Wake that ass up in the morning.
Breakfast Club Morning, everybody in stee j n V. Charlemagne the God. We are the Breakfast Club. We have Laura la Rossa our special guest host, and we got a special guest in the building, La Kerry Washington's welcome. Washington, congratulating on the new book.
Okay, thank you, How are you?
I'm really good? Yeah, Yeah, I'm good.
God Yeah, new book out Thicker than Water. Congratulations. Learned so much about you with this book. First, maybe it's just me be it' supid. I didn't know you were from the Bronx.
Really, I did not know that. I didn't know you were from then and born and raised. And my mother was born in the Bronx. My mother grew up on Simpson Street and I grew up on Pugsley Avenue course from Stephen's in high school.
You know what I say.
I say, the craziest people in America come from the Bronx and all of Florida.
Why what Why? I agree on Florida, but why the Bronx. One of the most talented people that come from the Bronx.
That is very true too.
Now, how did you know now the time to write thinking it was.
So what I write about in the book is that a handful of like five years ago, my parents sat me down and shared with me some new information about myself that really kind of challenged the way that I thought about myself, that I thought about my family, turned my world upside down. And at the time, I had actually sold another book, Idea, which was based kind of inspired by the show that I was on, Scandal, and it was like, these are the ten things that I
learned from Olivia Pope. So that was a really fun, kind of self reflective but not very deep, deep soul searching book. But every time I sat down to write that book, all I could think about was this new information I'd been given and how it impacted my family and my sense of self. And so I wasn't going to write a book at all. I tried to give the publisher their money back, but they wouldn't take it.
Wow.
And then a few years later I was like, I think I have to at least try to write this.
Book because you said your parents didn't want you to reveal Yeah.
Yeah, so my my my parents told me that they were sort of forced to tell me that my dad is not my biological father.
How did that affect you, because I mean, he's still your dad. At the end of the day, we seen the picture, you know, had had.
Jokes on Instagram.
Yeah yeah, So how did that affect anything after you were told?
So, I think immediately when they told me it was weird, to be totally honest with you, I felt like excited. I felt excited and grateful because I had always felt like there was something going on in my family that I couldn't put my finger on. But it was like a dynamic of distance or like there was I just
knew that I didn't know what. I didn't know, but I knew that that there was something between my parents and I. And because I didn't know what it was, a lot of times I blamed myself for that or maybe thought I was crazy for thinking it, maybe thought maybe I'm just not open enough, like I was always trying to figure it out. So when they told me, it felt like, I don't know, it felt like I could breathe. It felt like, oh, this is this is a real opportunity for me to jump into this new
kind of understanding of myself and my life. And you know, it was it was really exciting.
Did you care because it's you know, I did care.
I did care because I did care partly because I felt like, yes, my dad is always going to be my dad. But the reality is now fifty percent of my genetics became a big question mark. And that's important, right, like in terms of health care, in terms of you know, in terms of understanding my medical history. But even like you know, I don't know what I might get, you know,
in the whole nurture versus nature dynamic. There might be parts of me that I get from this donor, this sperm donor that I've never known was from that side of my family. Like I just thought this, I guess partly I've I've struggled to feel comfortable in my skin for most of my life. It's part of why acting has kind of saved me a business, because I always I would find myself in these characters. I would kind of grab onto their identities, and there was like a
sense of freedom and wholeness in becoming other people. But this felt like an opportunity to try to be comfortable in my own skin.
When you would ask questions about like just different things, like hey, you go to the doctors and they say you know what illnesses are on your mom. So when you would ask your dad your mom those questions, how would they answer it?
As if my dad was my father. They were going to take this to their grave. And I get it. I totally understand, right, like you, yeah, I think they they felt like, well, first of all, let me just say this, my parents are renegades, right, like a lot of us. Now we know people who go to sperm don or sperm banks, right, it's like very common relatively now, and you get a whole catalog. You can pick the color of the eyes and what Ivy League university they went to. But when my parents did this in the
mid seventies, nobody was doing this. This was highly experimental, highly secretive. It was a big risk they were taking. It wasn't like they had complete health screenings for the donor. They had no idea who the donor was. They said, we asked two things. Let them be healthy. Who knows what that means at the time, right, but like we want him to be healthy, and we want him to be black. Because they wanted this to be a secret.
So yeah, yeah, there's are you okay?
Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, Because you know, sometimes we put things in these books, and you know, we bear our souls.
Yeah, but then we got to go on these press runs. We may not be ready to talk about these No.
Yeah, it's interesting because I actually feel like I think I am a little bit emotional today because it's the book is really out in the world. But I I think I'm having an easier time processing it than a lot of people because I've been living with it for five years, you know, over five years, so and for other people it's very new information. But I feel, you know, every time I talk about it, I feel a little bit more liberated. I feel a little bit more free.
