April 30, 2024 • 40 mins
Previously recorded
In one of our favorite throwback episodes, Michelle and Sunny are taking us to a black beachouse! Sunny talks about the inspiration and history behind the concepts of her books. She also shares how journalism impacted her mental health and how the people in her life helped her through those challenges. CHECK IN to this episode for a taste of black luxury!
To purchase Sunny’s books, visit: https://sunnyhostin.com/
Follow Sunny on Instagram @Sunny
Make sure you’re following Michelle on social media!
Instagram: @MichelleWilliams
Twitter: @RealMichelleW
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. Okay, everybody, h thank y'all
(00:20):
for tuning in to another episode of Checking In.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I get the privilege.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm truly honored, truly humble to interview one of my
favorite humans ever on this planet.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
She is a three time Emmy Award winning.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Co host of ABC's The View, New York Times bestselling author.
I fell in love with her first of all because
she is an attorney, a legal analyst, as well as
a sought after speaker.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Y'all already know. Y'all know who it is. Please welcome
Sonny Houstin.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
You know, I remember the first time we met. I
mean I had watched you for form, of course, but
I remember the first time we met. We were you
were walking out of a Japanese restaurant. I was walking
into a Japanese restaurant and you were like, Sonny Housen
and I was like, I know, Michelle Williams does not
know who I am. So it was great and it's
(01:17):
been great to keep in touch since then.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yes, ma'am, it has been great.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
It has just been awesome over the years, because you know,
I am a bootleg attorney. My college was criminal justice,
so I would stay tuned and peeled into cases that
made like mainstream television. And what inspired me so much
was to see women of color bringing it as it
(01:45):
related to the legal parts of all these cases that
were going on. I mean, killing it sure confident. There
are times where you had to set people in their place,
or there are times you had to be.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Like, no, the person did it.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
How do y'all not see it?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
How do they not singing it?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So I'm just appreciative of you. I'm appreciative you've been
what ten seasons or more on the View?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I was just reminded of that my someone on the
View I had said during an interview six years and
she was like, no, you started guest hosting with us
in twenty twelve, and I was like what She was like, yep,
Barbara got you into the rotation in twenty twelve, and
so I was a guest co host for a lot,
(02:36):
like half the shows in a year, and then I've
been on the show formally as a full time co
host since for seven years. It went by really.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Quickly, doesn't it. Go by quickly.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, and it's like I started guest co hosting, but
at the time I was working at CNN, so it
was it was, you know, they wanted me to start
at the View, but I really couldn't because I have
a contract and CNN at the time was like, no,
you can't get out of your contract, which in a
way was a good thing for me because I was
(03:09):
reporting out in the field. I was doing the things
that you you were just talking about. You know, I
was covering the Trayvon Martin trill well, the George Zimmerman trial,
but the Trayvon's murder, and I was, you know, covering
Casey Anthony who murdered, in my opinion, her, you know,
her baby, And so I was. I was in the
thick of a lot of heavy stuff that was really
(03:32):
important to me. And so in a way it was
great to be able to do that that heavy lifting
and give voice to our community and then get on
the View and have a little bit of fun. So
it was it was a good balance.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Got it. The foundation of checking in is mental health.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
And just mentioned that, you know, you had to cover
some heavy cases.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, okay, I named.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
All these brilliant things that you do. But some of
the most brilliant things that you are is a wife
and mother. Yes, someone's daughter, someone's friend. How were you
able to handle all of these heavy moments as far
as your mental health is concerned.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
You know, it's interesting. I'm learning how to handle it better.
I am someone who tended to internalize things. You know,
I was the calm in the storm. I had a
pretty chaotic upbringing because I grew up in the South
Bronx projects and I saw a lot of violence and addiction,
(04:37):
and so I was always the kid with the book
that was looking for an escape from my surroundings. And
it kind of grounded me. And my faith grounded me.
You know. I'm Catholic, went to Catholic schools. I had
a really good friendship with a nun believe it or not, sister,
and she passed a couple of years ago, and I
(04:58):
still to this day have a really good friendship with
two priests, Father Edward Beck and Father Bob, and so
I was able to turn to them. I didn't turn
to a traditional therapists, but I turned to them for guidance,
you know, like faith guidance, Like how do I do this?
Especially when I was covering a lot of the heavy stuff,
and it's hard, I will say, not only covering those issues,
(05:24):
but covering them as a public figure, and it's especially
hard on your family. And you don't think about that,
or at least I didn't think about that when I
first started. I just want to tell people's stories. I
just want to make sure people knew about Trayvon. I
wanted to make sure you know that people knew about
George Floyd. I just it was important to me that
people knew about what was going on community. I prosecuted
(05:45):
child sex crimes and trafficking. That was the business that
I was in when I was a prosecutor, and I
pretty much put myself last all the time. I wanted
to make sure my daughter was okay, my son was okay,
my husband was okay, and I was doing the work.
But I wasn't as concerned about myself. And I would
(06:08):
say within the past five years, especially with the help
of Joy Behar and Whoopee and my co hosts asking me,
are you okay? And I started kind of taking stock
in that and I was like, some days I'm great,
but some dames, I'm actually not okay. And it's okay
to say I'm not okay, it's okay to say I
(06:29):
think I'm going to have to take a mental health
day off today because I need to know. I live
on kind of a modified farm, So I'm like, I
need to go out with my chickens, I need to
tend to my beehives. I need to be with my
two hundred and fifty pound New Finland dogs. I need
to just spend some time for me. And that's been
extremely helpful. But it took me a minute to understand
(06:54):
what self care meant and how if I am not
good and centered mentally, that I am not good and
centered for anybody else. And it's helped me on the
show as well. For sure, it's helped me a lot well.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I think also people feel like you should have.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yourself already emotionally put together before you get out on
that stage. Everyone, And just so you know, respectfully, I
don't want to just have this whole interview be about
your first morning job.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Right on the view.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
But I can imagine, like I because I follow the
View on social media, I follow you, I follow you
on social media? Right, people a little cruel to me,
huh No, that's why they have her on the show
for her expert and being able to handleize things.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
But as a human, as a woman.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
We want to know how are people really truly feeling?
