Naked Sports with Cari ChampionNAKED REPLAY - Van Lathan - Tales of Transformation
Van Lathan is an established host and media personality from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Currently, Van resides in Los Angeles and is developing film and television projects. Lathan is the author of Fat, Crazy, and Tired: Tales from the Trenches of Transformation, Lathan explains in this episode why he wrote this book and how it helped him exercise some of his own demons. Van and Cari have a heated discussion over the unbalanced attraction men and women have to power.
The Book: Fat, Crazy, and Tired: Tales from the Trenches of Transformation
Connect: @VanLathan @CariChampion
Share your thoughts: @NakedwithCariChampion
Do you think I'm acting free and feeling free? That's what Kanye asked Van, or actually the entire newsroom of TMZ. Van's response, most notably, I actually don't think you're thinking anything. I think what you're doing right now is actually the absence of thought. He said, real world, real life consequences behind everything that you just said. What he said was that slavery was a choice. You all remember when Kanye said slavery was a choice. Well, from that moment on My Friend guest on Today's Naked podcast, Van Lathan has been using his words to speak for those who can't necessarily speak for themselves, but more importantly give us a different change, a different perspective, a different breath of fresh air, if you will, in a world of people who think they have something to say. On the podcast, Van Leathan literally is naked.
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Hey, everybody, welcome back to another edition of Naked So here we go. We have lots to discuss. I went on a vacation. I'm gonna take two minutes and just tell you all what happened before we get to van. I went on a vacation, and you know I could complain, so I'm complain for five minutes. But I learned a lot about myself. I decided to go to France. That's what I try to do every year when I can, I save up, I make it the best trip ever. I land in France. There is no luggage. My luggage somehow got lost in Amsterdam, and who knows what I'm gonna get it. They've located it. But if I can find it and get it to me before I leave France, question mark. I'm here for almost ten days. No clothes, no toothbrush, no no face washed, no underwear, no brawl, no nothing in France. So I want to feel a way. But I'm like effet, settle in. Maybe it'll come, maybe it won't. I gotta go shopping, give me some basics, and I'm about to become a full minimalist. Of course, you know, as Americans traveled with these big ass bags. I had a huge ass bag, like the size of children, Like I could put two toddlers in this huge luggage that I had. So I decided to buy one of those European carry ons where you know you can put like a shoe in a sock. And I was like, cool, I'm using this the whole time I move around Europe. I'll buy me some essentials and that's it. And I wanted to see if I could do it. And y'all guess what, Yes, I did it. And I was like, yo, imagine what two things. Two things biggest takeaways for me. Your attitude changes everything in your life. My homegirl who was with me, I love her. She's hella negative though, and she was like, Oh, that sucks, it's awful, it's awful. Some other people we were with were like kind of complaining and belly aching for me, and I said, you, guys, I don't want to hear it. I said, I'm trying to stay positive. And if you all remind me how pissed you would be if that happened to you, It's not gonna make me feel better. I'm gonna tell you one thing about me, the older I get, I hate negative people. I hate negative energy. I do not want to be around it. I nip that in the bud right away, because no one has the time. My pet peeve is negative energy. If you want to piss me off, be stank around me for no damn reason. Excuse my French. I'm pretty sure they're gonna cuss some of this out, cuss and cut. Meanwhile, the day before I get ready to leave, they call me and say, we found your luggage. My luggage has arrived at one of my little boutique Parisian hotels that I stay at with my bougie self, and my luggage was waiting for me when I got there on Friday, just in time for me to come home on Saturday. Coco was like, praise, that's Coco, barking, guys, she's here. As I record that's my dog, She's like, good, thank you.
Yeah.
So my luggage was here here there Europe. I don't know where I am. I'm jet lagged right now, forgive me. But the lesson is it's really how you look at life. And with that, I welcome in our next guest, bad Leathan. You all remember him, I'm sure, most notably from TMZ. He was a black guy on TMZ who always had great things to say different perspectives, but he made him self known earlier as I talked about in the pre role when he went at Kanye. Kanye was saying slavery was a choice. He was having a Kanye moment, which he does often, and he challenged those in the newsroom of TMZ. If y'all don't think I'm a free thinker, tell me da da da da, and then like I just read, no, I think what you're doing is actually the absence of thought. You're not a free thinker. You're not thinking by saying slavery was a choice. There are consequences to what you're saying. And he let him have it. I'm going to estimate a nice minute. But he didn't go off on him. He just was like, come on, man, be better, think better, think differently. There are people, these are these are things that you're talking about that really have historical implications, and you're just talking freely. You're not thinking freely. I'm paraphrasing. But since then, I've watched his career grow in different ways. Right, he was no longer at TMZ. I think you know they parted ways. That's an official way that I'm going to use it. And he got his own podcast and he has this great podcast. But before that he had been working quietly and behind the scenes on other projects, plenty of projects that I'm sure many of us didn't know about. But he won an OSCA Academy. Would when a Van Laythan is on Naked today, I mean that to me is amazing. A kid from Bratton Rouge, Louisiana who had dreams, all of these dreams that many of you have heard about. You move to a city, you want to see things come through, You want to do different things, and he was able to do it. Two Distant Strangers was amazing. It was a short at one an Oscar. It had Joey Badass in it. It was amazing. It really was well done, and I was happy to see that Van was a producer on it. And he gets into it on the podcast, we'll talk about it, and he won an Academy award. That is something that the average person cannot say. We started off the podcast by talking about his book. He wrote a book, and I kind of said, just in passing, everybody's writing a book, but this book was different, that crazy entire Van Lathan is really talking about transformation and being caught up in something or a way of life that you're not necessarily familiar with as toxic or unhealthy, being caught up in a way of life that you're not so familiar with that is considered toxic or unhealthy. And we get into a lot of different things because we just don't talk about the books. That's what Van does. But sit back, relaxed, enjoy it. It's pretty juicy.
And the chatpion and carried chet be and in card.
So I wanted to ask you, moving here from the South, what did you want to do? What was your what was your dream coming to La h.
My dream was to write and produce stuff, to be a part of my dream was to write, produce television and film, to be in the industry, to be in la and to be viable here. And so you know, I came out here like pretty wide eyed, but also at a time in my life where I had sort of you know, if you're from a place and you've scouted all the angles, you've looked at all the corners, and you're like, I need something more, and I lay provided you with that.
So yeah, okay, everyone comes here with a dream, and the fact that that they're able to do it is different. You've been able to do it in a major way. Oscar Winner, if you will, My old ass dog is running ound here like me like, yeah, Oscar Winner, if you will? You know what I mean, Like, let's just get our let's get our head. I'm sorry. Academy Award winning journalist thought provoker Van Lathan on the podcast I'm sorry, I get together. If I'm gonna give you a title, disrespectful and in every possible way, When did you get the job. If you don't mind, well, let's go let's go back. Do you mind if we talk about who you are first before we get into Okay.
We can Hey, are you here for the ride? Literally I'm naked right look at this.
I like what I'm saying. And so everyone knows that you come to LA with this big dream and you've been able to accomplish it all. And you are on a bit of a media tour with your book. And everyone has a book, I think like and just the way we all have a podcast. Everyone doesn't have a book, but everyone has a book or they have something to say. You write a book with what in mind when you decide it's time for your book.
I wrote a book, really, I wrote a book with odds directly at Bad Rouge. Like everyone laughs, and they talk about how much I mentioned Bad Rouge just growing up. When when I grew up there, I I just never saw my I never saw It's different. Now, you know, you got Boosy out there, you got Kevin Gates out there, you got in Me, a young boy out there. There's a presence there and especially in hip hop and and other lots of life. But I never saw myself and it was there are so many things there that are typical to the Black American experience, but there's so many things there that are atypical to it too, because the culture is so unique in South Louisiana. So when I wrote this book, like in writing the book, I wanted to explore who my community made me right with love and also with sort of a critical eye, looking at some of the things that make us healthy and unhealthy. And I wanted to talk, using my personal experience to all Americans about some of the things that make us healthy and some of the things that make us unhealthy. But it was very important do it through the perspective and the purview of where I grew up because I'm just so in love with Louisiana.
