August 24, 2022 • 43 mins
Actress and author Jenifer Lewis gives Team Supreme jewels of wisdom from her life, career, and travels. Listen as this queen of multi-hyphenates commands our QLS stage. Questlove calls this a top-3 all-time guest interview, and you'll hear why.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Question Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Put him right now for a moment in his room,
give him a treat, and put him in this room.
No shit got me by the nose. Every scared of me.
(00:21):
This nigga, I don't know na because they felt pretty motherfucker,
I can't already told episodes going I'm not gonna cuts,
I'll be okay, let's get in it, ladies and gentlemen
(00:44):
of qus allergy okay. Based on that energy, people warned
that this episode just my top to Jesus merroal episode
as the most realist, most problematic, the most realistic u
l S history, And I'm here for it. I'm manifested
it again. This question of Supreme your your nerd paradise
(01:04):
of sometimes awesome and occasionally useless information or educacation. Our
our two brethren on paidal And and Sugar Steve are.
I guess you could say they're holding down their illustrious
careers right now so they won't be joining us. Uh.
So this is feeling to be a pow wow uh
(01:26):
with Hello, Laya, how you doing right now? I was
waiting for you to say, with the blackstay we be
the O J we're a trio today, what a trio? Um.
With that said, ladies and gentlemen, I will say that
(01:47):
our illustrious guests is indeed okay. So since the title
is somewhat self proclaimed. Uh, it was the title her
first memoir, which was The Mother Black Hollywood. I would
like to say that probably that title for her might
be somewhat reductive, because I feel that she's more than
(02:09):
just the Mother Black Hollywood, you know, for a woman
of our human of her stature. And I don't believe
in numbers sometimes, especially when like he is trying to
remind me how old I am. But I will say
that for over four decades, our guest has been going
strong in in ways that you know, her contemporaries can't
(02:30):
even U compete with. And Um, I will say that
she is. She is conquered and taken every medium by storm.
I'm gonna I had to write them all down, so
let's go with it. You musical nineteen seventy nine pre Broadway, Uh,
dream Girls, where she was the title of Effie Wright.
(02:52):
Um Bette Midler's background singers were called Harlot's right. So yes,
she was a harlot and in in Bette Midler's uh
uh show. Um, She's landed many a scene stealing moment
and practically every show that she's ever be a TV
or movies. Name him Murphy Brown Dream One Love Dream One,
(03:16):
That's one of my favorite. Filds and Living Color Rock
Hang Women's Cooper a Different World. She was on Helen
on Freshmance of bell Air. She was Dean Davenport on
Different World, Tina Turner's Mom and What Love Got to
do with It? Yo? She was even a friends. I
didn't know that people, right. I don't even know that
black people weren't friends. Uh, Lucky's Mom and Poetic Justice Yo.
(03:40):
The way she tells him to shut the funk up
Justice is my favorite. That is my favorite use of
shut the funk up I've ever heard anyway. Name it Death,
President's Girl, Six, The Preacher's Wife, The Temptations, Castaway, Strong, Medicine,
Pixar's Cars. She was Tony's mom and girlfriends his family
Union right, Nathan Browns, do you want a man that's
(04:03):
so raven? Boston Legal, The Princess and the Frog Think
like a man? Bagets claimed a Kazilian animated voice over
Steven Erica's mom in the on and on video She's
so yes, and don't wearing my body ue shirt right
now as we speak. Yeah, she was even in this
(04:23):
this this unknown local syndicated production of some show called Blackish.
Guys might have heard of it. Um. She has written
two very informative books on her life. She's the reason
why I believe in audiobooks before. I'm not saying I
was one of those snobs that was like, oh, you know,
you know those people are like the book is better.
(04:47):
You know, you you see the movie, They're like, the
book is better. And then there are people that books
shaming because I don't have a tangible thing to read,
and they're like, well, you're not reading the book. Used
to listen to audio, but no, during the pandemic, I've
read like seventy books more. I'm more edumacated than I've
ever been. Um, Ladies and gentlemen, this this introduction has
been ten minutes long. Please welcome, and we still haven't
(05:09):
finished with her discography. Yeah, dude, it's just too much.
The name even Disney rides with her voice in it.
Please welcome to Quest Loves to Preheim Jennifer Lewis. Thank
you for coming welcome. Yes, it's great to be here.
It's great to be here, Scott. I'm loving all of
(05:31):
these conversations about the book and my career. Um, might
as well get it out of the way. I received.
I just received my star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Did I am still flying high from it. Right before
the Hollywood Walk of Fame, I went on one of
(05:51):
my trips around the world. I went to ankhor Wad
in Cambodia. I took a helicopter through the Himalayan Mountain
range and set my eyes on Mount Everest. I'm trying
to say that without crying. What was that experience? Like, Well,
(06:12):
let me give you this story. Hit me. It was
one of the most beautiful moments of the trip. The
captain of it. It's a private jet abercrombiean Kent. It
does these trips around the world. And because I only
get so much time free, I have to get on
a jet like that, you know, and go and do
as much as I can. I'm trying to see the
(06:33):
entire world before my knees give out. I don't want
to go to teach you and say, oh, the Incas
were up there, No bitch, I'm climbing. It's not the
fucker climb, I just she will No. I climbed anchor
watchers now. And I had this little Jordanian boy take
(06:54):
me up Petra in Jordan's the Hills of Moses. Most
beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life, you understand me.
I have seen the cultural treasures of this world. The
Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. I just took a I
just played camel polo in Dubai and took a helicopter
(07:16):
of all those islands, the palm trees and the crowns,
and and I also, this is what happened. The captain
of the pilot said, ladies and gentlemen, if you look
off to the right of the plane, I believe I
see the peaks of the Himalayan mountain range. And there
(07:38):
was there was Everest sitting above the Cumulo Nimbus clouds.
And I said, as I was filming outside of the plane,
I just was saying to myself. There was a yoga
teacher right next to me, one of the passengers, and
she overheard me say, Dear God, I've wanted to climb
(08:05):
to the top of that mountain since I was thirteen
years old, and she looked at me and said, look
at you. Now you're above it. Ship. God damn, I'm
wo And when I saw it with my own eyes,
you know, they put the helicopter down at eleven thousand
(08:25):
feet and we only have seven minutes to take pictures
of Everest and that whole world of the base camp
at the base of Everest. It was unbelievable. It was
it was stunning, It was majesty. It was God itself.
You understand me, a little colored girl from Kinloch, Missouri,
(08:48):
who ate dirt as a little girl and set a
little booty on our wooden hole to ship in nineteen
below zero in St. Louis, Missouri. We went on to India,
cat Man do and I stood in front of the
taj Ma Hall. It was an unbelievable trip. And then
to come back to the United States and become a
(09:12):
part of a cultural treasure in Hollywood, it's been a ride,
ladies and gentlemen. And let me tell you, I walk
around in a state of Greece. I never gave one, y'all.
I gave two thousand because I didn't know how not to.
I was born with this charisma and this gift, and
(09:34):
I have tried to honor it all my life. It's
been a hell of a ride with my bipolar disorder,
but I contained it. I stayed. As I said in
the ceremony accepting the star, it was not the work
I did and on camera and on stage that has
(09:58):
put this broad smile on my face that defines my success.
