Laila Ali Opens Up: Boxing Rivalries, Life Lessons, and Family Drama

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome back to another episode of the Art of War,
and I'm extremely.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Excited about our guest today.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
She doesn't do a lot of interviews, so we happy
to have her on the show. She is a twenty
twenty one International Boxing Hall of Famer. She's a four
time world champion in two divisions. She's a broadcaster, a host,
and author, a highly sought after public speaker with messages
about the champion mindset and how to reinvent herself. She's

(00:32):
also a health and wellness expert. She's a wife, she's
a mother. She's the daughter of an icon and the humanitarian,
the late Great Muhammad Ali. I want to give a
warm welcome to the show today to the one and
only Laila Ali.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Thank you well, Leila.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
This is a special one for me.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Anytime I get to interview somebody that I grew up watching, man,
it's just special for me. I just came from Roy's Ranch,
and you know, I'm a kid in a candy store,
so I'm excited today. And thank you for opening up
your beautiful home nurs as well. I know you don't
do a lot of sit down interviews, so we're honored
to have you. Why did you want to why did
you agree to do this interview today?

Speaker 4 (01:09):
Well, mister Andre, because number one, you're amazing at what
you do. You're a fellow fighter, and I think that,
like I said first, you do a really good job
doing interviews. So I every time that I've had the
opportunity to spend a little bit of time with you,
I've liked you. I've liked your energy, and you know,
how could I say no.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
I appreciate that. What is what is life like for
you right now? At this stage in your life?

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Life is great? You know? For me, my family comes first.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
I grew up obviously with Muhammad Ali as my father.
He wasn't always home, and I knew growing up that
I wanted to be a very hands on mother, and
that's something that you know is a priority.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
For me, being a mom, being a wife.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
Obviously, I have a lot going on when it comes
to business, my own lay Lily Lifestyle brand that and
I'm very hands on with it.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Yeah, it's my passion.

Speaker 4 (02:01):
I was an entrepreneur before I started boxing, so I
kind of just went back to it now. But just
having kids, I have a thirteen year old and a
sixteen year old. Right just got my son a car,
teaching them how to drive. My daughter's a teen, you know,
going through all the girls stuff, you know, preparing for
dinner every day.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
That alone will keep you busy.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
Then with everything else that I do, you know, traveling
for speaking and just endorsement deals. I'm just getting ready
to shoot a new show. Yeah, yeah, so you'll hear
more about that. So reving enough to get busy.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well, you have no shortage of things that, as you
just mentioned, that's going on in your life or things
that you can get involved in. But I you know,
when I thought about reaching out to you, I was like, nah,
I don't really like Leyla is out there in the
spaces that you know, the public speaking and you know
you have businesses and cookwear and.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
All the stuff we just mentioned.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
But I don't see you doing a lot of interviews
or I don't see you in the public space outside
of business very much.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Why is that.

Speaker 4 (02:55):
Well, I'm a homebody first of all, so I rather
be home, like I rather not go anywhere, like I
have no desire. So obviously I lived in la all
my life, right, I grew up with the most famous
man in the world as my father. I like my
privacy a lot comes with that, you know, when it
comes with that fast life being out there, a lot

(03:16):
of you know, fakeness and just all that. I'm just
not with that. I'm a real person, so that's not
really my vibe. So just being able to spend time
with family, friends, prepare meals. I'm that house that people
come to. I'm gonna cook, you know, do all of that.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
That's what I like to do.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
Anything that I do publicly is strategic, Okay, it is
because it needs to be done right in order to
further whatever it is that I'm doing. Like, for example,
when I knew that I was going to come out
with my cookbook Food for Life, which is a passion
of mine cooking, I was like, let me go compete
on Chopped, you know, on the Food Network. Let me
go get myself in that space so people can see

(03:52):
me that way, see me as something other than a fighter.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
I don't really care to be on the scene, just
to be there.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
I got invited to everything when I lived in La
you know, and I just I just didn't really go.
And I think that, you know, like I said, as
I'm getting older now and settling down now, maybe the
time to start thinking about doing my documentary, my movie
that's been offered years ago. But I was kind of like, m,
that's not really something that I'm ready for now. I
feel like I have more to do, but I definitely

(04:20):
want to do it while I'm alive, after the fact, right,
So those are the kinds of things that I'm thinking
about now, not just being out being busy, just to
be busy.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
I love that because I'm very similar. You know, I
know how to turn the switch on and do what
I need to do. But I'm really a shy person
by nature, and I really don't like a lot of attention.
But I really don't like the fakeness either, Like I
just can't stummy.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
I can tell. That's why I like it.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Yeah, I can play, play in it, go to the dinners,
do the stuff, but I'm you're probably not gonna catch
me there, But I but I like that with.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
With your family, man, and I love my family.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
So you have no business being out there because you
know what all comes with that. So you do what
you need to do, you know. But I got that
buy from you.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
And I know you got you got like big entrepreneurial energy,
you know. When I read your book and we don't
get into that in just a second. But where did
the strategy come from? With how you assess deals, what
you agree to and what you don't agree to. How
did you work that out and decide, Okay, this is
what I'm about us. It's not about the money. That's

(05:21):
not my brand.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
It's about the money, and some other folks kay, like
I'm never We all need to provide for ourselves and
our families. But it can't be just about the money,
and all money isn't good money, right. So that's something
that I had to learn at a very young age
because obviously when I decided to start boxing, I had
the discernment at a very young age eighteen seventeen eighteen

(05:44):
to know, okay, this is gonna be a big deal.
Muhammad Ali's daughter coming into boxing. I knew my dad
wasn't gonna necessarily like it, and we can talk about
that later. And I knew the public wasn't gonna be
ready for it. And you know, people will try to
get you to be something that you're not. So I've
from a very early age set my boundaries. This is
who I am. I'm Leila Ali. I'm not Muhammad Ali.

(06:05):
I'm not gonna rope a dope. I'm not gonna call
out rounds. I'm not going to talk about my father
every single time. You know, I love my dad.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Don't get me wrong. He will always be the greatest
of all time.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
But I got my own own thing going on, right,
So I had to set those standards. I had to
have my values, you know what I'm saying, and you know,
my priorities in place, because that's to answer your question.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
That's how I make decisions.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
It's like, you know, if you have a business, you
have to know, Okay, what's your missing statement, what's your vision,
what's your brand values?

Speaker 3 (06:32):
All of these things the same way you kind of
live your life. So if I have goals, is this
going to help me reach my goal? Is this deal positive?
This just makes sense? You know.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
So if somebody comes to me with a deal for alcohol,
first of all, I don't drink alcohol.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Second of all, that's not my brand.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
I'm not And I do care about being a role
model and how I you know, carry myself. So I'm
not going to be doing you know, all these junk
food lines and all these things just because they offer
me a lot of money. Because it's happened in the past,
so those that do their mission may not be health
and wellness, so they're okay with that. You know, that's
not my thing. So you know, that's that's pretty much

(07:09):
how it is. But you have to know what you
stand for, and you have to know you know what
your non negotiables are, and then it's just easier to
make decisions.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
And of course having a team.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
You know, I've had some really helpful people in my
corner for many years that if I don't know, but
this is what I'm thinking, and I'll bounce it off
of them because I'm quick to say no. Sometimes they
have to be like no, no, no, Layla, Well think
about this because I'll be like no, you know right.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
I love that because you know, we'll get a little
bit more into the entrepreneurial spirit that, from what I've read,
you've always had. But do you feel like that was innate,
Like you just had a knack for like wanting to
have your own and building something on your own and
you know, understanding numbers and how money works. Like that
seems to have been something that you've always kind of

(07:54):
have and you just cultivated it over the years.

Speaker 4 (07:56):
I'm bad with numbers. Really Yeah, but that's okay because
I know.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
People who could that's what the team.

Speaker 4 (08:02):
Yeah, I understand dollars, but I'm saying there's so much
more to it. I would say that I remember from
the age of maybe I and when I said I'm
bad with numbers, I'll forget my own age. I'm like
my forty five or forty. So I'm always a day
off for I almost missed this interview by day, Like, wait,
I know.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
We're doing this Sunday.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
He was like, I'm so glad it was on my caliar.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
I'm so bad.

Speaker 4 (08:22):
So I remember when I was probably eleven, I was like,
I'm gonna start a business because I want to Now,
mind you, I have money. I lived in Malibu, you know,
but I wanted my own money, and I said, let me.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
I'm gonna start a little cleaning service. And I had flyers.

Speaker 4 (08:36):
I went around the neighborhood twenty dollars, I'll clean your house, kid.
You know, nobody hired. I remember one guy called and
I came to the door. He saw I as a kid.
He was just like, uh, just wipe down the counters.
And he gave me the money and I left and
that was my first business. Though thought at that age,
I can't imagine my daughter now at thirteen trying to
start a little business and go in as strangers' homes.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
Right. So then I had.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
Layla's Nell studio by the time I was eighteen. But
I had to take the bus after school across town
into the hood at night. You know, I think it
was like six to nine every night. Most kids aren't
trying to go back to school after school and every
day on their own. I signed myself up. I had
my mom give me the money. I'm gonna go because
I wanted to be independent. I wanted to move out

(09:19):
the house. By the time I was eighteen, I had
this plan. And you've read my book, you know there
was a lot going on that made me want to
get away and made me want to be independent, to
have my own and you know, I think that was
the drive. It wasn't just oh, I just want to
do nels. It was like, what does this mean to
have this license, to have a clientele, to be in

(09:40):
control of my own life.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
And I'm still that way now. I like to be
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Speaker 1 (10:20):
So, Leila, you have a wonderful book out that you
wrote back in O two was revised in twenty seventeen
called Reach Finding Strength and Spirit and Personal Power.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
And this is the book right here, y'all. This is
a very very powerful book.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Man.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Please look this book up. Go get this book.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
I thought I knew a lot about Laila until I
read that book.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
But what struck me in the book and I.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Ran into the same thing as I was trying to
just unearth my story and tell it the right way,
is in this book you do a great job of
speaking your personal truth, your family truth, but then also
the truth about your late great father Muhammad Ali. I
sensed the honesty, but I also sensed the respect. How
did you do that? How'd you told that line?

Speaker 4 (11:05):
And yeah, and it was told in the line because
to tell my story, I had to tell my mother's story,
which she didn't want. And I tell part of my
father's story. And you always have to be careful about
how you talk about my dad because he's the greatest,
you know, but he's not perfect.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Nobody is, and that's okay.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
My father, being who he was, was traveling the world humanitarian.
He was gone a lot, right, And there's nine of
us kids. I'm the youngest girl. He has adopted a son.
I'm the baby. People assume that we all grew up
in the house together.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
We did not.

Speaker 4 (11:38):
So I had one sister, Hannah, who's my oldest sister.
Older sister should I say, But you would think I
was older, But that's who I grew up in the
house with. Then you had may May, the twins little Muhammad.
Those were his first kids from his first wife. And
then when he and their mom got divorced, he married.
My mom had Hannah and I. You have Mia, you

(12:01):
have Kaaliah, and then you have a side his adopted son,
who's the young who's now the youngest. So we never
grew up in the house together, but they did come
over for summers, so and you know, I saw them,
but it was.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Not like I'm close probably to two of my sisters.
I was going to ask you about that.

Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yeah, maybe one actually one Mia my sister and Jersey.
Her and I are like this, Hannah and I we're
kind of like, you know, like how brothers and sister
can be, like get on each other's nerves to love
each other. But those are the two and the rest
of them we don't have a super close relationship.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
I was going to ask you that because I don't
always see a lot of stuff with y'all together, and
I wondered about that.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
No, yeah, people people ask that, and then you know,
I have one of my sister sons now is.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Fighting people and I didn't see you. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (12:44):
People assume I don't even know when he's fighting sometimes. Yeah, so,
but I mean, what can you do.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
She's just kind of like, yeah, yeah, he's doing this thing.
You know. I wish him.

Speaker 4 (12:52):
I wish him the best, and he knows because I
told him, if you ever need anything, I'm here.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
That's good.

Speaker 4 (12:56):
That's me, Like, I'm not the type that's going to
be on you. But if you you know, you got
to call me if you here. Yeah, exfolutely you kind
of went where I was going.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
You know, I was gonna ask you to take me
back to some of those early memories at Fremont Place,
the gated community in the middle of Los Angeles, with
your father, your mother, Veronica, and Hannah.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
You talked about how there was constant traffic in the
house on any given day.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
You may have a Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, John Travolta,
or somebody like that. You talked about it in great detail,
about how it made you feel like you were an
object at least.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
Daughter, Tell me about that period in your life.

Speaker 4 (13:30):
Well, I mean, like you mentioned, so many people were
always over, and you know I wasn't the only one.
So it was kind of just like it's not like
here at my home where it's a quiet home.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
It was more like a public place.