The book and by the way, when you explain it in great, great detail, Fat Crazy and Tired explains a lot, right, But if you're just looking at it fat crazy entire what do you mean? But you go in you I mean, not even pain seekingly talk about the food that you ate, how you grew up, what size meant to you, how you didn't know that you were overweight, like you had no idea, and then you and how you then started to see other ideas of what this was supposed to look like. All of that to me. The way that you explain your weight, your journey with weight, your fight with staying in shape, is very particulate, and it's very not necessarily emotional, but introspective. And you never hear men talk about their weight journey like this. Were you at all uncomfortable sharing something that I think is just extremely personal?
No, I think for me, I have a different view of manhood. I think then then some men might. I think my view of manhood is really being as authentic as possible. Like I had a father in my life, and my father would be like, whenever you're hiding something, whenever you're not, oh there were things he hid. Don't get me wrong, he hid, he hears some stuff. But whenever you're putting off for someone, my dad would be like, okay, well, if it's time to cry, cry, And then he'd be like, well, who aren't you crying for? Like are you not crying for the monk that's around you? And he's like, all right, if you, well, then you're there. You're trying to He would always tell me the only standard in your life is me. But I decide. My father would say, I decide when you're a man. I decide when you're grown up. I decide when you're ready for these things. Understand it in your life as me. So, vulnerability is not really that big of a thing to me because I was taught that there are very specific things that you have to do to be an asset to your family and to your community, and if you do those things, you are a man. And so it doesn't matter how you present in the world. If you're responsible, dependable, reliable, and emotionally emotionally available and protective, you're a man. It doesn't matter how much you cried or how much you share with people. That's what makes you a man. And I got that directly from him.
Where does that come from? And is he writing a book the vulnerability of black men is so rare and correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, but it is so rare, but not even it's rare. That's why when I'm listening to your book, I'm like, he has the words to express what he's feeling. And I'm sure therapy has helped with that as well. But there's a difference between going to therapy accepting it and learning and then actually illustrating it in real life for other black men to see.
Yeah, well, I mean he's not writing the book because he's dead. But I meant like, you know what, right, right, so that book's not coming any time. Uh. But but but what are you?
Right from the grain?
Spiritually range from the grain?
Right? But no, I think and by the way, I'm not saying that all that my relationship with my father was. I write about it in the book. He's still in other ways was very traumatizing to me. He still had very old school beliefs on sex, he still had very old school beliefs on manhood that didn't job with this. It's just that he didn't believe in censoring who you were for anyone. And so I think vulnerability was a part that when I was a kid, I was prone to crime. Like, I was very emotional, I was very inquisitive. I would take on, I would take on, uh, I take on all of these concepts were too big for me. I would think about like nuclear war and existentialism. I would go through all of this stuff right when I was when I was a kid, and at certain times my brind would just short circuit and I would just freak out, and my dad would just be like, leave them alone, like let him like he never once made me feel bad for crying and worrying. He would say that I needed to do maybe a little bit less of it, but he'd be like, leave him alone, let him figure it out. I'd rather give it to us here than give it to somebody out in the street. So I think that vulnerability for vulnerability for me, I don't think it's I think I never looked at it as something that I had to be ashamed of. So I've never been ashamed of it.
It's crazy, okay, but do you see what I'm talking about?
No, no, no, you're not crazy, but the thing but yeah, no, of course it is. But I think also though, that that has to do with people when they feel like there's something to protect, like for like for me, I never had to worry about whether or not there was somebody. I knew that if you with me, there were repercussions for that. So if we're somewhere, we're out on the street, we're in guard to your lane, back News Louisiana, the bottom of the South, all of these hoods that I grew up in, right, I know my life is worth something. So I don't need to really act tough with you, because if you with me, there's a guy with a gun and he comes to get you. And you know that interesting, right and so and so. Because of that, I only fight when I'm mad, So I don't fight to prove anything to you. I don't fight to prove to you I'm I don't fight to prove him out a bitch. I fight when I want to hurt you. And in that way, my childhood was actually a little liberating.
That's fascinating because there are so many people that I know, especially growing up in our label, like I know homeboy down the road and he can do this, and he can do that, and I call my I can make a phone call and the situation is different, but they still have hard time being vulnerable and expressing themselves. Those are two separate things. Yes you have safety, Yes you have protection, but it was still how do you like for your father to let me be emotional? If you will, whatever that is, right, whatever that means in a negative or positive connotation to me, is liberating to me.
That artist liberating, Yeah, but also like it was this thing to where I remember I was on the basketball court one time, and it was some of the older guys in the neighborhood were there, and We're across Guardia on the other side, and I'm playing ball and I didn't know the kids I was playing ball with. I was a big kid, right, and so being a big kid, not just being but tall because I played sports, so my weight wul fluctuate. But I was tall, right, So if you're tall, they play you like shack. I'm six four, so yeah, so if if if you're like, if you're tall and they play like shack, they beat you up. They do all of this stuff. And at one point I start to get mad. I remember one of the old heads out there saying, if he starts crying, y'all'll be ready to fight. Because everyone knew, like they would call me cry baby. Everyone knew that my emotion would come out on my face. And now we got to go, you know. And it's just like I think my dad there was a respect now. He never treated me like his equal. There were all kinds of things that were that was. It was tough to be around him, right. He when I grew taller than him, he would make me sit down before he would talk to him, you know, like sit on the ground like he like sit on the ground while I'm talking. He didn't want me to little over him and stuff. But so there are all kinds of things like in that I had to take from him. Don't get me wrong, but I just never had to worry. I've never, at one time in my life to remember feeling something and not feeling like I couldn't express it. And I think, I think if there was the neighborhood wasn't afraid of my dad, but they respected him, you know what I mean. He would come home with it with deer on his back, like they were enamored with him, Like he had this thing about him, right, cowboy had gun come home You see him with with deer and a bunch of dogs, and he'd have like a something that he skinned on him. He was just a difference, like a.
Real like a real one like you like walk down the street with deers on their back. By the way, like they didn't fear him. You think I think they would if he got deer on his back.
What do you I just think I just think that I think that like it was, there was this thing that he projected and to reviest job I've never really had this, but what I did have was just like a like a knowledge of self. And I always just had this thing that I was like, you know, if I'm didn't show me and like we one person from my neighborhood that was a break fight, literally not one. So all of that stuff was was was was was like was besides the point, I do know people who put on airs a little bit and acted a little bit harder, but it was it always came from an insecurity to me, and I never really had.
That first and foremost, the vision of your father with deer on his back with dogs is a beautiful thing to me, because you know, I'm I grew up he I can never even imagine if we saw that here in La. Could you imagine going down ventur we see a guy with a deer in his back, We call on the cops, right, We're like, what's going on? This is all this is all odd because of the world we live in. So to say that he was a different man is is probably in our in our lifetime. For me, anyways, growing up here in La is an understatement. But I read this book and I have just a new profound or I listened because I'm to be clear, I wasn't reading. I do audible, but I listened to the book. So when you think of this book, what is the biggest takeaway? Because I want to tell you how it's been affecting a friend of mine who's a huge fan of yours. What's the biggest takeaway? You wrote this for what reason? To help?
Who? Do? What?
You know?
As insufficient answer as this is, I wrote this book to exercise some of my own demons. I hope that by casting a wide net and talking about some of the things that that we go through, that will help someone. If I had to pitpoint one thing, I just want people to know it's not their fault that society. Society is this big deal that we've all come together and make right. We've all come together to make this big deal. That's all it really is. It's like, you know, the serious, very small little trees that we all take party to live with each other. But so many of the deals that were made you didn't have a chance, you didn't have a hand in making on so many of the trees that were signed and were signed before you were born, but you're still held to them, and you're raised to be really beholden to a lot of deals that you didn't make. So really being an adult is about figuring out which ones of those to make stronger and which ones of them to burn up. And like a lot of times you don't find out what you wanted to. It's too late, you know, And a lot of times you just continue to blame yourself for things that aren't your fault. So I think for me, like I would look around at different points in my childhood, especially in college where after college I was really lonely and really wayward, and go like, why is this mean? Why is this happening to me? Why do I have the anxiety? Why am I four hundred pounds or three seventy or whatever it is? Like, why why me? I look around and see so many people having fun with their lives and stuff, And the moment I stopped thinking that there was something cosmically wrong with me, my life started to change. The moment I started to realize that some things were the way they were because of things outside of me. The moment I put my faith in my life into inspiration and there's something that's that was larger than just like loathing myself. My life started to change. And so if there was one thing I would want people to to take from the book is be general with yourself and plant seeds that don't burn down as much as you think you need to.
