August 12, 2025 • 47 mins
Actress, producer and activist Sophia Bush opens up about the moment she knew she couldn’t keep living the life everyone expected of her—and how walking away led to something deeper.
With her best friend and business partner Nia Batts, Sophia joins hosts Martin Luther King III, Arndrea Waters King, Marc Kielburger, and Craig Kielburger, sharing the truth behind reinvention, resilience, and the relationships that hold us up when we finally say “no more.”
Together, they reveal how:
- Choosing yourself is the bravest thing you’ll do
- Real friendship is your anchor through change
- Healing fuels purpose—and better business
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Putting women on these pedestals to destroy them. Things were
really vicious.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Actress Sophia Bush rose to fame as the breakout star
of One Tree Hill.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
He should be so lucky, I am brook Day.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
She built a platform as a fierce activist and launched
her mega hit podcast, Work in Progress. But behind the fame,
she was carrying more than the world ever knew.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
You had the courage to speak out and to take
on Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
The public part was so awful.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Now, alongside her best friend Ya Vats, Sophia opens up
about the pain, the shame, and the power of finally
choosing herself.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I didn't know how to deal with the shame and
the kind of embarrassment that I'd been wrong and that
I'd been wrong really publicly.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
But that was very hard for me.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
It's her best friend to watch, that's very hard. She's
the person who's known me for half my life and
could say, don't you dare forget who you are. Those
women helped me take off forty years of expectation and
people pleasing.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Join hosts Martin Luther King the Third, Andrea Waters, King,
Mark Kilberger, and Craig Kilberger for an Unforgettable conversation about
owning your truth and the lessons she learned along the way.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I want to speak up, but what I don't want.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Welcome to my legacy. For our new listeners and viewers,
this isn't your typical solo celebrity interview. This is the
show where extraordinary people pull back the curtain and bring
along the one person who's seen their full story unfold,
the highs, the heartbreaks, and the unforgettable life lessons. Today
we're joined by someone who's never been afraid to speak up,
show up, and shake things up, actress, activist, investor, and
(01:45):
podcast host Sophia Bush. Sophia, we're honored that you joined
us today, and would you do us the honor to
introduce your plus one, your writer died, the person who
you wanted to bring on this intimate conversation with you today.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yes, my goodness, my ride or die. We ride at dawn.
Best friend and collaborator and work wife and most trusted confidante,
my guest, my favorite person who's here with me today
is the one that I call whenever anything enormous is
happening in the world, Whenever anything you know, perhaps ridiculously
(02:23):
small or exciting or insane is happening in the four
walls of my own home. We really go micro to macro.
She is truly the most brilliant person that I know,
someone who will be the first one to take you
to the best music festival you've ever been to, but
also is the most brilliant analyst thinker. She can look
(02:46):
at a system and figure out how to make it better.
She can walk in a room and bring an unmatched vibe.
She is absolutely not just the most intellectual person I know,
but I think also the most exceptional person that I
know who has taught me so much about how to
live a deep and full life and who I tell
(03:10):
people all the time, I'm the most blessed in this
lifetime to call my best friend. And as if she
could ever do more than all of the amazing things
that she does as an entrepreneur and an investor and
an activist and a thought leader, she also gave birth
to my tiny best friend emotional. She gave birth to
(03:31):
the most wonderful little boy's name is August, who I
am immensely grateful and lucky to call my godson. And yeah,
there's just there's no way I would be in this
stage of this journey of life had I not been
walking this path next to her for the last twenty years.
We are joined today by the incomparable, the amazing Niavats.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
What a beautiful.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It was, like an award for the best introduction of us.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
For three minutes in them, We're already cry.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
It's gonna be a good I love you. I love
you too, but I do want to turn for a moment.
Because you all met each other in your twenties. I've
met some of my best and deepest and most wonderful
relationships with my best friends, also like at as adults,
and so Sophia, I know that you said that when
(04:27):
you met Nia in your early twenties it was one
of the first friendships that felt truly expansive and grounding.
What made Nia stand out? And what did you need
in a friend at that time in your life? What
could you receive?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
You carry the most powerful presence with you in a room,
And I think I was so sort of knocked over
by this woman who is both so self assured and
also has the kind of confidence that doesn't require her
to show off her intellect or her taste or her
(05:04):
deep knowledge. Again on the global markets, or like the
best music that's come out of the most niche space
that year. You know, I, for better or worse, I
can never not sit in a meeting and take notes.
And as we were all leaving this session with these
you know, incredible climate leaders and folks, she just looked
(05:28):
at me in the you know, in the aisle making
our way out of the auditorium and said, what is
the girl from TV doing here taking notes like a
court reporter? And I was like, well, I actually went
to journalism school. My notes are very good. If you
need a copy, you know. I was just trying so
hard to like figure out why this funny, amazing woman
was so cool. She was like, yeah, I want a copy.
And we've been best friends ever since. And I think
(05:50):
it is that I think we were in I'd be
remiss not to say, you know, we were in the
era of the early to mid two thousand where in
the world of my day job, the media was just
you know, putting women on these pedestals to destroy them.
Things were really vicious, the kind of criticism of women,
(06:13):
the fat shaming of women, the puritanical shaming of women.
Like it was hard to be out there as a
young woman in media. And then I met this woman
who is this young executive to brag the youngest ever
female and youngest ever Black woman executive at Viacom at
the time. And she was like, not about any of that,
wanted to talk. You know, all things play and all
(06:37):
things work. And I was so amazed by her and
her confidence. And I think as our friendship grew by osmosis,
I was like, oh, if Nia sees me this way,
I can see me this way.
Speaker 6 (06:52):
Okay, Nias your turn. So at that conference when you
all met, what did you say in Sofia that made
you say, Okay, this is someone that I want to
have in my life.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Yeah. Well, as Sopha was mentioning, you know, I was
working in entertainment at the time. I kind of grew
up a little adjacent to it. My uncle Lewis, who's
one of our business partners, has been a president at
Black Entertainment Television for like it's probably thirty eight years now,
and so the business of entertainment and the business of
(07:26):
making stars is something that I was very familiar with
and maybe to some extent like a little cautious of.
And I think what surprised me so much you know,
when I met Sophia is truly how genuinely curious of
a person she is, And it's so refreshing when you
meet people like that, and then also when they're in
(07:48):
a place, in a space where you're not necessarily expecting
them to be. I mean, we started, you know, engaging
in these like cause related spaces very early in our careers,
and that was very you know, much before it was
you know, as in vogue as it is now. For
I think every person with some sort of public facing,
(08:09):
you know, a bit of visibility to be connected to
an issue or a cause. But Sofa was passionately curious
about everything, the environments and how we're interacting with it,
the rights that women have or don't have, and from
the very very like early days, really conscious of her
space in the world as a white woman, and also
(08:31):
what that meant with the privilege of the platform that
she knew that she had. She took it very very
seriously from the moment that I met her, and that
was a demonstrative difference than you know, a lot of
the other sort of young actresses certainly that I came
in contact with on the shows that we had on
our networks. Or that I worked with in some capacity. Also,
(08:53):
what she's weaving out is she raises her hand to talk.
She's excited, she has thoughts, like the way that her
brain works in pross us as information happens in real
time and in such a joyful way that you can
see her becoming more excited by what she's hearing because
she's building on it and has ideas. And that kind
of energy is really contagious. You don't find a lot
(09:14):
of people that, yeah, I'm going to cry now.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Everybody's going to cry on this shifts.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
You just don't meet a lot of people that so
genuinely will then leave the room and want to figure
out how it is they can get involved in what
it is they can do. And so I asked for
a copy of her notes, and we really have been
best friends since then. And you know, I was a
very young executive, and you know that also is is lonely.
(09:43):
I also think, you know, Sophie and I were both
you know, only children, and our sort of like uh
like first version of our nuclear families. My family evolved
in many beautiful ways. But you know, she left Alifornio
when she was very young and moved in North Carolina
and worked on a show and didn't really grow up
(10:04):
in that culture of young Hollywood, and you know, just
some extent like on the show, but just in like
the broader ecosystem, you know. And I worked in fifteen
fifteen Broadway and most of you know, my peers and
people I worked with were much older, and so we
found these shared spaces where we could come together and
we could work on issues, and we could also you know,
(10:27):
have fun because North Carolina and you know, being in
Wilmington was not that far you know from New York,
and so we had opportunities to see each other and
also traveled together, and a lot of our formative years
and experiences were spent bouncing ideas off of one another
and making, you know, mistakes and learning from them and growing.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
As the mother of an only child, that also it
warms my heart. And so to hear that you are
both only children and that you know, like you also
have made this family together early early on. I think
sometimes as parents of only children we kind of worry,
but so it really is wonderful as the mother of
(11:11):
an only child also to know that you all have
found your forever family in each other.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Yeah, and I think that you make a family as well,
and we have done that with the people around us.
