Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. Hey, y'all, you have no idea what people go through and what they've had to push through in order to get to the place in life where you see them now, where you see them shining. But you don't know the things that they've had to carry, the dark moments they've had to endure. But that's why I'm so eager to introduce y'all to my next guest coming up right here on Checking In with Michelle Williams.
Omg omg, omg. I'm not going to get too comfortable here because this is someone whom I had nicknamed Sunshine, but she's a respected industry veteran and is one of the top top creatives in the PR business for people such as Mariah Carey, Prince Destiny's Child individually and collectively, and so many more. Please welcome Powerhouse Publicists and CEO of Sure Media Group, Evet Noel.
Sure, Thank you, thank you. Sell. That's a sweet that's a street.
Listen twenty two years and time you soar higher heights. But you I've called you Sunshine for years because you exude sunshine. Evenings, even amidst pressure, even amidst just having to tell somebody off, Yeah, because they disrespected one of your clients. And I'm named off some amazing, amazing folks in the industry. But there's more to you just holding hands walking.
Down spread carpets. Yeah. Yeah.
Now we're in the era of social media where everything is for the gram. Yeah, and you were doing this before the ground.
Yeah, the grit before the gram is what they call it. Yeah, you know, things have changed, you know that. I was telling someone the other day that I remember being on the carpet with Destiny's Child and being in the middle and a photographer yelling at me, be mad, take your hand out of the phone out, you know, because I had forgotten to let you have.
Have you posted that picture of something where your handle. We've seen that photo where your hand.
Yes, it's always in it. It's always in it. And it's crazy because all those years later, one of my favorite photos is me holding hands with Chloe and Hallie and I was on a carpet with them and I said, oh my god, before the photographer yelled at me, let me let go. Because all those years later, I think what it is I have been blessed to work with artists pretty much from the inception, and so I've gotten to work with artists when they were young people, young men,
mostly young women. And I can't help it that I came into the business first and foremost as a mom, but also because I'm just somebody that loves people, and you know, going back to Destiny's Child, being trusted by the label, of course, but being trusted by the Noles family. And at the time, the first four members were fourteen and fifteen year old when I met them, you know, and when you came in, you were like twenty years old, right, l.
Yeah, ninety twenty years old.
So to me, to me, that's a baby, because I'm still twenty years ahead of the members of Destiny's Child. So I may not need to be mommy, but I'm gonna be Auntie.
I've read out of all these things award winning publicists, at least a few times a year, we're seeing where you are being honored by someone. But let's not also fail to mention that you are a mother and a wife, you are someone's sister, you are someone's aunt, and somehow you even balance all of that. But I think it's
the mama bearing you. Like you said, some folks you've been dealing with since they've been fourteen and fifteen years old, so you can't help but to be protective, and mostly women whom you have a woman protect in a male dominated which is shifting. As far as those stats on who are executives and who are calling the shots, there are some women there calling the shots. I mean you were one of them as vice president of publicity at
Sony at one time. In my correct yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely, but you had to be protective, and us as clients, we don't mind.
You know. My whole thing was, there's never a time that you're going to look bad. There's never a time that you're going to look bad. I will not let the client look bad. I will refuse the situation. I will handle the situation. No one had to tell me that. I didn't read that in any sort of manual that Sony gave me, and I certainly didn't read that in journalism school or in any of my public relation classes.
It's just innate. It's just who I am. And you know, like you said, I mean, I wasn't born as a sixty year old. You know, I lie Hondy.
You know, I lie, honey, she just celebrated a milestone birthday of turning sixty. And this is a long time in the industry. But you didn't start off as a publicist though, No.
I started at as a journalist. I went to college to become a journalist. Actually I wanted to be a combination of Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey. So I really really was concentrating on broadcast journalism. But it's better now. But back in the day, I had really really bad asthma and just horrible upper respiratory issues, and so my nostrils were always so nasaled. It always sounded this as
though there was something stuck in it. Oh. So the first time I actually recorded myself to hear what it would sound like on television or radio, ooh, honey, I said, I'd better learn to do print journalism because I sounded so bad. Yeah. So I concentrated on writing, to be honest with you, and not really on the voice. But that's what I studied, and I ended up going to Black Beat Magazine and staying there for quite some time.
Quite some time, I think I would say, like nine years, and then over to By the way, I did it because I love it. I did it because I loved it. I loved the artist, I loved music, I loved writing. I didn't do it for the money, because, honey, if I did it for the money, somebody needed to like put the dumb scap on me. The money was so bad after college, and I knew that I was a brilliant person. I mean, I'm not should you should not be ashamed to say that you're brilliant. I knew I
was well read. I knew I had discernment. And what they were paying me to be the editor of that magazine it was just a joke, but I always knew that it would be the best stepping stone. And I learned so much. I was already working with artists for a minute. Let's forget the artists. You know what, Blackbeid gave me the training for to be around publicists. I had to deal with them to do my job. I had to call a publicist in order to get an interview with an artist. So I learned how publicists work.
