Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to this episode of Keep It Positive. Sweetie.
Speaker 1: I'm Christophine Hazeley.
Speaker 2: And today I have with me my dear, dear friend,
Speaker 2: my brother from another mother, Deval Ellis.
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: We got you?
Speaker 2: Listen, they've been asking for you. No, can we get
Speaker 2: di val At Kadeen on the couch.
Speaker 1: Here, he's here, I'm here, we got him.
Speaker 3: We appreciate you. I love this. I'm excited you Remember
Speaker 3: when it was just a thought I thought and I
Speaker 3: was here. I like it. I like you.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: When I think of you, Deval, I think anything pop smoke,
Speaker 2: anything Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: So what's a Brooklyn song?
Speaker 3: Where? Brooklyn? Where Brooklyn? I got yup? You see what
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 2: No, literally, that's what I think of because everywhere we go,
Speaker 2: it does not matter where we are.
Speaker 1: Devala is going to rep Brooklyn. We could be head
Speaker 1: in the Atlanta Hawks game. Working.
Speaker 3: What are you gonna bring that up?
Speaker 1: Working?
Speaker 3: An bring that?
Speaker 1: Like? Who stand up? I got fired in State Farm Arena.
Speaker 3: I can't do what are you doing? I can't do it?
Speaker 2: You're like, and I'll do it again.
Speaker 3: And that's why they don't ever bring me back up.
Speaker 3: There have these swag surfing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody was like.
Speaker 3: And they was playing the nets too.
Speaker 1: It was crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was crazy.
Speaker 2: For those who don't know, let me tell you. Daval
Speaker 2: Ellis is a former NFL player turned actor. Currently, he
Speaker 2: is a serious regular and the number one cable television
Speaker 2: drama series Tyler Perry's Sisters, and the star of his
Speaker 2: very own number one rated spin off is The Team,
Speaker 2: Though which he has the pleasure of playing opposite.
Speaker 3: Truly talk about it, talking about it.
Speaker 1: And can't leave this out.
Speaker 2: You are also a New York Times bestseller for your
Speaker 2: book Yes We Over Me, that you co worked with
Speaker 2: your wife, Kadema Elis. Yes, amazing. I'm so happy you
Speaker 2: are here. You are one of my closest friends. I
Speaker 2: just love you. I look up to you, and I
Speaker 2: admire you so much when I think about the first
Speaker 2: time we met. The first time I actually saw you
Speaker 2: was on Instagram and social media. Oh w, that was
Speaker 2: my first introduction of you. But I never a word,
Speaker 2: Like everybody.
Speaker 1: Ain't seen you a word, but we got to.
Speaker 2: The first time I actually met you in person or
Speaker 2: saw you in person, was in the audition room.
Speaker 1: Yup, for Sisters.
Speaker 2: At the time, Fatima was a really small character that
Speaker 2: hadn't yet been introduced. Yeah, and I was a producer
Speaker 2: on the show, or still have a producer on the show.
Speaker 2: But I was sitting in the back of the room
Speaker 2: watching all the auditions with Tyler, and that's the first
Speaker 2: time I got to see you as an actor and.
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, he has something special. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: for real, for real. Then got to know each other
Speaker 1: through Sisters.
Speaker 2: I remember getting the call saying I'm gonna make you
Speaker 2: Zach's girlfriend or his love interest, and I was like what.
Speaker 3: Yeah. When I first read it, I was like, I
Speaker 3: was like, where's this going on. I didn't understand it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, y'all can't give me.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, tall dark chocolate and that's
Speaker 2: your tight too, your type too.
Speaker 3: That is your type too. It is It's gonna.
Speaker 2: Just put that in the atmosphere, tall dark chocolate and.
Speaker 1: Some other things.
Speaker 2: Cause I learned I gotta be careful what I say
Speaker 2: because that's what God will bring me. And that's all
Speaker 2: you have is just tall, dark frolic.
Speaker 1: So I gotta be careful what I say. But I
Speaker 1: remember when we got the call.
Speaker 2: We started rehearsing together and at first it was just
Speaker 2: like straight rehearses. One day you were like, so tell
Speaker 2: me about yourself. We had never just had a conversation.
Speaker 2: It was like, hey, I'm Crystal, Like do you want
Speaker 2: to run it?
Speaker 3: So like meek and I was like, First's the funny
Speaker 3: thing is, I got the scripts and you know, there
Speaker 3: were a couple of guys who had a crush on you.
Speaker 3: Oh I remember they had a crush on you. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to blow them up, but I got the
Speaker 3: scripts and I'm reading the scripts and it says Zack
Speaker 3: and Fatima and Zaki and Fatima, and then finally it
Speaker 3: says Zak and Fatima started to have sex. So I
Speaker 3: immediately called those guys. I said, well, well, well guys,
Speaker 3: and they were pissed at me that letting y'all know.
Speaker 3: But then we were also scared because you're also a
Speaker 3: producer on the show. So I was like, this is
Speaker 3: our boss, so like there has to be a level
Speaker 3: of respect, you know, when dealing with this role. So
Speaker 3: when you called me, I was just I was nervous.
Speaker 3: I was like, she called me as a producer, as
Speaker 3: an actor, and he was so meek on the phone,
Speaker 3: and I was like, why is she so meat? Like,
Speaker 3: you're a producer, you worked with Tyler all of these years.
Speaker 3: I was nervous more than anything else.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 2: And I was nervous because that was my first time
Speaker 2: really acting, and then having the same partner like you,
Speaker 2: who's had experience and been on all these shows. I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh God, Okay, here we go. And I remember calling
Speaker 2: you to rehearse because it was during the pandemic. No,
Speaker 2: actually the pandemic hadn't happened yet. It's beginning of January.
Speaker 2: It was the beginning of Remember, we got the call
Speaker 2: we were gonna do it, and then in March, yep,
Speaker 2: we got we got the call marks so we weren't
Speaker 2: coming back because of COVID. So that was our initial interaction.
Speaker 2: And here we are five years later, five years later,
Speaker 2: but since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: Yees, since twenty nineteen, but that was actually twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: so four years later, four years later. But I do
Speaker 3: remember us running lines the first couple of times, and
Speaker 3: we were just like, yo. I kind of liked this
Speaker 3: chemistry of where the story's going because at the time
Speaker 3: you were paralegal and Zach just coming out of prison.
Speaker 3: It was just like they can have like a coming
Speaker 3: of age love story. Yeah, we were like, we're gonna
Speaker 3: get our own show.
Speaker 2: Literally said that it shows you the power of the time.
Speaker 1: Guys.
Speaker 2: We literally said this. And like two years later or
Speaker 2: even less than that.
Speaker 3: It was No, it was less than that. We sat
Speaker 3: on the bed ready to do a scene and Tyler
Speaker 3: walked in and walked in and said I like it.
Speaker 1: I like this, and we looked at each other.
Speaker 3: It's about.
Speaker 1: We knew it at that moment.
Speaker 2: I remember it had not been officially announced, and we
Speaker 2: heard the crew whispering about the team was coming as
Speaker 2: a teama because they saw it on the production calendar.
Speaker 3: And we're like, we like talking about it.
Speaker 2: And then I got the call, Yo, you got your
Speaker 2: I was like.
Speaker 3: You are lying to me? That was oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: I was in bed. I was in bed with K.
Speaker 3: He called me, and K was just looking at me
Speaker 3: like she could tell that something was happening. Yeah, because
Speaker 3: I was on the phone. Then I sat up and
Speaker 3: I remember saying, you serious playing Yeah. She tooked up
Speaker 3: like yeah, she looked nervous I was, and I told
Speaker 3: her it was. It was an exciting time.
Speaker 1: It really was history. That's amazing.
Speaker 3: We did that.
Speaker 1: We did we know, we really did that.
Speaker 3: We manifested it. Yeah, we did it.
Speaker 2: Speaking of manifesting, I feel like a lot of your
Speaker 2: life has been manifested.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take it back.
Speaker 2: Let's go all the way back, because I want to
Speaker 2: give people the full scope of de val, going all
Speaker 2: the way back to being raised in Brooklyn, New York,
Speaker 2: having these dreams. Did you always dream of being an
Speaker 2: NFL star? Did you always dream of being an actor?