Speaker 4 (13:42):
So it makes it doesn't make you feel secure as
a child, right when there's just always people around, Especially me.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
I was kind of to myself, kind of.

Speaker 4 (13:50):
Shy, and my dad loved attention and he loved people.
Oh my god, everywhere we went it was just like
he had his briefcase with his magic tricks and we
were going to be there for a couple hours. Oh yeah,
he pulled out a stuff and I saw as a kid,
like here we go.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
It's all the same tricks.

Speaker 4 (14:08):
But he would also have pamphlets about Islam.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
That he hand signed.

Speaker 4 (14:14):
Really because he started having his Parkinson's, you know, and
he kind of started getting slower. But not only that,
he never wanted to cut off the line for the autographs.
He wanted everyone to get one, so you know, when
he had to go, it's like.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Well here's an autograph.

Speaker 4 (14:26):
He could pass him out quick with their pre sign
He was send hours pre signing those, and that was
would be in his briefcase. So as a kid, that
wasn't always fun to go with dad, you know and
get stuck. And I was always kind of I don't
want to go with daddy, you know.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
I was. I was more of a mama's girl. But yeah,
it was it was fun. It was fun.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
You talked about that that office, his study, and how
they would a lot of the people would would gather there.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
And then he would call you like, look, come on
and sit on my lap.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
His mother, you would kiss his and you were like,
I do not want the attention and I don't like
the kisses. Yes, man, I can only imagine like what
that felt like. Obviously I didn't grow up like that.
You know, I had my struggles, but it wasn't that
I didn't We didn't have a lot of and I'm
a naturally private person, So I can only imagine waking up,
coming out of my room and anybody can be downstairs.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Absolutely and having nannies and staff. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah, So I mean that's the life I knew, right,
But I was okay, like there, I had people taking
care of me.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
It's just that, you know, all kids have to.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
Grow up with whatever environment they're born into, you know,
And it's like it's not something I really complain about.
It's just kind of painting the picture that led to
where things led, right. But again, I remember just being
young and always feeling like I wanted to get away.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
So I always sought after people who.

Speaker 4 (15:40):
Didn't know who I was, meaning Muhammad Ali's daughter didn't
know who my family was. Weren't necessarily affluent, because you know,
with that life comes this family and their children, and
they're wealthy and they'll put you together because like with like,
but I was always trying to mismatch.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
That's not what I want to be around.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
I was mismatching yet.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Wat started with my kids, Like my kids respect what
I've done, but they're not like overly impressed with it.
You know, they honor me and it's a blessing, but
I could tell that they they're not like they kind
of shy away from that too, like you know, being
known as andre Ward's kids. And I've tried to like
figure that out throughout the years. Okay, what is that? Like,
how should I respond to that? What should I tell?

(16:21):
And I've just kind of let them do their thing.
But then I'll see them, you know, I overhear them
bragging about me or something like that. So it's like
I can only imagine what that struggle is like having
a famous parent and then everybody knows about the parent
and they're bringing it up to you, and it's like,
do you want to be my friend because you like me?

Speaker 2 (16:38):
Are you trying to get some information by my family?

Speaker 3 (16:40):
It can be tricky. Everyone's had a different experience.

Speaker 4 (16:43):
Some people like attention, some people like true yeah, some
people are like, yeah, that's my dad. You know what
can that do for me? Whereas I have a different
kind of confidence. I think in myself that's like what
can I do for me? And it's okay, I mean,
and it's not a secret, but it's that's not what
I lead with, right, who I am, where I come from,

(17:05):
because then when that comes a lot of expectation sometimes perception.
You know, people are making assumptions, right, So I would
like the opportunity like anyone else, like, let me show
you who I am when I first meet you, not
walk up with you assuming making certain assumptions.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
That's just general. It's just that's just my character. You know.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
I think I've balanced it pretty well. And with my children,
what I do is that now they got their grandfather
is Muhammad Ali, their father is Curtis Conway, their mom
is Leila Ali, And you know, they don't really think
anything of it. Just like you said, we're not a
big deal to them. They're like, what do you guys know?
I mean, even when it comes to athletics, so you
know they think they know more than us.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yeah, that's just kids. But you know they respect what
we did.

Speaker 4 (17:52):
But at the same time, I've always told them because
when they were really young, and didn't understand when I
was doing more on TV because I've done so many
things outside of boxing that have made me more recognizable
than in boxing. Because when I was boxing, people were like, oh,
that's that's cool, you're a boxer. They liked the idea
that I was a boxer because I don't look like
would you think a boxer would be, and women don't
box and all that kind of stuff, But they didn't

(18:13):
actually see me fight because a lot of my fights
weren't even on big tele televised you know, some were
but Dancing with the Stars and you know, all these
other shows that I've done, you know, and shows that
I've hosted, American Gladiators and you know, being on own
and people know me from those things. So when people
recognize me, I never know what they know me from, right.
So I would tell my kids. I would say, when

(18:35):
people come up to me, I say, you know, mommy,
people know mommy because my job is on TV, right,
And they're like, yeah, I said, so it's not a
big deal.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
They just know me.

Speaker 4 (18:42):
So when they see me, they're excited and they just
want to come say hi. I said, Just like when
you see people that you saw on the shows that
you like, you say, oh, there they go.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
But they're just a regular person, so I would explain that.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
So they're just like, oh, okay, that's just someone who
knows mommy from something, so they don't think of it
as any big deal.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
See. That's what I'm working on right there.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
I'm trying to get on that level where this boxing thing,
though I always honor it and appreciate it, gives further
and further in the rear view mirror.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
It's like, oh, he did.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Box two, but look at all these other things that
he's been. I mean, you've lived many different lives. It
seems like from the time you were retired until now.
I mean, it's just I love it, and it's just very,
very powerful. Speaking of assumptions, I always assumed that you
were a daddy's girl.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Don't know where that came from.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
I just assumed it. And obviously you loved your father.
But you said that was more haunt than your sister.
You were a mommy's girl.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
It was, you know, It's just it's kind of natural.
I can't explain how that happened. It's the same with
my kids. You know, one mommy, one daddy. You know,
and you kind of just have that for the most
part of most families. But I think that being that
I was shy in private and being with Daddy meant.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
That I was not going to have privacy.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
It was kind of like I didn't really want to
go on him, you know, so is you know when
it came to being around other people. But then as
I got older, I didn't have my mom either, you know,
and that hurt me because I got pretty much abandoned
by my mother and that had a big effect on me.
Uh you know, So we'll we'll talk about that.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
Yeah, So your mother, Veronica and your father they met
in seventy four.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
I don't know y'all told you about me and dates.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, Okay, I'm gonna go off my notes. We don't
trust my notes right now.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
So at a charity event in Zaire, Africa for the
Rumble in the Jungle, and they got married three years later,
and it didn't work out. From what you remember, what
worked about their relationship and then what didn't work about.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
It, I don't really know. I know that my mom
divorced my father.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
She's the only woman that did ever divorced him, and
he was madly in love with her, and she's beautiful.
My mom is gorgeous, dropped dead gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
And she took care of herself too.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean even back.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Then she said she was always working on her working.

Speaker 4 (21:01):
Out and just taking care of her body in terms
of eating. Right, you know, that's where that's how I learned, right,
my mom is always taking care of herself.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
But I think that.

Speaker 4 (21:11):
He fell in love with her beauty first, right, which
would be hard not to do. And she was very,
very unlike all of the other beautiful women who were
using their looks and kind of in the fast lane.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
My mom was still, you.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
Know, a young, sweet girl. And you know, she was
so young. I mean when she met him, I think
she was like nineteen.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
She was young.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
And imagine Muhammad Ali wanted to.

Speaker 4 (21:37):
Marry you at nineteen at that time, She's crazy, right,
just swept her off her feet.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
So she was a baby.

Speaker 4 (21:42):
So that I can look back at now just at
just kind of how some of the things win a
mistake she might have made as a mother and just
never really got a chance because she was in school,
medical school when she met him. She was going to
medical school, and he talked her out of that like,
you don't need to go to school.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
She's super smart. She had you know, scholarship to.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
Harvard and yell and yeah, and you know, but if
you read about her, just be she was a model,
but she was doing some modeling.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Back then and that's how she met him.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
But she was so much more than that. So she
has sense, just I want to say, because I don't
come back to her. She has since going back to school,
got her life. Yes, I caught her doctrine in psychology
and she's doing that now and I supported her in that,
so I'm proud of that.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
So yeah, but I don't know.

Speaker 4 (22:25):
I mean, I try to stay out of their relationship
and their business, although I know the history because there's
so much there. You know, when my dad with the
children and the wives and the women, I mean, I
think it got to him being Muhammad Abli, being handsome,
having all these opportunity with all these women, and he
would I would say, say, now, he would do some
things differently, you know what I mean, in terms of

(22:46):
just infidelity and all these different things.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yeah, I might have one more question about the marriage.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
I know you're set in your book that it was
hard for your mother being so just hungry for life, curious, talented,
gifted to be a sub serbient Muslim.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Wife like that structure was hard for her.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
But when they met, I think I read that Alis
said well do you believe in God or something like that,
and she was like yeah, he said.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
You're already a Muslim, so don't.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
So they didn't really like talk about is this, like
what's the lifestyle?

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Is it gonna work for me? You saw your mother's
struggle with trying to.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
Be that whatever that was, the subservient Muslim wife, because
there's a structure there.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
They got a certain way about them.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
Yeah, I think that he probably had.

Speaker 4 (23:33):
There was a difference between the wife that he had
before my mom because she was full on Muslim. She
was a Muslim when he met her, whereas trying to
convert someone to Islam is a different thing. And I think, yes,
my mom did go about as being a Muslim woman,
and she covered herself and everything she was, she didn't
wear the head scarf and all of that. But I
don't think it was so much tension about so much

(23:56):
the religion. I think the tension came from him, you know,
just kind of doing his thing, you know what I mean,
and her probably getting tired of it at a certain
point and just moving on.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
That understandable, And they ultimately did move on after nine
years of marriage in nineteen eighty six, and y'all moved
down the street a few blocks. I think it was
on lock Longwood Avenue.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
How was it?

Speaker 1 (24:20):
How did you feel at that time being so close
to your father in proximity, but yet still far apart.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
So my father moved out of state, he did right away.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah, I don't remember exactly when, but my father ended
up getting remarried and moved out of state at a
certain point. So it wasn't like we ever lived up
the street from one another. Once I moved out of
the home with my father and we stayed in the
same neighborhood, moved out of a mansion into a smaller mansion, But.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
It wasn't like he was right down the street.

Speaker 4 (24:54):
So I just I always remember my father in Vassor
the first time anyone ever asked me that. But I
always remember him just being out of state. It was
never like, oh, we're going back up the street. We
never went back to that house. We all moved out together. Yeah,
never went back.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
Yeah, never went back to that house.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
And that, and I looked up that neighborhood. I mean,
I think it's only like fifty five houses.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yes, you already got.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
LA and what comes with that, but you got an
exclusive neighborhood within LA.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Yeah. It was nice and it still is. I went
back recently.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
El Cooj lived there for a while and I went
to their home and I was like, oh man, it's
my old house, you know, and another family had bought
it and it was back on the market recently. Yeah,
it was back on the market, and so it was
interesting because there's so many memories there and it was
a gated community, which there's not many of in that area.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
But honey, you wouldn't have thought it was gated because
people are always coming through with my dad be like,
let him in, let them tell you.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
Wuldn't turn it down. Nobody up the front gate.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Right.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Did you resent the split when your parents split the time?

Speaker 3 (25:47):
No, No, I didn't.

Speaker 4 (25:48):
I think Hannah my sister was harder for her because
so she was really upset and she went through some things.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
But for me, I was fine with it. Yeah. I
didn't know where you was coming.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, but you seem to be actually a little bit
excited because you were like, man, it's a smaller house,
it's more homely. This is what I want as a
young girl. I don't want the big grand.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
Right, And I didn't know at the time.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
I can sit when I wrote the book, you know,
in my twenties, I can go back and think back
and try to formulate the thoughts and the feelings that
I was having. But at the time when I was young,
I wasn't like, Yay, I get to get my own house.
But I think that I felt more settled inside, absolutely
for a little while, and then things started going to
going downhills.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Gonna get to that in just a second, But this
is about eighty six, and you know, Ali hadn't fought
in about five years at this point. When did you
first start hearing or seeing any symptoms from him from
the parkinson?

Speaker 4 (26:38):
I remember, just as long as I can remember, you know,
my father slurring his speech slightly. Yeah, And I always
kind of knew him that way, and I think it
got worse as time went on, and maybe by the
time I was I would say, eleven twelve, I started
noticing tremors in his hands and then it was like, oh,
he has Parkinson's syndrome, they would say, and then it

(27:01):
turned into he has Parkinson's disease, so we didn't really know,
but over time it started getting worse and worse and worse.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
During that time period, were there any discussions on coming back,
because you know how it is, even if you're dealing
with something like that that fighters in you, money's on
the table.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
My dad used always joke about coming back.

