I always wanted to be a Deal or No Deal girl. That was, like, that thing, Dallas Cowboys, cheerleaders, of modeling or something. So I took this hosting class, and there was this girl in my class, Southern accent. She was really cute. I was like, looking at her notes one day, and she wrote at the top of her note, get headshot to Egypt for Deal or No Deal or casting. So I totally, like, went to my friend who was
a manager. I didn't even have a manager at the time, can you find out if they're casting for dealer no deal? And they weren't, but they saw me because they were gonna be casting in like, six months or something. And so the lady was like, she liked me, and she put me at the top of the list, and she decided to be like, have a call back. When they started casting, like,
go straight to call back. And there were 1000s of girls that were audition for that, and I got it, and it was the most fun job I'd ever had.
On my latest episode of In Search of Excellence, I interviewed Amanda Smith, one of the stars of the hit TV reality show on Netflix selling sunset. This is one of the most profound, emotional interviews on the show I've ever done. And I want to warn everybody on the show that we get into some very deep topics, including physical and sexual abuse as a young child, and I hope a lot of good comes out of
it. We both do that people who are suffering from sexual or physical abuse will go out and seek help, and that's one of the reasons she came on the show, is to inspire motivate other people to do so. Now, without further ado, my incredible interview with Amanda. Welcome to In Search of Excellence, where we meet entrepreneurs, CEOs, entertainers, athletes, motivational speakers and trailblazers of excellence, with incredible stories from all walks of life. My name is
Randall Kaplan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist to the host of In Search of Excellence, which I started to motivate and inspire us to achieve excellence in all areas of our lives. My guest today is Amanda Smith. Amanda is an interior decorator, real estate agent, model and actress. It is best known as one of the stars on the hit Netflix reality TV
show selling sunset. Years before selling sunset, she was a model for many of the world's top luxury brands, and also for the hit TV show, Deal or No Deal, whose host was Howie Mandel, a former awesome guest on my show, Amanda was also a cheerleader for the Indianapolis Colts. She's had an incredible and motivational life about overcoming some really significant obstacles on our path of famous success, which I'm incredibly excited to talk about today. Amanda, thank you
for being here. Welcome to In Search of Excellence.
I've done a lot that felt cool these little walk down memory lane. So let's start
at the beginning with your parents. Your dad was Nigerian and Asian. Your mom was white, yeah, talk to us about your biological dad and your mom and what it was like growing up in a rural town in southern Indiana.
Well, I didn't know my biological dad until I was 36 after my divorce, I sought out my biological father and my sisters, and I found them all on Facebook. But I was raised by my mom, white, German, Irish, English, and my step dad, who's white, so my Nigerian, Asian and a bunch of other things, Father, I didn't know until I was way
older. Your parents were hippies and listened to Pink Floyd. They
listened to Pink Floyd. My favorite song was breaking the wall when I was three, I could roll you a joint when I was three, very cool, proud of that not Yeah, I had a weird childhood. My parents were hippies and they they had this van with like, you know, mural on the side, and they had all their hippie friends. They'd have, like, volleyball parties and listened to crazy music. And I was the only little black kid in the whole community, my big afro running around with white
step dad and white mom. In a very rural community, there were 30,000 people, and that's including the Junior College. Okay, I think there's like, maybe 4000 in that.
So what age did you realize everyone else is white and I'm black, and there's actually a difference for how people treat you?
Well, I I think I always knew my hair was different. You know, my mom had beautiful, long blonde hair. My step dad had long hair. My brothers had. My brother, my older brother, he had, like, curly hair, but it wasn't a fro,
um. I had a big afro, and my skin was brown, and I there was a story once my brother, he was, he's five years older than me, and he was riding the bus, and every day when he would come home, I'd be playing in the front yard like we lived in an apartment, and I'd be playing in the front yard with all the other kids from the apartment. And there were kids on the bus, and they were like, Jody, who's, who's the little black girl in the in the front yard? And he's like, who? What are you talking
about? What are you talking about? And then one day, they're like, right there that who is that? He goes, Mandy, that's my sister. She black like he didn't even know. He didn't realize that I was different. And then he came and he told me, like, are you said, Yeah, I don't know. I was always aware.
At some point. You experienced a lot of racism. Students wore Confederate flags on their T shirts and shirts. Yeah, nothing happened back then. Today. You get expelled, I think, for most school, but at what point did you first experience racism, and how did that affect you growing up?
I I think the first time, I mean on the school bus, in kindergarten, I would get called Blackie, Brownie choreo, the N word wasn't used when they were young, but then in middle school, high school, that word was used. It wasn't always towards me, but I would hear people telling racist jokes. And you know the T shirts, the Confederate flags that said, you wear your ex, I'll wear mine. It was like in reference to Malcolm X and the Confederate flag, or it's a white thing, you wouldn't
understand. These were actual shirts that they got to wear to wear to school. And then, in the handbook, though, it said if you wore your pants below your waistline, that was a no no, because it promoted gang violence. I don't know it was gonna start a riot. I was the only black kid, so, yeah, it was interesting. The first time I
remember really feeling it. I think I was in second grade, and I was on a field trip, and it was me, my best friend, Jamie, who is, like, white as snow, and then our friend Danielle, who has red hair, and we went to McDonald's after, like, the circus or whatever we'd done for the field trip, and we all ordered milkshakes, and I ordered chocolate. Ironically, Jamie ordered vanilla, and
Danielle ordered strawberry. And I thought that was really I thought it was funny because she had red hair, and I was black, and Jamie was white, and I I called it out, and Danielle, the redhead, was really offended. And for the rest of the day, I was lucky brownie, or, like, all day. And I just remember thinking, oh my gosh, it was that was a joke. It was supposed to be, like, funny. I wasn't making fun of anyone, and it really bothered me. It really
hurt. And then for her birthday in November, my mom, this might be one of the cooler things that she ever did, maybe the only cool thing that she ever did. I got invited to her birthday party because, you know, you make up at that age. You like, break up and make up every other week, and my mom made me take her a black Barbie doll as a
present. So that made you do what, take a black Barbie doll as her present for the birthday party, like teaching her that, you know, she needed a little culture, I guess in her life. How old are we at the time? Second grade, second or third.
We moved to Birmingham, Michigan, when I was, I think, in sixth or seventh grade, and I was one of only three Jewish kids in a more of a non Jewish neighborhood, and I remember hearing Jewish racist prejudice jokes. I think the biggest one was, we're going on a field trip when we passed a cemetery, and I remember being in the car, and a mom was saying, Jewish people are buried upside down in their caskets vertically. And I remember thinking, Gosh, I never learned that in Hebrew school. I felt
maybe I didn't know. And I came back and I asked my mom, and she just went ancient, crazy, you know, who's the parent, etc, etc, but it's just ignorance. Is is amazing, and some people are just flat out. Me,
I don't get it, though. I don't understand what that means. I mean, I
it just, it's It's ridiculous. It's just something, just absurdly ridiculous. Yeah, it's just something. It's demeaning.
Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, honestly, where I grew up, I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't. I mean, there's still a lot of that. You know, it's a very small town, and, yeah, ignorance, it's, it's just, it's sad, so, but it's a good place to be from.
Yeah, I think the adversity at a young age helps make you stronger at a later age than it did. It did for me. I mean, obviously I'm very sensitive, but anti semitism, there's a lot of that going on right now, and it just it gives you a different perspective on the world. Yeah, let's talk about your mom. You said it's the only thing good she's ever done. But talk to us. We'll get into your step dad in a minute. But at what point did you not like your mom or see that there were traits in her
that really weren't true? Liking as a daughter?
Oh, she's gonna see this. And my brother's getting married soon. I'm gonna see her. So this is going to be fun, you know, she I'm sure she did a couple other cool things. I'm trying to be forgiving in my older age and, like, let it go. But at age four five, I think was the first time I remember getting like, you know, smacked across the face. Think she was brushing my hair and it hurt. I was probably squirming, and I had a fro, like, you know, it was tingling, and just a smack.
And she was always mad. She was always she just had this, like, hateful, angry tone. Own. Always like she was just angry at me, specifically, it seemed like, and I remember that from like, age three or four, and I don't remember it ever, not or ever, yeah, not being like that.
She definitely abused you, yeah, for your entire channel.
I mean, yeah, she liked to smack me in the face, leaving marks on your face. Yeah. I remember in kindergarten, I remember getting on the school bus with that like a hand print, like a welt across my face.
Did you lie when someone asked you what it was? Teacher asked you?
Nobody asked. Nobody asked. I got on the bus. I don't know. I can't remember if I was crying, but I remember I had this a hand like a swollen handprint across my face. Nobody asked. I mean, today I'd be taken away, maybe not in Vincennes, I don't know, but, yeah, nobody, even the bus driver, didn't say anything.
Your friends didn't say anything either. Hey, what's that about?
I don't remember,
when did you ever confront your mom? Hey, don't do that. And of course, think sometime, hey, I'm gonna be old enough, or I'm gonna smack you back if you smack me. You
know what? I never, ever threatened to hit my mom back, and I never laid a hand on her. I just always knew you don't hit your mom. I mean, you don't hit there, but I don't know, I just never, I came really close one time. I think I was like, 17 or 18, and it was like, she grabbed me. And I think I like, I didn't swing or anything, but I, you know, jolted, and I remember yelling, and I was like, the most angry that I had gotten in the closest
that I'd gotten, and I left. I wasn't even living there at the time. I was like, living with my best friend's parents. But no, I would never hit my mom. I don't hit anybody. It's just not, not my thing.
So your mom, when you're younger, gets married to another man, and at some point he starts doing very bad things to you, as does his dad tell us about your stepdad, who you said, in many ways, was a better parent than your mom was, which when I learned that, I was absolutely shocked to hear that. So can you walk us through sounds crazy, kind of how that started and how old you were. I think you were three years old. And
honestly, yeah, it sounds crazy to say, but I'm, I'll, I'll put it like this, my mom was angry and hostile and mad at me every single day, and this wasn't happening every day, so that's sort of how I gaged, like, who was the better parent? It sounds sick, but when you are dealing with something like that all around you, you just have to pretend like it's okay. So I had, for you know, I've made myself believe that it wasn't happening. It was all good like nobody. I wasn't telling anybody. You're
talking now about the sexual abuse because you were physically abused at the same time you're being sexualized
by my mom, okay? And that wasn't every day, either, but she was just always mad at me, like she was just angry. I felt like she hated me. I don't know why, um, but she was never like that to my brothers, like she she was lovely. Sometimes she actually her job was to babysit. She babysat for other people's kids, like in our home, and she was amazing to other people's kids. She's so great with kids. Like, she's really, it sounds so messed up, but she was really, really good with everybody
else's kids. And my brothers. It was just me. I mean, I have, like, you know, my thoughts about, why? Maybe now. But so yeah, I was, she married my stepdad when I was, I think four, three or four, and my step grandpa molested me every time I went to my grandma's house. From the time I was three until, I don't know the age what I'm He died when I was in seventh
grade, I think. And it was, like, up until, you know, I was maybe 10, my step dad is started a little bit later, and honestly, I blocked so much I don't remember, like, I don't remember third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, I really don't remember much about any of those years. So I can't say exactly how old I was like when it started with my stepdad, but it started at a later age, and he didn't know about my grandpa. So and then also my grandma was she had a daycare. She ran a
daycare out of her house. So every time my parents left, they would leave me with my grandparents. So every time I was at my grandma and grandpa's house. I was being molested by my step grandpa, and then I would go home, I'd be molested by my step dad, and my mom was always angry and, like hostile. So it was a really dysfunctional, unsafe childhood, and
we don't have to get into the details if you're not comfortable, but when you say. They molested they were physically touching your body.
