Way Up With Angela YeeFULL INTERVIEW: Grace Harry Opens Up On Her Time Together With Usher, Relationship With Questlove, + More
Grace Harry Opens Up On Her Time Together With Usher, Relationship With Questlove, + More
What's up. It's about you. Put Angela yee. I'm Angela Yee.
Jasmine Brand is here and we have a first timer on way ye put Angela yee, actually our first interview ever.
Grace Harry is here, thank you. I'm a virgin here, yes she is.
You're gonna pop your cherry, yes, I can't wait.
And you have a book and you are a joy strategist yes, And I remember when we had a conversation about this, I didn't know what it was. So let's just start off with what a joy strategist does?
What you do?
I made it up, and I made it up because we just got so specific about how we're supposed to live our lives, you know, like all these rules and things that we no longer have fact checked against our own heart, and so there's a way we're supposed to live life to be in service with other people and do the right thing and make everyone happy, which is really against the strategy of our own hearts.
Doing things to please other people sometimes can be and I feel and I'm a people pleaser, you know, but I also enjoy like doing positive things for people.
But sometimes you do have to say no.
Yeah, well I think The issue is that we're all people pleasers. You know, we're born into these families and they have a concept of what we're supposed to do to be and stay in those families, and so being in service gets very complicated, and you know a lot of religions and spiritualities kind of have their own language how to squash in service to others. But really it's service to yourself, right. It's being on the airplane and putting your own mask on first, is really what I'm talking about.
When did you know that you had like a joy deficit or that you needed you know, I love a joy deficit, or when you needed joy? At what moment?
Yeah, I was sitting in a very aspirational life, you know, I was sitting in a life that people felt was the life to have, and I felt very empty and sad inside.
And you know it would be.
Easy for me at that time in the height of my I say, I'm a recovering people pleaser, fear of projection ite. So in the height of that, I just I wanted you to like me. I wanted you to want to be around me. I wanted to be wanted, and that created an other grace, that created a different kind of person, and I would find myself talking inside my head, you know, not having I would be sitting here with you and you'd ask me a question and I'd be calculating the right answer.
And that's exhausting, right, and most.
Of us it can be tiring, right. It's an entire persona of something else. And then I started watching my own kids and how they don't give can I curse? Yes, a curst? They didn't give ten thousand Harry fucks. You know, It's like they had their own needs. And at the same time, I believe kids do as you do, not as you say. So I'm mirroring for them a behavior and even a love behavior that I don't want to see in my children as adults, and see my grandkids and my grandkids grandkids bring forth, especially as women.
You know what I love about Grace. She's very honest about a lot of things. So I want to have like a whole, open, honest conversation because when I first met Grace, she was like, what have you heard about me?
And that's the question that I asked.
You know, you know why I live in a little bubble. I do my own thing, but I like to know right, right.
And I was like, woo, that's a loaded question because so for people listening, there's a lot of if you google Grace, you know, and.
This has to be somewhat annoying to see, like who.
You've been affiliated with always comes up, like as one of the first things, it'll be like Usher's ex wife, because you guys were together, you were married, you ended up getting divorced. But even before that, I knew who you were because I knew your first husband from doing a Mix Show Power Summit. Yes, Renee the Best, Yes, Renee McClean, So I remember you from back in those days. And for people who don't know what the Mix Show Power Summit was, it was like a huge annual event for all of the DJs and the labels to be able to showcase the new artists in front of the DJs.
It would be like in.
Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico, but it was like a real flyaway trip. And I feel like you were very involved in that too, because it was always Renee and Grace, Renee and Grace you know back then, so I didn't. And that's who you have your two children with, right, yes, correct, Okay, So that but before that, you actually wore an executive chef yes for the Cosby Show.
Yes, wait, that's random.
Yeah okay.
First of all, yes, I like to say it's my new line because it's been coming up recently. That usher is amazing. But him being my third husband is the least interesting thing about me, having nothing to do with him. He was third husband, Yes, and amazing.
You know first, who was second?
Lou Miguel, Ludwig von Erhard Miguel.
What did he do?
He's a producer? Okay, yeah, what do you do?
I was like, yeah, you got all well known exes, all.
Right, I get yeah, brandam Padam. I actually was not a part of the Mike Show Power Summit. What we did together was you did a thing called well I'm blinking, this is how old I am fifty three, the rap roast. And what we did is because I always it was really important to me that we have these big gifts in life and that we always do a gift back, especially to the communities that supported us. I was a few years ago with a bunch of rappers I won't name now, and they're all sitting around talking about how fucked up it is that this is happening, and this is happening these communities that they came from, but nobody's living in those communities. And so that concept that if we can give back, but if we're not in a community fixing the school and walking the neighborhood and buying from a local, you know, we really can't do a give back. So this concept was to roast some of the music industry so that we can get people to come and want to just rub up on these people. But also every single end was giving money or support to a charity that came from their community. So I loved that and we did that structure and as we were ending, I think, usher, I mean us sure, Renee say, I can't give them straight. Renee was leaving Innerscope and wanted to do something else and was loving the DJs and wanted the DJs to have a different kind of autonomy with their career. And I feel like that's what birth the Mike Shaw Power Summit.
Right because I was working for eminem at the time, so they were a huge sponsor, so I was very involved, like I had to be there, and they weren't a lot of women there.
I will say that it's sound surprising.
Yeah, because a lot of the DJs are men, and a lot of the people that worked at labels and promotions were at that time men also. All Right, so let's get back to who you are. Because when you asked me that, I was like, Okay, what can I tell her? You know that I've heard because I didn't know you before that, I've only heard stories. I knew the Benita apple Bum story, that that Q Tip who you dated in the past, that song was about you, and I saw you talking to Torae I like to kiss you where some brothers won't, and talking about how black men weren't known to do oral sex.