And my hat goes off to you and every every
woman on that platform who has to take a chance
in sharing their personal views on stuff, and like, no,
they mean this, well, this is real.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
This ain't scripted, This is for rescripted.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
It's not scripted. And you know, anybody that knows me,
you know me, anyone that knows me personally. I'm a
very well researched person. I try to be as thoughtful
as possible, but I back up everything that I say
with data and statistics and receipts as Joy likes to
call them. And so it does surprise me when I
(08:30):
say things like you know, I'm not saying this, but
Christopher Ray, the head of the FBI, is that the
biggest threat to our country is white supremacy and domestic
terrorism and that the black community is under attack. And
then I get someone like Megan Kelly who gets on
(08:51):
her podcast that's watched by hundreds of thousands of people,
I think, and puts pictures of my home on her
podcast and starts talking about my children and really puts
me in danger for what I'm saying. Factually, you know,
I am not saying that I haven't made it. I'm
(09:14):
not saying that my kid doesn't go to Harvard. I'm
not saying that my children aren't in private schools. But
but I'm the exception and not the rule. Why should
I be the anomaly? And until my community is the
rule and my success is my community's success and not
the exception, then I'm going to keep on speaking up
(09:37):
and speaking out. And it is hurtful when people come on,
you know, go on social media and think they can
call me a race bader or a racist or and
that those are the nice things.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
What does everything have to be about race?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Like? How m does everything go? I'm giving you the
statistic like, unfortunately, in this country, the cruel legacy of
slavery and racism has bled into everything, every institution that
we have, And when I talk about it based in fact,
(10:15):
I get attacked. And I now, though, if I'm being honest,
I have a social media team. I do not read
the comments. Woopy Goldberg told me to do that for
my health. She said, if you read the comments, you
may start filtering yourself, and they're painful and they're hurtful
because I happen to be much more of an introverted
(10:38):
person than people think I am. So I was taking
things seriously and Joy Behart was like, don't.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Worry about it.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
You open up your mouth. Fifty percent of the country
hates you, fifty percent of the country loves you. It
doesn't matter as long as your family and your friends
love you. And so through the years, through the past
ten years, I wouldn't say that I've gotten a thicker skin,
but I understand human nature more, and I understand that
these people are people that are probably very unhappy. Some
(11:09):
of them don't have the education in these topics that
they need. Some people are watching things like Fox News
on a loop and they're fearful of their neighbors. They're
going out and shooting their neighbors instead of talking to
their neighbors and asking for a cup of sugar and
(11:29):
some milk. You know. And I say that because I
live in a great community. My neighbors will come over
and ask me for things. My neighbors will say, you
know your dog has been born, and you know it's
nine o'clock at night, can you put the dog in
and I'm not going to pull out a gun and
shoot my neighbor because my dog has woken up their baby.
So I have learned now that you know, part of
(11:52):
human nature can be very dark, but doesn't mean that
I have to be a part of that. I can
give voice, I can spread love, and I I can
be unaffected by that.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, I really can press in. We can end this
right now. That's how graceful you are talking about this.
And I'm hoping that by the end of this podcast
you have empowered.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
People to continue to speak up.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Like you said, people will love you and people will
hate you, but focus on the ones that love you.
But yes, the social media team, I'm sure will have
to keep an eye out for people that you might
even have to report to the authorities.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
So they do, and I have had to do that.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yes, people take it, they take their little Twitter fingers
a tinge too far.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
They take it too far. And you know it was Michelle.
I was telling my a friend of mine who hadn't
been to my home for about a year. I won't
even give him the breath, but he also decided to
kind of put my address out there to his viewers
and within maybe an hour, I had people at my
(13:07):
front door, you know, with signs. I mean they people
have a lot of time on their hands. I mean
I feel like they should be working and being with
their families. But they had signs, and I never had gates.
I live on a very big property with my dogs
and my chickens and my beehives.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
We don't get to that because I'm like, we'll get
to that. I have all of that, and I never
had gates.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
And I know all of my neighbors, and my children
grew up playing basketball with their neighbors and we have
a fire pit and they would sit around the fire pit.
But you know, long story short, Disney had to pay
for me to have security. I have gates around my property.
Now I have cameras all around my property. All because
(13:51):
one hateful person decided that they didn't like what my
opinion was and he had a lot of power. He
doesn't have it anymore. But you know, it's a terrible
thing when people are so irresponsible, and they're irresponsible on
(14:14):
social media as well. Social media has a lot of good.
You know, you and I sometimes will connect and DM
and how you doing and this and that, and that's wonderful.
You've had the Arab spring and women in Iran. Girls
in Iran.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Have reached out to me.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Believe it or not, I've had women in Afghanistan that
are in hiding reach out to me. They're such good
that can happen. But there is a lot of garbage
out there and people are taking advantage of it, and
I refuse to be a part of that. So now
my team does screen a lot and they'll say, listen,
you've got an Afghan judge. This's reached out to you,
(14:52):
which you like that message, And I'm like, yeah, send
that message along because that's someone that I will make
sure knows that I care. That's where I am now
in my life, and I'm hoping that social media will
get better. I'm hoping people will get better, I hope.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
So they're saying that things get worse before they get better.
So I hope that we are in the turnaround of
the worst.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Me too, I really, really, really really do.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Oh gosh, thank you for sharing all that you've shared
up to this point.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I want to congratulate you.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You just had a brand new book called Summer on
Sack Harbor.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Some of your first book called Summer on the Bluffs. Y'all.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Let me tell you how busy Miss Sunny is. I'm exaggerating,
probably lying a little bit, but it's been about two
years I've been trying to get her on be because
she sent me her very first book, Summer on the Bluffs.
What attracted me to the book in the first place
was the cover and my favorite, one of my favorite
(15:57):
colors being that bright pink color. Where some are on
the Bluffs is written, and so I just was just
so excited at one of my favorite people sent me
her book.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I just want to know, how have you found time
to find all these books? What is I write?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
And it's hard because you know, my son's in college now,
but he was home when I was writing that book.
He took a gap year. He was home. I wrote
the book during the pandemic and my daughter was home,
and my husband's home. Both of my parents were home.
And what I decided to do was just it was
so important to me to get this book out that
I put myself on the schedule. I was like, I'm
(16:38):
going to write from eleven pm when everybody finally goes
to sleep, everybody except my daughter. Pull onma, she's a
night ourl like I am, and I'm going to write
definitely into one. But because I got to I get
up around six. Yeah, I get up early, and if
I'm doing Good Morning America, then I'm really getting up early.
But I just make an appointment with myself, you know,
(17:00):
to carve that time out. I put my fireplace on.
When I'm writing in the winter or the damp spring,
I get myself a nice cup of tea or a
glass of red wine, and I just start writing, you know,
And I write kind of traditionally. I write pen to paper,
which my editor writes pen to paper too, so it
works for us. And then I send it to where
(17:22):
I'm collaborating with. I have these great ladies that I
send written stuff to which I'm sure they're like, they
hate it, and then they'll type it up for me
and give me suggestions. And that's generally my process. Sometimes
my process has included I write a couple chapters and
I invite my family into the living room. I'm like, Okay,
I want y'all to read this. Have I missed it?
(17:44):
Do you have questions? And that's been very helpful. So
somewhere on the Bluffs, I did that a lot I
didn't do it as much with Summer on Sad because
I was a little more used to writing by then.
But it's a I make priorities, like my kids are
my priority. They're both athletes, and so I have to
go to a lot of track meets and football games
and swim meets. But when they're fed and in their rooms,
(18:09):
they should be doing their homework or a sleep, then
it's me time. And my joy is writing. You know,
I've always written. I was a journalism major.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
So did you ever think that, Okay, I'm going to
author these books.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
I wanted to. I was a journaler when I was
probably twelve or thirteen. When I had my kids, there
weren't a lot of books centering black children. There are
so many more now twenty years later, but with mine,
there weren't. I make them up, you know. And my
daughter was like, please write Princess Paloma's Adventures. And I'd write,
(18:46):
you know, Princess Looma's Adventures. And so I knew I
had stories. I knew I had stories in me. And
the impetus for these books was I was traveling, and
I keep on trying to remember what I was traveled for.
It was it could have been Ferguson. I was on
the ground in Ferguson during the unrest. Ben Crump invited
(19:11):
me to come and just see what's going on. And
I wanted something light to read, because when you start
to read case files and you start to read about
black trauma, it's like the last and I'm a preparer,
so I will have been prepared by the time I
got on the airplane. I want to read something else.
I don't want to see a movie, a sad movie
(19:32):
or anything like that. I want to be on the beach.