Speaker 4 (27:16):
Yeah, oh yeah, I mean serious conversations I wouldn't have
been involved in because I was too young. But there
was never a time when I thought he was seriously
going to come back once he retired.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
I was too young.

Speaker 4 (27:27):
Even when he fought Larry Holmes and went through all
that and stayed in the ring longer than he should.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
But he used to always say, I'm gonna make a comeback.
I'm gonna make a comeback. And he was saying that
when he was in.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
The sixties, We're gonna be doing sad things. And I
don't know for sure, but I've read where a LEI.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
You know, he would spar a lot, no headgear and
he let guys beat on him. In his mind back then,
it's like it's making me tougher. You know they fifteen rounds,
they rumbling, they not pity patting around. That had to
have led to a lot of that stuff. Just the
wrong mindset about training now, you know. I mean a
word concussion even when I was coming up, wasn't talked about.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
You just call it getting buzzed. So I can only.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Imagine the punches and stuff he might have took, just
thinking that, man, I'm getting tough and I'm getting ready
for this fight.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
Absolutely, And being a heavyweight, you know, you're getting hit
a lot harder, right, it's a lot more of a beating.
But it's all relative. I think all of us are
getting hit in the head, whether it's with headgear or not.
You're getting damaged done, whether you've had you don't realize
you've had concussions or not. You know, it's happening. And

(28:35):
that's a sport that we're in. That's the sport that
we chose. But there are definitely safer ways to train,
you know, we know, just I mean when I was training,
you know, training with Roger Mayweather, Floyd Mayweather, Buddy mcgert,
you know some of the other trainers that you wouldn't
you wouldn't probably know, but they were all more old school,

(28:55):
you know what I mean. I remember coming to the
gym and it's like, now you can't have any water,
and I'm like, yest, why like and you know, as
a woman, women are different. We're gonna ask questions and
I'm real different. I'm gonna do what I want to know.
I'm gonna get some water. I'm like, you gotta to
stay hydrated, you know, why not be able to stay hydrated.
So it was just a lot of things that just
people think are old school and tough and all of
that that can be detrimental. And again, sparring with ourt

(29:18):
headgear sometimes I've seen some of these girls in the ring,
like taking body shots. Well I saw one and I
remember I hit her and I was on DM and
I was.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Like, you shouldn't do that. I was like, do you
want to have children?

Speaker 4 (29:28):
And she was like, I said, you shouldn't have your trainer,
a male trainer, just hitting you in the body.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
And she's like, oh, I never thought about that. Wow,
she had no cup on, you know.

Speaker 4 (29:35):
I'm like, you need to I could see at least
put your cup on, you know. So it's just things
people don't think about, you know that to preserve yourself.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
You're not gonna be able to do this forever.

Speaker 4 (29:45):
You're not gonna be young forever, and you want to
take as least of a beating as possible, right.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
I just think for us, and I agree with everything
you're saying for us as just say fighters, as really athletes,
but we just don't We most don't think that there's
gonna be a day where we can't do it.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
I won't want to do it. It's like I'm in it.
I'm making money, I'm making move this is who I've become.
They can't. We can't see a life after.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
It's too bad.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
It's sad.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
Yeah, it's it's not. It's not it's not realistic, and
it's just not smart. You know. I like to be
smart and I like to be realistic.

Speaker 4 (30:18):
I like to be efficient and no matter what it
is that I'm doing, and nobody can do it forever,
you know, and you always have to think ahead and
you always have to plan for tomorrow. So that's why
it's important to have a team around you and somebody
who can remind you, because it's a balance. You should
focus on being a fighter. When I was fighting, I
wasn't doing movies. I wasn't doing any of that I had.
You can imagine how many offers I had along the

(30:40):
way that I turned down because I was like, no,
I'm focused on fighting because I was afraid that I
would get soft. I was afraid that I would get
you know, distracted. All I want to do is fight.
Now I'm like, damn, I could have took a couple
of those opportunities because they're not there anymore, you know
what I'm saying, Not those not those.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
Movies and things.

Speaker 4 (30:57):
And I was like forever, yeah, yeah, but I mean,
but then it's just a thought. But really I don't
because I'm like, what might have happened, What might have happened,
It would have been different, you know, But yeah, you
have to think about the future obviously.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Are you aware of a Sonissa Strata Diamn.

Speaker 4 (31:11):
I love she, I know, I know, and I was
gonna hit her when I got a chance and talk
to her and find out why.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Yeah, I've been in contact with her. She knows. I'm
a fan, like she was one of my faves.

Speaker 4 (31:22):
Loved her style, very unorthodox, and I see a lot
of things obviously.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
We always see things that you could fix, like girl
do this, do that. But man, it was working for her,
you know what I mean? In fact, and she had.

Speaker 4 (31:33):
She had she had a little little evil streak in
her mean streak.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
I loved it. I loved it.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
But I bring her up because you know, we're talking
about life after and this is what I'm talking about
for just say boxing, I want to see more of
this stuff, and I believe we're gonna this is gonna
become fashionable.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Is to leave on your own terms. Everybody can't leave
on top, but leave on.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Your own terms. When you say, I still got a
lot left in the tank. There are some other things
that I want to explore, and I'm going to build
a light outside of boxing. So I salute her. But
it is a gut punch. And when the handful of
people that have walked away or stopped and I wasn't
prepared for it, I'm like, that's how people felt when
I must have walked away, because it kind of like.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
Hold on, hold on. I wasn't ready for that.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
But I love to see stuff like that. To the
point that we're talking about. So I'm gonna get back
to your story. So you're about twelve years old now,
and your mother meets a man that you call Walter
in the book, and you.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Are pulled away from La against your will and you
a Malibu.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Now most people would love to be in Malibu, but
you weren't happy about that.

Speaker 4 (32:40):
No, well, because my friends were in La, It's all
I knew. So you're telling a kid, we're going down
the coast and it wasn't that far, but to me
it seemed like forever away, like an hour away down
pch you know.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
I was like, what kind of people are in Malibu? Surfer?
You know.

Speaker 4 (32:57):
It was just I was young and I had to
go to a whole different school. Not only that, I
didn't like my mom's husband. We didn't get along. He
didn't like me either, you know. We had got into
it early on, and I remember sitting down and him saying, look,
I'm the man.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
Of the house now. He had like this wood paddle in.

Speaker 4 (33:13):
His hand that you would like beat somebody with, and
I was like, you're not about to hit me with that.
And I remember going back and forth with him, and
he was him just being like damn, because this little
girl won't back down, and I was like, you're not
about to do nothing, you know, And my mom.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
Was crying, my sister was crying.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
And I had to grow up in that day because
I was like, my mom is sitting here crying, and
this man is threatening, like he's gonna hit. I could
tell he wasn't gonna do anything. I didn't think he
was anyway, but if he was, it was just gonna
be on. But I was like, man, my mom's crying,
my sister's crying. I felt like in that moment, I
got to step up, you know what I mean, Like
I'm not the man, obviously, but I have to beat
the protector of the family. Yeah, And it also was

(33:51):
very disappointing for me to see her let him talk
to us that way. And then we moved, you know,
to a whole nother place, and then it just kind
of really went down.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
You talk about that place and how it was like
partitioned off. You had Walter and your mother over here
and you and your sister over here, and you said
you had a revelation in that moment, like this is
why he wanted to move there, because he was really
the genesis of the move.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
In La where we lived, that was our old neighborhood.
He was never going to be able to fill my
father's shoes, and I'm sure there's an insecurity there. You're
marrying Muhammad Ali's ex wife, and he had a very
big ease of ego male chauvinists, you know. I think
he was like a pianist or something and trying to
be something.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
He had a chip on his shoulder.

Speaker 4 (34:33):
So he wanted to move away to Malibu, where nobody
knew them. It was different, and they happened to purchase
a house. There was a big, big house, and it
was shaped like an L, and the shorter part of
the L was a guesthouse. So it had a kitchen
and rooms and everything. So me and my sister's room
was there. And at first it was like, okay, well
I don't want to be near you either.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
We're good. But then they.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
Started locking the door. He started locking the door to
get into the house. So next thing I know, I
can't even go in into the house. I have a
separate entrance, I have a separate kitchen. I'm calling my
mom on the phone. You know, whenever I need just
I can't just go to my mom. I had to
call her on the phone. So we'd go to the
grocery store. Two separate shopping carts and my mom really absolutely,

(35:16):
my mom was going through it with him because he
was mentally abusing her.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
And you know I was.

Speaker 4 (35:24):
I lost a lot of respect from my mom because
I needed my mom obviously. That was just crazy to
be locked on one side of the house and have
to call your mom. Nobody's waking me up to go
to school, nobody's asked me, did I do homework, nobody's
preparing meals for me. Nobody knows anything about what's going
on in my life. And my dad lives in a
different state, and me being the person that I was
already you know, ready to go hang out with the

(35:46):
wrong crowds. I had anger inside now that was brewing.
And I was always a tall girl, always dressed well
always you know, I had came from money, right, so
there was always girls who were jealous, you know, you
think you're all that, and I was quick to say
I am, and what what you're gonna do? So I
was never would back down. I wouldn't start anything. But

(36:07):
I definitely had an error about myself. You know, this
confidence that comes off as arrogance, and I was ready
to fight, so I did. I got into fights growing up.
I got kicked out of schools. I probably went to
like six different schools during this certain stage in my life,
ended up graduating from continuation, you know. And that's how
the fighter in me kind of came about, just from

(36:28):
that situation.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
How much of that was it?

Speaker 1 (36:31):
And I know it's a hypothetical, but I don't know
if you've thought about this, but mom going through what
she's going through, if Dad is more present day to
day picking you up, do you think you would have
been as angry?

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Probably not.

Speaker 4 (36:43):
I can't ever imagine that he would have been more present, because,
like I said, my dad lived in a different state.
He is like freeing hostages from Saddam Hussein, you know,
so he's doing so many big, wonderful things.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
Somebody has to suffer. That's just how it is.

Speaker 4 (36:59):
Like it's not like I said, this isn't something that
you complain about.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
This is something that you know, somebody's all suffer.

Speaker 4 (37:06):
Just like people who go fight for our country, you
know their family has to suffer, but they do it
for the country. It's the same thing. My father was
doing big things on a big level, So I never
thought of I wish Daddy was here. The person that
I wanted who's attention I wanted. Who I was close
to was my mother, so you know, and I basically
felt abandoned by my mother. So and I was angry

(37:27):
that she was letting this person do that to her
and do it to us, right, So it just turned into,
you know, trouble for myself.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
So you were saying, how you know your sister, same household,
different experience.

Speaker 4 (37:40):
Yeah, Hannah had a different experience growing up because she
just had a different personality, a different attitude. Hannah was bubbly, happy,
go lucky and wanting trouble. So for me, like I said,
something in me was already kind of like a rebel,
you know, and like try me. I just had this
attitude and you've always been I've always been that way.
And it first came out, you know, when I was

(38:02):
probably eight years old and I told my dad I
didn't want to be Muslim. Yeah, I was like, I
don't want to be Muslim cause I mean he used
to wake us up at five in the morning to pray,
And I'm like, why do I have to wake up
at five in the morning to pray? Like why does
God care what time you pray? And then uh, and
why do I have to face this direction? And why
do the women have to be behind the men? And
it's like all these different things. I'm like, this doesn't

(38:23):
make sense to me, and he's like, you're a kid.
And then at a certain point I was like, I don't
want to be Muslim, and I'm the only one in
the family has ever told him that. And he's just like,
you don't know, You're you're not old enough to know
what you want. And I said, I know what's in
my heart. He was like, oh lord, this one's gonna
give me a row. Yeah, this one's gonna give me
because we get he say, And it's always been that way.
So that started our relationship off. So everything I ever

(38:43):
did to get in trouble was like, that's because you're
not Muslim, he would saying, Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
I was like, that's why she's the one. This is
the problem to see.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Ever since then, Yeah, but I feel like just reading
the book that he eventually understood that that's that's my baby.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
She gonna you know.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
He would try to press you on things, and then
when you were press back, I would read how he
would give a little bit like all right, let it
do what you want.

Speaker 4 (39:06):
Me and him are so alike when it comes to character,
you know, and that thing right, and he recognized that
in me. So when he told me, you know, when
I told him I didn't want to be Muslim, When
I told him I wanted to start boxing, he didn't
want me to.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
I did it anyway.

Speaker 4 (39:20):
When he sees what kind of woman that I've grown into,
when he sees what kind of man that I married
and chose, when he sees how I was raising my children,
when he sees how I'm you know, carrying myself publicly
in his shadow, you know, he's very proud, so you know,
and even as a fighter in the ring, knowing that

(39:41):
he had nothing to do with my career, you know,
most people would assume that it was like this is
my daughter, give it the best of everything, like you
would do if it was your daughter.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
No.