And you know, even my nuclear family evolved our you know,
nuclear families have have been built and shifted in different ways.
And you know, I think when you have a really
good center and there's like love and strength and you know,
(11:37):
humility in that space, you know you have longevity. As well.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
As listened to you do that beautiful tribute, I was
struck by how you spoke of how you both met
through activism. You gave this beautiful tribut about Sophia's commitment
to activism, and it's one of the parts Sophia, I
think a lot of our listeners and viewers admire about
you because of course, you know, of course people know
you as the breakout star from One Tree Hill. But
what a lot of people also know and to think
(12:02):
admire was the fact that although it was a hit
behind the scenes, you had the courage along with seventeen
others who spoke out against the toxic culture, and you
had the courage to speak out and to take on
Hollywood in that way. When you look at your own
activism and specifically that experience, what did that teach you
(12:25):
about courage about speaking up about frankly, the true price
sometimes you have to pay for holding true to your beliefs,
just as it could not have been easy at that time.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah, ah, you know, so many things pop into my head,
and to your point, it certainly wasn't easy. I think
you realize, and you know it's not that it's unique, unfortunately,
but when you begin sharing stories with people around you,
(13:00):
which I think I knew how to do when it
was time for those stories to be shared in community,
because we had done it in so many other places.
You know. We had worked on the front lines with
folks trying to ring the alarm bell about climate. We
had worked on human rights issues, water access issues around
the world, you know, and so I think when it
(13:22):
was time, in an odd way, to turn that energy
inward and then to my immediate circle of co workers,
when me too became I won't say became. You know,
it had been happening and growing, you know, thanks to
Toronto Burke and her activism and her beginning, you know,
(13:45):
the rallying cry in the first place. But when the
pot boiled over, as you will, in twenty seventeen, it
was really interesting because it was the reason I had
left my most recent job at the time because we'd
hit a point where it was, well, either you have
to continue to shrink yourself and you should be so
grateful to have the job in the first place, or
(14:07):
you're going to say this is unacceptable, and to prove
that point, leave the room and again I will I
will say that I think I knew how to do
that because of my friendship with Nia and the group
of women around us. I had finally been taught to
(14:28):
trust myself enough to say, even for me, not just
for the world, but even for me, if one door closes,
another will open, or I'll open another one. I can
actually close this door and send that signal, you know.
I mean it was the spring of twenty seventeen that
I closed that door, and then the summer of twenty
seventeen that this global door you know, got kicked down.
(14:52):
And what was so interesting to me about it was
I'd had a singular experience on my recent job, my
first and longest you know, nine seasons of One Tree Hill.
All of us women had had the whole spectrum of
this experience, and there was so much fear and also
(15:13):
relief in our community and in our community at large
about finally people don't have to keep secrets, and finally
people don't have to pay compliments to people who don't
deserve them, and finally, what's it going to look like?
And the fear came from so many people on our
show certainly, and I would imagine in the ecosystem saying
I want to speak up, but what I don't want
(15:33):
is to have to tell the world exactly what happened
to me. And it was the decade of the decade
plus of Nia and I's friendship, our larger ecosystem of
women and all these people we had built these activist
circles with, and that we'd done all of this community
organizing and civic engagement work with where I said, I
(15:55):
got all the girls together and said, guy, I think
I know the way we do this. We do it together.
We can explain from this issue all the way to
this extreme issue. We have been through this. And it
was the most amazing thing because I got to bring,
(16:17):
you know, small often local, basement organizing work to this large,
very public entertainment world, and me and my friends from
this show got to protect each other and people got
to know this happened to someone and this happened to someone,
and this happened to someone, but they couldn't assign it
to whom. And in a way, it let us talk
(16:39):
about the system, because sexism and sexual violence and sexual
harassment is systemic. Racism and oppression and redlining and financial inequity,
those are systemic issues, and in our own way, I
feel like we got to stand up for ourselves and
call out a system instead of have to re traumatize
(17:00):
ourselves specifically.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
And I was.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Really proud of us, and I was so proud of
everyone who had the conversation, and particularly proud of how
women in entertainment said, we can garner the spotlight and
who will we turn it onto? So how do we
support the women in the NWSL and their fight for equality.
How do we support women in academia and signal boost
(17:27):
their stories of what they've been subjected to in higher education?
How do we support women in the medical field, from
nurses to surgeons who go through this too but don't
get millions of eyeballs on their personal Instagram pages. And
so it was very inspiring to me the way that
(17:47):
whole movement kept recentering community rather than any one person's
story and I think it was something that felt familiar
and right to me because of the decade of work
around the world I had done next to this woman.
Speaker 6 (18:02):
So that prepared you in a way like that, all
of that work that you all did together, when the
time came and it was your moment to use your
voice in your feel all of that that preparation, it
seems like it came full circle coming up. Sophia opens
up about the pain, the shame, and the power of
(18:22):
finally choosing herself.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
That's next.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Nia.
Speaker 7 (18:30):
You are extremely gifted. You work across media, strategy, finance,
and you're bringing those expertise to your investment work with Sophia.
What's a project that you're most proud of of your
collective partnership and why is economic empowerment become such a
driving force of your passion and your work.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
It's interesting. I was speaking at a conference yesterday and
we're talking about falalures, and I think that for me,
probably for us, these are learning opportunities and experiences. It's
hard to classify them not as like a failure, but
to me, I still think that one of the most
(19:10):
rewarding things that we did was with our business partner,
Katie Cockrell, when we were you know, in Detroit building out.
One of our first brick and mortar businesses was a
salon in store called Detroit Blows and it was kind
of an inclusive take on like a dry bar sort
(19:31):
of esque model that was really thinking about not only
how do we make a space where women, people of
all ethnicities and hair types can have consistent service. Can
that service be non toxic? Can we make it feel beautiful?
And can it be generative in a way that a
portion of those profits get funneled into our affiliated nonprofit
(19:55):
and make micro grants to women entrepreneurs and grants to
organizations that help women either enter or re enter the workforce.
Can you take something that seems like, seemingly like superficial
and make it feel holistic and whole and nurturing in
a way that people are not expecting. And so it
(20:19):
became our little trojan horse for a conversation about identity politics,
for a conversation about representation and beauty, for a conversation
about community development, who gets to be investors and who
gets to be invested in And unfortunately, during COVID, we
made the decision to sunset that business, and I think,
(20:42):
you know, it's one of the things I'm most proud
of that we've done together, because again, it was it
was one of those things we just didn't have to do,
but we just didn't know who else was going to
do it, and so the three of us did it.
And when we first you know, started to play around
with this idea, and then Katie and I were here
in the market. You know, my mom helped, you know,
(21:04):
she was so instrumental with that business, helping with our
business plan and operations and getting us open. And I
said to Sof like, is this crazy? Do you think
that we should do this? And that we should do
it in Detroit? Just like we actually we absolutely have to,
you know, and I'm going to be the first check
in and We're just going to build it. And we did,
and to just will something into existence that has the
(21:27):
physicality of a space. It was a humbling experience, but
a beautiful experience. But it really was you know, when
we decided to close the business, it was catalytic for
us in terms of what we had to do next.
So we went on to work with the first Women's
bank in Chicago, which is the first commercially chartered bank
(21:48):
in the country that focuses on reducing the gender lending
gap for women's owned businesses because we know that those
businesses receive sixteen percent of commercial loans, like relative to
you know, to mail business businesses better run by men.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
And black women receive even less than that.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Absolutely, absolutely, And you know, we were in Detroit, keynoting
of Forbes Under thirty conference the year before we actually
closed the salon, and we were supposed to be on
stage really talking about this business that we built in
Detroit and how we're getting ready to prepare for the
next you know, fundraising ground where we're going to expand
(22:28):
into other markets. But again back to the data and
these stories we just couldn't put down. We started to
dive in and realized that yes, women owned businesses receive
you know, a much smaller share, you know than other businesses.