It was the work I did off It was the journaling,
it was the therapy. It was after five years agreeing
to get on medication. I don't wanna have a push medication,
but I take it. And when I talk like this,
I tell everybody this ain't the truth. This is my truth.
(10:19):
This is my story, this is my song. So if
you ask me, I'm gonna tell you this is how
I did it. Hu huh, and look at me. Now
I did it. This is already the greatest episode of
in the five year history. So when you were talking
(10:39):
about medication with your a bipolar disorder, what led to
the decision to get on it after years of not
being going what how did you make that decision? Let
me tell you something. Human beings changed for two reasons,
and two reasons only because we are habitual creatures. One
is a deadly disease too. You just got to get tired,
(11:05):
sick and tired of being sick and tired, and where's
you out right? It will wear you out to continue
a habit over and over and over again. And see,
I had a sex addiction, and little girl, there's only
so much sex you could have a god's sake. But
here's the thing about the medication. It took my therapist
(11:27):
five years for me to come to that uh decision,
because I thought it would take my edge. I told her.
I said, hell, look, I'm Jennifer motherfucking Lewis bitch. I
don't even know goddamn medication. Ain't nothing wrong with me? Well,
miss Louis, yes there was something wrong. I was not happy.
(11:48):
The mania of bipolar disorder is dangerous. You understand. You
do dumb ship like speed in a car and you're
not thinking that you could hit a whole and full
of children. Come on, now, I don't do road rage
no more. Because a friend of mine said to me
(12:09):
once when I flipped somebody out, I flipped somebody off
when I was younger. My friend turned to me, Jennifer,
and said, Jennifer, oh, what if that person's mother just
died and they just heard about it, and you and
you telling them to gonna fund themselves. What's wrong with you?
I never lound, baby, I let people go. Somebody's got
(12:33):
to say something to stop you from ruining your life.
And I say to everybody with seven point six billy
and people on this planet, you got to ask for help.
Somebody's there. Don't you dare spend your life in those
dark rooms like I did. You wake your ass up.
(12:57):
Sometimes when I wake up, I have to pull on
slow journal skirt. Sometimes I have to say, Harry, why
are you wet? Sometimes I have to pull up mandelus
photograph to remind myself of how fragile his shoulders were
(13:17):
and that I'm standing on him. You don't go to
South Africa and go over to that island and see
that cell, huh, and not walk out of there and
come home and say I, Oh, you don't get to
do You gotta give back, Jenny. You gotta tell the
(13:40):
world what you've seen, don't you Dare. We are as
sick as our secrets, So don't keep no goddamnit. You
tell somebody, I don't care what it is. And if
they don't list tell somebody else. Go ahead, bed question,
good question I had um in regards do you talk
about your sex addiction? How did you determine what was
(14:02):
the line of demarcation between Okay, I'm a person who
enjoys sex versus okay, this is an addiction, Chah, when
you start picking up man. I was so bold and
my ship and I was so well. I know I
still am, but I was knocked on it. I was
a brick house. Some motherfucker couldn't touch me. In my twenties,
I was so pretty. I got take it. But I
(14:29):
have skin like a baby's ass, and I was honey.
I was at the top of my game. I was
on Broadway or I had that thin ass waistline. I
still got it, but I needed to come down from
those Broadway shows. When you get a standing ovation, you
think you you think somebody wants it to end. No,
(14:52):
so I went and did another show in my bedroom.
You see with more adoration. Let me tell yes, and
let me tell you something. You get tired, You get tired.
I didn't think about because of the mania. I wasn't
thinking of the dangers of that taking a strange man
to your house. I don't know if y'all might be
(15:14):
too young to remember Mr Goodbar the movie with Diane Keaton,
it's too much. It's when we first got cable. My
parents would whenever the cable was like, go to your
room and here, I'm like, what is good for it? Yeah?
Well it was dangerous. And let me tell you y'all
(15:35):
something I never thought I'd run around quoting the Constitution mhm,
but I understand this, and it is my motto. We
all have a right to the pursuit of happiness. I
wanted to be happy. I was depressed for many years
and didn't even know it. That didn't have words like
(15:56):
bi polar ship. I went on Oprah a long time ago,
told them sixty million people out of my pole, I lied,
I'm tri polar in these streets. Okay, new ship, drive
all the new ship. There's another pole over that. But listen,
(16:18):
you have to be in it to win it. I
gave up many times in my career, but I didn't quit, you,
hear me, I didn't quit. I tell these kids, you
must dream the dream and focus only on that so
that you can be well with your soul. You know what.
(16:40):
I'm bled you said that because Okay, so I too
was trying to figure out and here's you know, the
disclosure is yes, I mean I've been in and out
of not in and out of. I mean, you know
I've had a therapist. I guess you can say in
(17:00):
and out. I've been doing therapy for like thirty years.
But you know, the thing is when the pandemic came
mm hmm. Really you know again like I don't feel
like I feel like a person shouldn't have to be
at rock bottom to make the change. So that's why
I'm really glad the pandemic happened because it wasn't a
(17:20):
rock bottom moment, But that was definitely a somewhat of
a paradigm shift for me and taking mental health seriously
in all those things. But you mentioned something, and I
noticed that probably the time that I might be liable
to get in an argument, I mean, not a fight,
(17:42):
not like pugilism or anything. But there's a moment after
I get off stage where I can't describe the feeling.
And you you said that, and I was like, oh,
so I'm not you know, I just thought like, well, mirror,
sometimes you're just an asshole. After the thirty minutes after show.
It's almost like after a Root show, I purposely look
(18:06):
for a place to just sit silent and literally come down.
And I can't explain it. And the thing is is
like right after a show, that's when people are pulling
for you, and I mean, here, let's talk, right, And
I can't explain. And the thing is, it's like, because
these people aren't entertainers, it's hard to really explain to
them the process I go through, which is kind of why.
(18:31):
It's almost like a that that feeling of when you're
done a show, and that how you feel. It's such
a a description list addiction that I can't describe that.
I figured out that for the at least last thirty years,
I've been doing DJ gigs after the Roots show because
I love music and because I love DJ, but basically
(18:55):
I need to slowly come down off that high in
the normalcy. So usually after show I will DJ for
three hours so that way I don't want to talk
to people. I'm playing music and I come down. But
and sometimes when I'm not dejaying, I wonder what that is,
And I thought I was the only person going through that,
(19:15):
because again, if you I feel weird in talking about
the mental health space thing and have my occupation because
I always feel like people look at me like, here's
the world s tiny's violin, Like if people are in
a certain profession, they might not they might feel unworthy
of having problems or whatnot. Like people might not At
(19:37):
this point, the world knows entertainers have trauma. Right, I'm
just not here. Please. First of all, we are not
normal creatures, right right. We are artists. We are different.
Are we better or worse than anyone? No? Well, we
(19:58):
just are who we are and we form who we
form the artistry. It's like Lena Simone said, hmm. An
artist's duty is to speak to the times. Need a
(20:21):
Simone didn't hide her pain and need a Simon lated
on the piano. We have to learn where to put
that quest. You have to put that somewhere. You have
to compartmentalize that you expressed it beautifully. It's called a
(20:42):
glory train. Love you hear me talking to you. It's
a glory train. And nobody can stay on that train
too long. You've got to come off. You gotta get
in the grass, and you gotta surround yourself with nature
and have that gratitude. It is the gratitude moment, so
(21:02):
you use it for that. You don't have to go crazy.