Yeah, physically touching your body. I, when I was three years old, I started gymnastics at the YMCA, and I had, I would wear a leotard, like a little red short sleeved leotard, and my grandpa would pull me onto his lap and touch me inside of my leotard like, you know, with his fingers inside of my leotard at three years old.
I mean, it's just hard to hear. Did did it progress worse than that as you got as you got older?
That was, that was just that was the thing. That was
it. And you like you never said anything to your mom, not
until I did eventually. I think I was in, think I was 11. Are you seventh grade when you're living I think I was in seventh grade again. It's hard. I'm 47 now. This was a long time ago. My mom asked me because it was happening. Well, it happened to other people too, and we had, at one point, got together and talked about it, me and the other people, I won't say, because it happened
to friends of yours. Your step grandfather molested friends of yours. Yes?
So, well, yes, friends, somehow the the moms had kind of caught wind. I don't, I didn't tell I think maybe one of the other girls did. And my mom asked me, but my grandpa, at the time was like on his deathbed. He was in the hospital about to die. And she asked me, and I told her that
yes, he had. And she asked me at that time if my stepdad had done anything to me, and I lied and I said no, and she never asked again, and so and I lied because I thought she would kill him, and then I would be stuck with her. Sounds so messed up. Yeah, so ah. I never, I never said anything again until I was 19.
I mean, it's just hard to listen to. I can't I can't imagine what it was, what it was like back
then, Oprah Winfrey was a big deal. Back then, the television show, there would be these episodes where a woman would be in jail because she killed the person who, like, raped her daughter, or molecular daughter, or something like that. And my mom would always say, like, Yeah, that's right, I killed this one, or, like, whatever she's saying or angry voice. And I just remember thinking like, Oh my God. Like, if she killed him, I would be stuck with just her, and I wouldn't, I wouldn't have a dad.
Sounds so messed up, but like, yeah, I just, I wanted a dad so bad. I just pretended like nothing, that it wasn't happening.
I mean, I think this is a lot more prevalent than people think about I have a friend I'm not going to name when she was younger, she had a stepdad that molested her as well, and she had a lot of issues. Physically, she would urinate in her bed until her, I think, 30s, till she got help, she didn't tell her mom about this until, I think she
graduated college. So what's your advice out there to all people who are afraid to come forward for a lot of different reasons, either parents going to jail, someone's going to murder them,
but, but they need help, yeah? Well, the reason why I'm so not, I guess I'm not totally comfortable, because I'm obviously, you know, emotional, but the reason why I put it out there, and I use my platform, and I take, you know, take any opportunity that I can to talk about it is because I want people to get help sooner. I want people to speak up sooner, if they can. I waited a long
time, and it is very common. And not only are people afraid that maybe they're they're, um, molester, I guess, is going to get murdered or something, which is weird, because you would think maybe you'd want that to happen, but it's, it's, it's just different. I don't know how to explain it, but, um, also, a lot of people do tell and they're not believed. Right?
I've been to, you know, like trauma camp, where I've been put in groups with people with severe PTSD, and we've all had, like, similar or some people's stories make mine look like a cakewalk, and it's really, really sad. I'm grateful that it wasn't worse than it was, but, um, you know, still traumatic. But a lot of times people will tell and they don't, the parents don't believe them, or they
somehow just ignore it. And so people don't speak up for a lot of reasons, but I didn't start getting therapy for this until I was 3536 and I just. It's, it's,
you know, it's set me back. And I want people to be able to get ahead of it and get therapy sooner, so they, you know, they realize, like they're not crazy anxiety, ADHD, PTSD, OCD, like all the whole alphabet, like all of the things that you don't realize you have, and you don't understand what they are until you've gotten some help or talk to somebody. I know I didn't, and it's just helped so much.
And I just if somebody can have relief sooner, and like, not lose years of their life being, you know, maybe addicted or just held up in their house, depressed or whatever, suicidal, anything. I just want people to, you know, speak up and know that they can get help, and it'll just help them feel so much better.
We'll provide some phone numbers at the end of the show for people to call. It'll be on their show notes as
well. I think an interesting thing too is I know people want retribution, and I can't imagine that I wouldn't feel that way, God forbid, if that were my kid, but child molesters get treated very, very poorly in prison, right among all the murderers and all the bad things, I think, from what, from what I've heard and what I've read and talked to police officers, I know someone that run the Los Angeles County Jail. That's, that's, that's the group who have the toughest time
in prison. So it's not, not only are they in prison, but what, however unpleasant prison is for most people, it's a lot more unpleasant for them. Very, very quickly, we all have escape mechanisms for things that we are traumatized. I was bullied as a kid. I started I come home, I pretend like it didn't bother me. I didn't have any friends. I pretended like when I sit alone in the corner, that would be just my thing. I'm fine. I'm fine. And I really wasn't fine
at all. I mean, I felt horrible every time it would happen, and it was tough at some point, and a lot of times to go to school, you talk to us about dancing and how that was an escape for you, and then what's your advice to all the other people suffering getting abused today? Because it's not just like you said. It's not just kids. There's a group of 18 to 30 year old people watching the show, a large segment, who are still getting abused by girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, wives. Yeah,
I have to say, well, two things so my escape mechanism was gymnastics. I was lucky enough to we didn't have a lot of money. Like, there's no way that my family would have been able to afford all the gymnastics training that I had. But back then, at the YMCA, if you were sponsored by a family every year, all you had to do was write like a thank you note to the family. And they paid for my entire gymnastics, like for
the whole year. And so I was on the team, the gymnastics team, the YMCA gymnastics team, from age three all the way up until I was in high school. And every year I just wrote in a thank you letter. And we had practice five days a week, and we had meets every weekend. And so I was I was always working out, always in the gym, doing gymnastics, and I was really good at it, and I loved it was I forgot where I
was going. I think so that was my escape mechanism, as far as advice for people that are going through it, or have gone through it, just you do talk to somebody like, get it out of you. You know, tell somebody and don't it took me a long time for this one, so it's, I'm gonna give the advice, but I have to say it even took me a long time to out my stepdad to my whole family, and it took a therapist telling me like you're holding on. It's like I was still protecting him
for some crazy reason. It's like, Why was I still protecting him? I didn't want other people in the town or whatever, to, like do what maybe they would do to him in prison, or however you know, they would treat him. And I don't know why I didn't. I just didn't want that. But I got to a point where I felt like I had to protect other little girls that he may be around. He's still alive and kicking in my hometown, and I have never
been to jail, never been to jail, never been prosecuted. Have you ever thought about going to the authorities there? I mean, you see all these rape cases in New York, and I think they passed a new law, you can go back the statute of limitations, goes back along. I
don't even know. I don't even know that the rules, honestly, I feel like I don't know this is something I haven't really thought about for a while. I mean, I didn't know that you could still, like, press charges or do. Do anything
like that. But I do know, at a point, I told my entire family, this was only, like, eight years ago, because my cousins were starting to have kids, and he would baby be around their kids and like, that's, you know, I thought of my grandpa, and I needed to protect everybody else's kids. And so I wrote an email to like, 12 of my family members that didn't know, and I sent it, and I literally went to the bathroom and threw up. But he was one of five, one of four, no one of five kids, and he had
four sisters. He was the youngest of five kids, his four sisters, and he was living with one of them at the time. I honestly don't even know, like the story. I don't know what happened. I know that they kicked him out, and that's pretty much it. I don't know what he does. I don't know how many I know that I had one family member his there was one sister that still stayed in
contact with him. She was the only one, and she passed away a couple years ago, but all of these other family members, you know, everybody, just like, disowned him, my little brother, and he got on drugs, and he just like lost it because I was his Dad. I don't know I I did a an article, I think, in People magazine, or no, some magazine, like a couple years ago, and they had to get, they had to, like, try to contact him before they could publish it, to see if he acknowledged, like anything.
They had to give him a heads up. And they called his work. I didn't even have his phone number. I couldn't be I couldn't even think to like, get it. So they found out where he worked, and he called his phone, and they asked if he was, they asked his name, and they said, Are you, you know, amidst step dad, yes. And they said, there's going to be an article coming out. She's, you know, claiming that you because they have to say, allegedly, right, sexually molested her at age, and he hung
up. And that's all they needed. Like they had, like enough acknowledgement they could run the story, but they talked to him differently, but
they talked to multiple people who all made the same allegations, or they were just verifying, just
verifying it, and I don't know that they called his work, it creeped me out, just like thinking of somebody talking to him, because I haven't talked to him since I and, you know, I didn't, I only, like, disowned him at age 34 He walked me down the aisle at my wedding. What would
you say, though, if you walked in the room right now and honestly, couple sentences to look him in the eye,
I don't think I could. I have other mom now. That changed everything, because suddenly I can't, I can't even imagine, oh, just if anything like that happened to my kids, I don't know. I mean, I would, I don't know what I would do. I
would probably go to prison. So it's weird, because it was like it was okay that it just happened to me, the thing God gave me a daughter, and one day, thinking of that happening to her, had a panic attack for the first time, I felt everything, yeah, that I should have felt, all the anger, all the just absolute disgust. And I, I literally, like, wrote an email
and video right back. I was actually, yeah, I was 34 I was pregnant with my son, and I just, I don't know, something came over me, and I just imagine if anything like that happened to my daughter. So, yeah, I wrote him off. I told him about his dad. He didn't know. Oh, and I that was the last time that I, you know, had any contact with them. Said, you won't meet the head breaker was in my tummy. He wrote back, there's nothing. He wouldn't matter what he said, it wouldn't have been enough or
right. I don't really remember exactly what it was, but it seemed like even less than what I would have expected, he acknowledged
what he did. You have written evidence that he acknowledged being lost in you, that a police officer today could see and take to him, that
I honestly I deleted the email. I think I sent it to a friend, my friend Marie, she like keeps. Everything. I think I sent it to her. She probably has it. Yeah, I deleted it and didn't want it. At some point, I deleted both of the emails. Please. Can still get in. Don't worry. Oh, yeah, and the Secret, secret way, so, have you walked in the door? I don't know. Honestly, I feel like I could throw up, I could cry, or I could rip his head. I don't know. I wouldn't want to
touch him. I'm not a violent person. I feel like, you know, I'm not. Karma is, is a thing, and I believe in God, and I believe that, you know people, I don't wish bad, like, I don't wish he gets hit by a semi. I don't sit around and think about that. But when he had a really, really bad ATB accident several years ago, like it did it, I didn't flinch. I heard that he broke every bone in his body. He was in a coma, like all of this, and it didn't make me feel anything. I was just like, well,
like, what? What did you say? I don't know. It just it didn't make me happy, it didn't make me sad. I just felt like, well, that's, I mean, I can see that that happened, you know? And when my mom told me about it, she asked if I had heard about it, and I said, Yes. And she said, It's really upsetting your brother. He's really hard for him to like, see him. And I said, Well, he's he's lived, didn't he? And she said, Yeah. And I said, Well, Carver's a bitch. And she got really upset
with me. She said, Oh, maybe if you would have told somebody what was happening to you when you were 11, everybody's lives would have been easier. So that was interesting.
We all have coping mechanisms for bad things that happened to us. You were a jokester when you were younger. So how did joke Iran help you cope?
I don't know. I guess I just deflect everything with humor. Deflected everything with humor. When I was, I don't know about at three, yeah, I was always goofy. I was always goofing off. I guess just laughing felt good. But I know when I got into, like, in middle school and high school, the joking was, I had to learn the, like, the punch line to the racist jokes, so I would like go
up and finish the joke. And I heard somebody, you know, telling the joke which, yeah, I don't know, I guess I was just naturally actually funny.
You became a cheerleader in high school at some point. Yeah,
I was a cheerleader before high school. I was cheerleader since fifth grade.
Okay, you were cheering before fifth grade, and you said at some point you felt like you were ugly, and they were just kind of along for the ride as one of the cool kids. I think people look at you today and you're very beautiful, and people are probably wondering, how could you have been ugly at a young age? So talk to us about you feeling ugly, and is it the kind of thing where you look back at today and say, I wasn't really ugly, I was just feeling ugly.