But when I tried to ask what the funding levels
were at that year for black owned businesses, they told
(22:52):
me that they were going to start reporting that data
and the next survey, but it was statistically insignificant, so
it wasn't reporting and the current data that we were seeing.
I was like, statistically insignificant and what this must have
been yeah, oh yeah, yeah, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
So yeah, because he noted the conference planning to start
our rais and then when the pandemic began, that's what
led to us having to sunset the business. And so
it was a real whiplash and statistically insignificant. I remember
watching Na's face like we heard that, and I went oh.
I immediately looked at her and thought, isn't it surreal
(23:34):
that we own a business in this majority black city
founded by three women, two of whom are women of color,
and the women of color in the room were just
told they are statistically insignificant. And then we were like,
get the matches. We're lightning on front.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
And I think even also that that women general partners
you know at venture capital firms that they were only
you know, represented of ten percent of you know that
investment leadership and firms across the country. I think right
now it might be closer to thirteen. It vacillates between
ten and thirteen percent. But we thought, is okay, this
feels like a fixable problem. It's probably we stands to
(24:14):
reason we might have more investment in women know own businesses.
Certainly you know, women of color. I would expect as
well if we had more women investors and also investors
that were women of color. And so what was interesting,
and it's a very sort of long wind in response
to the initial question.
Speaker 8 (24:31):
But that project really became a catalyst for, you know,
our involvement with the bank and you know, and debt
strategies and ways that we can support and capitalize businesses.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
And it really brought us back home to what we
had always been doing, which is making these angel investments.
But it led to us formalizing our venture capital strategy
and kind of bringing it into this main firm that
my dad had been brunning and the my uncle is
a part of as well. And so now we have
this family business that is you know, based in Detroit
(25:06):
in Atlanta that in very you know, is very deeply
connected to this business that we had in Detroit, this
brick and mortar you know, business that we weren't expecting
or really set out to build, and that had some success,
but as it had to transition and evolve into something different,
it very much you know, had all of the markers
(25:30):
of what would come next. And so that's the beautiful
thing about you know about the.
Speaker 6 (25:35):
Journey statistically and significant. And then when you think when
you think about like all of the the black owned businesses,
and in particular the black owned female businesses. My sisters
have a bakery here in Atlanta that they've owned for
over ten years.
Speaker 7 (25:52):
Can we do a shameless plug with the bakery's name,
It's CG Bakery, and.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
Like we do this ship and they are they really
are fantastic.
Speaker 7 (26:02):
I'm biased, but they really what's your favorite thing that
they bake their cupcakes? The cupcakes.
Speaker 6 (26:10):
C eg keg Bakery, comfecier, eclectic, gourmet. It's the whole
idea of bringing together Southern and French and just like
the best fresh ingredients. So if you order strawberry cupcakes
from there, like they're gonna have fresh strawberries, you know,
cut up in there. And our daughter works there sometimes
(26:32):
after school and she loves the lemon bars. I mean,
everything is really great. And they've done this, you know,
without any type of financial backing, because when you go
and you you know, go to a bank, you know,
you know, and black women trying to get business loans
is almost impossible. And then when you really understand though
(26:55):
the creativeness, then that goes into building a business. Without that,
we we actually are probably better bets because of the
fact that we are so creative, we have to think
outside of the box when it comes to marketing and
all of the different pieces. It just it boggles my
mind because of that strength and intelligence and creativitness that
(27:17):
we actually are a better statistical bet when it comes
to businesses. And then, so you're helping lead the first black,
majority women led venture capital firm in Michigan. And what
do you think are some of the biggest barriers still
(27:37):
holding women back and how can we overcome them?
Speaker 4 (27:41):
I really think it's access to capital. We know that,
you know in Michigan, you know especially it can take
founders twenty four to forty eight months longer to raise
that first five hundred thousand dollars. And we know that
the numbers that the time is longer for women, for
people of color. And so the biggest barrier in many
(28:04):
respects is how quickly people can get their ideas funded.
And for us, that's why it was so important for
us to be early stage investors. I mean, we started
as angels, but we still in our strategy invest pre
seed to Series A and we do a lot in
the preceed and seed stage, because we know that if
(28:24):
we can make an investment in a founder and we
can work with them on a milestone, on a goal
that feels achievable even with a small amount of money,
we have seen, like you know, in our portfolio, we're
small amounts of money at the right time and mentorship
support resources, like the belief that we have in our
(28:44):
founders has led them to go on to raise millions
of dollars and you know, run very successful businesses and
sometimes you just need people to really see you in
your vision and to support you with capital. But you know,
also so with some of the platform resources that we
wrap around our founders as well. But it does require
(29:07):
a deep setted belief that people of color, women, underrepresented
founders from underrepresented communities have a better chance at solving
problems for those communities. It does require the belief that
the diversity of perspective can create an innovation that others
(29:27):
might be missing. And so for us, you know, we
believe that there's a tremendous amount of value that can
be captured, you know, in these markets and with these founders.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
It's one of those things where I think it's actually
a way to tear down this false binary that you
either do well in the world or you do good.
This idea that there's folks who care about people in
planet and then there's folks who care about profit. And
I think one of our favorite it things to talk about,
(30:01):
and we learned this from our activism and our community organizing,
is there are actually many places where the math and
the morals meet. We know that companies with diversity of
leadership across race and gender and background have better outcomes
fiscally in their quarterly and annual returns. So the idea
(30:23):
that the truth rather that more ideas in the room
means that you will create a better product or outcome
for your company is exciting and for us when we
think about some of the folks who might have a
harder time fundraising, we want to go to those folks.
(30:44):
Some of the geographies that have a harder time fundraising,
we want to be there because it really reminds us
something that was core to our activism that we realized
was core to our fiscal strategy. Is that old archbis
to two adage you're gonna pull people out of the
river for so long before you're gonna walk upstream and
(31:04):
figure out who's pushing them in. The financial inequity that
harms so many communities also harms the GDP of America.
So if more people are doing better and making more money,
the whole country's doing better. It's not actually a you
versus me and us versus them thing. It's say, let's
(31:25):
build a bigger, more successful and sustainable economy. And we
understand that by nature of being upstream, we can support
more people. And that feels exciting to us because the
more of us there are in the rooms, and the
more companies that might have been overlooked that we can
(31:46):
actually invest in, the more investors in the future won't
overlook those folks. And so it's where the math and
the morals really me.
Speaker 7 (31:55):
We love it if you could share this episode with
someone who you admire, someone who shows up for you,
who cares about you, who lives their legacy every day.
We'll be back in a moment.
Speaker 6 (32:10):
Now back to my legacy, Sophia.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
What's one thing you and NIA do together that is
absolutely nothing to do with your business but really feels
your souls.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I mean, I come, I come back to music. You know,
we used to joke in our twenties that we could
be like at a concert, dancing on top of the
speakers on a Saturday night and running a board meeting
on a Monday morning. That is still true. I think
then I was like, I was like, what's going to
happen when we're in our forties? And now I'm like,
we're in our forties, we got kids, and we're still
(32:47):
so fun. And I love that. You know, it's it's
impossible for us not to be deep and nerdy about
every single thing. And you know, now instead of just
sending news articles, we're literally trading white for biotech companies.
I mean we are we are deeply as you said earlier,
n we're deeply curious people and we take our careers
(33:09):
very seriously, but we remember to have fun. And you know,
it might not be Friday and Saturday night anymore. We're busy,
but like we're still having a good time. And I
love that. I know, I can say like, oh my god,
did you know this? This concert's happening in Chicago in
two weeks? Should we go? And her She's always like, yeah,
what night. We say yes before we even know when,
(33:32):
And I love that. I love that we haven't lost that.
Speaker 6 (33:36):
Well, let me tell you, even when you get into
your fifties, you still won't. They're still fun to be had.
And yeah, when you get a group of moms together
and good friends, you know, and you know you get
all everything done during the day. But it is a
lot of fun to be had when we all get together, Sophia.
(33:58):
And now I want to turn to a deep, fully
personal essay that you wrote in Glamour last April about
your coming out journey. And I want to read something
that you wrote because I thought that it was just so,
so very powerful. So I want to quote your exact words,
(34:18):
which is I finally feel like I can breathe. I
don't think I don't think I can explain how profound
that is. I feel like I was wearing a weighted
vest for who knows how long I hadn't realized how
heavy it was until I finally just put it down.
