You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Hi everyone, welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about the choices we make. My guest today is an inspiration and a role model in how she chooses to use her name and platform as a vocal advocate. Evet Nicole Brown is an Emmy nominated actress, comedian, and host, best known for her beloved role as Shirley Bennett on NBC's
hit series Community. Offscreen, she is a champion in caregiving, diversity in Hollywood, and the beauty of aging gracefully, all rooted in kindness and respect. I'm thrilled to welcome my friend, vet Nicole Brown. Oh my gosh, you are just out there so much right now, lifting everybody up. I saw you meet up with Kamala, I saw you presenting a big award to one of my favorite humans.
Can you?
And I just gotta know, like, how are you being so busy and fabulous? Like how are you finding joy in your personal life right now?
Well, Jinny Garth, I am very tired. I was just talking to a friend this morning and I was like, I don't know, I'm where I'm getting the bandwidth to finish everything. But how do you say no to going to hear Kamala speak? How do you say no to present in award to one of your dear friends? How do you say no to getting up early and putting on a lash to talk to you? Like, there's some
things you just don't say no to. So I'm finding the balance because you know, I'm newly married as well, which I have to figure out how to be a wife in my fifties.
Oh my god, I want to talk about that.
Let's have that talk. But my husband's really lovely and he's a very kind, peaceful man. There's no trauma or drama in our relationship or in our life. And so even if I'm slaying dragons outside the house or in my booth, when I come out of my little booth, he's there with some tea. He made me my tea this morn And you know, he's just a really nice man. So that's that's been the thing that's made this season of time possible.
He'd better be a good man, because you deserve it. I mean, I just I love you, and I feel like it's okay to just, you know, get into the deep stuff with you. Oh my gosh, speaking of joy. Yeah, you're getting ready to celebrate your first wedding anniversaries.
Correct, he's coming up in a couple of months.
Yeah, you waited for everybody that doesn't know. You waited to find love. You waited to find the right kind of love, which is absolutely and I choose me moment. So how is it now, one year later, settling in to being a wife, And are you still in the honeymoon phase or are you annoying you yet? What's happening?
You know? I think listen, I think we were annoying each other as friends for years, So it's not there's nothing new about that, you know, I'm finding I say to myself often, I wish that I had we had gotten together earlier. I wish that life had happened differently and I could have met him earlier, and you know, he could have been my husband through my twenties and
thirties and forties. But then I realized that perhaps the person that I was then would not have either been able to see him in all that he is, or you know, I feel like in a lot of ways, we were supposed to do it this way, Like I was supposed to go forward and fully understand what it means to be a woman and to be an entrepreneur and to be an actor. And you know, I built a wonderful life and was able to care for my dad for ten years before Tony came back into my life.
So it played out how it was supposed to play out. But I hope that my leaden life love reminds people that it's never too late, and that even though society in this world tells you that you have to be you, I'm married by twenty five. You're hearing about thirty had him babies. They make you feel like you missed it, and it's somehow life is. You did it wrong, and everybody does it differently. Some people are blessed to have babies. I wasn't blessed to have babies. Some people are blessed
to get married. I for the longest time, I wasn't blessed to get married. But there's joy and beauty in being single and childless as well. And I want to make sure that I keep flying that flag so no one thinks that now that I'm married, y'all better get over here. Y'all better get over here. If it's the right thing for you if it's not the right thing for you, or you haven't met the right person, stay on the other side because it's nice over there too.
That's right. I was just thinking about that, like timing in life, like things, you think things should have happened earlier. You wish that had happened earlier, so you had had more time and you could have gotten further whatever it is. If you're finding things later in life like we have, I feel like you're so right. It didn't happen for a.
Reason, reason and reason.
There's something so profound in looking at that space and finding what the reasons were, so you can really fully understand them and like just use them to like fuel you forward, you know.
And I also feel like, and tell me if you feel this way too. I don't think anything we go through is just for us. I think a lot of times, you know, people get into their little silos and it's like, well, I needed to learn this lesson. Maybe you're a cautionary tale for someone else. And it's not fun. It's not fun to be the one that people point to and go,
we don't do it like event because event. But I've reached a point in my age in my life where I'm at an age where I'm okay if something I did taught someone what not to do, you're not saying. It makes me happy to know that even my mistakes can be used to bless other people. And that's also why I try to be as transparent as possible as I go through my life, so that people understand caregiving's not scary. It's okay. If you're not married in your
thirties or forties, it's okay. If you find love late in life, it's okay, if you don't have children. I want people to know that all of those things are okay, yeah, or life is okay.
Yeah. The social pressures are crazy, and if you don't feel the social pressures, you're either great at deflecting at all or you're just lucky you haven't found yourself in a situation where you're kind of the non norm you know. And I think about that too, because like, yeah, everything happens the way it happened in my life for whatever
reasons it happened. And then there's sometimes when you think, oh man, the grass is always greener on the other side, I want that what that person has, or I don't want what I have.