I didn't want to be one because I felt they were whoa, they get so crazy, whoa whoa wooh. You know, But then I said, maybe I could be a different one. Maybe I wouldn't be so harsh with journalists. Maybe I will give people grace. Maybe I will be respectful of their time and deadlines, and maybe I will do just a little bit more research on who that person is so I could deal with them from a human standpoint, Because I think for now.
You sure you want to give away the secret to some of your sauce.
Oh, I do, because at some point our expiration comes and you want to know that you have given a little gem after you're gone. And I'm not even talking about death. I'm talking about, yeah, absolutely doing something else, you know, wearing a bikini until I'm eighty years old on the beach in Grenada. You know. Yeah, you have to teach those secrets. You have to teach that. And it doesn't matter what work you do. You have to
give another human being grace. And I never wanted to be the person that worked with a big artist and felt that I was better than others so treated people badly, because then I'm not really giving the client grace. Imagine I'm taking you Michelle on the carpet and somebody acts the fool. Yeah, I'm going to be firm with them, but I'm not going to take away the humanity. I'm not going to take away the humanity because what am I doing is I'm also embarrassing you, right, so I
would probably give you a head up. Okay, Michelle, I got this. I'm gonna take care of this, and I'm going to say, Okay, don't yell at them. I'm going to tell them to come over to you. And they're going to come. They got to look right into your camera and they're going to give you time. But you can't yell at them. And please don't take the photo from the side profile that you know you're not going
to You're coming to you. They're coming to you, and they're going to look right into your lens so you could get the photo you want, but you have to do that with honoring the person and telling them I'm trying to make this better for you. But I've seen the opposite. I've seen publicists yell at people and oh my, I know. I'm going to be firm and I'm going to be I'm going to be protective of my clients, but I will not take away someone's humanity.
Which is definitely a key to I believe your longevity and why everybody from the cameraman to host, the person, lighting and the rigging, they love when you're there.
Oh that you.
Know that, you know that.
That's so sweet.
And I think a lot of people when you book clients on certain shows, they already know that client is going to come respected. They it's like they get excited eve that book this client. Oh we we're good. We're good, We're good. And especially for them that's been here so long, I think they beam up when they see you there and how you're still the same but still fears amazing light. Like you said, you give people what they need. I think that's very telling of how people see you too.
You know, a publicists that it's not just the client getting the love, but you deserve that too.
You do well, you know, Michelle, Listen when I get up in the morning, before I'm Michelle Williams publicist, Beyonce's publicist, John Legend's publist, whoever I'm working with, whoever I am Dennis and ConL Noel's daughter. I am a child of God, I am an immigrant. I have all of these other titles before I take on that title, So I have to show up first as myself respect, myself respect the people who raise me and love me. I always say, I show up to finish the work that my mother
and my father couldn't finish. And my mother and my father would never walk into a room and disrespect someone, Right, So I come in first with those other titles. When I put on the hat of your publicists, I have to represent you the way you want to be represented. There is no way you're going to feel good about the situation if I come in like a bull in a china shop. Yeah, no, no, no. You want somebody fears to represent you. You want somebody with knowledge, You
want somebody but confident. But you want those folks to call again and not say, ooh, we love Michelle.
That's true. That is so true. And I'm so glad that you went into who you're the daughter of, because people can also get so excited about what you do, who you work with, and it's like, wait a minute, you just said that you are the daughter of immigrant parents coming from Granada to New York. And when I gave you the copy of checking in, you had definitely told me. Yes, you had told me some things about
your mother in the past. You know, we've gotten to know each other and have some personal moments.
Y'all.
I've called event on what do I do in this relationship? Because I think I talked too much and I'm gonna run this man away. We've done that, We've had those personal moments. But you told me something about your mother. Because y'all have this, I don't want this episode just to be about, Oh, they gonna spill some tea about some of our clients. No, this ain't the podcast.
This is not the podcast.
This ain't the podcast for that. But you were telling me about your mother, who was diagnosed with being bipolar, and how she was made fun of by family members. People didn't understand and they isolated her. Can you give us part of that and how that prepared you for life?