I wanted to ask, you know, you know, you talk about your eating disorder and dealing with how you felt about your body and your looks. I wanted to know what got you in that point. And the reason I ask is I have four daughters. Charlemagne has four daughters, and I always want to make sure I try my hardest to give my daughter as many compliments as possible, right, because you never want them to feel that way, But sometimes I don't think that matters because it's also how
they look at themselves. So what got you to that point where you didn't like what you've seen in the mirror, or something that you weren't happy about.
It's such a good question. I have daughters too, right, So it's something that I think about a lot. I think that the food, it's like any other kind of addictive behavior. It's not about the drug. It's not really about the food or even really about the relationship with body. It came from a compulsion to try to fix my came out from a compulsion of trying to escape the
feelings I was having or numb them. And so I think for me, it was this sense that I write about in the book of feeling like I had to be perfect, like I had to be better than who I was in order to be deserving of love. And some of that came from like why do I have this weird dynamic with my parents? Like what's going on? Maybe if I was better, prettier, smarter, thinner, then I
might be more lovable. So I don't even you know, I mean, I do think it's important to teach our kids to make healthy choices when it comes to exercise, to make healthy choices when it comes to food, to teach them about nutrition, about how food works in the
body all that's important. But I think helping a kid to feel unconditionally loved, to feel safe physically and emotionally like those and to help a child have their fears and process their feelings and not feel like they need to escape their feelings, those are the things that I think help us have the tools to live in life on life's terms, as opposed to grabbing at addictive behaviors to escape life.
Are you? Are you your parents only a child?
I am Also you went through this like kind of alone, even though they were still there.
Yeah, there was a lot of pressure. Yeah. I mean, I think that was one of the big things for me is when I was in college and the food stuff got really bad and I just was that was really the first time that I started to ask for help, because I think up until that time, I felt like self reliance is the point, like you're supposed to kind of go it alone, be strong, get through life. And that was the turning point for me where I was like, I think I need some help.
What did you experts? Did you ask your parents?
I'm trying to think. I think I asked an aunt what I called an aunt of mine first and was like, I think I have a really messed up relationship with food. But the thing what's hard about eating disorders is a lot of people will tell you like, oh, everybody eats when they're depressed, or everybody goes to the gym when they're upset. That's okay. But I knew, like to the level, to the extent that I was in that behavior, that
it was self destructive. I knew this wasn't just like a cute kids on a sitcom eating a little ice cream because they were sad, like this was. This was a different level of pain.
What was your go to anything?
Anything fast food?
Yeah, I guess I was in college, so it was like normal stuff you can get your hands on in college, like pizza. But really, again, like it wasn't about the food, right, it was about the numbing and.
The why not drugs? Alcohol?
Good question, that's a good question. There's time, there's time for me. I can go there, Lord have mercy. I think you know, it's funny. It's like I couldn't be a perfectionist and do the drugs and alcohol thing. Like I still the thing about the eating disorder and the exercises, Yes, I could hide it so I could still be a great student, maintain my be seen as a perfectionist, Still have the lead in all the plays in college, Still come across as a good girl, but secretly have this behavior.
And I knew, you know, I also have a lot of alcoholism in my family. So I had this sense that if I went there, I would lose the good girl image. I could do this other thing, and it actually kind of led me to the good girl image.
Now I'm jumping all around because I want people to read the book Thinking and Water. But you talked about, you know, always driving for perfection. Yeah, but you said Jamie Fox taught you a very valuable lesson.
Yeah, can you explain what that was?
Yeah, I think Jamie. I mean, I've been really lucky. I've been lucky enough to work with Jamie twice on Ray and Janego Unchained Classics by the way, Yeah, truly, he's He's the best. And Jamie's taught me a lot about a lot of things. But one of the things is in my work as an actor, to you have to let go of that perfection idea. Because we were
doing a scene together in Ray. It was the scene where I find speaking of drugs, where I find all his heroin works the first time as his wife, and you know, we had done it in the morning, we had hit it out of the park and I was like, oh, we are on fire. This is incredible. And then as the day went on, I kept trying to do it exactly the way we had done it earlier that morning, so that it would be in that perfect place that it felt so good. And that's the beginning of death.
As an actor, like you, you can't try to recreate magic. You have to keep cultivating new magic, right, Like, you have to truly be in the moment. And Jamie really helped me to realize I was frustrated in the scene and he was like, you got to you gotta keep digging. You got to let go of this morning. And that was a really powerful lesson.
Why was it easier to find that in acting as opposed to real life?