Speaker 4 (39:50):
Not, And it wasn't a bad thing because it was
my choice and he didn't want me to do it,
and I went off and did it on my own,
so he absolutely and just like he my mom, it's
not about religion, It's about having God in your life.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
And the people that.

Speaker 4 (40:04):
Are around me that are happened to be Muslim. You
know and friends, they're like, You're not Muslim, but a
lot of the principles are very similar in terms of
the way that I lived my lifestyle and the way
that I carried myself. You know, when it comes to
just you know, character in the core of who you are.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
Then I know your goal was not for the book
to be sad, and it wasn't, But there was a wait.
It's a waitingness with the book, especially as I'm reading
the first five, six, seven chapters, Like.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
I would put the book down and be like.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
It was some new revelation, but it was also like
I can only imagine, Like I was taken back to
that period, and I looked up the house that y'all
grew up in, and I was like, man, I can
only amain. I saw the inside. It looked like the
White House in terms of just destructure. So there was
a waitingness there, And I'm like, man, Layla had to
go through a lot, like a lot.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Throughout the years.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
How have you dealt in process with that stuff? Just
Father wound Dad not being their structure. And again it's
not all bad, but this was part of.

Speaker 4 (41:07):
The Yeah, of course, you know, I think a lot
of it was just writing the book.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
At that young age. I wrote the book.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
I got it all out because I wanted to tell
the story of myself. I'm just so proud of myself
to just have the wherewithal to think that through, because
you know, I ended up going to Juvenile Hall getting
in trouble, like nobody's gonna pull this out on me,
Like I'm gonna let you know right now what happened,
this is how it went, and along the way, I'm
also gonna inspire a lot of people who don't understand

(41:37):
that the grass isn't always greener on the other side,
you never have to let your pass to find you.
I also felt the need, outside of just the strategy
of it, to let people know why I wanted to box,
how I was able to box, because when I started boxing,
it was, oh, you're too pretty, It's a publicity stunt.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
You know.

Speaker 4 (41:53):
People didn't understand why would you want to do this?
You could do so many other things. Why And I'm like,
that's the crazy thing about me, That is the amazing
thing about me. I love this. I love to fight,
you know, It's my first love. It will always be.
And I was a fighter before I started boxing. And
you have to have something, as you know, to draw

(42:14):
on in that ring, you know, because they're going to
get in there with someone who's gonna want it just
as bad as you might be, stronger than you might be,
just as talented as you, you know, and you got
to pool from somewhere somewhere deep. And you know, that's
how I was able to develop that those places, to
be able to go through everything that I had been through.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Powerful, powerful testimony. How were you getting back to la
being way amalliable? Please do tail?

Speaker 4 (42:42):
So first I was taking the bus, you know, because
I didn't have a problem getting on public transportation. You know,
I used to take the bus everywhere because I was
a kid. I didn't want to wait for my mom.
It's like, oh, I'll take you later. I'm like, I'm good.
I just hop on the bus. I had that schedule,
no problem. Most people will be like Muhammed alis a
on the bus, like my sid the one riding the bus.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Hanah went on the bus. No, no, Hannah never took
the bus.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
So me and Hannah had a whole different set of friends,
whole different social lives, you know, because Hannah, Hannah was.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
Like, you're ghetto you're ghetto.

Speaker 4 (43:13):
You're getting because I was alway getting in trouble, get
kicked out of school. I remember one time I got
kicked out of one school and I came to the
school she was at, and my reputation preceded me, and
they're like, oh god, Hannah's sister.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
She's like my sister Lailah. Don't mess with my sister Laila.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
And the man the first at school was like there
was a fight after school and the whole school was
coming to watch. It was crazy. But yeah, but I
I used to steal my mom's car. At a certain point,
I started stealing my mom's car literally, like, how.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
Are you just eleven years old? Twelve years old?

Speaker 4 (43:41):
Driving down Phren twelve, steal in the car, going in
the car, yep, that's like what an hour drive or something.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
Oh my goodness. I was just wait till she leave.

Speaker 4 (43:49):
I backed that car out and it was so it
was so crazy because I think if it now is
a kid. I was like, she's gonna be gone for
three hours. It takes an hour to get.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
Where I'm going.

Speaker 4 (43:58):
I'm gonna go just to be with my friends for
hour and drive back home, Like who does that?

Speaker 3 (44:03):
And then I and then I progressed.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
To where it would be like I wore my mom
out and was like, I have a friend who has
a license, and can we borrow the car for the weekend,
one of her cars? And she was like no, Layla, no,
Layla no. And I just wore her down and finally
she said okay. So after school, I just waited and
she didn't ask to meet the friend because she wasn't
in her right mind.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
She was busy dealing with him. She's gonna ask.

Speaker 4 (44:24):
She didn't ask to meet the friend, none of that.
And I was like, I just wait till she leaveing
like she came, We left, and I go and we
spent the night in my friend.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
We got the we're telling her mom.

Speaker 4 (44:33):
Yeah it was it was bad, and I'm younger than
all my friends, but I'm the one driving.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
You said you needed that, you needed just that interaction
with your friend because Malibu wasn't it for you.

Speaker 4 (44:43):
You know, I fell alone, I mean obviously, locked on
one side of the house. You know, I was angry.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
It was far.

Speaker 4 (44:49):
It's just a kid, you know, I wasn't really feeling
the school that I was going to.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
You know, I just wanted to get back to the city.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
The kids that you were around, friends or others, did
they get word of Ali's condition at that time and
did you hear it?

Speaker 2 (45:03):
Were they ever trying to say some smart stuff teas
or whatever.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
Yeah, I remember growing up and hearing a couple of people,
your dad has brain damage.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
Those were a couple of fights, you know. Yeah, yeah,
so that's just how kids are, they're going to say.

Speaker 4 (45:16):
But it wasn't something that happened all the time. I
just remember a couple of times growing up, maybe too literally,
where someone said something, But I think that you know,
they hear their parents talking, or they see something on
the news, and you know, kids can be they just
can be evil.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
But yeah, I've gotten a couple of fights over that.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Because Ali was open about it. You said he wasn't
trying to hide his condition.

Speaker 4 (45:34):
Well, he didn't really know in the very beginning that
it was actually Parkinson's disease, because there was just they
were still learning a lot about it, and it was like, oh,
it's Parkinson's syndrome. And then of course as a boxer,
people think, oh, yeah, brain damage, you know, and he
probably did have some effects because we know fighters that
don't have Parkinson's, but definitely might be slurring their speech,
having some cognitive neurological issues. It can happen. My memory

(45:57):
is not that great from boxing just in general. And
I didn't get beat up, but the beating happened during sparring.
Sparring all those rounds with men, you know, different heavyweights
and just even some of the smaller guys. It doesn't
matter just being hit, you know, all the time, six
days out the week. You know what I'm saying, It's
gonna add up. So you know, it kind of like
I said, it started progressing. It was happening in the background,

(46:20):
and then we see where it went.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
We see this a lot and hear it a lot
when you go to the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
It's a great event, it's a great time you see
in the former greats, but it's also you know, it
can be it can be a heavy thing too, because
I'm seeing these guys and then they start speaking, you know,
and I've talked to certain guys. I'm not gonna say
no names, and you know, they asked me like I'm
on the podium.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
You fuck. I'm like, yeah, man, that's why you know.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
We'll go back and forth and then five minutes later
the same question, and I'm like, and that's when retirement
seems like a good idea. Absolutely, I'm like, I think
I did the right thing. Absolutely, And you see it more.
You can look at the styles of certain five's true, right,
you know, you talked to Roy Jones. He's not necessarily
like that. You might have some effects, you know, but

(47:06):
he's not like that.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Right.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
But it's the ones that like think they were tough
and gonna stand there.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
I could take it. It's not about taking it, you know.
But everyone can't just move their head and use their eyes.
They gotta use what they had. And then you have
certain ones that just don't want to get hit at all, like,
come on, man, you gotta do something. You mix it
up a little bit, give me something. That's if you've
got good eyes, take more chances. But yeah, so it
really just depends.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
Yeah, you gotta you gotta know who you are, and
that's why you know you gotta as a fighter. The
media who ninety nine point nine percent of them have
never taken a punch, don't know what that feels like.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
Or street fight, school fight, you need to do this.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
This is what sales will look if that's what sales,
I guess I'm not gonna sell then because I'm gonna
do what I was taught to do because when this ends,
I gotta be able to give something back to my family.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
I can't leave it all in here.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Yeah, but it's a beautiful balance, and I think you
had it.

Speaker 4 (47:55):
When you can move, you can use your eyes, you
can use your feet, use your distance, but mix it
up and wait and get in and get out. That's
really the sweet science, right that everyone wished they could do.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
But it's like, you know, being able to give enough.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
Like I just remember when I was boxing, that was
that was like the thing my team always wanted me
box laylah box.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
I like to fight. I like to fight on the inside. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:20):
I like to get on the ropes and all that.
And I didn't have great eyes. You know, they were cool.
It was good was my speed and my power and
my confidence in my movement, you know, but eyes wasn't
really my thing. But I would say that when you
have all of that and it comes together and you
got power to you know. And I think, like I said,

(48:41):
that's what I loved about the way that you fought,
that you struck a nice balance. Fans are always gonna
want to see more. They always gonna want to see blood, right,
you know, it's just like, yeah, that's just not smart.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
My coach put it.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
To me this way, he said, Man, you know Jimmy
was his former trainer and Charlie Smith too old school guy.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
He said, they grew.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Up fighting in the backwoods in different places is and
that you know they call a gun slinging and you
needed to know how to defend yourself and know how
to fight so you could keep making money and not
get hurt because the ref ain't gonna save you. Are
he's a backwood fights, He said, that's the mentality that
they came from. And their whole objective was to get
the fighter home safe to they family. And obviously there's

(49:19):
an entertainment component to it, but you got to know
how to take care of yourself. If you get hurt,
do you know how to survive? You know, all these
all these different things matter. So I think the entertainment
thing is a beautiful thing. But to your point, fighters
better learn how to work your craft and get out
the way as much as you can because there is
a life after boxing, and you just got to accept that.

(49:41):
Absolutely at this twelve thirteen, fourteen year did you did
you understand who your father was and all he had accomplished,
like you've got you knew who that was, who he was?

Speaker 4 (49:50):
Oh yeah by that point, yeah, I'm never I've never
been like people are who are fans of my father
where I know his whole timeline and every single thing,
like you know, like you could say, well when did
he retire, I'd be like, uh, you know, because I
didn't study him like that. His dad just like you
said your kids, I know like who my dad is,
what stood for, what he went through, But when it
comes to like the chronological fights and all that, that's

(50:12):
not I don't even know. I can't remember my own
like that. But you know, I definitely knew who he
was and the main thing what he stood for because
growing up I mentioned going out in public with him
and him having that briefcase and having all the fans,
but he also would take the time to sit us
down for hours and have conversations with us about the

(50:34):
world and about people and sometimes a.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Little into politics.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
And my dad didn't watch sports, that wasn't what was
on the background.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
No, he watched the news and knew what was going
on in the world.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
You know, he had different political you know, leaders from
other countries calling him. Remember I said he ended up
going to freeing postages from Saddam saying when the United
States couldn't do it, and he would say to us,
you know, I stop and I take time with people
and look them in their eye because they're so excited
to see me and it makes them feel special. So
he was very intentional about taking time with people and

(51:08):
being the people's champ and that was important to me
to know, like, no, this is why I do this,
and it sticks with me now, you know, like I'm
very humble.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
I'm confident, but I'm very humble.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
Like if anyone was ever to meet me, I never
act like I'm above anybody else because I don't feel
that I am. And I take time for people, and
you know, people are kind of surprised a lot of times,
like how you doing? You know, I shake hands and
all that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, all that because
that's how my father was. So it's funny to me
when I see certain people and they think they're bigger
than life, and I'm like really, but they just think

(51:41):
that's how you're supposed to act they don't know, they
don't know any better.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
I've always loved that about Ali, and I've tried to
take from that too, you know, even times, because you know,
you don't always feel like being a public vigure. Sometimes
you won't come me in. There's a grocery store all
the time. Leave, I don't want to take a picture.
But I've learned, and I lead mashed. It was that
maybe that person that may be that person's first interaction
and only interactions.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
What's the takeaway gonna be?

