Welcome to We Talk Back Podcast, the production of iHeartRadio and the Black Effect Network.
So we're just two unapologetically black women with an opinion who talks.
What's up, y'all? Thank you for tuning in for a new episode of We Talk Back, a show dedicated to you dreamers and chasers. It's your co host, AJ Holiday. What's up to you?
Hey, y'all, It's official Tmvan. I love y'all. Thank y'all for tuning in. Again. We got a guest with us today. Laura le Rossa. Do her introduction. I know you got it?
Yeah, so why you let me do it? Okay? You're not be writing nice little introductions for the guests. Okay, all right, y'alls listen. Today's guest is simply a brown girl grinding okay. A former news producer for TMZ, also on air talent for over seven years. Also for the past year, y'all have seen her as a recurring guest host on The Breakfast Club with CHARLAMAGNEA God and DJ Envy and Again. She's a producer, she's a model, she's
an actress. She's dominating and documenting her journey through the world of entertainment via lifestyle vlogs on her self produced YouTube channel, Lauren lo Rosa TV. And at the end of the day, it's Lauren Lorosa. You like that?
Yes, I love.
How you bought it all together. At the end of the day, it's new too, So you've been you, you did your research.
How y'all doing.
I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to be with girls that talk back, because maybe I'll be talking back and maybe like share up.
Yes, how was y'all? Weekend?
It was good?
Not cool?
What'd you do?
I don't really do much and nothing. I went out. I had some friends in town. I newly got a place here in Jersey, so just like letting people know that I'm here and like popping out a little bit, like dinners and stuff like that. Nothing too too crazy.
What about you?
I've been sick? The fuck?
What is happening?
Was?
Yeah?
Then I saw this post on social media how everybody sick? So apparently there's something going around. And the only place I've been to was the grocery store.
It's like a cold, but it sounds like the flu.
Yeah, no, no, yeah, I call I called a SAT I was like hello, I was like, to you I was like, goddamn, girl.
I'm sweating right now, Like I really need like a fan and the ice pack. I'm so hot, but it's coming out. That's my weekend, y'all.
Let me tell y'all about my weekend. So one of my good friends, she was having her twin babies christen this weekend in Atlanta. So I went down to celebrate the babies and go to the christening and it was such a good time. And at the end of the church service, my friend pulled me to the front. She was like, I want to let get the pastor to
pray for you. So I went to the front and the pastor like it was two of them that was praying over me, and both of them took that holy oil and we're like, put it in their hand right, and they laid hands on my head right and it was mashing it in. I feel like the pastor was making trying to make me go down, but I was like.
I'm not going down.
I'm not going down. I'm not going down. So he was just mashing that holy oil right into my lace. Baby. By the time I.
Got out, just moved back because the oil movie.
Baby, I was lifted. I was lifted in the spirit, and so was my lace. My ship was so high up. I was like, oh, oh my god, it looks so bad, y'all. And I just had to walk around talking everybody. Had you enjoyed the service? Lace? Just standing up.
Some good today because because.
I had to take that thing up and set put it back down and you wanted to push it back anyway.
So there you go.
Yeah, like a hand shout and that is.
It looked good. I feel like that on purpose. They was trying to see if that was your hair or not.
It was two it was two men too hens right there. I was like, oh, thank you God, but too yes yes, So hopefully the prayers come true. Amen.
Amen.
So our first segment of the show is called Stupid Internet News. I don't know if you've seen it or heard it before, but it's just our Sins of the week where we discussed everything dumb that's going on in the world, everything that's good. So let's get into it. Let's talk about Chris Brown and all. Start. You see that over the weekend Chris Brown going on. I saw that you had a post recently about Chris.
Grow They still I'm still getting onplications and people were so angry at me.
Yes too, how about that?
Like they like they like, they're like, fuck her, that's why she didn't get the breakfast club job.
Now, people was on there saying that the big man.
That's like, that's like the lightest of of the comments. But when you when you talk about anything Chris Brown, especially if you're not saying sending him to hell and do rid of him, people wanna you know what I mean, that's gonna happen. I saw it though, and I was like, we still arguing about.
Chris, right, all right? So that's my whole point, right right. So what happened over the weekend For people who don't know, Chris Brown is slamming the NBA and claiming he was disinvited from the least annual NBA All Star Celebrity Game due to his past domestic violence controversies. The R and B singer posted several screenshots of emails on his Instagram story early Saturday morning, which appeared to be sent by the NBA. Now, do we feel like it's about Rihanna still?
Because that ship old as hell.
I think it's about all of the eth But you got Rihanna, you got Caruci who had called police reports. You have just everything that has followed him since, Like people, he's just been like the bad kid in school.
He can't shake it.
So people, I think people, brands are afraid to touch him.
I mean, yeah, it's that's what I think too, because I mean, here we have doctor Dre has a whole award named after him at the Grammys, and he's a known woman beater. I feel like Doctor Dre's stuff never really stuck though, Like to be honest with you, like, I think because Michelai had that whole like what was it like a docu.
Sente or something like it was.
Whatever situation.
Yeah, I think that that the age groups matter too, because like social media and all that stuff was a lot bigger when even though it's even bigger now when
the Chris Browniana stuff happened. And I also think Rihanna is like she was then it is now the girl and as sad as it is, it's like I think when black women are like beating bruises and what battered, the world already cares to a certain extent and not really, but if you're not like a Megda Stallion or Rihanna, like if this was any other woman, Like people don't even talk about Crucci.
Mm hm, you know what I mean.
So I think with doctor Dre he kind of got able to like move around it because the women weren't like big householdines. He was so basically doctor Dre, Doctor Dre beat the right bitches, what I mean, that's what it looks like like No for real though, because it.
All from a time where it just gotta be a bigger.
And there was a yeah, a lot of stuff I think too during their times. I don't think we know because of the music, the lyrics, like everything. A lot of stuff during their time was excusable.
For what they were. Like they like we we talked back.
Now he's your podcast, So it's a little bit different now these days, Like it wasn't.
It wasn't the same, Dame we.
Fight back because who we shoot back over here that we shoot first first.
The right one.
But I think it is whack for all these different organizations to initiate these invitations to Chris Brown only to pull him back because this is not the first time it's happened. I can't recall off hand the last time, but this I've definitely seen this type of shit happen with him before, Like just like he said, just leave him alone. He'll go wherever he's appreciated, you know what I'm saying.
So so Ruffles came out, and Ruffles was like, get somebody else to do it. The wind on the door, Yeah, like doesn't look even crazier because like y'all not even standing. One of the brands gotta stand on something, and one of y'all are not. Neither one of y'all are standing on anything. So now it looks like y'all scared to be like, oh, we don't want to sit next to him, but y'all don't want to say that. It's like pick a side, right, y'all.
Be having too much fucking air in that bag of chips? Why is that much air? Let's talk about that.
We only even tenor ruffles anyway.
The sound cream and Cheddar is the only one. We y'all only put ten chips in the bad and get it together.
Nah, but the world ain't never gonna let Chris Brown let us down, and like it's it's okay, like right, some people are forever gonna feel like that man deserves hell. And if that's how you feel, that's how you feel, and if you don't, that you don't. But when it comes to the brands, I never want us to think that these brands get too straight out exactly, particularly us, but especially once you got a little tainted version of
us like that. They're gonna protect their business. I don't care how black the company team looks or whatever.
Business is. Business is business.
Quick. Everybody jumped off that deep that p did train got the hell up out.
Of the baby do we?
We don't drink deliere.
I never drunk it.
I liked I like.
I mean, if if niggas had it in the section I was drinking, wasn't it was the owned by a black man?
That was that?
It wasn't? But really was it? Because you got out of your whole, Brandy?
If it were what we got left, we got douce, we got the DT award.
No, we don't have none of them things. BT is not black owned, nor is for real because he was just in the whole thing with who owns do say all simately lois vatan right like the whole like the whole you know, conglomerate. Yeah, so you know these are partnerships. So you're not good for the brand.
A lot of times though.