Well, I guess I hadn't learned how to apply that to the rest of my world. You know, there was like it was in a vacuum, was isolated kind of moment.
It's a good question.
I mean, that is the lesson though, right is that, like the answer is never about perfection, It's always about like what's the best possible version of my life in this moment of me, in this moment, I.
Was going to ask what you know with doing this book? What made you finally say, you know what? I'm ready to open up because you've always been so private about your life other than acting.
What said?
What was the moment he says, this is why I want to do it, and this is why I want to do it now.
I think part of it, honestly, is that I have been always very private with my kids, very private with my husband. You know, we don't put our kids online. We don't really talk about our marriage on the internet but or the press. But I've been very public in my relationship with my parents. My parents come to premieres, they come to award shows, fashion shows, red carpets, magazines.
So suddenly I felt like when they gave me this information and they asked me not to share it, I was now being complicit in their life, Like they had built this false narrative and now they were asking me to buy into it. And I was like, I don't want to be out in the world doing an interview where people are like, oh, wow, you're on looks so much like your dad. Which by the way, he weirdly does, and not be able to be honest right, Like I
just wanted. I wanted to be able to have my truth and not feel like I had to live under their shadow. And I felt like, if somebody's going to tell this story, I want to tell it because it's my story. So I didn't want to just do it on a talk show or I wanted to really have the narrative.
Now, you did say something I heard you say that parents do the best that they can and then it's up to us to parent ourselves after that, explain that well.
I think.
One of the things that I've truly come to terms with in writing this book is that every choice my parents made was out of love. They weren't trying to be cruel, they weren't trying to hurt me. They really thought that this was the best choice. And by the way, doctors back then said it, like artificial inssemination was so new. They would say, we do this thing and then you go home and have sex, and then you have plausible deniability. And nobody knew forty years ago there would be these
home tests twenty three in ancestry. You had no idea, so they were like, go home and have sex, then the kids you end of story, nothing to talk about, right, And so it I think my parents didn't want me to feel different. They didn't want me to feel weird. They didn't want me ironically, they didn't want me to feel distance from them, even though that's what wound up happening. So I know that they made loving choices or choices out of love, even if they didn't feel loving to me.
But I think we have to for me and my journey. It's been like, it's been good to understand who they were, to have compassion for their choices, but I can't blame them for where I am now. Like now that I have awareness, I have to say, like, Okay, they gave me everything they could with as much love as they could in the places where I feel like I don't have the tools that I needed. I didn't get the
tools I needed in that household. Part of being an adult is to say, how do I give myself those tools? How do I ask for help in therapy, in you know, reading coaches, like how do I now close the gap between what they gave me and what I need? That's my responsibility as an adult. If I just sit here and continue to complay about what they didn't give me that I'm keeping myself a child.
What's that? What's the conversation like with your kids?
Like once you decided to take this world to your kids and even deciding to write the book, and now you're you know, because your kids, I'm sure they're friends and everybody knows who you are. So how do you have that conversation with them? And kind of how are they responding to things?
You know, it's funny, like I was saying before, this is so common now, like it's not news to my kids. They were so unimpressed. Like, you know, they're in their classes. They have kids with two dads and two moms, So they have friends from sperm donors, friends from egg donors, friends who are adopted, friends who were born from surrogates. Like they also like we're a blended family, right, They're big sister. You know when you we look at the
three of them, their big sister has four parents. Like having me having another parental figure in my story is not weird to them. For my parents, they came from a world where what makes a family was very different.
But the ideas of what makes a family now is much more open, so you know, they they know obviously the conversation I have with my seventeen year old is very different than the conversation I have with my six year old, right, But you know, I'm we I want to be a home where we're open and honest and where they feel like they can ask anything.
What about when you decided to because I know in this book you talk about the abortion that you had at twenty. Yeah, that is something that is like in your twentieth but I mean it's around Saved the Last Dance time, right, so you were, you know, highly successful
at this time. I know, But it's in a chapter that I call black famous because I was, I mean, you know how we are like white people didn't necessarily know that the girl from Save the Last Dance was the same girl from Ray was the same girl.
From Last Cave of Scotland. So we knew, I you know, but so yes, I was, my star was on the rise. But it wasn't. I wasn't like I could still go to the grocery store and it was all good.
Do you remember the next like, because I know that there's probably like a lot of like medicine and different things that you take when all that's happening, But when you really were able to like sit and talk to yourself after that, What was the conversation you had with yourself.
After my abortion? Oh, that's such a great question. I don't remember. I don't remember. I mean, are you asking in terms of, like, how did I feel about making that choice?
Yes, because I think prior to making the choice, maybe it's different after right, or maybe it's not.
I don't know, but I'm just wondering.