Yeah, you know when did it become around? What time did it become cool for them to start admitting it?
And you know what's a funny question.
My daughter and I were talking about that the other day because you can even see I liked to Okay, I'm not don't get on a soapbox, but all my male musicgadast your friends want to debate me. I'm the current female rapper, and I have a lot of thoughts about that, Okay, feelings. But what's interesting to me about that is I found that there was early times where male, and I hate making all these things of verses, but males were very vocal what would you could do for them? But they what they were not going to write. And I feel like that was a part of the music and.
The culture even in the eighties.
And you know, it was a very Caribbean thing too, like yeah, not to men. Men don't do that, Like Jamaican men in particular. They'll let you know, like they're not supposed to do that, right, Yeah, But.
At what point did when did rappers start talking about.
So what the woman asked you a question is remember the little Wayne song.
I feel like he was one of the first to be yeah, like I do this and like it I could.
Be giving.
His flowers.
Yeah, I mean, that's a good place to have flowers. I literally have been doing these. I mean this is a whole other thing. But working during the pandemic, I was working with a lot of people who are starting creating businesses, and that was a big part of the strategy. As soon as the doors closed, all of a sudden, people were looking at this person on their left or right, and they weren't in their big life, like who's you right and.
What do I want with you? And who's you.
And it became a real conversation around intimacy, right and slowing down and connecting and so that's a big topic. So anyone who's out there promoting just connecting in a way where everyone's having pleasure, I'm all for it.
Yeah, and you definitely are and like you know, just even the conversations that we were having, so you also while we were out there, I want to talk about this because it's not as taboo anymore.
I know where this is going.
The shrooms, I just.
Don't that in the green room, and I feel like that has changed so quickly. There was a period of time when it was like, shrooms are terrible?
What is wrong with you?
And I've always enjoyed it from when I first did it. I probably the first time I did it was probably like over ten years ago.
And it was just doing it before it was cool.
Yeah, even when I was on the Breakfast Club, they would be like, oh, you do that, like you know, and now everybody's like, oh, I'm microdosing.
Yeah, it's a nice buzzword. Now.
Yeah it is a thing and you can actually buy it like inside of chocolate and things like that, and people are coming at like with their own lines.
So can you talk about what that's done for you?
Yeah, And I'm glad you brought that out because again, the biggest part of my book that I want everyone to take away two things. One who said, you know, who said this is called a microphone. Who said, that's called a door. So if we can start to look at life that way, we can decide what really feels good for us and what we want.
To who do you want in our life? And what do we enjoy?
And the second thing is we live in a world where we do the thing that sanctioned as right, you know. And I'm not penalizing alcohol or anything else, but there's a lot of ways to disconnect and very few ways to be enhanced and supported to go inside and do some inner systemic change. And so I think, oh, I think I must have been like fourteen, and I was in this wilderness survival camp group and I was bitten by a poisonous snake. Is a whole weird story, and it was in that moment I had these strange dreams and I got to some things that I was wrestling. I mean, what was happening in my fourteen year old life or thirteen year old life. But things felt more clear, and it was through that journey that I started to lean into other indigenous practices and started going and I had a peyote experience, and I really do I do not enjoy some Okay, I'm not going to make it. I talk about this all the time, but I find that people then take these experiences and without integration and without really the work aspect in that they think it's a party drug. And so for me, it was very serious to not only start to experiment with things, but experiment with things inside the lineage from where they came okay you know, not just where they were created, but also the proper ritual and practice around how to do that, and leaned into it. And I'm proud that I'm a lot of people that we all knows first a.
Lot of people are.
Like the first of mushrooms was with Craze, And to me, that wasn't to play with people outside and being a club experience. It was that we all, especially as creators, right, we have so many parts of ourselves and it's a very complicated thing in this world to know which part of yourself is safe to lead with. Right, You're Angela, you're Jasmine. There's a version of you that's here that's different than the version of you that's in the bathroom, that's with your friends, that you've known your whole life, that's with a partner. And it's so important to learn how to integrate all those parts and not penalize any one version, but learn to stand up in the truth of you and be supported by all these other experiences.
In a safe space too, by the way, mostly in the space.
Yeah, that's important.
And as we're talking about different versions of ourselves, one thing you talk about in this book, whenever you're looking for something outside of yourself, you're missing something in your own life. And please and I think that's important too, because you know, there's these expectations, like you said, for women, that we're supposed to be married at a certain age, to have children at a certain age. And so how did that make you earlier live your life?
Oh? I was the poster child of outside successing. You know.
It was absolutely not about me, and and what really turned me around was getting to, as I said, this aspirational version of my life where I work, who I'm married to. But none of those things felt good inside my body, and so yeah, it's leaning into what actually feels good for you. And where that starts is the permission, you know, back to us as women, as humans, as brown humans. There's so many rules and regulations that we feel we have to abide bye to kind of survive in this world. But getting into the truth of who you are and what really feels good and being a pioneer of your own heart, that's intersystemic change. And we can't make changes unless we really go in and do the internal work with anybody.
What does the internal work look like?
It really?
And I say this and it always sounds so coy like it's different for everyone, but it really freaking is.
You know some people, what was it like for you?
For me, it was first admitting that something wasn't feeling good because I felt like an asshole. You know, I'm so blessed. I've had such an incredibly blessed life. How could I sit here and shoot on any version of it? What does that mean about me? What kind of person am I? And it really was leaning into my life coach my twenty eight year old daughter, who she gave me that perspective that I was, as you see, I was running around the world, like what do you think of me? And she gave me this really beautiful perspective that is, I think that you're an incredible person and you love to infuse happiness enjoy in other people, but you don't give that to yourself, right, And that to me felt like the biggest fraud because how can we promote something that we don't live. Yeah, and that's really important to me to promote it. And so it was complicated. You know, people in my life that I was married to or friends with were not recognizing me quickly as I stop being the person who would talk to you, but I'm talking inside my head the whole time because I don't want to say the thing that's wrong or the thing that's going to make you unhappy, to being the person who was like, nah, now.
