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