I never questioned whether or not it was the right choice. It didn't feel easy, But I mean, to be honest, I remember feeling really grateful that I was able to make that choice because I knew that that would have had a huge impact on my life, on my career,
on my mental health. I knew I wasn't ready, and I felt really lucky to live in a country where I had the right to make that choice, where I had agency, free agency over my body, and could, you know, make decisions about my family and my family planning that were the healthiest decisions for me.
Changed the discustry.
Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I shared it, because I feel like those rights are under attack. And you know, in that moment, I talk about it as a loss of personal privacy because I got wreck Even though I went to the abortion clinic under a pseudonym, under a fake name, I got recognized. So you really did that, yeah, yeah, and so. And for me, it was like I had a sense of the loss of my privacy in that room. And that's what's happening to so many women right now. The right to have an
abortion is part of our right to privacy. And when we attack a woman's ability to make choices about her own life that are not anybody else's business, we really chip away at her ability to be a full human being.
I want to have a more question about your father. How did finding out your father wasn't your biological father changed your views on parenthood?
Oh?
Man, Well, one thing I say in the book is, and it's what I feel, is that you know, in a community, in our community where people have historically had such difficult relationships, right where there's this history of dads
maybe not being present. You know, in the neighborhood that I grew up in, I grew up in one of the few households where the dad was around, and you know, my parents were still married, and the fact looking back that that my dad really did choose me, that he was there, he's been there for me the whole time, that he's been this you know, parental force in my life, that he's my dad, that he chose me, that I belonged to him and he belongs to me. It almost
meant more than it ever did before. And I feel really grateful, you know, because the back then when I think about the mid seventies, and you know a lot of even today, like people not being able to have a baby breaks a lot of marriages up right, Like a lot of people they don't make it through that hurdle or over that hurdle is the right metaphor. But my parents, they like they made the choice. They wanted
me so badly. They made the choice to take on this incredible risk and do something that nobody else was doing and to keep a four decade secret because they just they really wanted me in their life. And so I think as a parent, it makes me just remember
not to take any moment for granted. As a parent, like that each one of us, I know this sounds so hokey, but like each one of us really is a miracle, you know, like the odds of like that egg being in the right place at the right time with that sperm and making it like every single one of us from the moment we arrived, we're a miracle.
But for my parents, I was like, this crazy prayed for a miracle, and I just I want to make sure you know, there may be a lot of things that I don't agree with in terms of the choices that my parents made, but the fact that I knew I was loved and wanted is something that I tried to take from my experience as a child and put it in my kids' lives.
And it's safe to say that culture is secrecy that so many black families have.
You don't have that in yours.
I mean, I think we're really chipping away at it. I mean, it's funny. My mom says, we were doing an interview the other day and they said, like, what's changed, what's the family like now? And I said, we're much more open, We're much more honest, And she said, I thought it was so beautifully put. We're no longer afraid to hurt each other, right, because that's part of intimacy, is to take the risk to be yourself to maybe not agree to say something that might hurt somebody, but
you choose to be in truth no matter what. So yeah, there's a lot more transparency in my in my family. Now.
Now you contemplated suicide at one point.
Yeah.
The reason I asked is, I'm sure there is people in this book.
I know it's like zero to sixty, But you're not understand how good this is going to do for so many people because we watch you, especially like with women, I know we watch you in them that you have, the way you speak to see that like you you've actually been through things and now you're at a place where you're able to talk about it and you know what I mean, It's going to give so many people that I feel in of like, Okay, cool, I can do this.
I got this.
I think there's also an important lesson, Yeah, it's there's also an important lesson I think in never comparing your insides with somebody else's outsides because you're right like from the outside. I felt like it was part of my job, particularly you know, like when Scandal first started, there was all this talk about how there hadn't been a black woman on network drama in almost forty years, and I had this sense that I was I wasn't just like making a show for my own success. It was for
the culture. It was like it was bigger than me. It's heavy, and so I didn't I never wanted to be flawed because I felt like, you know, if I don't do this right, if we don't get this right, it'll be another forty years before there's a black woman on the air. And luckily, because audience is tuned in, that wasn't the case. You know, soon we had you know, Cookie, and we had an a lease on How to get Away, and we had all these other shows, even like Priyanka
Shopeer's show. Right Like suddenly black and brown girls were allowed to be the lead on these shows. And so I felt like I had to maintain And before that, before Scandal, there was always the sense that you had to maintain appearances. And I think I learned that from my parents too, right, because they were always maintaining appearances even though I didn't even know what was happening behind the curtain. But getting through it again was that asking for help and what.
Got you there first of all, and then how did you get through it? Because I'm sure, there's people listening now that might be in that same zone and trying to work themselves through it every day. So what got you to that point where you felt that way? And then how did you get over that obstacle?