A lot of times though, because I think with the situation with Diddy, it made people be like, oh, this is what I'm talking about. Black people don't know how to do business. And then they have the conversation about jay Z and him being a capitalist, and I think people need to understand the two of like, you got to scale up before you can.
Completely own it.
You wouldn't be able to put duce out the way that it is if jay Z primarily but we don't have a lot of private label, black owned companies that can help him scale. So it's like, what the hell is he supposed to do? So everything is only gonna be black on to a certain extent. They got mad at remember Honey pot, Yes they got mad at her when she sold. They got mad at uh.
Yeah, we get mad.
But it's like, yo, what we how are we supposed to scale the business there? But a like running back, I don't know, I feel like I.
Feel like capitalists.
That's one of the things I know, right, But that is one of the things they never wanted us to learn, especially like during slavery and shit, like the science of business, because anytime a black person creates something and it gets so big, they come in with this number you can't deny, right, and you sell the thing with honeypot is like you start looking at the ingredients on shit before and after, you know, after his bot. I'm not sticking that up.
I'm like, cuci no more. I'm sorry because we already know y'all have been fucked with the hair products for how many years? You got black women with cervical cans and all the type of shit going on, Like we
have to be concerned about those things. And if we are the ones that put your your product, you know, at the top, we do, you do owe some type of loyalty a little bit, you know what I'm saying, Like I understand, like the partnership's black effect, you know, in partnership with iHeart, a lot of people's talking shit. Oh Charlamagne don't own as yes he does, he owns
fifty one percent, right, so it's still his business. But in order to get as big as you want to get, you do have to partner with these bigger, bigger companies. But at some point, I don't know, at some point we got to take a stance and we got to be able to put other people in places, just not today with some of these brands.
Y'all wion't take a staying nothing. But we collected they.
Want to it out there. Get Timeline.
Y'all listen after she put that tattoo in her face, and I was like, Lord, just Jesus takes you moving back.
In with him?
She moved in with him, jail, I don't want it. She moved back into the crew. I don't know.
I don't know what what that looks like for her, and that baby moved back into the crib.
And once that.
Happened, I said, I don't know what type of what is over there. The way he be busting down. I never want to be that.
I never want Those are demons.
I just met one of the girls.
Get away, Okay.
I just met one of those. Is crazy. I just met one of those.
It's like, I can I can see the demon like.
Get away, get away?
All right? So now did y'all see over the weekend, this mother she was excited that her daughter was embarking on her business as a waxer, and she was like, I'm teaching my child a generational wealth. And she done had twenty four clients, and then we see this image of this young baby over a woman's vagina, you know, and the vagina has blurred out obviously. But this lady went to jail yesterday. They arrested her for sexual child abuse or child abuse neglect. I don't want to say
sexual child neglect. How do y'all feel about that? Do y'all feel like that was actually child neglect?
Absolutely? I felt like it should have happened before it happened. I was hope, not hoping, because I find it so hard. As much as as much shit as I talk, I do like have a tough time super condemning people, right, so I try to like play devil's advocates. Sometimes this is a situation where I cannot play Devil's advocate because at what point she just didn't have the wherewithal to know that that's child abuse.
She was ignorant. I don't feel like it was like a sexual act of any sort. I just feel like she was an ignorant mom who thought this was her trying to give her child some education so she could make money for herself. That's what it's five.
Years old, working a seven hours shift. Yeah, that's child later.
The hardest, but not even the ship.
It was hard to see the little girl with the like this in between the spread legs, Like I just feel like there are certain things that you're as a as a kid, as a baby that just shouldn't you shouldn't be exposed to right away. But I don't know about y'alling how y'all grew up. I mean, my mom was to have me waxing. No no, I for keep forgetting. I can say certain words on her. My mom was
having me waxing, no coochies and nothing like that. But I was the oldest in the household, and I'll be watching this this girl she writes letters to the oldest black like their older black daughters or whatever, and she talks about how like years I don't know if this was the oldest child or not, but she talks about how you'res exposed and stuff so early, and it's because, like your parents, OKI are trying to get you ready because the world they did, you know, they sposed so
much sh her way, but it takes away from you being five. She should be cocoa melon and not like waxing people's melons for real. Like that shit is crazy to me.
It was hard to watch, I agree, and especially like you don't even really understand your own anatomy yet at five years old, so to be looking at some adult women's vagina, like it's just a lot, it's too much.
You still say in private parts and don't forget that people are fucking That's what.
I was trying to wax in these people exactly. That's what I told Sam earlier. Like what if? Because I feel like, for whatever reason, we think women are exempt from being predators when they are apex predators a lot of them. Okay, so you have women in the community who probably eviolated little girls before. Now they know that this particular wax pallar has five year olds giving wax jobs, Like, why would I not go get waxed by this five year old? If that's the type of shit I'm into?
Like her mom put her in danger, Yes, her mom put her in danger.
Wax is high because if it was a man, so many very like are you say if it was a man doing it like a man like letting his son do that type of shit, like the world would be an uproar?
Yeah right, what they don't?
Because I feel like people got mad at no, for real, I feel like men people got mad when Boozy was talking about how he like his son was young and had like what was it the sun got hit or whatever. But there was so many people that was like, I mean shit, at least you know he not gay, Like they were rationalizing it, like it's a little different with you don't know.
Let me tell y'all something. This makes me think of a childhood story of mine where I got I got a spanking for this, and I shouldn't have gotten a speaking. So I remember the cnsay that we had as a kid. Did I tell this story? I already No, I don't know. But you remember the see and say you pulled the string and it be like he hanged and be pointing at whatever animal and it's spin around y'all. Remember, no, no, Lauren,
no cnsay. It was like a little toy and it have like an arrow to have animals all around it and the string and it'll spin around and it'll stop on the animal and when the string goes in, it'll make the animal sound. Okay, the eighties anyway, So I used to love that toy, right, and my mom was I think we were getting dressed to go somewhere. She had me already dressed and she was in the bathroom getting dressed, but she left the bathroom door open and I was just sitting on the floor playing with my
see andsay, and I looked in the bathroom. She was she wasn't clothed yet, and I saw a string hanging out of her and I was like, oh, ship, my mama is a I went up. I went up, I went up and pulled that string. Baby, whatever was in there flew out on me, and I was I was like four or five years old, and I thought my mama was a censa. And I got popped because then she had to change my clothes. She's like, I can't
even stay used the bathroom by myself. And then I think that was the she started lock of me out the bathroom. I didn't get so did that? Did that?
Did that haunt you in your experience when you started.
Using yes, I won't even use this, won't use I won't use that.
I'm sorry, I know what has happened.
Happened?
My mom is a singing rain so crazy.
At least that's all you pizza in the bathroom and salt. At least it wasn't.
Like waxing your mama.
Right, My mom was like, come wax me, that's.
Definitely some precious ship. I'm sorry. All I thought would have thought about was Monique and precious, Like what are you doing with your child? Man?
Why couldn't the mom just like put the LLC in her name or you know, like some regular like regular people stuff like why why do we always?
And then I put it on the internet.
I wouldn't have been mad at if she was doing armpits or lit. I would have been mad at.
Yes, eyeb it's the heat though of the wax and a five year old though.
Yeah, and then you put it online because she thought she was right. She really thought she was right. She thought it was flying. She thought it was flying.
My baby made seven hundred and fifty dollars a day. Well, how much your baby baby? That's how she was.
All right, y'all listen. Have y'all been following this who the fuck that I marry story on TikTok? This girl her name is uh Tessa, Resa, Resa Tisa of some shit like that, Resa Tisa. I watched all.
I didn't watch it.
So I've been seeing people talk about the fact that people were watching fifty parts of a TikTok story but I didn't go watch it. Is it worth to watch?
She talks?
Everybody seems to think.
So it's like, yes, because it's informative and some people may be experiencing this ship right now, you know what I'm saying, and like at the house confused because when you're in a relationship with a pathological liar, with a narcissist, sometimes you think you tripping, you know, So it could help a lot.
So what's the premise of the like happened?