(34:40):
That kind of clarity doesn't usually come without heartbreak. So
what was the turning point for you?
Speaker 1 (34:48):
If I may, You know, it's interesting how bite sized
the world wants to make your life or your experience
and says when you are a public person. And I
understand why the totality of a life, you know, someone's
(35:09):
journey is it's not clickbait material and so you won't
expect this. But the reason this really relates back to
Nia and our friendship is because there was so much
public fascination about well, what is she? How does she identify?
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Is?
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Explain? Explain, explain, and they wanted to make it about
this coming out, you know, and part of me and
part of Neia were like, has nobody been paying attention
to like anything I've ever said since I've been on TV,
or all the all the people I've kissed since I've
been on TV? Like what are we doing? So there
was humor in it, certainly there there was absolutely given
(35:52):
again this this rising fear mongering. There was a real
importance I understood for saying the words and saying them
in a way where they could be both hopefully inspiring
or freeing to someone else, but also to say all
of us deserve to take up space and deserve to
(36:12):
have a full spectrum of rights. But the thing that
people didn't see behind the scenes was the journey to
get there. And the vest wasn't just about identity. The
vest was about society. The vest was about the expectation
on women, the exhausting demand to be small, but not
(36:38):
so small, to no matter what you do, you have
a career, How dare you not have kids? You have kids?
How dare you not have a career? You wait to
consider getting married. You're a crone. You got married young.
You must have been dumb and you didn't know what
you were doing. It's just we can't quite get it right.
(36:58):
And what I had to come to terms with was
that I'd carried certain traumas rather than push them back
on the people who'd given them to me, I'd tried
to make everybody happy. I'd lost my individual way, maybe
in a way because I'd prioritized community so much that
(37:20):
I finally said, well, I guess it's time, and I
guess it's time I do the thing everybody tells me
to do, and I'll make the list and check the boxes.
And everybody says, once you've done it, you'll be happy.
And I checked all the boxes and I really wasn't happy.
And I didn't know how to say that to anyone
but Nia, and I didn't know how to say when
(37:47):
people said, well, why did you get married and why
did you do this? I didn't know I would go
through the next step, the family building stuff by myself.
I didn't know until it happened to me. And I
didn't know how to say that, know how to deal
with the shame and the kind of embarrassment that I'd
been wrong and that I'd been wrong really publicly. And
(38:07):
I called my best friend and she if I may,
I'm just making sure I'm allowed to say the thing,
but she said me too. And we both knew what
was going on, obviously with each other. We talk one
hundred times a day. But when I said I think
I have to be done and in her own life
(38:28):
and in her own world with her own young son,
she said, I do too. I can't. I would never
wish for someone else to be heartbroken, but to have
my best friend in the world having her version of
the same experience, and both of us saying we got
(38:48):
to like, we got to put it down and we
got to try to make a new way in the
most profound way. I knew I wasn't crazy. I knew
I wasn't doing something rash. I knew I'd literally exhausted
every option, I'd gone to, every therapy, I'd done every
bit of the homework, and I had to just say
(39:12):
it's okay to change your mind, it's okay to learn something,
and based on that learning, make a new decision for
your future. And so everybody wanted to make it about,
you know, the next person in my life. Because the
next person in my life was a woman. Plenty of
people were shocked. It wasn't nea by the way. I
(39:33):
was like, I was like, she is my wife, Just
not like that.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
But you know what, I think what.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
People didn't understand was that the journey started again in
a community of women. And there were two of us,
and then there was a best friend from college, and
then there was a woman I would eventually fall in
love with. And then there was another friend, you know,
dealing with will I stay or will I go because
of addiction in her family with her husband, and the
community of women who who didn't go really bad timing,
(40:05):
you know, you just had this whole big thing. They
didn't lean out and critique. They leaned in and said
it's okay. Those women helped me take off forty years
of expectation and people pleasing and just trying to do
it right because it hadn't felt right ever, no matter
how hard. I tried, and it was yes about stepping
(40:28):
into that portion of my identity in a way, but
what it really was in totality was a homecoming and
a learning to honor myself. And I learned how to
honor myself watching the strongest woman that I know and
a group of the most impressive women we love honor themselves.
(40:52):
I had the courage of that conviction because of what
I was being shown in both love and example by
the women in my life.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Nia, As I'm listening to Sophia speak, and it's so
clear to the deep connection that you have as this
friendship that's so deep. What was the hardest part for you, Nia,
watching Sophia go through this incredibly challenging journey to reach her.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
Truth, not not catching it soon enough. And I think
that when hearing the stories about you know, whether it's
you know her one of her shows and she was
in Chicago, or the show and she was in North Carolina,
and this theme that because we're so strong, we just
(41:44):
hold so much and it really does eventually bubble to
the surface. And the hardest part for me was feeling
like I wish that I had been there, because I
also was going through something and maybe didn't have as
much sort of emotional space as I normally do. There's
(42:05):
always been this beautiful kind of give and take, and
I think we were both going through something similar, feeling,
you know, something similar, and it's hard when you realize
that what someone's saying to you is also forcing you
to confront something in yourself. And while we were able
(42:25):
to be there and support one another, I think it
was just a lot of sadness that we're two women
that often, you know, again, have to carry so much,
and being strong is not the prize always. Sometimes it's
being open and honest and soft and allowing yourself to
(42:47):
fall apart to rebuild in different ways, and I think
that's the most beautiful thing that has come from this.
But you always want to protect the people that you
love and you never want to see them suffer. And
you know, Sophie lives in the public eye, and I've
never really had to contend with the type of public
pressure in perception and people's thoughts and feelings about what
(43:10):
you're doing and seeing how that affects someone, and so.
Speaker 9 (43:12):
I know that was so hard for her that that
was very hard for me. It's her best friend to watch.
That was very hard. I wish I could have taken
that part away.
Speaker 7 (43:26):
Wow, I love you, I.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
Love you both.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
You know what what I will say is we were
we were together on that journey. You know I am.
The public part was so awful and so largely mistaken.
I got to continually come back as I was being
(43:57):
essentially re categorized as a person. That's at least what
it felt like. Maybe that's the algorithm and the way
they poison us all, but it felt like I was
being sort of remolded in other people's opinions or judgments.
And I got to continually come back and sit with
my best friend who would remind me in the greater
(44:18):
scheme of what we were all going through, in the
ways we were all supporting each other, in the resources
we were all sharing. She's the person who's known me
for half my life and could say, don't you dare
forget who you are? Don't you dare forget what is true?
And I don't think I would have made it through
(44:43):
that part. And despite moments where I wanted to be
enraged or correct a bunch of things with a whole
bunch of receipts or whatever, she was the person who
always reminded me that is not for you. That is
that whole fray is a lower vibration than the person
that you are. Stay who you are, Stay where you are,
(45:06):
And when someone loves you enough to protect you and
restore you and also demand that you be the person
they know you to be when you're pushed to a limit, like,
that's real, that's real love. That is the kind of
(45:29):
person you want with you in the trenches. That is
the kind of person you want with you in any
emergency scenario. That is the kind of person you want
to shut down the dance floor at five am at
the rave with you, like that is your person And
we are all of those versions of ourselves together, and
it is, it is, It is the gift.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
I think we all deeply loved listening to the two
of you. What a beautiful reflection that truth isn't only
something you speak, but it's something you live. That being
authentic isn't easy, That it requires blowing things up, that
it requires having tough conversations, requires calling things out, and
it requires a friend to stand side by side during
(46:15):
those hardest times. And I love the fact that today
how your friendship's evolved you are now creating space to
empower others the math and the morals through economic empowerment
and social good and seeing your friendship, I'm actually reflecting
on the four of our friendships and the journey that
we started together now creating impact, and so I just
(46:36):
so deeply grateful to the two of you and for
the tears that you shared for each other in the tribute.
So thank you for sharing your legacy with us today.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Thank you so.
Speaker 6 (46:46):
Much having this is going to go down in the
podcast Hall of Fame for just great conversation and lifting
up best friends.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Yes, and.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Thank you for joining us. If you enjoy today's conversation, subscribe, share,
and follow us on at my Legacy movement on social
media and YouTube. New episodes drop every Tuesday, with bonus
content every Thursday. At its core, this podcast honors doctor
King's vision of the beloved community and the power of connection.