I mean the biggest When you say there might be people listening who feel that way, it's like, my heart breaks because I just know how hard it is to feel that alone and that hopeless. So if anybody's listening and is feeling that way, the one thing I would say is to ask for help, you know, is to really ask for help because you are you feel alone,
but I guarantee you you are not alone. And for me, that was the big thing was I mean number one was the first time that I truly got on my knees and talked to God and was like I need help, Like I don't I because I felt like I really don't have any tools. I don't I don't know what to do. So it was the first time that I think I humbled myself enough to feel like there's there's got to be something bigger than me that points me in the direction of healing, and I started reaching out.
I went to therapy for the first time, group therapy one on one, like I just really started committing to trying to walk this road of healing.
Yah, I want to I love yourself awareness.
Did you realize you were black famous when you were black famous?
Or was that in hindsight?
No, in the moment, because because I knew, you know, it was like I knew I could walk down the street on fifty seventh and Madison and be fine, but if I was in the Bronx, it was like, oh my God. Or like at the time, I was a substitute teacher in New York City public schools. That was one of my many side hustles when I was trying to make a living as an actor. And it was funny because I would get hired into the school and the principals who were white, you know, the principle's vice principals,
they would be like, so nice to meet you. Great, they bring me to the classroom. They had no idea who I was. But then I would be asked to leave a school because by the second day, all the kids were cutting class to see Chaneil from Save the Last Dance because they knew who I was because I was substitute teaching in Harlem. So it was like that dynamic. I understood that certain people knew who I was and other people didn't.
Do people Sorry, do people walk up to you and bust out in the moves from Save the Last Days?
Like it was that a thing?
Then?
Yes, for sure, for sure it was the thing that. But even just yesterday I saw Kiki Palmer and she literally did like the monologue from the movie that I do sitting in the clinic with my baby. I was like, got, do you remember this, Kiki?
She was like, that was my Shiit.
What's more fulfilling being black famous or white famous?
I think you have to have both. That was one of the things that that Chris Rock taught me, like you you can never ever forget your core original first audience. You cannot because that that other audience will come and go, they'll be ebbs and flows. But black people will hold you up throughout you. If you stay with us, we stay with you.
I feel like that's what made scandal Is such a hit.
Yes, absolutely, I mean we were part of the birth of black Twitter at the time. So I one of my best friends from high school. She's a brilliant social media person, Alison Peters She actually convinced me to go on Twitter, and I was like, what why, I don't know, and she was like she had come out of viacom and was like, it's really important, you need to do this, And she and I kind of talked the I mean I talked Shonda Rhimes into talking the cast into being
on Twitter. And we were one of the first shows to do live tweeting and to really have event television at a time where people were no longer watching shows in real time unless it was like a basketball game, And so that conversation around the show was our grassroots movement, like we had black Twitter on fire. People like Oprah eventually were like, I only started watching Twitter because it's I only started watching Scandal because it's the only thing
people talked about on Thursday nights on Twitter. So yes, in that first season, it was absolutely because black audiences. You know how culture follows us, So black audiences made it that you had to be there to tune in, and suddenly it trickled out into the rest of the world.
How often do people come up to you to fix it.
All the time? And to be honest, Because the show was inspired by a real woman, Judy Smith, who's a real DC fixer, who never slept with the president, but was a real fixer. And I have her on speed dial, so people also will come to me to get to her, wow, because they know she is truly able to fix down. Have you needed I haven't needed her, but I've sent other people to her. Yes, but I've talked to her.
I mean, like not on like I'm in jail. It's two Am helped me out, but like you know, if there's a rollout of a movie and I'm like, I don't know, this directory is a little bit of a problem. What do you think you know I've done. I've had those kind of conversations with her. Yeah, but people, do
you know? It's funny, like it'll happen in political moments, Like a lot of my political work now is inspired by the fact that in twenty sixteen, the morning after the election, when that awful, rapist, racist person was elected, that when I woke up all over social media people were like, you have to save us. What are you
gonna do? Please Olivia Pope? And it was funny for a minute, and then I was like, we have a real problem in our culture because we we don't realize is that Olivia Pope is an imaginary character on a television show, and that every single person who wrote one of those tweets they have more power than Olivia Pope because she can't vote, she can't register voters, she can't volunteer,
she can't knock on doors. But it's like we've given our power over to imaginary people because we have this hero worship, right, So we're not stepping into our power because we're looking for somebody else to solve our problems for us. So a lot of the work that I've been doing has been trying to figure out how to turn the spotlight that's on me onto those grassroots organizations and people who are really doing the work.
When people saw you with the Vice President the other day.