Let me give y'all a little quick, little rundown. So she met this guy on a dating website during COVID. Okay, she met him like that March, I believe. So COVID we went in lockdown like February. Now they're in Atlanta. Atlanta ain't never really locked down, but anyway, so people were still slinging dick at the beginning of COVID and so.
Boy and when COVID happened, let me say this, I was trying to figure out how I was gonna fuck through a shout curtain. I really was like trying to figure out.
So I had a boyfriend, and so I was cool, I was I was trying to figure out how I was going up with a baby.
Y'all made it through Well, obviously, y'all inn't make it through COVID. If you're trying to find we made it. We made it.
We made it through COVID. But we're gonna get it to okay, We're gonna get it to your sit.
So apparently this guy had matched with her on two different sites. This was already the first red flag, y'all. He matched with her on two different dating websites under two different names. Like one of the websites it was a variation of his other name. She found out this dude was a twin later on all type of little
wear shit. But he just kept giving her to run around about buying a house and buying her a new car, and just like a super dupa, like if the nigga mouth was moving, he was lying like that's just the gist of the whole thing. And so now TikTok has found the guy. Right, his name is Legion, and when I like, that's his nickname. So when I hear Legion,
I'm thinking Legion and demons. Right, So this is wi you sleep, This is so you sleeping next to And she would say how he can quote the Bible and all that because his father was supposedly a pastor.
It's always really wasn't a pastor. If they quote the Bible and they willing to do, what's that you don't have sex abstin if they wanted to be they quote the Bible right off the bat.
She said, to be willing to sustain he's a demon that as wild. Yeah, so yeah, it's fifty. No, I wouldn't watch all fifty. I was doing every other one right. But if you want the full context of the story, because you see people in the comments like questioning her about ship she had already disclosed earlier on. Yeah, like if you watched the whole series and you know what
was happening, I'm sick in the house. So yeah, I watched it just because I just wanted This is a particular story I just wanted to know about, because I felt like, damn, why the hell I put my last relationship story on TikTok, Because I mean, she's blowing up. I would have gotten monetized first. She tripping right like
a'to late girl. No, my shit is a movie. That's where mine's going at Because some of the things she was saying some of the shit she was saying, Like she said she was at work one day and he just called her out the brum. And this is after they got married and all of that. Within months, Okay, she had gotten pregnant, she had a miscarriage, all the shit. He called her at work one day and was like a black some dude just pulled up at your house and he's in her house. Okay, So they ended up
quarantining at her place. Some dude just pulled up like calling her while she's at the nail shop, like just disturbing her peace. Because when a narcissist never wants you to relax, like they want to keep you on edge and keep like questioning your reality. So this is the type of shit he was doing to her, like just playing mind games. The nigga was homeless all just a real a real character. I don't know. I think it's a mental illness. Come to find out, the he was
portraying to her his twin brother was actually living. He lied to her and said he was a VP of his company. He drove a BMW company car, all this weird shit. He was paid for pussy on apps Like it was a mess. Okay, it's a mess. But this happened between twenty and twenty one, and she's like in recovery mode. So her putting the shit on TikTok is like her.
Therapy, a former healing.
Yeah, so I get it. I get it girl, Okay, but she.
Was so hold on. So all this happened, she left on right, she left on and now she's on TikTok talking about it. She is she date? Like why, Like, so she's putting it out there, like is she trying to get money back there? No, she just just just.
To help other women. It's like that's some real traumatizing shit. So she's saying like I'm just now being able to verbalize what I was going through, Like my family didn't even know what I was going through. Like she was saving face, like acting like everything was cool when her mom came in town, Like you know, because we have this thing where you supposed to keep your business to
yourself and your relationship. I'm not one of them, because I'm telling everybody all the fuck shit you did, bitch, because when I need somebody home, he accountable to not fuck with you no more. My friend's gonna do it.
So would you be going back though, well being.
We give each other grace. You know I'm going back. You know I'm going back for that day.
I don't mean I'm not to give graces. Friend, That's what I'm sitting here, Like, why does the sis had to have known that there was after a while in there before.
I think you should keep your dumb bitch to your your dumb bit shit to yourself sometimes, you know, until you're really ready. Sometimes it just depends on I've never dealt with like a pathological liar per se, so.
Where it's like so bad that you like, I noticed nigga like.
He is no way pat her looking at seven hundred thousand dollar houses talking about he got a cash down payment because he played arena football. Bitch, you never googled the arena football salary. They don't make no money.
So none of that ship was true.
Nothing. His entire life was a lie. But the way, I'm a pet detective, and if any of our listeners, if y'all dealing with somebody and you just got a little inkling in your mind, this nigga who he said, is sending to me, I'm gonna find him. I'm gonna find all the shit about him in twenty.
Four hours all these platforms. Now, I'm just saying her, like, how does this not like when like the first line started to crumble, It's like, how you don't I know, I'm a little too crazy for somebody to lie to me that deep and that long. Like it just wouldn't fly.
It wouldn't. I'm not easily finessed so that.
But but she probably just wanted to have somebody. It was COVID. She was probably lonely. This man was digging her down. I'm sure they was having raw set.
Yeah, she got pregnant.
Penis confuses you, so.
And she said he was paying.
I did.
She said he.
Was paying all the bills initially, paying all her bills initially. Okay, So she said she really got blinded by that because her money was her money, and this is all this is what we be saying we want right then, sometimes.
You didn't take her to Apple Bean.
No, their first date was definitely cheesecake factory. Okay, that's they met. Look, he got her on the very first date. And this is all I'm gonna say about it, So I'm gonna stop talking about it anyway. So the first date, she said she was on the way to meet him to the chescake factory and her fucking tire blew out. She called him and said, hey, I just blew out inside of whatever, two eighty five whatever. He came, took her to the tire shop, bought her to tire. The
pussy is in the bag, Like, you come. You don't even know me yet, you come back.
I had one before. He was a price and he was sucking. Honestly, right now.
It's about to be the season too, It's about to be Pisce's men are fun.
It was such a good time over there. It was such a good time over there. And he just they just be knowing what to do and how to talk to you, and like they do shit like that, like, oh, first day I'm talking to you, my my car breaks down. What you need a new car here because my girlfriend not gonna be riding around with in an uber. And then it's like, oh, I love him, And then it's like everything changes. Now he's hell, he don't inswer the phone,
he goes days without talking to you. He's fucking the shit out of you. And that just stops, and it's like, whoa, now I'm outside your mom house.
Why are you.
Being weird to me?
To me yet?
And then and then once you outside the mom house, you why you being weird to me? He still don't pick up the phone. Then he just calls you next week like hey, babe, what you're doing? You want to go here? You want like like nothing happens and you're just like, yeah, I want to go, And you can't understand why it's like that. Like I used to call my Jurassic Park because it's hell when you get there. But it just seems so.
Y'all.
Literally if Dave, they be programming the Kouchie for sure, and pices and men are so fine.
Okay, I had to block mine. They are and it I had to block them. Hmm.
I'm not good at blocking and keeping you there right.
No, I had to do it this time because I was gonna continue to fuck that man if I didn't. Is that twenty twenty four No more?
I can't do it, I said at the top of twenty twenty four hours. And my friends said, we leave in all the toxic niggas behind. I sall who I'm taking just in case I need somebody to call. I'm gonna just you know, people to the side but they gotta come on over a little bit shit.
All Right, y'all, we're gonna have a commercial break and we'll be right back with Lauren la Rossa.
Stay tuned, all right, Laura, Laura Rosa, you are relatively young, right I want to talk about or can we talk about your time at TMZ.
Now.
You even ended up there because I was like, damn, does she go straight from college?
So I actually I did, but I didn't. I graduated from Delaware State University shout out to my HBCU in twenty fourteen, and then I moved to LA. I was there for about six months, and then I couldn't afford to be there anymore, and so I were back. And then I was at home in Delaware working for about a year or two, and then I went back to LA and then I started working for TMC. So it
was my first consistent entertainment job after college. But it wasn't right after college, and I started from like the bottom, like of And I hate when I say that because no shade to the tour guides, but it's not the newsroom whatsoever. I was giving tours around Hollywood. You're making like fifteen dollars an hour, working two to four hours a day. So I had like three jobs, Like you know,
this is me. Like out of college. I had a great marketing job in Delaware, and I was doing entertainment stuff on the side, and my family was like, yeah, you're doing well, you know, just keep doing it, cute little entertainment stuff. So when I decided to leave that job and go for a forest, they were like the fuck, Like why would.