Oh gosh, I mean I think I got my doctorate on being her daughter. Really, it was the lessons of life from day one. I'm going to go back to when I was probably about ten. I always get it wrong because I probably could have been about nine. But it was when my mother tried to commit suicide, and you know, I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what that is. I didn't you know all I know is they were trying to pump her stomach, and
then they took her away to the hospital. She had come to visit Granada after she had been in America for a while, and I think something clicked then and there that something is wrong with my mom and if she comes through this, I have to take care of her. And that's a big burden for, you know, a preteen. So I started paying attention, you know, after she left and went back to the US, I started paying attention
to what actually is going on. And I would hear women talking about, you know, that crazy lady, that crazy lady, that crazy lady, and I realized that it was my mom they were talking about. Now, they were women in the village who were so good to my mother, but they were people who they themselves didn't understand what that was, you know, So now I could forgive them. But then it was very very hard. When I came to America, I was fourteen, and my mother had gone in between
you know episodes. You know, she was good one year, she wasn't one year. But when I arrived, she was very, very very well, and then she got very sick, and she was sick for like two or three years. So at fourteen is when it really was that is going to be my job. And when do I talk about it? Well, I don't. I don't. So most of my high school I didn't join too many clubs or anything like that
because I had a responsibility. I had to go to the G Building, which was at King's County Hospital in Brooklyn, to see my mom. I did my homework there. It was as though she was in jail because it was like bars, you know, and they would let me in and I would sit, I would do homework, and then I would comb her hair or help her brush her teeth or whatever. And then when she was well, she was the most brilliant person I knew. It was like a thirty stems of poem that my mom would just recite,
you know. And she knew all of the Catholic prayers like by heart. She just knew all of those, She knew every song, she knew what was happening in the news. She just had a brilliant, brilliant mind. But bi Polar is a monster in that it really is up and down literally by polar. By Polar, it's like hot too, yep, pole up down, It's like extremes you know, like and
it could all happen within like an hour. I could be sitting having like a real important conversation with mommy, and then the next minute she doesn't know me, or I can go visit her thinking she's having a good day, and then she start yelling and screaming like there's a stranger in her room, and it would be me, you know. So I never knew which mom I was going to get, but I was always prepared. I was always prepared, you
know why, because the love never shifted. I loved my mother in the throes of a horrible episode, and I loved her when we were having a beautiful conversation, you know. And then I learned. I learned, I asked questions, I read books, I looked at what medications went with what medications, and I questioned whether or not this dosage was too strong because she was sleeping too much or something. And then my husband and I, David and I decided that
we're just going to take care of her. So we took her out of Brooklyn and we brought her to live here, and as my travel started getting really, really plentiful, we found a home for her so that they could really monitor her medication. Now, the good thing about my mother's mental illness is that she got better as she got older. There were years as she got older that she was just now dealing with physical ailments of getting older,
So we have to monitor her pressure. But she went years without episodes, and I really know that medication absolutely helped and therapy absolutely helped. But I can't have any of those without love. I was attention and attention. You got to be present, you got to show up. I would come off planes and go see her. If I was on the town on the road for a long time, my husband would go. My brothers and my sisters, like, you have to be present. But I learned responsibility at
a very very young age. Years later, when I left high school, I was out of college and everything already, I had a full career. I was asked to come back and speak to my graduating class, and I was a keynote speaker, and I finally revealed in that keynote address why I was running from school every day. I finally told them that I didn't make a lot of friends in high school because of my responsibility to take
care of my mother. That I was the first person at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Church Avenue in Brooklyn, waiting for the number thirty five bus to let me out to go see my mom, and I will get out and walk across the clockson Avenue and go and stay there, and wouldn't leave there until probably like three point thirty seven, you know, to take care of her. And you're talking about a sixteen year old. And I took care of my mother until twenty sixteen.
You were present, Yeah, had to be remember all of that, and you you were on world tours and multiple clients at a time, but still making time for your mother. But even I know that there are some listeners here who I would say that they're caregivers as well. Was there any human part of you that was like I can't do this or how do I keep going?
Absolutely? What I mean, there were so many wives.
Girl.
I would sit down and say, lord, let's just have a conversation. First of all, why am I doing all this? Why can't I be a booster or cheerleader? Why can't I go and just hang out? Why do I have to be the responsible one?
Isn't that? Why do I have to be the responsible one? Can go beyond people that are just maybe caregivers or right now you're the breadwinner, or right now you are the caregiver. Yeah, so that question lingers for millions of people. Why do I have to be the responsible one? Do I want to just go out and have a good time, have me some drinks and go to bed, But I can't because I can't be drunk and take care of you.
That's right, that's right.
Or I can't stay out with my boo.
But think about that, Michelle, think about that. My mother's illness gave me responsibility, but it also saved me. What would I have been? I don't know. It's that question that linga's. Without the responsibility to take care of my mom, would I have been a different person?
Well, this is what I'll say. I feel like when you say gave you responsibility, you were able to take care of her and some of her most fragile, vulnerable, tender, private, maybe even someone embarrassing moments, which prepares you for what you do today. You take care of people in their most tender, vulnerable, embarrassing moments that should just be left private. You are there. A matter of fact, one of your clients passed away. You had to write that press release of their passing away.
The hardest thing I've ever had to do was to tell the world that Prince had passed away. First, I had to digest it first.
I was just like, you know, just as a human, as a fan consumer.
Yeah, and as somebody who had gotten to know him. I actually thought that it was a hoax because I was on a flight. I was in between two flights. When I landed, I noticed that I had missed I don't know how many calls could be recorded, but I had to have missed about one hundred calls. And then as I kept looking at it, I saw that my husband had called about ten times. But I was like,
why is he calling? He knew I was on a flight, so I immediately thought, oh my gosh, my mom, even though she was just elderly, she wasn't really sick, right, But I thought, maybe it's my mom. But then I said, like, it would be my husband, then the New York Times, then the LA Times. Then you still say it press then DNN.