Yeah, probably she's back, she's at the White House.
Yeah.
What do you do to relax and release? I see a lot of videos that you do in yoga? Yes, I mean you see you doing yoga on your head like it like it's a dance all artist. So what do you do to release a relax? Yeah?
I think it's a lot of I love pilates, I love yoga. I honestly go for a lot of walks. I do walking and hiking, even with my husband in a box. No, not as I don't live the Bronx anymore, but I do. I mean I do walk in the Bronx if I'm there.
But in terms of like, don't don't shade the Bronx.
The Bronx is a beautiful place. Listen, the Bronx is a beautiful place to grow up.
We love it. But where do you know? We don't don't go walk there?
What?
I just honestly maybe with Cardi b because I don't know, but I want to know people where. It's like we got to protect you at all calls and I just don't hilarious. Yes, but listen, I mean I I walk. I like to walk wherever I am.
I feel like walking is part of how you acclimate to an environment. So I always tell people, like when I'm in a place filming, I warned security security, right, Yeah, I mean I we walk. I don't care where we are. I don't care if we're in Jamaica, I don't care if we're in the Bronx. I don't care if we're in Colombia. I shot a filming in South America and Columbia last year. We walk. I walk. It's part of how you ground yourself and where you are, and it's part of how I relax and feel like I am
where I am. But also honestly, just spending time with friends and family, like being with my kids, being with my husband. Those are the and I do a lot of walking and hiking with my husband. Those are like it's like part date night, part business meeting, part therapy session.
Like I got a couple of questions. You talk about traveling in the Black Famous chapter, you talk about going to Africa, Yeah, to become African. How did that trip change you? So?
I was filming Last King of Scotland. That was my first time on the continent, and it was great because I do feel like sometimes as black people in America, we go to Africa with all these like do I belong here? Do I feel at home?
Like?
What is my relationship here? And I just had to put all of that aside because my focus was on just kind of dropping in and becoming a Ugandan woman. And I really did feel at home there. I did. I felt I felt so lucky to be able to be so immersed in the culture that I wasn't there like you know as a tourist, you know, and I took it when I was there. I don't know if
you've heard about this experience. It's not in the book, but we were hiking in the ruin Zori Mountains, which are the mountains that border Rwanda and Uganda, and it's where the only wild gorillas live. And you can go out with a gorilla trukker and find the gorillas in
the jungle and spend time with them. You go with like a tour guide and these truckers and these guys with AK forty seven's just in case people travel from all over the world to have this experience because it is it is one of the most intense spiritual experiences I've ever had. The second one is my experience with the whales that I write about at the end of
the book. But it was like to be in the jungle, to be with these creatures, and you realize we really do share like ninety seven ninety eight percent of our DNA with these animals, and they are You start to think like, oh, they're so human, but no, like we are so gorilla. And the craziest thing that happened was when they give you this in this orientation in the morning. They're like, if a gorilla gets close to you and is looking at you, the most important thing to do
is not run. You have to to feel safe, act like a gorilla. So I was. I didn't hear it through that lens because for me, I was like a young actor who had done animal exercises at school, like this was my opportunity for this was my Meryl Street mow wow. So when the gorilla case from the tree, I was like, I squat down. I mean, everybody in my group was like, what is she?
When I tell you that is the best performance of my life, I was, I was.
The gorilla, the gorilla was me. I started, I picked off a leaf, started chewing on it, and we have the most incredible experience because this gorilla gorilla kept getting closer and closer to us, and this little baby gorilla, she was so curious. She was like, what, We've never seen a human like this. She was like, this one's one of us.
But they just they got closer, the trucker said than they'd ever had a gorilla get to a group before. I mean, the guy with the AK forty seven came right next to me because they were terrified, but I was.
Like, don't stop, don't stop. Yeah, it was incredible.
The only person like a gorilla.
Yeah, how you don't need to tell you that, just because.
The experience that we got out of it. I mean they said it to everybody in the group, but I was the best actor.
In the wow.
And I went to the whales because you mentioned whales.
Yeah, so I was kayaking with whales in Hawaii. Jesus, And yeah, I wanted.
To believe you walk in the bronx. Now, yeah I do, calling the bronx the.
Jungle, yes, yes, yes, yes.
So I was.
Kayaking with whales in Hawaii and we had this incredible experience. It was just me and one other guide and this calf a baby whale jumped out of the water and landed so close to the kayak. But I think the mom was upset that the baby was being a little too playful, so she came around to swim under my kayak to warn me. And you know, if you're on the water and something like swims under the boat, your
boat rises and comes back down. This well was the size of a school bus, so when she swam under me, my kayak went up and it just stayed up and up and up until she passed under me, and then she kind of turned and pulled her eye out of the water to look at me. And it's just those are those moments where you just feel so for me, where I felt so connected to nature, to the you know, to everything that has come before you, because this eye, this like giant eye is taking me in and kind
of warning me like that's my kid. Don't do the wrong thing. No I didn't.