Speaker 2: How did that come about?
Speaker 3: I ever wanted to be in an NFL really, so,
Speaker 3: how did that?
Speaker 1: You were just that good one of my Yeah, you know, no.
Speaker 3: This is a true story. My parents didn't want her.
Speaker 3: My parents didn't want their kids in the streets in Brooklyn,
Speaker 3: so they used to send us down to Morristown, Tennessee,
Speaker 3: Tennessee every year for eight weeks, our grandparents. We went
Speaker 3: down there. They had an acre and a half of grass,
Speaker 3: they had trees, they had everything, and it was a
Speaker 3: space for us to have some time to be away
Speaker 3: from the city. All you have to do there is
Speaker 3: ride bikes, run, jump, climb trees. Exactly that led man,
Speaker 3: stay outside. If you come back inside, you inside all
Speaker 3: day that. You know how country parents are. So I
Speaker 3: remember going down to Morristown, Tennessee and just being super
Speaker 3: athletic because we had nothing else to do. Like, all
Speaker 3: we did was playing jump, run and race and run
Speaker 3: up the hill. And they lived in the mountains, so
Speaker 3: everything was uphill or downhill. So all that acceleration deceleration
Speaker 3: made me athletic. But here's the thing that kind of
Speaker 3: sparked my interest. We used to go to the Boys
Speaker 3: Club when we turned thirteen. Then they turned it from
Speaker 3: the Boys Club to the Boys and Girls Club of America.
Speaker 3: And when they did that, they added Creative Arts. And
Speaker 3: I remember being thirteen years old and I went back
Speaker 3: into the Creative Arts Center and they were in there
Speaker 3: singing and dancing and putting on plays, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I want to do that. Wow. But here's the crazy part.
Speaker 3: I'm a kid from Brooklyn and everybody who goes into
Speaker 3: the Creative Arts who's a male is looked at as soft, weak, gay,
Speaker 3: you know. And this is the nineties, Yeah, different times.
Speaker 3: It's a different time. No one is even speaking about
Speaker 3: that type of lifestyle. So it was like, what do
Speaker 3: I do. I'm gonna just play sports. I'm gonna just
Speaker 3: ignore that part of my life and play sports. So
Speaker 3: I did that, and I just told my parents I
Speaker 3: was going to find a way to go to college
Speaker 3: so that after I go to college, I could be
Speaker 3: an artist. Wow.
Speaker 1: That is amazing.
Speaker 2: So when you so when you started playing how old
Speaker 2: are you when you started playing football?
Speaker 3: Sixteen? I was a basketball player. I could dunk when
Speaker 3: I was in eighth grade. I'm not tall, I was
Speaker 3: only five seven, and but I was crazy explosive, like
Speaker 3: I said, being in Morristown. So my brother and my
Speaker 3: cousin and I we were all just super athletic. And
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, I'm gonna go to the NBA.
Speaker 3: But my goal to go to the NBA was only
Speaker 3: to make enough money so that I didn't have to
Speaker 3: be a starving artist.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: And then yeah, that's that's literally the whole thing was
Speaker 3: I'm gonna the NBA. So I looked at Alan Iverson.
Speaker 3: He was like my size, and you know, I designed
Speaker 3: my game around him. And then my basketball coach, you know,
Speaker 3: he was he was a tough guy, but he wasn't
Speaker 3: one of those guys that got kids in the college.
Speaker 3: And then the football coach came and said, yo, you
Speaker 3: five nine and you can dunk. This is when I
Speaker 3: was a sophomore school. I'm dunk. Why don't you just
Speaker 3: play football? I was like, man, anybody's playing no football
Speaker 3: one hundred and thirty pounds. I said this to me,
Speaker 3: said you want to go to school? Said yeah. He
Speaker 3: said you want to go to school for free? I
Speaker 3: said yeah. He said you played between the numbers and
Speaker 3: the sideline. I'll get you to school for free. So
Speaker 3: at sixteen years old, I picked up football. Wow, and
Speaker 3: the rest was history.
Speaker 1: The rest was history. That is crazy. So you go
Speaker 1: to school at Hofstra.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you were you drafted or did.
Speaker 3: You wasn't drafted? I was first of all, I was
Speaker 3: walking on at Hofstra. I was walking on. I was.
Speaker 3: I was small at the time when I was being recruited.
Speaker 3: And this is something for parents to understand. I was
Speaker 3: seventeen when I played my last down in football in
Speaker 3: high school. Because I was in school early, so I
Speaker 3: didn't turn eighteen until the end of the year. But
Speaker 3: that season I was seventeen. I was competing against eighteen
Speaker 3: nineteen year olds, so I was only at the time,
Speaker 3: five ten, one hundred and forty eight pounds. So all
Speaker 3: the schools came and they were just like you wish
Speaker 3: she was one hundred and forty fifteen. It cannot be
Speaker 3: one hundred and forty pounds to stop that. But I
Speaker 3: haven't been that way since high school. But I broke
Speaker 3: a bunch of records. I got twenty six passes for
Speaker 3: eight hundred and thirty one yards fifteen touchdowns. I thought
Speaker 3: I was gonna get a scholarship. Offer never came, so
Speaker 3: Hopshaw offered me a partial scholarship, which was just room
Speaker 3: and boarding books. At the time, it's ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: My parents had to pay fifteen thousand dollars for tuition.
Speaker 3: So I told my parents, I said, YO, just let
Speaker 3: me walk on. I'm gonna earn a scholarship. Once I
Speaker 3: get the scholarship, my plan was to make a practice
Speaker 3: squad in the NFL. I could make a undred thousand
Speaker 3: dollars in four months, and those four months, I was
Speaker 3: going to buy a brownstone in Brooklyn. Shout out to
Speaker 3: Brooklyn ran out. The top two floors lived downstairs. So
Speaker 3: I had a whole plan. Wow, if I had a
Speaker 3: whole plan from the time I was seventeen.
Speaker 2: Wow, So you've always been like this because you for
Speaker 2: me to know you now you're a strategic thinker.
Speaker 3: Well, remember you started talking about manifestation. God gave me
Speaker 3: all of these visions, my kids, you not. From the
Speaker 3: time I was young, a voice always said to me,
Speaker 3: where you are is not going to be where you
Speaker 3: spend the rest of your life. That voice told me that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And the same voice always told me to question things
Speaker 3: and challenge things and not to do things the traditional way.
Speaker 3: So ever since I had that, I always felt like
Speaker 3: God had me. So when it came time to doing
Speaker 3: something outside the box, God got me.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: So you get through college and it's time for NFL drabs.
Speaker 3: So what happened? This is a funny, man. I killed college.
Speaker 3: I was on pace to be the only receiver to
Speaker 3: have a thousand yards two years in a row.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: I played with Marcus Colston, who was a freaking savage.
Speaker 3: Everybody knows that, but if we're being honest, I was
Speaker 3: a number one receiver on the team. He was the
Speaker 3: number two receiver. But if you look at Marcus Colston,
Speaker 3: he's sixty five, two hundred and thirty pounds and runs
Speaker 3: a four to four. If I'm taking a receiver, I'm
Speaker 3: taking market. I taking a little fast guy. But once again,
Speaker 3: my plan was to just make a practice squad. It
Speaker 3: was like, yo, I didn't get drafted. I wasn't even
Speaker 3: a high priority for agent. I wasn't. It was just
Speaker 3: I ran a fast time. They was like, you can
Speaker 3: come try out if you want to. Ran a four
Speaker 3: three and forty fourty in is vertical ten to five
Speaker 3: on the broad jump. Like I had all the measurables,
Speaker 3: just some small guy from a small school. So at
Speaker 3: this point five eleven, one hundred and seventy five pounds
Speaker 3: still tiny.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I told my wife Kay, I said, Yo, all I
Speaker 3: gotta do is make a practice squad. I get one
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars and then we can get our dream.