Speaker 4 (52:07):
And I can tell you how to get around on
the grocery store though when you need to. I have
all the tricks. Yeah, okay, I got all the tricks.
But when they when you've been made, and that's why
I've been made. Yeah, I will try to get around
and you don't see me, but if you see me,
now I'm gonna have to act a certain way. But yeah,
we all it's just just life. Not everybody wants. Sometimes
you just need to come get this cough medicine for

(52:27):
your baby. Yes you know, but they want to take
a photo. Let me call someone do all that.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
So, but yeah, I'll teach you the ways to get around.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
I appreciate it. I'm gonna add to what I already got.
I just got this is side. No, we don't get
back to get back on track. I just had a
fender bender, a little accident a couple of weeks ago,
so I'm already aware that people are gonna start looking.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
So my car went off to the side. The person
car was behind me and it.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
Was my fault, and I'm kind of like duck down
in my car because I'm like, okay.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Cops are coming up and they were cool.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
But all of a sudden, I see this guy come
out the bank and I could tell how he's moved,
and you know what, person, you're ready to ask you
for a picture or something like that. So I'm like, man,
this dude come. He's like, hey, man, can I get
a picture? And I was on the phone with my interests.
I was like, I don't want to take a picture
right now. I just got in an accident. But it's
stuff like that you gotta deal with. I'm mindful of

(53:16):
my attitude, like am I okay, am I coming off
the wrong way?

Speaker 2 (53:18):
But at the same time, you do gotta protect yourself.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
I found it absolutely absolutely because especially these days, people.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
And that's understandable if he was a go tell anyone.

Speaker 4 (53:27):
Man, I saw andre Ward, he had just had an
accident and I want to ask for a picture.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
He said no, they'd be like what you asked him
for it? Right exactly?

Speaker 2 (53:33):
So that's that.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
But let me get back on track at this age,
you know, fourteen fifteen, Like, what was your view on boxing?

Speaker 2 (53:40):
I know you didn't watch it, but like, did you
did you care for it? Did you feel like?

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Man, that's maybe the reason my dad ain't here, Like,
how was your view on a sport?

Speaker 3 (53:46):
I had no view on boxing? Like, I wasn't into
boxing at all.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Did your father watched boxing? I know he didn't watch
other sports?

Speaker 3 (53:53):
I can't.

Speaker 4 (53:53):
I can never I cannot remember him watching I'm sure
he did, but I know for a fact that my
dad was not a fan of boxing. That is so
interesting where he just watched all the fights. He's like me,
I watched certain fighters. I'm not someone that's just like,
oh there's some boxing on, I'm just gonna turn it on.
I might turn on and see what it is like,
and then there's certain fighters I might I want to watch.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
That's just how And he was the same way. But
I don't.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
I don't remember seeing him actually watching a fight, so
I'm sure he did. But again, remember I was only
living with him, so I don't want to say he didn't.
But it's not like I grew up watching fights with
my dad. I just I'm just trying to paint that.
It wasn't that picture. It wasn't until I saw women
boxing on television for the first time that I actually
was like, oh my god. And I turned on the

(54:40):
TV to watch a Mike Tyson fight. I was like,
you know, Mike Tyson, because you don't even have to
be a big fan of boxing to watch someone like
a Mike Tyson fight. That's a household name. It's an event, right,
So knock somebody out. And then these women come into
the ring on the undercard, And I was like, oh.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
My god, Christy mart You're going through life, you're trying
to figure things out, and you had already been in
juvenile court for a theft and you meet a guy
he talking a big game. You know, yeah, I did
my research. I did my research. And he wants to
take Leila on a shopping spread at the mall. And
you said that, you know, I knew it was a

(55:20):
bit strange, and you know there was no limits to
what I could buy, but whatever, I just want what
I want. And this man actually has stolen a credit card.
Y'all get caught up and you find yourself back before
Judge Roosevelt f was it Doorn? Roosevelt f Doorn, And
he basically told you don't come back to this court room.

(55:41):
If you come back to this courtroom, it's gonna be
a problem. And I think you had one day left
on your probation.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
How do you get caught up? Why? I tell you stupid?
So I told you I was.

Speaker 4 (55:52):
I was wanting to hang with the wrong crowd, fighting
at school, ditching school.

Speaker 3 (55:57):
Bad grades. Hold on, I was just doing what I
wanted to do.

Speaker 4 (56:00):
Like I had no parental supervision, literally, and that's dangerous.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
It's very dangerous.

Speaker 4 (56:06):
Nobody's waking me up, like I said, nobody's telling me
to go to school.

Speaker 3 (56:09):
Nothing.

Speaker 4 (56:10):
I was totally going down the wrong path. So I
was already on probation, getting ready to get off. And
judge Judge Dorn was known in Inglewood like he was
a judge is like he locks people up, right, So
he probably was already thinking, what is this girl doing
here now, mind you. When I got arrested, I went
under the name Anderson. Okay, so I didn't I knew,

(56:30):
don't use my last name, but he knew who I was.
He did, Yeah, yeah, he knew how. I was just like,
but I don't know, I don't know. He didn't tell you, no, No,
he knew though, and you know, he was like, what
is like?

Speaker 3 (56:43):
First of all, what is she here in the first place?
For what is going on?

Speaker 4 (56:45):
So when I came back and got arrested for being
with someone that had stolen credit card and got be
cause the first time I got in trouble was for shoplifting.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
I was with some girls she was stealing. I was like,
I have money in my pocket.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
Okay, I'm still too stupid got caught. And the crazy
thing about it is my attitude is what got me
on probation because when we got caught, my two friends,
including the one who was just always.

Speaker 3 (57:08):
Stealing, always got us doing it. She didn't make me
do it, but you know, she gave me the idea
to do it.

Speaker 4 (57:13):
She's sitting there crying and I'm telling them, what are
you guys crying for?

Speaker 3 (57:17):
We knew what we were doing.

Speaker 4 (57:17):
I'm acting all tough, I'm not afraid. So the officers
are looking at me like, oh, okay, this one right here,
we're gonna show her. So they went home and got
picked up. I got booked, you know, fingerprint photo at
the Beverly Hills jail and then got put on probation
because of my attitude because they felt like I didn't
feel any remorse. But really it wasn't that. It was

(57:40):
just I wasn't gonna show my fear. I was like,
we knew what we were doing. We're gonna cry for now.
But in that situation, come on, girl, show some tears.
You have been able to go home. So but that's
what I needed, though, because I had so many other
things going on in the background, stealing my mom's car,
being disrespectful. I was totally disrespectful at this point in
my mom. I was like, neverna, tell me what to do,

(58:00):
Like I was bad. She tried, yeah, yeah, I was
pretty bad. She tried to send me to a boarding
school school. I was like, you leave me here, I'm
going to be back right back home, and that she
wouldn't get her money back. So she brought me home.
She was like, what do her like my poor mother.
So I didn't come home that day. He was like,

(58:22):
take her, and I just looked back at my mom
and started crying. That's when I became a real kid,
because I was like, all right, telling my friend, ye
had girl, I'm going to court.

Speaker 3 (58:30):
I'll see it tonight at the party.

Speaker 4 (58:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
Who woo wool woop not.

Speaker 4 (58:33):
So they put my hands behind my back. I had
to put on those county clothes and my mom was
crying and she tells me now she of course she
felt bad, but then she was like, this is probably
what she needs.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
So I ended up going and.

Speaker 4 (58:46):
He set my court day for two weeks, and I
was like two weeks, where am I going?

Speaker 3 (58:51):
Where are they taking me?

Speaker 4 (58:52):
It was scary, and you know, you get locked up
two weeks comes he didn't see me. I was just
sitting in the court in the back of the little
jail room, and the whole day went by and they
sent me back. I was like, they'll see you in
another two weeks. I'm like And he did that to
me three more times, so he was making me due
time without actually booking me.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
You think that was intentional, I think, because I'm like.

Speaker 4 (59:15):
Wow, so how you just gonna have me come here
three times. And finally when I came back, Okay, I'm
gonna go home today, he wasn't there. They were like, Judge,
there's another judge. You can wait for Judge Dorn, or
you can let this guy. And I knew I was
either gonna go to a boot camp, which is more
serious than juvenile hall. So I was like, I think
Judge Dorn had a plan for me. I'm just gonna wait.

(59:35):
So then I, on my own chose to go back.
And when I came back, he sent me to a
group home and because he was like, you need therapy,
you know, you need somethings going on with you and
your family. So I had to go to a program
and stay there for a year, and I'm sorry it
was actually six months.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
They said it would be a year, and I was
like a year.

Speaker 4 (59:56):
I can't be here a year because at that point
I had got my nail license, I had my car.
I wanted to get back home. I was like, what
do I need to do to get out of here?
And they were like, well, no one's ever left here
from but.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
Is it possible?

Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
They're like yeah, so what so I just need you
to tell me what I need to do and I'm
gonna do it so and then I was out of
there in six months.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
A part of the requirements was participation, participation in group,
in group every day, you know, and earning home passes,
which took a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
School cleaning, staying on top of things, doing your group
sessions and when you go home work, what are you
going to work on with your mom this weekend?

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
You know?

Speaker 4 (01:00:27):
Come back and then I eventually, you know, graduate the programming.
They were asked me to come back and work there.
By the time I yeah, by the time I had graduated, so.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
That that was six months. During that time, did you
have any communication what I lead?

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Did he know?

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
Yeah, he knew.

Speaker 4 (01:00:40):
He knew when I was locked up, and he knew
all of this. It was everyone was just like, what's
going on with Laila? Because you have to member I'm
the baby, I'm the ghetto one, I'm the bad one.
I'm the one that didn't want to be Musslim.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
What is going on?

Speaker 4 (01:00:54):
I can only imagine the conversations that were had, especially
those ones that weren't that close to me. But I
didn't see anyone or talk to any I was going
through this on my own right, and you know, now
look at me now, so you know, I'm sure it's
kind of like, damn, what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
And you talked about how, you know, hearing those other
stories from those girls, you were like you started to
get the revelation and how good you had.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
It and how bad they had it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
And when you finally did get released, you said, the
raging storm inside me had subsided, perhaps even passed. You said,
by locking me up, he set me free.

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
I needed that because I was really just on the loose,
you know, in terms of just going down the wrong
path and not respecting myself, you know, to be around
certain type of people, not to engage in certain things.
I mean, why was I shoplifting in the first place.
This doesn't make any sense. I can never imagine either

(01:01:50):
of my children now doing any of the things that
I did, and I can understand why. But thank God
for all of the strong in my life, like cause
I along the way. I you know, there was times
when I was staying with a friend, Can I just
come to your house? Like I started going to school
in LA because I got tired of Malibu, and I
was like, I'll take the bus every day and I'd like,

(01:02:10):
talk my mom into that. So that's how I started
going to school in La. And then I was like,
I don't want to come home, so I spend the
night of her friends.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
Can I just give your mom?

Speaker 4 (01:02:17):
Can we just give your mom some money and I
could just stay here. It's been I think about that
because I forget those things. I'm like, I was living
with them for a while and I can't remember how long.
But she had my friend that had single mom. They
weren't doing well, so I'm giving her a few hundred
dollars a week. She Proba was like, sure it helped
her out, you know, but there are so many things

(01:02:38):
like that. But being able to have the opportunity to
be around families that were real families and had that
togetherness in their home showed me what it was supposed
to look like and made me want it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
You know what I'm saying, Yes I did.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
So you get out and you hit the ground running,
start going to school. I mean, the entrepreneurial energy was
on full display. You ended up starting Layla's nail studio,
so you did what you had been envisioning, and everything
is going good with the nail studio, successful building clientele.
And then one night and you talked about this earlier

(01:03:13):
at a friend's house. You're watching Mike Tyson Frank Bruno
in nineteen eighty nine, and something happened while you were
watching that fight.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
Those women before the fight came into the ring, Christy
Martin and Ddre Gagrity. I didn't know either of their
names at the time, but I just remember the whole
world stopping because remember, I'm a fighter. I've been fighting, right,
but I've been fighting, Yeah, I've been fighting, just not sanctioned. Yeah,
And I'm like, and I'm getting in trouble for it.
I was like, women fight, and I'm like, now, I'm like,

(01:03:44):
I'm Muhammad Ali's daughter.

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
I'm a fighter. I didn't know women fought.

Speaker 4 (01:03:48):
I could fight and not get in trouble like it
just looked I just it just looks on ticing to me.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
And I was just like, damn, I bet I could
be good at it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:57):
But at the same time, I went home that night,
you know, dreaming about it, and I remember the first
person to say something but was my friend's father. Girl,
those women to take your head off. You're a pretty girl,
and you're a pretty girl. You can't you can't fight.
You can't fight. And me and my friend looked at
each other like, you don't know, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
She was like, yeah, Layla, do it? Do it? Do it?

Speaker 4 (01:04:17):
So I went home, and of course I talked myself
out of it because I was like, I don't know
the first thing about being a boxer.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
I've never been an athlete.

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
Never participated in sports, yep, never participated in any sports
cause I was too busy being mad different school. You
know sports is organized. Did you play sports growing up?

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
Yeah, okay, so you know your parents.

Speaker 4 (01:04:36):
Yeah, and your parents have to drop you off and
take you to practice and go to the I know
because I do it now. I'm like, oh my god,
I wonder So, yeah, I didn't play sports. I didn't
even do pe because I wasn't there.