Most people go and get drunk and party and carry on. Okay,
you get a couple of those a month, but then
sit the funk down and talk about those feelings. Write
them down so that the next time you feel it,
you have something to balance it. Nobody's coming with the answer,
(21:24):
nobody's coming with a recipe. You gotta pay attention to
the self. It is the journey within that will get
you where you need to be, because what you will discover,
MHM is how short life is. Listen to me. You
(21:45):
want to know how? You want to know how I live?
I live like I got five minutes left? What if?
What if you add five fucking minutes left? Who would
you call? M hm? Think about ship? That ship? What if?
(22:08):
And I lived like that? I ain't gonna lie to you.
Sometimes it's something asked at, Like when my assistant leaves.
I want to swim, but the shadows have come over
the pool, so it gets a little chill, and I
stand there and go, oh, I don't want to get
in this pool. Jenny, get in the fucking pool and
(22:35):
relax yourself. You gotta talk to yourself. But guess why
I got in the pool because when I woke up,
I wrote it down. You will swim today, you got
that's what living on purposes about. You can't go willy
nearly through this bitch. It'll teach you a lie. This
(22:57):
is why that you are in charge. Hard write this
ship down. You write your story instead of like I
said on Willie Nelly, skipping temptoeing through the fucking tulips.
That's what life. Look, life is not a rehearsal. Live
this bit. Can I just say real quick? Excuse me?
(23:19):
Let me let me just say this. And I hate
to be all corny and go to the book that
you have out there walking to your joy? But I
just realized, am I saying that right? Walking in your joy?
That's walking in my joy? In my joy? Um. But
it's so interesting because a lot of people write books
and they say things, but I like that you have
some real practical things, like what you just said to
a mayor about living in those five minutes. And then
(23:39):
you wrote something else that caught me and you said,
when you're feeling down, you come up with a song
about yourself, how much you love yourself and how much
people love you that I'm realizing, although I haven't finished
the book, can people like depend that, like you pretty
much got little workable jewels in here, not just like girl,
live your best life. It's actually like, no, it's exactly,
(24:01):
but but here's the work. The work is how am
I gonna live my best life? And and that's the work.
That's what you write down in the morning, y'all. Christ
I don't know if you know, but when I wrote
The Mother Black Hollywood, I started writing in a journal
(24:23):
in the seventh grade because I knew I was gonna
be a star and I would need my book. That's
seventh grade continuously. I am sixty five. There are sixty
seven journals up. Oh I'm so jealous. That is why
(24:44):
don't we do this? Why do why do we start?
And stop? And I got about six gold damn it?
So the details The Black Hollywood is so good because
of the details. I can tell you that I had
hid up a pie ala mold with your only raft
on this date. Damn you say, you see you see,
(25:06):
so nothing is wasted. Live your life. And when I
got into therapy the first time, my therapist looked at
me when I told I had written all those journals.
She said, that's what saved your life, little girl. I
believe it. I didn't know I was saving my life,
but that journal served in me learning at an early age.
(25:33):
I didn't even know I was doing it. M hm too.
Be in charge of me and leave other people alone.
To people come and go for a season, let it
go when they're no longer a reflection of you. You're
not gonna be comfortable around them. If the toxic ship
(25:54):
is going on the lines in the chaos, y'all get
the funk out of there. You ain't there. There are
many rooms to go to that many cities. Oh yetta,
do and leave the room, funk out of that ship. Simple,
don't sit there with all that drama and shifty practical use.
It's so boring. It's boring. I said. The greatest sin
(26:15):
is somebody to say, oh, I'm bored, bitch, that I
have my money. Okay. So, of course, like in the
last two years is the most that I've heard black
people speaking on finding joy, finding their their their mental health,
(26:37):
and all those things. Because previously there's a secret I
would never like in two thousand eleven, I would never
share with nobody that like trauma attached at you right
because you don't want to share, like people think I'm crazy.
Whatever the thing is is that I know that for
black people there go to answer was always the church,
(27:04):
especially of an older you know I was born, I
know you were born before I was. For for a
lot of people in you know, pre eighties people whatever,
like their thing is always like I'll find God or
I'll talk to my preacher. How so this is almost
an anenomena lead to hear of your your generation, of
(27:27):
your experience really not even diving into the pool of
mental therapy, but I mean you're going to be abyss
of it. You're going to the deepest level of it.
So what was it? What was the moment that told
you that my mental health has to be addressed in
and handled this way as opposed to do consider that
(27:52):
I do consider organized religion as a vice akin to
gambling sex. Let me let me say this to you.
There's a line in the movie I did Corina Corrina
where the where the little the little girl says, these
(28:13):
people believe I'm paraphrasing, but they said, these people believe
in God. And the people that somebody that said it
was Jewish, And the question that was asked by a
child was she said, why do these people sing about this?
And the mother said, because it makes them feel good.
(28:33):
And the little girl said, what's wrong with that? Mother said, oh,
I guess nothing. Look, if you want to be an
organized religion, that's okay. Let people do what they want
to do. That's what gets me through life. To allow
allow others to be where they are. What you're gonna do,
Go and make them a Buddhist, go and make them
(28:55):
a move them do you don't make them? What are
you gonna do? Once again? Once again, pay attention to yourself.
Everybody on this planet has one job, and one job
only self care. And if you need to cry to
Jesus to do that, then you go on and cry
to Jesus. But allow other people to cry to whoever
(29:20):
the hell they want to cry to. That's what I
don't like about religion. Everybody think their religion is the
best one, So I don't believe in that. Leave people alone.
Leave people alone. If they want to work, you let
them work to Jesus, let him work, Buddha or Mohammad
or Allah. Let people do who what? What the fun?
(29:40):
They want to do I know who I am? I
searched every religion in this world. I have been down
the road. Let's travel, And when I got to the end,
that was number the big gass mirror. M M. You
(30:00):
cannot run. Wherever you run, you will meet yourself. There's
no running. And I told him on the breakfast club,
I got money to run. You can't run. You don't
ask me. Don't ask me for now. I'm like, what's
his name? The baby I love? Uh Dan Pipel I'm rich, bitch,
(30:24):
but don't ask me for ship. All right, there you go.
What do you say to him to even like to
on a mirrors question? Like you're leading the pack of
your generation in that way? Like he said, like you're
it is kind of special. Do you see in the
difference in the generational hour? Now? I'm using words, and
it had vocabulary for things that we didn't have before.
(30:45):
When I went I got you. When I went on
the road with the Mother Black Hollywood, because it was
my journey through bipolar disorder, I was able to feel
not only the temperature but the temperament of the United States.
I went all over. During the Trump era, people are
(31:06):
starting to wake up. I was very pleased. They're starting
to get counseling in churches, they are starting to put
more counseling in youth centers. Our children are falling apart,
and I'm not the only woman in the world that cares.
People are coming together. We are getting better. Everybody wanted
(31:27):
to talk about the stigma. Yes, there is a stigma,
but we are getting better. You See, my mother didn't
have the Oprah Winfrey show. Okay, that's what I'm saying.