Speaker 3: And I ended up making the team wow, and made
Speaker 3: way more than one hundred thousand dollars now, and then
Speaker 3: it was like, all right, well, I can buy some property,
Speaker 3: I can start some businesses. So this way, when I
Speaker 3: get into my art, I'm not broke right. And then
Speaker 3: I got cut unexpectedly my third season, at the same
Speaker 3: time as the recession lost all my money.
Speaker 1: So okay, wow, So what in that moment? What is
Speaker 1: going through your head? Because I would have been like, Lord, why.
Speaker 3: I was mad? Yeah, I was mad, and I was mad.
Speaker 3: I hate saying this. I was mad at God. You
Speaker 3: know how they say, you know, Jesus was on the
Speaker 3: cross and he said, God, why have you forsake? Yes,
Speaker 3: that was me in my bathroom running the shower. K
Speaker 3: is in there because I had just proposed a k
Speaker 3: I just bought a house. I just I was planning
Speaker 3: my life. Remember I always had a plan. I was
Speaker 3: planning in my life. I was slated to be the
Speaker 3: number three receiver, punt returning, kick returner. And that summer
Speaker 3: comes around and all just went to shit. I got cut.
Speaker 3: I was losing fifteen thousand dollars a day in the
Speaker 3: stock market. I had bought two properties. Both properties value
Speaker 3: was going down because the housing market had burst, so
Speaker 3: I had no equity in the properties. I had to
Speaker 3: move back to Brooklyn and my grandparents all apartment with
Speaker 3: my fiance, and I sat in my I used to
Speaker 3: sit in the bathroom. I used to put the water on,
Speaker 3: close the door and I would cry. I would cry,
Speaker 3: I would and she'd be like, bab you okay, and
Speaker 3: I'd been there. I used to be like yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: like yeah, yeah, I'm good letting the water heat up
Speaker 3: because we lived in an old apartment. That water used
Speaker 3: to be hot. And I used to be in there
Speaker 3: freaking boling because I was like, what do you to do?
Speaker 3: I followed everything you told me to do. When all
Speaker 3: my friends and people in the NFL and they were
Speaker 3: buying chains and they were buying They're going to the
Speaker 3: strip club, buying fancy cars. I drove a Ford f
Speaker 3: one point fifty. My payment was one hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: five dollars a month. I put all my money in
Speaker 3: property in the stock market, and all that they got
Speaker 3: taken and I was like, I was like, I listened. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I was committed. You know. I was with my girlfriend
Speaker 3: at the time, was my wife. I was doing everything
Speaker 3: the right way and it all was taken from me.
Speaker 3: And I was just like like God, why the same fear,
Speaker 3: Like I was like that this is this is trash,
Speaker 3: if this is life, why did I do all of that?
Speaker 3: I said, I could have been promiscuous, I could have
Speaker 3: been the strip clubs. I could have bought chains and cars,
Speaker 3: and I still would have the same amount of money,
Speaker 3: and I would still have the same feeling because I
Speaker 3: felt like less of a man. I'm like, I asked
Speaker 3: this woman to marry me under the pretenses that I
Speaker 3: was going to take care of her, and now I'm
Speaker 3: asking her to move back to my grandparents' apartment in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: Like I just felt like, Yeah, my ego was done.
Speaker 3: I was just kind of like, and I don't like
Speaker 3: to say I have suicidal thoughts because that's just the thing,
Speaker 3: but I did. It was times I was just like, man,
Speaker 3: why I ain't even living? Like I didn't want to
Speaker 3: get out of bed, Like it was bad.
Speaker 1: In that moment.
Speaker 2: What was the pivot that made you say, you know what,
Speaker 2: get up to val Like I need you gotta move
Speaker 2: on from this. Life has to go on and I
Speaker 2: need to pick myself up.
Speaker 3: It's it's gonna sound crazy, but when you're responsible for
Speaker 3: someone else, like you just can't. Yeah, I asked my
Speaker 3: wife to marry. What I'm gonna do now, like what
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do? And then growing up in a Baptist church,
Speaker 3: you always hear about trials and tribulations. Absolutely always hear
Speaker 3: about tests. And then it was like, there was one
Speaker 3: person who used to always call me. It was my
Speaker 3: aunt Debbie. Yes, I love you on Debbie. When you
Speaker 3: go through something like that, most of your family doesn't
Speaker 3: know how to approach you. People think that, you know, oh,
Speaker 3: when when you're on high, everybody wants to be around you.
Speaker 3: But then when you know, nobody wants to be discard you.
Speaker 3: I've learned that it's not that they just discard you,
Speaker 3: but if you're the light to so many people and
Speaker 3: now your light goes out, those people really don't know
Speaker 3: what to say or how to be of service. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you've been of service to so many people and now
Speaker 3: you need somebody. They really don't know. My aunt Debbie
Speaker 3: would call me like once a week poopoo ha poo boo.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what's up on, Debbie? She's like you all right?
Speaker 3: I'm like yeah. She used to ask me time you
Speaker 3: and your Bible? I should be like, yeah, lying lion,
Speaker 3: lie like straight lining, and she's like, pool Pool, you
Speaker 3: don't got a lie to me. And all she said
Speaker 3: was you just remember how you was raised. That's all
Speaker 3: she would say, You remember how you was raised. And
Speaker 3: that was kind of like, you know what you're right,
Speaker 3: because my father was laid off when I was seventeen
Speaker 3: years old, going into my senior year. My father was
Speaker 3: working for Chase Bank forever. My father always kept multiple jobs.
Speaker 3: He used to bounce work at Chase Bank. He could
Speaker 3: sell jewelry. My father everything to provide for his family.
Speaker 3: I remember my father came home when they said I
Speaker 3: got laid off. I was like, hello, like you the
Speaker 3: man in the house, did you mean you got laid off?
Speaker 3: He said, don't worry, abody be fine. I got some
Speaker 3: because my father always plans. And I said, if my
Speaker 3: father could go through that, and he had three kids,
Speaker 3: one going to college, you know, my sisters in private school.
Speaker 3: So all I have now is a fiance.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I thought about how I was raised, and I
Speaker 3: watched my grandfather get up every morning if it work.
Speaker 3: Then I watched my father push through. So I said,
Speaker 3: fuck it, I'm gonna just put my head down and
Speaker 3: just just create. And that's that's all I did, was
Speaker 3: create opportunities for myself and for my wife. Like we
Speaker 3: had to make money, and I just find ways to create.
Speaker 1: Wow, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: Sometimes always be hard for everybody. Those really be the
Speaker 3: hardest times because people don't know what it's like to
Speaker 3: be not just a man with you the light in
Speaker 3: your family. God, yeah, you know what I'm saying. Like
Speaker 3: everybody's like, you're devoted, how can I can you? And
Speaker 3: I'm always like yeah, because I've always felt like these
Speaker 3: blessings that have been given to me are not for me.
Speaker 3: I have a fiduciary responsibility to provide for everyone around me.
Speaker 3: Even when I create businesses. You know, it's like I
Speaker 3: create a business, I'm like, yo, which one of my
Speaker 3: friends can use extra fifteen K I'm like, yo, I
Speaker 3: put you on my business. Then you can talk that
Speaker 3: you make some extra like I've always been that way.
Speaker 3: So when you feel like you don't have that ability
Speaker 3: to be that for people, you don't feel like you
Speaker 3: belong anymore. And it's like I felt like less of
Speaker 3: a man, I felt like less of a brother, less
Speaker 3: of a son, And I'm like, I'm failing everybody. So
Speaker 3: when you push through that, I always put it away.
Speaker 3: I don't even think about it until I got to
Speaker 3: talk about it.
Speaker 2: And I think there's so and we have to do
Speaker 2: more of stop suppressing everything. You know, I feel like
Speaker 2: especially the black man, you guys have to be strong
Speaker 2: for everybody.
Speaker 3: And especially I wasn't a crowd and why you did
Speaker 3: this to me? Man? So no you could.
Speaker 2: But as the black man who is the light to everybody,
Speaker 2: you do hold a lot. And our society and our
Speaker 2: community has not until recently allowed the man to express
Speaker 2: or to cry or to feel anything. Because which like
Speaker 2: you when your dad came home, all right, man, has
Speaker 2: what you're gonna do? That's been the thing, you know,
Speaker 2: So you have to suck it up and keep going.
