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My dad didn’t let anything slide; he would call anyone on their bullshit—kid, spouse, friend, foe, it didn’t matter. I didn’t always appreciate my father’s voice, but I learned some valuable lessons from him about the importance of speaking my mind, no matter the consequence. If Boris Henson thought you were wrong, he’d tell you about yourself, straight talk, no chaser. That was my father: so real and raw, inappropriate and honest. Isn’t that how it should be? Wouldn’t you want the people you’re dealing with to come from that place? So many people are afraid to live in that space. My father wasn’t, though. From that, I learned to never, ever apologize for who I am—to never apologize for my journey. God gave it to me because He knew I could handle it. So much of what I learned from him, I apply to my profession.
My dad is the very essence of my Empire character, Cookie Lyon, the drug-selling, truth-telling, time-doing matriarch. Some of my best lines are ad libs drawn directly from the crazy things my father used to say. Give it up to Dad for that classic Cookie commentary about modern-day beauty in Empire season one: “You know I was never into wearing all them damn weaves,” Cookie snaps. “Girls walking around with their scalps smelling like goat ass.”
Beyond the direct quotes, Cookie is like my father in that she is the walking, breathing truth who blurts it out without so much as a fast blink, no matter how embarrassing that truth may be for the human on the receiving end of it. There’s a childlike innocence in that. Though the rest of us are trained to stop, think, and manipulate our answers when someone asks a question, Cookie refuses to do such a thing, precisely because of the journey she’s taken. She’s not just some loudmouth ghetto girl who served time and then came up on some cash; she’s so much more complex than that. Cookie’s survived seventeen years in a cage and she managed to get on the other side of that prison cell with her soul intact. The system couldn’t break her. That’s the superwoman power that she has: a voice that matches those gregarious outfits she wears. That is the superman power my father employed when, after losing his home and living out on the streets, he got himself together, found himself a job, and slowly rebuilt his life, finding God, a wife, and second daughter, a new home, and even a studio in which to practice his beloved metalworking. Nothing—no circumstance, no pitfall, no setback—could stop him from acknowledging his struggle and lifting his voice to let everyone know he was always the baddest man in the room, no matter the setback he was processing.
I come by my frankness honestly. I’m an extrovert by nature, and I have no problem being unapologetically bold, loud, foolish, and funny, and saying exactly what’s on my mind. I can think of only one stretch of time in my forty-five years when I shrunk around others: when I was in high school. Chalk that up to a bit of timidity around the fellas (and a smidge of developmentally appropriate adolescent angst). When it came to relationships with the opposite sex, I hid. Literally. Under oversized sweatshirts and long skirts that flowed down to my ankles. I didn’t want anyone—especially guys—to call attention to how bony and flat chested I was. I weighed one hundred pounds sopping wet, and I looked even thinner than that when I was standing next to my best friend, Tracie (who remains my best friend to this day). Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate with an hourglass shape that brought all the boys to the yard, Tracie had the perfect breasts and a round ass. There I was with my little flat chest and a little onion hiding in the folds of all that material I used to wear. The guys were always hot on her; they liked my personality and they thought I was cute, but that was about it. At least that’s what I told myself as I cocooned like a caterpillar beneath those baggy outfits. I’m sure now, with the vision and wisdom of a grown woman, that it wasn’t so much my skinny frame that kept guys away as it was the energy I was giving off. My lack of confidence when it came to attracting guys made me unapproachable, and so they didn’t bother to step to me.