I want Stella to get her groove back. I want
to do something like that. And I went into the
book store at the airport and I didn't see any
black people on the cover. If I'm being honest, because
that's to tell you know. You start looking through the
books and you're like, is there any black or brown
people on the cover? And if I find one, and
(19:54):
then I start flipping through it, I didn't see anything,
and I was like, how is this possible? A big
old bookshop with the most popular books and all these
black people traveling, there's no black books. And I at
that moment just started thinking, well, maybe I'll write a
beach read, but not just any beach read. A beach
(20:15):
read centering black and brown people and our relationships and
our motherhood and sisterhood and our men and love and
infidelity and sex and just everything that we go through
in life. And I put it together in a proposal.
I sent it to my agent and he was like,
(20:36):
you know, you got some here, right, And I said really,
I was like, you think so because I want to
read it. Tony Morrison said, if there's a book you
want to read and you can't find it, then you
write it. So do you think someone would buy this?
And sure enough we had a book deal, a three
book deal. I thought it was just going to be
one book within a week. It was about a week.
(20:58):
HarperCollins came back said, this is not a one off.
This is a trilogy set in these three different places,
places where black people were allowed to own black beach
front you know, communities, and unfortunately, in the United States
at a certain time, there's only three, not including Bruce's
Beach of course, and not including Chicken Beach in Atlantic City.
(21:20):
And I just I just started writing. I just started
writing because I've summer on Sag Harbor for twenty years.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
We're there.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
My friend Erica has a house in Highland Beach. Her family,
you know, has had generational wealth for a long time.
I go visit her.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
We're there.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
This is real, Like, it's real. I've seen you post
about it, you know what I mean. And those of
y'all that are listening. I love when the conversations flow
to where like I had this question about lack of
diversity for Beach reads, and here we are talking about
how and what made you write Summer on the Bluffs
and Summer on Sack Harbor.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Now, I'm like, what an amazing opportunity in the book.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
You know that you have incorporated so many important messages
with Guard University and even you spotlight the deep history
of like we said, black communities that have frequented.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Beach towns like Harbor.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So did you know that this rich history existed before
you started the process?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I did?
Speaker 3 (22:23):
I did. I read Our Kind of People by Larry
Graham Lawrence Graham. No one's if you haven't read it,
you got to read this book. Yeah, I'm not saying
it just because he was my friend. He passed away
just a few years ago, way too young, but he
was this brilliant man who he wrote another book called
The Senator and the Socialite about the first black Senator.
(22:45):
He wrote an expos about the Greenwich country Club. He
went to Princeton and I believe Yale no Harvard Law School,
and basically pretended to be a busboy at the Greenwich
Greenwich Country Club and sort of got the inside scoop
of race relations. And so he did all this investigative
journalism and then finally wrote Our Kind of People, which
discussed black excellence from the late eighteen hundreds, not like
(23:09):
black trauma and not about reconstruction, where I'm not saying
there's not a place for that, because our history is
being a race. So we need to read about slavery,
we need to read cast, we need to read the
sixteen nineteen project. But what Larry did was he gave
us the Bible of Black excellence. And he wrote about
the divine nine. You know, I'm an Aka. He wrote
(23:30):
about Jack and Jill, he wrote about the links. And
it was incredible to me that there were these beachfront
properties that people owned in the late eighteen hundreds. In
Martha's Vineyard in Highland Beach, Frederick Douglass owned a home there.
His descendants still own homes there and they would summer
on the beach, and I didn't. Once I read that,
(23:52):
I was like, well, I'm going to go visit. And
that's how I started going into to starting to visit
these places and out that my friends had homes there.
They were like, little girl, I've had my family has
had our home since you know, nineteen twenty five. And
I just I didn't know. Growing up poor, that wasn't
my world. But what was so incredible was people would say, well,
(24:14):
welcome home.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
There are times I'd go to the Hamptons, you know,
in the summer, like you we had spots up in here.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You we do, and we What was interesting was what
I love about sack Harbor in particular, because I too,
used to go to the Hampton's. You know, I live
in New York and I would go to East Hampton
and Bridge Hampton and we were the only ones there
and I felt fine, but I was like, why are
there more black people here? It's so beautiful. And then
Barbara Smith of the b Smith restaurant fame, she had
(24:46):
a house on Haven's Beach in sag Harbor, which is
this historically black beach community, and she was like, oh,
you should, you should walk down to Haven's Beach. And
I was sort of like, what is Haven's Beach? And
as I walked down, I sa see this elderly gentleman
just picking up seashells and picking up any kind of
trash he saw. And he started speaking to me. And
(25:10):
at the time I was a little bit well known,
and he said, well, welcome home. I know you'll stay right.
And it was so incredible that everybody on the beach
twenty years ago was African American, the whole beach. And now,
if I'm being honest, it's about seventy thirty sixty four
(25:32):
black ownership because gentrification is happening now. Before it was
undesirable to live on the bay. But then I think
people realized, well, when you live on the ocean, you
got to be a little more careful with your children.
You always have to be careful with your children on water,
but the bay you can walk out two hundred yards
and still at your waist. And so people started realizing, oh,
(25:54):
this is actually kind of nice and in a predatory
manner buying black homes. So I started writing to it,
and you know, I was nervous because they like to
keep it private for a reason. But I did get
the permission of the elders because I thought that was
(26:14):
very important. And just this year it was designated by
the Federal Registry as a historically black beach community, and
I'm very proud of that. I'm proud of the fact
that I'm part of the Sag Harbor Homeowners Association and
everyone's worked really hard at maintaining the culture, the color,
(26:36):
the feel of the community and it's still there for
people to people to go visit.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
So I want to tell everybody she has some are
on the Bluffs part of her trilogy, and now some
are on Sech Harbor.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Listen, I don't live on the East Coast in the
New York area.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
No one of people who are listening to my podcasts
who live in on the East Coast, y'all have to
go visit. I'm going visit me that she telling you about.
I just got a couple more questions than I let
you go. But your main character, Olivia Jones, yes, blazing
the paths in finance. Was that an intentional move or
(27:19):
something like? Is there's somebody you know?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Is it about you? It's about your girlfriend like it.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Well, Olivia Jones really was based on my dear friend Kathy.
She's originally from Haiti. She's probably one of the most
beautiful women I had ever seen when when we met
in college, very dark skinned, kind of looks like Naomi Campbell.
I mean, she was just so stunning and we became
fast friends. And she said to me one day, do
(27:47):
you know whenever we go out, all the men look
at you. And I was sort of like, that's not true,
and she said, yeah, they look at you because you're
the light skinned one. And it struck a chord with
me because, if I'm being honest, it wasn't something that
I thought about because I had friends of all different
complexions and I just I found them all beautiful and
(28:11):
fun and interesting. It just wasn't something that I thought about.
And I asked her to talk to me about that,
and she was saying that, you know, throughout her life,
it was a struggle that she was always, you know,
the dark skinned black girl, and she was no matter
how hard she tried, you know, she was put in
this little box and that there is a thing called
light skin privilege. And I just I just took it
(28:32):
in and I thought, well, I'm going to write to
that because it's a shame that the vestiges of slavery
have seeped into our community to the point that people
that are lighter skin get treated better, you know, like
that should not be happening. And so I wrote Olivia's character.