You know, more specifically, with you. What is it that you want to burn up? What is the what is what have you had to say? That's just not my fault?
Cyclical generational dysfunction. There is this thing like my family is full of some of the my community. It's full of some of the most talented, the most beautiful, the most amazing people ever, and just nothing happens for them. Mm hm, they live, they die. I take my parents for example. My mother is is one of the wisest, most giving women ever. Right, I just had COVID, just got over COVID. I'm better now tested negative fund. But yes, But I didn't tell my mother that I had COVID. R she she I didn't tell them. I didn't tell my mother I had COVID that she couldn't and she can't handle that. That's not going to be a thing. See what happens is uh is that I'm gonna have COVID, then I'm going to get better. Right, But my mom's She loves so hard and worries so much that the disease would be way worse for her than it would be for me emotionally. And I have to know not to give her that burden, even though I might want to say, Hey, Mom, what kind of chicken soup? So what should I be doing? What should I even I don't want to have that conversation. I know that I can't, right, but it brings me back to what I was saying about my family. My parents around the age that I am did something that I couldn't even realize how spectacular it was at the time. We grew up in a specific part of bad Rouge, but my dad was from Marryngod, which is about thirty miles outside of bad Rouge going west. I don't know if you've ever been to bad Ruge before here I have, I have, okay, so if you go over there.
I note my mother was engaged your man who lived in bad and Rouge, and I remember we went out there when I was like eight years old, so I don't remember much, but yes, that was back in the day.
Going might have been my dad, you never know. Yeah, he had some things going on that we didn't have to know. But but but no, So you go over the bridge, you go thirty minutes west Maryland. So he lived the country lifestyle. And obviously we from a place like VR. We're only one generation moved for people literally coming from country areas around right. So it was always in my parents' goal and their life goals to get back to a place to where we had some land. We did that. We built this big house album Zachary on about thirty five forty acres. We had a barn, we had a pond, We had four horses, thirteen dogs, and three wheeler, all of this stuff. It was great. They built the life that they wanted. It lasted for about three years. I'd say we got out there five years. We got out there in ninety eight. By two thousand and two they were divorced. She had moved back in with her and the hurricane came a little bit longer. A little bit after that. I put something through the home. After that, Dad couldn't afford to keep it. They foreclothes on the house. You go there, now, it looks completely different, right, That very thing right there is my life's goal to stop. My life's goal is to build something lasting that generations can build on. When my father died last year, he died by himself. Some woman that I'd never met before is the woman that took my father to the hospital, And I got a DM on Instagram that said, Hey, you don't know me, but I'm your dad's girlfriend. I just dropped the buff at the hospital. You might want to kind of figure out what's going on with him. I'm not blaming her, but what I'm saying is the fact that in so many places where I come from, families can't grow generationally over time. There's nothing to show for these lives and these people that work their asses off right because the demons and the trauma that affect them just seemed to destroy and disintegrate everything. My life's goal is to stop that. My life's goal is to build something that the people around me can pick off of and see that it meant something. Because to me, family is more than a name, It's more than a reputation. It's what this group of black people have been able over the generations to come together and create. And because of alcoholism, because of incarceration, because of drug abuse, because of philandering, because of all of those things, we just haven't been able to do it, and so I would like to change that.
I salute you for that because that's a beautiful, such a self aware assessment, and I don't want to get into the versus, but but I often do that because I often feel that there is a lack of very bold and loud love from black men about what it should look like, about what they should be committed to.
Now.
Now, with that being said, every time I mention that to a black man who's doing what he's doing, he's like, no, because this this, and women are this, like there was always this argument over Kevin Samuels, and I feel like there's an all out of salt on black love. I feel like black men and women are so at odds currently, and if you're in a relationship, you may not see it, but I feel like we're so at odds and there's always but what about when y'all and what about when y'all from both sides right? And there's just so much trauma, as you talked about, this cyclical trauma that we have, this generational trauma that we haven't decided to even understand or unpack why we think and feel that way. So I absolute you for being like on the front lines to discuss it, because in my opinion, it's rare, and I don't see it a lot. I see it. I see it with Shar, I see it with our friend Shar I see with But I don't see a lot of it. And I don't see a lot of black men standing up for us and having our backs as as as as I think we should see, because you know, there's there's a continental black women who feel like we always are doing that. Now, what is your take on that? Because black women feel like we always taken carrery out, we always on the front lines, we always march, and we're always trying to in generational curses to be told that we're not good enough or we are to demand we are too to that.
Yeah, So this is the way I look at that. Number One, It's interesting what uh an experiment like America will do to the right. We should be treating each other with more grace, but we treat each other with less grace because what we what we realize where America has has really hammered home to Black people is they don't take, they don't take from everybody else a little bit of sho because they know a little bit of they don't take you know, you know who else don't take, just don't take all, right, So we don't we don't write, and so I think that we don't in an all out conversation between black women and black men, black men are going to make some points and black women are going to make some points, and on each side there's going to be some valid points. The question is what is the point? It's not whether or not you have a point about what you think and whether I have a point. What is the point? Is we have in this conversation so we can understand how to love each other better, or we have in this conversation so that I can prove I'm better than you and you can prove that you're better than me. If you ask me personally, I think that there's a death of black men older black women, just because the reality is a lot of the households that I've seen growing up, besides my own, didn't have fathers that were right there every single day. I wasn't in those households. I don't know how it worked. All I know is that I knew a lot of guys that didn't see their dads all the time, right, And so you certainly can't come back, and this is just common sense, right. If you see a lot of mothers doing all of this stuff by themselves, right, you certainly can't come back and render too much judgment on the way that they live their lives, right, or some of the things that might be going on with them, because you know, there's a there's a if we're talking about community in the hole that we want it to be, there's a debt that would be paid, and the debt that has to be over. Having said that, all this social media stuff is changing our perceptions about what's valuable, and everybody has to be responsible for what it is that they think is valuable, right Like men have to be responsible for being able to go out and procure the type of women that they think that they want, right, and women are the same, and vice versa. But my point by saying to all of this is, do you love your sisters? Do you love your brothers? If you have that, if you have the If you want to see black women uh protected, exalted and value, you'll find a way. If you want to see black men protect it and value, you'll find a way, find a way. Way.
Hey, everybody, you know what time it is, We've got to pay some bills. If you want to fast forward through that part, I totally get it, but I need y'all to stick around back in a moment with more than on naked.
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Were welcome back. If you listen to the commercials, you're a saint and you really love me? No, seriously, you really do. Van Lathan or naked we gotta go to the genesis. The reality is is you're right. Sometimes you're arguing to figure out who's right or who's wrong, but at the end of the day, it's the actual education of understanding what it looks like to value and if it's not mirrored, if it's not understood, if you don't see the vision of it. It's hard for you to illustrate it or replicate it in every in every possible way. To your original point, black women have to been the breadwinners if you are in the home. And I'm not saying that with a like a badge of honor. I don't I don't want to do that. I don't want to be the only one in here hustling. But there is something and I know, I know society plays into this as well, but there is something, which is why I say to you. I find myself saying to you, I'm grateful for your honesty and you being able to express yourself and you using your platform to highlight things. And I always agree with what you say. That is that's neither here nor there, but the overall messaging, the overall messaging is like I see a black man really doing the work, and that is such a beautiful, encouraging thing to me. We need to stick together, we need to have each other's back, that's all it is at the end of the day. And I don't see that. That's what makes me sad. But that's what I say that I love about you.
Why don't you see that though, because because I see it a lot. Tell me where you like, where you where you where you looking?
Well, I see it in because because i'm.
Yeah, so im so this is what I'm saying. So like a lot of things that we're talking about, they're real, but sometimes they can be overstated. Like I know, so, look, the absent black father is a thing, but not like they say they who you know what I mean?
The white man? They the white people.
Fox News and white people. Yeah, not like they say, you know what I mean. It's not like they say. Some of these things are unconvincual. Some of these things different for me. I look around and I look at my homies who were in the world. You won't find a worst group. I agree, But you don't think.