I probably didn't know nothing about mental illness. And yet
if someone were to ask me, I would say, absolutely
she was. I do believe that she was depressed. She
(31:47):
had me when she was twenties six years old, and
I was her seventh child who she was scrubbed, and
she was scrubbing white people's floors. You think she had
time to give me affection. She was asted by the
time I came along. Listen eve Insler, who wrote the
Vagina Monologues. She's been all around the world. She went
(32:11):
to Africa with the women that we're having the claris clitterestism.
If it's clitterest, I don't know if it's a plural.
I only have one, all right. I used to have three,
but I do not remember one of those first one
(32:33):
stars that bitch tattoo when we just had listen for god,
there have toute that bitch had to clitterings and has
two something like that, something like that. It was funny,
but it let me get back to the sorry focus,
(32:55):
let me get back to serious ship. Uh listen, all
I can say, they're not going into three clitterings they
got last. I did too. I need to find somebody
to tell me whether clinterance is it's this cliterance says says,
Come on, Jen, if you don't need how do you
(33:22):
know I'll come out of the bag with anything. I
don't multiple clitterings? Thank you? Did you look it up?
I was in uh when I was in the seray
gaddy uh. Two little baby rhinoceros is thought I had
some food, so they came over to me and they
just going like this, just that, don't key, don't dope,
(33:44):
And they when they saw I didn't have no food,
they kind of don't don't key, don't away from me,
and I started screaming, I never heard of Jenny Craig
and had no food for you, cuss out a rhinoceros bitch,
You hear me, and then I had to look up
whether it was not Rhinoceroy because most of my friend
(34:09):
by man, because lad Man listen, because most of my
friends are major intellectuals. I keep smart people around me, honey,
list and I can feel enough for everybody. You just
telling me what this ship is, what's going on? But here?
But if I listen, if I must stand in the
serengetti and cuss out to baby, Rhinoceros says, what do
(34:33):
you think I'm gonna do with the story of the
clitteres is? Get the funk out there? Let's go what's that?
Cusses out right now? But what you need to know
with Jennifer Lewis will go anywhere. Ain't no shame in
my game, baby, I'll do anything to make people laugh.
Is because I'm also interested in your need to see
(34:55):
the world. Now, I would have liked to have thought
that I'm you know that I've I'm well traveled at
least in my thirty years of touring the world and whatnot.
But you've seen the airport in the hotel in the view. Yeah,
I was going to say that I still and I
know I've done things that are especial whatnot. Like I'm
(35:16):
I'm you know again, post pandemic. I am living life
like I mean, not to the five minute rule. Once
you said that, and I was like, oh, ship, I'm
not doing ship with my life for you. How did
you even organize or make a bucket list of the
things that you wanted to do before you leave this
(35:38):
plane called Earth? There was no bucket list. There was purpose. See,
when I travel, I go into the trenches. I tell
my private guy to take me wherever they're not going.
I want to talk to the people. When I was
just in India, there were four up people serving me
(36:01):
one night. They had on their little beautiful chef hats,
the white chef hats and the white mask. And I
said to them, because I had come through the poverty
of Agra India, and I'd heard the stories of the
untouchables and the cast system, m hm. So I went
(36:21):
over to those four people that were cooking, and I
told them that I had I came from that kind
of poverty. And I looked at them and I said,
you do know that you must rise up? Do you
understand what I'm saying. I got a little nod from him,
and then I said, one of you is Gandhi, And
(36:45):
I walked away with my plate of philofel and purposefully
went back to them. Dramatically pointed to the girl and
said it's you. I said, And if it's not you,
young lady, you better goddamn make sure it's your daughter.
And she sneaked over to me at my table. She
(37:08):
took her chef at off, she took the mask off
and came over to me like she had been invited
to that party, which you know was against the rules
of the hotel. Mhm. She stood over me and she said,
mm hmm. I don't know your name, but I want
to thank you. I will rise to miss Lewis because
(37:32):
when she said that, I said, my name is miss Lewis. Oh,
come on down Jesus. M you see, I'll call it
Jesus when it's because my mama called Jesus when things
were good, you understand. So I go into the trenches.
There's a video going around of me talking about voting
(37:55):
at Hollywood and Vine. After I got my star, I
didn't know I was being fed owned. I was signing autographs.
But when I get a bunch of kids in front
of me, I'm gonna use that time. Whether I'm in India, Oh, Hollywood,
a Cambodia. Show me where the people are suffering, bring
(38:17):
them to me. Like oh okay. So I'm in Argentina
and I tell my driver to take me to the
real people. He said, oh, ms Louis, it's dangerous in there.
I said, I don't care, take me in. I got
out of that car. All these kind of people were
standing on the corner and everything. They looked over at
(38:38):
me getting out of that SUV Thatt Mercedes. But they
saw the color of my skin. Oh yeah. And some
of them came over and I said to them, oh honey,
I'll use that celebrity. I said, y'all know who I am.
I said, you watch television. I said, you know the
(38:59):
show for Sprints, And that's when everybody wakes up because
that ship is global, right. That show ain't just national
and international, That ship's global. I was in the three hundred.
I was in a three hundred and fifty year old
glacier in Iceland and a bitch came up and said
some shit about real I got that. Yeah, I'm like,
(39:21):
god damn girl, when a glacier, get the funk out
of everything. I ain't come down. Funk who I am.
Let's get the funk out of everybody. I keep the
fucking voice down before you call an avalanche. Tell her
to keep her voice down. That that's funny. I think
that's actually our clip. Wait a minute, this was after I.
(39:43):
This was after I sang Amazing Grace in the wedding
chapel that they had carved off in the ice. It's
it's on YouTube. You can actually hear that that performances
on YouTube. I sang amazing y'all the the the guy
said this, anyone sing what you said? Men of My
(40:04):
friend went bitch, you ain't said nothing but a word.
We went up. I went up to an ice podium
and blasted that ship out. And I haven't released it yet,
but I sang Amazing Grace in the and called tom
in Cambodi, one of the great old ancient temples, and
(40:26):
then I sang it in uh the valley of Petra.
I always get out and do a little something and
leave my singing voice in those canyons and then those
mountain range. But I will tell you this, I didn't
sing Amazing Grace up in the him Alayans. I got
the funk out of that before my lungs burst at
(40:46):
eleven thousand feet. You can believe that amazing grace I
sunk out of there. I don't think we've ever had
an episode. We're forty five minutes into this episode, and
I'm thinking to myself, I don't even and I don't
even want to talk about the creative side of Jennifer Lewis,
Like this show is more about like the creative Like,
(41:07):
but listen to this. I just love I just I
just I just love quest. He love Quest. I give
(41:32):
my own songs. I just love Quess. Is that like
just just him? Yeah, I'll share quart Quest. Everyone is love.
(41:56):
I shall keep that alright, it is, And gentlemen, we're
pausing it there for now. After that serenade, i'd, you know,
needed a minute. So Jennifer Lewis, you know, lively, real
and raw as anyone has ever been on cost Love Supreme,
and I think she may have cussed more than any guests,
(42:17):
including Esus and Merrill. All Right, you heard me say
it in the episode, but you see why I called
this one of the best Qualls conversations ever. So we
expect you back next week for part two and make
sure you pre order Jennifer's second book, Walking and My
Joy in the Streets and uh, I believe that's August thirty.