You leave some go do tours.
They could until my mom could turn on the television and actually see me on TV. And it's crazy because she's a dreamer, Like she has a background in fashion, sh moved to New York, the design and all that stuff. But she's also like a very she's a money person. So she couldn't understand me working for free, working for not a lot of money, especially when I had the degree, my degrees in marketing. I had a great job. I was doing marketing for Barclays and you know, I was
doing a lot of things. She couldn't get it until she could turn on the TV and see me, And even then it was still kind of like, mm, this is cool, but like where is it? Where we going?
Where the money at?
And so I was right.
So I was giving tours for like a good two years before they even really started considering me for a newsroom like job, like producing news and being on the show market sistently.
All right. So this year Angela Ye left the Breakfast Club and she said that it wasn't healthy working in this male dominated space. Was it like that for you at TMZ? Baby?
Not to take away from what Angela you went through, but when I walked, my experience at Breakfast Club made me realize how much I was in hell at TMD in that news room. I remember my second day there at Breakfast Club, I text all of my friends from TMZ that still work there right now and was like, the environment that we have been working in for all.
Of these years is not it's hostile.
It's very dark, it's very draining, it is very you know, it's a news desk environment. And I don't know if you guys have ever been in the newsroom that is like any newsroom, whether it TMS or not, is very like because there's something always happening. You're yelling, you're talking, you love somebody, you hate them. That's just our industry in general. But and I don't have anything to compare it to. I never had anything to compare it to until I went to Breakfast Club and got the you know,
work with them for some time. And when I did, I was just like whoa, Yeah, So I not only did I experience, like, you know, it being a male dominated space, but you got to think about it, like, I'm very young in my career at the time when I start there, I'm black at the time. You had Ben who was on air, Raquel who was on air,
and then me Charles. You know who's there, but Charles's EP so he's kind of removed a lot from certain things sometimes even though he's in the day to day conversations and tries to support as much as he can. Charles get so much shit.
But is that the guy with the dress.
He's had to help hold me down in certain Yeah, the guy with the dress, he's had to hold me down in a certain situations. So I never give him too much shit. But I always make the joke that, like during Black History went like we count him half the time because you know, it just depends on where he fell. But it's all love. But like all I had, so I had that support when I came in and as a tour guy, you got to be on the show.
So I was on the show a lot even before I got on the news desk, but like you know, my text were real quick. I'm in and out there barely listening to Mevan had to repeat a lot of what I was saying most of the time for people to even hear me, and then I would leave once I actually got on the news desk, And that's a whole different beast because now you're part of a group of like maybe ten people who are breaking news for the world and controlling the conversation around entertainment news for
the world. I'm the only at this point. Now Van has gone, and then Raquel decided to leave as well too, it's just me. So not only am I the only black person on the news desk, I'm the only black woman on the news desk. So I'm up against number one Black entertainment and Black news, in my opinion, not being valued the way that it should have been for it to drive so much of their website and their content.
I'm up against being new in the room and in the space and not feeling like I had that much power. For a very long time, I felt like that, so I didn't know how to approach, you know, when I wanted to push back on certain things and like whatever. For the show, it was cute like I felt, you know, on the show, I could say and do certain things
because that's what they wanted for the show. But in real life and we're day to day working with each other, there were things that were being that were happening that I didn't feel comfortable with speaking up about to a certain extent, just bringing ideas to the table and just watching stuff happen and not even news related, but just like with the people that I'm working with and colleagues, and you know, these little microaggressions and things that I
started to see and understand that I think then he did a really good job of making things funny and making things fun but shielding me from a lot of stuff. And it was from day one, like even when I didn't know him, Like I remember I walked in and he was like, hey, I'm being what's your name? Like he took the time to come over. It wasn't super love.
I love being so much like because he just always even before he really knew me, he always looked out for me, and I didn't understand how much of a kind of like a privilege to have a black man in a space like that that understood how important it was to do that was until he wasn't there anymore, and then I was like, oh shit, so like now I got so now I got a fight and it's
just me and it's just whatever. So I went through a lot of different stuff, Like there were times there's so much stuff that didn't make it to air that like sometimes I wish it didn't make it to air because I think that it would have started a conversation internally and externally that on a like a major scale that was needed just about like black women in like major media spaces, black people in spaces where they are the only black content, black news, black celebrity. When the
Kanye West was Kyrie Irving, stuff was happening. Mind you, this is my first time too being exposed to like like I grew up in a hood and like when I my school was Innmcity School, So I was the majority.
In my schools.
I went to HBCU, I was the majority. My work space is all of my life have always been the only places that I wasn't the majority. I was the minority. So this was my first time working in space where you know, I'm working with people that are like, you know, there's a bunch of different religions and like whatever. And when the Kyrie Irving stuff happened, I remember it was a culture shock for me because a lot of what
was happening. And like even with Nick Cannon when he said those kindments that he said, I remember a lot of the things. I'm like, I grew up here in some of that in my household, and that's what I was taught. I didn't know that it hurt people. I didn't know that, you know, to a certain extent, certain things weren't okay, Like I had no idea.
And it was the same thing with our stuff, Like I had to teach certain.
People why you don't ask me about how long my hair took the break down every single time I get my braids done, Like I'm not a science project bro. Like there was so much that we had to like teach each other, and I was just like, oh shit, like this is real. But there was no protection. It was just like me and I didn't realize until I left again how much that fucked with me. Like on
a day to day, so I encountered that. But and again I don't want to take away from Angelie's experience, but when I walked into the breakfast club that time that I was there, I was like, I wish that every day of my work life. When I was at TMZ felt like this, I could have been so much
better of an employee. I mean, I did my thing, but it would have been happier, different, Like I felt happier I would I would have felt like even in times because you know, when you talking topics and culture like all this stuff, some of this stuff get very easy, like we're not gonna all agree whether we all look
alike or not. But although I felt safe and comfortable to disagree, it took me time to get to that point at TMD, like it was a lot of times where like I didn't really understand myself as an asset in the room and I didn't know like they using the fuck out of me. I mean like when being got fired. I had never hosted any of the shows by myself. Mind you, TMZ is in La La is number one market for television. TMZ is you know they're huge at what they do, so to be on those
platforms on television is a major thing. The day that being got fired. The next day they say, hey, do you want to host TMZ Live? And I was like, yeah, okay, And it didn't dawn on me until I'm hosting in the seat. Y'all niggas only got me here because y'all want pay six looking like racist people. It's because of
the conversation that was surrounding in me. If I had known, Like, It's not like I was oblivious or green, but I think I was just so in the this is just work, this is just what I do, this is just how they use me. I'm just happy to be here. That I just like went with it until I hosted and my Twitter went crazy. People were like, who the hell is this black girl? Why would she coming host? After what they did to THEND then had to get on Twitter and be like, this is my sister. Leave alone.
But and now I was like, oh shit, like I'm the pond right now. Like so, once I realized that, I'm like, okay, bad, y'all want to play, let's play. Y'all need me, I need y'all. I'm an asset. I don't agree with this. I don't agree with that I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, and y'all need me, so we'll see where it lies. And now there were so many times I would call my manager, ya, I'm probablynn got fired to day, like what's next for us? Because I d sure told them off today on air that.
Exchange you and Harvey had after the Kenosha shooting. The little boy Kyle Rittenhouse had gotten where he got off. He didn't get convicted. They exchanged you and him had that day. Is that kind of what led up to you resigning?