(28:53):
My friend Kathy helped me write some of it. She's like, Nope,
that's not how Olivia would feel. She would feel this way,
and so I took her lived experience. I did the
best that I could with it. And then all my readers,
because I did a lot of virtual book clubs during
the pandemic, I couldn't do a traditional book tour, they
start telling me why did Olivia get something? I said, well,
(29:16):
Olivia dick it a lot. Did you not see how
much she got? Well, she got less than the other sisters,
and that's not fair and blah blah blah. And people
were really in their feelings about it, and I was
just like, oh no, that's not what I meant. And
a lot of women were saying like, thank you for
tackling the colorism issue. But Olivia seems to be the
(29:40):
most unhappy. She seems to be the angriest and I
was like, you know, I'm going to write to Olivia,
and that's where somewhere on Sag came up. I was
only going to write about Sag Harbor and maybe have
some of the same characters, not all of them, but
the ones that people really responded to. But and I realized, wow,
(30:01):
I've got a lot more work to do with Olivia's journey.
So now this book is really about Olivia finding what
she wants, what she needs, what she deserves. More importantly,
acknowledging her power, acknowledging her value because she's whip smart
and she's gorgeous and doesn't know it. And she's got
(30:23):
her Beyonce Anderson, who is not who you think he
is actually oh, he loves her. She finds a sexy
new neighbor named Garrett, who she's like, whoo, he looks
like me and he is hot. And then ultimately, you know,
the notion of mental health and therapy and how do
(30:47):
you discover who you really are and what you really
desire and what you really want and what you deserve.
That was very important to me, and so I have
her seeing a therapist because it's so stigmatized in our community.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I love it well, so I heard that you are
turning some Are on the Bluffs into a scripted project.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
So I'm putting my hat in the box to play
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
I like that. I hope everybody's listening to this because
now I have it on tape.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I'm putting my hat in the box, so in case
I didn't know. There are so many things that Sonny
is doing also behind the scenes. You're a founder of
your own production company, and like I said, you're developing
your first book into a scripted project.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
And I love that.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
One of the producers of my podcast, they work in films,
and one of the things that she mentioned, she says,
are you finding that there is more awareness of the
terms poverty, porn and trauma, porn and entertainment when it
comes to.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
And I hate that, you know. I mean, I love
watching black centered series and films, but then I watch
it and I'm like, it leaves me feeling so heavy.
And because I know our rich history. My son actually
has a podcast called Untextbook, which teaches you what wasn't
in your textbook, and so he's taught me things about
(32:19):
what wasn't in my textbook, and I'm like, I know,
there's all this black excellent and black boy joy and
all of these things, and so I basically wrote to
that kind of joyfulness. I thought that was important. And
I have a first look deal with Disney. So Disney
backed my corporation, which I was in my production company.
I'm kind of still shocked when I say that that
(32:40):
I would have such a wonderful partner in Disney. And
I gave the book to Octavia Spencer. Really, I just
figured she would put some on Instagram for me.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I don't know what I wanted.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
And Octavia called me and she said, this is going
to be made into a sea or a film because
we need it because people are tired of black trauma,
and I should be your production partner. And I was like, Octavia,
are you serious right now? Like I'm a first time author,
you know, I wrote a memoir and now this and your.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Tried ability track record.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
I was like, I don't have a track record. And
she said, not only will I partner with you, I
will be I will star in it. I was like, well,
we're done. Now, let's take it out to the market.
And so we took it out to market. It got bought.
I can't tell you where it's streaming because of the
writer's strike and pens are down right now, and so
(33:38):
I can't tell you where it's going to be. But
we have a buyer, and we have a showrunner. Her
name is Elizabeth Hunters. If you saw Jumping the Broom,
you've seen her work, you've seen The Five Temptations, you've
seen her work. And I assembled that and Octavier is
going to play Olivia's mom, Sydney Cindy, and I'm in
this incredible space. It this kid from the South Bronx
(34:02):
would have never imagined. It's it's like a I didn't
dream this big. You know. I don't know if you've
ever felt like that, Michelle, because you're so talented and
you're such a great singer and you were with like,
you know, stopping the biggest, the biggest group of all time.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
But I did not dream like that. I was just like, let.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Me just like write my book.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Even then, people might think that that's all you are.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, you're more than the attorney. You're more than this amazing, beautiful,
smart woman on our TVs every single morning. Right, And
so speaking of when I was watching y'all this morning,
I was like, I'm about to interview her in a
couple hours. Pool is this now before we wrap up
(34:49):
this amazing conversation, Sonny, well for again, back to summer
on the bluffs, back to someone on South Barbar.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I'm looking for my agent to send me my script
in sides for the es. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
I love when I I love when I at least
get the audition, because it's good to be thought of
by a casting director.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
That's like, well you you're now, You're now on tape,
so I'm gonna hold you to that. I'm excited. I'm excited.
You mentioned something earlier about all the.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Dogs, your farm, your your chickens, and your honey you have.
I like, what is of course you and Beyonce both
have like your farms, your honey farms.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Oh she has a honey farm. I didn't know that. Yes,
so I love it.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
I get honey from the farm, and I'm like, honey,
that's the name of your honey, Sonny, honey.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
That is the name of my honey. It's called Sonny's honey.
I'm glad to tell you something. I actually, you know,
I read a book. I'm a nerd. I read about
five books at the same time, and I read a
book by this guy, Noah Wilson Rich and he's the
only man in the country, maybe the world, but I
know in this in the United States. Was a PhD
(36:03):
in b immunology. And I started reading and he works
with NASA, he works with Harvard. He's got beehives on
the on the rooftops at Harvard. And I was reading
this book and it was basically about the fact that
if the bees die, we die, like we need our food,
you know, pollinated and all do. And yeah, and these
(36:25):
bees were like dying from these mites and they were
trying to figure out how to do it. And he
came up with something where he put the bees on
space space shuttles and send them up into space and
then the mites would die. And so they're trying to
figure all of that out. And I basically just reached
out to him. I was like, I'm so fascinated by this.
(36:45):
You know, what can I do to help? And he said,
you could have beehives. Now, I was a little afraid
of bees, if I'm being honest, I was like, I've
never been stung by a bee. I'm not really feeling
the whole have the beehive situation and he was like,
if you want to start with, I'll give you a beekeeper.
And so when I started, I had a beekeeper. But
(37:06):
I got so involved in it. I started smoking the
bees and getting my honey, and my kids got involved,
and my daughter Paloma, who's an artist, she makes candles
out of the bees wax. And it just been stung.
Though I've never been stung.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I know you said you were never stung, but I'm like, okay,
after smoking the bees and doing it ever whatever, accidentally like.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Never, they've never stung me. Because really, what a lot
of people don't know is if they sting you once
they die, it's so it's self preservation. They really will
not sting you unless they feel like you're attacking the
hive where you're attacking their queen, so they don't sting.
But then the other day my husband was very far
from the hive. He was on the driveway and a
(37:47):
bee went right up his nose and stung him.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I ain't even want the hives.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
I felt so bad.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Oh, it just flew. I'm itching. It was so terrible.
Probably thought his nose was the high I think he was.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
He's the only person and we've had him for years
that has been stung by I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
We gotta go. How'd you get the bee and the
fall out of his nose?
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Yes, he was like, oh, and he was kind of
running around a little little bit and he's gonna be
so mad.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I told this story.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
He was running around and we were wondering what happened
to and he hit hit his nose and he killed
the bee.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
I'm so sorry for him. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
And he came inside. He had a big piece of ice. Yeah,
the ice bag on his nose. I was like, I'm sorry.
He was like, I told you about those bees. It's
been years. I have never been stung by a bee,
nor have my children.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
And guess what it's We're gonna keep it that way, because.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
You know, because then I'll be looking at my Instagram
and I'll be looking on TV like Sonny Howsin's is
out this morning. Guys, we don't even want to speak that.