It's like this combo, all right, see y'all next week.
(42:48):
West Love Supreme is a production of my heart Radio.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Question Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Put him right now for a moment in his room,
give him a treat, and put him in this room.
No shit got me by the nose. Every scared of me.
(00:21):
This nigga, I don't know na because they felt pretty motherfucker,
I can't already told episodes going I'm not gonna cuts,
I'll be okay, let's get in it, ladies and gentlemen
(00:44):
of qus allergy okay. Based on that energy, people warned
that this episode just my top to Jesus merroal episode
as the most realist, most problematic, the most realistic u
l S history, And I'm here for it. I'm manifested
it again. This question of Supreme your your nerd paradise
(01:04):
of sometimes awesome and occasionally useless information or educacation. Our
our two brethren on paidal And and Sugar Steve are.
I guess you could say they're holding down their illustrious
careers right now so they won't be joining us. Uh.
So this is feeling to be a pow wow uh
(01:26):
with Hello, Laya, how you doing right now? I was
waiting for you to say, with the blackstay we be
the O J we're a trio today, what a trio? Um.
With that said, ladies and gentlemen, I will say that
(01:47):
our illustrious guests is indeed okay. So since the title
is somewhat self proclaimed. Uh, it was the title her
first memoir, which was The Mother Black Hollywood. I would
like to say that probably that title for her might
be somewhat reductive, because I feel that she's more than
(02:09):
just the Mother Black Hollywood, you know, for a woman
of our human of her stature. And I don't believe
in numbers sometimes, especially when like he is trying to
remind me how old I am. But I will say
that for over four decades, our guest has been going
strong in in ways that you know, her contemporaries can't
(02:30):
even U compete with. And Um, I will say that
she is. She is conquered and taken every medium by storm.
I'm gonna I had to write them all down, so
let's go with it. You musical nineteen seventy nine pre Broadway, Uh,
dream Girls, where she was the title of Effie Wright.
(02:52):
Um Bette Midler's background singers were called Harlot's right. So yes,
she was a harlot and in in Bette Midler's uh
uh show. Um, She's landed many a scene stealing moment
and practically every show that she's ever be a TV
or movies. Name him Murphy Brown Dream One Love Dream One,
(03:16):
That's one of my favorite. Filds and Living Color Rock
Hang Women's Cooper a Different World. She was on Helen
on Freshmance of bell Air. She was Dean Davenport on
Different World, Tina Turner's Mom and What Love Got to
do with It? Yo? She was even a friends. I
didn't know that people, right. I don't even know that
black people weren't friends. Uh, Lucky's Mom and Poetic Justice Yo.
(03:40):
The way she tells him to shut the funk up
Justice is my favorite. That is my favorite use of
shut the funk up I've ever heard anyway. Name it Death,
President's Girl, Six, The Preacher's Wife, The Temptations, Castaway, Strong, Medicine,
Pixar's Cars. She was Tony's mom and girlfriends his family
Union right, Nathan Browns, do you want a man that's
(04:03):
so raven? Boston Legal, The Princess and the Frog Think
like a man? Bagets claimed a Kazilian animated voice over
Steven Erica's mom in the on and on video She's
so yes, and don't wearing my body ue shirt right
now as we speak. Yeah, she was even in this
(04:23):
this this unknown local syndicated production of some show called Blackish.
Guys might have heard of it. Um. She has written
two very informative books on her life. She's the reason
why I believe in audiobooks before. I'm not saying I
was one of those snobs that was like, oh, you know,
you know those people are like the book is better.
(04:47):
You know, you you see the movie, They're like, the
book is better. And then there are people that books
shaming because I don't have a tangible thing to read,
and they're like, well, you're not reading the book. Used
to listen to audio, but no, during the pandemic, I've
read like seventy books more. I'm more edumacated than I've
ever been. Um, Ladies and gentlemen, this this introduction has
been ten minutes long. Please welcome, and we still haven't
(05:09):
finished with her discography. Yeah, dude, it's just too much.
The name even Disney rides with her voice in it.
Please welcome to Quest Loves to Preheim Jennifer Lewis. Thank
you for coming welcome. Yes, it's great to be here.
It's great to be here, Scott. I'm loving all of
(05:31):
these conversations about the book and my career. Um, might
as well get it out of the way. I received.
I just received my star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Did I am still flying high from it. Right before
the Hollywood Walk of Fame, I went on one of
(05:51):
my trips around the world. I went to ankhor Wad
in Cambodia. I took a helicopter through the Himalayan Mountain
range and set my eyes on Mount Everest. I'm trying
to say that without crying. What was that experience? Like, Well,
(06:12):
let me give you this story. Hit me. It was
one of the most beautiful moments of the trip. The
captain of it. It's a private jet abercrombiean Kent. It
does these trips around the world. And because I only
get so much time free, I have to get on
a jet like that, you know, and go and do
as much as I can. I'm trying to see the
(06:33):
entire world before my knees give out. I don't want
to go to teach you and say, oh, the Incas
were up there, No bitch, I'm climbing. It's not the
fucker climb, I just she will No. I climbed anchor
watchers now. And I had this little Jordanian boy take
(06:54):
me up Petra in Jordan's the Hills of Moses. Most
beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life, you understand me.
I have seen the cultural treasures of this world. The
Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. I just took a I
just played camel polo in Dubai and took a helicopter
(07:16):
of all those islands, the palm trees and the crowns,
and and I also, this is what happened. The captain
of the pilot said, ladies and gentlemen, if you look
off to the right of the plane, I believe I
see the peaks of the Himalayan mountain range. And there
(07:38):
was there was Everest sitting above the Cumulo Nimbus clouds.
And I said, as I was filming outside of the plane,
I just was saying to myself. There was a yoga
teacher right next to me, one of the passengers, and
she overheard me say, Dear God, I've wanted to climb
(08:05):
to the top of that mountain since I was thirteen
years old, and she looked at me and said, look
at you. Now you're above it. Ship. God damn, I'm
wo And when I saw it with my own eyes,
you know, they put the helicopter down at eleven thousand
(08:25):
feet and we only have seven minutes to take pictures
of Everest and that whole world of the base camp
at the base of Everest. It was unbelievable. It was
it was stunning, It was majesty. It was God itself.
You understand me, a little colored girl from Kinloch, Missouri,
(08:48):
who ate dirt as a little girl and set a
little booty on our wooden hole to ship in nineteen
below zero in St. Louis, Missouri. We went on to India,
cat Man do and I stood in front of the
taj Ma Hall. It was an unbelievable trip. And then
to come back to the United States and become a
(09:12):
part of a cultural treasure in Hollywood, it's been a ride,
ladies and gentlemen. And let me tell you, I walk
around in a state of Greece. I never gave one, y'all.
I gave two thousand because I didn't know how not to.
I was born with this charisma and this gift, and
(09:34):
I have tried to honor it all my life. It's
been a hell of a ride with my bipolar disorder,
but I contained it. I stayed. As I said in
the ceremony accepting the star, it was not the work
I did and on camera and on stage that has
(09:58):
put this broad smile on my face that defines my success.
It was the work I did off It was the journaling,
it was the therapy. It was after five years agreeing
to get on medication. I don't wanna have a push medication,
but I take it. And when I talk like this,
I tell everybody this ain't the truth. This is my truth.