I don't want to do that. Now that doesn't feel good. I don't like that. But we have a GPS.
It's our own hearts. I'm not the joy strategist, your heart is. And when we don't listen to them, but we'll have an uber. I had an uber a few weeks ago who fought me tooth and nail that this was the address I was going to because the GPS said it, and I said, I grew up in this fucking house. I know, I know where I am, but it really just re reminded me that when we have these things that are strong in us and we when we really focus these tools to guide us, they work, and we have it in our own hearts. We're just afraid by society and propaganda. But we have these things that are passed down about love.
You know.
I had a woman who remain nameless, God rest her soul, who told me, when you get married the first time, she said, let your husband get on and do his business, right, I think, because someone else will do it if you don't do it. That is the worst advice I've ever heard in my life, because basically it was it's not about you. And I'm not even dissing that there was a reality of time and life where that was a real life necessity, you know what, because that could mean your life or your safety, or the or the or the feeding of your children or you know whatever. But now we know too much and we're too aware, and we can make this new concept of female liberation another tagline or we can fucking be a it and what that means is showing other women who are younger and people who are less courageous that we choose ourselves first.
Have you ever been with someone who was like, you don't have to work anymore, I'll take care of you. Yes, and you can, she said yes, because you've always worked.
Was that something that because I've heard that happen.
I've actually had somebody say that to me in the past and it did not sit well with me. So what were your thoughts when that happened?
I think with everything it's intention, you know, I think that there's a version of that where I say, Jasmine, you've been working hard, You're amazing. I love you, I want you to have this opportunity to change your life. And just in the way, if I have a partner who's trying to become a doctor and they're spending years in medical school, well now it's your turn, and I want to support you and supporting me and where we are now, that's a beautiful gesture. But when it comes down to you know, this is the four Agreements. I don't know if you've ever read that book, how they talk about where two what do wey say like our skin is raw and we're just pain. Bodies hitting each other skin all the time. So often that kind of gesture comes with a lot of strings attached. Yeah yeah, and so usually said it earlier.
What does that mean? What am I?
What is it?
You don't have to work again? Outside? But what kind of work do I have to do in his house?
Yeah?
In his mierol in his house, I thought you all night, Like, come on, So I just go to work.
And That's what I'm saying.
It's like with every single thing, you know, we we've lived life, especially myself. I lived this life of like pick me, you know, but really life is a supermarket. Yeah, and we walk in and I'm like, I want everything on Ile five. I want nothing on Aisle seven. And we deserve to live that way.
What do you think about this whole data pickets?
Man? You know?
I was. I was like, Grace is coming.
We got to tie to her about that because I see her getting a lot of flak right on social media and people are doing memes and they're like, Okay, that's enough.
We don't.
But she does have a book that is out at this point, and Will Smith has discussed things in the past about their relationship, and it is her truth to tell?
Is it ever too much?
Okay? Can I answer this in five different way? Yes?
Because you know I have a thing about talking about people and they're not here. And the reason I say that is because we don't know, right and if I'm not in the room and you were naked all together, I.
Don't really but we know what she's telling us interviews.
Totally, totally. But what I'm saying is, so I start there. I start there just because that's the truth of all of us. And if we can hold that a little bit, that's a good start. The second part is with everything, it's not about exactly what Jada saying. Well, and by the way, I live in a little bubble, so I haven't really seen anything in this morning in just preparation. I just deep down a whole bunch what's happening. But I think the bigger issue is brown love period. You know, back to all the rules and the roles we're supposed to play. We have to take that back a little further, and we're seeing other cultures really lean into that kind of decision about who we want to show up for in partnership. And yet I don't know if we Brown people have that same kind of mission, because we don't really have that permission in life to just make up our own rules in a lot of ways. But I feel that we are opening up in our hearts to new ideas, but we're not really creating the structures around how to do that, supporting and caring about other people's hearts as well. So what I see when I see that whole situation, and I actually hit AMR this morning about that because I happen to be at the Oscars when all that went down, and it was.
A fascinating thing thing to see.
And what I really saw, even from that first moment with Chris and Will and Emir and Quesla was much more of a non permission to be who you really fucking are, Right, That's let's start there, Like who is Will and his truth? Whose will as a man? What is the role that he feels he has to stand up to and be in order to be in love with this vergion of person, and what are her expectations and rules around that? And if we could start getting a little bit honest even as we enter relationships about what we actually need and how we actually feel. I read this book years ago with a not a good title called getting to I do dumb title's because not everyone's trying to get married. Yeah, she was a ninety seven year old woman and.
She was a relationship coach.
And the whole book is about if you want to be cherished, right, and that's your goal, then don't be the boss at home and be running up things. And that's not even a male female thing, that's just Oh, I want to be cherished. So I don't want to make and I say this all the time, strong women are always misunderstood because we don't want to make all the decisions. We want someone else strong enough to make us a sub because we trust that they could be the dom right you know what I mean, like strong enough to let me relax and be in this position so.
That we don't have to make all the decisions on everything, because I know you're gonna figure it out, do the right thing, and take care of it.
That's right, And I've given you permission to do that. You know, just because I'm a boss in here doesn't mean I want to get home and be the boss. I want to.
Actually have a place where I can sit on someone's lap and be in a ball. I want a place where I can be. So when I pulled the whole situation back and just looked at all three of them. I don't know well Dreda, but I know Chris and I know a Questlove well. And what I saw to me was this new concept of how we actually are living in this world in love with ourselves, and how do we relate to that with other people?
So is it too much?
Yes?
Would I give personal details about my partners in that way? Absolutely not. It's their story to tell.