That's now I agree because I know some of your friends. I agree. So what I'm saying is for of the feather truly flock together. If I hear this is what I hear. Here's what I'm hearing when I'm out in the streets. So we do these interviews that we talk to different people. And if I have a conversation off the record with a black man of note with success with value with the platform, like you do, and like I said, I'm not including you or the homies in it, but I always this would I always hear, well, black women always want something they can. They always shoot, and they shot, and they always expect this, and they really look at them They should look at themselves because you know they don't do and it's usually down to vanity. It's what was the aesthetic is like, she's not in shape, shown workout, but she want a man that's you know, makes six figures or just stupid. To me, that doesn't even matter, but matters to you all because aesthetics are very important. And I believe with and this is not a blanket statement, but black women, you.
Just jumped right over what the purpose of that was though, Wait.
Go ahead, tell me what did I jump over?
So aesthetics? Right, So there's a guy that's feeling used because he mentioned money.
Well that's so this is great. Let's get into this because let's talk about the money into the esthetic.
Go ahead, well, let's let's talk about it. So there's a guy that's saying, like, there's a guy that's saying he didn't just say, oh, he said, black women want a man that makes this much money, but they're not willing to do this. Well, I mean that's nothing but facts, right, I mean I'm being real with you. Wait wait a second, Wait, wait a second, Wait a second. Here's the deal. Here's the deal. Here's the deal. If if you if you're out in the world and you're being open to the universe, right to the love speak and you're being open to the universe, yes, and and love comes to you, that's fine. But if you go out there and you put a bunch of standards, not standards, standards, or if you put a bunch of qualificing requirements, then it is completely natural that there should be requirements coming in the other way. Oh, absolutely.
Right, I absolutely say something. Can I say something? And it works both ways?
Right?
So I'll start with the women. Like all I hear consistently black women if I tell you, and maybe it's the world that I live in and work in. If I hear black women don't work out and and and look at you, you giggling because you know that's what is being somebody?
Yea, even that I don't see that I live in Los Angeles.
Every Oh, you like, this argument hasn't been talking to you before? Has this argument been said? You'd be like I like your machine to get in shape. If I hear something about a black woman doesn't work out, or I like her all natural, or I like and I'm not even And by the way, this isn't coming from a woman that is unattractive and not in shape. I'm not referring to me. But I when I hear that, When I hear this, I'm like, look at you. You gotta you gotta belly. Your head's not shaped. Why you you can see I hear men meet a background, the way her left toe moves. It's just say, I don't know.
That's just a yeah, that's that's that is like I that's a funny thing about men. A funny thing about man? Is that's just a funny thing about manny, annoying?
Going tell me?
Tell me why is a funny thing about a funny thing about men? Is so like listen to men like critique calle Berry. I don't really do it like that. I'm like, is she but but but I was but but but I say this though in La though I remember it is like if you're going to a club and a guy can't buy bottles if you don't drive a certain car. These men feel like they're scrutinized in a very specific way too. And then on Instagram and all of this stuff, it's different. All of these guys that you know, Carrie, you want to be honest with you, they're rich, so so big.
Wait talking about I love this conversation. Listen, all the women I also know have changed as well. Right, So if they said, but no, I'm gonna say this, I present a bad woman, a whole package. A guy's not worried a black man with money. And I'm not gonna say all black man, but black man of a certain means who have because they're so Because because when you guys get to this level, there's so few of you. You know it. You know it, and you walk like it and you carry it and you weaponize it, and a lot of in a lot of instances, not most, but in a lot of instances. And when I say, oh, I got a friend, she's bad.
She a whole package, she got money, she work out, she's this, she's a ah, it's just not my type because she doesn't look like what they think they should be with because they got a little bit to change.
Like, that's just crazy to me. We are far more women are far more smarter in the way they choose their mate. Y'all all right here right? She could be dumb as all.
Get do you do you?
And you don't even care?
I don't wait wait, I don't think that's true at all. I think women get the picture first. Like let's take it like like like Sierra, right, okay, let's take Sierra and Russell. They got a perfect little they got a perfect little marriage, right, Russell is the Russell is the picture perfect husband right for what we know, perfect husband, little man. How many stops at boy mansion she made?
She made a time, So don't tell.
Me we're better. Don't don't say women are better at choosing mates. Like I'm telling you right now, I don't know.
Let me tell you something. Let me tell you. I'm saying what you're seeing. Yes, she did make she was dating a bunch of boys. You're right, but what you're also seeing is women who we naturally feel like we can help you, and we want to help change you, and we want to help grow you. It's not so much about what you're not at that moment, it's what we can see. And I'm sure she thought when she was first with old boy future for instance, she decided to have a baby with him. This is it, This is it. I can see who he's gonna be. I'm gonna grow with him. I'm da da da. They break up, and how does he be many?
How many children? How many children the future have at this point?
Listen, she saw that he loves So you're right, right, No, you're absolutely.
What I'm saying is the future they need love to I'm not taking anything away. Like I know a lot of guys who have been future asked, I'm not taking anything away from future. I don't have any problems. Y'all don't like future. Future is a certain way. That's fine. What I'm saying is this. What I'm saying. What I'm saying is this. I don't think either side is great at choosing mates, because you don't choose a mate. A mate chooses you as long as like, as as long as you are open or open like it happens all the time, it happens all the time.
That's not true. Yeah, yes, But then you're talking about an elevated sense of consciousness that just doesn't exist in a community where men have been taught to hold their feelings back and not express themselves. You were talking about being open to love and it will come and find you. So you're saying you're operating like people are operating like that in our culture and that as the collective. I just don't think that that's true on both sides.
I think that they're saying that they're not, but they're going back home and somebody is getting them right. I think that they're I think one thing that women don't if I was to say there was one thing that women don't understand, is that men we are. I'm I'm with these guys. I know how they act, I know what the deal is. I know why they act out, I know why they do certain things. They talk a lot of shit, but what they want is to be loved. No man that I know is with the baddest woman that they've ever been with.
Interesting, I am.
But no man, but but but but but but but no man that I know is with the baddest woman they've ever been with. They're not like not that I not that I know. Now. Look, I'm also I don't hang out with these rappers, and I don't be in these different situations like whatever, none of that. Like like, people exist on certain wavelengks. I think a lot of this Twitter conversation, all of this back and forth. I think it's for people's entertainment. And I'll be honest with you, I think that our parents and grandparents problem we had these same types of conversations. You should marry, You should marry mister Johnny. He owns his own story. Sure, don't marry that boy, just like you. I think. I think this has always been a thing.
No, but options have change. Here's the thing. I read this New York Times article the other day. Your girl has sent it to me, probably three months ago. Not that it means anything, but it gave me a very interesting perspective. Women don't have to although they wanted. God made it, made it so that men and women should be together and pro create. Right, that's just our natural instinct and that's what we should have. But the day of settling and being with somebody, even if they're a jerk and aren't doing well and he's the only person that can work in the family, those days are over. My grandmother or my great grandmother, never had an option. She had to marry Johnny's little boy because she needs she five. She had to marry Johnny's little boy, because she had no choice, because she had to do what she had to do, because she couldn't make ends meet for herself or by yourself to support a family. So a lot of women married men out of obligation. You know that we've we have come so far from that moment now and now that women are I got my own and I don't need, and I don't need and I got my own, it really is hard for the two to meet, especially in our culture. I think. So you're talking about a group of men that you're around, I just feel like you guys are a special sect. And you're right at the end of the day, everybody wants to be loved, but you're a special sect. I think you.