I wasn't the kind of pretty that the people in my hometown, you know, glorified. So I felt ugly because nobody was. I wasn't the girl at school that the boys were asking to go with with the notes at recess or anything. I was the girl that they would hand the note to and say, Hey, will you ask so and so we asked Callie to be my, you know, what, girlfriend or whatever. Yeah, I just didn't feel pretty. My hair was
different. We didn't have money, so I would wear, like, hand me down, clothes that belonged to my brother. I got mistaken as a boy all the time. People would come to my mom and say, Oh, he's so cute. Is he adopted in the supermarket? And I'm sitting there with my ears fears, like, Come on, my girl. So I never, I didn't feel pretty, but yeah, I look back and I was so cute. I was just I looked, I did look a little bit like a boy, because I wore boy clothes a lot, and I
had an afro. There was no, like, piggy tails or anything, until at a certain age, I did, but, yeah, I just didn't feel pretty, because nobody told me that I was pretty. And I guess that's what you know. That's what I had to go by. It looked
different, because everyone in your world, too, got to college was white.
Yeah, they had blonde hair, or brown hair that, like, swung on, like my ponytail today, they had like, you know, straight hair that flung back and forth, and mine didn't move. Nobody knew how to do my hair. There wasn't like, a relaxer or, you know, nobody was like, making it hot and straightening it out. In Indiana, there were no black hair salons. My mom wasn't doing cornrows or any type of weaves. It wasn't that
type of thing. So she would just buzz it like she gave me like a fade at one point, and I looked like a rat tail. I think in the fifth grade I had like a fade in a rat tail. And so I told her to put stripes in the side, and because I wanted it to be different, I. I was like, I'm gonna have a boy haircut, and might as well make it edgy or, you know, unique. And so we put stripes on the side, and I had, like, a freaking, I don't have a picture of that one, but, yeah, it didn't feel pretty. You
started doing photo shoots, so at some point in your teenage years, so when you was it because you like doing the photo shoots. You like being in front of the camera. Made you feel good. It was fun. And when you looked at the photos, didn't you say, Okay, I do look pretty good. Because if you don't look pretty good, they wouldn't be doing photo shoots.
I mean, I think it was probably like a friend of my grannies that took the photos, and she probably just asked them, because I always I wanted to be a model. Because to me, model like models are pretty. I wanted to be pretty, and Whitney Houston was beautiful. And I had, like, a record of souls, or a record album. And I used to look at this picture of Whitney Houston, I'd be like, Oh my gosh, she's so pretty. Like, I wonder what I'm gonna look like when I'm 16. I remember, like,
looking in the mirror. My fro was like this. It ended like here, and I would put my shoulders up to where you couldn't see the end of it. So it felt like I had long hair. And I'd be like, wonder what I'm gonna look like when I'm 16. I just wanted to look like Whitney Houston. She was so pretty. Yeah. So I wanted to be a model. And my granny, I have a mess. I'm like, snotty. Look great. I
feel like, I don't. I think she had somebody set up a photo shoot, and I had, like, a nice dress thing, like curled my bangs. And there were two pictures that I do remember thinking, like, wow, that could be a while. Look at them now, they're not that great, but, yeah, I don't know that was those were the only two for a very long time, and then I got a little chubby, and I wasn't my senior pictures, weren't you? I went through a weird hair stage.
Graduated high school. You went to junior college, then Indiana State, you majored in interior design. So talk to us about what you perceive the value of going to college was at that point in time, and then tell us about the experience, what the black men were saying to you and the black women were saying to you, because this is the first time that you had been around black individuals for really the first time in your life.
Oh, yeah. So, Junior College, yeah, Junior College. Um, where? In Vincent's Vincent's University, which is in, in Vincent's my hometown. So I went there first. That was my first experience with black couple, a lot of live people, black guys. There was one this guy, he actually went to the NBA. Sean Marion. Sean Marion, yeah, Merriman Marion, Sean Marion was his name. I think he played for the sons. Eventually he was like, excellent, excellent player. Yeah, he was the captain of the basketball
team. I was captain of the dance team. And he would always, like, say things like, Oh, you probably only miss a white guy, white dudes. And I'm like, I've never met a black guy. Like, I don't know, but he was, he would always give me like crap. And then the girls, though, were like, somebody needs to tell her that she's black and she ain't
white. And I was so confused, like, the black girls didn't want to hang out with me because they thought I was too like whitewashed the black guys didn't think that I wanted to go out with them because I'd only, I'd only dated white guys because I had never been around black people before. Boy, did that change. But, um, yeah, I just, it was it was interesting. I just didn't really fit in. So I was kind of whitewashed, because I was hanging out with
white people. They were, they were the ones that were so nice to me, you know. And then when I went to Indiana State, it got a little bit worse, like the basketball team, I remember at one point, like, walking through the cafeteria, and they would say things, and I was like, like, what I don't, you know, how do I become more black? Like, what do I have to do? It was interesting. I didn't really feel like, totally out of place or anything. It was just like, kind of annoying. You know,
did you date some of the basketball players?
No, I didn't.
I'm wondering, did they say that because they were jealous, maybe that they asked you out and you said, No,
I think, no, I think there was a lot of that. There's some the black girls were, like, didn't like it that the black guys liked me, and then I would hang out with white people. So I wasn't I didn't really fit in. Like, now I can kick it with anybody, but I it took me a long time to like, even feel comfortable around a lot of black people, to be honest, because I just didn't feel like I fit in. I felt like I was, like, faking it, like faking the phone, or something, you know, felt really awkward.
And I felt like people judged me because I was too light skinned, or I talked to white or whatever. Like, corny thing, they would say, um. Yeah, so I just had to date a bunch of black guys and have a couple, no, um, it took me, you know, really just being around more culture, to figure out that like I can do both. I have both, and perfectly fine with that. Were
your goals back then to go into interior design, because that was your major, was that one day thinking where you are today I'm gonna be designing, yeah, $20 million homes.
Well, I never, oh my gosh, in Vincent's Indiana. I grew up on a trailer. I don't even think I knew a $20 million home existed. That sounds like, you know, something crazy, but I did have this vision always. I pictured myself, and I'm a manifester, apparently, because now I'm doing exactly what I envision. I I'm gonna say this, and then you guys are gonna if my outfits like, not that great
today, it's not the best. But I envisioned myself wearing, like, super cool outfits and being like this cool, fun mom and coming home from the job site, like, wherever that was with, like, my blueprints, or my, you know, my, it's called briefcase, which is, like, funky outfits. And I had this one interior
design teacher. Can't remember her name, I don't think she liked me very well, very much, but she always had the coolest outfits, and she had like, this really cool engagement ring that, like, spun, and she was just so hip. And I was like, wow, she's a cool mom. Like, she just has the coolest clothes, and her house was, we did a tour of our house once, like, during class for like, a project. I was like, this is the coolest house that Vincent Indiana has ever seen. Like, she just had it. It
was really unique. And I wanted to be like her, like, the cooler. And I think, I think I am. Yeah, she wasn't very nice to me. I don't know why she didn't like me, but, um, I'm nice.
What's your advice to everybody living in a trailer park or in some home
park we had a land Okay,
so what's your what's your advice everybody? Well, I mean, let's go back to a trailer park. What's your advice to someone living in a trailer park, a trailer one bedroom house with eight people in a home, who have dreams to make it big in Hollywood or in real estate or whatever else they do?
I think go for it. You're gonna do it. I think the people that live in the trailers and the people that live eight people in a house, and they dream big. I have met, they appreciate it more. They I have met more people that have come from that and made it in the opposite just because you come from, you know nothing doesn't mean that you can't be it's a
great place to be from. I love my humble roots, like I love that I didn't have much going up, because it's really cool to be able to, you know, give things to my kids that I didn't have, but also have the the knowledge that I have and letting them know, like, how great, how how gift, gifted, how gifted they are. That's not what I meant to say, How privileged they are and how blessed they are like never to take it for granted. It can go away, you
know, very quickly. And I'm not Daddy Warbucks or anything, but we do okay. And I think it's I'm glad that I have that I wouldn't change one single thing. Honestly, I've said this, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart to be the mom that I am. I go through all that again,
every bit negative, challenging experiences
make you a better parents all of that, because I know that I have two parents sitting somewhere just regretting, you know, I'm gonna see my mom in October. My brother's getting married. She's still angry, and she can't she just can't like be nice. She can't be warm. She doesn't know my kids. She's had a chance to sort of make up for what she did, but, um, she's just not doing it, and I know that she must be miserable inside. She's missing out.
Are you bringing your kids to the wedding? Yeah, she's never met your kids before. She's
met him twice. I think the last time was like, I don't even know how many years ago, seven years ago. So yeah, my kids will never have this conversation about me. I'm a really good mom. I love them so much. We have great relationship. So, yeah, if I had to go through it again, I would to be able to have this relationship with my kids.
That's amazing. That's amazing. So you graduate college, and then what was your first job as a you didn't graduate college? I didn't graduate college, yeah. And then first, why not? And then what was your first job, designing homes, and how did you end up being a cheerlead? For the Indianapolis COVID.
Okay, so get a drink of water. I didn't graduate college because at a point, so I had outed my stepdad to enough people that we weren't talking. My mom had found out I was the whole thing when I was 19, I had lived with my best friend's parents off and on from the time I was, like, in seventh grade. At this is your best friend, Shirley. My best friend Jamie. Shirley is her mom. Okay? Surely, yeah. Surely was our
mom. And so my closest like support system was my granny, who I was named after, Amanda, my grandpa, Carl, and then Jamie's parents, Shirley and PR Sweeney, so Shirley, Amanda and Carl, my granny, my grandpa and my best friend's mom and I, when I went to Indiana State, I actually was only there for two semesters, because everybody died. My grandma passed away. Had a heart attack out of the blue, unexpected. Three weeks later, my grandpa died, and two weeks after that, shortly and my
grades went to shit. I was on financial aid. I was going home to their funerals like you know, it was a month and a half, you think this fan, I lost my entire like, the three closest people to me, so my grades went to crap, and I lost my financial aid, and I wrote a letter they said, if you had any extenuating circumstances, and I was like, I've got this. And they denied
it. And so I just, I wasn't able to afford it, and so I dropped out, and I went, actually went back to Vincent's University and took some classes, some more interior design classes at the junior college, before I totally just quit. So I have, like, a lot of schooling, but no degree. What
was your first job when you graduated?
I moved to Indianapolis, and it wasn't designing homes. I worked at Sprint PCs. I was a customer service rep. I did start doing my design work until I moved to California
after my divorce. What about the Indianapolis Colts? How did that come about.
So I was living in Indianapolis, and I just or No, was I living in? Yeah, I was living in Indianapolis. I always thought it would be cool, you know, thought it'd be cool to be a cold cheerleader. I didn't realize how little they got paid. And they
got paid nothing.
I got paid 50 bucks a game by then, and we practiced three days a week. We had games every, you know, every other Sunday and to be there at five o'clock in the morning. It was brutal. We got 50 bucks. Couldn't date the players, yeah, but did you? I did, yeah, I dated one Chad Plummer, he was, I loved him so much.
Yeah, shout out to Chad.