(47:23):
A Legacy Plus Studio production distributed by iHeartMedia creator and
executive producer Suzanne Hayward co executive producer Lisa Lyle. Listen
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Putting women on these pedestals to destroy them. Things were
really vicious.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Actress Sophia Bush rose to fame as the breakout star
of One Tree Hill.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
He should be so lucky, I am brook Day.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
She built a platform as a fierce activist and launched
her mega hit podcast, Work in Progress. But behind the fame,
she was carrying more than the world ever knew.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
You had the courage to speak out and to take
on Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
The public part was so awful.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Now, alongside her best friend Ya Vats, Sophia opens up
about the pain, the shame, and the power of finally
choosing herself.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I didn't know how to deal with the shame and
the kind of embarrassment that I'd been wrong and that
I'd been wrong really publicly.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
But that was very hard for me.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
It's her best friend to watch, that's very hard. She's
the person who's known me for half my life and
could say, don't you dare forget who you are. Those
women helped me take off forty years of expectation and
people pleasing.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Join hosts Martin Luther King the Third, Andrea Waters, King,
Mark Kilberger, and Craig Kilberger for an Unforgettable conversation about
owning your truth and the lessons she learned along the way.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I want to speak up, but what I don't want.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Welcome to my legacy. For our new listeners and viewers,
this isn't your typical solo celebrity interview. This is the
show where extraordinary people pull back the curtain and bring
along the one person who's seen their full story unfold,
the highs, the heartbreaks, and the unforgettable life lessons. Today
we're joined by someone who's never been afraid to speak up,
show up, and shake things up, actress, activist, investor, and
(01:45):
podcast host Sophia Bush. Sophia, we're honored that you joined
us today, and would you do us the honor to
introduce your plus one, your writer died, the person who
you wanted to bring on this intimate conversation with you today.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yes, my goodness, my ride or die. We ride at dawn.
Best friend and collaborator and work wife and most trusted confidante,
my guest, my favorite person who's here with me today
is the one that I call whenever anything enormous is
happening in the world, Whenever anything you know, perhaps ridiculously
(02:23):
small or exciting or insane is happening in the four
walls of my own home. We really go micro to macro.
She is truly the most brilliant person that I know,
someone who will be the first one to take you
to the best music festival you've ever been to, but
also is the most brilliant analyst thinker. She can look
(02:46):
at a system and figure out how to make it better.
She can walk in a room and bring an unmatched vibe.
She is absolutely not just the most intellectual person I know,
but I think also the most exceptional person that I
know who has taught me so much about how to
live a deep and full life and who I tell
(03:10):
people all the time, I'm the most blessed in this
lifetime to call my best friend. And as if she
could ever do more than all of the amazing things
that she does as an entrepreneur and an investor and
an activist and a thought leader, she also gave birth
to my tiny best friend emotional. She gave birth to
(03:31):
the most wonderful little boy's name is August, who I
am immensely grateful and lucky to call my godson. And yeah,
there's just there's no way I would be in this
stage of this journey of life had I not been
walking this path next to her for the last twenty years.
We are joined today by the incomparable, the amazing Niavats.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
What a beautiful.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It was, like an award for the best introduction of us.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
For three minutes in them, We're already cry.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
It's gonna be a good I love you. I love
you too, but I do want to turn for a moment.
Because you all met each other in your twenties. I've
met some of my best and deepest and most wonderful
relationships with my best friends, also like at as adults,
and so Sophia, I know that you said that when
(04:27):
you met Nia in your early twenties it was one
of the first friendships that felt truly expansive and grounding.
What made Nia stand out? And what did you need
in a friend at that time in your life? What
could you receive?
Speaker 1 (04:42):
You carry the most powerful presence with you in a room,
And I think I was so sort of knocked over
by this woman who is both so self assured and
also has the kind of confidence that doesn't require her
to show off her intellect or her taste or her
(05:04):
deep knowledge. Again on the global markets, or like the
best music that's come out of the most niche space
that year. You know, I, for better or worse, I
can never not sit in a meeting and take notes.
And as we were all leaving this session with these
you know, incredible climate leaders and folks, she just looked
(05:28):
at me in the you know, in the aisle making
our way out of the auditorium and said, what is
the girl from TV doing here taking notes like a
court reporter? And I was like, well, I actually went
to journalism school. My notes are very good. If you
need a copy, you know. I was just trying so
hard to like figure out why this funny, amazing woman
was so cool. She was like, yeah, I want a copy.
And we've been best friends ever since. And I think
(05:50):
it is that I think we were in I'd be
remiss not to say, you know, we were in the
era of the early to mid two thousand where in
the world of my day job, the media was just
you know, putting women on these pedestals to destroy them.
Things were really vicious, the kind of criticism of women,
(06:13):
the fat shaming of women, the puritanical shaming of women.
Like it was hard to be out there as a
young woman in media. And then I met this woman
who is this young executive to brag the youngest ever
female and youngest ever Black woman executive at Viacom at
the time. And she was like, not about any of that,
wanted to talk. You know, all things play and all
(06:37):
things work. And I was so amazed by her and
her confidence. And I think as our friendship grew by osmosis,
I was like, oh, if Nia sees me this way,
I can see me this way.
Speaker 6 (06:52):
Okay, Nias your turn. So at that conference when you
all met, what did you say in Sofia that made
you say, Okay, this is someone that I want to
have in my life.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
Yeah. Well, as Sopha was mentioning, you know, I was
working in entertainment at the time. I kind of grew
up a little adjacent to it. My uncle Lewis, who's
one of our business partners, has been a president at
Black Entertainment Television for like it's probably thirty eight years now,
and so the business of entertainment and the business of
(07:26):
making stars is something that I was very familiar with
and maybe to some extent like a little cautious of.
And I think what surprised me so much you know,
when I met Sophia is truly how genuinely curious of
a person she is, And it's so refreshing when you
meet people like that, and then also when they're in
(07:48):
a place, in a space where you're not necessarily expecting
them to be. I mean, we started, you know, engaging
in these like cause related spaces very early in our careers,
and that was very you know, much before it was
you know, as in vogue as it is now. For
I think every person with some sort of public facing,
(08:09):
you know, a bit of visibility to be connected to
an issue or a cause. But Sofa was passionately curious
about everything, the environments and how we're interacting with it,
the rights that women have or don't have, and from
the very very like early days, really conscious of her
space in the world as a white woman, and also
(08:31):
what that meant with the privilege of the platform that
she knew that she had. She took it very very
seriously from the moment that I met her, and that
was a demonstrative difference than you know, a lot of
the other sort of young actresses certainly that I came
in contact with on the shows that we had on
our networks. Or that I worked with in some capacity. Also,
(08:53):
what she's weaving out is she raises her hand to talk.
She's excited, she has thoughts, like the way that her
brain works in pross us as information happens in real
time and in such a joyful way that you can
see her becoming more excited by what she's hearing because
she's building on it and has ideas. And that kind
of energy is really contagious. You don't find a lot
(09:14):
of people that, yeah, I'm going to cry now.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Everybody's going to cry on this shifts.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
You just don't meet a lot of people that so
genuinely will then leave the room and want to figure
out how it is they can get involved in what
it is they can do. And so I asked for
a copy of her notes, and we really have been
best friends since then. And you know, I was a
very young executive, and you know that also is is lonely.
(09:43):
I also think, you know, Sophie and I were both
you know, only children, and our sort of like uh
like first version of our nuclear families. My family evolved
in many beautiful ways. But you know, she left Alifornio
when she was very young and moved in North Carolina
and worked on a show and didn't really grow up
(10:04):
in that culture of young Hollywood, and you know, just
some extent like on the show, but just in like
the broader ecosystem, you know. And I worked in fifteen
fifteen Broadway and most of you know, my peers and
people I worked with were much older, and so we
found these shared spaces where we could come together and
we could work on issues, and we could also you know,
(10:27):
have fun because North Carolina and you know, being in
Wilmington was not that far you know from New York,
and so we had opportunities to see each other and
also traveled together, and a lot of our formative years
and experiences were spent bouncing ideas off of one another
and making, you know, mistakes and learning from them and growing.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
As the mother of an only child, that also it
warms my heart. And so to hear that you are
both only children and that you know, like you also
have made this family together early early on. I think
sometimes as parents of only children we kind of worry,
but so it really is wonderful as the mother of
(11:11):
an only child also to know that you all have
found your forever family in each other.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Yeah, and I think that you make a family as well,
and we have done that with the people around us.