So let me tell you. Let me tell you. I think I think choices. I think choices about a matrix, right, I think choices about the choice matrix, right, like you like choice is about Okay, So like growing up where I grew up, Right, it was like, oh god, that don't deal drugs, right, It's easy, don't deal drugs? Right? Well, what if dealing drugs is on the table? Right? If dealing drugs is on the table, if that's like a viable thing to do. It's actually not so easy not to do it because it's actually a choice. Right, if you grew up in another place, it's not even on the table. Like if you grew up maybe in I don't know, in Bocas or someplace across town. No one even thinks that you're gonna deal drugs. You don't. You don't run with drug dealers. It's not a choice, right. So this while this is how I look at what you're saying. Right now, I see a lot of girls in Dubai. They go to Dubai. We know that they didn't go to Dubai. We know that someone sent them to Dubai. Sure is their choice whether or not to go to Dubai, But it's actually not a choice because if they want to go to Dubai, there are certain things they have to do, and that for some people. If you want to live a certain lifestyle, if you want to live a certain lifestyle, if you're enamored with a certain lifestyle, male or female, there's certain things you have to do and so and so to me, I look, I look at it's kind of like what it is that people want. I think, if you want love and connection. You can find that anywhere. If you want to go to win, it's only a couple of niggas that could take you there. So you need to, like, you need to find those gods kind of figure out how are you going to get that story.
Whenever I have this conversation, it ultimately deteriorates into who has a bag? Women want a guy with a bag, and men want a bad bitch. These conversations only deteriorate to this the bitch woman nigga with all the money, and they do want the badest bitch in the game. I can never have this conversation. And then when someone comes in and says, well, no, that's just not true, because here's what's happening. I think what you're telling me and what I'm hearing is that there's a certain you're like in my spercle carry that doesn't exist. I don't know what you're talking about black men or emotional. They talk about their feeling blah blah blah blah, and I'm like, no, actually no, I don't see that. So you see that, and then I ultimately hear, but these girls are out here big chasing a bag, only dating guys who can take them to Jubai. They want to be on the PJ. Blah blah blah blah blah.
I feel like girls the small second.
You know what I'm saying. I don't know any girls like that, but I always, I always hear that I don't know women like that. Everybody I know is busting balls and working hard and doing it on their own and figuring it out and looking for love in the process, right whether or if they're with their mate trying to win for their mate too. I don't know that world. So I think what's happening is that because of social media, we are really blinded by what it is like. We just it's it's so confusing and mucky and muddy, and you say, I want to back to this point and not real like it's not real life. It's not real life. But I know men are motivated by getting money because they think they can have women. I know men are like when they get money, they are ageless, they are weightless, they are whatever it is belly ball two thousand years old. If I got Brad, I don't care. And to me, a lot of that is a motivating factor with a lot of men because they want to live this life with them. You say they won't love, but I feel like I see this. I was like, I want bread, I want bread, I want money because I know I'm to have women. Literally, Am I wrong? Is that wrong?
You're not, but I do think but you're not. But but I do think this though you're not wrong at all. But this only thing I say, number one, it's not it's not. So this is an argument I have with men about women. Boston College, Nick Sai Nick Saban was the coach LSU. I remember a friend of ours, very beautiful woman who was like our same age, that said she was attracted to Nick Saban. And we at this point we look we all we all looked at we all looked at Nick sabans Remember we're twenty two, twenty three years old. We all looked at Nick Saban. We're like, what you're like, are you talking about She's like no, She's like, I'm attracted to Nick Saban, Like Nick Saban's an attractive god. And I'm like, why would Nick Savan be attracted? And what she was talking about and this is a this is a difference where there were things about coach Saban that were attractive to her didn't have anything to do necessarily with how he looked. How he looked wasn't just enough of a distraction to take away from the fact that he was assertive, the fact that he was a leader, the fact that he was secure, the fact that he seemed like a protector, all kinds of things that women would actually be attracted to a man, the same reason why some women were attracted to Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was handsome for a president, you know what I mean. Oh, Bill Clinton was doing this thing.
But the power the power of stars. I just saw him the other night. You ain't got to tell me.
Right, Okay, cool? That doesn't exist for like men. So that's the thing, Like men don't look at like, uh, like I don't know Angela Merkle from Germany and be like shit, God damn, she were all in Germany. Like that's what I'm talking about. Like that doesn't exist, right, So the etics are different, right, And so what I'm saying is when women, like I think some times we talk past each other. When women are saying that like they're attracted to maybe like a DJ called they're really attracted to him. It's not that they're attracted him because of the money. It's that the money makes him attractive. See, And I think sometimes people get that confused. It's not like, hey, I'm attracted to him because he's no the money and the fact that he could do anything that he wants. He lives a care free lifestyle, he can take care of you, he's a provider, he's confident, all the things. Sometimes that money makes you. For some people, not everyone, that makes that person attractive. And for men it's just very a lot of times. A lot of times, normally when you're younger, it's very biological. But if you allow yourself to be open, you know that as a man, you need a companion. You need someone who can listen, You need someone who you can nurture, who can nurture you, You need someone who actually is a plus to your life. A lot of these guys that's running around and still chasing after it after all of this time, it's because they're searching for something, and just because of the patriarchy that we live in, those guys can do more damage than women can. They can like they can, they can do more damage because the reality is if you were I don't know whoever you're puff like puff is day young Miami, shout out to Puff. That's my man. That girl's like twenty seven years old, right and he's and it's at this point in his life right now, it's never gonna be whack for Puff today. A twenty seven year old girl is never gonna be whack or guy like that. Why because that's just the way that that to me, it's not not saying I'm not saying that I'm looking at it that way. What I'm saying is just in the world, that's kind of a thing. Like he's rich, he's he can he can afford it, and people are gonna be like, and he still looks great. If you're a fifty two year old guy that works at the post office, you're a lot different than if you're a sewn kon sure for sure, for sure. Right. So, Like when I'm trying to this is what I want people to come to terms with. I want people to come to terms with what it is if they're attracted to if the reality is it's like, come to terms with it and just be okay with it. Everybody stop billyaching about what it is. Here's the thing we talked about future earlier. We are bullshitting We know why women are attracted to future. Future is good looking, Future is successful, Future is talented. Future has a bad boy aura that you guys did. We know why women are attracted to future. It is the same reason why women have been attracted to futures since the beginning of time. Right, we know why women are attracted to future. We get it, we understand it. Let's turn.
Could you call him a funk away? What's wrong with him?
Nothing? He What what I'm saying is, I don't think necessarily the future is a fun boy. I think he's the post life. So when I'm like, because he's got a lot of kids with a lot of different ladies, okay, and he does amazingly inappropriate things like that I'm good love and enjoy text and all of that stuff. So I think that I personally, I don't think that he's a bad dude. But I think that I think that if you if people were to put fun boy on a deal and look at somebody, it would be future. And that's not to say that we haven't all been futures at one time, because we definitely have. But what I'm saying is that he is somebody who lives in it and embraces it. And if you were, if Russell Wilson would be the square, then future would definitely have to play the funck boy rout and so. And if a fun boy is somebody who just fucks you and it's not serious about it and do whatever or whatever, that's kind of who he would be. All I'm saying is that that's who he is, his persona. That's an aphrodisiact. You're right.
You know you're right, and by the way, you're right. And so when I and a lot of things that you're saying, I'm like, no, that's not true. But that's I'm referring to myself. And this is when you say I'm getting some jack and jail, I'm like you, that's so funny. I'm so damn hood. I'm glad you're getting jack and jail. I'm glad you think I'm refined, but it's not. It's But the reality is is what you're saying, is I hear you. You're correct, and where you grew up. Karisia's where the ship and there's nothing wrong with a Kreesha and a Diddy. That is the society in which we live in. And they are together and whatever that means right together, whatever that means right, because I mean, we know and and I felt like and it wasn't like it says it's coming off.
What I say, what I do, Cary Gary, this is what did I what I say I did it?
What are you talking about? My point being is is that we should not belly ache, and we should not complaining. We should be honest about what we're attracted to, and we should be unapologetic in that. You are correct, you are, You are okay. Thank you for therapy, Thank you for getting me all together. You got me all together. You're right. I need to be honest because if someone if I start saying what I'm attracted to do, somebody would be like you sound stupid, Like that's crazy, that's not realistic. That's not a real world, right if I or the men that I've dated, that's not realistic, that's not real world. I get it. So I understand what you're saying. One hundred can's your question? Oh, like serious, serious question.
Like like power is attractive? Right, Like power is attraction one thousand percent.
The way you described old girl liking Nick Saban was perfectly to it.