But I don't really I don't know the inner dynamics of their relationship. I don't know really what the pain and the things that are actually battling and trying to bring forth in the conversation. But what I do know is that they need to create a new deal memo all the way around, a new deal memo that need and I think everyone should. I think every three months with your friends, with your partners, three months.
Is kind of short, but that's the world we live in now.
Changes every day.
Okay, Listen, we make a trip three months ago. We're gonna go to Jamaica. We're gonna go on this thing. You might be in a completely different place of life. The trip is coming up and I'm going to call you and say, oh, I know you just started that job. I know you're in this new partners will back out at their last.
Back but I'm busy.
For I wasn't like that before. She has a kid now made it different.
But also you're welcome to yourself because literally, and you know with integrity, you know it's not like you're at the airport and Angela's waiting for you. There are real with me, but there are real times or I and for me this has been the worst and the hardest part because I want everyone to be happy. I want her wone to be but recently, yeah, I'll make a plan because I'm like a five year old. I'm like, oh that sounds fun.
Then the day of I want to go to my bed.
If you sound it fun at the time, No way.
And that's the struggle for me is that there's a lot of times I'm exhausted and I don't want to do something, but I also feel like I shouldn't back out of things because if I give my word, I want people to feel like I'm still a good friend, still reliable, because most of the time I don't feel like doing things, but I know, and then when I get there, I'm okay. And so I will say that like there's and you know that, like there's a lot of times that I will say yes, I'll do this, and then it's oh man, I don't feel like I'll.
Tell her like, well, let's just not do it, but she's like, I know. But I will also say that Angela and I are close friends, and a lot of times I don't ask her to do things or four things because I know even if she don't want to do it, she'll say yeah, she'll do it anyway. She's well, that's kind of like part of people pleasing though, right, oh yes.
And then I know what Jasmine. If she says yeah, there's a chance that she's not going to do it. So I've always got a backup situation ready just in case.
But how about we just do a ne demo, a new deal memo with yourself.
Okay, what did I look like?
So it looks like because I'm the same, I want to say yes to everything. So now I have twenty four hours. I don't say yes to anything until I've okay, you know what, I let you know tomorrow. Can you give me twenty four hours or what's up till what time? Can I tell you so I can really fill into it. Another thing for people like I like that for people like you and I, is to create a negative space calendar. I had to do this because I wanted to do all these things for myself. But then all of a sudden, I've you know, consulted on this and had this talk and saved this person, and there was no time for me. So I created a negative space calendar. It has the time I'm working, but it has like the dance class I want to go to this, and those are critical because what what happened is if I didn't see anything in my schedule, you you don't know how to say right, yeah, Then I didn't know how to say no. So now I look at that true schedule. You know, you have a nap in there, lunch with yourself, you're taking a morning walk, whatever the hell it is that makes you feel good. And then you can't say yes to things until you've checked all the boxes. For Angela, right, you need to do that, Angelou, Okay, we could do together.
I made a little outline.
Yeah, listen.
You can find some of these tools and tricks in the Joy strategist. I also want to talk about spending time, like you said, with yourself, because it feels like you you've said this that masturbation is also and being able to touch yourself. It's really important as far as being in tune with yourself. All right, So can we talk about that a little bit because Dasman, do you masturbate often?
I don't know. I don't know about often, but my toy that you gave me, I do master. But I feel like this is a little pride t am I. But I feel like it's like desensitized me a little bit.
Yes, yes, so yes, I had to lay off the.
Good somebody was like, wait a.
Minute, it's not who made those and also right there in ten yeah they're beaten up after it is.
I feel like it kind of denizes, at least from my situation.
Well, mo Jesmin has hit on the head. Life disensitive, life desensitize it because the thing is is that before even masturbation, you know this, I had a group of friends back to this, people who were asking me to work on their business pre pandemic, and then post during we're like how do I So we had all these new breakups and I'm noticing friends of mine going on the first new date. It's going very very terribly, and it's going very very terribly.
One of them came to me and said, oh, I was on this new date. I said, how to go.
We started kissing and then she said I'm good, and I said, oh, that's terrible. If a woman says I'm good, you did something not great. And I realized that we live in a fast, fast world, so we don't even know that what intimacy is. And before we even get to touching our own anything, let's slow it down, slow it down. Well, if you take your own arm and you just touch yourself so soft, like hovering on the top of your arm, and then take a long time to get to your wrist, you'll turn yourself on. But we don't take that soft, slow time with ourselves. So before you even get to masturbating, just being sexy with yourself, passing a mirror and looking in your own eyes and really being your own best lover.
Because we're very critical of ourselves. Yes, I find a lot of times you're like, I need to fix this, I need to do something. I don't like the way this looks.
Oh I am the poster child glittering to myself in a mirror. And it took me a long time.
And I read a book, a spiritual book years ago called Louis You Could Heal Your Life by Louise L.
Hay, and the first exercise was looking in a mirror in your own eyes. It took me months.
It took me months to achieve that. And then I stopped trying to be like, Oh, I'm gorgeous, and that's why I could look at my own eyes and instead be like, oh, I have eyes. I'm so grateful that I have eyes, right, and just take it back from beauty and these again, these other concepts that people have created for us, and.
Pull it back to what do we like about ourselves?
I am grateful that I fed my daughter this morning, even though I'm exhausted working for jobs, whatever, you know, whatever the thing is, taking it and slowing it down. And then, yes, we're animals. If you have a part of your body that never gets used, it's not going to be the thing that's the loudest on you. So if there's no sexiness or juiciness in your body, how as animals are we going to be out in the world being attrited to each other.
There's nothing going on. What am I connecting to?
So I feel like masturbation is very advanced math for people who've been raised in very spiritual or religious you know, homes or institutions.
But it doesn't even need to be that dramatic.