And as it right, it isn't a season. Like if you take a snapshot of your life at any particular time, depending on where you are today, that will look like the best time in your life or the worst time of your life. You're either saying, oh, I wish I could go back there, or what was I thinking? But in the midst of it, when you made the decision, it was the right decision for you to make at that time. Yes, And what I say to people all
the time. The other reason why I'm okay with meeting Tony later is Tony has two amazing sons and if he had met me earlier, they wouldn't be here. And I need some of Zenda and Josiah in my life. So I am very happy to know that he created these beings and they're a bit of him, and they're wonderful, and I get to know them and I get to be a step mom to them, and so between them and my god daughter Ella, I got to have the experience of being in a child's life, and especially with Ella,
I helped raise her. So that's my baby, you know. And I'm also modeling that it doesn't have to be a child that comes from you. I have great friends that are adopted, So that means because they their mother didn't birth them that that bond is not the same or it doesn't count. Like there's so many rules that we have for what makes a family and what makes a life worth living, and I think we need to
pound against those things as much as possible. And also tell people who have gotten married, had kids, and then got divorced, your DNA needed to mix with that other person's particular DNA to make those amazing human beings that you raised. So don't ever get upset or why do I marry them? Because you made them babies and then babies, they're going to do great things in the world, and you don't know who they're going to become. You don't
know who their kids are going to become. So you're a part of the cog that created great humans down a line. You needed that DNA of that other person to do it. And so there's no regrets in that either.
Right now, everything happens the way it's supposed to happen. It all works itself out. It sounds so cliche and simple and yeah, but it is the absolute truth. How did you how did you find time in your already busy, big life to find the time to nurture a relationship on top of it. Because you know, dating someone and liking someone is one thing, but marrying them and living together twenty four to seven, sim it's a different things.
They're all way there, they all way there.
They won't go away, they.
Won't go away. No, But you know what, it's funny. I didn't. I don't think I realized I was in a relationship. I didn't realize I was building a long distance relationship with an amazing man. I was just reacquainting myself with my dear friend from twenty years prior. So it was me and him just laughing, and you know, I think love knocked us both over the head. We
literally were like whoa like independently of each other. We each had a moment that we've shared with each other since, like, dad, I think I like them, I think I liked And it was kinda do I tell her? Do I tell her? Like we were fighting that battle ourselves, but still just
enjoying getting to know. We're getting to know our friend again. Right, So then by the time it moved towards I like you, I like you back and then it was moving towards We're getting We're gonna get engaged, we're gonna get married. All of it felt like just the path we were always destined to be on.
It.
There was no and this is, and this is, this may not be fair, but I tell my friends, now you know the way you'll know if it's your person. And this is just my opinion is they don't end
up in the group chat. If you don't know how someone feels about you and you can't decipher what they mean, that either means that your connection with them is not strong enough for this to go the distance, or there's something your spidy senses are tingling about something when your screenshotting texts and send them to you girls, going he
said this, what does this mean? Or he called me on Tuesday and didn't hear When you're doing that, it's a good indication that that's not the dude, because everyone I know that's in a wrong relationship, they all tell me that the other person was very clear. There was no question if they liked them, There was no question if they were going to show up on Saturday at Chili's. All of it was like if you have the fish, if you got the fish.
You can't like for that connection with your partner, your potential partner.
Yeah, you shouldn't have to cook it, you know.
And no, because you deserve somebody who makes you feel seen and and doesn't need you don't need to go to your friends and say, I don't know if he really likes me.
You know they like you. They're coming for you. And it's and and there's no shade in that because I've done my time in the group chats, a phone conversation. Well what he said this, and I've done it. So I'm telling you I'm not shading anybody that's in that dance. I'm just saying that if you're in that dance, it's a good sign that either he's not ready or he's not that into you.
M hm.
And if you are in that dance for your own purposes, it's just things you still need to learn so that you can live in a relationship in an healthy way, because there's you know, a don of ways to live in unhealthy ways, unhealthy ways, but you gotta learn.
Have you read that book attached attached?
I don't know. There's so many books. It's in my brain right now.
It's a it's a book about how people attach in relationships. You either attached securely, anxiously, or you're avoidant avoidant, Yes, it kind of makes sense. You guys know what each of those things means. And the goal is to even if you're avoidant and anxious, the goal is to attach to somebody that's secure, because the person that's secure can
tether you and walk with you through your stuff. But if two avoidant people meet up, if two anxious people meet up, if anxious and avoidant meet up, you won't have some trouble. And that just means that there's work that you or your person that you like still need to do on themselves so that they can see you, like you and trust that they can go the distance with you. That's how you attach when you're secure.
What's the work though, Like, what's like, say you're a person who's anxious with another anxious person and you I really want that other person. I want the other person to do the work and become not anxious so I.
Can stay anxious.
Yeah.
Yeah, the work I think is, you know, I believe in therapy. I think therapy is amazing personal or couple. You know, I haven't had to do couple. Thank God, me and TONI are good. Maybe you should do it preemptively, I don't know, but no, personally, I started therapy years ago when there was some knucklehead I was liking who didn't like me back, and he just made me crazy.
So I had to go talk to somebody. And then I went back into therapy when my mother passed because I could not process being on the other side of the world and my life force just left, you know, my life. So there was a lot there. But the grief counselor I found, wonderful woman named Love McPherson, ended up. I found out later that her specialty is actually relationships.
So while she was walking me through my grief, she talked to me about my life and my relationships, and so I didn't even know that she was cobbling me to get for when I would, you know, get with Tony a year later, like she really mentally got me together, and she was the officiant at our wedding because I was like, I would not be able to stand here with anyone.
Wait, didn't it tip you off that her name is Love?
Yeah, and that's her really, that is her real name, And mother gave her the name love and that's exactly who she is.
So what a gift?
Yeah, it was really a blessing. So I did the work on myself. There's childhood dramas we all have. We all have, you know, dreams dashed, and we either believe that we deserve someone great in our life or not. And if we don't believe, it's because we have not we have not done the work to realize that we're worthy of a good love. And so we go. I don't want to. I don't get nobody all this mess. I'm a state of myself. How about you just work on the mess.