He's married. Now, that's probably like, shout out to his wife. Um, yeah, we but that was it. That was the only one that I dated. But other people dated players. It was like, they wouldn't get in trouble. We would have gotten kicked off, we would have, you know, gotten busted, um, I moved to LA after that, I got, like, a taste of, like, the spotlight, and I liked it. And I was like, I want to do commercials or
modeling. And I don't know why, when I say modeling, I didn't move to New York, but I had never,
I moved to California, okay? And eventually you got a job on Deal or No Deal, Deal or No Deal, which, yeah, Mandel is on my show as we, as we talked about, he's just had three shows canceled in a row. Really, he was depressed before he was depressed, his agent, Michael Rotenberg, called him and said, I got this opportunity for you, flipping cards around suitcase, people opening suitcases. And he thought it was stupid. He said this insulting. He hung up on him. I think he said, fuck. No
one hung up on him. Oh, I don't know this story. And he eventually persuaded him to do it. It became a very hit show. I think they filmed the week he went to church and Caicos with his wife, and then the manager called him and said that showed 100 million views last week. Wow. So it ran for eight seasons. Tell us how you got that opportunity and what it was like on the show. That's big time, right? I mean, you're turning the suitcases and
everybody's seeing you. 10s of millions of people are seeing you every week. I
wanted to be a dealer, no deal. I joined the final season, so I only got to do it well i and then I did it again when it came back, just like not so many years ago. But I always wanted to be a dealer, no deal girl. That was like that thing. It was like the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders of modeling or. Something. I thought they were so cool. I always see them out at the clubs. I was like, Oh my gosh, still training seemed
like a cool gig. And I was taking hosting classes because I wanted to do like Brook work. Remember wild on E I thought she was so cool. I thought that would be a really fun job. And I didn't know that I'd be a really good actress, but I knew I could be myself. So I thought hosting was like, the way to go. So I took this hosting class with Marky Costello. She's like, the goat. And there was this girl in my class, and she was really good. I was intimidated by her. She had a southern accent. She
was really cute. I was like, looking at her notes one day, and she wrote at the top of her note, um, get headshot to Egypt for Deal or No Deal. And I was like, they're casting. So I totally, like, went to my friend who was a manager. I didn't even have a manager at the time. Can you find out if they're casting
for Deal or No Deal? I like, read it on my friend's paper, and all my friend I read it on this girl's paper, and they weren't but they saw me because they were going to be casting in like, six months or something. And so the lady was like, she liked me, and she put me at the top of the list, and she said it'd be like, have a call back when they started casting, like, go straight to call back. Well, she didn't work there anymore in six months. And I was like, Oh
my gosh. So I had to go, like, through the whole process, and there was 1000s of girls that would audition for that, and I got it, and it was the most fun job I'd ever had. It was like 26 or 28 girls, you just played dress up, and you literally opened a suitcase. And at the time, it was a good deal money,
I felt and can you say what you're getting paid per show? I
don't even remember. To be honest, at the time, it felt like a million dollars. It was probably like $1,500 a show or something, I don't know, I can't remember, honestly, but it felt it was more money than I'd made, like, doing modeling, yeah, and then it went away, and I found out I was pregnant, and when it didn't come back, and I was like, Okay, now I got to be on TV, and now I'm going to be a mom. I thought that was it. I thought that was it. I was never gonna be on TV
again. I was gonna be involved. What
did you have to do to get that job?
It was just like a, you know, like a basic casting so mostly interview. It was a lot of personnel in an
interview. So they said they're in, they interview you, and it's
had to open a suitcase? No, I don't think we actually had to open a suitcase. That was later, but, yeah, it was more of an interview, like a walk, and then, you know, talk about yourself. You're like, I don't, yeah, this was so long ago. My memory is like, not that great. You're
raising something that I forgot about. And I've never told this story before, but on Wheel of Fortune, at some point they needed a new host, right? Because Bob was it? Bob Barker, no. Bob Barker was the price is right. Who did? Who did al white and right, but no, who did the can't remember who this was, Pat Sajak. No, it wasn't Pat Sajak. It was Yeah. Was it Bob Parker, who resigned, who did the wheel of you pull the wheel and you get
all, yeah, you spin the wheel. Prices, right, yeah. Prices
right. And Drew Carey came in, yeah, and he did it at some point. I've never, I've not thought about this in years, but I was out when one night a place called the shore bar, and I was just as far on the west side of Los Angeles, she started talking to people, and there was a casting agent. And the casting agent come up to me, Are you an actor? I said, No, I'm I'm a business guy. She said, Well, I'm casting for the new host of The Price Is Right, and I wanted to go on this
audition. And I said, and my grandmother, at the time was, I think 8580 No, she was probably 95 years old. I said, first I said, I'm not doing that. I'm not gonna get the host of a game show. I've got a busy business career. And so then I talked to my grandmother about it said, Oh, no, you should, you should do it. It's my favorite show. So I remember going, and I remember sitting there, I go to Universal
Studios. There was a line of 150 people, and these were actors, mostly, and people had resumes, and then they would go in and just it took forever, and I keep thinking, Man, I gotta get back to work. I've had a real job. These are people who, most of them didn't have a real job. You know, they move here and be an actor, yeah, which is, which is great, by the way. I mean, that's the dream, right? You come in and you make it in Los Angeles, you want to be a star,
whatever. And that job, I'm sure, paid a ton of money, and so I remember waiting my turn. I'm there for like, three hours, and then, just like you said, it's an interview, and I remember there being five or six people there, and they're firing questions at me. So why do you want to do this? And I think I said something really stupid, like, I have a or first they said, I'm just remembering that. Well, what. Background. I said, I'm a business guy. What have you done? I said, I'm a founder
of a technology company. I was going to just kind of keep it kind of low key. They said, What company? Akamai Technologies. What do they do? We read a lot. We revolutionized the way that we serve web content. At the time, we served around 25% of the world's web content. And I don't know what the market cap of our company was. It was maybe ten billion all five judges are looking at me like, What are you doing here? Why do you want to be here? And I said, Well, number one, is my grandmother's
favorite show. And number two, I think it'd be cool. And they said. Number three, I was just minding my own business at a bar having a beer with my buddies, and the casting agent come up to and said, we really want you to audition for for the show, but I think it's really interesting. So I've never told that story before, even on my team. And now, now I now I will be part of our summer intern regimen, and I'm sure we'll soon shoot some social media clip around this as well. Well,
I'll tell you something. I'll add to that. I wanted to be a Barker's beauty before I wanted to be a dealer, no deal girl, because my my granny loved the show also, yeah, and I loved the show. And I thought, you know, all they this. And it was like, The Price Is Right, yeah. And I auditioned, and I didn't get it, and I ugly cried like i or i called my best friend Jamie, and I was like, I didn't get it. I was so mortified. I was so upset. Couldn't believe it. I wanted to be a Barker's beauty.
And then probably two months later, I got the opportunity to audition for dealer, no deal so and I was better. That was like a bigger, better deal, I think. Sorry. No offense to any of the Barkers beauties, but they were like the New Age sparks, you know, beauty. So I too, have my my what is it? Price? Is right moment, almost. I
remember as a kid being in love with Diane Parkinson was one of the models. I thought, oh my gosh, most beautiful world. I was just infatuated with her.
So I think Bob Barker was too.
I think they did get together.
Yeah, she was on it forever. And yeah, white, I think she's still flipping those letters. I swear she's like, she was on it for 100 years. She's
on it for 100 years. So what's the message to all people out there who are going, I mean, you beat, you beat, I think what you did is very industrious. You saw somebody else. You saw something and said, hey, hey, that's that's interesting. And then you said, and then you did something about it. And then you said, I'm not going to worry about the other 1000 people. So what's your message to everyone out there who is thinking about things and, you know, Oh, should
I go do that? They see something and then get in line with 1000 people? Yeah, the odds are less than 1% of 1% go
for it if you want it bad enough, and if it's meant for you, I mean that it's gonna be I really believe, like, I don't know it was interesting how that all came about, but I wanted it, and I manifested it. I think if you just envision yourself, if you really, really, truly believe it's for you and you want it that bad, just like picture yourself as it and make it happen or try. And if it doesn't happen, it wasn't meant for you move on to something
else or try again next time. I don't know, everything was um, but I did Deal or No Deal twice, like, came back around, like, 11 years later, I did it. I was the oldest one on the on the podium.
Let's talk about athletes and talk about, okay, let's talk about, let's talk about a guy named Ralph Brown, who was a star football player at University of Nebraska, played quarterback. He had a 10 year career, kind of bounced around to a whole bunch of teams, Vikings, browns, Giants. His salary range was 585,000 through 785,000 talk this about when you met him, talk about when you met him, and where you were in your life. And then we can go into all the crazy things that happened after that. I
was a waitress at the Spanish kitchen, and Ralph was a customer. I remember he came in. He had a white shirt on. I thought he was super handsome. I was telling all the girls ran some guy in the white shirt at the end of the night, when my shift was over. She was like, hot guy. The white shirts still here. And like, everybody's doing shots, like, come over and have a shot with us. And I went over and, like, started drinking with him. He was with a friend. I can't
remember, friend. I can't remember who he was with, and we all just hung out and drank and talked and told me he was a real estate agent.
Like, okay, he lied. He lied. He I mean, I see football players out of it. Was she the other day out in 1000 oak, I had a doctor. To see. And there were, there's some big dudes sitting at the table, and they were clearly football players, either for rams or the charges. I didn't recognize any of them, but, you know, they had all the gear on, and they were massive and cut. He wasn't,
he wasn't huge. He was like, 510 he was quick, but he wasn't huge. So, I mean, I don't know. I just thought it was hot, and so I believed him. We went out a few times, and then I went to his house for the first time. I was like, this dude really likes football. There's like, frame jersey. Like, I'm like, Wait, is that you? They all say Brown. Like, ding, ding. He said it wasn't the to give him, like, profs. Now, it's just almost, I have to roll my eyes. That would be
nice. Um, he didn't like to use that, like, as a, you know, like as a pickup line, or he didn't want people to just go for him, because he was like, a NFL player, right? So, yeah, that was that, I
think they're called on. I think we'd say it on the show Star fuckers, yeah?
I mean, I kudos
to him, though, like I'm not, yeah, no, I'm just saying kudos to him. I mean, we'll talk about some terrible things that he did, but I think that's kind of cool. Yeah, I
thought it was cool, too. I thought it was cool. I don't know how smart I feel like I was, because he never, like, he wasn't ever doing real estate. He would, he went to camp at one point, and I just thought I was like, Oh, I didn't even ask questions, like he was up football camp, but, um, yeah, the jerseys like, that was the
So you started dating him. At some point you had you were pregnant, and then you got married, yeah, and then a year and a half you got divorced. So talk to us about
that. What's it? Two was two years, I think was a year and a half. It's two years,
two years. We're together for two years, and then you got divorced. Yeah, married for two years, right? Right? You were married for two years, and then you got divorced. You've been a single mom since, but let's talk about all of the crazy stuff that happened. And we'll start with a lot of football players. They'll manage their money wisely, yeah, and he didn't manage his wisely. So did he have money when you met him, or he spent it by then? And
when we met, he was still playing. So, I mean, we had money, we had, I mean, not tons. I mean, ish, yeah, we were fine. We weren't struggling, um, the whole time we were dating, the whole time we were married, he was fine for a little bit after our divorce, he blamed me. He said that he got depressed when we divorced, and he blew through all his money. I mean, a forensic accountant will tell you exactly how much he blew through, like, in a year and a half, like after our divorce. That was crazy
amounts. But, um, yeah, he said he was depressed and he just spent like mad. You know, that happens. People aren't taught how to manage their money. A lot of these guys come from the hood. They come they think they have to take care of everybody in their family. People crawl out of the woodwork when you make a little bit of money for the, you know, the only one in your family, and, um, and they, they just give and give and give. It's really sad.
So he stopped paying child support after a year and a half, yeah, and at that point you went into financial disarray for for LA, I mean, you worked at BCBG. You were a dog walker. Well,
kind of gotten that order. So we got a divorce. He was, he paid child support for a year and a half, but it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't like a ton of money, yeah, I walked dogs. I tried to be a nanny. Nobody would hire me like I wouldn't hire me either. I wanted the old, fat nanny like I was not.