And you know, even my nuclear family evolved our you know,
nuclear families have have been built and shifted in different ways.
And you know, I think when you have a really
good center and there's like love and strength and you know,
(11:37):
humility in that space, you know you have longevity. As well.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
As listened to you do that beautiful tribute, I was
struck by how you spoke of how you both met
through activism. You gave this beautiful tribut about Sophia's commitment
to activism, and it's one of the parts Sophia, I
think a lot of our listeners and viewers admire about
you because of course, you know, of course people know
you as the breakout star from One Tree Hill. But
what a lot of people also know and to think
(12:02):
admire was the fact that although it was a hit
behind the scenes, you had the courage along with seventeen
others who spoke out against the toxic culture, and you
had the courage to speak out and to take on
Hollywood in that way. When you look at your own
activism and specifically that experience, what did that teach you
(12:25):
about courage about speaking up about frankly, the true price
sometimes you have to pay for holding true to your beliefs,
just as it could not have been easy at that time.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah, ah, you know, so many things pop into my head,
and to your point, it certainly wasn't easy. I think
you realize, and you know it's not that it's unique, unfortunately,
but when you begin sharing stories with people around you,
(13:00):
which I think I knew how to do when it
was time for those stories to be shared in community,
because we had done it in so many other places.
You know. We had worked on the front lines with
folks trying to ring the alarm bell about climate. We
had worked on human rights issues, water access issues around
the world, you know, and so I think when it
(13:22):
was time, in an odd way, to turn that energy
inward and then to my immediate circle of co workers,
when me too became I won't say became. You know,
it had been happening and growing, you know, thanks to
Toronto Burke and her activism and her beginning, you know,
(13:45):
the rallying cry in the first place. But when the
pot boiled over, as you will, in twenty seventeen, it
was really interesting because it was the reason I had
left my most recent job at the time because we'd
hit a point where it was, well, either you have
to continue to shrink yourself and you should be so
grateful to have the job in the first place, or
(14:07):
you're going to say this is unacceptable, and to prove
that point, leave the room and again I will I
will say that I think I knew how to do
that because of my friendship with Nia and the group
of women around us. I had finally been taught to
(14:28):
trust myself enough to say, even for me, not just
for the world, but even for me, if one door closes,
another will open, or I'll open another one. I can
actually close this door and send that signal, you know.
I mean it was the spring of twenty seventeen that
I closed that door, and then the summer of twenty
seventeen that this global door you know, got kicked down.
(14:52):
And what was so interesting to me about it was
I'd had a singular experience on my recent job, my
first and longest you know, nine seasons of One Tree Hill.
All of us women had had the whole spectrum of
this experience, and there was so much fear and also
(15:13):
relief in our community and in our community at large
about finally people don't have to keep secrets, and finally
people don't have to pay compliments to people who don't
deserve them, and finally, what's it going to look like?
And the fear came from so many people on our
show certainly, and I would imagine in the ecosystem saying
I want to speak up, but what I don't want
(15:33):
is to have to tell the world exactly what happened
to me. And it was the decade of the decade
plus of Nia and I's friendship, our larger ecosystem of
women and all these people we had built these activist
circles with, and that we'd done all of this community
organizing and civic engagement work with where I said, I
(15:55):
got all the girls together and said, guy, I think
I know the way we do this. We do it together.
We can explain from this issue all the way to
this extreme issue. We have been through this. And it
was the most amazing thing because I got to bring,
(16:17):
you know, small often local, basement organizing work to this large,
very public entertainment world, and me and my friends from
this show got to protect each other and people got
to know this happened to someone and this happened to someone,
and this happened to someone, but they couldn't assign it
to whom. And in a way, it let us talk
(16:39):
about the system, because sexism and sexual violence and sexual
harassment is systemic. Racism and oppression and redlining and financial inequity,
those are systemic issues, and in our own way, I
feel like we got to stand up for ourselves and
call out a system instead of have to re traumatize
(17:00):
ourselves specifically.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
And I was.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Really proud of us, and I was so proud of
everyone who had the conversation, and particularly proud of how
women in entertainment said, we can garner the spotlight and
who will we turn it onto? So how do we
support the women in the NWSL and their fight for equality.
How do we support women in academia and signal boost
(17:27):
their stories of what they've been subjected to in higher education?
How do we support women in the medical field, from
nurses to surgeons who go through this too but don't
get millions of eyeballs on their personal Instagram pages. And
so it was very inspiring to me the way that
(17:47):
whole movement kept recentering community rather than any one person's
story and I think it was something that felt familiar
and right to me because of the decade of work
around the world I had done next to this woman.
Speaker 6 (18:02):
So that prepared you in a way like that, all
of that work that you all did together, when the
time came and it was your moment to use your
voice in your feel all of that that preparation, it
seems like it came full circle coming up. Sophia opens
up about the pain, the shame, and the power of
(18:22):
finally choosing herself.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
That's next.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Nia.
Speaker 7 (18:30):
You are extremely gifted. You work across media, strategy, finance,
and you're bringing those expertise to your investment work with Sophia.
What's a project that you're most proud of of your
collective partnership and why is economic empowerment become such a
driving force of your passion and your work.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
It's interesting. I was speaking at a conference yesterday and
we're talking about falalures, and I think that for me,
probably for us, these are learning opportunities and experiences. It's
hard to classify them not as like a failure, but
to me, I still think that one of the most
(19:10):
rewarding things that we did was with our business partner,
Katie Cockrell, when we were you know, in Detroit building out.
One of our first brick and mortar businesses was a
salon in store called Detroit Blows and it was kind
of an inclusive take on like a dry bar sort
(19:31):
of esque model that was really thinking about not only
how do we make a space where women, people of
all ethnicities and hair types can have consistent service. Can
that service be non toxic? Can we make it feel beautiful?
And can it be generative in a way that a
portion of those profits get funneled into our affiliated nonprofit
(19:55):
and make micro grants to women entrepreneurs and grants to
organizations that help women either enter or re enter the workforce.
Can you take something that seems like, seemingly like superficial
and make it feel holistic and whole and nurturing in
a way that people are not expecting. And so it
(20:19):
became our little trojan horse for a conversation about identity politics,
for a conversation about representation and beauty, for a conversation
about community development, who gets to be investors and who
gets to be invested in And unfortunately, during COVID, we
made the decision to sunset that business, and I think,
(20:42):
you know, it's one of the things I'm most proud
of that we've done together, because again, it was it
was one of those things we just didn't have to do,
but we just didn't know who else was going to
do it, and so the three of us did it.
And when we first you know, started to play around
with this idea, and then Katie and I were here
in the market. You know, my mom helped, you know,
(21:04):
she was so instrumental with that business, helping with our
business plan and operations and getting us open. And I
said to Sof like, is this crazy? Do you think
that we should do this? And that we should do
it in Detroit? Just like we actually we absolutely have to,
you know, and I'm going to be the first check
in and We're just going to build it. And we did,
and to just will something into existence that has the
(21:27):
physicality of a space. It was a humbling experience, but
a beautiful experience. But it really was you know, when
we decided to close the business, it was catalytic for
us in terms of what we had to do next.
So we went on to work with the first Women's
bank in Chicago, which is the first commercially chartered bank
(21:48):
in the country that focuses on reducing the gender lending
gap for women's owned businesses because we know that those
businesses receive sixteen percent of commercial loans, like relative to
you know, to mail business businesses better run by men.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
And black women receive even less than that.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Absolutely, absolutely, And you know, we were in Detroit, keynoting
of Forbes Under thirty conference the year before we actually
closed the salon, and we were supposed to be on
stage really talking about this business that we built in
Detroit and how we're getting ready to prepare for the
next you know, fundraising ground where we're going to expand
(22:28):
into other markets. But again back to the data and
these stories we just couldn't put down. We started to
dive in and realized that yes, women owned businesses receive
you know, a much smaller share, you know than other businesses.
But when I tried to ask what the funding levels
were at that year for black owned businesses, they told
(22:52):
me that they were going to start reporting that data
and the next survey, but it was statistically insignificant, so
it wasn't reporting and the current data that we were seeing.
