Between humble brags about his 3 incredible kids and glances down at his pictures of his 4 grandkids on his dashboard, he began telling me how he would arrange his life if he could live those years again.

When he was chasing the corporate dream, his children’s soccer games were the things he squeezed between work obligations. Looking back, he said, he would build his weekends around the games and fit the calls and emails into the space left over.

I had traveled there for one of those moments: showing up for someone I love as they began a marriage. Hearing him talk, I found myself thinking about how easily we recognize the importance of being present for a wedding, and how much harder it can be to give an ordinary Saturday that same consideration.

Travel sometimes gives us enough distance from our routines to see what we’ve allowed to become normal. We leave home carrying our usual concerns, and a conversation with someone we may never see again changes the weight of them.

His advice, as I remember it, was to buy the cheap house in the woods and travel to the places you’ve always dreamed of living. Give yourself somewhere steady to return to, with enough freedom to experience the world beyond it. I loved that image: a little house that could hold a life expansive enough to reach far beyond its walls.

Throughout our 27 minute ride, punctuated by bad drivers and southern charm, the cheap house in the wood became the ever-changing metaphor for how to experience life. For fighting against perception or projection of what accomplished looks like or costs. 

I asked him how old he was when everything finally felt stable, balanced and good. He told me each decade brings its own kind of stability and accomplishment, along with something new to learn.

I’m sitting with the possibility that I can appreciate what this chapter offers while I’m still figuring parts of it out. The duality is quite the dance, perhaps an anecdote for unruly ambition. 

And I keep returning to the sandcastle imagery from our conversation. How quietly the demands can wash over a life, wave after wave, wearing away the time we meant to protect while we chase some future version of ourselves.

30, 40, even 50 years from now, I want to remember the ordinary afternoons with the people I love as clearly as the milestones. I want to have given those moments my attention while they were happening, with enough of myself left to enjoy them.

I went to South Carolina to celebrate my best friend’s next chapter. I came home thinking more carefully about how I want to spend my own.

 Buy the cheap house in the woods. 

What’s your version of the soccer game, the part of your life you want to stop squeezing in?

It’s a sanctuary where Black joy is ancestral, brilliance is everywhere, swag is the standard, laughter is our soundtrack to healing, style is a birthright, and excellence is expected.

It’s not something you can describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it.

It’s an intoxicating aroma of tradition, excitement, fresh fits, pressed edges, and impressive alumna, Black excellence wafting across campus for what feels like weeks.

The scent of freshly cut grass rose from immaculate lawns that we were forbidden from walking on, the relentless Georgia sun warmed the brick beneath my feet, and Black women’s laughter carried across the grounds, making the future I imagined feel close enough to touch.

It really is like coming home.

I will never forget my first time at Spelman. I was there for A Day in the Life, standing in our beloved Sisters Chapel when a professor approached me. She studied me carefully as smiled swept across her lips. It was a gentle and unexpected, ”you look like you belong here.” as she made her way down to the front pew to take her seat.

I was wearing a white knit sweater with flared sleeves and jeans, admiring a campus I already knew I wanted to call home. I could not have how that small declaration would carry me through one of the most important and influential times in my life.

Watching Netflix’s new A Different World at 35 brought me back to that 18-year-old girl. The familiar faces and the energy buzzing at the fictional Hillman College made me proud, but what stayed with me was the recognition. I know the real names of the buildings, the memories they hold for me, and the corners of that campus that matured me.

I remember the younger version of me who arrived at Spelman with so much angst and ambition, wondering what this new life would be like. Ahead of me were goals that would be bookended by life lessons, friends who would become family, and challenges that could forever change me.

Like so many other Black teens who grew up watching the original series, I aspired to recreate the college life that seemed to sparkle on screen. Were you a Whitley, a Freddie, or a Kim? (For at least three years, my Twitter name rolled through variations of Whitley Gilbert and Whitley Huxtable, although adult me thinks I’ve got a little Freddie in there, too.)

There was so much inspiration, education, and empowerment jumping off the screen through talented Black actors, actresses, artists, and activists, brought together by the genius that is Debbie Allen.

And as I got to know the new students, Deborah Wayne’s creative restlessness somehow felt familiar, too. The reboot’s writing not only made room for a new chapter that is relatable and entertaining but also made me feel seen in the same way the original series did.