I'm just like, wait a minute, wait a minute, yeah, because as you're telling this story, y'all, y'all can't see us, but my hands are in front of my eyes and she's telling the story because I'm just imagining you and your heart's fluttering, really heart seeing in la times who did something? What happened?
Because that's what I was thinking. I was like, if it's not my mom. And then I quickly said, it's not my mom because there weren't any calls for my sisters or my brothers. So I said, it's not my mom. But oh my gosh, it's probably something happened to one of my clients. But I was not thinking death at all. I was thinking somebody accused them of something, something I just you know. So I called my husband back first, and he said, call Phedra, who was a wonderful woman
that was Prince's business manager. Princess died. I said, what do you mean. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no no. The last thing I did before I left was to send a message for Pedra, telling Prince I'm going away and when I come back, we're going to do the cover of the magazine. He wanted to do. What are you talking about? I called her and I said, what is this hoax? Why are we giving into a hoax? She's like that the world is waiting for you to tell them officially. I said, it's true? How is it truth?
And then I asked her a few details, and then I said, let me start writing. But I'm writing it on my phone and calls it and text are still coming in. And my daughter was traveling with me and she saw me crying and she took my phone away from me and she put it back in airplane mode and she said, Okay, now you can write. I said, oh, that's why, I said, did you just school you actually know how to do that? Yes?
But you know what, can I say this to folks that are listening now. None of my listeners wouldever do this, but do y'all hear the anguish, the despair, events, blood pressurizing. So that means not only for the family members of these horrible hoaxes, but for the people that work so closely.
EV's just not his publicist, that was a friend. So I think that's why hoaxes are horrible, because it gets everybody in a up and you got to hear your one know it's not true, because hoaxes are pretty normal nowadays, and it's like, no, it's not true. Then then your whole spee. You're already done.
You've already done the physical damage to someone, you know. It's like, it's just listen. I was at an airport in Trinidad. I was literally on the floor, literally sitting on the floor called Piaco Airport in Port of Spain, Trinidad, writing this, and then I said, you know, I'm only going to send it to one person. I'm just going to send it to the Associated Press and a Casta Moodie who's now at the Hollywood Reporter, and I'm going
to just let her tell the world. And I called her and we're both choked up on the phone because she was one of the last people that Prince agreed to do an interview with, a guy who didn't used to do interviews. And I'm just like, the whole thing is just spinning, like, oh my goodness, you know. And I sent it to her and minutes later, literally I'm walking out of the airport and it's already on the screens at the airport. We have official word Princess spokespersonally
that Noel Sure has just released a statement. I said, oh my goodness, not only is this real there, it is the tickling on the airport stuff there, it is right there. Yeah, yeah, it was very sad, very very sad. And of course, only three weeks later, I'm back on the tour, you know, the Formation World tour, and I get a call that I need to go home because my mom is not doing well. And it was Mother's Day weekend. I get home on Saturday, I spend all day with her. Sunday, I know that that's it. I'm
not going to see her anymore. And she leaves the world like right after she has Mother's Day with us. And I just thought that is appropriate because to the end, the thing she wanted to do better, the thing she wanted to have more time to do and perfect, was to be a mother. So she would not die until Mother's Day was over. She just would not. She died two am going into that Monday morning. She just would not. I was with her until but the almost midnight. Yeah,
and I should have stayed. The regret is that I wish I had stayed with her. I wish I had held her hand. I wish I would think she.
Would have left with you still being there.
Though, No, No, she would have held on. She would have held on until I fell asleep, okay, and then when I woke up, she would have been gone because she did not want me to see her. She didn't want me to see her. Yeah, yeah, I felt really,
I don't know. I felt I didn't come through for like two days, honestly, but I felt when when we finally let go of her, I felt that her journey was her life journey was exactly what it meant to be because to this day, all of the lessons that she taught me, a lot of it were in her illness, were in her act. Like you said, her most vulnerable moments were the most teachable moments for me.
Talk about so much loss. We talked about the loss of one of the most amazing icons, Prince.
There will never be another like him now?
But will they will never be? No one like your mom. There is no one to replace her. And at the same time, if I'm not mistaken, you had another death in the family not too long after that.
My aunt. Yes, but my mother fixed it that I was there for her to see there. I was like, Mommy, what are you doing? I don't want to be there, but I was there.
Isn't that something you want to talk about loss and how you're still present? But I get concerned about just the human side of you, and of course you do well as far as you're vulnerable in public, you'll do a transparent post.
But I'll later exactly so, I was to say, you know.
What is the overriding lesson to folks listening as it relates to loss, But one of it is dance five minutes later. You know, it depends on the loss. I would say, how do you dance five minutes later to loss?