Speaker 3: That's that's really even now, like you are creative, there's
Speaker 3: no there's no salary that every month, I'm guaranteed on
Speaker 3: the first and the fifteenth, I'm gonna get this. Nope,
Speaker 3: I gotta wake up every morning and say, Yo, how
Speaker 3: much money am I going to make to be able
Speaker 3: survive for the next six months? Yes, next five years.
Speaker 3: You know. I have a wife, now, I have four kids.
Speaker 3: They're going to start going to college. We're looking at
Speaker 3: private school. I can't just sit back and wait, so
Speaker 3: sometimes it is like a lot of pressure. But I
Speaker 3: ain't gonna lie to you. Yo. Gods always had me.
Speaker 3: I've never not had what I needed. I may not
Speaker 3: have always had what I wanted when I wanted it,
Speaker 3: but I've always had what I needed. One story I
Speaker 3: always tell was when Kadeen, we didn't have insurance because
Speaker 3: the NFL, once you get cut, they drop you from insurance.
Speaker 3: So I have no insurance. Now I have a wife,
Speaker 3: now she's pregnant, I gotta find assurance. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: if I become sad, let me get in this commercial circuit.
Speaker 3: So now I'm hustling every other day going to commercials.
Speaker 3: Going to commercials. It was like, well, you got to
Speaker 3: make thirty four hundred dollars by October in order to
Speaker 3: qualify for next year's insurance. I book a Cheerios commercial.
Speaker 3: I get a check in the mail. It's for like
Speaker 3: thirty four seventy six. It was like almost perfect. K
Speaker 3: calls him and said, hey, my husband just got a
Speaker 3: check in the mail. And there's like, oh yeah, we
Speaker 3: see his name Ellis. He's qualified as he's sad, yelligsble.
Speaker 3: He joined sad, he get insurance. God has always done
Speaker 3: that for me, Always made away, always made away. There
Speaker 3: was times I lived, you know, through my credit card.
Speaker 3: I had my Square app, and I got kicked off
Speaker 3: the Square app because I used to cash advance myself
Speaker 3: money through my American Express. Sorry American Express, but I
Speaker 3: used to cash advance myself money to make it from
Speaker 3: month to month. And this is when I owned the
Speaker 3: gym and I was trying to keep the business going.
Speaker 3: But I also had employees, and there was times where
Speaker 3: it's like, shoot, it's a valley in training right now,
Speaker 3: but these people got to get paid. So I'm like,
Speaker 3: it's five thousand dollars, here's year thousand, here's your thousand.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. I lived through that for
Speaker 3: like half a decade. Wow, wow, half a decade, just
Speaker 3: paycheck to paycheck. Just I never told Kay how bad
Speaker 3: it was, never told my parents. I just smiled and
Speaker 3: I used to be like are you doing it? And
Speaker 3: I being there like broken, like yep, I'm doing it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But God always had me. God have me. So now
Speaker 3: with everything that's happening, I don't take it for granted. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't take it for granted. I still put a
Speaker 3: lot of money away. I've learned how to protect my
Speaker 3: peace but also protect my future. Yeah, so I give
Speaker 3: to people, but I don't give what I don't have.
Speaker 3: That's good, you know, I try to provide a way
Speaker 3: for myself to exist for years if everything is taken away,
Speaker 3: I got cut. So last year we went with the strike. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, I was able to continue my life as
Speaker 3: usual because you've been through that, and that's the message.
Speaker 2: That's the message message, because lot of times you're looking like, Lord,
Speaker 2: why have you forsaken me? But all he's doing is
Speaker 2: preparing you for something else so that the next time
Speaker 2: you're prepared for it. And do you know how seamless
Speaker 2: that strike was, Chris like? And that's I do not
Speaker 2: say that in a arrogant well I hear, I hear
Speaker 2: it was nothing but god like, I seriously that we
Speaker 2: made it through without missing a meal, without any lights
Speaker 2: going out anything, and life still went on. We still
Speaker 2: had an amazing life and that was nothing. That's how God,
Speaker 2: That's how my God works.
Speaker 3: I feel it is.
Speaker 1: I know it's a storm outside, but you're.
Speaker 3: Good Christ when people ask me, because spirituality always get questioned, right,
Speaker 3: you have a ton of people now who are like,
Speaker 3: there's access to everything, so we're no longer it's just crazy,
Speaker 3: we're no longer blind in the world. But I do
Speaker 3: realize it's the blind leading the blind. There's a ton
Speaker 3: of information. It's a lot of information and misinformation. But
Speaker 3: what I've realized is that you can't convince someone how
Speaker 3: to practice faith. All I can do is tell you
Speaker 3: why my faith is important. And there's moments like that,
Speaker 3: like there's no way. I've never never had a nine
Speaker 3: to five ever, ever, ever. The only nine to five
Speaker 3: I had was when I worked at Hagen Das when
Speaker 3: I was seventeen.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: Every time anything other than that, I've been a contractor,
Speaker 3: even in the NFL. You know, you're ultimately a private contract.
Speaker 3: They can cut at any point. I think it's the
Speaker 3: same way when I owned my gyms, I never worked hourly.
Speaker 3: I just God always found a way for me and
Speaker 3: put things in my path that I could utilize and
Speaker 3: create a tool. Like for example, I never thought i'd
Speaker 3: be a trainer. I hate school, went back to study
Speaker 3: exercise physiology and kinesiology because I needed to get my
Speaker 3: degree in certification to be able to make money to
Speaker 3: provide my family. God put that there. Never in a
Speaker 3: million years would I ever thought that I was going
Speaker 3: to do that. Right, But that's why I believe so much,
Speaker 3: Like no one can tell me no one can tell
Speaker 3: me he don't eat not real.
Speaker 2: No, Seriously, we talk about faith a lot, and I'm
Speaker 2: very open with you about my journey with God. And
Speaker 2: I brought you to church with me Sunday kkine and
Speaker 2: church is not something that you guys participated in often. No,
Speaker 2: So let's go back, because I know you were raising
Speaker 2: the church. What was that journey like and what made
Speaker 2: you be like I want to take a step back.
Speaker 3: Every elder in my family is a parishioner in the church, minister, music,
Speaker 3: choir director, boy scout leader. My father man a men's
Speaker 3: group called the Junior Layman. One of my aunt is
Speaker 3: a minister, like my grandfather's a deacon. Everybody's in the church.
Speaker 3: So I was in church every day Monday through Sunday.
Speaker 3: It was choir, rehearsal, Bible study, youth counsel, junior layman,
Speaker 3: boy scouts, Junior Layman again on a Saturday. Like, I
Speaker 3: was always in church. So while being there, I've always
Speaker 3: been inquisitive. God gave me messages, asked questions. I remember
Speaker 3: I was in Sunday school and I asked a question
Speaker 3: about the devil. We were learning about Lucifer being the
Speaker 3: angel of music. I said, so, if Lucifer is the
Speaker 3: angel of music and he went against God and became
Speaker 3: the devil, did God make a mistake because he didn't
Speaker 3: make him to be the angel of music? And I
Speaker 3: got I mean dad, and kicked out of Sunday School.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I'm asking a legitimate question because
Speaker 3: I don't understand. And then when no one could give
Speaker 3: me an answer or try to, they just because I
Speaker 3: was young. I was twelve when they just kind of
Speaker 3: pushed me aside as a problem child. That was the
Speaker 3: beginning of the end for me for church. And then
Speaker 3: my brother had a baby at seventeen. We had tattoos
Speaker 3: and braids. My father used to get scolded from the
Speaker 3: pool pit a lot, and I was like, yo, y'all
Speaker 3: just mad judgmental. I just felt like it was so
Speaker 3: much judgment. And I went to college and I started
Speaker 3: to study different religions because I always had a question
Speaker 3: for knowledge. I just wanted to know. So when I
Speaker 3: was studying Judaism and Catholicism and Christianity and what was
Speaker 3: the other one I heard about the three books the
Speaker 3: Old Testament, the Koran, and the Torah, and the one
Speaker 3: thing that stuck out to me was that those books
Speaker 3: tell the same historical story from different perspectives, So there
Speaker 3: has to be some truth in those books. But it
Speaker 3: also showed me that I can't tell other people how
Speaker 3: they're supposed to serve God.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: God is omnipotent, right, He's the alphay a mayor the Almighty.