I really think you're right. The couple's therapy for me hasn't always been great, so I'm a little like this with it. But I really think that personal therapy for anybody is just so great to like, why not dig in and figure it out from the bottom up. Yes, that's where when you have your shit together, you figured yourself out, You love yourself. That's when like the sun starts shining every.
Day, and it's what you draw. Like I used to hate when people will say, you know, you look at your friends group or your relationships and you'll get a very clear idea of where you are right. It didn't bother me so much in the friend group because I have great friends, and my friends are mature and got
they shit together right. That's a good mirror. But I looked at my relationships and the men I was choosing, and I had to go, WHOA, like another guy that can't commit, or another guy that's not sure about you, or another guy that's a liar? Like what am I giving off that I am now a beacon to this? Or how many chances do I give that I should not give that I stay beyond the understanding that this dude is not the guy. So that was the work that I was unearthing, and there's nothing wrong with that.
And if you don't do that work and you end up with life, you end up with cheaters. You're going to think something's wrong with you because you're the common denominator. So do the work so you don't wonder if it's you. You'll know always him.
And you'll you'll be Yeah, so much easier to like recognize it and get out away from it quickly because you love yourself. Oh, how you use your platform in glorious ways, not just for your actress business. As an actress. You know, you actresses speak about all of us, but also you inspire people to be kind, and you inform people on things that matter to you. Try to you,
try to. Is there for you ever a line where you're like, I don't want to get too personal or I don't want to take such a harsh stance on something that will really upset a lot of people who normally love me.
No, I don't have a line with any of that. First of all, I'm an open book. I've never done an interview even and said well, this is what I want you to ask me. Ask me whatever you want. You know, I will answer whatever you ask. And second, I truly believe that those of us that have platforms have been given platforms for a reason. And if all I do with the seven hundred thousand people that are kind enough to follow me on Instagram is tell them
what lip gloss I'm wearing. This is my lipistine by way, But if that is all I do, I've done a great thing for lipostine, But I've done a horrible thing for the world. Right, so it is more important for me to shine a light on injustice, to shine a light on the importance of registering and voting, the importance of kindness, the importance of realizing that you know, we are stronger together, that your neighbor is not your enemy,
and immigrants make this country great. All of those things are important, and I don't care what I lose if I'm telling the truth. Now, if I was up here lying and making up stuff and being crazy, that would be very concerned about who doesn't like me. But at this point, anyone that doesn't like me is probably a wretched human being because I'm not doing anything wrong. Everything I'm talking about is the right side of history. So if you just don't like me, then you just don't
like me, and that's that's your journey to take. Ain't none of my business?
What are you talking about right now in your socials? Like, what's the one thing that.
Right now in LA? The importance of voting yes on fifty, because there's been some gerrymandering happening with the with the Poles and other states, and it needs to be counteracted because the only way we're getting out of this authoritarian hellscape is if we get kinder, loving, smarter people who aren't chasing money. I need, I need people that put
people over profit. That's what I need. I need my leaders to not be trading stocks and to be focused on getting the costs of bacon and eggs down for everybody. I need somebody that believes that climate change is real. I need somebody that knows that vaccines keep people alive. I need someone that will fight to make sure that they're that your babies have can breathe, they can breathe it and drink the water. So I need those people.
And so the only way we get what's in out and get people that actually care about people more than money is we have to register and vote, and we have to make sure that our vote counts. And that's why yes fifty matters in any other state there.
Oh my gosh, right, voting is like your is like your top priority as a number one.
Number one you got, that's your job. Your job as an American is to vote or don't. Don't say nothing about what the price.
Of eggs, don't complain about anything.
Don't complain about losing your job, don't complain about National Guard and military in the streets. If you're not going to vote to get people in that won't do those things.
There's nothing worse than somebody that's like has some sort of you know, pulpit, and they're talking about what they believe, and then you ask them, did you vote? Don't? Oh no, I didn't. Yeah, I didn't know who to vote for.
So I just think you did knew you knew. It's obvious, this is not this is open book jes yep yep. Yeah. So politics is important and also caregiving. Those are my two things that I'm.
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I'm gonna circle back on the caregiving. That's something I really want to talk about as well. You've worked so much, though most recently on a Lifetime movie which is called Man Enough, airs in November, right now, twenty second. Okay, So how do you choose the projects that you choose now, like Man Enough? And how does that reflect kind of like where you are in your life and your career journey, because I know this movie has somebody important to you.
In it, because it does. This is my first Lifetime movie. It's my Lifetime movie debut and also my husband, Tony's lifetime television debut movie debut. I got an offer to do the film, and I was overjoyed. Got to work with the amazing Tony Braxton, whose song Man Enough the film is based on, and then also Essence Atkins who's a dear friend of mine. And I read this script and found out that my character had a husband. I was like, what was playing a husband? Well, we haven't
cast him yet. I was like, could my husband audition anybody? He can audition? But he got a wain it. We ain't doing no favors and I said, well, okay, then let it. I just want him to be able to try for it. If he gets it, you know, great if he doesn't. And my husband we met in an acting class. He's he's been an actor, he just hasn't done it in twenty years. So he's now getting back to what all of us in class knew that he was.
He was the star of our class, and so when he dropped out and didn't want to act anymore, we all were like, what, Tony's not acting? So the idea that Tony was getting back in was exciting to me as a fan of his work, and he booked it. So I had to go up to Vancouver and kissed my own husband and rolled.