No, And that was early in the game, Like that was like right after all of the protest stuff that happened, and kind of, you know, coming off all the George Floyd stuff, there have been way more heated. Like imagine being the only person that is willing to talk back when George Floyd and a out Ivrey got killed and having to teach them about we put up a Juneteenth post and we put by I keep saying, well, I'm
so used to being there. I remember they had put up a they were prepping a Juneteenth Post to go live on the website because everybody was so black and all that during that time, right and they wanted to use the American flag as a part of the art for the Juneteenth Post and I had to get on the phone and say, Yo, what's trunk for the race war?
Like the whole point of Juneteenth is the fact that we don't feel welcome here, Like why would you use the American flag, which is a part of the constitution that we feel like it has still enslaved us and we're celebrating the date that we found out that we ain't got shit to do with that, Like y'all not getting it, And they were like, oh, you're being too emotional.
Like I had to.
I had to Charles, and I called. When I called Charles, Charles didn't fully understand it, but he heard me out, and once I explained it, he was like, you're right, we're gonna change it. Send me the correct flag and correct colors, and we'll make sure that you know what I mean. Having to do stuff like that on and off air. By the time of the Dyling Root stuff had become so normal to me, and I think God
for that experience. It was tough in the beginning, Like I remember, I was like crying every day, Like oh, I was like it just the pressure of it, like they're literally making you speak for every black person in the world, and it's like you never feel like you can get it right. You know how I really shit can get if you say something wrong, but not even just saying or doing things wrong, but like you're not really come from a place where like my friends is
really getting beat up by police. Before this shit was cute to talk about on Instagram, my brother my mom was going to you know, showing up the court cases where police wouldn't show up because my brother resisted the rest. But y'all fucked him up, so of course he resisted the rest. You know what I mean, Like this is real for me. It's not just a segment on a news show for me. So I took things a lot more persons than they did, and it would get on
my nerves and they wouldn't understand it. So we had been through so much shit, Like the the pivotal points for me when I was like, yo, how much more mentally are you gonna put yourself through anywhere? Not even just here, was when we had the conversations about Kanye and the Kyrie irving, and we had had I tried to handle it in a way where like I understood
where they were coming from. Right, Like, there were people that I was working with at TMZ whose grandparents were a part of like a lot of like the like the into Semitic comments and like the genocide, like this, the different things they had been through. It's real close for them, like literally their grandparents. Like I have a friend who was telling me about her grandmother and losing her and all that stuff and why Kanye hurt he or whatever, And I took that and I listened to it.
But I also felt like on the other side of things, there was some things that were happening, and my point to them was, as a platform, we have a responsibility to be fair and not lean off of emotion, and the people in power here right now are not being It's all very personally emotionally driven, and we're humans, so I understand why it's happening, but like you know, as a person that's here, I just want to put that in the forefront before we have any of these conversations.
That shit went off the window when the conversation started, right and I was just like, bro, I got to get to a place in my career where I can say I'm not okay with something and walk away from it. And as long as I sit up under this brain and just be the black girl TMZ, I'm never gonna be able to do that. Like I gotta build audience. I got It's gonna be tough. You want have to build it anyway, but I gotta do it because like I'm sitting here right now, like, are y'all fucking serious?
Like y'all want to talk about the fact that Kyrie didn't apologize the way you wanted him to or use the words you want him to? You know, times all the wrong words terminology approach when it comes to me, and I have to just think of it as a cultural difference and go on and love y'all anyway. I'm not trying to hear that shit like at all. Like those are conversations that I wish made it to air that got cut. Of course, in those instances though, I was just like, Okay, I can only do this, but
for so long it's a great learning experience. But I got to get to a point where I built a platform and the name enough where know that if we don't have these conversations, we don't really have it on. And I'm gonna be able to call it out afterward, if not be in fear of what might happen to me if I do it.
M child, listen, Oh I couldn't. I couldn't do it. I worked a corporate job and one of my biggest things was being able to do something where I can be myself. That's the podcast world, right, But I've definitely been the only black girl. That's when my ask got laid off because I'm the youngest. No kids in black and get your ass up out of here. So I definitely understand I couldn't do it because I was. I was plotting on beating people up in the garage. You have to work plenty days.
I was myself, so it just was like, no.
I've never not been myself. That's the problem when you can't no code switching. So you be yourself. You show up and you make it into places you can make it where you want to be at being yourself for sure.
I didn't know that though at first I was raised that way, but I didn't know that like I was raised that like, nah, you're getting a wroong. You like you don't ever sit in the room, don't say nothing. But the more that I started to work in these mainstream media spaces. It's just like you don't say that. And then I come from fashion, fashion could tour fashion.
You don't say shit about nothing. So I was trained to like get on and get along, like you know what I mean, like eventually by the world, like the world will bring, specially black women. The world won't teach trying to remind you every day of while you gotta like shut up.
Like and assimilate.
Yeah, that's I found that interview you just did recently with Vivoca Fox interesting speaking about like going along to get along, cause you touched on the Taraji p Henson thing with Vivica Fox. You know, everybody saw Vivica fox reaction to what Taraji p Henson was explaining about the industry and not being paid with your worth blah blah blah, and Vivica Fox said she didn't experience or didn't doesn't
have that same experience. And then in the interview with you, she was talking about like how this is a business of relationships. I agree, relationships is worth more than money. So once you start burning bridges, you know, TMZ could be a bridge that you didn't give a fuck about. Burning. Okay, but depending on what you're trying to do in the industry, you have to maintain relationships, right, So do you think
that she I don't. You was in her house doing an interview, so I don't know what type of relationship do you think?
Right?
Do you think she is one of the like there's no way you didn't understand as Vivica Fox, are you, yes?
I don't.
I don't think that. I don't think that. I think that because me and her we had a conversation prior to that. Because and I just want to say, when it comes to TMZ, I ain't done nothing that Like, I have not done or said anything that I have not done or said to them, and while I was with them, So I don't believe that a bridge is burned. They do get a little emotionally upset when you leave because they want you to stay there. But you know
that'll be fine. But when it comes to Vivica Fox, like me and her had a really great like even though that was my first time meeting her that like, personally, I felt like I was in the home of a big sister. We had a really good big sens the little sister conversation about, you know, her life, her career, dealing with the controversy of like just everything. I was telling her how new it was for me to be on a platform like the Breakfast Club and like the
taxis strict to you the reviews. You know, it's different when you're behind a brain like a TMZ and she kind of you know, we talked about that, and then I asked her, you know, do you want to talk about the Taraji stuff? And because I didn't want to make her uncomfortable because of the respect that I for her and the conversation that we had around it prior to I think that I got a chance to understand her a little bit differently than the people that just
watch these clips. And the way I felt walking away from it is not that she's just happy to be somewhere, happy to be working. But number one, she come from a different time. Like when I looked at the career that she had during the time that Vivica Fox was the girl, there was just her and maybe like Halle Berry, like there weren't like there were nears. I don't think I can't so there, but isn't I believe Bifica Fox a little bit older than me alone, though correct the aid.
I think, yeah, I think.
Okay. So for me, when I saw that, I remember asking her, like, do you feel like your experience was something that was a little bit different because the time that you came along is kind of like you were to go to for so much stuff, so you had a little bit more different leverage. And then also too, on top of that, I think that we have a little bit, a lot of bit more of a privilege to be able to like she might have thought she was leveraging her situation and maybe it worked out for
her for what she needed. But I think now we get a chance to really see what leverage it looks like for real, for real, and we're trying to run it up differently. And Taraji is a part of a different world of like now you're gonna give me what you're supposed to give me. And I think it's the same thing when you talk to your grandmother about your
career decisions versus your mom or versus your sister. And because for me, I would never describe and I don't I'm not doing this at age Vivaica, but the older black women in my family, I would never describe those women as like they sit down, they shut up, and they do whatever it needs to be done because they're strong women, they've been through things. They put things on her back that done the work. But their way of we talked back was different. And that's how I look
at her. So like when she said, I didn't go and like, you know, maybe do it the way that Taraji did by talking about things or whatever. I caught my team, a team heard the certain things we whatever. Right. I think that it's just it's a very sincetive topic, right, because you have people who are emotionally tied to what Taragi is doing. We watch her forever, we love her forever, and a lot of us go through the same stuff.