Speaker 3 (01:04:46):
I was auditching, you wasn't dressing up. No, So.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
To think about actually doing it though, and then what
will my father think. I don't think he's gonna like this.
And I don't want to be a public person. That
was the biggest feeling. I don't want to be a
public person.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
I told you, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:05:00):
I'm like So that was the turmoil inside of myself.
So a whole year went by until I actually was like,
I'm gonna try this. And I remember client and mine
was like, oh, I go to a boxing gym. And
I didn't know at the time. She's talking about boxing aerobics, right,
But I.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
Was like, oh, okay. She's like it's called La box.
She's like, no, no, there's like boxers there. I was like, okay.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
So I went down there and I met a guy
named Kevin Morgan who had been in the game for
a long time. He's just one of those guys that trains,
you know, the fighters that don't really have a name,
usually the opponents.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
And I was like, yeah, I want a box just
to lose weight.

Speaker 4 (01:05:31):
I didn't say that I was actually thinking about boxing,
and because I wanted to make sure that this is
what I really wanted to do, that I could, you know,
be committed to it and wasn't gonna embarrass myself, wasn't
gonambarrass my father. So I started training every night. I
used to come in the gym eight o'clock after school
and work and train and Kevin and give him a
ride home and give him a little money. And he

(01:05:52):
was like, damn, you can punch. Yeah, Because I remember
the first time, you know, we got in there.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
You know what I'm saying. He was like he saw ours,
like damn like.

Speaker 4 (01:06:01):
So, and you know, people get excited once you see
somebody athletic that can punch.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
And then it finally got around because I started sparring.

Speaker 4 (01:06:10):
Okay, maybe she's serious, maybe she's really trying to you know,
he knew who you were.

Speaker 3 (01:06:15):
He knew, yeah, at this point he knew.

Speaker 4 (01:06:17):
But it was kind of like I was naive and thinking,
don't tell anybody. But but it got around and then
I sparred with a guy and dropped him the first time.
And I still see him sometimes. You know, he always
acts like he don't remember. He don't he doesn't acknowledge,
he doesn't acknowledge. It's it's funny because it's a guy.
I'm not gonna say any names, but it's a guy
like a reporter in boxing. But he was trying to

(01:06:39):
work out a little bit. But you know, he's a
smaller guy than me, so and he wasn't professional and
I can punch, so I dropped him. I dropped him
right hand, and you know that that green strength, like
I do everything I had, and he was on the
on the canvas and you don't remember that he knows,
but he's acknowledged it. No, no, no, no, it's kind
of like he like he'll walk my app and he don't.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
See me like that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
Man, it wasn't like that.

Speaker 4 (01:07:02):
So yeah, I never told I never would say it was.
But that's when everyone was like, oh that's real. Okay,
she's That's when it got around like she must be
trying to do something.

Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
And then it got around to my dad, is this right?

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
I got nineteen eighty nine when you saw that fight
and you didn't have your first pro fight TI ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
Nine was a team October ninety nine.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
Wow, okay, So I want to make sure I had
that right. So you're doing the training little by little
and before you turn pro. You eventually finally talked to
your father.

Speaker 3 (01:07:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:07:28):
My dad came to me and said, you know, I
hear you're boxing because I got around and I was like, yeah,
I am, and he said he basically tried to talk
me out of it. Indirectly he knew me. He's like,
he can't just say just come out and say don't
do it, so he tried his universe psychology. You know
how hard this is gonna be. I was like, yeah, absolutely,
I know. I thought about it. And it's like the

(01:07:49):
same way as with my kids now. A child, they
think they know and they don't. So I'm like, he's like,
there's no way she could know. So I'm like, Dad,
I thought this through. This is what I'm gonna do. Well,
what if you get knocked down? It's like they're gon
be lights on you. He's trying to build the picture, like,
do you understand it's not like the gym, like the
pressure that's gonna be on You're gonna be walking to
the ring. It's gonna be all these lights. My dad
was good at like drawing, painting picture of scenes and yes,

(01:08:13):
all that, And I said, I know. He said, what
you're gonna do if you get knocked down? I was like,
I'm gonna get back up, just like you did. So
he was just like and I can see his hands
starting to shake and then getting really upset, and he
just was, I don't want you to do it. And
he said it's not for you, it's not for women.
It's a man's sport. And I don't I don't support it. Wow,
And I kind of expected he was gonna say that

(01:08:33):
and I just said, you know, I respect that, dad,
but I'm doing it anyway. I've already made my mind up,
and I said, you don't have to you don't have
to support it, you know. I'm telling him, like, I'm
letting him know if you don't want to support support
it publicly. I'm okay with that because I don't expect
you to lie and act like you'd like it, like,
because you have to have these talks, these behind the
scenes talks. And I'm having this talk with the greatest

(01:08:55):
of all time who just told me, don't fight.

Speaker 3 (01:08:59):
It's not for you. It's not even you know.

Speaker 4 (01:09:02):
I'm as a man and as a as a fighter,
I'm listening to that, not just as my dad. And
he's telling me as his daughter, I don't want you
to do it. But at the moment, none of that
meant anything to me, because I was expected that he
didn't know, he didn't know anything about women's boxing, he
didn't know he was on a part of my training.

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
But none of that. Man, he didn't want to see
me get hurt. I'm his baby girl.

Speaker 4 (01:09:22):
Nobody wants see their baby and grimy Jim, So it's
understandable why he said all of that, and he did
come back to me and apologize at a certain point
he said, you know, I was wrong. And this is
after I got like my first world title, but he
said I was wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
I'm sorry. I apologize.

Speaker 4 (01:09:37):
Yeah, he's like, and we cried and we hugged. He
said I was wrong. You know you can fight, and
he was like he started crying. He's like, you move
like me, and you just like me. Yeah, And of
course I started crying because I had told myself, I
don't care what he thinks, because you have to. You
have to put it on your armor. I had to
go fight. I couldn't worry about it was my dad
going to be in the audience anytime I thought. I
couldn't worry about who was coming, who was.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
Going to be there, what he was gonna say publicly.

Speaker 4 (01:10:01):
I couldn't worry about any of that. I had to just,
you know, focus on me and getting in that ring.
And that's what I did. I put my blinders on,
and then I see him after it's like, hey, hey dad.
But I never used to worry about cause he did.
He was sick too, and he couldn't be everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
That took a lot of courage, a lot of courage
to jump in the game that late, and and Ali
being your father. I mean, nobody, nobody who's ever fought
knows what that feel like.

Speaker 4 (01:10:25):
Yeah, and not only that, just doing everything under the lights.
You know, people get to the point where you're dreaming
about having a belt, dreaming about having a name, dreaming
about being the champ. You know, nobody's watching you though.
People been watching me since day one. People been I
mean I remember when I first started and it became
public that I was fighting. Every female fighter that was

(01:10:45):
in anywhere near my weight class was dreaming about fighting me,
how she was gonna whoop my ass and and finally
get some attention for herself, which made it fun.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
W w whaten me getting a movie? Cause this this
movie stuff, this Hollywood stuff. It should be on a
big screen.

Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
I know what's coming.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
So you had your pro debut October eight, nineteen ninety nine,
and it lasted fifty seconds or something like that, and
you wasn't happy about it, and here comes the media
talking about all this is a side show. And then
she didn't fight nobody. You weren't happy about that. Now
you wanted some competition, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:11:18):
So the girl that I fought wasn't a competitive fight.
I thought a girl. Her name was April Fowler. She
was oh and one, she had one fight more than
I had. And I didn't know who I was fighting
because at the time, my ex husband was my promoter
and he was a fighter.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
He had been a world champion at one point.

Speaker 4 (01:11:37):
And I can say I'm gonna do this, this, that
and the other, but he was like, what's she gonna
do when she gets in that ring and.

Speaker 3 (01:11:42):
Those lights are on.

Speaker 4 (01:11:43):
This is her first fight ever, so I'm gonna make
sure I put her in there with someone who cannot
possibly beat her. I didn't know this. I was in
there like training for war, you know. I had been
sparring mindset. Yeah, and I'm like, okay, she's oh and one.
She lost her her first and only fight. But then
when I saw the girl at the weigh in, I
was just like, this girl got muffin top. You can't come.

(01:12:07):
You cannot come to fight me. You cannot. I have
a saying about that now. Even when I see fighters
or athletes, especially fighters because I was my sport, that
don't look like they have their nutrition right, aren't trained right,
because if you're working hard and doing what you're supposed
to show, you're gonna look at a certain way. You
need to be lean. Okay, I need to see all

(01:12:28):
those muscles. I don't want to see hips. But none
of that on girls. I didn't have this.

Speaker 3 (01:12:33):
When I was fighting.

Speaker 4 (01:12:34):
So my thing is I was just like, oh no,
but I still was like, Oh, she really gonna get
it coming like that, and you think you gonna beat me?
So anyway, long story short, Yeah, it was. You know,
a girl was just like fighting like this and I'm like,
you know, using my jab and then as soon as
I hit her with the right hand, hard right hand,
she drops. And I was just mad because I was

(01:12:56):
just like, it's over so fast.

Speaker 3 (01:12:58):
You're ready for war and you're in the zone, trained
all that long for that. Yeah, there's a.

Speaker 4 (01:13:01):
Photo of me and I'm like, I don't even look happy,
but I didn't. I wasn't happy after many of my fights,
and we could talk about that, but I got over it.
But what I did walk away with was I want
the knockout. I was like, I like going home early.
So in my fights, I was trying to stop you
you know, and that's a choice, you know, that like,
you don't have to you can, you can just box

(01:13:23):
and play it safe. I would definitely take chances. Yeah,
and I had a few fights and didn't stop and knockout.
But ever since that time, I always was trying to
get them.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):
Yeah that after the fights, you start hearing some of
the whispers, you see the headlines, and you said, I
soon saw that the press would always be negative. They
courted me because I was news. They'd liked my celebrity
name and said I was pretty, but they resented me.
You said, like a two faced friend. The press loves
and hates with equal passion. I thought that was heavy

(01:13:53):
but so true.

Speaker 3 (01:13:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:13:55):
Absolutely, And you know, at the end of the day,
like I said, I I'm so honest to a fault that,
like I said, I can look back now and be like, yeah,
she was we called a bum back then, but it
was an evenly matched fight and I was that much
better and I can punch you see what I'm saying.

(01:14:15):
So that was going to happen eventually. But I think
that because people were waiting for that moment, you know,
and they didn't know anything about women's box and the
girl I'm telling you she could not fight nothing like
she could not fight.

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
I was just like wow.

Speaker 4 (01:14:27):
But it was hard though, because in women's boxing coming up,
you had people who there was just it was hard
to find something in the middle and at my weight
at one sixty eight, it was the least amount of talent.
And you find a lot of times in the lower
weight classes. I think in men's and you know, women's
boxing that you find more talent in terms of people

(01:14:50):
throwing more punches, having to do more when they don't
have as much power. So like one thirty five, one
forty five, that was like a great you know range
for women.

Speaker 3 (01:15:00):
They had a lot of competition. Me. I was always like, damn,
who am I gonna fight?

Speaker 4 (01:15:04):
And had to go look and look at their record
and you know, someone who actually could give me a
good fight. Because a lot of the girls didn't need
to be one sixty eight, they really need to diet down.
There was only a handful of girls that were really
like a real strong one sixty eight, and that's that
was like, no, that was so boring to me to
get in there with some soft thing. That's like, this
is no fun. Give me somebody who could fight men.

(01:15:25):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:15:26):
I would look forward to it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
Yeah, so you're not only hearing these things from the media,
but you said you also started experiencing and seeing the
resentment from the other women.

Speaker 3 (01:15:34):
Oh yeah, it's Ali's daughter.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
Oh yeah, Like what type of things did you hear?
Type of things did you encounter at the time.

Speaker 4 (01:15:40):
Well, I was getting all the attention that they wanted
and didn't get. It's natural that people would be upset,
you know. Then they've been working all this time, and
you know they feel like I was getting all the attention.
They couldn't wait to fight me. Everybody fought me ten
times harder. I was doing my research as well, but
there was the girls I was learning. I had just
been introduced to the world of women's boxing, so there

(01:16:03):
was like the Women's Boxing Network, the Sue Fox has
been doing for years, that's where you would go for
women's boxing. So I'd be looking at girls like Bridget
Baby Doll, Riley and Kim Messer and Chavelle Hallback and
you know, Alicia Ashley and all these girls who could
fight Layla McCarter, you know, and they were like doing
their thing, and I was like Wow. Then I came
across Anne Wolf and I was like, let me look

(01:16:24):
at the girls in my weight class, and I was like, oh, okay,
you know this is who I would eventually fight, and
Valory my Food and Susie Taylor and all these names.
I'm watching them because I want belts. But I knew
I had to work my way up to that point.
But at the time, these girls start talking about me,
and you know, she ain't nothing, and she this and
she that, and I'm keeping I'm remember I'm writing it

(01:16:45):
all down because when I get a chance to actually
face you, I'm gonna remember that because I like to
have that be on edge. I like to, you know,
feel some kind of way about you because it makes me,
you know, it turns me on my fire because sometime
when I look at someone, I'm like, this is gonna
be easy.