By the time I received my acceptance, I had also returned for the early college program the summer before my senior year of high school. Each visit made the place feel less like an idea and more like somewhere I could imagine a future. I was drawn to the history in its buildings and the traditions that connected the women walking those grounds.

Still, I had never attended an all-girls school, so I did not know what to expect. But as someone who always wanted sisters growing up, I daydreamed about what each day would feel like and what kind of student, friend, and woman I would become there.

Spelman gave those questions real faces. There were women whose confidence I admired, women who challenged my perspective in thoughtful class discussions, and friends who would eventually know me better than I knew myself.

Before joining Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated (7 months after graduation) gave me another experience of sisterhood, Spelman taught me how much of it happens in ordinary moments. Someone saves you a seat. A friend tells you the truth you would rather not hear. Years later, you call a woman you met in college because you need to speak to someone who remembers the person you were before your life became so complicated.

Being among accomplished women also made me examine how I measured myself. Admiration can become comparison quickly when you are young and eager to matter. I had to learn how to celebrate another woman’s gifts without treating them as evidence that something was missing from my own.

I think about running for Miss Freshman sometimes. That was the first time I had ever signed up for a pageant, and I don’t even remember why. At 18, asking people who didn’t know you to choose you can feel like asking them to confirm something much larger, especially in the AUC, where confidence and clout were campus currency. I ran for Miss Senior too. I was 1st attendant on both courts and despite how I felt at the time (IYKYK) I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

My mom didn’t even run for Miss Senior at Clark College, now Clark Atlanta University, and she won. (She loves to humbly tell me this story)

On a campus where you can be anyone and achieve anything in this new chapter, it was devilishly easy to attach your confidence to an election, a pageant, or a relationship.

At 35, I know how tempting it remains to let an acceptance or a rejection become an indicator of success or failure. The truth is, you cannot have one without the other. Failure can teach you how to win, and winning does not mean you will never fail again.

It is also rooted in what the institution made possible for generations of Black women, and what it expected us to do with the power of that possibility.

In September 2026, Spelman announced that U.S. News & World Report had named it the No. 1 HBCU for the twentieth consecutive year in its 2027 rankings. I am proud to claim that distinction as an alumna. I am even prouder of the daily truth behind it: in a world where black women are often. misunderstood, overlooked or villainized, attending a college where Black women’s intelligence and ambition were not a threat, but the standard of excellence is a transformational experience.

I think often about September 2011, when students across the Atlanta University Center mobilized around the Troy Davis case, and the moments of power that came from us collectively taking action. About what it was like to be living in moment that would become history; moments that would annotate history, good or bad.

Between classes and deciding what to wear to Market Friday, we were learning what it meant to care about something beyond our own plans.

At Spelman, where we were charged with making choices to change the world, we had the audacity to interrupt the syllabus and do just that. Our collective conscience was undeniable.

For four years, I had the privilege of living in a place where Black women were expected to lead and where I could watch them figuring out how.

That is something the original A Different World understood. Its students could debate politics, fall in love, make a terrible decision, and make it class in the morning. Black young people were allowed to be complicated and nuanced. The show accomplished its intention of making higher education at an HBCU appear cool, fun and aspirational without losing the heaviness of the issues that come with teenagers trying to navigate real life on their own, often for the first time.

In real life, we were also teens and young adults digging through the rubble of life: friendships, falling in love, life back home, and trying to get through the week.

I am so grateful for all that Spelman gave me because it was so much.

I think about of my favorite professor, Dr. Michelle Hite, who was one of the first people I reached out to after my layoff. There is something moving about being remembered by someone who taught you while so much of your future was undecided and who remembers the version of you that was still being shaped and molded. The conversation changes over time. You carry those lessons into your life, and the person who helped shape them gets to see what you do with them.

The same is true of my friends. Some of the women I met at Spelman remain woven into my everyday life. Those friendships are among the most precious keepsake.

The nostalgia of the reboot felt so real and so relatable that it made me wonder what I would do differently if someone handed me a dorm key and sent me back tomorrow.

I would take the class that intimidated me and talk to the woman I assumed already had enough friends. I might even stay a little longer at the function. Perhaps there are apologies I could have offered or accepted sooner.

But as J. Cole tells us, life is a film that cannot be rewound.