(10:19):
This is my story, this is my song. So if
you ask me, I'm gonna tell you this is how
I did it. Hu huh, and look at me. Now
I did it. This is already the greatest episode of
in the five year history. So when you were talking
(10:39):
about medication with your a bipolar disorder, what led to
the decision to get on it after years of not
being going what how did you make that decision? Let
me tell you something. Human beings changed for two reasons,
and two reasons only because we are habitual creatures. One
is a deadly disease too. You just got to get tired,
(11:05):
sick and tired of being sick and tired, and where's
you out right? It will wear you out to continue
a habit over and over and over again. And see,
I had a sex addiction, and little girl, there's only
so much sex you could have a god's sake. But
here's the thing about the medication. It took my therapist
(11:27):
five years for me to come to that uh decision,
because I thought it would take my edge. I told her.
I said, hell, look, I'm Jennifer motherfucking Lewis bitch. I
don't even know goddamn medication. Ain't nothing wrong with me? Well,
miss Louis, yes there was something wrong. I was not happy.
(11:48):
The mania of bipolar disorder is dangerous. You understand. You
do dumb ship like speed in a car and you're
not thinking that you could hit a whole and full
of children. Come on, now, I don't do road rage
no more. Because a friend of mine said to me
(12:09):
once when I flipped somebody out, I flipped somebody off
when I was younger. My friend turned to me, Jennifer,
and said, Jennifer, oh, what if that person's mother just
died and they just heard about it, and you and
you telling them to gonna fund themselves. What's wrong with you?
I never lound, baby, I let people go. Somebody's got
(12:33):
to say something to stop you from ruining your life.
And I say to everybody with seven point six billy
and people on this planet, you got to ask for help.
Somebody's there. Don't you dare spend your life in those
dark rooms like I did. You wake your ass up.
(12:57):
Sometimes when I wake up, I have to pull on
slow journal skirt. Sometimes I have to say, Harry, why
are you wet? Sometimes I have to pull up mandelus
photograph to remind myself of how fragile his shoulders were
(13:17):
and that I'm standing on him. You don't go to
South Africa and go over to that island and see
that cell, huh, and not walk out of there and
come home and say I, Oh, you don't get to
do You gotta give back, Jenny. You gotta tell the
(13:40):
world what you've seen, don't you Dare. We are as
sick as our secrets, So don't keep no goddamnit. You
tell somebody, I don't care what it is. And if
they don't list tell somebody else. Go ahead, bed question,
good question I had um in regards do you talk
about your sex addiction? How did you determine what was
(14:02):
the line of demarcation between Okay, I'm a person who
enjoys sex versus okay, this is an addiction, Chah, when
you start picking up man. I was so bold and
my ship and I was so well. I know I
still am, but I was knocked on it. I was
a brick house. Some motherfucker couldn't touch me. In my twenties,
I was so pretty. I got take it. But I
(14:29):
have skin like a baby's ass, and I was honey.
I was at the top of my game. I was
on Broadway or I had that thin ass waistline. I
still got it, but I needed to come down from
those Broadway shows. When you get a standing ovation, you
think you you think somebody wants it to end. No,
(14:52):
so I went and did another show in my bedroom.
You see with more adoration. Let me tell yes, and
let me tell you something. You get tired, You get tired.
I didn't think about because of the mania. I wasn't
thinking of the dangers of that taking a strange man
to your house. I don't know if y'all might be
(15:14):
too young to remember Mr Goodbar the movie with Diane Keaton,
it's too much. It's when we first got cable. My
parents would whenever the cable was like, go to your
room and here, I'm like, what is good for it? Yeah?
Well it was dangerous. And let me tell you y'all
(15:35):
something I never thought I'd run around quoting the Constitution mhm,
but I understand this, and it is my motto. We
all have a right to the pursuit of happiness. I
wanted to be happy. I was depressed for many years
and didn't even know it. That didn't have words like
(15:56):
bi polar ship. I went on Oprah a long time ago,
told them sixty million people out of my pole, I lied,
I'm tri polar in these streets. Okay, new ship, drive
all the new ship. There's another pole over that. But listen,
(16:18):
you have to be in it to win it. I
gave up many times in my career, but I didn't quit, you,
hear me, I didn't quit. I tell these kids, you
must dream the dream and focus only on that so
that you can be well with your soul. You know what.
(16:40):
I'm bled you said that because Okay, so I too
was trying to figure out and here's you know, the
disclosure is yes, I mean I've been in and out
of not in and out of. I mean, you know
I've had a therapist. I guess you can say in
(17:00):
and out. I've been doing therapy for like thirty years.
But you know, the thing is when the pandemic came
mm hmm. Really you know again like I don't feel
like I feel like a person shouldn't have to be
at rock bottom to make the change. So that's why
I'm really glad the pandemic happened because it wasn't a
(17:20):
rock bottom moment, But that was definitely a somewhat of
a paradigm shift for me and taking mental health seriously
in all those things. But you mentioned something, and I
noticed that probably the time that I might be liable
to get in an argument, I mean, not a fight,
(17:42):
not like pugilism or anything. But there's a moment after
I get off stage where I can't describe the feeling.
And you you said that, and I was like, oh,
so I'm not you know, I just thought like, well, mirror,
sometimes you're just an asshole. After the thirty minutes after show.
It's almost like after a Root show, I purposely look
(18:06):
for a place to just sit silent and literally come down.
And I can't explain it. And the thing is is
like right after a show, that's when people are pulling
for you, and I mean, here, let's talk, right, And
I can't explain. And the thing is, it's like, because
these people aren't entertainers, it's hard to really explain to
them the process I go through, which is kind of why.
(18:31):
It's almost like a that that feeling of when you're
done a show, and that how you feel. It's such
a a description list addiction that I can't describe that.
I figured out that for the at least last thirty years,
I've been doing DJ gigs after the Roots show because
I love music and because I love DJ, but basically
(18:55):
I need to slowly come down off that high in
the normalcy. So usually after show I will DJ for
three hours so that way I don't want to talk
to people. I'm playing music and I come down. But
and sometimes when I'm not dejaying, I wonder what that is,
And I thought I was the only person going through that,
(19:15):
because again, if you I feel weird in talking about
the mental health space thing and have my occupation because
I always feel like people look at me like, here's
the world s tiny's violin, Like if people are in
a certain profession, they might not they might feel unworthy
of having problems or whatnot. Like people might not At
(19:37):
this point, the world knows entertainers have trauma. Right, I'm
just not here. Please. First of all, we are not
normal creatures, right right. We are artists. We are different.
Are we better or worse than anyone? No? Well, we
(19:58):
just are who we are and we form who we
form the artistry. It's like Lena Simone said, hmm. An
artist's duty is to speak to the times. Need a
(20:21):
Simone didn't hide her pain and need a Simon lated
on the piano. We have to learn where to put
that quest. You have to put that somewhere. You have
to compartmentalize that you expressed it beautifully. It's called a
(20:42):
glory train. Love you hear me talking to you. It's
a glory train. And nobody can stay on that train
too long. You've got to come off. You gotta get
in the grass, and you gotta surround yourself with nature
and have that gratitude. It is the gratitude moment, so
(21:02):
you use it for that. You don't have to go crazy.