No one wants a gorgeous
dad or, like, a lesbian couple or something. I wanted to be a nanny.
I love kids so much. Not good ingredients. Yeah,
I wasn't. I wasn't getting any nanny gigs, but I worked at BCBG. I was walking dogs. I cleaned houses. Talk about humbling, like I hadn't cleaned my own house in probably nine years. I'm scrubbing toilets to make money. And yeah, he paid teleport for a year and a half, and then when he stopped, I had started dating somebody that was taking care of me. So I didn't feel like I I didn't ask for it. This was for
four years. Yeah, he, you know, we all we lived together at a point, like we both moved in together with our families at a point. And I didn't feel like it was fair to ask Ralph for I didn't know how much money he had left, or how much that would hurt him to give me, like, whatever little it was a month. So I didn't ask for it for four years. But when tan I broke up, I was like, hey, you know, I need you to pick up where not back support, but like, pick up where you left off. And he
wasn't having it. He wasn't happy. Yeah, so I ended up just dropping the case. I closed it. I didn't go after it, because it was more important to keep the peace. I would rather like hustle and struggle. So, yeah, I was on food stamps. Was I doing I was I worked at the operand group, like, a couple days a week. I had started staging a little bit for them. I was doing little side gigs here and there, modeling a little bit here and there. I did Deal or No Deal
again. But yeah, I was, I was on food stamps, and I lived in a two bedroom apartment with my kids, and I slept on the couch, and I gave them their own rooms at a point because they got a little bit too old to share a room. And so, yeah, we were doing great. And then he bounced.
Let's talk about the real estate company, your friend, Brett and Jason, and then we'll talk about him bouncing the first week of the show, basically. So you, you have two best friends. They have a real estate company. You're working there a few days a week. And then how, how does it happen that you ended up there full time? And then, how does it happen that there happens to be a show? I think they shot a first season by then already. Yeah,
they shot the first season. So I was, I wasn't even, actually, I wasn't even working at the Oppenheim group. I was there all the time, hanging out, hanging out because you had nothing to do. Had nothing to do. I would do design jobs. So I would take my computer and I would go and I'd lay on the couch. Everybody beat their computers. I go around lunchtime, because Jason would take everybody to lunch. So I
would hang out all the time. And eventually Jason was like, you just need to, well, no, he didn't say, get your real estate license yet. I came later. I was doing dealer no deal when they shot the first season. So I was like, you guys, go ahead and you see how it goes. You never know how real a reality show is gonna go, right? So I was like, they can shoot the first season, and if it goes well, then you know, maybe I'll get my real estate license and try to join the cast
or something. But it couldn't, you know, might not go so well. You just never know. And so it did pretty good. And when dealer no deal was over, it shot in Florida. And so when I came back, I started working in the office, I think, like once or twice a week, staging. And then Jason's like, you're here all the time. I don't know why you don't just get your license.
Staging means for people to don't know, yeah, there's a home for sale, yeah. And then you go in and you make it look beautiful, because you're renting furniture to make it look as good as possible. So you get the best price, right, right, right. Yeah. Okay, so you're staging, they're selling homes. It may look like shit or be empty because people move out. You want to make them look as good as possible.
Yeah. Or people have, like, a ton of really, not so you know, esthetically pleasing furnishing, furnishings and accessories. You try to talk them into getting rid of it all and putting in stuff that you know is more appealing to the general public, and it helps sell the home, it really does. So that's what I would do. And then, yeah, I just, I ended up getting my license, and then they got picked up for another season. And so just made sense that I was a new girl.
But do you interview for that job as well, or do they just say, Hey, she's working here, because she's working here, she's now part of the show.
Oh, well, I didn't have to interview to be at the Oppenheim group, right? Just, I was Jason and Brett's friend, but, and it was good what I did. But, yeah, I did interview for deal, for, sorry, for selling sunset with the production company with Netflix. It was a whole thing. I mean, they had, you know, put like, this is our friend of 20 some years, but you had to still go through the whole like process, and
now you're getting paid again. Yeah, you're off the couch.
Not yet. I filmed the entire first season on the couch is the pay? Okay? It was decent, yeah,
okay, now you're getting paid more.
I mean, now it's good, yeah, first season.
I don't know if she's gonna make it or not. It was still,
I mean, it was good. It was better than what I was it was better than what I was getting, a lot better than what I was making before. But it wasn't quite enough to get off the couch just yet, because I still had two kids,
right? So a month into the show,
yeah, Ralph disappears. Disappears.
Talk to us about that, and then talk to us about the efforts that you made with his family, what he wrote to the court and your your feelings and the efforts you made to find him. Um,
yeah. A month and a half into filming, I go to pick the kids up from school, and they told me that they had slept in the car the night before, which is not. Something that's, you know, normal. They lived in like a nice apartment.
You guys are the boy and shared 5050, custody. Yeah, 5050, for
seven years. Like clockwork. They went to daddy half the time, and me half the time. And at this at this point, the kids are a little bit older. So it was a week with mommy, a week with daddy, just like that, right? And he was a really good dad, like gymnastics, meet, soccer matches, homework. He was very structured and punctual and attentive. They were, you know, they were well fed, they dressed nice, like they were doing activities. It was he was a good dad. It was insane. So yeah, I
picked him up from school. They said they had slept in the car the night before, and they were both, like, really disheveled and hot. And I'm holding their hands as I'm walking out, walking them out of school, they're telling me this, and I'm like, trying to text him, and it's going green. It's like, his
iPhone not working.
I call the numbers disconnected. So I text, is disconnected. It's like, the numbers, no, there's no number. So I text the mom, and I'm like, Hey, do you know if Ralph is okay? Is everything okay? I mean, I can show you the text like there's been no response. Is everything okay? The kids said that they slept in the car last night. I'm really worried you just phones, you know off. Is everything okay? Nothing. Literally, that was August 26 2019 and there's been zero,
nothing, zip. Not a word from anyone in his family, since his mom never responded. I mean, I call, I called and called. I text a lot. I have WhatsApp, because on WhatsApp, you can see if somebody checks it at one point. This was maybe, like, a month later, I got that bright idea. She checked it, never responded. Um, he wrote an email. Okay, so when I picked him up from school and they said that, I was like, Well, I don't, I can't give them back to him
next Monday. Like, if I drop them off at school and he picks them up if they don't have a home, like, I don't know what to do. So I called like, CPS Child Protective Services and asked them, like, what do I do in this situation? They said, If a parent falls upon hardship, that's that's no reason to, like, take the kid. So I was like, Well, I guess I just wasn't going to take them to school on Monday, you know, because if they had to sleep in the car, that made no sense to
me. Like, why didn't he call me? I could have given him a room to stay in anything, but he was still, you know, nothing, nothing, nothing. I got an email and it was entitled, no no roof for kids. And it was very short, and it said something about his financial hardship, that they had slept in the card the for the Sunday before. This was on Sunday night the following Sunday, and that the kids would have to stay with me until his situation changed. And that was
it. And so, yeah, they've been with me since that was the last that I heard from him, until the paper that was filed with the court. I think it was two years later I discovered it, and he had filed it, like four months after he disappeared, but nobody knew about it, because there was COVID, the lockdown, the family court source shut and he didn't do it through an attorney. He just filed it with the court. So
my attorney didn't have it. Mind you, I had to, I had to get my attorney and fight, not fight. There was always a fight with but get legal full custody of my kids, because I had 5050 and I couldn't get them a therapist. I couldn't change their school. I wasn't supposed to move, none of that stuff without his signature, because we were 5050 so I had to get an attorney to get custody of my kids because their dad left in that process, my attorney discovered this letter at one point, like after
COVID. This was, like, a couple years after I'd been sort of looking for him, filed a missing persons report, all kinds of speculation, all types of, you know, thoughts and worries and ideas and everything imaginable, only to discover that he had filed a paper four months after he left, relinquishing all rights. And I didn't know about it, one
of the things on the paper said, one of the things on the paper said that he'd be a harm to his kids, yeah, if he saw his kids. So at that point, obviously you want them in their lives. You want to know what's happening. But what, what did you feel when you read that? Honestly,
this the declaration was like 198 it was some crazy amount of pages.
Here's declaration that I found. Yeah, I
felt like a lot of it was bullshit. I. And because I I saw him weeks before we saw him in gymnastics meets my kids, wouldn't they? None of the you know, I can't say none. I'm I know his body was hurt, and I know that he did have a lot of damage to his body from football. I don't believe that it was a severe I don't believe that it was CT, and I don't believe that that was fully true. I think that it was I don't know what happened, but I don't believe that everything in that. Do
you think he's alive today?
I know he's alive. I was told by the North Hollywood Police Department about three days before I went to the hospital last summer that they had, they had proof that he was alive, and he had, he was alive and, okay, I think that's what they said. So he's no longer deemed a missing person, and the case is closed. Like, Oh, thank you. There'd only
be one way to know that, right? He would have had some involvement with the police, and they would have identified him as Ralph Brown, either arrested, traffic violation, something, well, he
wasn't arrested. Okay, so
you know what happened? Yeah, well,
I think, I think there was an ID. What's it called? A request to change ID. Like change I see
DMZ, yeah. So have you tried to find them since? No,
okay, I went in the hospital about four days after that. And to be honest, if he doesn't want to be found, why do I want to find out we have had to move on? I don't know why he is wherever he is. I don't know. I have so many ideas and thoughts in my head. I mean, I've thought everything from like, you know, he had to go away because he got into some trouble, or maybe he just, I just can't. It's hard for me to believe that he would just leave his kids
if he walked into the studio right now. What would you say to him?
Not today. We're not gonna go there. Not today. Okay, yeah, I don't, I don't have time for this today. Nope, and don't even think about following me home, because we are doing good right now. We've got homeschool. I would again, I don't know if I'm just fucking nice. I mean, I'd have a lot of questions, but he would not be allowed to go anywhere near my
children. Would the kids want to see him without a long process of rehabilitate, whatever it would look like, and I don't mean like, just drugs or something like that. I mean like court supervision to know, like, every single thing, and I would need to know exactly. I don't know the kids. Noah, my daughter. I don't think she would. I think my son would.
Everything happens for a reason, right? Yeah, you said at some point that if you knew this was going to happen in the first month and a half on the show, you wouldn't have accepted the role on the show, but, but you look back now and you've got a great career going, right? You're making good money, and you have a very bright future, when then things look very bleak, yeah, so why? Honest with you, there's, there's kind of a give and take there. They don't make sense together, yeah?
I mean, it makes sense to me. I think that even Ralph disappearing had to happen in order for me to reach my full potential. I think that I would have allowed myself to sort of just, you know, stay kind of in the middle, and I have no choice now except for to completely bust my ass and make it. And I think that that's why he went
away. I think not like he was thinking that, but I think that that is the reason, I think that God saw that maybe he peaked, and I wasn't gonna go as far as I could if I still had this like ability to just be like a half single mom, and I wasn't. I just wasn't, like, really going for it, and I didn't have a choice anymore because of all they have. So I have to, like, bust my ass every day as much as I can.
So great things. Thanks, Ralph.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Excited. I'm excited for your your success and and your future as well. Let's talk about reality TV, but a little laugh. A little Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna laugh. But I mean, your story is so motivational, and that's why I wanted you on the show. That's what my show is about, is to see successful people. Have overcome incredible challenges on their path to success. I mean, I've had people abuse sexually, physically, parents in jail
living in their car. I mean, Sammy Hagar orange grove with four kids and their mom to get away from the town drunk. Those were his words, who abuses kids. I mean, one of the greatest rock and rollers ever, right? And it's like he's not quite there yet, but I'm saying, like your story is going to help people, and it's going to motivate people. So that's that's why I want to go on the show, and then we talk about success, right?