I think I've gotten to that age, or at this time in my life where I realize that the circle of life includes death. The circle of life includes loss, and to truly honor those we love who have left us, we can only stay in a place of sadness for a short period of time, because to honor them, we have to also remember the good, the ups, and all
of the great things they've done for us. I'm very transparent with my emotions, and it takes me a while to sit and write what I want to say to the world, and what I want to say to them is that we are this sort of convoluted people, and we have this mixed way of seeing things. We're not all the same, we all process things differently. I go into a very very still place when I'm sad. It takes me to a place where nothing in my body works. I'm paralyzed. I don't need food, I don't need water.
I don't even need to go to the bathroom. I could just sit in my stillness for two days. I did that when my mother died. I get very like you see the films, and this is still and everything is passing by. That's what That's what happens with me.
Is that also how you deal with stress? Would that be called depression or just or more conscious? I'm still and this is just what happens when I'm still? Is that what I'm hearing you say?
I need to put a title on it. I don't know that I've ever really felt the press, so I don't know if that is true depression. But I know that I get really really sad now I've told you.
Which is a human response. By the way, I don't want to make you put a title on something now, but I haven't naturally after.
Loss, I've been searching for a title because just lately it wasn't about a physical loss of you know, someone dying, But when I think about it, I did lose somebody that I just really, really really loved. I saw her as a mentor, a lady from my village in Grenada. I did not expect to react to her loss the way I did. I was really, really sad, and I think it's because I broke my routine. I have a routine when I go home, there's a number of people that I must see, even if it's for three seconds.
But in COVID and coming out of a coming out of a spike in Grenada, I had to stay in my bubble. So I only sort of stayed with the people who were going to attend my birthday party because they were all vaccinated, all declared by the health department. So we kind of stayed in that bubble. And I was never going to ask anybody outside of the bubble, are you vaccinated? I just knew I was going to stay in the bubble. But I decided not to visit a lot of people, and she was one of those
people that I always visit. And then she passed away pretty soon after I got back, right after the holidays, and it really bothered me. It really really bothered me. And I think the fact that I didn't go back for her funeral that bothered me. But I think beyond that. I was coming down, like I said in my post, from a high that happened for my birthday, Like literally, I planned my birthday for five years and it was
beyond expectation. It was huge. It was just my emotions everything, and I think that in the weeks following it, I had to do this oooooo and it was a little bit of a legdown that I had to come back into my world. I have to work, I have to pitch, I have to make calls, I have to do things that go to the supermarket, I have to go to the cleaners. I have to get my nails done. All of those things were like ah, I didn't want to
do any of that. I just wanted to be in that place that I was for thirty days with the most incredible love I've ever felt. It was intense and beautiful. So that is a kind of loss too, when you don't want to step away from where you are into what is a little bit more reality. Right. So I literally want to coin a phrase because people don't talk about Okay, there are situations where you're planning a wedding,
or women who are getting ready to give birth. After they give birth, there is a sadness that people can't explain. And it's because the baby is no longer just your baby. That baby now belongs to the world, belongs to your partner, belongs to your family, and it's difficult sometimes to share something that was so I mean, it's a physical thing.
That baby was in you. You felt everything up the baby. So, you know, I really understand postpartum blues, I completely, but I didn't understand what it's like to come back from something very very happy into reality when you saw reality as mundane and not giving you the kind of love that you had, you know, in abundany.
I'm sitting here trying to figure it out that now you got me wanting them. I got therapy in two days, so I can ask the therapy please and let me know. But we were, you know, trying to figure out when everything is high or it's like a performing that you perform, or ee event, you've had such a great achievement and then you come back to your room two days later.
Yeah. Yeah, but I think it happens to performers. If they're honest, they will tell you that there was that adrenaline that pumps you.
Know, yesterday, I've seen you no, no, no, no, this wasn't even a perfellment. For three days straight, I was in Columbia, South Carolina at a very high powered women's conference, and it was everything I needed was affirming, confirming. It was like, Okay, I've got the tools to go and do the next thing that I want to do, or it was confirmed
that you should do this, You're not crazy. And then yesterday I was like, I'm alone, It's just me and these rec's PC Candy com and so I was like, when you were talking, there is a term for it.
I've heard it be a term. There is a term even.
When preachers preach if they're a high because the audience is yes, yes, yes, and then they get back into their office or they go home. I promise you be I'm gonna get the term for it. There is a game for exactly what you are describing.
But think about it in your line of work. Not the author, not the great speaker, but the performer, Michelle. Think about what happens you're on stage, you're performing either by yourself or you're with the group, and the audience is screaming, everything is crazy everything, and then two and a half hours, three hours later, you're in the car and you're going back to the hotel or back to
your apartment. There is a little bit of sadness. If we're really honest with each other, there is a little bit of sadness because for two and a half three hours, twenty thousand, thirty thousand, eighty thousand people, it's unfair for anybody to think that a normal human being could come down from that energy force without feeling something has shifted, which is where I think about it more.
Yes, which is where I think addictions and habits formed.
That's right, that's right. Or because they want to constantly hear that clop when you want to.
Constant beyond that high or your room. You know you've had ours where their rooms always are constantly filled with people entourages.
They don't want to be alone.