But I think that it's one of those conversations where you have to realize that, like everybody has a different place in the fight, Vivica Fox doesn't have to be the voice of Martin Luther King of it, right. She could be the person that's sitting at home that you call for the bill money when Martin Luther King, you know, it's writing that letter from Birmingham jail. And I'm not trying to say that she's Martin Luther King or anything
like that for the people listening. But all I'm saying is that when I talked to her, from what I took from it is just because she didn't do it the same way or she doesn't say that's my experience, it doesn't mean that she didn't have inexperience of some sort that she had to out figure out and that change things for the Taragi to come. I don't think that she did a good job of saying that, and
I want to be very honest and saying that. Her biggest thing with me in that conversation about that topic was she wanted to protect Taraji. She didn't want to talk too much about it because she felt like seeing Taraji break down the way she did, and then everything that came after that team clip and how the world pinned them to against each other, she felt like she was like it piled onto whatever I just obviously going through, And she said to me, She's been through enough, I
don't want to pile on. Our experiences are different. So it was kind of disheartening for people to not get that through the interview. But I also feel like, to people's defense, I don't think she really gave it all of the color. I just gave y'all, and I wish she would have, but that was her choice not to. But I don't look at her that way, like I don't nothing about baby vis Biblica a fox, and nothing about her. I don't know.
Have y'all ever remember her?
She is queen. We talked back, y'all need to have her on here. She's like you not getting around her like I promise you, like she's very strongly not just happy to be anywhere you're happy to have her like that, and everything about her exudes that, you know, the way we were brought up, where it's like baby I am woman, Like who got that? You know what I mean? Yeah, so I think so No, to answer your question, I don't think that about her. I think that people are
picking it up that way. I also think people like to just fuck with her as well too, because she gives y'all, y'all can't sit with me, so people love to remind her like now we're sitting next to you.
Right, And then she was It looked like she was going through airport security or something when they were asking these questions. It wasn't like she had a lot of time to explain herself. I felt like it wasn't you know she was she didn't.
I mean, those clips are quick, like you get a TMZ clip, you getting a good two minutes to two minutes to fifty depending on what you're saying. She signed autographs coming out of the building. They clipped quick clips. But I don't think that the world really gets to feel what she's trying to say because she's not going to depth about it, which for me is like that's just gonna make it worse. I don't know. I hope that my interview ain't make it even worse.
Though, No, I don't think it didn't. It didn't the original TMZ at the airport, I really didn't. I didn't really feel any type of way about what she said then, But once I saw the interview with you, it gave a little bit and more definition. But like you said, not enough like your explanation of the behind the scenes conversation, Like I definitely don't. I'm not calling her the op at all. I don't see that Vivoca Fox that type of woman. I definitely think she is for the people.
But she was definitely trying to keep it cute.
She was. I think her keeping cute her keeping cute is like I think it could be a little detrimental in my personal opinion, it could be a little detrimental to her because for her to be such a legend and an icon and to have when I say, like I was only there for but so much time, but I just felt like wow, like you know, she's a big sister in TV you need for real, because she would have been in ith On like a real high level best of the best, count her coin, get her money,
and she's living peacefully right now. I think it does a disservice to you know, like just our legacy as Brown girls on our grind, And that's what I want those conversations to be. That's why I'm so excited to be able to sit down with her, because I don't think if there's like a place right now that gives us like that conversation of like naw, that's your big sister for real, Like if gonna be honest, it might
hurt you a little bit. And when I was at Breakfast Club, for some reason, I felt like I kept getting phone into those type of conversations and I was learning so much about myself in them, Like when we did the Ebony k when we did that Carrie Champion, when we did you know, like so many other conversations, I was like, I like this space.
I feel like a lot of people.
Need to hear this like on a like for real, for real. People need these like choke hold conversations for real.
So I have a question, right, Vivica was at one point at the height of her career, honestly, she was dating fifty cents and people said that like that affected her brand in a negative way. And then we know that Karsha was connected to a Diddy and she's go kind of been quiet. Do you feel like the man that you're connected to can diminish your brand if she goes south? One hundred percent.
One hundred percent. Because as successful as Vivica Fox was and as iconic and legendary as she is now, y'all, remember when Cuban Lank fifty cents girlfriend came out and tried to play play with her, little bit in the world had to remind the world like, no, this is vivaka foxtp Plane. She had a career for real, She's not just somebody's girlfriend. That is a perfect example of yes, that can happen because how would you ever even allow vivaka Fox to be put in that conversation of oh,
you was just his past girlfriend. I'm here now. But when you're a woman and you're attractive and you're doing all these things, I don't know what it is, but like when you attached to a man, it overshadows so much, and it can lift you up and put you in certain conversations and you know, Karsha Diddy at the met Gala and all that fine stuff, but at the same time disattaching the wrong way. Every time she speaks about fifty,
they're like, oh my god, here she goes again. She's miserable, she wants him back, and it's like, no, she's.
Doing the same thing fifty dudes.
She knows that putting her show in the conversation with his show, it's marketing. But she gets the bitter ex girlfriend fifty gets. Marketing genis like one hundred percent, and it makes it tough when you're trying to date because people be like, I get told right now so much, oh you need to have a celebrity relationship, and I'm like, I mean, I like real niggas, that's number one, and they'd be weird the celebrity people be weird, they'll be
like the real realm. But then also too, it's like, even if I did like a celebrity enough to do it, or you know, just whatever, I'm always nervous about how that will affect me. I don't want to just be someone's girlfriend. I hate that. And she talked about that too. She didn't go into detail on the interview, but Vivoka Fox was talking about how she had to literally take a step away from Hollywood at the height of her career and rebrand herself again and remind people I'm a
serious actress. She had to go to theater. She had to go back to her roots of us, the black people who had been supporting her forever, and go back to theater and sell out shows and get agents and different people to come to those shows, because all people wanted to talk to her about what's her love life, who she was fucking, who she was dealing with, and because she had played the cute, sexy, powerful girlfriend and you know, all that for so long that that's where
she lived and she didn't like it, and she knew she could do way more, but she had to fight all over again to remain name men don't go through No, Michael B. Jordan ain't had to go back to theater.
Since why do y'all think that is?
Though?
Why do y'all think that happened to Vivica Fox in that way? Because I mean we're talking about fifty cent. We ain't talking about like some ranky, dank ass dude. So why do y'all think that even happened to her? Like why did her career like seemingly dwindled some after her relationship with the with fifty Cent? I don't understand.
It was that moment when she was on stage when it was an award show and fifty cent was performing and Vivica was up there with them little short song as a pretty much a background dancer for fifty cent. I think that was when all the ship changed for her. Honestly.
Yeah, It's ben a lot of stuff about that relationship that I didn't really I guess because I was like yo too, But like it was something with like she like when they when she wanted like to talk to him, like I guess, so she was shooting her shots, she like showing about his house or something like that too. Like there was like a couple of different things.
So she has ten years older than him. Also, Yeah, so I think.
Maybe it was maybe the approach. But in my opinion, I feel like the world loves to put black women in this space of like reminding us you, like, don't forget Okay, it's so cute.
You're doing good, but not too much.
Not too much, Okay, remember you need us, We don't
need you. And with black men, even though black men go through what they go through, I have this argument all the time with black men about black men have a certain It's like, even though the world precedes them a certain way, and you know, they can be looked at as aggressive, they them or whatever whatever, if you are black men and with power and money and influence and you look good, lend to you even Yeah, even though they trying to like control you with puppet springs,
puppet strings, they lend to you a little bit different than they do a black woman. As a black woman, if you look good and you're powerful, they you can't do one of the two. You can't actually be talented men be fire and smart, look good, it's smart, and be dating somebody popping. It's like, oh no, that's just his girlfriend, right, Like that's just all it is.
I've seen some white people on ex call Megan Marco lazy. I'm like, what, like what constituted her being lazy because she's am Loto mixed black woman, Like, what does she do to be lazy? To y'all? She's the fucking she's royalty at this point.
She's from where she's from.
That's why it's like she doesn't deserve. She just lays on her back and be with that man and that's her career.
And that's so what.