It just needs to be touching your own skin, touching my own arm.
What you think about this?
If you are after work, you go home, you're exhausted. You have to feed yourself, but you're tired, you don't feel like it. You don't want to take a shower. It's exhausting, but let a booty call hit you up a little bit class shower' gonna make a meal?
Taken clue list. When she put the block of cookies in the oven, number, she's like, really tired.
Maybe just the wet white And I'm just kidding, by the way, for real, there's.
A lot of good brands. Now there's Honey or whatever. I love that woman so but but in seriousness.
Get sexy with yourself, right, Just slow it down, like enjoy yourself the way you would if you were trying to make someone else feel that you were worth enjoying.
And one of the things in the book you do talk about is also spending one or three minutes writing or during what you're proud of yourself for. Since we kind of talked about that and listen, I'm a big fan of celebrating like small things, you know what, And.
I always tell you that, like what did we do today?
Okay, well let's celebrate that, just because we do have so many small wins that sometimes we don't acknowledge or take the time to be like, I'm proud of myself.
For this a thousand percent.
When you're listen, when you're around artists, I'd be on set recording doing a video and an artist would come out. I mean like jay Z will walk out of the trailer and everyone's like he walked outside, you know. And that's when I started thinking, no one's out there cheering when I walk outside, I also brush my teeth and put on a T shirt. Where's my fucking cheering section?
But we are, I said, this woman on social media hair alarm clock is applause.
So when she wakes up in the.
I'm going to change me too.
I'm borrowing that plotting when she's getting up, like so that's her alarm.
Yeah, sometimes I'll take I'll take lipstyllut lipstick on, I'll kiss the mirror, and I'll write a note for myself to find the next day what I would do for Listen, if I'm your lover, I used to want.
To make sure you felt loved. Really, I want to give you a bath.
I want to give a massage you. I want to teach you things to eat, and help you with your business and fix your family.
And it sounds a lot. It's too much. I mean, it sounds great. It sounds like on the receiving end.
It's okay, it sounds like pick me.
So I started doing even ten percent of that for myself. What a difference of a life, right, you know? And then what am I inspiring for my kids?
My my all my kids.
I have three gift kids. You know, they have their own moms and dads. But I get to now be the fun X step mom that sends you know, memes and cartoons and thoughts. But what I'm always pushing underneath is you got this. Who you are right now is amazing. I don't care if someone in school says you don't have to write this or the right that. What is great about you?
Lead with that And it's interesting because with Grace, I feel like, like you said, you're not like paying attention to what's going on online. You have to like see what's happening, do these deep dives into it. But you've had so many public things happening. Do you pay attention to what people say about you at all?
You know?
I really, I really fell in love with my third husband, and had worked with so many artists and traveled with them in the world I share, so I just didn't even think that that would become a thing. Oh but meaning that about this. Months weeks before that, I'm with two different artists who are big, big, big in the world, at the same location in Malibu. We've been having our little I thought secret whatever for like a year now. When those pictures came online in Malibu, I freaked out, and I freaked out more about my own children. I bet La read once when I was an executive that you couldn't find a photo of me online. I wasn't doing trade photos every time I got promoted. I didn't feel like it was about me until Melody Hopson said, you're writing yourself out of history. So now I take pictures, okay, but thank you melody. But so yeah, that was shocking to me. And what was shocking to me was the level of hate, you know, the level of anger things, people making things up, armchair critics. But you know what, that's what made me write the book because I felt deeply emotionally disturbed that people are so sad in their own being that they want to strike out of people they don't even know, and that just I went to such deep empathy around that, like I don't have that, I don't have any feature of that. I want everyone to win. I love people's successes. If I don't know you, I'm just like, do your thing. So that was a hard thing to experience. Also, I had to talk to paparazzi a few times and be like, listen, I'm never gonna come out of the car with my pussy out. You know you're not gonna find me. Like it's never so I'm boring. Shoot him, I'll get out of the way, leave me alone.
Like this is not what I mean. You were with Usher, I mean you were married to Usher, Like you had to think that people were going to be fascinated with you.
You know, I really wasn't a person who leaned into people's love stories outside of my own. And I worked with a million I mean, I've been around the world with.
A huge artist, but we didn't know you were married to them though.
But that's the thing I think about. I know what was funny, what really made me think about it is that I was traveling for a long time. I did a bunch of jobs. I was out of the country with j I was out of the country with Kanye and different people. But when the whole thing happened with Usher, I had to realize, like why, And then I thought about my times with people like Lionel Ritchie or Mariah Carey, and then it made sense about Usher because you love Jay and you love Kanye, and their songs.
Mean a lot to you. But a song that you maybe lost your virginity to or got married.
I have a connection.
There's an emotional connection. So that's why the relationship meant more. I felt like I failed in every area because I could care I mean, look at my hair. I could care less about getting fancy. I want to be on the red carpet. I just you know, it wasn't my It wasn't a place that was comfortable for me. I loved him and I loved what we were building, and I loved all the philanthropic things we were doing, but that version of a world that's aspirational not knowing me because of the outside I didn't want to be a part of that.
Are you were you also reluctant, even in the beginning of your relationship to take it to that level outside of work, like okay, oh yeah.
That that's a big deal. Yeah when work, and then it crosses over.
Well, I felt like I'd done it smart because I worked the label he brought in justin to sign, so I didn't work with him in that way he was and.
Then I quit.
I had a friend to who killed took his life, and I did not enjoy the way it was handled, and I couldn't be in a space anymore that didn't support human life as the number one thing. So I didn't feel so much that it was more that I was worried about my own kids. It was a thing where all of a sudden, the media was picking up them and talking about that. And that's when I was like, this is not and I said I will I don't need to ever see this person again. If this is going to hurt my children. And I remember calling this leaf classic and I said, you know, I'm so sorry about this.
