May 16, 2023 • 40 mins
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
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Instagram: @MichelleWilliams
Twitter: @RealMichelleW
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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 plane. She is a three
time Emmy Award winning co host of ABC's The View,
New York Times bestselling author.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I fell in love with her first of all because
she is.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
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 Austin.
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 have watched you for 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 been
(01:17):
great to keep in touch since then.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yes, ma'am, it has been great. It has just been awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
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 related to the legal parts
(01:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Be like, no, the person did it. How do y'all
not see it? How do they not see it? So
I'm just appreciative of you. I'm appreciative you've been what
ten seasons or more on the View?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
You know. 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
(02:33):
host for a lot, 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.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Really 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 had
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 reporting
(03:09):
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
(03:31):
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. Got it.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
The foundation of checking in is mental health.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
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 gonna 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.
(06:51):
But it took me a minute to understand 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.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Have 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 right on the view. But
I can imagine, like I because I follow the View
on social media, I follow you, I follow you on
(07:33):
social media. Right, people ATK cruel to me, huh no,
that's why they have her on the show for her
expert and being able to handleize things. But as a human,
as a woman, 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
(07:55):
take a chance in sharing their personal views on stuff,
and like, I know they mean this, Well, this is real.
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 her
(08:52):
podcast that's watched by hundreds of thousands of people, I think,
and puts pictures of my home on her podcast and
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 not
(09:15):
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,
(09:35):
then I'm going to keep on speaking up 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?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
How COO does everything?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
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, I get attacked. And I now, though,
(10:19):
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 person than people think I am.
(10:40):
So I was taking things seriously and Joy Behart was like,
don't worry about it. 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,
(11:02):
and I understand that these people are people that are
probably very unhappy. Some 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
(11:25):
instead of talking to their neighbors and asking for a
cup of sugar and 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
(11:46):
has woken up their baby. So I have learned now
that you know, part of 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 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
(13:04):
within maybe an hour. I had people at my 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.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I have all of that, and I never had gates.
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.
(13:48):
Now I have cameras all around my property. All because
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 have reached out to me. Believe it or not,
I've had women in Afghanistan that are in hiding reach
(14:35):
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 that's reached out to you, which you like that message,
And I'm like, yeah, send that message along because that's
(14:55):
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.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Me her book. I just want to know, how have
you found time to write 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 palomas 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 travel
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
we're there. 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. We're there. This is real,
Like it's real.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I've seen you post about it, you know what I mean.
And those of y'all that are listening.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
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
regard 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 3 (22:21):
I did? 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
(22:41):
book called The Senator and the Socialite about the first
black Senator. 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. So he did all this
investigative journalism and then finally wrote Our Kind of People,
(23:04):
which discussed black excellence from the late eighteen hundreds, not
like 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
(23:24):
us the Bible of Black excellence. And he wrote about
the divine nine. You know, I'm an Aka. He wrote
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.
(23:45):
His descendants still own homes there and they would summer
on the beach and I didn't. Once I read that,
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 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
(24:08):
just I didn't know. Growing up poor, that wasn't my world.
But what was so incredible was people would say, well,
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 Sack 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 said this elderly gentleman just
picking up seashells and picking up any kind of trash
he saw. And he started speaking to me. And at
(25:10):
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 in on the East.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Coast, y'all have to go visit. I'm going visit me
that she'd telling you about. I just got a couple
more questions than I let you go.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
But your main character, Olivia Jones, yes, blazing the paths
in finance? Was that an intentional move or something like?
Is there's somebody you know?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Is it about you? It's about your girlfriend?
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Like it? 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
(27:47):
me one day, do 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 really 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
(28:09):
I found them all beautiful and 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
(28:31):
I just I just took it 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. My friend Kathy helped
(28:54):
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,
(29:15):
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
(29:39):
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 then 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 (31:37):
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. I
don't know what I wanted. And Octavia called me and
she said, this is going to be made into a
series or a film because we need it because people
(33:04):
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.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
You're 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. This kid from the South Bronx would
(34:03):
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. But
I did not dream like that. I was just like,
let me just like write my book.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Even then, people might think that that's all you are. 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
(34:42):
couple hours. Pool is this now before we wrap up
this amazing conversation, sunny well for again. Back to summer
on the bluffs, back to someone on Sauth Barbar. I'm
looking for my agent to send me my script.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
In sides for the es.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
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 that's like, well you you're now.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
You're now on tape, so I'm gonna hold you to that.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I'm excited. I'm excited.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
You mentioned something earlier about all the dogs, your farm,
your your.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Chicken, and your honey you have.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I like, what is of course you and Beyonce both
have like your farms, your honey farms.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Oh she has a honey farm. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yes, so I love it.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
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 if you want to start with, I'll give you
a beekeeper. And so when I started, I had a beekeeper,
(37:05):
but 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 never.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
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 bee went right
(37:48):
up his nose and stung him. I ain't even want
the hives. I felt so bad.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Oh boy, it just flew. I'm itching.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
It was so terrible.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Probably thought his nose was the.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
High I think he was. He's the only person and
we've had him for years that has been stung by.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I'm so sorry. We gonna 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. I told this story. 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 1 (38:56):
And guess what it's We're gonna keep it that way, because,
you know, because then I'll be looking at my instagramer,
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 books, y'all.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Summer on Sack Harbor it is out now.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
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 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 plane. She is a three
time Emmy Award winning co host of ABC's The View,
New York Times bestselling author.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I fell in love with her first of all because
she is.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
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 Austin.