I was like, statistically insignificant and what this must have
been yeah, oh yeah, yeah, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
So yeah, because he noted the conference planning to start
our rais and then when the pandemic began, that's what
led to us having to sunset the business. And so
it was a real whiplash and statistically insignificant. I remember
watching Na's face like we heard that, and I went oh.
I immediately looked at her and thought, isn't it surreal
(23:34):
that we own a business in this majority black city
founded by three women, two of whom are women of color,
and the women of color in the room were just
told they are statistically insignificant. And then we were like,
get the matches. We're lightning on front.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
And I think even also that that women general partners
you know at venture capital firms that they were only
you know, represented of ten percent of you know that
investment leadership and firms across the country. I think right
now it might be closer to thirteen. It vacillates between
ten and thirteen percent. But we thought, is okay, this
feels like a fixable problem. It's probably we stands to
(24:14):
reason we might have more investment in women know own businesses.
Certainly you know, women of color. I would expect as
well if we had more women investors and also investors
that were women of color. And so what was interesting,
and it's a very sort of long wind in response
to the initial question.
Speaker 8 (24:31):
But that project really became a catalyst for, you know,
our involvement with the bank and you know, and debt
strategies and ways that we can support and capitalize businesses.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
And it really brought us back home to what we
had always been doing, which is making these angel investments.
But it led to us formalizing our venture capital strategy
and kind of bringing it into this main firm that
my dad had been brunning and the my uncle is
a part of as well. And so now we have
this family business that is you know, based in Detroit
(25:06):
in Atlanta that in very you know, is very deeply
connected to this business that we had in Detroit, this
brick and mortar you know, business that we weren't expecting
or really set out to build, and that had some success,
but as it had to transition and evolve into something different,
it very much you know, had all of the markers
(25:30):
of what would come next. And so that's the beautiful
thing about you know about the.
Speaker 6 (25:35):
Journey statistically and significant. And then when you think when
you think about like all of the the black owned businesses,
and in particular the black owned female businesses. My sisters
have a bakery here in Atlanta that they've owned for
over ten years.
Speaker 7 (25:52):
Can we do a shameless plug with the bakery's name,
It's CG Bakery, and.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
Like we do this ship and they are they really
are fantastic.
Speaker 7 (26:02):
I'm biased, but they really what's your favorite thing that
they bake their cupcakes? The cupcakes.
Speaker 6 (26:10):
C eg keg Bakery, comfecier, eclectic, gourmet. It's the whole
idea of bringing together Southern and French and just like
the best fresh ingredients. So if you order strawberry cupcakes
from there, like they're gonna have fresh strawberries, you know,
cut up in there. And our daughter works there sometimes
(26:32):
after school and she loves the lemon bars. I mean,
everything is really great. And they've done this, you know,
without any type of financial backing, because when you go
and you you know, go to a bank, you know,
you know, and black women trying to get business loans
is almost impossible. And then when you really understand though
(26:55):
the creativeness, then that goes into building a business. Without that,
we we actually are probably better bets because of the
fact that we are so creative, we have to think
outside of the box when it comes to marketing and
all of the different pieces. It just it boggles my
mind because of that strength and intelligence and creativitness that
(27:17):
we actually are a better statistical bet when it comes
to businesses. And then, so you're helping lead the first black,
majority women led venture capital firm in Michigan. And what
do you think are some of the biggest barriers still
(27:37):
holding women back and how can we overcome them?
Speaker 4 (27:41):
I really think it's access to capital. We know that,
you know in Michigan, you know especially it can take
founders twenty four to forty eight months longer to raise
that first five hundred thousand dollars. And we know that
the numbers that the time is longer for women, for
people of color. And so the biggest barrier in many
(28:04):
respects is how quickly people can get their ideas funded.
And for us, that's why it was so important for
us to be early stage investors. I mean, we started
as angels, but we still in our strategy invest pre
seed to Series A and we do a lot in
the preceed and seed stage, because we know that if
(28:24):
we can make an investment in a founder and we
can work with them on a milestone, on a goal
that feels achievable even with a small amount of money,
we have seen, like you know, in our portfolio, we're
small amounts of money at the right time and mentorship
support resources, like the belief that we have in our
(28:44):
founders has led them to go on to raise millions
of dollars and you know, run very successful businesses and
sometimes you just need people to really see you in
your vision and to support you with capital. But you know,
also so with some of the platform resources that we
wrap around our founders as well. But it does require
(29:07):
a deep setted belief that people of color, women, underrepresented
founders from underrepresented communities have a better chance at solving
problems for those communities. It does require the belief that
the diversity of perspective can create an innovation that others
(29:27):
might be missing. And so for us, you know, we
believe that there's a tremendous amount of value that can
be captured, you know, in these markets and with these founders.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
It's one of those things where I think it's actually
a way to tear down this false binary that you
either do well in the world or you do good.
This idea that there's folks who care about people in
planet and then there's folks who care about profit. And
I think one of our favorite it things to talk about,
(30:01):
and we learned this from our activism and our community organizing,
is there are actually many places where the math and
the morals meet. We know that companies with diversity of
leadership across race and gender and background have better outcomes
fiscally in their quarterly and annual returns. So the idea
(30:23):
that the truth rather that more ideas in the room
means that you will create a better product or outcome
for your company is exciting and for us when we
think about some of the folks who might have a
harder time fundraising, we want to go to those folks.
(30:44):
Some of the geographies that have a harder time fundraising,
we want to be there because it really reminds us
something that was core to our activism that we realized
was core to our fiscal strategy. Is that old archbis
to two adage you're gonna pull people out of the
river for so long before you're gonna walk upstream and
(31:04):
figure out who's pushing them in. The financial inequity that
harms so many communities also harms the GDP of America.
So if more people are doing better and making more money,
the whole country's doing better. It's not actually a you
versus me and us versus them thing. It's say, let's
(31:25):
build a bigger, more successful and sustainable economy. And we
understand that by nature of being upstream, we can support
more people. And that feels exciting to us because the
more of us there are in the rooms, and the
more companies that might have been overlooked that we can
(31:46):
actually invest in, the more investors in the future won't
overlook those folks. And so it's where the math and
the morals really me.
Speaker 7 (31:55):
We love it if you could share this episode with
someone who you admire, someone who shows up for you,
who cares about you, who lives their legacy every day.
We'll be back in a moment.
Speaker 6 (32:10):
Now back to my legacy, Sophia.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
What's one thing you and NIA do together that is
absolutely nothing to do with your business but really feels
your souls.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I mean, I come, I come back to music. You know,
we used to joke in our twenties that we could
be like at a concert, dancing on top of the
speakers on a Saturday night and running a board meeting
on a Monday morning. That is still true. I think
then I was like, I was like, what's going to
happen when we're in our forties? And now I'm like,
we're in our forties, we got kids, and we're still
(32:47):
so fun. And I love that. You know, it's it's
impossible for us not to be deep and nerdy about
every single thing. And you know, now instead of just
sending news articles, we're literally trading white for biotech companies.
I mean we are we are deeply as you said earlier,
n we're deeply curious people and we take our careers
(33:09):
very seriously, but we remember to have fun. And you know,
it might not be Friday and Saturday night anymore. We're busy,
but like we're still having a good time. And I
love that. I know, I can say like, oh my god,
did you know this? This concert's happening in Chicago in
two weeks? Should we go? And her She's always like, yeah,
what night. We say yes before we even know when,
(33:32):
And I love that. I love that we haven't lost that.
Speaker 6 (33:36):
Well, let me tell you, even when you get into
your fifties, you still won't. They're still fun to be had.
And yeah, when you get a group of moms together
and good friends, you know, and you know you get
all everything done during the day. But it is a
lot of fun to be had when we all get together, Sophia.
(33:58):
And now I want to turn to a deep, fully
personal essay that you wrote in Glamour last April about
your coming out journey. And I want to read something
that you wrote because I thought that it was just so,
so very powerful. So I want to quote your exact words,
(34:18):
which is I finally feel like I can breathe. I
don't think I don't think I can explain how profound
that is. I feel like I was wearing a weighted
vest for who knows how long I hadn't realized how
heavy it was until I finally just put it down.
(34:40):
That kind of clarity doesn't usually come without heartbreak. So
what was the turning point for you?