Utter stranger girl.
O can't the idea kissing a strange man or an actor? Like, oh, come on, I don't want him to do it. So I want to done it, that's my job, but I'm so glad I didn't have to so that so this film with the added bonus of getting to work with Tony was really amazing. And then to work with Tony Braxton and I've always wanted to get into that Lifetime family. I heard that once you're in, it's like you're you're in, You're in, so I can't. I look forward to doing
more things with Lifetime. So it was really easy. As for other jobs, I wanted it needs to be in LA because I'm a caregiver for my dad, have a dog, and leaving is a lot of work.
Well that kind of like slims your it does just down.
I mean, that's that's the thing that made saying yes to even do a man enough tough because it would would have been, you know, a month away, and I was like, well, I don't you don't want to leave my dad, don't want to leave Tony. And it worked out because Tony was able to come, so I was able to be with him and my dad has a great caregiver, So all of that play worked out the way it was supposed to. So proximity is important. Is it something that says something that will help people in
some way. That's always important when I take a role. And then is it something that I've never done that I think I could do something fun and I've never This character is really fun. She's she's smart, she's an attorney, she's she's got jokes, but she also has heart. So I think it's gonna be people have seen me in a way they've never seen me before. I hope that's what.
I'm excited to see you lead your own movie. That is for dang, sure close.
Star, you're my friend. You said lead. I'm strong Tony is a lead. I'm happy to support.
Oh yeah, good good. Well there's something so fulfilling for me personally about collaboration, and that's what movie making is all about. Well, do you have any like stories from your time on sets, like when you really felt that magic of collaboration or the benefits from it.
You know, just so many times. I mean, of course, community is the easiest answer, because everybody on that show was like except for Chevy Chase, of course, but everyone else on the show was right at the beginning of what they were going to become in the industry. So I got to have a front row seat for the beginning of Donald Glover, in the beginning of Danny Putty, in the beginning Gillian Jacobs and Alison Brie and you know,
even Ken Ken had just done the Hykover movie. But he was he was a star, but he but he hadn't become the fullness of everything that he is. And Jim Rash oscar Winner Jim Rash like, So there's there were a lot of parts of that experience that I will never be able to duplicate as long as I live. And we were a strong ensemble. So we supported each other, celebrated each other, rooted for each other, encourage each other to be as foolish as the other person could be,
and then delighted in their foolishness. Like, it was really a lovely time. And we're still all really close. We have a really lively group chat and birthdays aren't missed, and weddings and babies being born have been celebrated. It's been wonderful. So that was the probably the greatest career collaboration of my life was the five years I did on Community.
Yeah, that sounds like an incredibly supportive environment to get silly in. Yeah, which it has to be. So Yeah, we have our platforms that we've quite honestly worked really hard to develop and protect and build. And I'm just curious a lesson for women outside of Hollywood where we have we can develop these platforms. We have that sort of leg up in that area when we become you know, household names or people are used to seeing us on TV.
What is the lesson for other women out there who are trying to have that same sort of path towards equality and change and having our voices heard. Like, what would you tell a woman who doesn't already have a platform?
I would mean, yeah, do, I would say, And this is always I've said this before, and it's a little shocking when I say it. Everyone has a platform. Now. The size of the platform may be different. Your your platform may be Pta meetings. Platform may be frozen food section at Ralph's right. Your platform may be you know, two or three gathered in his name in the parking lot of church. But everyone has some people around them that are listening to what they have to say. Do
not devalue your platform, whatever it is. There's something in the Bible that says despise not small beginnings, because the bottom line is Everybody that's got fifty million followers started with one. Everybody that's a household name started as an unknown. Right. Even if you're an NEPO baby you start, they don't. They don't they know Jennigarth. They don't know you until
they know you. Right. So the whole idea of it is you use what you have and you make sure what you're saying is of value so that as it continues to grow more the right people are following you. You know, I'm the proudest thing about my my followers is that they're good people. I can tell in the comments section when somebody found their way in and they don't belong. We don't. We ain't cussing at each other. Were not treating people bad. I will block someone if
they're rude to a common er. If you come in my comment section and say something heyful to somebody in the comment section, you out of there. It ain't gotta be to me. We cultivate this and you do the same thing as you're building your platform in real life or where if you're just starting on social media, find out what you're excited about, what matters to you, what is true and important to you, and make sure you tell people about it.
I mean that is just one way to build a business, this absolute farm thing. But just even in life as a human, find what it is that you're passionate about and what you think can help other people. And that should be the direction that you walk in, Uh, to find that purpose in your life, yep, because a lot of us don't know our purpose. Yeah.
And that's shocking to me too, because I think what happens is that a lot of people think purpose is vocation. Yeah, and that is not purpose or calling. Purpose or calling is what you would do at what you do at every job you have. My purpose in calling is celebrating others. And I'm an encourager. I'm a cheerleader of people. That is what I've always been. I was working at Toys r US at Christmas time and I was telling people, I like your ear rings. Oh you just look so
maybe you won't get that Almo for you baby. I am encouraging. I'm celebrating people always. I can do that as an office tip. I can do that on this podcast. I can do that, you know, on a set. I can do that on fries at McDonald's and have you So the whole point is you not fries with mcdonald'sn't say a memo, way's job. I've done it everything.
Yeah, No, I didn't do the fries.