And by the way, as a younger man. I couldn't understand it. I'm like, uh, you like him because he makes like at that time, we were getting them cheap. He makes three million dollars as the head coach of LSU football. That's why you like him. She's like, no, he's the most powerful man in the state. Like, that's why I like him. And I'm like, that's real and that's and I was telling him the people at like at TMZ this one time and I was like, uh, and this is a crude way to put this, so excuse all of everybody's ears. I was like, they were saying they were talking about some model, and they were like, she's with this, because a lot of times these Victoria's Secret Models, some of the Victoria Secret Models, you'll go and you'll never hear from them again, and then you'll find out, oh, well, they're married to the head is Shipping Magnet or whatever billionaires. Yeah right, And so we're on So we're on the show and we're talking about this, like and you go, she married him for his money, and I was like, it depends on what you mean by that, and he goes what I was like, if you're saying that every night they go to bed, and she her skin crawls when he touches her and she grins, and of her entire life because of money. Then the way you're talking about it is wrong. What I'm telling you right now, what I believe is that he picks her up on a private jet. He takes her to the south of France. They chill, She sees him make a million business deals a day. She sees the way people react to him, and her pussy gets like legitimately like one like legitimately like she doesn't have to she have to like just have to bite down for it like it legitimately happens. And if that's the case, the money is just an attribute to who he was, I'm sure he could be like a terrible guy and turn her off. He's me and the dogs, me and the kids, and that would be one thing. But like beyond that, that's like a real thing. And so if that's a real thing, then being a trip to some chick that's like in Maxim magazine, it's kind of like the same thing she has biology. She has biologically the ship that you see that you like, your brain takes over and you go, I like her Massive magazine wouldn't be a magazine.
That is the most honestly, I'm not being funny. That is probably the most fair way to describe what it is. And there's no excuse around it. And somebody like me who tries to be like a hibrow, You're right, A power is attractive. And I want to see somebody out there moving and making deals and ambitious because that's attractive. That is attractive. Somebody going out there to get it is attractive. I will add this caveat no one will believe it. You don't have to be a billionaire. You don't have to have a private jet. You don't have. But if I see you out here hustling and get it, and I see people you own a convenience store and your employees react to you in a certain way, I'm like, that's attractive. Like my point is is that it doesn't have to be at that magnitude. And oftentimes I think men can sometimes be delusional about this part of it, right, because it's all aesthetics for men, to be honest, like, because when you see in women too, women too, but a woman is more willing. A guy ain't gonna date a woman because she's powerful and people react to her a certain way. Some guys will because I think guys are groupies as well. But like if she got a belly, like a woman doesn't believe because she's successful she can be ageless because she's successful. She can have a belly because she's successful and the people react to her and she's famous that she can just be like, I'm just here. We don't believe that works in our favor, correct, Carrie.
You're so right. I mean I don't think that I think you're right, but I got to be honest with you. This is, let me ask, is fascinating because I haven't because this is fascinating. It's fascinating because look, I remember the first time I met you. I'm like, oh shit, that's like Carrie Champion, Like I wake up. I watch fucking sports centers carry Champion, Like the whole fucking time is like you're in so many we It's like I don't know when somebody's at ESPN, you don't get a chance to like really talk to them, like get their worldview. And this is this is fascinating to hear.
Why is it fascinating to you?
Because I wouldn't think that I would think that we would talk about the seventy six ers or something like that.
I don't know, can I say something? Can I say something? So I've been thinking about doing a podcast about relationships, and I will say this. I've been looking for a counterpart who will go tell total total me because I feel like, and I will say this caveat if someone's listening, I'm dating. I'm happy, I'm in a really good relationship, but I do feel like there are so many of my friends who are going through this battle every single day. And then of course I'm around a bunch of athletes and that they like and that they do. It's so ridiculous. And in my mom I'm like, are you really you're about to have ten babies? You're about to have ten babies with three different women?
Or it's just like I employ you to not count them, because that's such a that's such an unrealistic view of how it happens. Like those guys are those guys are little unicorns that throughout their whole life have been told that they're special and because they are right, It's like, you can't like those I understand that because like and and l A will do that, LA will do that to you as well, because you're in when I'm in bad and ruge, right, we all going to the club. We all go in there, we dance till we sweaty. We come out of the club dripping red, wet and sweat. You go into you going to a club in La You look around and it's like, Yo, it's really rich niggas in here, Like it's like they are really rich, Like they're not playing these are These are not the dope dealers off your block or the guys that are the and where I'm from, the dudes that promoted the parties were the dudes that had the most money. To be honest with you, you know what I mean. But here, especially back like before, Like I walk in the club and see fucking Kevin Durant there. You you start to think to yourself, well, what the fuck am I supposed to do? You know, like in the whole days you saw to think you're right. You started to think to yourself, well, what the hell was going on in you? I first got when I first got to l A. The first couple of years I was out here, like I look and I see god damn fucking Leonard Dicaprios like at the skybar, like and it's like a line. It's like a line, like a photo booth to meet him.
So you're talking about somebody who grew up here. So if I see George Clooney at Starbucks, I'm like, that's really George Clooney at Starbucks. Like in college, I know there's church.
Clear that's different. That's different for me. And so but like I when I go back home, sometimes black people just meet fucking get married. It's just that's it. Sometimes they just mean it's much more.
Simple, it's much more easy. Yeah, And you're that's what That's what I started off when I talked about your book. I was like, your mentality is very different, even though you've been indoctrinated into this Hollywood world, your mentality is very different, very different different.
Every champion and carry Champion is to be a champion out of champion and carry Chappie and and carry Chappy out a champion and carry Chappie and and carry Chaffrad is his sports and entertainment can naked word. Harry Champion and Carrie Chappie is to be a champion outa champion and Carrie Chappie and the girl play got a champion and carry chappion and carried Sheppy entertainment, can nacke working?
I have to say this, Okay, so this is I know you thought I was going to talk about sports, but I have been a fan since TMZ and people often ask you about that moment when you left or when you know, when you I don't know, the y'all y'all broke up. Yeah yeah, I was like, I don't know if I did. You have to say that, yeah, yeah, it's fine. So you get fired. And the first thing I thought was, what a horrible What a horrible loss for TMZ. What a horrible loss for TMZ, But also what a wonderful opportunity for him to make his way and to use his platform to share his message because they kind of got in the way. If I'm being honest, you don't necessarily need that type of platform to tell to give your message. And I've watched you and I don't say anything, but I quietly watch you, and I think he's doing it, and I love it because you're in spite of did you ever think that you would be at a point in your career where your opinion mattered, where people would wake up and look to see what you're tweeting or saying or what your podcast is saying. And I'm saying this from someone who hear the woman who does my makeup, she's like, I was listening to Van. I'm like, if you keep telling me about a van like Van said this today and it's gospel for her. My best friend who who loved your book, who battles with her weight, Oh, it's this gospel for me. Did you ever think that you would be in this position from when you left TMZ or when you got fire from TMZ to where we are now? Do you ever feel like this was the vision?
No? Not really, because I think that that when I speak and I say stuff, it feels like stuff that I have to say, Like I was one of those people that would just be I remember it being in the sixth grade and his politician came to UH to our school and he's talking. I just remember sitting there arrested, like I have to be able to say something. I have to say. I have to say Something's almost like an anxiety like or response. I have to say something. And so I never really thought that it would be And I think most people that like Charlotte is like that Charlamaye, just like he'll call you up and rant for like two hours because he'd be high, like over something like He'll he'll call you up and rant for like two hours because he really has shit he has to get off his chest, and he like has a platform to do it. So I never really thought that. And to be honest with you, being at TMZ for as long as I was, it was like it was like, for a time I thought that the reputation of the of the platform would be an albatross around my neck that I would never be able to shake free up. And if it's if anything, that is the divine work of the Kanye West moment, the divine work of the Kanye West moment. It was almost like God saying to me, I'm going to give you an opportunity to show people who you really are, whether or not you take it as on you like, I'm going to give you an opportunity. Even beyond all of this other stuff. I had great relationships with people. I was able to meet up a bunch of people. Most people that watched the show like me, I was the mand there already. But it was like like with him walking in there, it was like, I'm going to give you one moment to show people who you really are, and that can get you, that can change the perception of you. And I think it was luck that it happened that way, But I also think it was divine timing that I met the moment. So that's why, like, no matter what happens, it's like, well, as much work as you've done in your career, I bet that there's a part of you that believes that being prepared for whatever opportunity might come to you is probably the most important thing. Like, at some point you're gonna get that shot. The point is whether or not you're prepared. I would show up to work every day. I would work the holidays at TMZ to get more camera time. Whatever I could do to stretch my legs there to make me a fixuer there, I would so by the time something like that happens, I'm ready for me.