Speaker 3 (01:17:02):
I need something. I need you to give me something.

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
I understand the talk trust me, like I it's something
in me. Like when you when you start talking like this,
I start getting that that thing that fire starts to
start to reccause I understand it.

Speaker 3 (01:17:15):
Yeah, And I guess what we get to get in
the ring.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:17:18):
What I don't like is when we have back and
forth and we.

Speaker 4 (01:17:21):
Don't get to settle it right, because as fighters, we
get to settle it. So you say what you want
to say, right, but you're gonna have to back all
that up.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
That's what I always loved about boxing.

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):
Oh he's saying it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
Did you see what your opponent said?

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
We have a date that set and we're gonna show
and tell for the whole world. Somebody gonna be wrong,
somebody gonna be right.

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
Say whatever you want to say.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
So you fuck Jackie Frasier.

Speaker 1 (01:17:41):
And this was the first women's main event on the
pay per view card, and she was chirping a lot,
But did you think she really could do anything with you?

Speaker 4 (01:17:49):
So Jackie was inspired by my career to start fighting.
I didn't take her seriously because she was always running
her mouth loud, and then at the time it was
because person only, I was still trying to prove I
was serious. So I felt like she was taking away,
making it like a circus. This is what I felt. Ok, yeah,
and I'm like so I was irritated by her, But

(01:18:12):
she kept fighting, she kept fighting, she was winning, and
then came a time where it was time for us
to fight. I could make some money. It just made
sense to do I was like, she's not a champion.
I don't take her serious. And I remember excepting like, no,
you're gonna have this fight, and I was like, ok yes,
Oli Frasier. So I did not take her seriously. I
was like, I'm gonna knock her out because she's kind
of wild.

Speaker 3 (01:18:31):
You know. She wasn't as refined as me. And I'm
still learning.

Speaker 4 (01:18:33):
Mind, you were talking about someone who didn't have any
amateur fights.

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:18:37):
You could see that I could fight.

Speaker 4 (01:18:39):
I had the raw natural skill and all that, but
you know there's levels to it, right, so I'm at
a very low level still, but you see qualities. But
she was kind of more wild, and I was just
kind of like, okay, but that's even harder to fight.

Speaker 2 (01:18:51):
It is.

Speaker 3 (01:18:51):
It's harder to fight.

Speaker 4 (01:18:52):
Especially when you haven't really established your jab like it
needs to be. It wasn't really where it needed to
be any of that. And I was fighting too much,
you know, I wasn't disciplined enough to box. So it
was a scrap and I got the flu.

Speaker 3 (01:19:07):
I got the before the fight. I got the flu.

Speaker 4 (01:19:09):
But I but because I thought it was gonna be easy,
and because it was our promotion, our husbands. I was like,
I'm not backing out. Get her out of there in
three rounds.

Speaker 3 (01:19:18):
Man. By the third round, I was exhausted.

Speaker 4 (01:19:21):
I did not sit down if anyone was to watch,
but I didn't sit down because I was like, if
I sit down, my legs were so weak. I had
no power. It was literally like I have to keep going.
I have to keep going, but my punches didn't have any.

Speaker 3 (01:19:31):
Power on them. And yeah, after the third round, I
tried to stop her.

Speaker 4 (01:19:35):
She spit her mouth piece out and next thing I knew,
I was like, that's all I had. So I mean,
I kept going, but that's the I tried to put
that power on her, but then I didn't have anymore,
so I went the distance.

Speaker 3 (01:19:45):
Yeah, but I won.

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
But you ended up beating Jackie and in your sixteenth
But how did you end up in the ring with
the woman that inspired you to fight Christie Mark?

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
How did that happen?

Speaker 3 (01:19:53):
Well, Christie started calling me out.

Speaker 4 (01:19:55):
Christy started calling me out, and that's what I said, God, don't,
oh my god, because I had been called out a
couple of times. Holly hol called me out back, and
I was like, what are these little bro's trying to
call me, yeah, like she's too small, so Christie, yes,
you know. But Christie, on the other hand, I was
ignoring her for a while and then somebody put some
money on the table and then the public started saying

(01:20:17):
they thought she could do something, and I'm like what,
So I.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
Came down, she came up.

Speaker 4 (01:20:22):
She probably I think she waighed in fully clothed, had
stuff in her pockets because she I know that she
didn't have a respect level for me, Like she really
thought she could beat me because Christie is tough and
Christy Christy can punch, but not not for my weight.
Because she hit me with one of her hardest right hand.
I was like, damn, but it was final. It was

(01:20:43):
kind of made me want to smile, like damn, you
can punch girl, like like for your side.

Speaker 3 (01:20:47):
But then of.

Speaker 4 (01:20:48):
Course I kept going at her and she lasted. I think,
what what what around? Did I stop her in like
four or five or something like that. But anyway, she
was tough. She was tough, and she took a knee
like I didn't just knock her out like and I
think it was coming. But her corner, now I know,
told her to stay down. That's what she says. Yeah,

(01:21:08):
but me and Christy are cool now, yeah, yeah know,
we're cool. We have a certain respect for each other.

Speaker 1 (01:21:13):
Well, I know you've been asked this a gazillion times,
but the short version, like why did the Anne Will
fight didn't didn't take place. I mean it was talked about.
You have your views, she has her Why did that
fight happen?

Speaker 4 (01:21:26):
I have lost so much sleep over that because no, literally,
I wanted to fight her so bad. When I say
so bad, because the you're only as good as the
people you fight. Why a is there two fighters that
are great fighters that never fought each other. Why didn't
my weight class all the top fighters didn't fight each other.

Speaker 3 (01:21:46):
You had three, you have four of us.

Speaker 4 (01:21:48):
You have me, you had Anne, you had Latitia Robinson
was a good fighter. I wanted to fight her. She
had an amateur career, she could box. Then there was
Natasha Rogasina. So none of us have fought each other. Okay,
of course everyone says it's me, but usually if it's me,
you guys will be fighting each other. Right, But it's
a thing with these women like you gotta step up. Okay,

(01:22:11):
step up. You're not gonna be able to just I'm
the best, I'm the best and don't fight each other.

Speaker 3 (01:22:17):
But the long and short of it is Anne finally.

Speaker 4 (01:22:19):
Said it herself when she did an interview, because we
actually were finally going to fight. She was on the
undercard of Who Was It? When I fought Christy? She
fought Value My Food. We put her on the undercard
because that was going to be the lead up to
our fight. I'm not going to put you on the
undercard not to fight you. Then she pulled out after that,

(01:22:40):
wanted more money, and then she did an interview on
ESPN where she finally said they were trying to pay
me x amount of dollars. It wasn't enough money. I said,
thank you. Can you finally just say why haven't we fought?
It's not me So I wanted that fight so bad.
I actually after I had I know it would have
been a great fight. It would have been a great fight.
I want to see great fighter. It doesn't make any

(01:23:01):
sense that it didn't happen.

Speaker 3 (01:23:02):
It's like that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
Sometimes you had a great career and you eventually retired
February second, Well, your last fight was February second, two
thousand and seven. Finished your career at twenty four and oh,
with twenty one knockouts and you never fought again?

Speaker 2 (01:23:15):
Why then why retire?

Speaker 3 (01:23:17):
Then? It wasn't anything left.

Speaker 4 (01:23:19):
I literally started to say earlier, I had so much
frustration in my boxing career because I feel very unfulfilled
because I didn't get to fight the best fights, okay,
and I have to deal with the public saying as
me and I am so not no punk, we don't
never that is the worst thing you could say about me,

(01:23:41):
because my character is so important to me, Like I
I will take a whooping or get knocked out before
I be a punk to just not face somebody like
in a sport, you know what I'm saying. And that
was the thing for me that made it hard, like
to be training at an elite level, okay, with Roger Maywhe,
Floyd Mayweather, Buddy McGirt, people like that, Okay, and have

(01:24:05):
to face people who I'm like, it's like a football
a pro team facing a high school team.

Speaker 3 (01:24:10):
So what I beat her?

Speaker 4 (01:24:11):
So it's like a lot of times I would go
into these fights like man, because you have to defend
your titles.

Speaker 3 (01:24:16):
Yeah, So I'm like, I'm.

Speaker 4 (01:24:17):
Always I've had girls that I've called I remember I
fought a Madison Square garden once and I was trying
to get this girl named Jomah Bujani and she was
like ten and one.

Speaker 3 (01:24:25):
She was tall, and.

Speaker 4 (01:24:26):
I was like she'd be great. She wouldn't she wouldn't
take the fight. She I called her, I was like,
can you please, She's like the sanctioning.

Speaker 3 (01:24:34):
Fees or to I'll pay your sanctioned fees. And then
she comes to the fight.

Speaker 4 (01:24:37):
After the fight at the press conference and starts complaining
saying that you know, they tried to do X Y
and Z.

Speaker 3 (01:24:43):
I said.

Speaker 4 (01:24:43):
I got so mad. I mean, I was cussing because
I was like, this is what I've been dealing with.
Now You're gonna come here and say like I wouldn't
give you an opportunity when I did, I not call
you and offer to pay your thanking fee?

Speaker 3 (01:24:53):
She said yeah. My husband was like if I were her,
I'd been like, no, like who what fighter does that?
But it's me, you know. So that was up what
I was dealing with.

Speaker 4 (01:25:00):
Andre And I was just like, how am I gonna
keep fighting when there's no girls left to fight?

Speaker 3 (01:25:06):
You know?

Speaker 4 (01:25:06):
And to keep training? And I want to start a family.
I met Curtis, I was ready to settle down. I
couldn't and you know, like you said, keep fighting for
what you know, I was ready to just kind of
start doing other things.

Speaker 1 (01:25:18):
And you made a phenomenal transition. Phenomenal and it's something
that needs to be studied and looked at because you know,
again we talked about this before the camera's turned on,
about how your boxing career is getting further and further
in the rear view mirror, the further you go with
all the different things that you got involved, and it's like,
that's what I that's what people fighters and athletes should

(01:25:39):
aspire to do. We loved the sports part, but that
was just a part of my life, you know, And
I just appreciate the example you've been and you've taken
that same tenacity, that same drive, that same focus and
build some other things. So a quick one, though, what's
been the hardest part of retiring? I know that the
competition wasn't there, But what's hard about walking away from
something like that?

Speaker 4 (01:26:00):
What's hard about it is doing something you love, putting
your all into it. Because I loved boxing, like I
was that fighter who was always in the gym even
when it wasn't a fight.

Speaker 3 (01:26:12):
You know, I moved.

Speaker 4 (01:26:13):
I moved to Las Vegas a train with Roger Mayweather.
You know, I was always trying to better myself, you know,
and knowing that this is gonna be a legacy, regardless
of what people think of me, what boxing fans think,
who believe the drama and the noise, this is gonna
go down in history books. So I don't want to
have any regrets. But I can't make people fight me.

(01:26:35):
I can't make people, you know, be honest, I can't
do any of that.

Speaker 3 (01:26:39):
So I was just like I had to just let go.
So it didn't feel good leaving.

Speaker 4 (01:26:43):
It didn't feel, you know, like I had accomplished anything,
and the belts were never super important to me.

Speaker 3 (01:26:48):
I think I even have five titles.

Speaker 4 (01:26:49):
I always said I have four because I have wonted
light heavyweight, but the four at the super middleweight. But
I'm just saying because it's like, who did you win
the titles from? Who did you defend them against. I
went into the sport to be undefeated. I never was
like I need to be the best because it's a.

Speaker 3 (01:27:06):
Matter of opinion.

Speaker 4 (01:27:08):
What I have control over is being undefeated. I have
control over making sure I don't lose. That's a possibility.
You know, there's always going to be someone who's gonna
come behind you, gonna build up on the game, and
someone's gonna think is better or whatever the case may be.
So I don't really care about public opinion when it
comes to that. Only public opinion I care about is
when it comes to my character, you know, because I'm

(01:27:30):
absolutely one of those people who always wanted to face
the best, and unfortunately I was in a weight class
that there just wasn't.

Speaker 3 (01:27:36):
A whole lot.

Speaker 4 (01:27:37):
There just wasn't a whole lot to choose from, so
I came to sand still. So it wasn't fun. It
was it didn't feel good leaving the way that I
had to leave. But what can I do? You CA
have to let go because that's too much weight to care.

Speaker 2 (01:27:48):
That's right, man. Muhammad Ali.