I couldn't.
So yeah, that was magical. That was really really magical. And I learned, you know, I was shaking for like two days, but I learned. On the way back, I was talking to my guide and I was like, that was amazing to see the calf and the mom and the dad. And he said, no, no, no, it's not the dad that with whales when you see them in a group of three, that's not the father. That's actually the whale that wants to mate with her next year.
That he accompanies her on the migration back home, almost like an act of chivalry to prove himself like I'm the man you want to get with next year.
Wow. Yeah, I got a couple of questions. I know you got to Go.
In the chapter Miracles, you talk about the indie film our song. Yeah, and somebody labeled you. They dis labeled you simply a miracle. Yeah.
What kind of confidence did that give you?
Oh?
Wow, I don't know if it gave me confidence I felt. I think it made me feel excited about the possibilities of what could come. But I remember feeling and in some ways I still feel like, I don't know if I'll ever be as good as I was in that movie, because I was so hungry, and it was like the first time. It was my first movie ever, and I felt like it was the first time with the history of everything we were talking about, you know, kind of all the mental health issues, you know, all the stuff
that I've been dealing with. I always wanted to be somewhere else or be somebody else. But when I was making that movie, I finally felt like I was in my purpose, Like I was really exactly where I wanted to be. I talked in the book about being a kid in the Bronx, and we lived in the path of the of LaGuardia Airport, and so I would always see planes fly over our apartment when I was a kid, and wish that I was on those planes going somewhere else,
living somebody else's life. But when we shot our song, we were in Rockaway by Kennedy Airport, and so we would be we would see planes, we would see planes fly over, and I never wanted to be anywhere then where I was. So, you know, I think I felt seen when he said that, when he said I was a miracle, I was like, no, this opportunity was miraculous.
Yeah, when all of this is done, like everybody gets the book, they get to read it.
Everybody should get the book, book, read the audio book. It's me and my own words. So that's fun.
What is the like the hug or the message that you want people to get from this book.
Yeah, that's a great question, I think, And this is something that I've written in the book. But there's a saying I heard a long time ago that I really love that we are as sick as our secrets. Sure, and that when I think, when we can let go of the things that keep our true selves hidden, we can let go of our shame. So I want people to know that you deserve to live in your truth and be in your truth. Not everybody has to know everything. Not everybody has to write a book and come on
the breakfast club and talk about their suicide. But you deserve to be loved for who you are. So find those safe spaces. Maybe it's a pastor, maybe it's a therapist, maybe it's a best friend, maybe it's a spouse. Trust yourself. Find those spaces where you can really really be yourself and be loved unconditionally. Because that was one of the things that I said to my dad. You know, I
knew when my parents told me. I realized that they they had been living under this lie for so long that every time I had said I love you to my dad, whether it was conscious or unconscious, there must have been a part of him that thought, she loves me because she thinks I am her father.
Wow.
And there must have been a part of him that thought, if she knew I wasn't her father, maybe she won't love me. That's part of why they didn't tell me. And so I had the opportunity, once they gave me that truth, to actually for the first time, love my father unconditional. And that's what we all deserve, that's what we all want. We want to know that no matter what we do or how we act or what we've done in the past, that we're lovable and that we're loved.
And I feel like my family's in that place now. But you only get there when you expose your truth, when you're vulnerable enough to show people who you are and they love you anyway, then you know that you are worthy of of unconditional love.
But I think your father proved that, you know, just because you just because somebody provides FERM doesn't meet them father.
He's an actual Yeah.
It's a big thing.
That's right, that's right, And it's even like people will say, like, well, do you know who your biological father is? And I'm still wrapping my head honestly around that language, Like I know that scientifically it is true, but I still refer to him as the donor because I don't have a relationship with him. I don't know that he's a Again, scientifically he's my father, but I have a dad. I love my dad. It's not that it's an uncomplicated relationship,
you know. I talk a lot about how complicated those relationships are. They're not perfect. I'm not perfect, But it's that ability to walk through hard things that builds real intimacy. So I think I just I want people to know that everybody deserves to be loved unconditionally, that you deserve to live in your truth, and that we can do hard things even when we feel like we can't. If we align ourselves with the people who are really in our corner, we can do hard things.
Do you want to know who the donor is?
I was literally about to ask, I do.