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 have watched you for 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 been
(01:17):
great to keep in touch since then.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yes, ma'am, it has been great. It has just been awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
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 related to the legal parts
(01:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Be like, no, the person did it. How do y'all
not see it? How do they not see it? So
I'm just appreciative of you. I'm appreciative you've been what
ten seasons or more on the View?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
You know. 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
(02:33):
host for a lot, 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.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Really 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 had
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 reporting
(03:09):
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
(03:31):
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. Got it.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
The foundation of checking in is mental health.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
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 gonna 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.
(06:51):
But it took me a minute to understand 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.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Have 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 right on the view. But
I can imagine, like I because I follow the View
on social media, I follow you, I follow you on
(07:33):
social media. Right, people ATK cruel to me, huh no,
that's why they have her on the show for her
expert and being able to handleize things. But as a human,
as a woman, 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
(07:55):
take a chance in sharing their personal views on stuff,
and like, I know they mean this, Well, this is real.
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 her
(08:52):
podcast that's watched by hundreds of thousands of people, I think,
and puts pictures of my home on her podcast and
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 not
(09:15):
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,
(09:35):
then I'm going to keep on speaking up 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?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
How COO does everything?
Speaker 3 (09:58):
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, I get attacked. And I now, though,
(10:19):
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 person than people think I am.
(10:40):
So I was taking things seriously and Joy Behart was like,
don't worry about it. 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,
(11:02):
and I understand that these people are people that are
probably very unhappy. Some 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
(11:25):
instead of talking to their neighbors and asking for a
cup of sugar and 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
(11:46):
has woken up their baby. So I have learned now
that you know, part of 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 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
(13:04):
within maybe an hour. I had people at my 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.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I have all of that, and I never had gates.
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.
(13:48):
Now I have cameras all around my property. All because
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 have reached out to me. Believe it or not,
I've had women in Afghanistan that are in hiding reach
(14:35):
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 that's reached out to you, which you like that message,
And I'm like, yeah, send that message along because that's
(14:55):
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.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Me her book. I just want to know, how have
you found time to write 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 palomas 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 travel
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
we're there. 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. We're there. This is real,
Like it's real.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
I've seen you post about it, you know what I mean.
And those of y'all that are listening.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
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
regard 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 3 (22:21):
I did? 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
(22:41):
book called The Senator and the Socialite about the first
black Senator. 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. So he did all this
investigative journalism and then finally wrote Our Kind of People,
(23:04):
which discussed black excellence from the late eighteen hundreds, not
like 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
(23:24):
us the Bible of Black excellence. And he wrote about
the divine nine. You know, I'm an Aka. He wrote
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.
(23:45):
His descendants still own homes there and they would summer
on the beach and I didn't. Once I read that,
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 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
(24:08):
just I didn't know. Growing up poor, that wasn't my world.
But what was so incredible was people would say, well,
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 Sack 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 said this elderly gentleman just
picking up seashells and picking up any kind of trash
he saw. And he started speaking to me. And at
(25:10):
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 in on the East.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Coast, y'all have to go visit. I'm going visit me
that she'd telling you about. I just got a couple
more questions than I let you go.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
But your main character, Olivia Jones, yes, blazing the paths
in finance? Was that an intentional move or something like?
Is there's somebody you know?
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Is it about you? It's about your girlfriend?
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Like it? 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
(27:47):
me one day, do 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 really 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
(28:09):
I found them all beautiful and 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
(28:31):
I just I just took it 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. My friend Kathy helped
(28:54):
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,
(29:15):
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
(29:39):
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 then 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 (31:37):
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. I
don't know what I wanted. And Octavia called me and
she said, this is going to be made into a
series or a film because we need it because people
(33:04):
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.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
You're 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. This kid from the South Bronx would
(34:03):
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. But
I did not dream like that. I was just like,
let me just like write my book.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Even then, people might think that that's all you are. 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
(34:42):
couple hours. Pool is this now before we wrap up
this amazing conversation, sunny well for again. Back to summer
on the bluffs, back to someone on Sauth Barbar. I'm
looking for my agent to send me my script.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
In sides for the es.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
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 that's like, well you you're now.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
You're now on tape, so I'm gonna hold you to that.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I'm excited. I'm excited.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
You mentioned something earlier about all the dogs, your farm,
your your.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Chicken, and your honey you have.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
I like, what is of course you and Beyonce both
have like your farms, your honey farms.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Oh she has a honey farm. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yes, so I love it.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
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 if you want to start with, I'll give you
a beekeeper. And so when I started, I had a beekeeper,
(37:05):
but 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 never.
Speaker 3 (37:27):
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 bee went right
(37:48):
up his nose and stung him. I ain't even want
the hives. I felt so bad.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Oh boy, it just flew. I'm itching.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
It was so terrible.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Probably thought his nose was the.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
High I think he was. He's the only person and
we've had him for years that has been stung by.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I'm so sorry. We gonna 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. I told this story. 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 1 (38:56):
And guess what it's We're gonna keep it that way, because,
you know, because then I'll be looking at my instagramer,
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 books, y'all.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Summer on Sack Harbor it is out now.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
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 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.
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