Like what she supposed to be because the Royal Housewives of New York, no white woman.
Is living green.
And all a fraud. Okay, let's be clear anyway, So in a world where like my truth is I talk about this all the time, my truth. This is my truth, like everybody's truth is the truth? Like, how important is it to you as a journalist, because even with just a podcast, like we are essentially journalists, how important is it to you to make sure that you're being that you're reporting the truth.
It's always it's like it's that or nothing for me even now, So like with Brown Girl Grinding, we do a lot of like content that like causes engagement in conversations, and our biggest exclusives like that we're going to like really hone in and focus in on this year are the interviews because I just feel like it gives a different voice to news than just me posting a tweet
or whatever. But if I'm following a story the way that I've been brought up in this through my boot camp at TMZ, oh it's factual, I'm not even touching it. Like there are certain things that people will reach out to me and be like, oh, why I talk about this, Why you're not covering unless I'm about to do something opinion based, And I think some stuff doesn't deserve an opinion. Some stuff deserves facts, factual review. I'm not touching it
because as a journalist, like who's really doing this? That's all I have is the fact that you'll be able to back check what I said and it's true. But also just like if you look at a TMZ in the business model there they have built their brand and you can't get around them because it's truthful, it's vetted, and they're the first to tell you about it. So
now you go to them knowing you trust them. All I have as a journalist like right now, I'm literally working for myself, Like I am every single day getting up and doing something for myself that is causing income, conversation, brand building, whatever. One hundred percent. I don't work for anyone but myself. Even when I work with other brands. It's a new space for me.
But at the end of the day, I.
Want to be a person that people look at and they trust and they're like, oh, she's talking about it, it must gets something to pay attention to. If she's putting facts out for the first time, we can trust what
she's saying. The minute that you do that and it's not truthful, or you plan around with your platform from the world that I'm trying to build in, people can't, like we don't even know where to go now, Like we don't know if it's vetted, we don't know if it's real, and there's so much bullshit it fake stuff
on it too. And because I'm solely I'm just social media based, Like I don't have a website, I don't have a line on TV show yet, So all I have is to be like that one person in the world of all this noise that can bring you some truth and some insight and some in depth conversations. That's why I'm leaning with it. So it's one hundred percent like it's truthful, factual, fact checking or nothing.
So all your feelings are out when you when you reporting on the news, it's nothing personal. Ever, No, that's not.
Always true, because I'm human, So you would you want it to be that way when you're reporting certain things. But because you're human, you're you're human. Bias is always
going to come in to a certain extent. I do try and be as neutral as I can, and I'm learning to be better at that because I think a lot of times when I do leave with emotion, depending on what it is, it's because I feel like a lot of times I'm speaking for people that like might not ever get to seek that I'm in, Like you might not get to talk to Ebony k or you might not get to talk to a bit of a fox, or you might not you know, get to if there's
like I I forget which school shooting it was. I'm so sad that there are so many of them, but probably like two months ago there was a school shooting that happened and I was going back and for foot LA enforcement sources, just you know, reporting things as they were coming out. And I remember one of the public information officers called me and was like, what platform are you with and I was like my own brown girl grinding and he was like, you should be working somewhere,
like you're so like on it. Like every single time they released something, when I saw it somewhere else, if I didn't report it first, I called and say, hey, I just want to confirm this before I go with it, you know, and he was like, we really appreciate that because these families are impacted by the news and the media and people don't understand that. And that was like such a like Okay, I got this, you know, like I could do this for me on my own because
I removed myself from it and I was factual. But at the same time, I don't know what it's like to lose a kid to a school shooting, but and being sensitive to that, I do want to put a little emotion in it when I'm reported on it, But you just got to know when the right time is. So like the Chris Brown reacting or me reacting to Chris Brown situation that you brought up earlier, that's all me that's all opinion. That's my emotion, that's how I feel.
But if I'm talking about something that is like an actual, you know, something that like the facts are there, I can't get around it, and I'll make it. I might still get my opinion, but you'll know when the switch happens.
Like the only don't she said, the only tailor we recognizes tailor port. Bitch, I said, what.
What' telling?
Y'all?
Right, that's the only tailor.
Act Like we've been on this tailor and tailor report and that's it. Like I was trying to stop.
Tail report is straight. They're trash.
But you know it though you have little Sippy said, everybody has drinks.
Church. I won't mess with that.
That's what y'all be getting at church during commune. That damn teleport.
I wish to be a buzz.
But even that, though there was a lot of factual stuff in the full video, like I took actual facts and reports or whatever, but then you got you got, you know, I got a little.
Yeah, what do you do you consider yourself a millennial? Are you a millennial?
Yes?
I don't even I don't know. I guess.
Yeah.
So when people will be sitting all that stuff. I don't know how the age brackens.
Were you born before ninety seven?
Yes, I was born in ninety one.
Yeah, oh okay, so yeah, yeah, she's definitely who. So what do you believe are some of the most pressing issues facing millennials today and how do you approach covering these issues in your reporting?
I think race, gender wars politics, but not just like making people go out and vote. I think making people actually understand what the fuck is going on, like on a yeah, like what's going on and doing it in a bite sized way as a person that like I don't have a political background, but like I have to go and vote, I have to know certain things just
to be a person civil person in the world. So I think that that's like an issue too, that there's like a big fall off between all these smart people who know everything and can like get on CNN and be analysts and like the everyday person who really needs to go and vote for their prosecutor locally, like those things. I think the world of like business and business like creation and branding is also like an issue with us. I don't really have too many friends who work regular jobs.
All my friends are creatives or like own their own businesses. Even my friends who do work regular jobs, their regular jobs are requiring them to know what's going on in the pulse of creativity, especially if they're black. If you're black and you working for these big corporations, baby, they want you to sing rap ac dance, do ex social media numbers all of that.
Yeah, social media.
That so because you come in and you are the culture in these rooms. So I think that that's also a big thing as well too, is like us just understanding navigating like financially like as a business owner where that can put you being able to like partner with these organizations. I guess that's called capitalism, like us understanding how we can use that to better ourselves, because I think our generation of people are so like, fuck the man, we don't need that job, you know what I mean.
I build my own table, and yeah, I want all of us to be building our own tables. But the table gotta get bigger and it got to scale and order for us to really do this shit for real, for real, and we need a lot of us in rooms that are like at the head of the LB and LB MHS, you know. So I think that that's also something big and podcast mics w meen. I think that that's a big issue.
Fation like gas, like.
Toxic masculinity.
This is my last question. This is in reference to like social media, and because I read an article that said most millennials then you know, they get forty five percent of their news from social media. So we have platforms like X for example, which you know there's a lot of independent journalists on X rather than should be true or not, it's that for you to have discernment and decipher. So how do you see the role of social media shaping modern journalism practices.
I've talked about this at a panel ardy during Grammy Weekend. I think that it's gonna make it where, you know how like the I always think with myself as like a rap artist, we too have no mix. But just like in terms of career, the way that you have to position yourself when you are talented, the way that social media is already changing news media and how people receive it is the same way when people started stepping away from labels and saying I want to be independent,
I just want to distribution deal. It's literally going to be that eventually. But the issue is that you have all these people who are on social and they can sweep whatever they want, do whatever they want, and present things as facts and it not be facts right, or it be an augmented fact like through AI or through
personal opinion, emotion whatever. And a lot of times these people are not bettert journalists that they don't have the background people understand how to check a source, how to like you know, there's a lot that goes into this nuance of reporting news and being a news personality and just a person that drives conversation around culture in general.
So I think what we're going to see is is that eventually the CNNs and all that stuff, it's happening already, they're going to be trying to keep up with the people that become the faces and the names on the tiktoks and the twitters and the Instagrams and the you know, like in that space. Don Lemon, who got fired from CEE and the announced it he's doing the show, but he's.
Doing it on X Tucker Cross.