Speaker 1 (34:48):
If I may, You know, it's interesting how bite sized
the world wants to make your life or your experience
and says when you are a public person. And I
understand why the totality of a life, you know, someone's
(35:09):
journey is it's not clickbait material and so you won't
expect this. But the reason this really relates back to
Nia and our friendship is because there was so much
public fascination about well, what is she? How does she identify?
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Is?
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Explain? Explain, explain, and they wanted to make it about
this coming out, you know, and part of me and
part of Neia were like, has nobody been paying attention
to like anything I've ever said since I've been on TV,
or all the all the people I've kissed since I've
been on TV? Like what are we doing? So there
was humor in it, certainly there there was absolutely given
(35:52):
again this this rising fear mongering. There was a real
importance I understood for saying the words and saying them
in a way where they could be both hopefully inspiring
or freeing to someone else, but also to say all
of us deserve to take up space and deserve to
(36:12):
have a full spectrum of rights. But the thing that
people didn't see behind the scenes was the journey to
get there. And the vest wasn't just about identity. The
vest was about society. The vest was about the expectation
on women, the exhausting demand to be small, but not
(36:38):
so small, to no matter what you do, you have
a career, How dare you not have kids? You have kids?
How dare you not have a career? You wait to
consider getting married. You're a crone. You got married young.
You must have been dumb and you didn't know what
you were doing. It's just we can't quite get it right.
(36:58):
And what I had to come to terms with was
that I'd carried certain traumas rather than push them back
on the people who'd given them to me, I'd tried
to make everybody happy. I'd lost my individual way, maybe
in a way because I'd prioritized community so much that
(37:20):
I finally said, well, I guess it's time, and I
guess it's time I do the thing everybody tells me
to do, and I'll make the list and check the boxes.
And everybody says, once you've done it, you'll be happy.
And I checked all the boxes and I really wasn't happy.
And I didn't know how to say that to anyone
but Nia, and I didn't know how to say when
(37:47):
people said, well, why did you get married and why
did you do this? I didn't know I would go
through the next step, the family building stuff by myself.
I didn't know until it happened to me. And I
didn't know how to say that, know how to deal
with the shame and the kind of embarrassment that I'd
been wrong and that I'd been wrong really publicly. And
(38:07):
I called my best friend and she if I may,
I'm just making sure I'm allowed to say the thing,
but she said me too. And we both knew what
was going on, obviously with each other. We talk one
hundred times a day. But when I said I think
I have to be done and in her own life
(38:28):
and in her own world with her own young son,
she said, I do too. I can't. I would never
wish for someone else to be heartbroken, but to have
my best friend in the world having her version of
the same experience, and both of us saying we got
(38:48):
to like, we got to put it down and we
got to try to make a new way in the
most profound way. I knew I wasn't crazy. I knew
I wasn't doing something rash. I knew I'd literally exhausted
every option, I'd gone to, every therapy, I'd done every
bit of the homework, and I had to just say
(39:12):
it's okay to change your mind, it's okay to learn something,
and based on that learning, make a new decision for
your future. And so everybody wanted to make it about,
you know, the next person in my life. Because the
next person in my life was a woman. Plenty of
people were shocked. It wasn't nea by the way. I
(39:33):
was like, I was like, she is my wife, Just
not like that.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
But you know what, I think what.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
People didn't understand was that the journey started again in
a community of women. And there were two of us,
and then there was a best friend from college, and
then there was a woman I would eventually fall in
love with. And then there was another friend, you know,
dealing with will I stay or will I go because
of addiction in her family with her husband, and the
community of women who who didn't go really bad timing,
(40:05):
you know, you just had this whole big thing. They
didn't lean out and critique. They leaned in and said
it's okay. Those women helped me take off forty years
of expectation and people pleasing and just trying to do
it right because it hadn't felt right ever, no matter
how hard. I tried, and it was yes about stepping
(40:28):
into that portion of my identity in a way, but
what it really was in totality was a homecoming and
a learning to honor myself. And I learned how to
honor myself watching the strongest woman that I know and
a group of the most impressive women we love honor themselves.
(40:52):
I had the courage of that conviction because of what
I was being shown in both love and example by
the women in my life.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Nia, As I'm listening to Sophia speak, and it's so
clear to the deep connection that you have as this
friendship that's so deep. What was the hardest part for you, Nia,
watching Sophia go through this incredibly challenging journey to reach her.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
Truth, not not catching it soon enough. And I think
that when hearing the stories about you know, whether it's
you know her one of her shows and she was
in Chicago, or the show and she was in North Carolina,
and this theme that because we're so strong, we just
(41:44):
hold so much and it really does eventually bubble to
the surface. And the hardest part for me was feeling
like I wish that I had been there, because I
also was going through something and maybe didn't have as
much sort of emotional space as I normally do. There's
(42:05):
always been this beautiful kind of give and take, and
I think we were both going through something similar, feeling,
you know, something similar, and it's hard when you realize
that what someone's saying to you is also forcing you
to confront something in yourself. And while we were able
(42:25):
to be there and support one another, I think it
was just a lot of sadness that we're two women
that often, you know, again, have to carry so much,
and being strong is not the prize always. Sometimes it's
being open and honest and soft and allowing yourself to
(42:47):
fall apart to rebuild in different ways, and I think
that's the most beautiful thing that has come from this.
But you always want to protect the people that you
love and you never want to see them suffer. And
you know, Sophie lives in the public eye, and I've
never really had to contend with the type of public
pressure in perception and people's thoughts and feelings about what
(43:10):
you're doing and seeing how that affects someone, and so.
Speaker 9 (43:12):
I know that was so hard for her that that
was very hard for me. It's her best friend to watch.
That was very hard. I wish I could have taken
that part away.
Speaker 7 (43:26):
Wow, I love you, I.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
Love you both.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
You know what what I will say is we were
we were together on that journey. You know I am.
The public part was so awful and so largely mistaken.
I got to continually come back as I was being
(43:57):
essentially re categorized as a person. That's at least what
it felt like. Maybe that's the algorithm and the way
they poison us all, but it felt like I was
being sort of remolded in other people's opinions or judgments.
And I got to continually come back and sit with
my best friend who would remind me in the greater
(44:18):
scheme of what we were all going through, in the
ways we were all supporting each other, in the resources
we were all sharing. She's the person who's known me
for half my life and could say, don't you dare
forget who you are? Don't you dare forget what is true?
And I don't think I would have made it through
(44:43):
that part. And despite moments where I wanted to be
enraged or correct a bunch of things with a whole
bunch of receipts or whatever, she was the person who
always reminded me that is not for you. That is
that whole fray is a lower vibration than the person
that you are. Stay who you are, Stay where you are,
(45:06):
And when someone loves you enough to protect you and
restore you and also demand that you be the person
they know you to be when you're pushed to a limit, like,
that's real, that's real love. That is the kind of
(45:29):
person you want with you in the trenches. That is
the kind of person you want with you in any
emergency scenario. That is the kind of person you want
to shut down the dance floor at five am at
the rave with you, like that is your person And
we are all of those versions of ourselves together, and
it is, it is, It is the gift.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
I think we all deeply loved listening to the two
of you. What a beautiful reflection that truth isn't only
something you speak, but it's something you live. That being
authentic isn't easy, That it requires blowing things up, that
it requires having tough conversations, requires calling things out, and
it requires a friend to stand side by side during
(46:15):
those hardest times. And I love the fact that today
how your friendship's evolved you are now creating space to
empower others the math and the morals through economic empowerment
and social good and seeing your friendship, I'm actually reflecting
on the four of our friendships and the journey that
we started together now creating impact, and so I just
(46:36):
so deeply grateful to the two of you and for
the tears that you shared for each other in the tribute.
So thank you for sharing your legacy with us today.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Thank you so.
Speaker 6 (46:46):
Much having this is going to go down in the
podcast Hall of Fame for just great conversation and lifting
up best friends.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Yes, and.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Thank you for joining us. If you enjoy today's conversation, subscribe, share,
and follow us on at my Legacy movement on social
media and YouTube. New episodes drop every Tuesday, with bonus
content every Thursday. At its core, this podcast honors doctor
King's vision of the beloved community and the power of connection.
(47:23):
A Legacy Plus Studio production distributed by iHeartMedia creator and
executive producer Suzanne Hayward co executive producer Lisa Lyle. Listen
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Craig Kielburger
Marc Kielburger
Martin Luther King III
Arndrea Waters King
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