Speaker 1: Church.
Speaker 3: I was the omniperty, you know. Yeah, who am I
Speaker 3: to tell someone else that God didn't present himself to
Speaker 3: you that way?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: So for me to tell the Jews or the Buddhists
Speaker 3: or the Catholics that you're wrong, My God is the
Speaker 3: right one to me just seems wrong. So I stayed
Speaker 3: away from creating a label on how I served, and
Speaker 3: I just seek knowledge. I see God wherever I am.
Speaker 3: So for me, it's like, if I'm in a church
Speaker 3: and it's a a Catholic church, let me hear the word. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. I've been to bar mitzvahs before, Yeah,
Speaker 3: So it's like, let me hear the word, whatever the
Speaker 3: word is. M let me not tune out what it is.
Speaker 3: So I stay away from church because I don't wanna
Speaker 3: limit myself. Yeah, but I'm not against going to church. Mm,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I I mean I I can say that
Speaker 2: a lot of people the reason why they aren't in
Speaker 2: church now to this day is because Christians are labeled judgmental.
Speaker 1: They feel judged. How you say, you're being judged from
Speaker 1: the pulpit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, A lot of people deal with it, and a
Speaker 2: lot of people deal with church hurt and things that
Speaker 2: happened in those walls that shouldn't happen, you know. And
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of churches that are trying
Speaker 2: to change that imagery and want to really like make
Speaker 2: it a safe space that it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1: But I I understand that.
Speaker 2: I I had this conversation with my parents one day
Speaker 2: about I dated a Muslim before. And I tell everybody
Speaker 2: this all the time when people ask me, like, who
Speaker 2: was like the best guy you ever dated?
Speaker 1: And it was this guy who was a Muslim. He
Speaker 1: was the most loving.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the way he just like look after me,
Speaker 2: the care for me, Like I felt that was like
Speaker 2: I really felt love. And my parents were like, you
Speaker 2: shouldn't be unequally yoked, and like they were really coming
Speaker 2: at me hard with the Bible and the scripture and
Speaker 2: I was like, well, he's such a good person, and
Speaker 2: they ended up meeting him. He came to my college
Speaker 2: graduation and they to this day love him, like absolutely
Speaker 2: love him. But what I learned as I was, I
Speaker 2: feel like, because I'm a Christian, I believe in Jesus.
Speaker 2: I believe he died for our sins, and that's what
Speaker 2: that's my belief. But I don't judge anybody for what
Speaker 2: they believe in, you know, because God said to love
Speaker 2: your neighbor as you love yourself. So I'm not here
Speaker 2: to judge you. I hope that you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: He did, He did say before he comes back, everyone
Speaker 2: is going to have the chance to proclaim that he.
Speaker 1: Is a savior.
Speaker 2: But I look at religion as a way to have
Speaker 2: some type of order in different cultures, and the main
Speaker 2: thing is to treat others as you would treat yourself.
Speaker 2: So I don't judge other people, but I know what
Speaker 2: I believe because you ask me, He's like, so what
Speaker 2: do you identify?
Speaker 3: And I was like, I'm a Christian.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't do the Baptist, Catholic, Methodist. I
Speaker 2: don't do that because I think by college. It was
Speaker 2: that's when more the non denomination it starts to rise.
Speaker 2: So that's where I am with it. But I don't
Speaker 2: judge anybody for what they choose to believe in, you know,
Speaker 2: I just I love everybody, and I just let my
Speaker 2: life shine and hope that Christ shines through that.
Speaker 3: Chris, I wish more of the world just exists in
Speaker 3: that type of space. Like if you think about the
Speaker 3: fact that we have holy wars, that is the biggest
Speaker 3: oxymoron I've.
Speaker 1: Ever heard in my life, a.
Speaker 3: Holy war, Like people should not be fighting people for beliefs. Now,
Speaker 3: there's a long history of why holy wars have started,
Speaker 3: you know, and that's very political. It's about land and stuff.
Speaker 3: But my biggest thing is it is not my job
Speaker 3: to tell you you're wrong for believing the way you believe.
Speaker 3: If what you believe keeps you in the sense of peace,
Speaker 3: allows you not to kill people, hurt people, steal from people,
Speaker 3: and just be a good person for humanity, then that's
Speaker 3: what you should live. Yeah, you know, and that's that
Speaker 3: was my biggest fear from church growing up. You know,
Speaker 3: my godmother's Catholic, and even in the Catholic Church, they
Speaker 3: believe that Jesus died on the cross. They don't believe
Speaker 3: in the resurrection, so they were just like, you believe
Speaker 3: in the resurrection, and I'm like yeah, And then I
Speaker 3: could feel the judgment and I'm like everywhere I go,
Speaker 3: like why I get judged. I remember one of my friends, Brandon,
Speaker 3: his father was Jewish, and he was just like, you're
Speaker 3: not Jewish, You're not of the chosen people, so you
Speaker 3: can't get access to the positive afterlife. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: all of y'all have some judgmental way of telling other
Speaker 3: people that they don't belong. I'm not subscribing to that.
Speaker 3: I'm not and I refuse to argue with people. I
Speaker 3: don't want to go back and forth. People argue religion
Speaker 3: all the time on social media, and I'm like, this
Speaker 3: is the dumbest thing that person believes in being a
Speaker 3: better person for whatever they believe, let them believe that.
Speaker 3: I don't argue with my parents. My parents will still
Speaker 3: go to church every Sunday, and they asked me why don't,
Speaker 3: and we have conversation. But I don't judge them, and
Speaker 3: I'm sure they don't judge me. They love me the
Speaker 3: way I am. They still will take my boys to church.
Speaker 2: Like, so, as you're bringing up your boys, like, what
Speaker 2: are you instilling them so they have their own walk?
Speaker 2: Because I know our parents was like, You're to be
Speaker 2: in church every year, every Sunday. It wasn't a choice
Speaker 2: if I wanted to get up on Sunday morning or
Speaker 2: Bible study on Wednesday nights.
Speaker 1: Or choir practice.
Speaker 2: You were going absolutely, So what do you do to
Speaker 2: instill that your boys have some type of relationship with God.
Speaker 3: That's still a conversation because my wife grew up Seven
Speaker 3: Day Adventists and I grew up Baptists. They study and
Speaker 3: practice on Saturday, the Sabbath, and we go to church
Speaker 3: on Sunday. Once again being judged. K's aunt. First time
Speaker 3: she met me, oh he goes to church on Sunday.
Speaker 3: That's the wrong day. I was like, oh gosh, here
Speaker 3: we go. Like here we go, here we But Jackson
Speaker 3: asked me the other day it was just like, Dad,
Speaker 3: we don't go to church. Her church people are mean. Wow.
Speaker 3: I said, no, bro, that's not the case. I said,
Speaker 3: church people have the same issues as other people. I said, Look,
Speaker 3: you get sick, you go to the hospital, right when
Speaker 3: you go to hospital, hospital people sick. What if I
Speaker 3: told you we're not going to the hospital to get
Speaker 3: you corrected because people are sick in the hospital, what
Speaker 3: would you think? He said, that don't make no sense.
Speaker 3: I said, exactly, why would you not go to church
Speaker 3: Because people in the church have issues. Everyone is going
Speaker 3: to get healed. So you're gonna run into people with
Speaker 3: issues in church the same way you got issues. And
Speaker 3: he said, oh, that makes sense. I said, we all
Speaker 3: got issues. We all need to heal. So I said,
Speaker 3: you when you want to go, when you're interested, you
Speaker 3: let me know and we'll look into it. So he
Speaker 3: was like all right, And I still ask him about it.
Speaker 3: We pray every night. We pray that the boys don't
Speaker 3: know they you know, that won't lay me down to
Speaker 3: sleep day. They all know that they understand who God is.
