now? I'm using words and
Speaker 5: had vocabulary for things that we didn't have before.
Speaker 3: When I went, huh, I got you. When I went
Speaker 3: on the road with the Mother Black Hollywood, because it
Speaker 3: was my journey through bipolar disorder, I was able to
Speaker 3: feel not only the temperature, but the temperament of the
Speaker 3: United States. I went all over. During the Trump era,
Speaker 3: people are starting to wake up. I was very pleased.
Speaker 3: They're starting to get counseling in churches, they are starting
Speaker 3: to put more counseling in youth centers. Our children are
Speaker 3: falling apart, and I'm not the only woman in the
Speaker 3: world that cares. People are coming together. We are getting better.
Speaker 3: Everybody wanted to talk about the stigma. Yes, there is
Speaker 3: a stigma, but we are getting better. You see, my
Speaker 3: mother didn't have the Oprah Winfrey ship. Okay, that's what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. Yeah, Mamma didn't know nothing about mental illness.
Speaker 3: And yet if someone were to ask me, I would say,
Speaker 3: absolutely she was. I do believe that she was depressed.
Speaker 3: She had me when she was twenty six years old
Speaker 3: and I was her seventh child. Whoa, she was scrubbed,
Speaker 3: and she was scrubbing white people's floors. You think she
Speaker 3: had time to give me affection. She was exhausted by
Speaker 3: the time I came along. Listen, eve Insla, who wrote
Speaker 3: the Vagina Monologues. She went all around the world. She
Speaker 3: went to Africa with the women that were having the
Speaker 3: the cl clitteristism. If it's clitterists, I don't know if
Speaker 3: it's plural. I only have one, all right.
Speaker 1: I used to have.
Speaker 3: Three, but I think I'm out. Remember one of those
Speaker 3: first one stars, that bitch tattoo when we just hacks it.
Speaker 1: God damn, I have to wait.
Speaker 3: That bitchaed to glitter and she has something like that,
Speaker 3: something like that. It was funny, but it let me
Speaker 3: get back to the let me get back to serious ship. Listen,
Speaker 3: all I can say that I did not go three clitterists. Honey,
Speaker 3: I did too. I need to find somebody to tell
Speaker 3: me whether clitorist it's clitterissist, says sis. Come on, Jennifer,
Speaker 3: if you don't.
Speaker 1: Glitteriz, I have no idea.
Speaker 3: You know, I'll come out of the bag with anything.
Speaker 3: I don't multiple clitterists. Thank you? Did you look it up?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: I would. I was in uh. When I was in
Speaker 3: the sea, gaddy uh. Two little baby rhinoceroses thought I
Speaker 3: had some food, so they came over to me and
Speaker 3: they just gone like this, just a don't get don't
Speaker 3: get done. And they when they saw I have no food,
Speaker 3: they kind of don't don't get, don't away from me.
Speaker 3: And I started screaming, I never heard of Jenny Craig,
Speaker 3: got no food for you. I'll cuts out a rhinoceros
Speaker 3: bitch you hear me? And then I had to look
Speaker 3: up whether it was not rhinocerih because most of my friends, wait, man,
Speaker 3: because mine listen. Because most of my friends are major intellectuals.
Speaker 3: I keep smart people around me. Honey, listen, I can
Speaker 3: feel enough for everybody. You just tell me what the ship,
Speaker 3: what's going on? But here? But if I listen, if
Speaker 3: I'm a stand in the serengetti and cuffs out two
Speaker 3: baby rhinoceroses, what do you think I'm gonna do with
Speaker 3: the story of the clitterists? Get the fuck out it,
Speaker 3: Let's go what's that who cosses out? But what you
Speaker 3: need to know is, Jennifer Lord will go anywhere. I
Speaker 3: ain't no shame in my game, baby, I'll do anything
Speaker 3: to make people laugh.
Speaker 1: Is because I'm also interested in your need to see
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: Now, I would have liked to have thought that I'm
Speaker 2: you know that I've I'm well traveled at least in
Speaker 2: my thirty years of touring the world and whatnot.
Speaker 4: But you've seen the airport at the hotel in the video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to say that I still and
Speaker 2: I know I've done things that are special whatnot. Like
Speaker 2: I'm I'm you know again, post pandemic. I am living
Speaker 2: life like I mean not to the five minute rule.
Speaker 2: Once you said that, and I was like, oh shit,
Speaker 2: I'm not doing shit with my life for you. How
Speaker 2: did you even organize or make a bucket list of
Speaker 2: the things that you wanted to do before you leave
Speaker 2: this plane called Earth?
Speaker 3: There was no bucket list. There was purpose See, when
Speaker 3: I travel, I go into the trenches, I tell my
Speaker 3: private guy to take me wherever they're not going. I
Speaker 3: want to talk to the people. When I was just
Speaker 3: in India, there were four people serving me one night.
Speaker 3: They had on their little bu for chef hats, the
Speaker 3: white chef hats and the white mask. And I said
Speaker 3: to them, because I had come through the poverty of
Speaker 3: Agra India, and I'd heard the stories of the untouchables
Speaker 3: and the cast system.
Speaker 1: So I went over to.
Speaker 3: Those four people that were cooking, and I told them
Speaker 3: that I had I came from that kind of poverty.