And you've had a lot of success, but I want to talk about reality TV, because before we came on the show, we talked a little bit beforehand casting agents. So we know a couple of people who have been stars on two different shows. We talked about one, we're not going to mention our name, and we have another very, very good friend who was, I think I'll say it on on Wags, which is about wives or girlfriends of famous athletes. And so my wife and I live a very
nice life. I've had a lot of success in the business world. She's was and successful model. We have a nice family, and we live in a nice home, so they recommended that we try out for Housewives of Beverly Hills. I said, No chance. Not my thing. And she has a clothing brand called madtown collection. She was doing really well with it. And we've all heard the story about people promoting their brands on the show, and it belonging Bethany Frankel, I think sold her, she's the goat,
right, right? $90 million or whatever she got, and it's helped people be on the show. So I said, Okay, I will agree to the interview. The camera, the house, right? They're shooting, they're shooting the we're on camera, and they got people there, and the producer of the show is there. I said, Okay, you know, we think, you know, you'd be great. And then my wife and I had a conversation. I said, No,
you know, that's not my thing. I talked to friends of mine who were successful business people who wanted to have been on the show, and they said it's the worst thing they've ever done, right for the invasion of privacy and a whole whole bunch of other things, you know, disrespect and the business community. So it was not good for my career, so I put the kibosh on it. Then we were going to go on below deck, and again, the same casting agent came to the house. We said, Okay, that's a cool thing.
Is this the same casting shore bar? Yeah, no, no,
so I forgot about the shore bar. Wheel of Fortune. This is, this is years later. This probably eight years ago, nine years ago, maybe. And we said, Okay, that's interesting. We did our research on glow deck, and what we found, and we talked about this before the show, I think the show is very respectful, very popular show. By the way. I love the
show. I'm not criticizing the show right now, but what we found in doing due diligence, I mean, you never go on a show like that without talking to people who've been on the show and producers, and we know a lot of people in the business, successful producers, reality TV people. And so the due diligence on blow deck was half of the people, guests on it were treated very respectfully, and half were not. They were basically made fun of. You know, the crew talked about them
behind their back. And so I'm a business guy, and I have a business. I thought, all right, my beach is business. Sandy, we were creating a yell for beaches. We cataloged over 100 categories of data for more than 100,000 beaches in 212 countries, s, a, n, d, e. Sandy.com, I thought, Okay, this would could be good for for the show. So we asked three different couples. We were in charge. We were the captains of a group. So we asked people, a lot
of the madam of the boat, well,
it's, I mean, you know, it's both like a 220 foot yacht, yeah, and it's got all these activities. It was fun. It didn't. We had successful friends who were going to do the show as well, and they have to approve them, but they did, because they're all people, somewhat similarly situated, people from different industries, and we didn't do it at the end of the day because logistics did not work out. But what I've heard from reality TV is, is it real?
It is it is real 100% I'll tell you what doesn't that it isn't natural. For example, if you and I are in the office and we have like, an interaction, and it doesn't go so well, we're going to text about it on the way home, or maybe the next day, we're going to make up and never going to talk to you about it again. And like, we're all
cool, doesn't go well that like we've had a interaction, yeah? Like, maybe rams are like, whatever, you know, you your commit.
You took my commission, or you, I don't know, whatever you would fight about in the office. I'm not really in a lot of the drama, but you, you make up afterwards. Like, Hey girl, sorry, you know, yeah, whatever, whatever. Maybe you have a drink on a day that you're not filming. Maybe you hang out, maybe you talk. But in TV land, they don't see that. So the next time there's, like a brokers open or open house, or somebody has a baby shower, you have to talk about it, and you
have to re talk about it. So that's, you know, you're redoing it when you've already maybe made up, but you have to let the people see kind of where you are. So that is fake, I guess, but it's to keep everybody on the same page, and so that it tightens the drama because you're reiterating or rehashing, you know, something that I'm never going to pull somebody over at a baby show and be like, Girl, we need to talk. I had somebody's funeral, or, like, somebody I know how to be
appropriate. Like, this year there was a dog funeral a dog. One of the dogs cast mates. Dog passed away, and had a funeral for the dog,
a funeral at a someone's backyard and someone's backyard, okay? And
it was really traumatic. It was Jason and Mary's dog. She had had the dog for 18 years. It was like, and then the girls are talking at the funeral, and they have this, like, big blow up, you know, we wouldn't really do that in real life. Like, I wouldn't, I would, hope not, like bad manners, but they had to talk about it. So producers are like, you know, talk to so and so, they kind of ease you into that. But, I mean, unfortunately, there's a lot of drama when a camera is following
you around all the time. You have more because you might talk shit about somebody in your real life, but nobody knows it, because you don't have a camera in your face, right?
But aren't you watching every single word that you're saying, knowing, I mean, self conscious, and I mean, I would be so I
don't really have to watch much. I'm just like, I'm just myself, but, yeah, you got to be. I mean, you can't be an asshole and not expect to not look like an asshole reality television, like I'm just myself. I think that if you see me on the show and you meet me in real life, I'm really exactly the same. I think some people have a hard time doing that. They they want to put on, or they like, get into the drama, I
don't know. I think it's just different for each person, but everybody you know to each of their own. But it wouldn't work for me to be like all in the drama. When
does it start and when does it end? I mean, we talked about this before the show again, you drive home, you're off camera, yeah. So you're told on Sunday, hey, you're coming to the office on Tuesday, and we're gonna mic you up on Tuesday? Do they follow you around the whole day? Are you? Are you in the office? You're doing open house? It
depends on what the day is like. Everything is every day is different, or every scene is different. I mean, there's a lot of times we're just in the office doing, like, team meetings, or just a lot of times I'll just be sitting on my desk. Half the time, I forget my computer, and I'm just sitting there doing nothing, but like, Yeah, somebody will have a baby shower. I had my birthday party last season, so everybody's biked up and they're just
watching the party. It's usually like four or five hours, like the one scene that you see, like in the office, they'll be there for like, four or five hours, and, yeah, they're just standing there silent, staring at you, and you're always miked up. That's the thing. Like you might not always be on camera, but you're always light up, so they hear everything you say. So if you go to the bathroom and you want to talk about somebody, just because you're not on
camera, they can hear you. They hear you're miked up when you go to the bathroom. Yeah, I mean, they might turn it off if you're, like, actually going to the bathroom, but I hope so. Or like, if you're, like, talking under your breath like, you know, to the person next to you, they can hear you. And if they're not, if the camera's not on you, they'll just put subtitles. That happened to me last year. I said something about somebody's dress just
being a smart aleck. And they put the subtitles of what I said to the girl next to me. And I was
like, you said something as well about people walking around naked. Do they walk around naked on the on the show? I thought you said something about pasties.
Oh, we just are out. Like, our outfits on selling sunset are pretty some of them are pretty risky. Okay, got it? Not really office attire. Like, yeah, Chelsea wears like, I think at one point she had like, a bikini top on, like, trousers in the office people are showing up to their real estate jobs. Like, dress like so. Like sunset, and it's not going too well.
Has the show helped your career? Are you selling more homes? And people call you up and say, hey, I want you to sell my house for me, even though they don't know you not me, really.
I mean, yes, I have only sold homes because of the show. I'm not passionate about real estate sales, and everybody knows it. I like to do the decor. I like to do the art. It's really, I really don't enjoy it. I don't feel like, I just feel like I'm a lot better at other things. So, but it has helped the brokerage, but I don't know that it's hurt it.
But they're like, I don't think they've lost sales, but there have been some things that you know have been said about it that wouldn't have been said otherwise, like, if you have two girls going at it, like cat fighting over some BS, you're not probably maybe want to go spend $20 million with that person on your house. And so there's been a couple, you know, some backlash, but not for the most part. It's been
amazing. It's given you a platform
for me. So, so
what has it done for you?
It's given me a platform. You're exactly right, and now we make pretty decent money, but the platform is key. I have a voice. People actually will listen to what I have to say. My story isn't just, you know, getting told to Joe Schmo or like somebody at a party. It's getting told to millions of people, and I hope to, you know, inspire and hopefully those people that maybe want to speak
up. I actually, I'll read DMS in my Instagram last year, there was a person that actually he wrote me, and he said he had just watched the episode where I told Chelsea, like about my childhood and went downstairs and told his family what had been happening to him. So that's the kind of stuff that's like, yeah, right. I
mean, that's the reason why we went through the emotion at the beginning of the show. Exactly for that. I'm sure there's, I get a lot, 10,000 more people who are that same experience. Yeah,
it feels good. And I want to continue to do that. I want to stay on stages and do it. I want to just keep preaching them, or to keep going and use your voice. Talk about me. I'm here. I'm doing okay.
Let's go back in time a little bit to June of 2023. Of a terrible stomach ache. You can't backache. You have a terrible backache. You can't get out of bed. You go to the hospital and they send you home. Yeah, sometimes doctors have no idea what they're doing. Talk to us about what happened. Yeah,
I went to the hospital and my back was hurting so badly I could barely walk. I mean, I was like, I was like, practically army crawling. I've never had pain like this in my life. I've had two babies. It was just something I couldn't even explain. Went to the hospital. They did an MRI. I was there for 12 hours. They gave me more pain medicine than my friend that took me was like, I have never seen anything like this. Like she was telling her husband, she's like, I can't
believe it. And I was still just alert and in pain. It was terrible. They sent me home after the MRI and said I was having a back spasm. They gave me ibuprofen, muscle relaxers and steroids. So for a month, another month, I sat at home thinking I was having a back spasm. And on June 3, one of my best friends was like, I have to take you to the hospital like I'm calling the ambulance if you don't get in the car. I've never
seen anything like this. And they admitted me on June 3, and I got out on July, I know June 2, and I got out on July 3, I had a severe blood infection, a bacterial infection, going through my body, and it had turned into what's called osteomyelitis, where it attacks the bone, and it was eating my vertebrae, so it was sitting on my spine, and it was deteriorating my spine for a month, and I almost died, but I didn't. So, yeah, I was
admitted. They thought at first I had a tumor, because they did the MRI, and there was a very large, like, what looked like a tumor at the base of my spine. But then after, like, you know, for the reviews, infection, and it was everywhere. It was, close to my heart, close to my spinal cord, had two spine surgeries, had a couple blood transfusions.
I have a titanium spine in one place now, and I'm and I'm good, but it was a, it was quite a, quite an infection, and I had no idea, so I was having a back spasm. Yeah,
two young kids as a single mom had to. Be, yeah, ridiculously scary, not, not just for your own health, but you think about your kids, you're a great mom. Yeah?
I mean, I didn't. When I went into the hospital, I thought I was going to get a CAT scan, I was just going to come right back home, and I and I didn't. And so, you know, and every day for the first, like, couple weeks, was like, Oh, they thought I was maybe gonna go home because they would test the blood and like, the bacteria was out. But then my spine was like,
it was like, crazy. It was just, yeah, I never it was like, my kids never knew if I was coming home if I wasn't, because they would kind of say they had to stop telling them, like anything. They were just, you know, she's gonna be in there for a while. They didn't say, like, Oh, she's coming home in two days. Because at first it was, like, gonna be five days. And then if I was there for seven days and the blood was
clear, then I could go home. And but eventually they saw how bad it was, or how bad it continued to get the doctors. And so I was there, and I wasn't scared until, I don't know, they keep you really at bay, and they don't tell you, like, how serious it is until, you know, until you're all good. I didn't get scared until, like, there was one night that I had an allergic reaction to one of the antibiotics that was going through my blood. And by the way, I was so high on pain
medicine. I mean, it was going in my veins every four hours, along with antibiotics, along with whatever else. So I really wasn't aware of, like, how severe things were sometimes, but I had a really bad reaction, and my temperature went to 105 and my heart rate or skyrocketed, and my blood pressure dropped, and I was like, convulsing, like convulsing, but I was awake, and it felt like somebody was just
pouring water over my head. I mean, it was just profusely sweating, like drenching sweat, and like they came in and they were like, doing all this stuff. And I was like, why don't think I'm gonna go home. And that was, yeah, that was, that was the first and the only time, the whole time that I was there, even after the spine surgeries, that I got scared, because I'd never experienced anything like that. And it was like, the beeping and like, it was crazy. And I was just like, Fuck my
kids. Like, I'm all they have. I had a fever of 100 for the next day. It was two days, 105 104 and then 103 and finally, and I was okay, but yeah, I'm supposed to be here. It it's, it's always so emotional I talk about that, and it's, I'm just grateful. I gotta get busy, yeah, I gotta go. I have work to do. And like crying mess, yeah, I'm just, I'm grateful we don't like so many tears, but it's all, it all. I mean, I'm smiling on the other
side of it. I'm really, I can't say I'm grateful that I went through that experience. It was definitely interesting. It's I'm not, I'm grateful that I survived, but I would like to have my regular spine back,
all right, but let's talk about something good that does come out of it. Because I know a lot of people had a near death experience. I had when I had myocarditis. I was in the ICU. I almost died, and I came out. You have a chance to reevaluate your life. You have a second lease on life. So you had one. What did you come out of the hospital? And health wise, different than before you went in.