I didn't do the frid Now I would, but I happened. So the whole idea is you you figure out the thing that makes you feel alive, and it always involves other people. Your calling is never just for you. It's not My call is to be the best baker. That's nice. But where you put into bake goods? Are you gonna teach people how to make the bake good? You're gonna put out a cookbook to help people after you do
the bake good you're gonna sell to Bate Goods. You're gonna give the bake goods away to the unhoused.
Are they going to be? Are they gonna be? Yeah?
Exactly. It's not just I'm gonna be a good baker. What are you going to do with it after? And that's also vocation too, but it's calling is deeper. Calling is is the thing that wakes you up in the morning, the thing that you would do for free. Yeah, that's calling, And for most people vocation you got to pay me.
Yeah, there are a lot of jobs that you don't feel inspired by, a lot of jobs that I feel like job's and we all have we all know what that is when we have to have a job to pay those bills. But then there's room, I think in everyone to find purpose in their jobs. Yep, somehow, and okay, it'd be really hard sometimes or to find that purpose and then find the job that aligns with.
It exactly, you know. And also it's important too, because you spend most of your life, you know, at these jobs you're doing eight ten hours a day and actors we're doing twelve to sixteen hours a day. If you don't like it, you're going to become a miserable person in your health is going to suffer. So you gotta do something that makes you happy, and it doesn't matter what it is, and nobody else has to understand it. My dad retired from a school system, a middle school
in Cleveland. He was the head custodian for thirty years. He was a day engineer. Back in the day. You had to know how to do boilers and stuff so the schools didn't blow up. So he has an engineering degree, but my dad was a custodian, a janitor his entire life, and he was good at it. He treated that school like it was a palace that he owned. He made sure every teacher and every student got a hello, and he made sure that their spaces were clean and tidy
and sanitized. He loved his job and was good at his job. So it doesn't matter what you do, right, do it unto God? Yeah? So it's you know, it was an amazing job for him, and he was happy he did it, and I was happy he did it. You know, doesn't have to be a grand thing. No, you make it grand by your attitude.
By yep, exactly what you put into it. Let's talk about aging, okay, do it's talk about it. You do it with such grace and peace. We are at the same age.
I think you might be just I got you one year, maybe I got you buy a year.
So what is it for you? Is it inner confidence? Is it the humor that you have around it? Is it just pure peace and acceptance? You know?
It's I think it's what you gonna do, you know what I mean? Like, there's only you. You. You gonna keep living until you die, right, and if you keep living and you live long enough, you're gonna get old and what we're gonna do. I don't even want to be you wanna be twenty again?
I don't want no, no, no, I don't know. And I mean maybe for like you know, an afternoon, I ain't mean, but I.
Mean just not knowing who, what I'm doing? Who I was. Oh, I was so confused at twenty So no I And insofar as what happens to our bodies and you know, our faces and whatever, I think it's kind of funny. I think it's funny this dance that we're doing, trying to trying to not be what we are. It's dumb, you know, don't get me.
Seriously, like just never gonna work out. Your're going to work in.
Your favor because even though and this is the thing, you got a couple of choices, Okay, you're either going to let it do whatever it's gonna do, and you're gonna lean into it and be that. And we know some beautiful, amazing images who are letting it be what it's gonna be.
And I love what about when Jane Goodall there's a lot of press around her death. She's always been one of my favorites, and I just look at pictures of her and I want to cuddle up in every nook and cranny, every wrinkle.
It's like Helen Mirris, Helen Marres, Elamren, Helen Mirren is like, this is what it is. I think Andy McDowell, I think Harry Hatcher. They just like, I'm a beautiful woman and I'm going to be a beautiful woman at every age. And even if you don't consider yourself beautiful, I believe every woman is beautiful. And I think you know what a what is a wrinkle but a reminder of smiles. I mean at the most part. Sometimes it's frowning too, But for the most if you have smile lines and
crows feet, that means you had a really wonderful life. Yeah. The idea that you want to completely erase it, I don't understand. Now this is me talking at fifty four. Catch me at sixty four. I might be snitched. I don't know. I'm not against it. I'm not against it, But what.
I wouldn't think who could be against anything for someone else?
Like?
How about that? How about that? Like you do you do me? I'm do me? And this is the thing. I just think you should be honest about it because if you've done something that has you looking like springtime and you are well into the winter, you're being very rude gate keeping that information. Drop the name of the doctor for those that want to also look like springtime.
You tell the people what you did.
I don't see what you know. I've had it. I got a little botox here because I get a little angry.
I get yeah, little thing and it's my mom has it like I get.
A line like it looks like my whole forehead just kind of sunk down on my non nose bridge. So sometimes and I don't do it often, like maybe once a year, I'll go. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not. But I've made my peace with it because I also am my actress and I want to be able to lift my eyebrows and make faces all you do, you can't do it.
You want to be able to express yourself.
I would love to. I would love my forehead to tell what I'm thinking. You know, And but but again that's a choice that I may make again, I may never make again. I don't know. But your two choices are regular what it is and snatch to the gods or somewhere you know.
So you.
Everybody gets to decide what they do. But I don't have a problem with it, and thankfully my husband doesn't have a problem with it. Like I think, the saddest thing is when a woman is with someone that wants them to have bigger boobs or bigger but and the woman is making these decisions or because society says that's your spo. I just don't. I don't do it for you, whatever it is, do it for you, don't do it for someone else, and just let let it be what it's gonna be.
Yeah, it's hard. I mean if you're built in a brought up in a life where a lot of your decisions are influenced by others, which I have definitely experienced.
Oh were you when you started acting? Y?
Gosh, I think seventeen, Yeah.