They don't want to be alone because they know that feeling all too well versus saying, Okay, I just poured out my heart, soul and guts to the world. How in a healthy way do I replenish post performance let down? It's what ah wow, we just found out there's a term post performance let down.
Well, what we're gonna call it PPL.
Post performance let down, y'all. This is live, so we are finding out and how it could possibly that instead of feeling proud and successful, you're feeling depressed and lethargic. You're suffering from a post trace letdown, a common malady among athletes after the culmination of months of work, which is why Olympian athletes feel depressed. You done worked all those years for five.
Minutes out of the track meet, and then what, yep, yep.
You've worked all this time, all these years for this birthday.
Five years, for this birthday, for this birthday. One day.
It lasted one day, and then you gotta come back home and deal with us.
Then I got I gotta make some phone calls. Then I gotta be like, Michelle, can you do this? Yeah?
That's but y'all, that you don't understand where you were served for weeks in Grenada. Matter of fact, you took time off, by the way, to have a vacation to do what you needed to do for your mental health. Everybody is serving you, honey, your outfits, honey, those custom outfit wherever honey, the performers, honey. And then.
I learned my closet expecting the Soca star to come out and start performing. He wasn't here.
Wow, Angela, thank you for letting us know what this term. So this will help me. Then to you play a lot of tennis? I do?
I do?
So when you say that, I was gonna say, you've always been active, which is probably why, like you said, you you probably don't really know what it's like to be depressed, or you have just found healthy ways and you've got great people around you that yah. Let me tell you. Somebody bet when event needs to cry, she's gonna cry. Oh yeah, what's wrong with a lot of us in.
The ugly cry in public. I will do it in boardrooms. I will do it on planes, I will do it on red carpet. I will do whatever I need to do to get the emotion out because but you know what, Michelle, Michelle, don't forget that I watched the woman I love the most in this world not let out her emotions and then scream it out when she was in a mental institution. Okay, I have that mirror in front of me every day. Do you know what I say? Every day? Not today,
not today, not today, not today. I just wake up. I thank the Lord that my heart is beating in my chest and I said, not today, we will not. Let's say and get to us today. We're going to work this through. We're going to work this through. Some days are harder than others. I was saying to Edwin, my work husband, Edwin, Yeah, saying to him that going to Disney last week was the universe gave that to me.
It was like Kelly was going, I was going to go, and it was like, oh my god, this book came for Kelly just in time, because Disney's a really happy place for me. Duh it is. But I was surrounded by people who are friends as well as clients, right, and it was like our little circle. And I got them to come play tennis with me. Two days in a row. We woke up early. Oh my my god, Orlando is so hot, and we played tennis and it was just a release, just let it out, just let
it out. So I think for me, I'm not saying I'm perfect. There are gonna be days I'm going to be very sad. But I find that three things get me out of a situation that I can't handle. I have to dance. I'm the world's worst dancer, but I have to put on some kind of soca music or African sounds or something, and I have to dance. I absolutely need to pick up a racket. I need to pick up a racket and just go and hit a ball someplace. And then I have to feed my body
with something from the God's green earth. I have to put something that will give me energy, veganariat. I am one hundred percent vegan right now. I don't see myself going back to anything that bleeds for a.
Long time from Grenada and not eat some of the world's freshest maybe stock, I guess no, I won't do livestock.
Maybe in a weak moment that that fish. A man comfort the sea with some fish, maybe yeah. But for now I'm doing a detox with food. I am really going and looking at foods that give me energy and realizing that there are some foods that even WHI I love, it takes away my energy.
So they are linking gut health with our mental health.
That's been the cool. But we keep everything here though, we keep everything in the core. Everything comes from the core. Think about it already, Your emotions are there? What do we say? Oh my stomach hurt, Oh my god, I feel nervous, Oh my stomach day.
Yeah, right, and then.
On top of it, you're going to put toxic foods in there. We don't need to do that because the emotions that we're going through is already putting all our intestines like this, right, and.
We don't detox. You know, the livers good to detex because it detaxes all of those hormones and all that stuff that makes us exactly balanced. Okay, yeah, so we Okay, She's given us tons and tons of gems. I will say I had kale for the first time because Evet made it. And I had eaten kal in a long time because I was like, I can eat events kale, but I don't eat kale. But now I do eat kale. But my first time having kale was because event made it.
Now.
Earlier in the podcast, we talked about how I've called you for personal relational advice and you love your husband, David.
I can't nobody tell you not to.
And if you try to, and you try to cross some you will get the event that was on that red carpet at the Grammys that yes, you might get a little but it might be a little more unfiltered. True, And y'all the one from Granada and one of the secrets to long lasting love as someone you travel in this industry. What I do know is David and your children are constants. That's what I know for sure.