Speaker 3: So when they came to me and they said that
Speaker 3: I don't want to try Let's go find THEE. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I'm not going to force it on them because
Speaker 3: I don't want them to feel like they have to
Speaker 3: believe something. I'm trying to raise kids with open minds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2: So you you have four whole boys. They are all
Speaker 2: aspiring athletes. I feel like they all are walking in
Speaker 2: your shoes as a former as what is something that
Speaker 2: you instill in them? I know you're like really hard
Speaker 2: and got working out and training. They train like world
Speaker 2: class athletes.
Speaker 3: All the time at twelve seven six and two.
Speaker 2: Crazy yes, crazy, and they're all amazing.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah, one is your god to.
Speaker 1: He is, that's a baby. He'd be righting there with
Speaker 1: him like, which I do too.
Speaker 3: He just he's like he reminds me of Cairo. He
Speaker 3: just sees everything he wants to emulate him.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So as a dad, like, what do you
Speaker 2: do to hey son, this is if this is what
Speaker 2: you want to do, I'm going to teach you how
Speaker 2: to properly go after that? And what do you do
Speaker 2: to try to protect them as well as they're navigating them.
Speaker 3: The biggest thing is the mental peace, because once you
Speaker 3: start playing sports, the first thing you focus on is
Speaker 3: other people. Who's better than me, who's cheering for me,
Speaker 3: who's hating on me? I gotta tell him, like, none
Speaker 3: of that matters. Yeah, you're kid, You're training to be better,
Speaker 3: so all you have to focus on is just getting
Speaker 3: better better every day. Yeah, And they just like that's it.
Speaker 3: I'm like, if you win, I don't care. If you lose,
Speaker 3: I don't care how bad you are when you start.
Speaker 3: I tend to show them me at different stages of
Speaker 3: my life, and I'm like, don't look at dad now
Speaker 3: and say, look, my father is successful. So if I'm
Speaker 3: not there tomorrow, I'm a failure. I show them when
Speaker 3: I got cut. We talk realistically, but Jackson will be like,
Speaker 3: you didn't score no touchdowns in the NFL. No, I didn't.
Speaker 3: That wasn't my version of success at that point in
Speaker 3: my life. You know, I'm having more of my successes
Speaker 3: now in a different part of my life because sports
Speaker 3: isn't everything. And that's the biggest thing. I tell them, like,
Speaker 3: you're doing this to challenge your will. The only thing
Speaker 3: we can control is ourselves. Sports, to me, is an
Speaker 3: ultimate way to test your discipline, challenge your will. That's
Speaker 3: the only reason why we're playing. You don't got to
Speaker 3: be a world class athlete. You playing for fun. You
Speaker 3: may be a CEO, you may be an artist, you know,
Speaker 3: be a pianist, you may be anything.
Speaker 2: So I want to go back to a challenging time
Speaker 2: in your life. We talked about your boys, and we
Speaker 2: talked about your responsibility to your wife. Yes, when you
Speaker 2: were playing for the Lions, you got injured. Yes, And
Speaker 2: you've been open about your addiction to painless and during
Speaker 2: that time, what was it that you were going through
Speaker 2: in the mental and was the pain pills something that
Speaker 2: you were using to suppress what you were going through
Speaker 2: that time?
Speaker 1: Excuse me, oh man.
Speaker 3: Funny thing is the pain man stuff started in college.
Speaker 3: Started in college. And to be honest, you don't realize
Speaker 3: when things start when you're going through life. It's not
Speaker 3: until you look back and you say, dang, it started then.
Speaker 3: But to be an undersized athlete playing bohemos sport, I
Speaker 3: was getting beat up all the time, and I was
Speaker 3: a free agent try out in college, I was a
Speaker 3: walk on, so I always had to prove. I always
Speaker 3: had to But that takes word telling your body. I
Speaker 3: had five knee surgeries, separated shoulder I played. I had
Speaker 3: to put a local interestdeur on this shoulder just to
Speaker 3: finish out my senior year. Big needle. So the medication
Speaker 3: was a numbing agent. And then once you're constantly numbing,
Speaker 3: your rate of the pain coming back. So you take
Speaker 3: pain pills ahead of time. So that the pain don't come.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. It's not about being it's
Speaker 3: a proactive. Like if I don't take these four tilan on,
Speaker 3: I know I'm gonna start feeling it, So let me
Speaker 3: just take And this is how bad it was when
Speaker 3: I was in the league. I woke up, I took
Speaker 3: four thailand on just to get out of bed. I
Speaker 3: would get to practice, I'll take four time o before practice.
Speaker 3: I would take four tient at the end of practice,
Speaker 3: and I would take two Vikings to go to sleep.
Speaker 1: Jesus what every day?
Speaker 3: It's a viking in every day, two viking every day
Speaker 3: to go to sleep. Because in my mind it was
Speaker 3: like if I don't get sleep, my body won't heal.
Speaker 3: But I'm stressed out. I'm a rookie in the NFL.
Speaker 3: My body hurt. You can't sleep, you cannot I can't sleep,
Speaker 3: So I'm like, let me just take this so that
Speaker 3: I can't knock me out. Then you wake up and
Speaker 3: you do it all over again, and before you realize that,
Speaker 3: you're like, man, this is years of abusing pills to
Speaker 3: numb pain because you don't want to directly approach something.
Speaker 3: And that's what it was the number agent for me.
Speaker 3: Wasn't my pain. It was numbing the fact that I
Speaker 3: was stressed out and I wasn't happy playing in the NFL.
Speaker 3: I never want to be in the NFL.
Speaker 2: That is crazy because you don't have any young men
Speaker 2: like that's their dream and then for you to make
Speaker 2: it and be like, oh, they want to be here.
Speaker 3: I realized that when I was there, Wow, it don't
Speaker 3: matter how talented you are. I was faster than the fastest.
Speaker 3: I could jump high, I could catch the ball. It's
Speaker 3: a different type of love for the game that requires
Speaker 3: you to get up every day to continue to hone
Speaker 3: your skills. I did not want to do that. I
Speaker 3: wanted to act, I wanted to dance. I wanted to
Speaker 3: just be an entertainer. And as I was in the NFL,
Speaker 3: I just was not enjoying it. I was miserable, Like
Speaker 3: I was miserable. So the pain message like yo to guy,
Speaker 3: to go to sleep, get this fifteen thousand dollars for
Speaker 3: this week, go home and start your business. That's all
Speaker 3: it was for me. And that's no knock on the NFL,
Speaker 3: you know, but it was just a means to an end,
Speaker 3: and the pain pills was away for me to numb
Speaker 3: that pain so I can get through it, and then
Speaker 3: it's funny to be talking about spirituality. It was my
Speaker 3: receiver coach in college. I was back home. When you
Speaker 3: get back home. Now, I don't have access to the payments, right,
Speaker 3: So I'm at Kenneen's apartment and every night Cole sweats
Speaker 3: waiting up. She got to change the sheets. She's like, Devow,
Speaker 3: what is going on? And I'm like, oh, no, I
Speaker 3: don't know. So I don't have the payments. So I'm
Speaker 3: drinking alcohol now because that's the way that the pain
Speaker 3: I got money. I have nothing but time on my hands.
Speaker 3: Me and my friends would wake up at three in
Speaker 3: the afternoon. We as soon as we wake up, we
Speaker 3: would go get some tequila, orange juice, we take shots,
Speaker 3: we will go do whatever it is we was doing,
Speaker 3: and then we would party until four in the morning.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Because me and Kay also weren't on good terms, so
Speaker 3: I was outside. I was outside just at this point, no,
Speaker 3: we were this was two thousand and six, we weren't married.
Speaker 3: This is our first year apart.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: And you know, distance causes riffs.
Speaker 1: In relationships, absolutely.
Speaker 3: So we were trying to figure out how to get
Speaker 3: back to where we were because for the last six
Speaker 3: months we were not living together. Then I moved back,
Speaker 3: dealing with all the stuff I was dealing with, I
Speaker 3: was a different person. She was like, yo, see me,
Speaker 3: you got PTSD. Then she said you're gonna have to
Speaker 3: get out. She was just like, not, like, you can't
Speaker 3: stay here sleeping all day, going out with your friends
Speaker 3: and coming in late and sleeping all day. So I
Speaker 3: was like, fine, I'll leave right. But then she's also
Speaker 3: taking care of me. She's like devoured. Every night, you're
Speaker 3: breaking out in cold sweat. And then one night she
Speaker 3: called my receiver coach and MYCIA coach, Jamie Elizondo, and
Speaker 3: he's a very spiritual guy, and this is crazy because
Speaker 3: based on his spirituality, he doesn't curse. But he cursed
Speaker 3: me out without cursing me out and was like, you
Speaker 3: have a responsibility to that woman.