Did you.
Do you think you're a celebrity now?
Yes. I think I think I'm people's homeboy. I think I'm a I think I'm a popular friend. I think Brad Pitt is a celebrity. I think I think when people, when people, when people come up to me, They're like they want to talk. I think that's amazing, Like they want to talk. Like people respond to me from the stuff that I do on the Ringer from the podcast Apache no matter what I'm talking about, whether its Star Wars, whatever, they want to have a conversation with me. They want to engage with me. I think being a celebrity is vastly, vastly overrated, and I think at my time at TMC has driven that home more than anything. I think they are celebrities and then they're there are contributors, and then there are artists. And I'm a contributor right now, but I'm hoping to be an artist.
Have you been affected by Hollywood?
Sure? I went through a time where I thought I was the man. How could you not? You know? I went through a ten year period of like hiding myself and making sure that nobody saw me, to making sure that everyone saw me because whenever somebody saw me, they had a big smile and a pat on the back for me. So I think, uh, it's super difficult to not lose yourself. And there's and there's a there's mirrored ways that it happens. Right, It's like when when the thing. When ya first happened, I went, I made it very I made a very deliberate point the next day to go on Instagram and make sure that I directed people to Jason Wilson in a cave of adubum in Detroit and what they're doing for the kids up there, just to make sure that I use it for something good. Now, what happened over the course of the next x a couple of months or whatever was that people would send me different videos, send me videos of black people being beat up on buses of all types of different things like that, and like, yo, post this, post this, like have you seen what happened? Blah blah blah. Because I became like an advocate, like a warrior, right, And the reality is is that that's like not me. Like talking about the conditions of black people is something inherent to me. But triggering black people every day and this is not me coming to anybody who does this, because people have to know what's going on, triggering black people every day, and triggering myself by images of black people getting fucked over being by the police, be it at the waffle house, be it at wherever. It's not who I am. I wasn't doing that before, so why would I do it now? When you go to my uh, when you go to my Instagram, you're gonna see like the whole canvas, the whole painting of who I am. Funny shit, dumb shit. You're gonna see some things that I feel like the community should be aware of me. And you're gonna see some things that are that are caused my personal but all away from like my personal life, you know what I mean. And so I decided that rather than do that and try to get to a million, a million and a half two million followers by putting things on there that would trigger people over and over and over again, that I was just gonna be me. I was just gonna be me. Some of the ship was gonna be stupid, some of the ship was going to be uh, gonna have some outreach to it, and some of it was gonna be challenging and wrong. But I'm just going to be me. And I think the hardest thing to do once you've received any sort of notoriety at all. That's even if you just on TMZ in La when you move to La, because the people I know from La, I keep telling people this. People I know from LA are super duper real. They're the realest people. The people I know from LA, they're real. Yeah, you see what I'm saying. People say LA is face. It's like, Nah, y'all came out here to be the prom king and you guys are in Hollywood. You're really not even talking about LA. You're talking about between Santa Monica and fucking out. You know what I'm saying.
By the way you for you to say that it is such bad I say that, so you come here. The people from LA are as honest as they get it. I love you for being like I'm getting jacked. I'm like, no, I'm just being like, this is what I feel like. I don't know any other way to be.
Like I was trying to say, to really be honest with you. It's like I was trying to say to you, Damn, Carrie, I didn't know you kept it this gangster. That's why I was trying to That's all I was trying to say. But no, I guess my point is, And so when you come out here and it starts to happen, it's the most important thing to do. It's just man, stay the course of who you are correct, like, just stay the course of who you are. And because it's different, everybody looks at you different, Like you're playing and you're playing basketball in the gym after you've been here for a while, you're playing basketball for at the gym, and you see one of your homies in a commercial and oh shit, he got that commercial. And it's this weird little pecking order that starts to exist everywhere, and once you get on television, it really starts to comfort you. People like, oh, well, you must be doing You're on teams every day, so you must be doing something right, so now I'll let me. So it's just weird. And so sometimes you can lose yourself in it and I try not to, but I did for a little while, my.
Heart, you did for a little while. And by the way, that's an honest I ask you that I don't and I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know outside looking in. But it can happen, and it does happen. It's a it's a real thing. You And then and also too, you start to lose patience with a lot of things, like you start to demand or expect a lot of things that you normally wouldn't demand. Or expect.
Sure, I we just we.
Treat people differently, we act differently, we want differently, We just we just behave differently. And that's okay, and nothing is wrong with that. I don't want that to ever to be a slight. But I am fascinated when you use that word fascinated. I am fascinated by your trajectory. And I also am fascinated by how you chose to do it your way, like you're still out here doing it all. So then you get you get involved with this project which ultimately manifests into an Oscar an Academy Award, And I remember you posting something and I'm thinking, wow, what a powerful moment. Just wow, just wow, Like I think maybe even our our mutual friend did Bozma posts about a text that you guys had had Texas change, You had Posema Saint John shout out to my bestie, and I thought that was really powerful too. Talk to me about the moment that you won the Oscar, How it all came to be the project.
That's so Treyvonfrey, like Nick May six feet over Productions, we are. It's let's say it's late twenty nineteen, early twenty twenty We're meeting at Lawrence Bender's house. Treyvon was living at Laura Lawrence Bender's house at this time. So we're meeting at Lawrence Bender's house and we're talking about what we're going to do, Like we're gonna start a production company and we're gonna make We're gonna make a movie or a television show. Where are we gonna sell we're gonna do? So it's pre pandemics that we would go there and we would sit down and we would discuss this stuff.
Uh.
Nick, Me and Nick had started to work work working together. We had come on as executive producers on another movie called Uppity. Uh. That was about Willie t Ribbs, the first black stock car driver. At the end five hundred. Nick had helped me his Avery Duverne is his sister. He had helped me get aprim My podcast with me and Nick. We were working together. I met Nick through Charlotte. So we're talking about all of this stuff. We're getting ideas together. What are we gonna do, What are we gonna do, where we're gonna do. The pandemic comes. Bendemic comes, and obviously there are no meetings, there's no getting together at Lawrence's house, everybody stops, all of our hair grows out, We look terrible. It is about i'd say four months, so that starts in March. Maybe it's like it's July or June before we all get back together. We get there, we're social distancing, you know. And by this point, everybody that's around that weird point where everyone realized that the pandemic wasn't going anywhere, but everything still wasn't open again. We were still seeing each other moving around, trying to go to dinner outside and all of that stuff. And we're sitting around and with our our claim. So let's let's start moving again, and we're like, it's gonna be impossible. It's like nothing that we can do. What we're gonna be able to do, we're gonna have to wait till after this is over to sell anything and get anything off the ground. So where we're kicking things around, Trevon comes with this idea. And the idea was the uh earth only idea that would become to disant strangers. This is post George Floyd.
Now wow.
And the feeling that we're all feeling is because people we talk about George Floyd as if it existed in the vacuum. It didn't. It was Ama R. Barry, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, like all happening together, not time wise, but we were all learning about them at the same time. It was like this huge thing to where we've been inside for so long. Our brains are going to fucking explode with everything that's going wrong right now for America but specifically for Black Americans. And so he comes with this idea and he goes, when we come out of the pandemic, this is what we should do. And I was like, now, we got to do it now. He's like, what, And I have to be honest about this. The reason why we all decided to do it now was two reasons. Number One, we knew that in the climate that we were in that we could get this to the finish line and get it and like and because there weren't many productions and and get significant buzz based upon the social the moment that we were in and the climate that we were in, right if we executed, I knew we could win an Oscar.
That's why that that's why that you thought you could win an Oscar with the short Oh wow, oh okay.
Go back and look at the text that I said, that's it, I said, Bosama judged Boza like that.
It didn't say Oscar on there, it.