I'm searching. I'm looking, and again not because I need a daddy, right like, I'm not looking for an emotional connection. I'm really open. I mean I say that now, who knows once you never know, Like he could walk in the room and I can be like, But I think I'm just really curious about that fifty percent of me, that genetic fifty percent of me. I think there is a question. I know what I've gotten from my dad.
I know from my dad I've gotten my sense of humor, my imagination, my belief in the impossible, my ability to tell a story. I know what I've gotten from my mom, my intellect, intellectual curiosity, my grace, my compassion. I don't know what I've gotten from the donor. I'm curious what part comes from him. And I'm curious just in terms of my medical history. I feel like I owe that to my kids, that they should know where they come from. But the emotional part of it, I'm open to let
it be what it's gonna be. Maybe it'll feel like I have additional family. Maybe it'll just feel like I have additional information. I feel good either way.
Did you talk to your dad about that?
About?
Yeah, what was it? He wasn't thrilled. I mean, he hasn't been thrilled about any of this, to be honest, you know, like even you know, we had the big Robin Roberts special come on ABC the other night. I watched it with my parents. It was me and my husband and my parents, and we all watched it together. This has been a real healing process for the four of us, and my dad still grapples with parts of it. You know, he also still you know, I say this when I called my dad and said, like, I talked
to the doctor we did the DNA test. Doctor said that you are there's a point zero z zero zero zero zero zero one chance that you're my biological father. He was like, there's a chance that's where his brain lives. And I love that about him. I love that he's like, until you find that guy, I'm the one that can't say nothing to me. And I think I want him to know that even when I figure out who that guy is, he's the one. Yeah, that's right, that's right,
that's right, that's one hundred percent. But yeah, I think I think it's just good to have more information and I and I want him to know also that he can do hard things right, that like his he's proving to himself and seeing truly that he's loved unconditionally. That having this other information doesn't make me any less devoted to him.
Absolutely.
I was going to ask you, when you do meet your other dead donor, is your mindset around like your thought about him? Is it going to be different because it's like he, you know, just gave the sperm and didn't really. I mean, I don't know if they're allowed to come back and try and figure out who the who they listen.
When my parents did this, it was the wild West, no rules. When he did this, it was the wild West. It's not like he was like in love with My mom looked at me at the hospital and was like, yeah, sure, she's ugly. I'm out like there was. There's no like. I don't feel rejected by him. He didn't sign up when he did that, when he donated his sperm, he wasn't signing up to be in relationship. So I don't feel somehow toward him in that way. In fact, I feel some compassion that he might be like, I didn't
sign up for this. You know, I don't know, can we you?
It's something you said in the epilogue, and I feel like it can relate to so many people.
You saved my life. It's not about my donor nor about my parents. My life is my own. What did that mean to you? And what could that mean to others?
Yeah, So when my parents told me this information, I realized because they had built this narrative, this false narrative about where I came from, I realized that in many ways I had been the supporting character in their story right like they were living this life. They were Earl and Valerie, parents of this beautiful child, successful middle class black family, like I was the supporting character in that fable.
And when they gave me the truth, I felt like part of why I wanted to write the book was that it was time for me to step into being the lead character in the story of my life, to not let my life belong to them, to say, like, I deserve to be on this journey, this quest because I have my own story. Like, I get it, you had four decades of living this your way. But it's my turn to kind of take this narrative and figure out what my life means for me. So I do
I love my parents. I do love being a supporting character in their life, but that has to be a choice. I have to know that fundamentally my life is my own and that they because I have the most incredible parents, they now have the opportunity and have allowed themselves to
be supporting characters in my story. And a lot of what I've learned about parenting has been about that choice on their part, because they have allowed themselves to be supporting characters for me in this moment, which is humbling for all of us, but them in particular. Right, and as I look forward at my kids, I realize this
is my moment. Like this book, I am the protagonist of this book, but I'm also the supporting character in the story of my kids, and I want them to know that I have their back and that they have to live their own life. They shouldn't be living in the ways that make me comfortable. They shouldn't be making choices that are for my own good. They have to make the right choices for them in the way that I'm making the right choices for me.
Now, well, we appreciate you for joining us this morning, Thick, because than water is out right now. We also got to say thank you too, because you know she I was watching an interview and she detailed her own rollout, so she had interviews with She's happened with Tyler Perry, with Gabrielle Union, and she picked the Breakfast Club. Yes, I think come.
See us on tour. We're going to be in Chicago, d C, Atlanta, l A. I'm going to be in conversation with Gabrielle Union, Tyler Perry, bellow me, young Tony Goldwyn. It's an incredible lineup, So come see us out on the road.
Get her out of here. She's holding in a cough.
That's right, it's the Breakfast Club. Good morning, thank you. Wake that ass up in the morning.
The Breakfast Club