We don't want that to happen. What we do want
to happen is the continued success of your amazing.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Books, y'all. Summer on Sack Harbor it is out now.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
We're excited to see the scripted projects and We're just
so excited about more that you have coming.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
Thank you for Jue, thank you, thank you for having
me my friend.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio
and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. Okay, everybody, h thank y'all
(00:20):
for tuning in to another episode of Checking In.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I get the privilege.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm truly honored, truly humble to interview one of my
favorite humans ever on this planet.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
She is a three time Emmy Award winning.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Co host of ABC's The View, New York Times bestselling author.
I fell in love with her first of all because
she is an attorney, a legal analyst, as well as
a sought after speaker.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Y'all already know. Y'all know who it is. Please welcome
Sonny Houstin.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Oh, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
You know, I remember the first time we met. I
mean I had watched you for form, of course, but
I remember the first time we met. We were you
were walking out of a Japanese restaurant. I was walking
into a Japanese restaurant and you were like, Sonny Housen
and I was like, I know, Michelle Williams does not
know who I am. So it was great and it's
(01:17):
been great to keep in touch since then.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yes, ma'am, it has been great.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
It has just been awesome over the years, because you know,
I am a bootleg attorney. My college was criminal justice,
so I would stay tuned and peeled into cases that
made like mainstream television. And what inspired me so much
was to see women of color bringing it as it
(01:45):
related to the legal parts of all these cases that
were going on. I mean, killing it sure confident. There
are times where you had to set people in their place,
or there are times you had to be.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Like, no, the person did it.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
How do y'all not see it?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
How do they not singing it?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So I'm just appreciative of you. I'm appreciative you've been
what ten seasons or more on the View?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I was just reminded of that my someone on the
View I had said during an interview six years and
she was like, no, you started guest hosting with us
in twenty twelve, and I was like what She was like, yep,
Barbara got you into the rotation in twenty twelve, and
so I was a guest co host for a lot,
(02:36):
like half the shows in a year, and then I've
been on the show formally as a full time co
host since for seven years. It went by really.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Quickly, doesn't it. Go by quickly.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, and it's like I started guest co hosting, but
at the time I was working at CNN, so it
was it was, you know, they wanted me to start
at the View, but I really couldn't because I have
a contract and CNN at the time was like, no,
you can't get out of your contract, which in a
way was a good thing for me because I was
(03:09):
reporting out in the field. I was doing the things
that you you were just talking about. You know, I
was covering the Trayvon Martin trill well, the George Zimmerman trial,
but the Trayvon's murder, and I was, you know, covering
Casey Anthony who murdered, in my opinion, her, you know,
her baby, And so I was. I was in the
thick of a lot of heavy stuff that was really
(03:32):
important to me. And so in a way it was
great to be able to do that that heavy lifting
and give voice to our community and then get on
the View and have a little bit of fun. So
it was it was a good balance.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Got it. The foundation of checking in is mental health.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
And just mentioned that, you know, you had to cover
some heavy cases.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, okay, I named.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
All these brilliant things that you do. But some of
the most brilliant things that you are is a wife
and mother. Yes, someone's daughter, someone's friend. How were you
able to handle all of these heavy moments as far
as your mental health is concerned.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
You know, it's interesting. I'm learning how to handle it better.
I am someone who tended to internalize things. You know,
I was the calm in the storm. I had a
pretty chaotic upbringing because I grew up in the South
Bronx projects and I saw a lot of violence and addiction,
(04:37):
and so I was always the kid with the book
that was looking for an escape from my surroundings. And
it kind of grounded me. And my faith grounded me.
You know. I'm Catholic, went to Catholic schools. I had
a really good friendship with a nun believe it or not, sister,
and she passed a couple of years ago, and I
(04:58):
still to this day have a really good friendship with
two priests, Father Edward Beck and Father Bob, and so
I was able to turn to them. I didn't turn
to a traditional therapists, but I turned to them for guidance,
you know, like faith guidance, Like how do I do this?
Especially when I was covering a lot of the heavy stuff,
and it's hard, I will say, not only covering those issues,
(05:24):
but covering them as a public figure, and it's especially
hard on your family. And you don't think about that,
or at least I didn't think about that when I
first started. I just want to tell people's stories. I
just want to make sure people knew about Trayvon. I
wanted to make sure you know that people knew about
George Floyd. I just it was important to me that
people knew about what was going on community. I prosecuted
(05:45):
child sex crimes and trafficking. That was the business that
I was in when I was a prosecutor, and I
pretty much put myself last all the time. I wanted
to make sure my daughter was okay, my son was okay,
my husband was okay, and I was doing the work.
But I wasn't as concerned about myself. And I would
(06:08):
say within the past five years, especially with the help
of Joy Behar and Whoopee and my co hosts asking me,
are you okay? And I started kind of taking stock
in that and I was like, some days I'm great,
but some dames, I'm actually not okay. And it's okay
to say I'm not okay, it's okay to say I
(06:29):
think I'm going to have to take a mental health
day off today because I need to know. I live
on kind of a modified farm, So I'm like, I
need to go out with my chickens, I need to
tend to my beehives. I need to be with my
two hundred and fifty pound New Finland dogs. I need
to just spend some time for me. And that's been
extremely helpful. But it took me a minute to understand
(06:54):
what self care meant and how if I am not
good and centered mentally, that I am not good and
centered for anybody else. And it's helped me on the
show as well. For sure, it's helped me a lot well.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I think also people feel like you should have.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yourself already emotionally put together before you get out on
that stage. Everyone, And just so you know, respectfully, I
don't want to just have this whole interview be about
your first morning job.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Right on the view.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
But I can imagine, like I because I follow the
View on social media, I follow you, I follow you
on social media? Right, people a little cruel to me,
huh No, that's why they have her on the show
for her expert and being able to handleize things.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
But as a human, as a woman.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
We want to know how are people really truly feeling?
And my hat goes off to you and every every
woman on that platform who has to take a chance
in sharing their personal views on stuff, and like, no,
they mean this, well, this is real.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
This ain't scripted, This is for rescripted.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
It's not scripted. And you know, anybody that knows me,
you know me, anyone that knows me personally. I'm a
very well researched person. I try to be as thoughtful
as possible, but I back up everything that I say
with data and statistics and receipts as Joy likes to
call them. And so it does surprise me when I
(08:30):
say things like you know, I'm not saying this, but
Christopher Ray, the head of the FBI, is that the
biggest threat to our country is white supremacy and domestic
terrorism and that the black community is under attack. And
then I get someone like Megan Kelly who gets on
(08:51):
her podcast that's watched by hundreds of thousands of people,
I think, and puts pictures of my home on her
podcast and starts talking about my children and really puts
me in danger for what I'm saying. Factually, you know,
I am not saying that I haven't made it. I'm
(09:14):
not saying that my kid doesn't go to Harvard. I'm
not saying that my children aren't in private schools. But
but I'm the exception and not the rule. Why should
I be the anomaly? And until my community is the
rule and my success is my community's success and not
the exception, then I'm going to keep on speaking up
(09:37):
and speaking out. And it is hurtful when people come on,
you know, go on social media and think they can
call me a race bader or a racist or and
that those are the nice things.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
What does everything have to be about race?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Like? How m does everything go? I'm giving you the
statistic like, unfortunately, in this country, the cruel legacy of
slavery and racism has bled into everything, every institution that
we have, And when I talk about it based in fact,
(10:15):
I get attacked. And I now, though, if I'm being honest,
I have a social media team. I do not read
the comments. Woopy Goldberg told me to do that for
my health. She said, if you read the comments, you
may start filtering yourself, and they're painful and they're hurtful
because I happen to be much more of an introverted
(10:38):
person than people think I am. So I was taking
things seriously and Joy Behart was like, don't.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Worry about it.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
You open up your mouth. Fifty percent of the country
hates you, fifty percent of the country loves you. It
doesn't matter as long as your family and your friends
love you. And so through the years, through the past
ten years, I wouldn't say that I've gotten a thicker skin,
but I understand human nature more, and I understand that
these people are people that are probably very unhappy. Some
(11:09):
of them don't have the education in these topics that
they need. Some people are watching things like Fox News
on a loop and they're fearful of their neighbors. They're
going out and shooting their neighbors instead of talking to
their neighbors and asking for a cup of sugar and
(11:29):
some milk. You know. And I say that because I
live in a great community. My neighbors will come over
and ask me for things. My neighbors will say, you
know your dog has been born, and you know it's
nine o'clock at night, can you put the dog in
and I'm not going to pull out a gun and
shoot my neighbor because my dog has woken up their baby.
