Inspiring our girls! 👧🏽 👧🏾 On this #TBT, some of my favorite pics from the publication of my 1st book 📖 ‘Exactly As I Am: Celebrated Women Share Candid Advice With Today’s Girls On What It Takes To Believe In Yourself!’ Loved touring the country and signing copies for all the beautiful young ladies who came out to the bookstores to hear me read passages that will inspire and motivate them! 📚 💜
Wishing you a blessed day! 🐣
Thank you, JHud, for having me on the Jennifer Hudson Show! You turned the tables on me! 😄Loved talking about my hometown Detroit and my friendship with Aretha Franklin, my nonprofit - the S.H.A.U.N. Foundation for Girls and, of course, 90 Day Fiance! 💚
Stepping onto the purple carpet for the “Gumbo, Jazz & Good Times” fundraiser benefiting my nonprofit, the S.H.A.U.N. Foundation for Girls! 💜 Such a blessing that the rain held off and the sun came shining through the clouds ☀️ giving us a beautiful afternoon to raise money for our mission to empower underserved and underrepresented girls and young women! Can’t wait to share pictures with you! 📸
So excited to see my friend Usher perform the Super Bowl Halftime show! I’ve known Usher since I first moved to LA and he has always been one of the sweetest, most down-to-earth people I know. His show is going to be 🔥.
It truly takes a village to raise a child. February is special in my heart because it’s the birthday month for my two beloved grandmothers - Feb. 5th for Grandma Curry, my dad’s mom (on the left) and Feb. 12th for Mama Ashie, my mother’s mom (right). The song “Grandma’s Hands” by Bill Wither’s beautifully sums up my life and feelings about my two angels. If you have been blessed with a loving grandmother, you can appreciate my feelings. If you aren’t familiar with the song or need a refresher, I’ve included the lyrics below. Happy Heavenly Birthday Mama Ashie and Grandma. I love you. 🎂 🙏🏾❤️ 🕊️…
“Grandma’s hands
Clapped in church on Sunday morning
Grandma’s hands
Played a tambourine so well
Grandma’s hands
Used to issue out a warning
She’d say, “Billy don’t you run so fast
Might fall on a piece of glass
Might be snakes there in that grass”
Grandma’s hands
Grandma’s hands
Soothed a local unwed mother
Grandma’s hands
Used to ache sometimes and swell
Grandma’s hands
Used to lift her face and tell her,
She’d say “Baby, Grandma understands
That you really love that man
Put yourself in Jesus hands”
Grandma’s hands
Grandma’s hands
Used to hand me piece of candy
Grandma’s hands
Picked me up each time I fell
Grandma’s hands
Boy, they really came in handy
She’d say, “Matty don’ you whip that boy
What you want to spank him for?
He didn’ drop no apple core”
But I don’t have Grandma anymore
If I get to heaven I’ll look for
Grandma’s hands”
An #Emmys Throwback❤️ In honor of today’s show, I found this red carpet pic (don’t remember which year). I loved this #Grecian look, especially the way we did my hair. 🌹
We all need someone to take us under their wing and help guide us in unfamiliar and intimidating environments. This was my someone when I was a freshman at #SpelmanCollege - Suzette Irving. Spelman use to pair incoming freshman students with juniors as Big Sisters/Little Sisters. It was so helpful because, for most of us, it was the first time we were on our own and, truth be told, I was a little scared. 😬 I was paired with a junior, (Julie C. 🥰) and she was very cool. Then, I also met Suzette. She was a senior - so sweet, smart, beautiful, popular and instantly loved me. “Suzie Q” as we called her, declared herself my Big Sister. ☺️ She always had my back - always there for advice about studies, boys, being on my own for the first time. And we are still friends to this day. I was so happy to see her at the #AlphaPhiAlpha #AlphaRho #MorehouseCollege Gala this weekend! Love you, Susie Q! 💙
LIFE is about expanding your horizons and exploring new chapters and the one I added relatively recently was that of EXECUTIVE PRODUCER. I’m blessed to have EP’d 5 (FIVE!) television movies! People always ask me, “how did I do it?” In 2017, I optioned a series of books by award-winning author and my friend Victoria Christopher Murray. Victoria had just written LUST - the first book in her “7 Deadly Sins” series. The other books in the series had not yet been written. Victoria always tells the story of how, once we partnered, I helped her came up with the plot lines for her second book ENVY and the third book GREED. (Something I had so much fun doing!) Then, through a series of events - including partnering with TD Jakes and Derrick Williams - Lifetime turned the books into movies! 🎥 LUST, ENVY, GREED, WRATH and PRIDE! It has been such a blessing. Hopefully we can also bring you SLOTH and GLUTTONY. Thank you for supporting this journey. It means so much to me! 🙏🏾 And, don’t let anyone put you in a box! It’s never too late. You can do what you put your mind and hard work to! 👊🏾
I had such a wonderful evening hosting the Centennial Celebration of Alpha phi Alpha Alpha Rho Chapter of Morehouse College in Atlanta last night. A few “short” years ago when I was a student at Spelman College (😉) I was Miss Black & Gold for the Alphas. It was so beautiful seeing so many of my Morehouse Brothers and Spelman Sisters 💙 and taking a walk down Memory Lane a learning about the incredible history of the Alphas and all they have contributed to society. 🖤💛
This is my “Give Some Love” Day to Taraji P. Henson. Taraji and I go way back to my reporting days at #AccessHollywood. (This shot was from the Soul Train Awards where she said something witty!). She has always been gracious, fun and professional whenever I interviewed her. Taraji has been in the game for a long time and, as we have heard her say recently, it hasn’t been an easy road. Many can identify with putting in the work day-after-day, year-after-year, decade-after-decade all the while not being compensated fairly and equally for your work. But, you keep pushing on because, you have to. #Taraji is an ICON. And her vulnerability will help others coming behind her and, as importantly, lead to the industry - that she has put her heart and soul into - treating HER fairly. Taraji, we give you, your flowers. 💐
Happy New Year, FAM! 🎊 I’m wishing you a blessed start to this new day! If you know anything about me, you know that I love you ring in the new year in church. My sister-in-law Carolyn Grace Davis and I attended Watchnight service called THE CROSSOVER at Faithful Central Bible Church and it was amazing! This was our new pastor Pastor JP Foster first New Year’s Eve service and he had a powerful message about pursuing your dreams by overcoming Procrastination, Discouragement from others and Fear of failure. We loved that our former bishop and First Lady Dr. Kenneth C. Ulmer and Togetta Ulmer were in attendance. We were treated to an amazing concert featuring Jonathan Nelson and gifted with these Crossover journals to help manifest our dreams by writing them down and giving us clarity. It was a real blessing. 2024 is going to be your year, FAM! Sending you LOVE! ❤️
2023 was a year of blessings for my nonprofit- the S.H.A.U.N. Foundation for Girls. We celebrated our 7th anniversary and, after rebounding from the pandemic, we marked a total of over $100,000 in grants given to nonprofits that center underserved and underrepresented girls and young women. And, we were only able to do it through the incredible supporters that include many of you. 🫶🏾 If you have given to the S.H.A.U.N. Foundation for Girls, we honor you by putting your name on our Village of Donors - PLATINUM, GOLD, SILVER and MAGNOLIA- on our website. I hope you can check it out. Our goal for 2024 is to triple our impact in grant giving. And, I believe, together, we can do it! When you empower a girl, she WILL change the world! 💜👧🏾 Thank you, so very much, for your support!