It took me. Like, I mean, I have to, I'm every time I talk about, I still kind of wrapping my head around it. It's only it's been a year, little over a year, health wise. Like, what was it? How? What was your question? Well,
you almost died. And when you're looking at your deathbed, and I had this, I'm looking, am I going to make it? Am I not going to make it? And I had three young kids at the time too. When I recovered, I thought about things differently. My priorities shifted. So you had a second lease on life. What did you learn and what have you changed since that experience?
Oh, goodness. I just feel like, even more than ever, just going for it like, I don't really. I'm not scared to to ask. I'm not scared to try things. I'm not scared to, like, you know, if it's a business, or if it seems like a weird idea, or whatever, I'm just like a more kind of like effort, like YOLO. Actually, not YOLO. Maybe you live more than once, but I feel like I really just want to push and it just motivated me. I don't really think that I would
like to say that I'm. Working out more, and I'm eating healthier and all that, but I don't think, I think I actually made me eat worse. I eat like a child now, because my stomach got really messed up from all the antibiotics that I was on, and it's really hard for me to like enjoy food the way that I used to. So I eat like, a lot of popsicles, and I like baby food and stuff, but I just feel like I'm not afraid of anything. I'm
not afraid to fail here. Just feel like I'm supposed to be here, like I really feel like lightning could come and like strike right through here, right now, and I wouldn't, it wouldn't get me, and I wouldn't go anywhere, because I'm supposed to be here. So I just feel like I need to try every single thing that I've ever thought in my head that I wanted to do, and I don't know Michael B Jordan is going to be my husband. I feel
like, yeah, I don't know. I feel just even more grateful, and just it solidified like I'm here to be a voice, and I'm here to make a change and to inspire. And I think I'm so grateful for selling sunset and I'm so grateful for the platform, but I feel like I'm just getting started. I feel like this is my Lolly pad, and I feel like I'm gonna go do really great things, and my kids are too well. Noah, I'm not sure about my son yet. I'm just kidding. Breaker. I love you.
Another challenge you had in your 20s, you were had addiction problems that you talked about only a little bit. So do you want to talk about what you were addicted to and what happened and how you came out of that? Because, again, I think a lot of people suffer from an addiction issue. And I'm not just talking about people who are not working. I have friends who are lawyers in the top law firms, investment bankers making $5 million a year or addicted to cocaine and all kinds of other drugs.
I know I was doing it right along with them. And so, yeah, so,
so what happened? When? When did you start doing drugs? And then how did it end?
I was it happened, like, pretty much, right? When I moved to LA I had never done anything. I never even smoked weed, really, like, there were people didn't do that in my hometown. I remember when I was a senior in high school, I found out that a couple girls from the dance team smoked weed, and I was mortified. I couldn't even believe it, and which is weird, because my parents smoked weed, their whole my whole like upbringing, but I just I hated it, hated the way it smelled.
And I moved to LA and I tried cocaine, and it was like, Oh, wow, I'm skinny. Oh, the Skinner I get, the more modeling jobs I can get, and then the more modeling jobs I get, the more money I make. Because the more money I make, the more drugs I can buy. And it was just a whole cycle of like, party, party, party like every weekend for a long time. And I kept it hidden very well. Well, I thought I think at a point I wasn't, you know, as good at hiding it as I thought, but I had a friend
actually pull me to the side. I won't say who and this, I'm telling a lot. I know I haven't even told my kids, like all of this, and this is interesting, but I had a friend pull me to the side at one point and say, What are you doing? Like, I've seen you, like, fuck off auditions. And like you came out here to do so much, and you're like, a loser right now, like you're partying every weekend, and like, Get your head out of
your house, basically. And shamed me so much that I just walked like I went and I checked into a hotel room, and I literally dropped to my knees, and I sobbed and prayed out loud for like, I mean, it could have been five minutes, probably 30 minutes, and just was like, please help me not go back. Help me to just move forward. And that was it. And I had a really good, it it was a kind of on
again, off again. Boyfriend at the time, I came clean to him and was like, This is what I've been doing, because I hid it from him. He was like, I always knew there was something I couldn't put my finger on it. And I was like, I was partying like every weekend, and it got to the point where I was like, partying every day, and he co signed for an apartment for me so that I didn't move, you know, back in with the people that I had been living with because
they were still partying. He bought me a computer so that I could get online and look for, like, a regular job. Took me to Bed Bath and Beyond, and bought me, like, cups, plates, knives for like, the whole like, everything I think I went to IKEA and got like, furniture and set me up to where I was. I didn't go back, like I got a job in an eye doctors office, and I just changed everything. And so grateful for him. I'm not gonna say his name, his girlfriend
was. If, yeah, I think that if everybody needs one, like, just one person to, like, believe in them and, like, help them out a little bit, you know. And my friend that pushed me to the side and, like, basically called me a loser, like, a year later, was like, I'm so sorry I had to do that because I couldn't watch you, like tore your life away to this day. So one of my closest male friends, it's hard to do,
yeah, very hard to do. Yeah. I've had to go to friends before and say, Dude, you had a serious problem. I
couldn't believe it. I was and
you know, most of the time, they deny having a serious problem, right? And you say it again, a lot of them go to rehab, AA meetings, they come back. But I think until you admit it and have a your low point, yeah,
nobody's gonna quit until they're ready. Nobody's gonna like, that's why rehab is so like, the success rate was, like, what? Nothing people, I don't think anyone could be forced into I don't think, I mean, I don't know the statistics, but I know that nobody was going to tell me, like, what to do with my life. I had had a shitty upbringing. You don't know my life, and you don't know, and I was I was fine. I was fine. I didn't think
I was running for anything. I was self medicating for years, and a lot of a lot of my closest friends didn't even know.
But here you are again, successful. Let's talk about what it takes to be successful. You're working in the real estate industry in LA where the average price of a home in Los Angeles County is $1.7 million so it's expensive to live here, and the county here is massive. It's bigger the GDP of Los Angeles is bigger than something 50 countries in the world other than the huge city. It's sprawling work in a high end real estate market.
Sunset we ho West Hollywood. So how do you stand out among the competition when everybody wants to sell a home. And by the way, the average sales price in the area where your real estate group covers is $3.8 million which means that a 6% commission results in $212,000
you split. It's an Oppenheim as the broker.
Well, right? So, well, no, so the seller, the agents, each split that. That's 114,000 and then, depending what your commission structure is, you could be making, should be making 50 to 70 to $80,000 on one home. Yeah. So everyone wants that. How do you stand out? How do you be successful?
The Oppenheim group, Jason. He's really just made the Oppenheim group amazing, the marketing, the staff. I mean, the office is beautiful. He really caters to the clients. And I think that he's just, I don't know. He set us all up really nicely. I have to say I'm not, I'm not gonna promote act like I'm the, you know, greatest, greatest real estate agent, because I really don't actively pursue real estate. I am the artist and the
decorator. But for the other people that do, he has just, really, you know, he's, he sold some of the biggest homes in West Hollywood. If you look at our marketing, you look at our websites, and you look at it, there's nothing like it. And I think that that's that's really one of the biggest things. You really don't, you really don't get service like you do at the time group other agencies. I
think it's just so welcoming. We have such a big staff in the office that helps do everything from, you know, set up showing like you really don't even have to see your agent until you are ready to sign the sign the deal if you want to, because they have so many people that can help. You're
selling very high end homes, and I think a lot of people don't really understand. I mentioned that the average price of a home in Los Angeles is $1.2 million $1.3 million but we're talking about homes in West Hollywood on the Sunset Strip. I'm not talking about Beverly Hills or Bel Air or Brentwood where I live, and there are some incredibly expensive homes there, but some of these homes are $80 million yeah, you can think about the commission on that. I think at that point it's a fixed price.
In terms of selling a house, no one's gonna pay 6% commission on $80 million
right? I when I first moved out here, I mean, coming from the trailer in Indiana, I would just drive through the hills and just like, look at these houses. It's unbelievable. But then you also look at it, look at real estate in Indiana, and you see, like some of the, you know, the square price first square, but it's very different here. Yeah, there are some of the most beautiful homes. I would have never gotten an opportunity to see the inside of some of these homes if I didn't work at the
oftentime group. It. It's really fun for me. It gives me a lot of inspiration. When
I came in, la had $3,000 in the bank. Was going to start my legal career, and I was living next to the jack in the box, San Malika Boulevard, Visa apartment. But I was always very motivated. I wanted an incredible house. One day, I used to, on the weekends, drive through Bel Air, I'd say, Oh yeah, one day, I'm gonna have a house like this. You're
manifesting, and you manifest. I was lucky enough for a lot of hard work you do create your own law, but very lucky enough that I was able to buy and build a house like that. And there isn't a day that goes by in my life where I don't drive up the driveway that I don't say to myself, I'm grateful, I'm lucky, and I fulfill my dreams of having a home like this. That's so good. So I think everybody out there should have dreams. And what you did, I think, is
the same thing, right? You drove around and say, Wow, look at all these homes. Look what I want to do one day. Yeah, I
want to build one and live on one. Now, one day, my house is beautiful, but it's small. I'm going to have a bigger, better, more beautiful home soon. I can I can see it. It's going to be funky
in terms of being successful, one of the things that led to a lot of my success is something called extreme preparation. That means someone prepares one hour for a meeting. I'm gonna do five. We had a meeting for Marriott where, where we did 80 for one meeting with Marriott for Sandy, and had an unsuccessful outcome, 80 hours, 80 hours for a meeting, and that's my whole team. We revised a PowerPoint maybe 3035, times. We went over, we had a presentation to the senior management team. We
wanted to do it. We didn't get it. We weren't disappointed. We didn't get it for more than a day, and we said we learned something about the presentation, about our presentation. The end of the day, we're glad we didn't get it. You look back now, I'm glad we didn't get that deal. Today, we get a much better deal, but talk to us about his extreme preparation. Preparing more than anybody else, been a component of your success.
I don't think so. No, let me not be a joke, sir. I guess it's Yeah, a little bit, but it's a different type of preparation. I think that my preparation has come from life. I've been preparing for this my whole life, and maybe didn't realize it just in a different
way. It's not a PowerPoint presentation, but it's just with different experiences in different in different ways, I guess, now present day and moving forward, I think extreme preparation could come into play with some of the things that I, you know, have on the horizon that I want to do if I want them to be really successful. But I definitely need a team, because I'm not most self motivated when it comes to certain things, art, design, speaking, all that stuff
comes really naturally. And now this new business side of me, it's like a muscle that I'm learning. You say PowerPoint presentation, and I'm like, say foreign to me, but you know people that are helping me.