So I have learned now that you know, part of
(11:52):
human nature can be very dark, but doesn't mean that
I have to be a part of that. I can
give voice, I can spread love, and I I can
be unaffected by that.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, I really can press in. We can end this
right now. That's how graceful you are talking about this.
And I'm hoping that by the end of this podcast
you have empowered.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
People to continue to speak up.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Like you said, people will love you and people will
hate you, but focus on the ones that love you.
But yes, the social media team, I'm sure will have
to keep an eye out for people that you might
even have to report to the authorities.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
So they do, and I have had to do that.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yes, people take it, they take their little Twitter fingers
a tinge too far.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
They take it too far. And you know it was Michelle.
I was telling my a friend of mine who hadn't
been to my home for about a year. I won't
even give him the breath, but he also decided to
kind of put my address out there to his viewers
and within maybe an hour, I had people at my
(13:07):
front door, you know, with signs. I mean they people
have a lot of time on their hands. I mean
I feel like they should be working and being with
their families. But they had signs, and I never had gates.
I live on a very big property with my dogs
and my chickens and my beehives.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
We don't get to that because I'm like, we'll get
to that. I have all of that, and I never
had gates.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
And I know all of my neighbors, and my children
grew up playing basketball with their neighbors and we have
a fire pit and they would sit around the fire pit.
But you know, long story short, Disney had to pay
for me to have security. I have gates around my property.
Now I have cameras all around my property. All because
(13:51):
one hateful person decided that they didn't like what my
opinion was and he had a lot of power. He
doesn't have it anymore. But you know, it's a terrible
thing when people are so irresponsible, and they're irresponsible on
(14:14):
social media as well. Social media has a lot of good.
You know, you and I sometimes will connect and DM
and how you doing and this and that, and that's wonderful.
You've had the Arab spring and women in Iran. Girls
in Iran.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Have reached out to me.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Believe it or not, I've had women in Afghanistan that
are in hiding reach out to me. They're such good
that can happen. But there is a lot of garbage
out there and people are taking advantage of it, and
I refuse to be a part of that. So now
my team does screen a lot and they'll say, listen,
you've got an Afghan judge. This's reached out to you,
(14:52):
which you like that message, And I'm like, yeah, send
that message along because that's someone that I will make
sure knows that I care. That's where I am now
in my life, and I'm hoping that social media will
get better. I'm hoping people will get better, I hope.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
So they're saying that things get worse before they get better.
So I hope that we are in the turnaround of
the worst.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Me too, I really, really, really really do.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Oh gosh, thank you for sharing all that you've shared
up to this point.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I want to congratulate you.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You just had a brand new book called Summer on
Sack Harbor.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Some of your first book called Summer on the Bluffs. Y'all.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Let me tell you how busy Miss Sunny is. I'm exaggerating,
probably lying a little bit, but it's been about two
years I've been trying to get her on be because
she sent me her very first book, Summer on the Bluffs.
What attracted me to the book in the first place
was the cover and my favorite, one of my favorite
(15:57):
colors being that bright pink color. Where some are on
the Bluffs is written, and so I just was just
so excited at one of my favorite people sent me
her book.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I just want to know, how have you found time
to find all these books? What is I write?
Speaker 3 (16:17):
And it's hard because you know, my son's in college now,
but he was home when I was writing that book.
He took a gap year. He was home. I wrote
the book during the pandemic and my daughter was home,
and my husband's home. Both of my parents were home.
And what I decided to do was just it was
so important to me to get this book out that
I put myself on the schedule. I was like, I'm
(16:38):
going to write from eleven pm when everybody finally goes
to sleep, everybody except my daughter. Pull onma, she's a
night ourl like I am, and I'm going to write
definitely into one. But because I got to I get
up around six. Yeah, I get up early, and if
I'm doing Good Morning America, then I'm really getting up early.
But I just make an appointment with myself, you know,
(17:00):
to carve that time out. I put my fireplace on.
When I'm writing in the winter or the damp spring,
I get myself a nice cup of tea or a
glass of red wine, and I just start writing, you know,
And I write kind of traditionally. I write pen to paper,
which my editor writes pen to paper too, so it
works for us. And then I send it to where
(17:22):
I'm collaborating with. I have these great ladies that I
send written stuff to which I'm sure they're like, they
hate it, and then they'll type it up for me
and give me suggestions. And that's generally my process. Sometimes
my process has included I write a couple chapters and
I invite my family into the living room. I'm like, Okay,
I want y'all to read this. Have I missed it?
(17:44):
Do you have questions? And that's been very helpful. So
somewhere on the Bluffs, I did that a lot I
didn't do it as much with Summer on Sad because
I was a little more used to writing by then.
But it's a I make priorities, like my kids are
my priority. They're both athletes, and so I have to
go to a lot of track meets and football games
and swim meets. But when they're fed and in their rooms,
(18:09):
they should be doing their homework or a sleep, then
it's me time. And my joy is writing. You know,
I've always written. I was a journalism major.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
So did you ever think that, Okay, I'm going to
author these books.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
I wanted to. I was a journaler when I was
probably twelve or thirteen. When I had my kids, there
weren't a lot of books centering black children. There are
so many more now twenty years later, but with mine,
there weren't. I make them up, you know. And my
daughter was like, please write Princess Paloma's Adventures. And I'd write,
(18:46):
you know, Princess Looma's Adventures. And so I knew I
had stories. I knew I had stories in me. And
the impetus for these books was I was traveling, and
I keep on trying to remember what I was traveled for.
It was it could have been Ferguson. I was on
the ground in Ferguson during the unrest. Ben Crump invited
(19:11):
me to come and just see what's going on. And
I wanted something light to read, because when you start
to read case files and you start to read about
black trauma, it's like the last and I'm a preparer,
so I will have been prepared by the time I
got on the airplane. I want to read something else.
I don't want to see a movie, a sad movie
(19:32):
or anything like that. I want to be on the beach.
I want Stella to get her groove back. I want
to do something like that. And I went into the
book store at the airport and I didn't see any
black people on the cover. If I'm being honest, because
that's to tell you know. You start looking through the
books and you're like, is there any black or brown
people on the cover? And if I find one, and
(19:54):
then I start flipping through it, I didn't see anything,
and I was like, how is this possible? A big
old bookshop with the most popular books and all these
black people traveling, there's no black books. And I at
that moment just started thinking, well, maybe I'll write a
beach read, but not just any beach read. A beach
(20:15):
read centering black and brown people and our relationships and
our motherhood and sisterhood and our men and love and
infidelity and sex and just everything that we go through
in life. And I put it together in a proposal.