I say it also can’t be rewritten, and maybe it shouldn’t be. The woman I was in college isn’t the woman I am today, but I couldn’t be here now without her. I have unconditional love and grace for her. I cannot expect her to have understood lessons I needed another decade to learn.

If I could stand beside that girl in the white sweater now, I would spend less time rehearsing what she should do differently.

I would want to thank her for walking through the gates with all her questions and confidence.

I would tell her she has no idea how good it gets and how thankful she will be to be a Spelman woman.

I think a lot. About the meaning of things, about life’s relentless lessons, about what they signify and why they matter. It’s why journalism, although it wasn’t my original dream job, makes perfect sense. I’ve always appreciated a good story, and I’ve always loved crafting one. Writing was my first love.

The cultural tradition of storytelling, and its power to inform and inspire, can still thrive in an ever-changing, arguably unstable media landscape. I find that especially meaningful at a time when the infrastructure of trustworthy journalism is constantly challenged or dismantled.

As I live through a chapter of life I never saw coming, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be “free.”

Meek, Rozay, and Jay-Z gave us a masterful dialogue about the concept on “What’s Free,” each from a distinct vantage point.

To me, what makes the song so compelling is that none of them seems willing to accept the easy definition. The hook offers one that I keep returning to: “nobody else can tell us what to be.” I’ve heard that idea before, of course, but building something of my own has shifted its significance.

Meek’s verse is grounded in the lived consequences of the criminal legal system, where someone can leave a cell and still feel the institution’s reach. Ross speaks from another register, where money, movement, and visible success become part of the language of possibility. Jay-Z then complicates the celebration, asking what wealth is worth if someone else still controls the terms, profits from the culture, or decides how much of what you created you are allowed to keep. Moving between ownership, exploitation, and the long history of Black people being denied full freedom, he makes the song feel less like a victory lap than a sustained argument about who truly holds power. I could write a dissertation on this concept and I might. But I drew this correlation between my current chapter because it’s the foundational principle that’s guiding me, and we all know freedom isn’t free.

I don’t care what anyone tells you: starting something from the ground up isn’t easy. It doesn’t matter what it is or what scale it’s on. It takes a commitment from your soul, an undeniable trust in your heart and mind and unshakable confidence.

I am not equating the loss of a title with incarceration, or my pursuit of creative control with the historical and structural violence the record names. Those differences matter. What the song has given me is a way to ask a smaller, deeply personal question without forgetting the larger one: after spending so many years becoming excellent inside institutions I did not own, working to impress and to belong, what would it mean to stop waiting for anyone to tell me what I could become next?

For most of my career, I knew how to build toward a life that came with recognizable markers of success. There was always another market to reach, another contract to negotiate, another story to tell, and another title that could reassure me I was headed in the right direction. I loved journalism then, and I love it now. But I’m confronting the distinction between the work that belonged to me and the structure that had allowed me to do it.

Losing a title doesn’t mean losing your talent, your curiosity, or your instincts. Those are the ingredients that make you distinctly who you are.

I recorded and posted a video a few weeks ago that was meant to hold my own ambition accountable. For months (and, in one way or another, longer than that), I’d been working toward building my own platform. Ideas flew out of my head and onto paper. The edits and changes were just as swift.

In building what’s now called Unanchored, I knew I wanted to curate a space where the human being underneath the résumé could take up more room than the résumé itself. A space where a conversation could wander toward reinvention, spirituality, ambition, grief, delight, or the complicated private cost of becoming who the world thinks it knows. For years, I had brought those instincts to other people’s platforms. Now I was responsible for building a platform worthy of them. I was also discovering how much I had relied on permission, and how unfamiliar it felt to move without it.

Freedom, as an idea, sounds nearly weightless. Creative freedom in practice has invoices, timelines, hard drives, camera settings, lighting decisions, guest outreach, and an unreasonable number of browser tabs open at all times. It requires you to become both the person who imagines what the work might be and the person who sits down long enough to make it real, even when the first version bears only a passing resemblance to the magnificent thing you saw in your head. I keep returning to a line I wrote while trying to explain this chapter to myself:

The cost of freedom is hard work, late nights, videos you pick apart until they’re perfect, creative concepts with 12 lives and 13 iterations before anyone ever lays eyes on the final product.

Ownership means being free to make those decisions, but it also means accepting that there may be nobody else to make them for you.