Tucker Cross and so many people have just like they xed out the middleman and they get the distribution through platforms and sponsors and advertising to make it bigger and to scale larger. So I think that is going to become the new normal, and the people that are early on it are going to become the breakout voices. That was a big part of me leaving my job, just seeing that that was a thing and knowing that I could do it. It's not easy. It is very tough
because it takes a lot of consistency. It takes a lot of finance as well, so you've got to have a good partner, the backing. Still, I'm looking for all that, and y'all out there and y'll like, y'all fuck with her. I want to, you know, throw some dollars in my way to help this scale up. I'm gonna grinding scale up. But I think that eventually, like it's going to be a rise of like creators and content creators who are
telling news and like putting stuff into the world. And it won'ted to be traditional, like they won't just sit and report it. It's going to be so many different ways, and those platforms will be to go to over like a TMZ or a CNN or whatever, and the best platforms will see that it's like to change and pivot.
Like I even noticed at TMZ since I left, things that they're doing differently, Like even though what they're going, like I knew leaving what I needed to do in order to be still keeping myself right next to them, Like I'm not as big of a platform, but they don't have my voice. They don't have There's a lot that I knew I left with, so I use what I knew that they weren't doing to structure what I wanted to do so I could still kind of, you know,
be right there at it. But I'm like, oh, they waking up a little bit, Like they hit in social media as soon as the stories are publishing and like all that stuff. They weren't social media first, they were website first. But the website is still there. So a lot of platforms are going to come around. But that's
what it's going to be. Like your lead news person is going to be such and such an X and you know, like what academics is doing, but like a more vetted version of it that you can really trust and not just him screaming at his phone.
At like tide out in his fucking basement somewhere.
Yeah.
I got one more question for you, Lauren, What advice would you give I don't want a young person trying to get into journalism and they're just starting out and they're afraid and they don't know what to do. What advice would you give them?
I always tell people to start where you are, So don't wait until you got the job, you moved out of the state to the state that you want to move to or whatever. Start where you are. Interview your friends, Interview to people that are doing something around you. Get good at, like knowing how to produce. If you're starting where you are and you're putting out content, you're developing ideas and angles and all that, you're learning how to produce, and that there's no way you can live and breathe
in this space and not be a producer. Also, that's number one. Number two is to like really just understand what is the story that you want to tell That won't come instantly. I'm just now realizing with this last year where I think my voice is strongest and lending myself to that and building a brand around it, it will take time. So don't be afraid to try things and be afraid to get on different platforms if it's not the job you want. Like people will be like
should I start in local news? It's so boring, it's not the shade room. Hell yeah, it's a job. It's gonna put you on camera. It's gonna teach you things. There's so many different tools that you need, like you need to there's so many different things you just need to know how to do on and off camera that
you don't learn it until you do as much experience. Yes, like when I'm a personality and I'm navigating new spaces, like breakfast club was new new for me, like I had never been on a platform for that long of a time where like I'm a full blown personality, and the first day I was there, I remember thinking like, okay, today was cool. But as a producer, what were the things that I didn't do well that would have made the producer's job easier when it comes to making the
show good? Like what did I realized? I realized, like, Yo, they're really good as hell what they do in real life. I don't think people give it to Charlomagne Amy.
Yes, they're good it well.
Bro like they just be like like off the top, like so like you know, I was like, okay, comebacks, I thought my comebacks were cool for the TMZ room. But that's that's a bunch of people who are like you know, it's different when you with the culture so like you know, just but having that that producer had and having had it for so long at TMZ and understanding what makes people go. I started looking at myself like, Okay, what can I really lean into here to make this shit?
I gotta run it up while on here because I might not be here forever. I gotta run right. So it's important that to get all that, So don't turn out anything. Learn as much as you can. Start where
you are. Put the stuff out. If you're telling me that you are a TV personality and I can't find you on social doing anything TV personality wise in twenty twenty four, you're not a TV personality If you're a producer and you can't send me a real or there's nothing out there that I can see, you're not a producer. But the minute that you start putting stuff out there, you are, regardless of people believe it or not. So just get started.
Start start where you are. Well, thank you Lauren for joining us. Man. This was such an excellent interview. You're such a great gift we definitely want to have you back.
Yes, Now, I don't call me whenever y'all need me. I'm talking back all the time.
Just call me plug your period.
Yes, make sure y'all go and follow me in the brand. So I am Lorne la Rosa everywhere, l O r e n l O r O s a everywhere. That's YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, everything, so on YouTube, we are documented behind the scenes. We're blogging the experience. But we also now have the Brown gar Grinding Interview series, which we kicked off this month
or yeah, it was this month. We kicked off this month with Vivaca a Fox and we have some really really great brown girls on their grinding entertainment, like some really good names that you guys are gonna enjoy coming there. But Warna Rosa everywhere and then the brand is Brown Girl Grinding b R O w N Girl common spelling,
grinding grinding common spelling as well. To follow us. I tell people that Brown Girl Grinding is like the group chat, Like we have conversations over there, we argue, we get lit together, we have a good time, but it's it's home, it's family, and we're building it out a space where you can get news, exclusives, talk back segments, all of that just a good, good old time and we do it like real cute, like for the ladies in a place with styling.
Great.
Yeah, sounds like it. Follow Thank you all.
For landing the platform to me. I appreciate you for having me.
We appreciate you.
Thos were coming off.
Millennials are creating contemporary Black history in real time, which involves actively engaging in actions, movements, initiatives that contribute to the advancement, recognition, and celebration of black culture. So building connections within the Black community and beyond is crucial for amplifying voices, sharing experiences, and fostering solidarity. Our partners at Ate and T Dream and Black are fully aware that Black history isn't static, It's happening right now.
Our guest today, Lauren Lerossa, she definitely touched on that how black millennials are becoming entrepreneurs and launching businesses and creating innovation solutions. She definitely was talking about how our parents, you know, our parents would work for twenty years at one job and stay with that job. And now millennials we are challenging traditional business models. And she also talked about collaborations with bigger brands and how to scale your business.
So that was definitely dope. Some Black millennials that I can think of that are definitely pushing the culture forward right now. Pinky Coal, she has Slod Vegan. That's huge. Yeah, a vegan plant blazed Burger restaurant, you know. And she's it's started in Atlanta and now it's a change. She's moving all over the country and she was like Time nominated for Times Top one hundred people. Then you have
Everett Taylor. He's the CEO of Kickstarter, which is a crowdfunding app that has collected millions and millions of dollars for entrepreneurs who are trying to get their creative ideas off the ground. So that's huge.
Okay. Chela mean a god with the Black Effect Podcast Network our network.
Period, Okay.
He has brought together some of the biggest voices in black media to spread truth. Okay, we talked about truth a lot on this with this episode, so Black millennials are able to share their stories and perspectives on multiple podcasts across the network. Charlamagne is the founder and creator of this network, The Black Effect Podcast Network, which stands
as the first podcast network tailored specifically for Black listeners. Okay, we ain't trying to exclude nobody, but yes for us, by us bring it together, diverse and trusted voices within the culture, and fostering a platform for representation and connection where Black millennials can share their stories.
Like I said, all right, so before we go, let's discuss how me and you and we talk back, how we can continue to support black creators and amplify our voices.
Were gonna keep talking, We're gonna keep talking back.
Okay.
I think we got to keep bringing on good guests from all different walks of life. You know, different entrepreneurs, women who are like we just did the segment with women who are happy married, different people in STEM. You know, I don't know about STEM, so you know things like that. I think that's an adult way that we can definitely amplify our voices and push the culture for it.
Absolutely. All right, So y'all to learn more about AT and T and their initiatives with aighteen T Dreaming Black, y'all visit AT and T dot com Dreaming Black to learn more about the visionaries. Eighteen T Dreaming Black is honoring and celebrating this month and how you can enter to win by sharing your story. Black Effect podcast demonstrates commitments to underrepresented voices in media and beyond, under the
belief that connecting changes everything. Now, y'all listen. If you enjoyed this episode, y'all, tune in every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, wherever you get your podcasts at. This is your co host AJ Holiday kick a Tam.
Y'all, its official tam vam. I love y'all once again, y'all. Thank y'all for tuning in. Remember to speak.
Now and never hold your peace.
Are your voice ever.
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