We can, we can. I take a moment. I need to take Beverly Hill's net or two.
What a moment?
Moment Like eighteen nineteen year old me is like, I'm talking to Kelly. I am so it was so wonderful to meet you. I love that you are the chick I thought you were, you know when I met you at your at your event, I was just like, oh, she's lovely, Like I always just knew that you were a lovely human being. So it's so great as an adult to get to meet you and also to get to tell you that you did great work on that show.
Thank you. You're just You're just wonderful. So I'm so glad that we our friendship has grown and on here with you. I do.
I love calling you a friend. Okay, So what would younger efat tell that at fifty four?
What would younger VET say?
Yes, what would younger Vets say? And then what would older VET.
Say to younger to younger Evet if she saw how we turned out? I think she would be so proud. I think she would be like, man, you never sold out, You never did anybody dirty, never did a casting couch. I am I personally am very proud that I have lived my life with integrity. And there is no one, no honest person that can say I ever did any harm to them intentionally in this business or in this world. And if I have harmed someone by mistake, no one
apologizes faster. So I think Lily Vett, because she cared about those things, would be so happy to realize that a twenty five thirty year entertainment career did not change who she was. Older Evet would say to young Evet, it's okay.
That's tell all you need to say.
Yay girl, relaxed, breathe. You're gonna find them, You're gonna have the career. You're gonna finally move to California. You know, you're gonna survive the loss of your mom. Like all these things that are gonna come that you think are gonna take you out, they're not gonna take you out. You're gonna be okay. Just you know, And I would probably tell her to enjoy the journey a little more. I was so angsty. Oh everything was so important. I
mean I'm still that way. I'm still very angsty. And it's a lot of weight on every I need everything to be perfect, and I should know what this is with this grown age, and it's never gonna be perfect. It just has to be decent. That's to be.
Yeah, that's be good, feel good.
It has to feel good to you and you have to do no harm to others other than that. It's gonna be what it's gonna be.
That's right. So last time we talked, I think we touched a little bit on your h journey with type two diabetes. So I want to know how you're doing. Now, how's your health and what it is that you're doing. Looks so amazing because you look really healthy.
I am very happy. And also that helps. That helps my type two diabetes. Now, this is the thing. I want people to understand type two and forgive me. This is going to sound harsh, but Type I always say that my type two is something I gave myself. It's not in my family. It wasn't Type one. This was me and donuts. This is me and jugs of sweet and lemonade and donuts and not a lot of exercise. That's I did this to my body. And so when it happened, my doctor had been on me for probably
three or four years. You vet your pre diabetic, your pre ditabetic, you're pre diabetic. And I was like, okay, I'm so pre And then when I finally got it, she didn't even call me. I mean, I mean she didn't she didn't even wait to get me on the phone. She left me a voicemail, well congratulations, you're finally diabetic. And she was so upset with me, and I understood her anger, but It also scared me straight because the thing about diabetes in the black community, we call it sugar.
She got a little sugar, and we all know, for the most part, most of us know someone that left here missing a foot or a leg, you know, or two legs like and so it's almost a joke in the black community a lot of times, at least in my family. I'll say, may not put it all on black people, but in my family it was a joke like, oh, well, you got a little touch of sugar. No, that's not cute, and you shouldn't leave here without the body parts you came with if you can help it. And so it
became team keep my feet. As I was feeling tingling girls feet.
Tingling, I said, hey, tell me, why is that tingling and the feet and possible amputation? Why is that diabetes?
It's neuropathy, Like your your the blood flow to your extremity starts to be affected by the sugar. The sugar destroys your blood vessels. It really destroys your body like it could hurt. It affects your heart. Diabetes is a horrible disease, and that's why to think of it as a joke is dumb.
Yeah.
Right. So when you start feeling the tingling in your fingers, in your hands when you're diabetic, it's a sign that nerves are are affected or they're dying. And once they die, you know, you stub your toe or you get a you step on a nail and you can't feel it in your foot. Now you got a toe. This turned into gang green. It got to cut the toe off. It's all of those things. You have wounds that don't heal because of the circulation. It's a lot of stuff.
I mean, sugar is like what the most I don't understand. It's like legal, but it's like the most post powerful drug.
You know, take you out and it's so hard to get off of it.
Yet it's in everything.
It's in everything, and that high fruit toe so to take us out, and that's an American thing.
You know.
You go to Ireland or other countries and you eat their food. There's no preservatives, there's no red dye, there's no high fruit close corn serve. The portion sizes are small. It's just a different, different world. But this is the thing that I learned because I'm a researcher. As soon as something comes my way, or I want to do something new, I'm immediately at Barnes and Noble, buying every book I can find and highlighting and dog gearing everything.
So I became a student of diabetes and health. And the thing that I learned that changed my life is all have to lose is seven to ten percent of your body weight, and it automatically tells your pancreas get back into game right and your insulin production gets better. It doesn't cure diabetes, but it does help you get towards the lane of being in remission. And that's what I say. My numbers are normal. When I wake up in the morning, I check my numbers, I'm eighty two ninety.
After I eat, I'm like one hundred and twenty. So I am in a really great place. And all I had to do was put the doughnuts down, exercise more, and you know, just move my body more. And it's not hard to do those things.
But some people think it's so hard that they continue to not do it day after day after day. And what I get into that sometimes and what is that that is inside of me and other people that is like, let's push that off to another day.