I sent it to my agent and he was like,
(20:36):
you know, you got some here, right, And I said really,
I was like, you think so because I want to
read it. Tony Morrison said, if there's a book you
want to read and you can't find it, then you
write it. So do you think someone would buy this?
And sure enough we had a book deal, a three
book deal. I thought it was just going to be
one book within a week. It was about a week.
(20:58):
HarperCollins came back said, this is not a one off.
This is a trilogy set in these three different places,
places where black people were allowed to own black beach
front you know, communities, and unfortunately, in the United States
at a certain time, there's only three, not including Bruce's
Beach of course, and not including Chicken Beach in Atlantic City.
(21:20):
And I just I just started writing. I just started
writing because I've summer on Sag Harbor for twenty years.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
We're there.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
My friend Erica has a house in Highland Beach. Her family,
you know, has had generational wealth for a long time.
I go visit her.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
We're there.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
This is real, Like, it's real. I've seen you post
about it, you know what I mean. And those of
y'all that are listening. I love when the conversations flow
to where like I had this question about lack of
diversity for Beach reads, and here we are talking about
how and what made you write Summer on the Bluffs
and Summer on Sack Harbor.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Now, I'm like, what an amazing opportunity in the book.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
You know that you have incorporated so many important messages
with Guard University and even you spotlight the deep history
of like we said, black communities that have frequented.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Beach towns like Harbor.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So did you know that this rich history existed before
you started the process?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I did?
Speaker 3 (22:23):
I did. I read Our Kind of People by Larry
Graham Lawrence Graham. No one's if you haven't read it,
you got to read this book. Yeah, I'm not saying
it just because he was my friend. He passed away
just a few years ago, way too young, but he
was this brilliant man who he wrote another book called
The Senator and the Socialite about the first black Senator.
(22:45):
He wrote an expos about the Greenwich country Club. He
went to Princeton and I believe Yale no Harvard Law School,
and basically pretended to be a busboy at the Greenwich
Greenwich Country Club and sort of got the inside scoop
of race relations. And so he did all this investigative
journalism and then finally wrote Our Kind of People, which
discussed black excellence from the late eighteen hundreds, not like
(23:09):
black trauma and not about reconstruction, where I'm not saying
there's not a place for that, because our history is
being a race. So we need to read about slavery,
we need to read cast, we need to read the
sixteen nineteen project. But what Larry did was he gave
us the Bible of Black excellence. And he wrote about
the divine nine. You know, I'm an Aka. He wrote
(23:30):
about Jack and Jill, he wrote about the links. And
it was incredible to me that there were these beachfront
properties that people owned in the late eighteen hundreds. In
Martha's Vineyard in Highland Beach, Frederick Douglass owned a home there.
His descendants still own homes there and they would summer
on the beach, and I didn't. Once I read that,
(23:52):
I was like, well, I'm going to go visit. And
that's how I started going into to starting to visit
these places and out that my friends had homes there.
They were like, little girl, I've had my family has
had our home since you know, nineteen twenty five. And
I just I didn't know. Growing up poor, that wasn't
my world. But what was so incredible was people would say, well,
(24:14):
welcome home.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
There are times I'd go to the Hamptons, you know,
in the summer, like you we had spots up in here.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
You we do, and we What was interesting was what
I love about sack Harbor in particular, because I too,
used to go to the Hampton's. You know, I live
in New York and I would go to East Hampton
and Bridge Hampton and we were the only ones there
and I felt fine, but I was like, why are
there more black people here? It's so beautiful. And then
Barbara Smith of the b Smith restaurant fame, she had
(24:46):
a house on Haven's Beach in sag Harbor, which is
this historically black beach community, and she was like, oh,
you should, you should walk down to Haven's Beach. And
I was sort of like, what is Haven's Beach? And
as I walked down, I sa see this elderly gentleman
just picking up seashells and picking up any kind of
trash he saw. And he started speaking to me. And
(25:10):
at the time I was a little bit well known,
and he said, well, welcome home. I know you'll stay right.
And it was so incredible that everybody on the beach
twenty years ago was African American, the whole beach. And now,
if I'm being honest, it's about seventy thirty sixty four
(25:32):
black ownership because gentrification is happening now. Before it was
undesirable to live on the bay. But then I think
people realized, well, when you live on the ocean, you
got to be a little more careful with your children.
You always have to be careful with your children on water,
but the bay you can walk out two hundred yards
and still at your waist. And so people started realizing, oh,
(25:54):
this is actually kind of nice and in a predatory
manner buying black homes. So I started writing to it,
and you know, I was nervous because they like to
keep it private for a reason. But I did get
the permission of the elders because I thought that was
(26:14):
very important. And just this year it was designated by
the Federal Registry as a historically black beach community, and
I'm very proud of that. I'm proud of the fact
that I'm part of the Sag Harbor Homeowners Association and
everyone's worked really hard at maintaining the culture, the color,
(26:36):
the feel of the community and it's still there for
people to people to go visit.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
So I want to tell everybody she has some are
on the Bluffs part of her trilogy, and now some
are on Sech Harbor.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Listen, I don't live on the East Coast in the
New York area.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
No one of people who are listening to my podcasts
who live in on the East Coast, y'all have to
go visit. I'm going visit me that she telling you about.
I just got a couple more questions than I let
you go. But your main character, Olivia Jones, yes, blazing
the paths in finance. Was that an intentional move or
(27:19):
something like? Is there's somebody you know?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Is it about you? It's about your girlfriend like it.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Well, Olivia Jones really was based on my dear friend Kathy.
She's originally from Haiti. She's probably one of the most
beautiful women I had ever seen when when we met
in college, very dark skinned, kind of looks like Naomi Campbell.
I mean, she was just so stunning and we became
fast friends. And she said to me one day, do
(27:47):
you know whenever we go out, all the men look
at you. And I was sort of like, that's not true,
and she said, yeah, they look at you because you're
the light skinned one. And it struck a chord with
me because, if I'm being honest, it wasn't something that
I thought about because I had friends of all different
complexions and I just I found them all beautiful and
(28:11):
fun and interesting. It just wasn't something that I thought about.
And I asked her to talk to me about that,
and she was saying that, you know, throughout her life,
it was a struggle that she was always, you know,
the dark skinned black girl, and she was no matter
how hard she tried, you know, she was put in
this little box and that there is a thing called
light skin privilege. And I just I just took it
(28:32):
in and I thought, well, I'm going to write to
that because it's a shame that the vestiges of slavery
have seeped into our community to the point that people
that are lighter skin get treated better, you know, like
that should not be happening. And so I wrote Olivia's character.
(28:53):
My friend Kathy helped me write some of it. She's like, Nope,
that's not how Olivia would feel. She would feel this way,
and so I took her lived experience. I did the
best that I could with it. And then all my readers,
because I did a lot of virtual book clubs during
the pandemic, I couldn't do a traditional book tour, they
start telling me why did Olivia get something? I said, well,
(29:16):
Olivia dick it a lot. Did you not see how
much she got? Well, she got less than the other sisters,
and that's not fair and blah blah blah. And people
were really in their feelings about it, and I was
just like, oh no, that's not what I meant. And
a lot of women were saying like, thank you for
tackling the colorism issue. But Olivia seems to be the
(29:40):
most unhappy. She seems to be the angriest and I
was like, you know, I'm going to write to Olivia,
and that's where somewhere on Sag came up. I was
only going to write about Sag Harbor and maybe have
some of the same characters, not all of them, but
the ones that people really responded to. But and I realized, wow,
(30:01):
I've got a lot more work to do with Olivia's journey.