Said Oscar Bozema who we who? By the way, this is a great pal to have in La. She is amazing. And I was trying to get her to have them buy it or help us, but she couldn't. She couldn't even she couldn't even read the script. Uh she because it was unsolicited material. And she was very professional about it. But was somebody who helped us all throughout the way in terms of coming to screenings, in terms of being just an amazing human being, right an amazing me. So so I told him, I said, we're gonna win Academy war for this. I said it right then, now that day have been shot like like now day havent shot. Said We're gonnain a Cademy war for this. So we do it, we execute, we get the award and the night of standing there being in a room with Jesse Williams, great friend Puff was on that with us, Kevin Durant.
That's my guy, don't I like? What was I not supposed to say? What I was supposed to say?
Mike, Mike Conley, Kevin Durant, Rich Climbing, everybody came together to make it. It was just like, man, Carrie, it was like, we just said, fuck it, let's do it. Shout to everybody's Rogers and Colin Craig. Everyone is like, we said, fuck it, let's do it, and we did it, and we we did it. And the thing about holding the oscar was the whole entire time I was at TMC, I enjoyed being on television. I enjoyed my co workers immensely, sure, right, and so it's not like I hated it, but it wasn't inspiring. It wasn't anything that I thought, Look what we fucking did. And that feeling, if you ever have that feeling, if you ever have that feeling, look what we fucking did, not me, we Look what we fucking did. If you ever have that feeling, it's just amazing. And sitting there like looking at that when they called our name out, Khalika was there like we're all together. I just I couldn't believe that that actually happened. Like I couldn't believe that it happened.
You just gave me a whole entire sermon. And what you just said is so real and I can relate to it on every single level. It's fine, it's all great, but what am I doing to really make change? And then you get this great project done and it was beautiful and the genius of the casting, like I really didn't know Joey had that in him, that skill set, like it was I I was today years old. I was just like, this was special. It was really special. And I and and and I don't know. I think that's a great way to end because you knew that, Yes, while you may have had that one platform at a point where it seemed like it was all end all, it wasn't inspiring. And you're and you change your lives, like you really are in opinions and you're a part of the culture. And I like you describing yourself as a popular contributor. You're that popular friend, popular ditributor, You're the popular friend. I think I think that's I think that's fair. And you're right about living in la we just are like, okay, got it. Like, if anything, we're not trying to be in the scene and be seen. I see you a few times. I don't be in the scene.
People from here are legitimately the least Hollywood people that you will ever meet. It's so weird people who are from here. I'm telling you, y'all talking about La people. Y'all never been to the GS. I don't go. I've never been to the gsy' I've never been to the GS. I got, I got, I got, I appreciate it. I gotta ask you one thing before I go, though, because you because you said, oh, let's talk.
Yeah, if you want to talk sports, I literally monopulate. I literally only do like forty five minutes a hour. I took twenty five extra minutes because we got into this conversation. Sorry about that. Whatever. If you want to talk sports, you one thing about you?
Yes, well, y'all gonna well, y'all gonna kick the bucket on the Chip Kelly thing.
Oh gosh, I I listen, and I'm bold about this too. The eighty never wants to hear it. I've told the eighty over and over again. I was like, he's not the man, he's not smart, he's had his moment. It's coming gone go get a real like a hard nosed SEC coach and offer him a ton of money. I was like, because I honestly believe the division is weak. They are losing. They losing transfer. I mean literally, people are transferring all the time because they don't fool with Chip. Chip is always the smartest man in the room.
Why, Oh, they're gonna win the division this year?
Oh yes, okay, you don't mean like a national champ?
No, no, no, no no no. I think I think. I think U c l A is a lie to win a division. Issue.
If they don't, it will speak more about who the coaches and than who the players are.
You know what I mean?
Because in this city where everyone wants to stay in LA or at least come to LA and be famous, people understand. People understand what it means to play here. So here's the point. All the time, when the Lakers are looking for a head coach, they're also looking for somebody who can step out of mastros and be like, I'm with my boo. They looking for the slick shit, right, they're always, But they took a page from Mick Cronin, who isn't slick, just hard nose. Put my head down. I'm this big as a head coach for UCLA, and I'm about winning. I don't care about any of the other shit, which is why the players have done so well getting them over, getting them like minded, the mentality and not being pretty to win is something totally different, like to go for the kill shot, like go take the game, Go take the game. Like a lot of the guys that we recruit or do have this this Hollywood sensibility, and sometimes it's been given to them. They're not I didn't grow up in Baton Rouge. I didn't have to fight for what I had to eat like we don't. These guys we get a lot of these guys are privileged that we get that play on the team like they grew up differently. And so sometimes, as you would say, you need a goon and we need a couple of really just good goons on both on basketball and football, Mick has been able to try to implement that. I'm not a fan of Sure, I just not a fanship Kelly. I work with him a few times. I don't believe him. I don't even know if he believes himself, and he is eight hundred percent he is one affected by Hollywood. Well, you watch some of these coaches that come here, they are affected. They get here and they get lost and they want to be famous. Happens, right, I.
Can't say ship that did you? Me and Rachel was there, Me, Rachel Kala and Brian we went. I was there over us like very they looked.
I look, you were like, they're gonna take it all you was ready.
I wanted them to because I wanted to believe. Obviously the season, yeah, well I wanted us to believe. But so look, I thought it was very interesting when they hired him. So I always talked to UCLA people about UCLA sports because I don't understand like U c l A obviously dominating basketball, and it really didn't really in many sports, right they went.
Off in mini sports in many sports, Yes, in many sports.
I think.
I do believe that it's hard to obviously live up to the Wizard. So Mike is good. No one's ever gonna be John Wooden. And the in the in the script is get here and win. We're gonna give you a couple of years, but get here and where you can't just make it to the final four, that's fine, keep doing it, make it to the championship, great, but did you win? And obviously the last time they had a chip was ninety three, ninety four ninety four with Tyas Edney, remember.
Cameron Dollar, Tys Edney and O Band, Charlie, Toby Bailey. Where's Toby.
Bailey is an agent now? But yeah, he's a sports agent. But I I my school it's different and I and I respect, but it's a lot of money and it's a lot and it's a lot of politics. Do you talk about a school like that. It's a lot of politics and you know that. But it would be nice if they spent some major bread on somebody who recruited a bunch of like, we need a few goons, we just need, if not a handful, I think the we don't need the you know all the popular stars sons playing there? You know, oh you also know who's on that championship team and that you just mentioned in ninety four. Bob Myers, who is now the GM and president of the Golden State Warrior ever knew that he never played. He never played, not well he got any like trash minutes. Obviously he played trash minutes. But look at that. His career is arguably more successful than one Toby Bailey's or Chris Johnson, like I'd go down the list. Can you believe that isn't that crazy, isn't it.
I believed that I always looked at him like he was he was really in for like a GM dude, but like and super tall. Yeah, super Talla.
I just want to get its interesting, kay, Okay, So I adore you. Thank you for giving me more time than you should have. You guys, go out and get this book. I really I I And I'm not just saying that. I'm fascinated with your intellect and I love your perspective. That crazy entire Van late than in the house, not to be confused with that other dude.
Thank you so much, Garrett.
So I hope you all enjoyed Van. He I mean, he really it's interesting. I have a lot of people in my life that I think that can go to level to level to level. And it's not about who's the smartest person in the room, although sometimes it is, but it is the art of understanding what you're feeling and being able to express your thoughts and opinions in a very well crafted way. And sometimes when you express your thoughts and opinions that offends people. But Van has a way of being not necessarily neutral but not necessarily offensive. It's just the truth. And if you follow him on social which I think you do, it's funny. If you read his book, it's funny. You know what Charlemagne told me this. They're really good friends, so it's apropos.
He says.
One day, we're just laughing about something that was very sad in the culture. He said, Black folks know how to do trauma better than anybody else, meaning we really know how to laugh at our pain. And that is why I think this book is fascinating. And I think that Van being very honest about something I don't hear a lot of men being honest about as special, especially black men. Get the book. It's really something that we all should have, that we should be reading as women, that we should be reading as men, and that we should be telling other people about. And at this moment, I'm pretty tired. I've been overseas without my luggage, but I ain't complaining. Don't fool with Air France. Don't fool with Air France. Don't fool with Air France. If you want your luggage, I got mine though, just the last day at my trip. Gonna stop complaining, though, Stay positive, carry talk to you guys next week.
Bye.