Speaker 1 (01:27:50):
On June third, twenty sixteen, at seventy four years old,
after valiantly battling Parkinson's for thirty five years, he passed away.
How did his death affect you in a few years
after and then even to this day, like, how.

Speaker 3 (01:28:06):
Have you what's the impact?

Speaker 4 (01:28:07):
I was prepared and because I watched my father struggle
for so many years where Parkinson's will take away your
motor skills, can't talk, you know, I mean, can't eat.

Speaker 3 (01:28:16):
By himself, not using the bathroom by himself.

Speaker 4 (01:28:19):
So I more felt that he was free, Okay, when
he passed away, he was free to be himself again,
you know, in heaven, wherever that may be. And you know,
of course we're all gonna miss him, We're all gonna
be sad, but I felt like, you know, he was
going to be in a happier place.

Speaker 2 (01:28:38):
How did you feel just seeing that, the outpouring of love.

Speaker 3 (01:28:41):
Oh man, it was expected.

Speaker 4 (01:28:43):
It was expected that my father would get that love,
and he expected it Moore he passed away, he was like, look,
we need to have the funeral. It was all planned
at a place big enough for all the people that
want to come.

Speaker 3 (01:28:54):
He want to make sure. He talked about that. Oh
yeah he had. It was a book that's thick, it planned.
Oh yeah about it. Funeral. Yeah, I need to be look,
I need I need.

Speaker 4 (01:29:04):
It needs to be like an arena, yeah, absolutely, Like
everybody's gonna want to come, so we need space.

Speaker 1 (01:29:11):
They still couldn't fit. Wow, he was a funny man. Oh,
for goodness, I never would have thought about that. You've
always had a heart for the younger generation, and you
do a lot that people don't see. You have conversations
that people are unaware of. And I'm asking because I

(01:29:31):
love seeing the older generation connect with the younger generation.
I hate, and I'm gonna use that word, I hate
when I see the disconnect between generations.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
The older generation they hating.

Speaker 1 (01:29:41):
They don't understand, they don't It's like, bro, I didn't
been where you're going. I don't like when the older
generation are so disconnected from the younger generation that they
just don't even try.

Speaker 2 (01:29:52):
But it is tricky because it's two different errors, two
different mindsets. You and Claressa Shields.

Speaker 1 (01:29:58):
And I talked to her yesterday and kind of got
an idea of what her perspective of the situation happened.
But man, y'all seem to have started off good, and
if something went awry, what happened with you and Claressa?

Speaker 4 (01:30:11):
You know, I think that, like you said, I'm somebody
that is open to being connected in terms of giving
people advice when they come to me for it. Clarissa
was one of those people who reached out to me
when she I think it was after she.

Speaker 3 (01:30:27):
Won the Olympics.

Speaker 4 (01:30:28):
The first time I commentated the Olympics, I was aware
of who she was. She reached out to me somehow
and asked me advice about should she go to the
Olympics again, should she go pro? And I remember telling
her like, there ain't nothing in one sixty eight, you
know what I'm saying. Like she she told me she
was doing good in school. I asked her about herself.
She was really smart, you know. I said I would
I would do the Olympics again, and then I would

(01:30:50):
go to school and do something else. Like I'm thinking
she's gonna use the Olympics and catapult into something else,
you know what I'm saying. But cause I was like
at one sixty eight, there's nothing in the pros. In
the pros, I said, you ain't gonna make no real
money there. I said, but if you do go pro,
go down. I had a lengthy conversation about that, because

(01:31:11):
you go down to like fifty eight forty seven. Because
I'm looking at her and I told her, I said,
you can do it if you die down, if you
get a nutritionist. I'm looking at your body, I said,
because when I was when I was one sixty eight.
I was a lean one sixty eight. I couldn't get
any small and I'm two hundred pounds right now, Andre,
So I'm saying I'm a big girl. People don't realize,
like physically, I got big hands, I got big feet.

Speaker 3 (01:31:31):
I'm big.

Speaker 4 (01:31:32):
So I was telling her, you're not big like me,
so you can come down. So that was my advice
to her, and then we stayed in touch. You know,
she would hit me before her fights, and I just
remember going and promoting a cookbook and going my cookbook
and going on the breakfast club, and you asked me

(01:31:53):
what happened, and they asked me about Carissa like they
asked about women's boxing. I said nice things about her,
like I always did, and then they ended up asking
me would I ever come back?

Speaker 3 (01:32:02):
And I said there's no reason to.

Speaker 4 (01:32:05):
I said, I don't see anybody there that inspires me
to want to come back. I was like, there's so
much I would have to stop doing. You know that
I would have to do. So I guess, well, I
know that she heard that and took offense to it,
and then next thing I know, she's on YouTube saying
Leila leaves on you know, she said it out of

(01:32:26):
her own mouth, like she heard me say, there was
nobody that she was inspired by that she felt could
give her competition, I feel some kind of way. So
then she started calling me out, and I was like, wow.
So first thing, I thought, because I'm the type of
person I would just pick up the phone like you
would think she'd pick.

Speaker 3 (01:32:40):
Up the phone.

Speaker 4 (01:32:40):
But I know this newer generation, like you said, it
is different. But now you took it public. And she
was always the one calling me anyway, So I wasn't
about to call her and say, hey, what's going on.

Speaker 3 (01:32:50):
I was just like, okay, that's where she decided to
go with it.

Speaker 4 (01:32:53):
So then, of course, now you know the public is
they're going to exasperate it and then the next.

Speaker 3 (01:32:59):
Time I do another in of you.

Speaker 4 (01:33:00):
At that point, she had already you know, talked about me,
and she started putting stuff on her social media page.
She ain't never fought nobody, She never you know, she
basically was trying to degrade my legacy and everything that
I had done. And I was like, oh, okay, wow,
that's all that. You crossing the line. Now you can
think you can beat me.

Speaker 2 (01:33:20):
See the look in your eye that's what you going there.

Speaker 4 (01:33:22):
I'm just saying you can think that, right, that's fine,
you're supposed to think that, Yeah, of course, But to
start going in on my legacy and what I have
and haven't done and all these all these things, I
was like, Wow, that's a lot, you know. So that's
kind of what happened.

Speaker 3 (01:33:39):
I think that.

Speaker 4 (01:33:41):
Fans don't like it because fans are like, man, we
love both of y'all.

Speaker 3 (01:33:46):
You know, why why does it have to be this way?

Speaker 4 (01:33:48):
So again, that's that's pretty much how it happened, and
that for me is like there's just certain things that
that are not okay with me.

Speaker 3 (01:33:54):
It's hard to come back from. And again, I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:33:58):
Have any hard feelings against Clarissa in general, because I
got a lot going on over here. You already know
to be worried about any of these young girls like that.
But at the same time, I see that she gets
into it with a lot of people. She gets into
it with a lot of female fighters, she gets into
it with male fighters, so obviously that's a thing for her.

(01:34:19):
Hopefully she'll figure that out, because you're not gonna get
very far in this life if you continue burning bridges
and even though she's not someone that I consider a friend.
Hopefully that's some advice that she would take, because you're
gonna see a lot of people surpass you, even though
you're talented, even though you can say, oh, I won
all these belts and I went to the Olympics, I
did X, Y and Z. So never think too big

(01:34:42):
of yourself, right because there's always going to be somebody.
You gotta really watch your character. You gotta stay humble,
and you know, hopefully you don't burn so many bridges
along the way, you don't come back from it because
you want to use these opportunities right now when you
have it.

Speaker 3 (01:34:56):
It's great that you're doing all these things.

Speaker 4 (01:34:58):
And you want to be a role model too those
coming behind you course, and you want the fans to
like it. You want to be a likable person, you know.
I know there's a movie coming out on her, which
is great. She's been through so much, you know, but
guess what a lot of us have. So it's no excuse.
We need to do better. And to me, it's really important.
It's really important how I carry myself. It's really important

(01:35:21):
how I represent myself, I represent women, how I represent
Black women, how I represent fighters, how I represent my father,
how I represent myself, how I'm a woman, I mean
a mother or wife. I don't have time to be
over here going back and forth with somebody over and
no bs. So you know, like I was hesitant to
even talk to you about it because we already know people.

Speaker 3 (01:35:38):
Grab on to that. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (01:35:40):
This isn't about who can win, who can fight. You know,
Clarissa knows I offered her sparring. She knows, she knows
she didn't want to spar with me. That would have
been the moment to whoop me. That would have been
the moment because we know we would have had our
social media. That'd have been your moment to do your thing.
So we don't want to hear nothing else about it now,
no more, you know, because there's so many more opportunities

(01:36:01):
out there, you know, but you just got to go
about them the right way.

Speaker 2 (01:36:04):
Is there a way back for y'all?

Speaker 4 (01:36:06):
I can't be a negative person and ever say that
there's not a way back. You never want to have
an enemy, especially someone in the sport, especially two people
can have an impact. There's so many people who can
relate to Clarissa her story where she came from, that can.

Speaker 3 (01:36:19):
Never relate to me.

Speaker 4 (01:36:21):
So whoever it is that you can relate to that
can inspire you, that's wonderful, that's great.

Speaker 3 (01:36:26):
But like I said, it's really.

Speaker 4 (01:36:28):
Hard to come back from someone trying to diminish your
legacy and you know it doesn't It's not going to
just happen by just you know, squashing it. Like if
you felt some kind of way that hurt your feelings
or hurts you deeply, and you and you and you
want to, you know, come back to me and talk
it through that. I'm have to know where you were
coming from. It definitely ain't gonna just be like we

(01:36:48):
just gonna forget about it. I'm not saying someone has
to be like sorry, Leyla, but come on, you know
this all started because of an interview. You heard me
say something, and you assume I'm jealous of you. It's like,
you know, you gotta take the blinders off.

Speaker 1 (01:37:01):
Well, I'm hoping that one day y'all can have a
meeting of the minds and have a conversation because y'all,
y'all have different upbringings and lifestyles, but y'all got some
overlap too.

Speaker 2 (01:37:11):
Y'all both have had troublesome times.

Speaker 1 (01:37:13):
I had to fight through some things, different roads, but
trouble and it needs to be a lot of perseverance
along the way.

Speaker 3 (01:37:19):
And so you yes, So that means nothing to me.

Speaker 1 (01:37:22):
And I'm not saying as an excuse.

Speaker 4 (01:37:26):
So many different people on that level, so so that's
not but I got where you were trying.

Speaker 1 (01:37:29):
But I'm saying doctor Phil here, doctor Dre, But no,
this is how I'm sorry. So I'm gonna hold out
hope because I do see the overlap and I do
see two young ladies that came from different but difficult backgrounds,
and y'all have made tremendous names for yourselves. And so

(01:37:50):
I'm gonna hold out hope one day keep that hope alive.
Yes I will, and I'm gonna ask only the details.
But was a potential fight with y'all?

Speaker 2 (01:37:58):
Was that real?

Speaker 4 (01:37:59):
I think think that when I said that I'd be
willing to fight for the right amount of money, I
definitely got some phone calls. And if that money would
have came about back then, not now, well, I'm hoping.

Speaker 1 (01:38:11):
For peace, So I'm a leader right there. What's next
for Laila? Ali, what can we be looking out for?

Speaker 4 (01:38:16):
I Well, I mentioned I'm going to be back doing
some TV. I took some time away. I moved from
California to Georgia and been focusing on my brands. I'm
gonna get ready to do some more TV in the
food space, you know, like I told you, strategic for me.

Speaker 3 (01:38:28):
I got my Laylalli Spice Blenches. It was my brand.

Speaker 2 (01:38:30):
Always appreciate the spices, by the way, Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:38:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:38:33):
I'm always trying to, you know, use whatever platform I
can to keep that going, and just really keeping family first,
keeping God first, like I said, and just navigating this world.

Speaker 3 (01:38:44):
It's a lot going on out here.

Speaker 4 (01:38:45):
But I mean I look at the big picture of
things and just you know, how I want to leave
this world when I'm when I'm gone, and the legacy
that I leave behind for my children.

Speaker 3 (01:38:56):
So that's a big part of my focus.

Speaker 2 (01:38:58):
We appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (01:38:59):
Thank you for the converse, and I want to appreciate
everybody for tuning in to another episode of the Art
Award Man.

Speaker 2 (01:39:04):
Y'all gonna get this book reach.

Speaker 1 (01:39:06):
It was written a while ago, but it's principles in there,
and it's a story that's very very relevant to this day.
Go get that book and go look up Leila Ali
if you haven't already.

Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
She, like I said, she can sell you some supplements.

Speaker 1 (01:39:19):
She got cook wear, she got spices, she got everything
you need. Go check her out, Go support her. She's
doing some great things. I appreciate you guys for tuning
in for another episode.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Laila Ali Opens Up: Boxing Rivalries, Life Lessons, and Family Drama

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Laila Ali Opens Up: Boxing Rivalries, Life Lessons, and Family Drama

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