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry about the squander. She said, what I got more followers like I was.
I felt like.
She was so confident that she was like it was the best six And then I hit my son and he said, oh, I didn't even notice, So you know it was it was from that perspective that it all started.
But yeah, I that was very difficult for me.
I did not backlash for Yeah, just I understand what you're saying, though, because I feel like, just similar to you, I'm never going to go online and bash anybody. So when someone does it to you, it kind of makes you feel empathy for them because what is going on in your life that you feel the need to be this way because happy people don't do things like that.
Yeah, and that's I've always felt like that that kind of helps me.
What's your relationship like now with us? Are you friends or oh.
Yeah, okay, I don't know friends.
I think that I don't want to over romanticize that when you end and everyone's like it's rosy, you know, it was complicated. I had a lot of opinions about things, posts, and you know you do. But in preparation for all of this, because I've never been in this role. I've always been the grand supporter and happy to be there. And if it weren't really about joy, and if I weren't feeling such a joyless world right now, the whole planet, I wouldn't be doing this. And it's easy for me to sit here and talk about this because I understand that I have this platform. But I reached out to everybody before I came to talk to you all ractually.
No, we know each other. You see me in a weird situation.
We're about to get into that too.
Yeah, so.
Let's go there, go there.
So yeah, No, I mean definitely I wanted I want him to read the book.
Also, to be honest, I didn't want my book usurped with a bunch of social media shit that it's not about the book, right, So I didn't want it to be the first opportunity. The last time I've actually spoken was to write the letter of why we were no longer going to be Yeah, So I didn't want the book to turn into a usher and gray. Yeah, that's not what this is about. No, there's no version of that you know, and Renee is killing his life. He did the most amazing thing during the pandemic, him and his wife Lulette. I'm so proud of the whole roll up and helping artists, you know, cash in on their own reality or the time where they only survived on performing and now there wasn't right. And when people have tried to do those roll ups in the past, they didn't support the artists actual so I was really proud of them.
And this is not I said when I'm seventy.
Five, I'll write it because everybody would want to hear that book about all the wild Chip because they'll be old and they'll want to be sexy.
But now people are in their life cha yo, I have some stories.
How did you get to a good place at co parenting because your first husband did get remarried Lalette I know her too, I remember her from those those days.
Awesome?
Was it?
Yeah?
I remember when you know all that was happening. But how did you guys get into Was it difficult at first?
Or yeah?
That was a a It was about pride swallowing For me. You know, what I did was not raised with my father. My father was in an institutions, and you know, he was in jail for most of my life, and so I didn't have that and the stuff that I ran around with as a preteen, wanting everyone plug in because I was just looking for love and super promiscuous and you know, are you my mom? I love her, You're I didn't want my daughter to have that, and she was such a daddy's girl. So immediately, the most important thing was a mediation. I wanted to separate. You know, when we when we were fucking and making people, we were having a great time. So why should they reap the pain of now we're not together?
Why should it be their reality? Right?
I did things that I thought were so important, like, okay, now we're going to live separately instead of them having to schlep their shit everywhere. I left every other weekend when it was Renee's weekend and stayed at my friend Jason's house.
So that they weren't the kids in school like I am. I ain't my parent.
I left my homework here because I just was thinking mostly about them. And you know, the good news is Renee felt a little guilty about how things went down, so he was happy to be in mediation. With me, and also we share we're very similar upbringings, so he understood what that felt like as well.
So good.
We jumped right into that and stayed on the side had mediation so that I could get my heart in a good place on him. You know, there's two sides to every relationship, and then there's a third side of what really happened there from them in between their truths. And it was important for me to get there so I could look in my children's eyes forever and say I tried everything, and how was it for.
You coming into the life for like you said, I share had children already, so even going to meet his kids, because that's not an easy thing.
Also because is other people involved too.
So when I was writing my list of another partner, you know, I put on there they have to have kids, because I was I shop was closed.
I did it. I did it twice. I was like, no more people are squshing out of my crutch. That's not as fun as they try to make it out. And I'm blessed. I have two amazing children, you know, and now I have five. I have gift kids. I love them all.
But I took that very seriously, and what people didn't realize. You know, we show and I were together five years, lived in different states before we were a thing, and I think that that's something that we really have to protect. Yeah, and I feel like it's a it's a responsibility of not just the parents, but of anyone coming into that to not only lean into that person's comfortability around their children, but also the children, because different children handle different things at different times. I have a very shy child or a very clingy child, and will take that as to mean something else. I also really promote books. Kids books are so good and they really help you tackle certain issues. So I would get kids books and read them to my kids and be also like, oh, it's saying, you know, learning from.
We've ever grown really all right?
And then since we do know some people in common a mayor aka questlove right. So I didn't realize this at first, but you guys eventually did let people know that you guys were in a relationship.
And I've never seen him do that before. He is so fiercely private.
It seems very private.
It's very private.
I feel like, you know, to be honest with you, We've been friends for thirty something years, and I don't We didn't do this intentionally, but it felt very much like, Okay, if twenty if twenty nineteen, we're both still fucked up, we'll meet at Earth at seventeenth Street and fourth and we'll get each other straight because we've just ebbed and flows. It flowed into each other's lives over and over and so many times, and in really important times. I never would talk about Benina apple Bom before because I didn't want to be you know, in those days, like I didn't want to be a video ho right, embarrassed, right.
You wouldn't be in the video you said. You were like, I don't want anybody to know about this.
I wanted to have a career, and in those days it was really you had to really decide. So I remember just moments where it was really time for me to step up. You know, I've been being backstage at a concert and the mirror being in there and saying to someone you know that she's blah blah blah. So it really was a mutual time of help. He wanted to do the movie. He was questioning whether he could be a director, which is insane if you're a musical director and a drummer and a DEJP, but whatever, and I wanted to write a book. I wanted to lean into that part and just didn't have any idea how to do that. And so I think the reason that he was so comfortable being so front and center with our relationship was because it was so aspirational.