Yeah, for sure. You know, be yourself, like be honest, like I tell David exactly what I want, exactly how I'm feeling. Just because you're with somebody for all those years they did not study mind reading in school, couples are making us assumptions about you know, while you're growing as a couple, don't forget you're growing as an individual too. The seventeen year old that David fell in love with, man,
I've had some rebirts throughout the years. He's had to wake up to a different girl sometimes, Like who are you well? Because I just made an arc. I'm thirty now, I'm not the seventeen year old you fell in love with. I'm forty now. I'm not the thirty year old you were learning about. I'm fifty now, I'm not the forty year old you thought you knew. I'm sixty now. Hello, it's a whole other woman here. You have to have grace in your relationship, and you have to have those conversations.
Because you know the other there's growing and it's.
What they're growing too. We're growing as individo.
Your partner is growing. So that's why I don't believe in the term we grew apart.
God forgive me, because I don't want to put anybody down.
I promise you.
I just think people get Investment takes time and work. Like when you put money in Wall Street, you check on it all the time, you call your broker, you do it all the time. Well, invest in your relationship, you got to check on it, you got to work on it.
I guess you can grow apart if you don't be conscious that the other person is growing too. Exactly and your word from earlier, grace, Yes, each other is growing. So it's like, Okay, you have a period where you're growing and they're just kind of you know, they're chilling. Yeah, then they're growing. But you're like, Okay, I guess I better.
Yeah, but that's supposed to push you. That's supposed to push you, and we're supposed to respect that, you know. I mean, I don't know how many people will admit to that, but we've all been embarrassed by the way we hear a couple that's supposed to be in love talk to each other even out in the street. You're like, whoa, what do they say to each other behind closed door? They just keep it real with they just keep it away. At this point, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
But that's not the person I'm going to turn my like, oh, they're they're awful. I'm saying that person is being real. Some is not right. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. Let's not make assumptions. From the day I met my husband, I have been so vocal with what I want. And I was only seventeen. I was only seventeen. From day one, I've asked and for patience with me because of all the responsibilities I've had. Yes, you know,
because of all the things I've had to do. And we still look at each other and he says to me, Wow, I did not know the ride I was going to get on when I walked into Burger King and asked for your name. He got some girl in a brown polyester suit at seventeen. And now he woke up one dan and he's like, who is this Caribbean woman up in this house? Who is like wow. But it has been an incredible journey of ups and downs where interracial couple. I should say, We've had a lot of things said
to us done to us. I've been disappointed that he came from a family that just didn't have any I don't know, they just never I don't know they've ever seen black people before they met me, and it was such a strange thing for them. And you know, because he loved me, so he wanted to forsake them. But I had too much love for my family, so I said,
you can't do that. Hey, I'm going to Brooklyn every Sunday get my rights and feed so I'm not you better not be forthaking your family because I'm not forsaking mine, you know. And worked with him so he could work with them. I said, they may never love me, they may never understand if they don't want to grow, but you were born into that family, and you've got to teach them what you know.
Even you, that's unheard of. That's unheard of because it could have been they don't love me, well, why do you need to love them? The Bible says cleave and leave.
No no, no, no no no. Michelle, Instead I got myself a pen. I took out all the checks he had signed, and I learned how to sign his name. I bought Eastern cards, Mother's Day card, Father's Day card, Christmas cards, every kind of card, Birthday cards, and I sent them for years when he didn't want to talk to them. And then one day he came and he said, that's it. We're going to go see them. They're going to understand what this love is, and they're going to meet their grandchildren.
By now, we have three children that they haven't met yet. Right, And somewhere between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, somewhere at that border, I was no longer angry. I left home angry. You didn't want to go. But somewhere between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, I remember reaching to the back of my husband's head
and telling him it's going to be okay. And then pretty much right after that, his father passed away, and his mother I could have predicted that because when we met him he was at the beginning stages of Alzheimer's and I said, man, he missed out on so much. But when his father passed, his mother said to me, I am not following him in the grave. I'm going to stick around to get to know you and my grandchildren. And almost to the hour ten year anniversary of his passing,
she left. She gave us ten years.
It's like you live in love, grace and forgiveness daily.
I have to you know, first of all, I got these kids who they didn't ask to be here, and they're here. And they also didn't ask to be in this complicated, racist world, and they're here, and so I needed to at least let them know the other side of who they are, even though I thought the Grenada side was better, but I.
Got a little more spiceless.
Bye. Yes, yeah, but I mean, you know, I just I come from what I come from, and my people give people grace.
Absolutely grace, love and mangoes and mangoes every time. When you get to Grenada, Michelle, I've got to get me a mango.
I've got to get you to Grenada. I got to get you to listen.
I am ready, girl.
We were like ready, please let me shows, please, let me show schedule workout, please let me show you. Yeah, but it's okay, We'll get you to Grenado. I've got I'm going to get to Grenada. I'm gonna get you. I'm gonna get thee I'm gonna get Kelly, I'm gonna get mess Tina, I'm gonna get all of you. The grenada.
We are going and we have to get there, and we we gotta get there for you. You are just a jewel, a joy, and.
We're trying to come to my funeral. You ain't getting the grenada for my funeral. You come in Tornaday Carnival. We can make carnival.