I think the problem with exercise is the dopamine rush comes later. Like if you could get hit it a dopamine before you walk into the gym, we'd be great. But it's that feeling of accomplishment after that is wonderful. And I got to thank you because then you you you hit me, hook me up with your trainer, and I tell you I have been dodging him. He has reached out, just like I'm writing in line with what you're saying. He has been reaching out. Bless his heart,
He's reached out like three day. He's like, you've so he just reached out last week. And I need to call him because I really do want to get a regiment like I walk my dog and you know, a couple of side bins in the house, but I want to actually know that I'm getting up Monday, Wednesday and Friday, ye going somewhere, and if it's Pilate's taichi waits, I'm doing something because as we get older, we have to build muscle.
We have to I mean, I'm on the thing right now where my schedule got just too intense. I've been traveling a lot every month, so many commitments every single day on my calendar and I had to stop working out with my trainer. I chose to stop working out with my trainer because I needed more rest. I felt like I can't take one more thing on, and so thiss what happens? You take off the one thing that actually matters the most to your well being.
Giving your energy, and then I'm going to go back.
I've got to go back. But I am in the place where I'm like, I don't have time. Still don't have time.
Do you guys go somewhere and work out? Does he have a space? I haven't even gotten that far in a conversation. Think he has a space.
I stopped working out with him, and he but he has a great gym. And I miss going to the gym. And the thing about working out that I do know from doing it and then not doing it, and then doing it and then not doing it all my life is that that dopamine that you're that you're talking about, is that what keeps you coming back? But after you keep coming back, my dopamine would start leveling up on the way to the gym.
Oh, she would get you would get excited.
My body would start getting its natural like, who here we go with this? I know what's gonna happened now.
Never been there, never been consistent enough to get that. But I but I look forward to it and I do want, you know. And my husband likes to work out. He doesn't do it because of me, because I'm a slug. He doesn't do it as much as he. I think if we find a really great gym and we could go together, I think it'd be really really great. So I need to do that.
Yeah, I know, I need to figure what else, what's next for me in that world. But it's it's one of those weird things where I'm not alone because we're all justify it, dodge it.
As long as I'm on the bottom of the you are never.
At I just want, you know, I'm tired and at the end of the day, I want to lay down and I don't want to get up a five am. I know a girl, gosh, someone I did an interview recently said she gets up at five a m. Every day to work out, and I thought I was like breaking the you know, history by getting up and at six am to get to the gym by seven. She gets up at five works out at six. But that's doesn't it's not Yeah, me.
Let me not say I can't, because I'm I can say you can do it, you can do anything, but I do. I think, you know, maybe that's my last act in life, is I actually get in the best physical shape of my life, Like that would be funny if I was able to do that at seventy. Are some people that start like they can do it? They do it?
Yeah, I mean I did it ramping up to fifty, got an amazing shape, felt amazing.
Then you know you're still I mean, I know you were at the peak, but you're still.
Kind of keep it going. Yeah, I mean, what are you doing right now that in your life? That are the little ways that you're eating well, eating consistently, probably for your blood sugar.
Yeah, what else am I doing again?
In it for anything? For your skin, for your just your mental health, like for because it's all connected.
It is. And I wish that I could say that I was better at self care, because I'm really not.
Yeah.
I the thing that's keeping me fed well is my husband because he's a great, great cook and really like it, alacky great cook, so he enjoys cooking all the meals. So, oh my gosh, I know I'm crazy. I know, it's crazy. So along with my tea every morning I get some. You know, this morning we had we had grits with plant based sausages and like a pepper relish on top of the sausage like that. That was my breakfast. Come on, he's not playing, Tony, ain't planting.
I'm half of a faux nut for breakfast.
Well that was me for so many years, so many years because I didn't take I just didn't take good care of myself. So the food is is that I'm also going to the doctor more often now because I have more of a reason to stay healthy and you know alive. I'm living for other, for another person now, not just for myself. Right. I was like that when I was just care for my dad. But it's just different when it's your spouse. You just really want to be healthy for them and have a good life with them.
So that's part of it. As far as mental health, I really think I need to put the social apps down. And it's been really hard, Like it's the first thing I pick up in the morning, the last my phone is the last thing I touched before I go to bed. And then if it's not that, it's watching YouTube and just my brain is full of gunk and I need to fill it. I need to read more, like I miss. I used to read novels back to back, like I
need to get back to reading. And I wonder if it's when I started wearing readers at my reading I didn't read as much because I couldn't see and I couldn't find the right number for the readers, and you can't. It's just a lot of work to read now.
And it's just also a lot of work to like let yourself go there, like let yourself turn all the other things out and just read.
Because there's always something to do. And our email box is always overrun, our text are overrun. Do you remember back in the day when you could leave your house and no one could call your body, Like while you were away from your home, you were in the world, and if you had to call somebody, you had to go find somebody with a phone in the business or a payphone. But otherwise you had a great day just out in the world, not living, living, not being at
anybody's back and call. I don't I'm literally in my car at red lights, just checking and make sure I didn't miss something.
That what has happened to us?
What has happened to us that we can't be away? Like even just being on this talking to you for I Choose Me podcasts. We've been on for about forty five minutes now, right, and I'm like, oh God, emails are probably emails or what did I What did they do in Washington that I missed out on that I'm going to have to fight against in an hour and I can't. I have to figure out how to just be in this moment with you, in this soon, on this podcast and let everything else just kind of fall away.
