Credit: Mike Soccio
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Essence.com: Congrats! Here you are trying to pull the okey-doke on the public. What made you decide to go to Vegas?
T.V.: Actually, it was actually his idea. Maybe two days before we started talking about it he was like, 'So you still want to get married?' I'm like, 'Yeah.' But really I was keeping it all low-key because after my first marriage failed I wasn't ever thinking about doing it again. So he says, 'You want to go this weekend?' and I'm like, 'Are you serious?' and the next day cameand he was he booked a hotel room and we jumped in the car and drove to Vegas. I started to calling people on the road and four of his friends and two of mine met us there. The whole picture of planning your wedding is really for everyone else and not the couple because you have to be considerate of everyone else's feelings. I recommend eloping because it's so genuine and really is just about the couple.
Essence.com: Hey when it's right, it's right. How'd you two meet?
T.V.: We met when I was touring with the play “Golddiggers, Men and Money,” co-starring Robin Givens, Carl Payne and Tank. He came out to see Tank, who is on the record label that his family owns.
Essence.com: True love happens when you're least expecting it. So how long were you dating before you got engaged and then married?
T.V.: You're right. After nine months of dating we were engaged and then we got married six months after that. But it's truly amazing how you just know something is right.
Essence.com: Did you have that same feeling with your first husband?
T.V.: With my first husband, I wasn't honest with him or myself for the seven years we were together. I was so busy trying to live up to the picture I had created in my mind of what I wanted "us" to be in the picture that I was presenting. I planned everything to a tee: when we were going to get married, how my wedding would look, when I wanted to buy a house, when I was going to get pregnant because it was my picture and I couldn't draw outside those lines. As long as I kept busy painting that picture I was fine, but the minute I was still, I had to face what was real and that was that I didn't want to be there, but I was too afraid to leave. I've always been a people-pleaser and the thought of being a black woman divorced especially after seeing my mom go through it, I just didn't want to wear that title or the guilty of another breaking up another Black family.
Essence.com: Yet that failed marriage didn't discourage you from taking the leap again?
T.V.: Trust me, I said I was never going to get married again because I had never tried or worked so hard for anything that didn't pan out. I kept asking myself, What else could I have done? My thought was, If I couldn't make this marriage work by doing all of this for [seven] years then I just can't be married. With Karon, it's different because I don't have a picture. We're just know following our hearts and being led by God. Before I got in this business and got married the first time, I remember being care-free and allowing myself to go wherever God was leading me. I was open but then I started trying to create this picture and that's when everything went wrong. Now, I'm back at that place—following my heart—and not concerned about what people are going to say about it or about me. and the support and love and your friends of your family I'm not creating the picture.
Essence.com: Well, they say, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans!' Are you still working with your Take Wings Foundation?
T.V.: Absolutely. I started it 10 years ago to help the young women in the neighborhood where I grew up in the Bay area, which was a drug-infested community with a liquor store on every corner. I have always felt sorry for the girls that were left behind and still living there because I got out and went to college and a lot of them fell by the wayside. Many of those young ladies don't have any dreams outside of the four corners that they live. So 10 years ago, I invited 40 girls from my old neighborhood to dinner and invited two of my actress-friends Kelly Williams and Suzanne Douglass and we ate, talked, cried and laughed about everything from sex to boyfriends to boosting. We still do the dinner and we award scholarships throughout the entire Bay area, provide funding for special events. For instance one young lady wants to become a lawyer and was a lawyer's conference in another state and we flew her out there to attend. Some of the ladies also participate in Tavis Smiley's Leadership Program. Overall, we just try to expose them to different things.
Essence.com: What were some of the adversities you faced growing up in a violent neighborhood?
T.V.: When I was growing up, I loved getting the attention from the drug dealers and I wanted to be their girlfriend. I was jumped a bunch of times on my way to school, and date raped when I was 18, so I definitely can relate to so many of these young ladies and the pressures they are going through. I'm not just preaching, I've lived and experience many of the same things they are going through.
Essence.com: As they say the children are our future, so thank you for giving back. In terms of the scope of your career, do you ever worry that your most memorable role will be The Steve Harvey Show's Lovita Jenkins?
T.V.: Not at all. What I know is that my career and journey in Hollywood has been ordained by God so I know there was a purpose for Lovita. And that was to give me a forum and put me on people's radar so that I'd be able to reach more people. My reality is that I have so much work to do with these girls and they want to listen to me because they see me on television. I know that God has blessed me in this career if for that only that reason and if that creative voice is taken away then I possible risk losing the opportunity to help these girls so there has to be something bigger in all of this. Most importantly, I always want to be remembered as a fun, truthful, powerful and enlightening voice for Black women.
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