Absolutely, that's like eighty years from now. We're talking about a word about that. So I'm sure the listeners are, including myself, We're gonna walk away like there's more to event. And I know I've got some of the Beehive on here. Okay, if you don't learn something, but what I'm saying about the bee Hive, they probably knew all this stuff about you, honey, because they will dig, Honey, They're going to dig and get the information. But thank you for today, thank you for.
Let me say, let me say, show up for you. I want to Chelle, you knew this was coming. You knew this was coming, I want to say, and I think your listeners already know this. But Michelle is consistent. The Michelle that is here has been through so many things, good, bad, whatever, And Michelle is Michelle is Michelle, the young woman who walk into Destiny's Child that I took aside and I said, I am here. You have a question, you ask anything you want to know. I'm here. I will make the
time for you, Michelle Williams. I will make the time for you until time runs out for me, because you've been there for me and things that we don't even talk about. You know. The other day I went to the back of my pantry where I still keep a little box that was burnt in my fire in two thousand and eight. It was a bunch of photographs that just got burnt and they're all sort of tangled together. And I don't know what the scientists will tell you,
but when you open that box, you still smell the fire. Wow, all those years later. But instead of me getting sad about it, when I open it, I think about you. I think about you in your stilettos coming out of that suv. You can so the press.
Day that I had said on you, we was like, what's going on. We're on the.
Way, came to my lawn. You and Courtney Andersma I'll never forget it. And you were there. You helped me put together my closet, which is my linen closet that I still call Michelle's linen closet. You are grace, love and friendship personified. You keep me in business. You let everybody know I'm doing a project you might call you back. I am so grateful for you. I'm grateful for checking in with you. I'm grateful for working the press with Sarah, with you and that and Edwin, we had the best time.
You reminded all of us to check in so importantly with God and with ourselves and those we love. And I just want to say that you have been a blessing in my life, and I thank God for the Destiny's Child journey that I got to meet you and know you and got to meet your family and your late dad, who was so handsome. He had the best hair in the world. Best hair Evett.
Knows how to bring get the tear ducks VI.
I just had to say that, because you know you doing this podcast, you checking in with everybody. You checking in with everybody, and we have to remember to check in with you. And for those people who are constantly giving we have to give back, you have to get. So I'm giving you. I'm giving you always you.
Have given us, You've given us so much love. Today y'all got to listen to this episode to give and just take notes of what resonates with you and some of the lessons of life that events spoke with us today. Even promise us you'll come back again.
What are you kidding you? Don't you have to act again?
And prayerfully, I don't know when there's a book or three or five or seventy you.
One of these days, but it will be about my mom. It will be about mom. It will never be about this distance. It will be about my mom, absolutely, because I pride myself in protecting my clients to the end. So anybody who's looking for the book on my.
Pad, tell a good luck.
It's not coming.
It's definitely not definitely, definitely not coming. But like I said, I mean, there's way more to you than what the public knows as far as just your work, you know, so we would be delighted to have a book from you about your mother and the responsibility that you had at such a young age. So I know there's some there's some listeners on here who probably have that same responsibility, and so I'm glad you were able to share with us today. And you can't wait for you to come.
Back, you bit, I can't wait, and I can't wait to see you in person. I missed you. I missy show.
I know I know, all right, Sunshine, I'll talk to you. I love you again. As I stated in the beginning, that you never know the people that you look up to and people that you say you want to be like, well you just can't want to be like them when they're shining and when they're bright. When you pray for a person's life, you're praying for the good and the not so good that it's come with it. Now I know that things that are bad can be turned around for your good. So it's kind of like, Wow, some
of y'all have known Eyvet. You've seen her in pictures, you've seen her in red carpets with some of your quote unquote faves, not knowing what she went through as a little girl and what she went through as a teenager and high school, college and in her adulthood. So I'm so glad that we had a chance to talk about I want to say perseverance, whatever it is that you might be carrying right now. You might be the caretaker of someone in your family, and you just think
you're just going to be stuck with this forever. I really hope that yvet story inspires you and encourages you. Don't forget about yourself in the process. Yvette had dreams, aspirations and goals, and I think the results have probably gone above and beyond anything she could ever think or imagine. Right, So don't forget about yourself, That's all I want to say. Don't forget about you if you're put in a position where you're like, Okay, I've got to care for someone
right now. You know I've got I'm the oldest sibling, and you know I've got to take care of my younger siblings until it's time for me to go to school or college. So just be encouraged by events, testimony and her like. I am so excited that you guys continue to tune in every Tuesday to new episodes of Checking In. I'm thankful. I say it every episode. I'm thankful for you guys, because if I don't have no listeners,
I don't have a podcast. iHeartRadio Black effect could be like, all right, even so we're gonna have to let you go. But that's not the case, because you guys continually check in and you download and you refer other people. I got a DM that said somebody sent them the Nicole Lynn episode and how inspired they were. So thanks to those that are even referring people to the podcast and send episodes their way, as they say, sharing the episodes. All right, well we'll see you again. Know that you
are loved. Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.