Speaker 3: And I looked at them, I said, you do know
Speaker 3: that you must rise up? Do you understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I got a little nods from them, and then I said,
Speaker 3: one of you is Gandhi. And I walked away with
Speaker 3: my plate of falafel, and Purposey went back to them
Speaker 3: dramatically pointed to the girl and said, it's you. I said,
Speaker 3: And if it's not you, young lady, you better got down.
Speaker 3: Make sure you're daughter. And she sneaked over to me
Speaker 3: at my table. She took her chef off, she took
Speaker 3: her mask off, and came over to me like she
Speaker 3: had been invited to that party, which you know, was
Speaker 3: against the rules of the hotel. She stood over me
Speaker 3: and she said, m I don't know your name, but
Speaker 3: I want to thank you. I will rise up, miss Lewis,
Speaker 3: because when she said that, I said, my name is
Speaker 3: miss Lewis. Oh, come on down, Jesus. You see, I'll
Speaker 3: call Jesus when it's because my mama called Jesus when
Speaker 3: things were good, you understand. So I go into the trenches.
Speaker 3: There's a video going around of me talking about voting
Speaker 3: at Hollywood and Vine after I got my star. I
Speaker 3: didn't know I was being filmed. I was signing autographs.
Speaker 3: But when I get a bunch of kids in front
Speaker 3: of me, I'm gonna use that time. Whether I'm in
Speaker 3: India or Hollywood or Cambodia, show me whether people are suffering,
Speaker 3: bring them to me. Like oh, okay. So I'm in
Speaker 3: Argentina and I tell my driver to take me to
Speaker 3: the real people. He said, oh, miss Lewis, it's dangerous
Speaker 3: in there. I said, I don't care. Take me in.
Speaker 3: I got out of that car. All these kind of
Speaker 3: people were standing on the corner and everything. They looked
Speaker 3: over at me getting out of that suv at Mercedes.
Speaker 3: But they saw the color of my skin, oh oh yeah.
Speaker 3: And some of them came over and I said to them,
Speaker 3: oh honey, I'll use that celebrity. I say, y'all know
Speaker 3: who I am. I said, you watch television. I said,
Speaker 3: you know, to show Fresh Prince. And that's when everybody
Speaker 3: wakes up because that shit is global, right, that show
Speaker 3: ate just national and international. That ship's global. I was
Speaker 3: in a three hundred I was in a three hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty year old glacier in Iceland, and a bitch
Speaker 3: came up and said some shit about Fresh real like
Speaker 3: I I got that. Yeah, I'm like, god, damn girl,
Speaker 3: where in a glacier, Get the fuck out of what?
Speaker 3: I come down? Fuck who I am? That's get the
Speaker 3: fuck out. I come down and keep the fucking boys
Speaker 3: down before you're carving the avalanche telling.
Speaker 5: Her to keep her voice down.
Speaker 3: That that's funny.
Speaker 4: I think that's actually our clip.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, this was after I This was after
Speaker 3: I sang amazing Grason the wedding chapel that they had
Speaker 3: carved off in the ice. Oh I bet it's on YouTube.
Speaker 3: You can actually hear that that performance is on YouTube.
Speaker 3: I sang amazing whatever y'all the uh the guy said,
Speaker 3: does anyone sing ah? What you say? Men? And my
Speaker 3: friend went, bitch, you ain't said nothing but the word.
Speaker 3: We went up. I went up to an ice podium
Speaker 3: and blasted that shit out. And I haven't released it yet,
Speaker 3: but I sang amazing Grace in the an caught tom
Speaker 3: in Cambodi, one of the great old ancient temple.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: And then I sang it in the Valley of Petra.
Speaker 3: I always get out and do a little something and
Speaker 3: leave my singing voice in those canyons and in those
Speaker 3: mountain range. But I will tell you this, I didn't
Speaker 3: sing amazing Grace up in the Himalayans. I got the
Speaker 3: fuck out of that before my lungs burst at eleven
Speaker 3: thousand feet. You can believe that fuck amazing Grace. I
Speaker 3: the fuck out of there.
Speaker 1: I don't think we've ever had an episode.
Speaker 2: We're forty five minutes into this episode and I'm thinking
Speaker 2: to myself, I don't even I don't even want to
Speaker 2: talk about the creative side of Jennifer Lewis, Like this
Speaker 2: show is more about like the creative like but listen
Speaker 2: to this.
Speaker 1: I just love.
Speaker 2: I just.
Speaker 5: A just.
Speaker 1: I just love Quest, I love.
Speaker 3: Ques.
Speaker 1: I keep my own song, I.
Speaker 3: Just love Quest.
Speaker 5: Is that like just just Himmler? Is that what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll share Quarante ain't like you.
Speaker 3: Thinks everyone is love.
Speaker 1: I shall keep that.
Speaker 2: All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're pausing it there for now.
Speaker 2: After that serenade, I needed a minute. So Jennifer lewis,
Speaker 2: you know, lively, real and raw as anyone has ever
Speaker 2: been on Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: And I think she may have cussed.
Speaker 2: More than any guests, including Deesus and Merrill. All Right,
Speaker 2: you heard me say it in the episode, but you
Speaker 2: see why.
Speaker 6: I called it one of the best QLs conversations ever.
Speaker 6: So we expect you back next week for part two,
Speaker 6: and make sure you pre order Jennifer's second book, Walking
Speaker 6: and My Joy in These Streets. And uh, I believe
Speaker 6: that's August thirtieth.
Speaker 1: It's like this combo. All right, see y'all next week.
Speaker 1: West Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.