Speaker 1: That's a powerful talking to.
Speaker 3: Not one curse word. And he said, you have a
Speaker 3: responsibility to that woman to be better, and you have
Speaker 3: a responsibility to yourself to be better for yourself, so
Speaker 3: get up. And I was just like I was just
Speaker 3: telling him everything I was going through, like it was
Speaker 3: just depression, like me and my girl on the same page.
Speaker 3: The Lions was looking to draft another receiver who they
Speaker 3: ended up drafting Calvin Johnson. I had had to deal
Speaker 3: with playing with Marcus and now I got to deal
Speaker 3: with playing with Calvin Johnson. I already dealing with Megatron,
Speaker 3: the receiver of all receivers. I was depressed.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: And he was just like, that's not a good enough
Speaker 3: reason for you to lay in that bed and do
Speaker 3: the things you do. And he once again like my
Speaker 3: aunt Debbie, you know how you.
Speaker 1: Was raised, how you were raised. Wow.
Speaker 3: And it was just like a And from that moment
Speaker 3: when my alcohol got in the gym stopped taking any pain.
Speaker 3: I don't even take turning on no more.
Speaker 2: Yeah you don't because I was like, you'll have a headache,
Speaker 2: just be like nope nope.
Speaker 3: I'm like, you don't want to take nothing, Nope nope. Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's discipline, though, and that's really saying, hey, I don't
Speaker 2: want to get back to that space because you already
Speaker 2: know how dependent you can be on that.
Speaker 3: Because you see, even when I talk about it, I
Speaker 3: try not like it's so like dark that I'd be like,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna cry I'm not gonna cry. I don't
Speaker 3: ever want to be back there, especially have my kids
Speaker 3: see me like that. Yes, like four young men, they're
Speaker 3: gonna look at me like I looked at my father,
Speaker 3: and I used to blame my father. I was like,
Speaker 3: my father used to walk around and he was perfect
Speaker 3: all the time. He used to put up a facade,
Speaker 3: he put up a front. But now I see why,
Speaker 3: because that's the standard that I lived up to. I
Speaker 3: was like, my dad does not do these things, so
Speaker 3: I'm not doing it. So with my boys, I'm with
Speaker 3: them to have the same standard.
Speaker 1: So do you I want to talk to you about that.
Speaker 2: So when it comes to black men and you have
Speaker 2: four young black men that you're raising up and feeling
Speaker 2: like they can express themselves, feeling like they don't have
Speaker 2: to be perfect all the time, feeling that they don't
Speaker 2: have to walk in.
Speaker 1: This facade, and like I got it all together?
Speaker 2: What are you doing to make sure that they have
Speaker 2: a balance that of being a man, but also showing
Speaker 2: that it's okay to cry, It's okay to say, Hey,
Speaker 2: this is how I'm feeling right now.
Speaker 3: This is the first thing every day when I see
Speaker 3: mysel sons come here. Did I tell you I love
Speaker 3: you today? Did you tell me you love me today?
Speaker 3: Get daddy a kiss. I kissed my sons. I don't
Speaker 3: care what people think about it. I kiss my sons,
Speaker 3: I hold my sons. I hug my sons. And when
Speaker 3: I hug them, it's not like a church like you. No,
Speaker 3: it's come here. I hold you tight. You know I
Speaker 3: love you? Right? You love me? Yeah? Were you great
Speaker 3: in school today? Tell me some things that you didn't
Speaker 3: do great? They tell me that's what we're gonna do that,
Speaker 3: we're gonna work on it, and that's it, and also
Speaker 3: put them in spaces where they don't have to like
Speaker 3: we grew up so different, like in the South, Jim
Speaker 3: Crow South, because remember I was born in eighty four,
Speaker 3: like Jim Crow South.
Speaker 1: Is not that only twenty years?
Speaker 3: Right? So my grandparents raised me in an environment where
Speaker 3: you know, when you're around white people, you keep your
Speaker 3: head down, you be quiet. When we get dressed up,
Speaker 3: we're gonna put on slacks, we're gonna put on shoes.
Speaker 3: You yes, sir, you, yes, ma'am everybody, And it just
Speaker 3: always put me in a place where I'm like, are
Speaker 3: these people better than me? Is that why I have
Speaker 3: to act like this, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 3: if you think about it, that type of indoctrination teaches you.
Speaker 3: You know, they would say you gotta humble yourself. Why
Speaker 3: are black men always being told that we have to
Speaker 3: humble ourselves? As an athlete, I watch it right, Cam
Speaker 3: Newton does the Superman he need to be humble. Aaron
Speaker 3: Rodgers does the discount double check and he gets praised
Speaker 3: for it. I'm not doing that to my boys. We
Speaker 3: walk in every environment in our truest, blackest self. What
Speaker 3: do you want to wear, Jackson? I just want to
Speaker 3: wear my flip flops and a hoodie. We we wearing that.
Speaker 3: And when you walk in there, you look people in
Speaker 3: the eyes and you impress them with your intellect, not
Speaker 3: trying to assimilate to what version they think you have
Speaker 3: to be in order to be accepted. And they're just
Speaker 3: like okay, and k is on board too, because I'm
Speaker 3: just so tired and it's exhausting to try to exist
Speaker 3: in someone else's world. Now, this is my world world,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Like, Noble, my God created
Speaker 3: this world for me to exist the same way you exist.
Speaker 3: Exactly so why I got a humble myself and be
Speaker 3: all this and be quiet, noble. I'm speaking my piece.
Speaker 3: If you don't like it, I'll go where I am accepted. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's celebrated, not just tolerated. And that's what I'm
Speaker 3: teaching my boys.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: That is so good.
Speaker 2: Your beautiful wife, Kadeen. You guys have known each other
Speaker 2: since elementary school? Yes, been married since how many years?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: Let me get it right now?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Get it? Twenty two years? Okay, we've been married thirteen years?
Speaker 1: Okay, thirteen years.
Speaker 2: Was there any moment in your relationship that was super
Speaker 2: hard that actually helped shape you as a man that
Speaker 2: you are today?
Speaker 3: Yes, the moment that I wasn't able to do all
Speaker 3: the things that I thought made me a man and
Speaker 3: to still have a woman be there in her feminine energy, yeah,
Speaker 3: and not have to like belittle me or say why
Speaker 3: you ain't doing this? That moment there showed me what
Speaker 3: true partnership was. You know, because imagine you're in the NFL.
Speaker 3: I'm making half a million dollars. Whatever you want, baby,
Speaker 3: we go ahead, we go ahead. You don't want to vak,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, I'm feeling like a man.
Speaker 3: I'm feeling like I'm providing this lifestyle and then all
Speaker 3: of it get stripped away and you got to take
Speaker 3: that same woman from your culder sack, your forty five
Speaker 3: hundred square foot home in Canon, Michigan, and you got
Speaker 3: to go back to the hood. We lived on New
Speaker 3: York Avenue between Dean and Bergen. It was called Murderer's Role.
Speaker 3: Saint Mark's right there. Saint Mark's was rough. First year
Speaker 3: we didre was two murders in the summer time.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: And I'm there with my wife who grew up in
Speaker 3: the house in Kanarsi, and she's just there like, okay,
Speaker 3: so what we're doing riding? Yeah, just there. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't even feel like a man right now and
Speaker 3: you're just here. That made me like so dead. Catered
Speaker 3: to my marriage, you know what I'm saying, Because you know,
Speaker 3: I watched the show and Tyler was talking about what
Speaker 3: women need and what men need, and so much of
Speaker 3: it was misconstrued. And I watched it and I got
Speaker 3: a completely different.
Speaker 1: Message from it when you watch the whole.