And I miss I miss that. So mental health is reading more, putting the phone down, getting to spend time with people. I had lunch yesterday this weekend with one of my friends from my early twenties that when I first started out. We did a touring play together when we were like twenty six twenty seven years old, and I haven't seen her since my wedding, so it's been
almost a year since i've seen her. I didn't know what was happening in her life, she didn't know what was happening in mine, aside from what we saw on social media. I was so happy to sit with Demika and go out to your mama. You know, who are you dating? You know? Oh, I like in Little Purse where you get that like we got to have a real sister friend catch up in person, and I want to do more of that. And that's a mental health adjustment and infusion of joy as well.
You know, it's really hard to maintain all the things. Yeah, the health, the fitness, health, the healthcare, the mental health, the relationship, the relationships, the marriage, the dad's friends, the jobs, the dog. It's a lot, it is. We're spreads then, we really are.
And you know, there's there's a statement that says, you know, women live longer when they're single, men live longer when they're married. And that's because of the amount of caregiving that we give as women in general, whether it's your dad, your kids, your husband, your friends. Women just roll our sleeves up and what do you need? And we put ourselves last. That's like the biggest mistake that we make. And we see and I think I can speak for all of us when I say a lot of us,
most of us see self care and selfishness. Well, who am I to go have a massage? I can't go away and do a spot day.
Somebody needs me, somebody needs you, You need you, you need you know it for you.
Take yourself out for a nice you know, lunch, or go see a movie, get your nails done, go sit on the beach and watch the waves come in. We have to do things for ourselves so we still feel alive and and and you know, still put your own oxygen mask on first. I'm I need to put my oxygen mask on. A lot of women need to do that, you know.
And when you put it on, you're probably going to take it off at some point.
At some point we get to get a couple of goods, gotta get it back a couple offs and before you take it off, then.
Put it back on. But it's okay to give yourself a break, everybody. Because there's so much talk about taking care of ourselves better and all the lists of things now that we can do to take care of ourselves, and that has got me stressed out.
Like you got to figure out which which resort am I going to? What massage? Am I getting what nail color am I picking? I gotta drives It all becomes work after a while. Like for me, the biggest self care is just not getting out of bed some days. Yep, today and and I'm going to realize that it's not selfish to just lay here because if your body needs it, give give the body what.
It needs, you know, listen to your body. I think that's the core of every relationship, whether it's your relationship with yourself, is the listening to your body to what you need. Len your relationship with your loved ones is actually listening, sitting and being present and listening to where they are, because that's how you connect with them. That's how you the level that is beneficial anyway, all true,
All true? Well, give us some just a little advice on how to have healthy and genuine female relationships, sisterhood and all of those wonderful things like if you're if you don't have that in your life right now, you.
Know, I think I have this thing where you know, everyone will decide a friendship is over because the person hasn't done what they want them to do. They're not the kind of friend that they need. I've n did friendships because I'm not the kind of friend they need. Right So it's important as you as you move through life and build friendships and all those things that you
show up authentically and lovingly. If you have any friendships or people in your life that you don't love like that or you don't care about like that, it's better to end the friendship for them now. In so far as finding your group of people, the only way you can find your group is by being fully yourself, unapologetically.
I am very nerdy. I enjoy binge, watching shows like The Walk and Dead and ted Lasso and Abbot Elementary, and I love building Lego and you know I love seventies and eighties R and B and sitcoms from the eighties. This is who I am. If I hide any of those things about myself, the Mothership can't call me home. So I'm very clear and honest about all those things I don't. I'm not ashamed of still of building a Barbie dreamhouse reatsimly with my old ass. I'm not ashamed
of collecting barbiees and Star Wars memorabilia. I'm not ashamed of loving Sesame Street all in the Muppets. All of these things make me. And because I let my freak flag fly in a thousand different ways, the other people that like the things I like are like, oh, I like Janet Jackson, let's go to a concert or oh I love them muppet. You know Jim Henson's company is doing something here you want to go and next thing you know, you're hanging out with people that you like,
doing things that you like. And also, once you get them, be a good friend. Don't talk about nobody behind their back, don't steal nobody's man, don't gossip to the point of tearing people down. Be a decent human being, and build a lovely friendship life with like minded kind people.
Not so good, Yeah, we all need that that Nicole Brown. Before I let you go, I want to ask you one last question. What was your last I choose me moment?
Ooh, you know, it probably was this podcast actually because one in saying yes to it, I was choosing me because I just loved me. Using Jenni Garth, I wanted to have this conversation. But the other part of it is I knew that it was better for me to do it virtually than to come to your beautiful home.
And even though we had planned for me to get up and come to you today, yesterday I asked my assistant if she could reach out to your people and see if we could do it virtually instead, and you were like, absolutely, which is the greatest gift you gave me. But it was me choosing me to know that if I had to go to you, I had to get up two hours earlier, I had to drive, I had to make sure that I had clothes on from the
waist down and not just ropped down the pants. There were a lot of things that went into it, and I, hey, look at this. They matched, but their pajamas mine don't even match. So it's like, I chose that. And look now, in choosing me, I chose I chose you a better morning for you, so you didn't have to make the house into something you didn't tuckle down. Yeah, it's a
beautiful thing. And so that's the lesson we learned. When we choose ourselves and we don't do it selfishly, yeah, or even if we do sometimes it's all right, sometimes it's okay. But when we choose ourselves, which is really choosing the greater good for ourselves, then it encourages and it invites other people to do the same.
That's right, that's good. I think it's so important. Well, thank you so much for being everybody has to be sure to check out the second season of Squeeze Squeezed, your podcasts, Yes, and check out your movie November twenty second. Yes, I love it.
Thank you, Annie,