Most people go and get drunk and party and carry on. Okay,
you get a couple of those a month, but then
sit the funk down and talk about those feelings. Write
them down so that the next time you feel it,
you have something to balance it. Nobody's coming with the answer,
(21:24):
nobody's coming with a recipe. You gotta pay attention to
the self. It is the journey within that will get
you where you need to be, because what you will discover,
MHM is how short life is. Listen to me. You
(21:45):
want to know how? You want to know how I live?
I live like I got five minutes left? What if?
What if you add five fucking minutes left? Who would
you call? M hm? Think about ship? That ship? What if?
(22:08):
And I lived like that? I ain't gonna lie to you.
Sometimes it's something asked at, Like when my assistant leaves.
I want to swim, but the shadows have come over
the pool, so it gets a little chill, and I
stand there and go, oh, I don't want to get
in this pool. Jenny, get in the fucking pool and
(22:35):
relax yourself. You gotta talk to yourself. But guess why
I got in the pool because when I woke up,
I wrote it down. You will swim today, you got
that's what living on purposes about. You can't go willy
nearly through this bitch. It'll teach you a lie. This
(22:57):
is why that you are in charge. Hard write this
ship down. You write your story instead of like I
said on Willie Nelly, skipping temptoeing through the fucking tulips.
That's what life. Look, life is not a rehearsal. Live
this bit. Can I just say real quick? Excuse me?
(23:19):
Let me let me just say this. And I hate
to be all corny and go to the book that
you have out there walking to your joy? But I
just realized, am I saying that right? Walking in your joy?
That's walking in my joy? In my joy? Um. But
it's so interesting because a lot of people write books
and they say things, but I like that you have
some real practical things, like what you just said to
a mayor about living in those five minutes. And then
(23:39):
you wrote something else that caught me and you said,
when you're feeling down, you come up with a song
about yourself, how much you love yourself and how much
people love you that I'm realizing, although I haven't finished
the book, can people like depend that, like you pretty
much got little workable jewels in here, not just like girl,
live your best life. It's actually like, no, it's exactly,
(24:01):
but but here's the work. The work is how am
I gonna live my best life? And and that's the work.
That's what you write down in the morning, y'all. Christ
I don't know if you know, but when I wrote
The Mother Black Hollywood, I started writing in a journal
(24:23):
in the seventh grade because I knew I was gonna
be a star and I would need my book. That's
seventh grade continuously. I am sixty five. There are sixty
seven journals up. Oh I'm so jealous. That is why
(24:44):
don't we do this? Why do why do we start?
And stop? And I got about six gold damn it?
So the details The Black Hollywood is so good because
of the details. I can tell you that I had
hid up a pie ala mold with your only raft
on this date. Damn you say, you see you see,
(25:06):
so nothing is wasted. Live your life. And when I
got into therapy the first time, my therapist looked at
me when I told I had written all those journals.
She said, that's what saved your life, little girl. I
believe it. I didn't know I was saving my life,
but that journal served in me learning at an early age.
(25:33):
I didn't even know I was doing it. M hm too.
Be in charge of me and leave other people alone.
To people come and go for a season, let it
go when they're no longer a reflection of you. You're
not gonna be comfortable around them. If the toxic ship
(25:54):
is going on the lines in the chaos, y'all get
the funk out of there. You ain't there. There are
many rooms to go to that many cities. Oh yetta,
do and leave the room, funk out of that ship. Simple,
don't sit there with all that drama and shifty practical use.
It's so boring. It's boring. I said. The greatest sin
(26:15):
is somebody to say, oh, I'm bored, bitch, that I
have my money. Okay. So, of course, like in the
last two years is the most that I've heard black
people speaking on finding joy, finding their their their mental health,
(26:37):
and all those things. Because previously there's a secret I
would never like in two thousand eleven, I would never
share with nobody that like trauma attached at you right
because you don't want to share, like people think I'm crazy.
Whatever the thing is is that I know that for
black people there go to answer was always the church,
(27:04):
especially of an older you know I was born, I
know you were born before I was. For for a
lot of people in you know, pre eighties people whatever,
like their thing is always like I'll find God or
I'll talk to my preacher. How so this is almost
an anenomena lead to hear of your your generation, of
(27:27):
your experience really not even diving into the pool of
mental therapy, but I mean you're going to be abyss
of it. You're going to the deepest level of it.
So what was it? What was the moment that told
you that my mental health has to be addressed in
and handled this way as opposed to do consider that
(27:52):
I do consider organized religion as a vice akin to
gambling sex. Let me let me say this to you.
There's a line in the movie I did Corina Corrina
where the where the little the little girl says, these
(28:13):
people believe I'm paraphrasing, but they said, these people believe
in God. And the people that somebody that said it
was Jewish, And the question that was asked by a
child was she said, why do these people sing about this?
And the mother said, because it makes them feel good.
(28:33):
And the little girl said, what's wrong with that? Mother said, oh,
I guess nothing. Look, if you want to be an
organized religion, that's okay. Let people do what they want
to do. That's what gets me through life. To allow
allow others to be where they are. What you're gonna do,
Go and make them a Buddhist, go and make them
(28:55):
a move them do you don't make them? What are
you gonna do? Once again? Once again, pay attention to yourself.
Everybody on this planet has one job, and one job
only self care. And if you need to cry to
Jesus to do that, then you go on and cry
to Jesus. But allow other people to cry to whoever
(29:20):
the hell they want to cry to. That's what I
don't like about religion. Everybody think their religion is the
best one, So I don't believe in that. Leave people alone.
Leave people alone. If they want to work, you let
them work to Jesus, let him work, Buddha or Mohammad
or Allah. Let people do who what? What the fun?
(29:40):
They want to do I know who I am? I
searched every religion in this world. I have been down
the road. Let's travel, And when I got to the end,
that was number the big gass mirror. M M. You
(30:00):
cannot run. Wherever you run, you will meet yourself. There's
no running. And I told him on the breakfast club,
I got money to run. You can't run. You don't
ask me. Don't ask me for now. I'm like, what's
his name? The baby I love? Uh Dan Pipel I'm rich, bitch,
(30:24):
but don't ask me for ship. All right, there you go.
What do you say to him to even like to
on a mirrors question? Like you're leading the pack of
your generation in that way? Like he said, like you're
it is kind of special. Do you see in the
difference in the generational hour? Now? I'm using words, and
it had vocabulary for things that we didn't have before.
(30:45):
When I went I got you. When I went on
the road with the Mother Black Hollywood, because it was
my journey through bipolar disorder, I was able to feel
not only the temperature but the temperament of the United States.
I went all over. During the Trump era, people are
(31:06):
starting to wake up. I was very pleased. They're starting
to get counseling in churches, they are starting to put
more counseling in youth centers. Our children are falling apart,
and I'm not the only woman in the world that cares.
People are coming together. We are getting better. Everybody wanted
(31:27):
to talk about the stigma. Yes, there is a stigma,
but we are getting better. You See, my mother didn't
have the Oprah Winfrey show. Okay, that's what I'm saying.