In so many ways.
We really saw each other in truth, we really wanted to help each other, and neither of us had ever really been in something that was, you know, there's I had a life coach who said there's three kinds of people in the world. There are matchers, takers, and givers, and being a people pleaser, I only attracted takers, you know, And there was a lot to take and I wanted to just bleed myself dry to do that. And Emir's also more of a matcher person or a giver person. So it was a really nice experience for each other to be in a relationship that was about matching, about seeing each other and giving each other what we need and also at times what we don't need, like pulling back and having the time to also be in our own space and take our own time, and having a relationship that supported that.
I thought that was nice for him to be able to, for the first time ever publicly be like do an article where you're in the home and showing people the home that you share together.
Because like I said, I've never seen him, you know, do anything like that.
Did it It all occur to you, like, well, what if you know, we take this next step and things don't work out and I lose my friend who I've been friends with for thirty years.
Well, because I'm an older lady, I we really talked through everything in the beginning, and most of the stuff he wrote the most beautiful I rejected. And Aldre can confirm that I needed to have any celebrities quoting or saying any about this book because we're all creators.
I've seen what he wrote in here. Yeah, and he.
Wrote I cried when he wrote that, and so I was really working on that. So one of the things I did right away was say, this is where I am in truth. This is what I can offer in truth. You know, it's not you're not going to get ten percent of all my dazzle show from the past, but you're going to get the true me. And also, I want to just stay upfront. I don't believe that anything's forever and so some people take that as to sound unromantic, But to me, that's the most romantic because if I can say to you, I can give you a full a full grace today versus some fictitious we're gonna die together.
You know.
I was laughing the Disney and Landscape one of me because I crapped on Disney so hard in my in the presentation about how we've all been taught that someone completes you and.
Now you're whole.
Yeah, and I've had to go back and say, that's not really what Disney's promoting. They're promoting I think I said this the other day. I thought it was funny if you really look at the princess stories. These men had to work a lot, had to climb a tower and climb up someone's.
Hair, and dwarves and tall task. So yeah, so that's the truth.
Of it, and we deserve that, and I feel like the relationship that we had was amplifying that for each other and throughout our entire families all. Literally, my nephew had a birthday two days ago.
We have a family chat. I forget that he like he's everyone's congratulations, and there's a mirror happy birth, like, just.
So, are you are you open to get married again? What's you?
Are you?
What are you? Are you dating now? To get married?
She loves it. I love full love.
I've think it's so fun the beginning. The beginning is I have a game I play and if you can't keep up, you're out. It's so I'll send you a song and it's exactly what I'm saying, and you can't respond in words. You have to respond in his song.
That's got to be kind of well, you're a music girl.
So it's it's you don't have an edge, but question.
He would have more of it.
I don't know who has more of an edge here, but he definitely has.
That's a battle. You have a battle of catalog.
So when I write a song and then send it right, I might it doesn't exist.
So are you single? Now?
Are you dating?
Or do you have a man?
I reject having a man. I don't have any any owners. But I do have a friend. You have a friend more than a friend. Actually, he told me the day I can't call my a friend. It's rude.
So yes, but I am famous okay in his own reality.
I guess are we all right? Yeah?
I I am not looking for anything in life right now more than just someone who's in support of the journey I'm on and I'm just learning to fall in love with myself.
This is new, okay.
So that is the most important thing, is how I treat myself right now, and anything that gets in the way of that is an enemy to it. So it's a person in my life who literally for five years was just not going away and smart like every six months will come back like ready now and ready now. See, guys know that too. They know there's somebody that's always going to be checking away. So you know what was interesting about it was when I was leaning out of it, every time I started to Okay, you know what, I'm doing the old thing because I'm putting on what it is on paper. But when I'm around that person, how I feel is delicious, and so it feels frightening actually because I'm better at the other I'm better when I'm having to give you the show because I'm really controlling it. But really this experience of just like it's truly a rollercoaster. Okay, I'm gonna go with you, and it feels uncomfortable, and so that's the real work.
And you know, it's funny.
What's his name, rom Das. You said this quote once and I never really took into I never connected to it. But he said that he medically learned to meditate and was meditating for ten years, but then he went home to his core family and everything went out the window. And I'm noticing, you know, I've been allowing myself to lean into this the last six months.
It was celibate for four years.
It really worked hard to you know, to really readdress what was happening with me, and it was just it's been funny to see that as much as I understand this intellectually and I know it, but being in practice with an open heart is really a lot of work and vire frightening.
Yeah, it is scary because your leg Is this always going to feel like this? Or is this a temporary thing? Is this real? It is definitely scary.
Yes.
And you know what though, if I said to you, oh, I want to change my body and I want to get a personal trainer, I'd be complaining, bragging to you, Oh, I couldn't even sit in the toilet because my thighs were so weak and so, you know, so much pain from that experience, and we have to start to understand as a world that two opposing forces can also always be true, right, And that is that joy is your birthright and it's easy.
When you lean into it.
And also it's fucking hard because I believe we learned our first love relationship pre verbal. So in the same way you go back to your first you go back to your school. It looks so small, it.
Looks so big.
So I feel like our heart stuff was that if let's say you're my mom, hm, and you're talking to Jasmine and you're saying, oh. For three days, I was nursing Grace and it was just so beautiful. Were looking to each other's eyes.
It's magic.
I could feel like the endorphins and oxytocin and our love. And then the seventh day you get out a phone call. Jasmine calls you and gives you bad news. I for in my seven year old life, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me. So now I'm creating a dynamic.
That's not there now. Day nine, you're telling Jasmine so cute. Whenever I nurse Gracey, she plays with my elbow. You know what I did?