Speaker 3: When I watched the episode, when I got a completely
Speaker 3: different message He was not telling women to accept nothing,
Speaker 3: but what he was saying is understanding when someone meets
Speaker 3: you at your worth. Your worth may not be a
Speaker 3: dollar amount exactly. You know what I'm saying, That's what
Speaker 3: I took from you. But I also do understand when
Speaker 3: people respond to things, it's often a projection of what
Speaker 3: they're going through. Even without comments, right, someone may say
Speaker 3: something crazy in our comments in the past, I'll be like,
Speaker 3: is this supposed the problem? Why they ain't? But that
Speaker 3: was like, man, I wonder what that person has been
Speaker 3: through that that's what they received from that, you know,
Speaker 3: It's it's like dang, Like sometimes the look at the comments,
Speaker 3: I'm like, man, that person must really be hurting. And
Speaker 3: sometimes I really want to reach out, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying, like, what's going on? I hope that men
Speaker 3: in particular understand that you are not defined by your wallet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: You're not defined by what you can provide for a
Speaker 3: woman financially, but you are defined by the type of
Speaker 3: peace you can provide for your family.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of times men put more
Speaker 2: on themselves than what the woman actually needs from them.
Speaker 2: In fact, yeah, this list, like I gotta got this,
Speaker 2: and she's like, no, this is I need this and
Speaker 2: you're not doing this.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you right now. As much as I
Speaker 3: used to make jokes because it's what people need to
Speaker 3: understand too, a lot of our content was out of jest,
Speaker 3: and I used to make jokes with my wife wanted
Speaker 3: this big wedding, and da da da. I wanted a
Speaker 3: big wedding because I wanted to prove to everybody else
Speaker 3: the type of man I was to provide that type
Speaker 3: of wedding for my wife. And it takes maturity to
Speaker 3: get and be like, you know what, di val, that
Speaker 3: wasn't her, that was you the whole time you bullt
Speaker 3: her the big ring, you bull her the shoes. You
Speaker 3: wanted to get her these things, and then when you couldn't,
Speaker 3: you then blamed her. Yeah, because like you made me
Speaker 3: buy these things. She never never never made me do anything.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: And I hope young men take from that that there's
Speaker 3: more that you can provide a woman and just a paycheck, like, like,
Speaker 3: there's so much more. You and I talk about this
Speaker 3: all the time. They're going through your dating journey and
Speaker 3: me being married. We talk about what you know, because
Speaker 3: sometimes even now I'm going to turn forty, I'm like, see, man,
Speaker 3: I don't know what help me understand what k may
Speaker 3: be going through. And then You'll just be like, well,
Speaker 3: you have you ever thought about this? And I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: I never ever thought about it. And then I'm just like,
Speaker 3: I still have a lot to learn at forty, and
Speaker 3: I'm just open to it. I want to learn. I
Speaker 3: just want to I want to continue to just seek
Speaker 3: knowledge and get a better understandable life. Is I love that,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Where do you see yourself in five to ten years?
Speaker 3: Five to ten years, I see myself headlining my feature
Speaker 3: film with a production company. I see myself carving out
Speaker 3: time to spend six months guaranteed with my boys. Every year.
Speaker 3: I'm making a point to not ever get so involved
Speaker 3: in my career that I forget about them. And I
Speaker 3: realize that now, like this past weekend, had an audition
Speaker 3: to do nothing is more important than me to my boys.
Speaker 3: I told my agent, I say, y'all have to get
Speaker 3: that to you later. Jackson got a tournament, Kyra wants
Speaker 3: to get trained the Code of GOT speech therapy. Kaz
Speaker 3: wants to do art and I have to do those things.
Speaker 3: And you know what I learned, people will bend to
Speaker 3: what you need. You know what my agent said, I
Speaker 3: can get you three more days. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: It's like yo, So I can live in this entertainment
Speaker 3: industry still be a family man. I could still take
Speaker 3: my wife on dates every weekend because I'm not filming
Speaker 3: in Bangladesh for a year and a half. Oh okay,
Speaker 3: I can do this. You know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 3: can do this, and that's what I want to do.
Speaker 3: I want to be not one of the biggest actors
Speaker 3: of all time. I want to be one of the
Speaker 3: greatest fathers. I want. I want my boys to be
Speaker 3: like my dad, rock with me. And most importantly, I
Speaker 3: want to be that husband that my wife can say
Speaker 3: he helped us down. That's what I want.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 3: Yes, how about you five years?
Speaker 2: Five years? Oh my goodness. In five years. I want
Speaker 2: to be a successful business woman. I have some things
Speaker 2: that I'm working on. I want to, of course, start
Speaker 2: my own movies. I want to be executi produce. I
Speaker 2: want to direct you Will. I want to turn this
Speaker 2: into a talk show.
Speaker 3: You Will. I come in here and see this, I'm like, God,
Speaker 3: this is already a talk show. This is Chris, you
Speaker 3: know how proud? Thank you so much? Like we talked
Speaker 3: so much about what we want to do and then
Speaker 3: we're just doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what it's about. Execution.
Speaker 3: Do you want to find love?
Speaker 1: I do?
Speaker 3: You will?
Speaker 1: I do want to find love.
Speaker 2: I mean it's say by my heart, just like as
Speaker 2: soon as you say that one, because I.
Speaker 1: Know you, I do. I do.
Speaker 3: Can't you can't? You love people so much. I watch
Speaker 3: you with all of your friends. I mean that ship,
Speaker 3: that's how we got close. You look out for everybody.
Speaker 3: He was looking out for me. I'm getting just Chris,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean to be honest, like people need
Speaker 3: to know. When I came here and I was trying
Speaker 3: to figure out things and do things for Kate when
Speaker 3: she was pregnant. You were my go to. You're my
Speaker 3: go to. You the one that got me the get
Speaker 3: cardier she carried ten months. You need to get there.
Speaker 3: What are you doing?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 3: You love people so much that God Remember I told
Speaker 3: you that God always got me. I can tell God's favorites.
Speaker 3: God gonna have you when you at least expect it.
Speaker 3: He's he's gonna have you when you and he gonna
Speaker 3: be tall, dark and handsome. It's like you want he
Speaker 3: probably gonna play ball when dunk on his ass, Zach attack.
Speaker 3: I see it for you, though, I see appreciate you're
Speaker 3: too great. You're too great a woman, not too you
Speaker 3: know that.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: And then Kaz and the code is gonna be the
Speaker 3: ring barrass love you to death.
Speaker 1: That no when listen and Cairo.
Speaker 2: When I walked into K's dressing room at the live show,
Speaker 2: when I say the way, Caro ran to me.
Speaker 3: He was oh yeah. I was like, and they haven't
Speaker 3: seen you minute. You're working? Yeah, why you haven't found
Speaker 3: love yet? Yeah, you're focusing on what you focused on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, it's not like you, Like,
Speaker 3: I don't believe age is really a thing. I understand
Speaker 3: the biological clock for women, it's a real thing. But
Speaker 3: with modern technology and with you taking care of your
Speaker 3: body the way you do, you'll be fine. If that's
Speaker 3: what you choose to have children, you know you may
Speaker 3: not want.
Speaker 2: You If every day it's a dim feeling, when do
Speaker 2: you go home?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: I see I stay with a toddler for too long.
Speaker 3: You blame I ain't haveing, no freaking when these kids
Speaker 3: are emotional terrorists. They are Toddler's a no joke. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that coming for you.
Speaker 3: Come on, man, come on, I thank you for this.
Speaker 3: You made me cry. You made me cry. I said
Speaker 3: I wasn't gonna cry. She made me cry.
Speaker 2: So God, thank you so much for this day. Thank
Speaker 2: you for letting the val make it here safely. They
Speaker 2: got to ask that you just guide this interview or
Speaker 2: not the interview. But it's a conversation between two friends.
Speaker 2: Let this conversation help others, inspire others, and bring them
Speaker 2: closer to You, Dear God, and everything that we do.
Speaker 2: Let him get where he's to go safely after this,
Speaker 2: and Jesus, then we pray, Amen.
Speaker 3: Oh God, Jesus.
Speaker 1: Eight