I probably didn't know nothing about mental illness. And yet
if someone were to ask me, I would say, absolutely
she was. I do believe that she was depressed. She
(31:47):
had me when she was twenties six years old, and
I was her seventh child who she was scrubbed, and
she was scrubbing white people's floors. You think she had
time to give me affection. She was asted by the
time I came along. Listen eve Insler, who wrote the
Vagina Monologues. She's been all around the world. She went
(32:11):
to Africa with the women that we're having the claris clitterestism.
If it's clitterest, I don't know if it's a plural.
I only have one, all right. I used to have three,
but I do not remember one of those first one
(32:33):
stars that bitch tattoo when we just had listen for god,
there have toute that bitch had to clitterings and has
two something like that, something like that. It was funny,
but it let me get back to the sorry focus,
(32:55):
let me get back to serious ship. Uh listen, all
I can say, they're not going into three clitterings they
got last. I did too. I need to find somebody
to tell me whether clinterance is it's this cliterance says says,
Come on, Jen, if you don't need how do you
(33:22):
know I'll come out of the bag with anything. I
don't multiple clitterings? Thank you? Did you look it up?
I was in uh when I was in the seray
gaddy uh. Two little baby rhinoceros is thought I had
some food, so they came over to me and they
just going like this, just that, don't key, don't dope,
(33:44):
And they when they saw I didn't have no food,
they kind of don't don't key, don't away from me,
and I started screaming, I never heard of Jenny Craig
and had no food for you, cuss out a rhinoceros bitch,
You hear me, and then I had to look up
whether it was not Rhinoceroy because most of my friend
(34:09):
by man, because lad Man listen, because most of my
friends are major intellectuals. I keep smart people around me, honey,
list and I can feel enough for everybody. You just
telling me what this ship is, what's going on? But here?
But if I listen, if I must stand in the
serengetti and cuss out to baby, Rhinoceros says, what do
(34:33):
you think I'm gonna do with the story of the
clitteres is? Get the funk out there? Let's go what's that?
Cusses out right now? But what you need to know
with Jennifer Lewis will go anywhere. Ain't no shame in
my game, baby, I'll do anything to make people laugh.
Is because I'm also interested in your need to see
(34:55):
the world. Now, I would have liked to have thought
that I'm you know that I've I'm well traveled at
least in my thirty years of touring the world and whatnot.
But you've seen the airport in the hotel in the view. Yeah,
I was going to say that I still and I
know I've done things that are especial whatnot. Like I'm
(35:16):
I'm you know again, post pandemic. I am living life
like I mean, not to the five minute rule. Once
you said that, and I was like, oh, ship, I'm
not doing ship with my life for you. How did
you even organize or make a bucket list of the
things that you wanted to do before you leave this
(35:38):
plane called Earth? There was no bucket list. There was purpose. See,
when I travel, I go into the trenches. I tell
my private guy to take me wherever they're not going.
I want to talk to the people. When I was
just in India, there were four up people serving me
(36:01):
one night. They had on their little beautiful chef hats,
the white chef hats and the white mask. And I
said to them, because I had come through the poverty
of Agra India, and I'd heard the stories of the
untouchables and the cast system, m hm. So I went
(36:21):
over to those four people that were cooking, and I
told them that I had I came from that kind
of poverty. And I looked at them and I said,
you do know that you must rise up? Do you
understand what I'm saying. I got a little nod from him,
and then I said, one of you is Gandhi, And
(36:45):
I walked away with my plate of philofel and purposefully
went back to them. Dramatically pointed to the girl and
said it's you. I said, And if it's not you,
young lady, you better goddamn make sure it's your daughter.
And she sneaked over to me at my table. She
(37:08):
took her chef at off, she took the mask off
and came over to me like she had been invited
to that party, which you know was against the rules
of the hotel. Mhm. She stood over me and she said,
mm hmm. I don't know your name, but I want
to thank you. I will rise to miss Lewis because
(37:32):
when she said that, I said, my name is miss Lewis. Oh,
come on down Jesus. M you see, I'll call it
Jesus when it's because my mama called Jesus when things
were good, you understand. So I go into the trenches.
There's a video going around of me talking about voting
(37:55):
at Hollywood and Vine. After I got my star, I
didn't know I was being fed owned. I was signing autographs.
But when I get a bunch of kids in front
of me, I'm gonna use that time. Whether I'm in India, Oh, Hollywood,
a Cambodia. Show me where the people are suffering, bring
(38:17):
them to me. Like oh okay. So I'm in Argentina
and I tell my driver to take me to the
real people. He said, oh, ms Louis, it's dangerous in there.
I said, I don't care, take me in. I got
out of that car. All these kind of people were
standing on the corner and everything. They looked over at
(38:38):
me getting out of that SUV Thatt Mercedes. But they
saw the color of my skin. Oh yeah. And some
of them came over and I said to them, oh honey,
I'll use that celebrity. I said, y'all know who I am.
I said, you watch television. I said, you know the
(38:59):
show for Sprints, And that's when everybody wakes up because
that ship is global, right. That show ain't just national
and international, That ship's global. I was in the three hundred.
I was in a three hundred and fifty year old
glacier in Iceland and a bitch came up and said
some shit about real I got that. Yeah, I'm like,
(39:21):
god damn girl, when a glacier, get the funk out
of everything. I ain't come down. Funk who I am.
Let's get the funk out of everybody. I keep the
fucking voice down before you call an avalanche. Tell her
to keep her voice down. That that's funny. I think
that's actually our clip. Wait a minute, this was after I.
(39:43):
This was after I sang Amazing Grace in the wedding
chapel that they had carved off in the ice. It's
it's on YouTube. You can actually hear that that performances
on YouTube. I sang amazing y'all the the the guy
said this, anyone sing what you said? Men of My
(40:04):
friend went bitch, you ain't said nothing but a word.
We went up. I went up to an ice podium
and blasted that ship out. And I haven't released it yet,
but I sang Amazing Grace in the and called tom
in Cambodi, one of the great old ancient temples, and
(40:26):
then I sang it in uh the valley of Petra.
I always get out and do a little something and
leave my singing voice in those canyons and then those
mountain range. But I will tell you this, I didn't
sing Amazing Grace up in the him Alayans. I got
the funk out of that before my lungs burst at
(40:46):
eleven thousand feet. You can believe that amazing grace I
sunk out of there. I don't think we've ever had
an episode. We're forty five minutes into this episode, and
I'm thinking to myself, I don't even and I don't
even want to talk about the creative side of Jennifer Lewis,
Like this show is more about like the creative Like,
(41:07):
but listen to this. I just love I just I
just I just love quest. He love Quest. I give
(41:32):
my own songs. I just love Quess. Is that like
just just him? Yeah, I'll share quart Quest. Everyone is love.
(41:56):
I shall keep that alright, it is, And gentlemen, we're
pausing it there for now. After that serenade, i'd, you know,
needed a minute. So Jennifer Lewis, you know, lively, real
and raw as anyone has ever been on cost Love Supreme,
and I think she may have cussed more than any guests,
(42:17):
including Esus and Merrill. All Right, you heard me say
it in the episode, but you see why I called
this one of the best Qualls conversations ever. So we
expect you back next week for part two and make
sure you pre order Jennifer's second book, Walking and My
Joy in the Streets and uh, I believe that's August thirty.
It's like this combo, all right, see y'all next week.
(42:48):
West Love Supreme is a production of my heart Radio.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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