A Candid Conversation With Rev Run About Dating Men Like Dad, What It’s Like Being Everyone’s #RelationshipGoals

When the relationship drama dust settles there isn’t always a clear winner. When it comes to matters of the heart, there will always be two sides to each story. Now, whether you’re to blame, or your man is, Rev Run and Tyrese will most certainly have something to say about it. The outspoken pair, who first teamed up to write bestseller Manology in 2013, has moved on to talking all-things-love onscreen with their new evening OWN talk show, It’s Not You, It’s Men.

Recently, Run pulled up a chair at the ESSENCE office to explain the main reason why he believes women should be tuning in to the show, how he believes men are responsible for who their daughters love and what it’s like to be everyone’s #relationshipgoals.

Now that you’re best known for dishing out solid relationship advice, I’m curious which of your celebrity friends ask you for relationship advice. Who calls you up like, “Hey, help?”

Basically everybody, through my Instagram account, through Twitter…through my books. I got Tweets just now—people asking me questions. Everybody looks then writes under my Instagram photos “relationship goals.”

How do you feel about being the example for #relationshipgoals for so many people?

That’s my whole timeline right now, because I put up quite a few Instagrams with my wife. Have you ever seen them? It’s the thing to say to me

Of course.

I feel used by God in a good way. I feel happy to have my soul mate that Go.d sent me. I feel happy to have found my purpose at this point in my life—happy to be working in my gift.

But, who do you and Justine [your wife] look up to? What are your relationship goals?

Just biblical principles. I can’t say that there’s a specific relationship that me and my wife look to, but we look to scripturs which gives us permission to walk in God’s grace. If a beef arises, we can always go to scripture to fix it. If we have something going on that we don’t understand, we can always pull out the Bible. That can fix who’s right and who’s wrong. The scripture says this concerning sex, or the scripture says this concerning forgiveness, the scripture says this…

You read the scripture together? Word for word?

Yes. We know scripture, so we know through our extensive time in the church as a family that we know what’s right and wrong, and it’s pretty much embedded in us to know what scripture fits what situation. It’s being in church three days a week.

Prayer is part of your foundation. That’s powerful.

Beyond that then you also have the wisdom and the grace—the grace to keep our marriage together. There’s a grace there over me and Justine.

What do you teach your daughters about love?

I believe that the best thing you can do for your daughters is not so much the presents, E-N-T-S, than the presence, E-N-C-E. When you’re there. Angela is probably looking for her dad out there. If you have a little girl, six, seven, eight years old, she sees how it goes down in your house. She gets with a man and he’s not that, and it seems strange. If you’re not there in your child’s life, they won’t know what to expect or accept. Angela knows what to accept, I guess, what her dad does…I believe that even in that, the mates [my daughter’s] pick are in line with what they’re used to seeing.

I imagine them calling you up for love advice at all time of day or night.

Angela is seasoned with these guys at this point. She knows she’s hanging out with a celebrity, a football player, like … I know where this is trying to go. I think that’s how Angela thinks. Vanessa’s pretty settled with Mr. Mike Wayans.

What would you like women to receive from watching the show?

I think they’ll enjoy it. I think they’ll learn quite a bit of the way Tyrese types think and the way Rev Run types think, and find themselves in the middle of a very single, Roman Pearce, swagged out young guy and a very settled, Rev Run, married guy. People probably, and I felt this vibe at the beginning, “What’s Tyrese going to teach me?” He’ll teach you a lot. You keep running into guys like him…

So, women date his type?

Right. You don’t just need me. I’m a given. I’m just going to tell you how good I treat my wife, and how we get along. How do you find out what Tyrese-type is pissed off about, about you? What are you doing that is not pleasing to the Tyrese-type? They’ll get a lot out of watching a single man’s mindset, and a married man’s mindset.

Hmm….

Catch new episodes of It’s Not You, It’s Men on OWN on Saturday nights at 9pm ET.