So now this book is really about Olivia finding what
she wants, what she needs, what she deserves. More importantly,
acknowledging her power, acknowledging her value because she's whip smart
and she's gorgeous and doesn't know it. And she's got
(30:23):
her Beyonce Anderson, who is not who you think he
is actually oh, he loves her. She finds a sexy
new neighbor named Garrett, who she's like, whoo, he looks
like me and he is hot. And then ultimately, you know,
the notion of mental health and therapy and how do
(30:47):
you discover who you really are and what you really
desire and what you really want and what you deserve.
That was very important to me, and so I have
her seeing a therapist because it's so stigmatized in our community.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I love it well, so I heard that you are
turning some Are on the Bluffs into a scripted project.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
So I'm putting my hat in the box to play
a little bit.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
I like that. I hope everybody's listening to this because
now I have it on tape.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
I'm putting my hat in the box, so in case
I didn't know. There are so many things that Sonny
is doing also behind the scenes. You're a founder of
your own production company, and like I said, you're developing
your first book into a scripted project.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
And I love that.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
One of the producers of my podcast, they work in films,
and one of the things that she mentioned, she says,
are you finding that there is more awareness of the
terms poverty, porn and trauma, porn and entertainment when it
comes to.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
And I hate that, you know. I mean, I love
watching black centered series and films, but then I watch
it and I'm like, it leaves me feeling so heavy.
And because I know our rich history. My son actually
has a podcast called Untextbook, which teaches you what wasn't
in your textbook, and so he's taught me things about
(32:19):
what wasn't in my textbook, and I'm like, I know,
there's all this black excellent and black boy joy and
all of these things, and so I basically wrote to
that kind of joyfulness. I thought that was important. And
I have a first look deal with Disney. So Disney
backed my corporation, which I was in my production company.
I'm kind of still shocked when I say that that
(32:40):
I would have such a wonderful partner in Disney. And
I gave the book to Octavia Spencer. Really, I just
figured she would put some on Instagram for me.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I don't know what I wanted.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
And Octavia called me and she said, this is going
to be made into a sea or a film because
we need it because people are tired of black trauma,
and I should be your production partner. And I was like, Octavia,
are you serious right now? Like I'm a first time author,
you know, I wrote a memoir and now this and your.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Tried ability track record.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
I was like, I don't have a track record. And
she said, not only will I partner with you, I
will be I will star in it. I was like, well,
we're done. Now, let's take it out to the market.
And so we took it out to market. It got bought.
I can't tell you where it's streaming because of the
writer's strike and pens are down right now, and so
(33:38):
I can't tell you where it's going to be. But
we have a buyer, and we have a showrunner. Her
name is Elizabeth Hunters. If you saw Jumping the Broom,
you've seen her work, you've seen The Five Temptations, you've
seen her work. And I assembled that and Octavier is
going to play Olivia's mom, Sydney Cindy, and I'm in
this incredible space. It this kid from the South Bronx
(34:02):
would have never imagined. It's it's like a I didn't
dream this big. You know. I don't know if you've
ever felt like that, Michelle, because you're so talented and
you're such a great singer and you were with like,
you know, stopping the biggest, the biggest group of all time.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
But I did not dream like that. I was just like, let.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Me just like write my book.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Even then, people might think that that's all you are.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah, you're more than the attorney. You're more than this amazing, beautiful,
smart woman on our TVs every single morning. Right, And
so speaking of when I was watching y'all this morning,
I was like, I'm about to interview her in a
couple hours. Pool is this now before we wrap up
(34:49):
this amazing conversation, Sonny, well for again, back to summer
on the bluffs, back to someone on South Barbar.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I'm looking for my agent to send me my script
in sides for the es. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
I love when I I love when I at least
get the audition, because it's good to be thought of
by a casting director.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
That's like, well you you're now, You're now on tape,
so I'm gonna hold you to that. I'm excited. I'm excited.
You mentioned something earlier about all the.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Dogs, your farm, your your chickens, and your honey you have.
I like, what is of course you and Beyonce both
have like your farms, your honey farms.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Oh she has a honey farm. I didn't know that. Yes,
so I love it.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
I get honey from the farm, and I'm like, honey,
that's the name of your honey, Sonny, honey.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
That is the name of my honey. It's called Sonny's honey.
I'm glad to tell you something. I actually, you know,
I read a book. I'm a nerd. I read about
five books at the same time, and I read a
book by this guy, Noah Wilson Rich and he's the
only man in the country, maybe the world, but I
know in this in the United States. Was a PhD
(36:03):
in b immunology. And I started reading and he works
with NASA, he works with Harvard. He's got beehives on
the on the rooftops at Harvard. And I was reading
this book and it was basically about the fact that
if the bees die, we die, like we need our food,
you know, pollinated and all do. And yeah, and these
(36:25):
bees were like dying from these mites and they were
trying to figure out how to do it. And he
came up with something where he put the bees on
space space shuttles and send them up into space and
then the mites would die. And so they're trying to
figure all of that out. And I basically just reached
out to him. I was like, I'm so fascinated by this.
(36:45):
You know, what can I do to help? And he said,
you could have beehives. Now, I was a little afraid
of bees, if I'm being honest, I was like, I've
never been stung by a bee. I'm not really feeling
the whole have the beehive situation and he was like,
if you want to start with, I'll give you a beekeeper.
And so when I started, I had a beekeeper. But
(37:06):
I got so involved in it. I started smoking the
bees and getting my honey, and my kids got involved,
and my daughter Paloma, who's an artist, she makes candles
out of the bees wax. And it just been stung.
Though I've never been stung.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I know you said you were never stung, but I'm like, okay,
after smoking the bees and doing it ever whatever, accidentally like.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
Never, they've never stung me. Because really, what a lot
of people don't know is if they sting you once
they die, it's so it's self preservation. They really will
not sting you unless they feel like you're attacking the
hive where you're attacking their queen, so they don't sting.
But then the other day my husband was very far
from the hive. He was on the driveway and a
(37:47):
bee went right up his nose and stung him.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I ain't even want the hives.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
I felt so bad.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Oh, it just flew. I'm itching. It was so terrible.
Probably thought his nose was the high I think he was.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
He's the only person and we've had him for years
that has been stung by I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
We gotta go. How'd you get the bee and the
fall out of his nose?
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Yes, he was like, oh, and he was kind of
running around a little little bit and he's gonna be
so mad.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
I told this story.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
He was running around and we were wondering what happened
to and he hit hit his nose and he killed
the bee.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
I'm so sorry for him. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
And he came inside. He had a big piece of ice. Yeah,
the ice bag on his nose. I was like, I'm sorry.
He was like, I told you about those bees. It's
been years. I have never been stung by a bee,
nor have my children.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
And guess what it's We're gonna keep it that way, because.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
You know, because then I'll be looking at my Instagram
and I'll be looking on TV like Sonny Howsin's is
out this morning. Guys, we don't even want to speak that.
We don't want that to happen. What we do want
to happen is the continued success of your amazing.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Books, y'all. Summer on Sack Harbor it is out now.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
We're excited to see the scripted projects and We're just
so excited about more that you have coming.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
Thank you for Jue, thank you, thank you for having
me my friend.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio
and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
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