So you have goals you mentioned now a few times in the show. What are your goals? Well, how is extreme preparation going to be help you achieve the goals? And what are the goals?
I have so many so I've always wanted to host my own show about design, but like a feel good type of inspiring show, maybe like Extreme Home Makeover or something like that was a good message. Like everybody feels good at the end. You know, it's not Chelsea and Reed fighting in the office. So still using my creative side, but also, like inspiring and like helping changing lives, I want to have a furniture line, Home Goods line, everything. I will one day, curtains, wallpaper, like everything, you
know, the Magnolia. What are the people's names from HGTV? They killed it. They have everything now. They have a magazine. They have a network. I used to want to do a talk show, but I don't really think they have talk shows anymore. It's more well, podcasts are basically talk shows. I guess I would have won an Emmy for the show that I have one day. And I want to adopt a baby, maybe two. I want to adopt a 17 year old at some point, my dad was adopted at 17, and it changed his life. He was given a
family. I don't know that. I want to be married again one day, but I do want to be with somebody like somebody, eventually, one person, but right now, it's fun to date. What else I don't know? I just I want to be remembered like as somebody who. Was a big deal, but in a really nice way, a cool, nice way. I want to wear cool outfits. I want to come home to my kids from the job
site just be happy. And I have other businesses too, but I'm not going to mention them, because somebody else stole my ideas.
Let's talk about dating in LA and I have some celebrity friends, including the two on the reality shows that I have actor friends, actors friends, any
good single men
we can talk about after the show, I'll think about that. How is it dating in Los Angeles as a well known person for what I understand from my friends, they get DMS. You know, people slide into the DMS. I guess that's the language I'm sliding into your DMS
line in your DMS, um, I mean, to be honest, it's, well, I dated somebody. I was dating somebody for two and a half years, like during the show, we just kept it really, like we didn't publicize it. So I've been dating for like, the past, like, over a year, and it's, I don't know, I'm super picky, I think, or maybe, maybe I'm not picky enough sometimes, or I'm, like, extremely picky. I don't really get a lot of people sliding in my DMs for dates. To be honest. Where have I met
people? Mutual friends? There's dating apps, Riot, right? I was just asking about riot. That's the only one I'm on, but it's like the people that I've met on riot I've already had met, like, before, yeah, it's super awkward. I think that I'm older. I'm 47 so, like, dating apps were weird to me. Anyway, I feel like I'm being stalked. If there's like, five people like, messaging me, it feels kind of
creepy. I have to it's hard for me to, like, look at somebody's picture and read like, two lines about her and know if I want to go on a date, that's a lot of work. Yeah, I don't know. It's weird to date in LA I people think I'm a lot younger than I am, so I have like, 25 year olds hitting on me, and then I'm like,
you wouldn't date you wouldn't date a 25
year old. No, I wouldn't date the 25 years.
How young Would you go on the dating front?
Did i i think
i This is a big platform we have. Oh, my God, tons of people watching my show, right? Oh, my God, I can take her on a date.
I Okay. So I'm dating right now. It's just super like, it's the first time in my life that I have been like, totally cool with, like, not having a boyfriend. I'm always, like, the relationship girl, because I like to be with one person. It's, I'm from Indiana, like, this roster thing wasn't a thing. We don't date a bunch of people. But I broke my role recently, and I went out with somebody who was a lot younger than me, and I was okay with it, but my daughter was
mortified. She was like, so just bothered He's 27
you dated someone who's 27 Yeah,
that's 20 years younger than me. My
wife is 17 years younger than me, yeah. But there's
always the guys. People look at guys differently when, when they do it,
you think there's a difference. I don't think there's you don't think there's a
difference. But people, but the general population, thinks you care what people think
at this point in your life.
Sometimes I do my daughter.
Okay, so your daughter or son may care, right? If you're dating someone that much younger, you're my daughter closer in age, yeah, to them as you are to the person that that yeah, you would date. So that'd
be all flattering to me. I feel like I'm 47 if somebody that's 27 wants to date me, I'm gonna take it as compliment. You know what? Age, honestly, really just is a number. I mean, I'm not gonna date somebody that's like 1920 2220 but probably my cutoff is 27 but what's
the what's the cap? Oh,
I'm so bad. I'm just not attracted to a lot of people that are like, older,
I don't know. So 4740 so 48 year old is
a cat. Depends on what you look like. It's really hard for me. I don't know if you, I mean, if you're 58 and you look great, but there's I. I was molested by a grandpa, like, I can't be looking at somebody that's old and gives me the creeps. I don't even know if I can grow old with somebody because I'm like, and get the creeps of my own husband. Um, how was the oldest faded like 56 I think. But they didn't look old.
So you talk about you talk about perception. So we're getting towards the end of the show, but
I feel like I just zoned out. Stop watching now.
Oh no, they're they're gonna keep watching. This is good. This is great. Actually,
I like tall.
Should we go through the categories tall? I do 25 through, oh, my God, through 60. I'll push it a few years long as I look good. There's some How old
is Denzel Washington? He looked good in that Gladiator. Um, had he's old, right? I
don't Is he married? I'm not
saying I want to date Denzel Washington. He's,
well, you kind of said that. I think. No, I'm
just saying he looks good for z okay, how old is that? Um, look, Tay was older than me. Tay digs. He's 50 something, black. Don't crack 69 he's 69 Okay, he looks good for 69 let me think of somebody else. And I don't just like black guys. I like everything. Um, I who's hot? I don't even know. I don't think I always say Michael B Jordan. I don't even really think he's that big of a deal. It's just like the thing that comes out of my mouth.
Let's go back to caring what people think about you and you have a million followers on Instagram. Let's talk about the haters. There's always haters on social media, right? People taking swipes at you. Does it bother you? No.
Hold on. Let me think about that. Let me not just say no, not really. I kind of get a kick out of it. I don't get a lot of hate, so I like to read the comments, and then I like to be a smart like, like, if somebody comments like, hateful, it's usually, if I have, like, a sexy bikini pic or something, someone will be like, I don't do your kids, you know, you're a mother. I'm like, my daughter took the photo, or like, that kind of stuff doesn't
bother me. What bothered me? I was bothered a little bit on one of the seasons where I was, like, labeled something that I wasn't I have this is the one thing in my life that this will really trigger me, if I feel a certain way or like I'm telling you, like, No, I feel this way, and this is what I mean, and I mean it from my heart, and somebody tells me like, No, you
mean this. I know that. And they like, tell me that I'm thinking something that I'm not, or I'm doing something that I'm not, I'm feeling something that I'm not, especially if it seems like malicious so we're not a malicious person. It really bothers me. So it'll really bother me if somebody feels that I've been like, malicious and I'm like, No, I haven't.
Do you feel responsible being a successful black woman on a very popular reality show to be a role model for young black women? I mean, you've commented on this before, who made you the spokesperson for all this? But a lot of people think you are.
I wish that I got more credit for being a black woman. To be honest with you, I don't really get that. A lot people don't. It's like, I'm not black enough to be a black woman, like, I just get labeled kind of other. And I really would like to be, I mean, I want to be more responsible, more responsibilities, but I would like to get more recognition for being black. I think that
because your skin isn't dark enough, that's why they're saying that. Yeah,
maybe I was, like, I was the first black female in selling sunset. And then when Chelsea joined the cast, because she's darker, they were like, how does it feel to be the first black and she was like, you know, Amanda is black, and so not like, I'm gonna throw a fit about it, but I don't really feel like I'm responsible. Because I don't really feel like I get that role. I would like to have it a little bit more. I want to be blacker.
So we're at the end of our show right now, which I conclude every show with a game called fill in the blank excellence. Are you ready to play?
I don't know. I'm not gonna cry, right?
I If you cry, you cry anymore. I literally can't breathe. The show is meant to be authentic, and you've given your authentic self today, and I appreciate that. I know the viewers and listeners will as well. The listeners can't really hear it, but the viewers will see it. And again, I think the goal of my show is to inspire, motivate people. You've had so many challenges, you've overcome all of them, and that's one of the reasons I wanted you
to come on the show. And again, I think you're doing a tremendous service to all the listeners and viewers. And just like you said that one person who commented on your social media that you helped me because I was abused or sexually abused. Again, I'm sure there's 1000s of. People more listening to that show, listening to this show, who are suffering and are going to do something about it. So I appreciate you coming on.
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me and knowing so much about me and my story to invite me. That feels good. I'm grateful.
You're welcome. Here we go with a game. Okay?
Why is everybody laughing? I wonder who's coming
the biggest lesson, the biggest lesson I've learned in my life is,
Oh, see, I'm really bad at this. I'm bad at like, quick answers. The biggest lesson I learned in my life is being nice. But, yeah, be nice. It's not like I think being nice and be grateful. Be nice and be grateful.
My number one personal goal is your personal goal.
I don't, I don't know, to continue to be as dedicated to my children as possible and always remain on their ass and never far from their side, so that they will trust me and love me and depend on me for the rest of their lives.
My number one professional goal is
to be a multi multi millionaire by the age of 52
the best moment of my career has been
the best one of my career. Ah, shit. I don't know. I haven't had it yet.
I don't know my biggest regret in life has been,
oh, I only have one regret, and actually I had, I changed it last year. It's not a regret anymore, but not speaking everything that was going through my head when I was when Shirley was passing. I was sitting by her bedside, and I was thinking and thinking and thinking all these amazing things to say to her, and it wouldn't come out of my mouth, and all I could do was solve but I had a psychic tell me last year, and she knew nothing about
my and surely nothing. And she said, I'm sitting with and she described this woman, and she goes, and she said, Stop reliving that moment she heard everything you said.
And just to be clear to all the people who got, oh, you were 19 years old at the time, I was 19, the craziest thing that's happened in my career is
Craziest thing talking to my career, crazy. Crazy, as in, like, good, we won a Critics Choice award that was freaked out.
My biggest fear in life is
I don't I won't say it out loud.
The one thing I've dreamed about but haven't done in a long time is,
um, cooking dinner for my children. No, I'm just kidding. Dreamed about buying. Haven't done a long time. Oh, I don't even know something probably with the baby. Buying a baby dreamed about I haven't done. Yeah, I've dreamed about it, but I haven't done it. I've had a baby in a long time. If
you could go back and give your 21 year old self. One piece of advice, what would it be?
Don't give away all of your clothes and shoes. I don't have any regrets. I don't know. I would do everything the same, but I would keep more things and give them all away.
What's the number one thing you tell your kids, I love you, the one question you wish I had asked you but didn't is this is
so hard, the one question you didn't ask me my type so that I could give you the rundowns.
Okay, well, let's go through the checklist so I think we have the age down, okay, right? Taller than me, okay, so you're five seven and a half, yeah, but they need to be like, so it heals your 510 Max, yeah. I
don't want to say they have to be okay, but it just feels better to me very, very strong preference, yeah, because I like to feel like I'm small, not like, okay, okay, so we've got height, and they have to laugh at my jokes.
Okay, so funny. So we got humor,
they have to laugh at my jokes. Okay, okay, yeah, okay. But if they're funny, that's okay, funny, yeah, but they have to get my jokes, not just laugh.
Race doesn't matter. Race doesn't matter. 27, to 6027.
To 60, physically in good shape, good teeth. But if they don't have good teeth, I can get them some teeth, Right.
Invisalign is out there and do other thing. Or, yeah, not dentures, though. No dentures. Okay, all right. Anything else? Um, interests,
they must. I love my kids. Obviously, do they have to watch your show? No, they don't have to watch my show. They have to let my kids. And if they have kids, their kids have to be cool. I don't want somebody else's weird kids, because my kids are really cool.
That's it. Okay. It's been awesome. I really appreciate you being here. And as I said, you're this has been inspirational, motivational, authentic, you're amazing. You have an amazing background. Congrats on all your immense success, and I know we're expecting great things from you in the future.
Thank you. Thanks for having me. You.