That's my first performative love gesture. It's the first time I realized I got to keep this love going.
My daughter does it not when I'm nursause nurser, but when I get when i've she does like this. She plays me chair, she grabs my arm to hug her.
So but see, that's wonderful, and that's wonderful that you're a mother that's leaning into that, because what she's she's showing you by grabbing your arm at the beginning is I don't know how to ask, but I want some love. I'm feeling scared and I want some love. And you're a mother who's leaned into that. But if you don't have a parent who's aware, because the first time anyone's a parent, you're an amateur, like the first time anyone's making a human, complete amateur. So we're making mistakes, and I feel like we're designed to, because these little people are here to show us our own rebirth and bring us into our own pleasure and our own joy. But we don't realize that the things that we learn preverbal, they're not necessarily true. So I had to do the work of unpacking that. Wait, is love actually scary? No, actually what's scary is the grasping of love. Being in this state I'm in right now is fantastic.
I'm having a ball. It's everything's new, everything exciting. It's so fun.
It's always my favorite part.
Beginning right too, sex at the beginning, by.
The way, there's a way to keep that alive forever. That's a whole another conversation. We can do that as well. But so leaning into that, leaning into that was hard. But at the same time, I know that I have my own energy, ps my heart, and I also believe. I believe very strongly in God, a god of my understanding. Everyone has a different understanding of God, and so I know that what God has done for me in the past will do again and more. They're not going to just drop me on my ass today, so I have to just That goes back to the most important part of this book, learning to trust yourself.
Right.
And sometimes also we know that relationships do take work, but sometimes we feel bad, like how do you know when it's just time to let it go?
When it doesn't feel good? So it starts to be honest.
Doesn't feel good though, right, No.
No, no, let's let's let's be honest. Here right, you make your long list of everything you want in a person, I want them to do this. I mean, here's online. I had someone who has a daily spiritual practice, but really I didn't have one. I haven't for the gram, you know, but really I don't know if that's my kid. Daughter's gonna die of me trying to use populus slang. I'm sorry I misleave, but you know it's.
Really the truth is is that I do know what feels good, and we do know, and when with.
People we love, we often have that little but we don't say it. So when we let those little things in, we're getting to a place where we're not being honest with that person or ourself anymore. So we know we just don't want to know. We want to hold on because we've been taught that there's only one fish in the whole seat.
So we get the thing and.
We're like, and we also don't ever want to like quit and feel like we quit on someone or something.
So don't quit on yourself, Yeah, because that's what we do first when we go into something that's not really for us. If you have this long list and you've worked to be everything on that list since we're magnetic and we attract magnetically, then that.
Person's not for you.
If they're not matching your love, if they're not giving in the way that your love language is to give. Then this is what I mean about the deal memo. Start from beginning with the truth of what you really desire, and then teach yourself to be entitled enough to have it, and then you won't be in a situation where something all of a sudden deceives you and is different. Now, people do change, It's honest with you know what, this was feeling great for seven months, but Jasmine, you no longer rub my head as I fall asleep, and that's a deal breaker. I'm out, and not that abruptly. But with love, it's like back to questlove. It's like we can love each other because we understood what we both wanted, and we also understood when what we wanted was no longer there and between us. Okay, So that is it's every way getting true with yourself and knowing that that's the only.
Way to live a life that She's always on good terms of people too.
When it ends, I just no, no, no, It takes a long time.
I was going to say Yeah, everybody's like, you know, we're good, We're cool.
Yeah, everyone's always good. It's just that we want to be We want to again. I'm on the radio.
I want to sound like everything's good. Took a long time, you know, I had I had to really lick my wounds.
I was hurt.
I felt like, you know, I was Being a people pleaser is really code for wanting to feel like a good person all the time.
Right, That's a gold star in itself.
So being a yucky person who just is selfish and stands up for themselves has a lot of judgment the world, Right, So I had to get comfortable being that icky person for myself.
Well, listen, guys, this we could go on and on and on. Listen to joy Strategist. I'm so happy that we had a chance to do this because I know we talked about this like years ago, about you coming up here and talking about the work that you do as a joy strategist, the.
First of its kind, the originator.
Yeah, the originator. How can people reach you, you know, just because of the work that you do. I know you work here in New York, right is it? I live upstate New York in Austin, Texas.
Right, okay, between Well, first of you can I mean the joys the joy strategist dot com if you want to make an appointment or or talk or look at things or old articles or other experiences. I do playdates live so you could see some of those on there. Also Instagram at Grace Harry. I'm pretty accessible. I really just want to lead the revolution of joy so that we can get onto actually having fun in this world and not just you know, what's my job?
Is he cheating?
And please read this book. There's some great information in here.
One of the things I love was declaring yourself a victim only keeps you victimized, because I definitely know people who are always saying this happened to me, or this person did this to me, or how could you do this? And I've seen that happen in situations where people are always the victim, and therefore they cannot manifest the things that they need in their life to get to the next level.
It's called manifucking.
Manifucking It is when you want the thing, but you're really saying something else inside of yourself, so you can't get to the thing because you're running a different program.
But Grace Harry, again, thank you so much. You're always welcome to come up here. You So this is a great conversation. And I'm gonna ask people what have you heard about me from when I meet them from now on?
Like you, what have you heard about people you trust?
I trust you, but not everyone is good at giving advice or information outside of their own perspective. And I could tell right away that you are right, and that's a that's an advanced math skill. A lot of peop people say, oh, you're gonna get married, you shouldn't get married. I've been divorced, but that's not fair. So I ask people that you know are going to give you a reflective perspective.
Okay, Well, one thing I did hear was that she is very what do they say?
Very flowing and free? And I do get that from you, So thank you. All right, it's way up at Angela Ye.
The Joy Strategist. Grace Harry, thank you so much,