This is the part of the dream that does not fit neatly into a launch announcement or a perfectly styled photoshoot, and yet I am growing increasingly grateful for it. It’s pushing me from imagining the life on my vision board into the work of actually building it. That can be incredibly difficult when you are used to experiencing a career in only one way.

The process is asking me to trust my vision, my taste, and my soul, then develop the discipline to bring that vision to life. It is teaching me that creative range is not a problem to apologize for or tame. I can do it all: report, interview, write, host, produce, and create without treating each gift as a competing identity. Unanchored can be the place where those instincts meet and inspire others to recognize their own light, to find the thing that makes them feel most alive.

There is another distinction I’ve been considering: the difference between being free from interference and being free to direct your own life. The first can open a door, but the second asks what you are prepared to do once you walk through it. A layoff removed a structure I had never imagined leaving on those terms; it did not hand me a finished alternative. The possibility of building my own platform was a form of freedom. But the responsibility of choosing a direction, making the work, and staying with it when nobody was applauding was the work of becoming free in a more substantive way.

Perhaps that’s why Paris felt so extraordinary to me this month. I’ve always believed there is something precious and transformative about travel, about its ability to reflect your life right back to you. Being back in Paris, on a day when the wind and the sun were competing for my attention, affirmed the new life unfolding in front of me. I marvel at my gratitude for it now, because 11 months ago, nothing I was experiencing felt as though it could possibly be for my ultimate good.

I wandered past buzzing storefronts, through curious crowds of tourists, and into quiet street cafés, appreciating the beauty of a life that no longer confines me.

I think this is where the question in “What’s Free” finds me most clearly. A platform can hand you reach without handing you ownership, just as a title can make you visible without making you sovereign over your time. I once believed that professional freedom would arrive when I had achieved enough to be able to choose. Now I am learning that choice is a practice you must protect, especially when it would be easier to let familiarity, fear, or other people’s expectations do the choosing for you.

I am under no illusion that ownership makes life easier. It makes certain decisions harder, certain nights longer, and certain risks impossible to outsource. But there is an intimacy to this work that I find hard to trade for the familiar.

I used to think freedom would look like finally arriving at the life I had planned, with enough success to prove that every sacrifice had been worth it. Lately, freedom has looked more like unanswered questions and uncertainty that somehow feels aligned.

I do not know exactly what Unanchored will be in one year, and I am learning to let that uncertainty coexist with the conviction that it deserves to exist now. Perhaps the life I never knew I wanted is not a detour from the career I spent years building, but the first chapter in which all those years have finally given me something I can call my own.

If you are building something before anyone else can see it, I would love to know what freedom is asking of you in this chapter.

Thank you for reading, and for giving Unanchored space to become.

It turns out that stepping away from the camera was the only way to truly see what was right in front of me. After nearly fourteen years of chasing the next big story, I am finally learning how to fall back in love: with myself, with my hometown, with my dreams.

For over a decade, my world was measured in ratings, market sizes, and the relentless demands of a television newsroom. The rules were handed down like scripture. It was a public, high-profile existence that unintentionally isolates you from experiencing everyday life. You trade the anchor desk for memories you’ll never get back.

I do not regret anything I sacrificed or learned while building my career. Those moments of triumph and tears made me who I am.

But there is a peculiar, holy kind of freedom that arrives when you step outside an industry that you’ve known for your entire professional life that has shaped you.

It feels like every day my soul is basking deeper in a chapter of appreciation that I could have never written for myself. I am falling back in love with this city, wandering its streets with a completely fresh perspective. I am falling back in love with myself, realizing that freedom is knowing exactly who you are when no one is grading the angle of your smile or the polish of your ambition. And for the first time as an adult, because I finally have the space and emotional capacity, I am falling deeply in love within my relationship and truly enjoying the slow, grounded process of building a life with someone else.

This capacity to love requires presence, something the modern world constantly tries to steal from us. I look around now and feel endlessly grateful that I grew up without the relentless, prickly pressures of social media. I remember climbing trees, playing in small creeks, and riding bikes with my friends over hills that were much too steep. I remember catching fireflies, visiting my favorite butterfly garden, and the steamy summers down south with family.

I even remember when Robert Smith told me to eat grass in first grade because he insisted it tasted like salad.

Today, we idolize and fear the fickle digital world that constantly interrogates us about who we are and what we have. We constantly question what truth is and what is artificial. Social media invites both discourse and distress, progress and stagnation, power and cowardice, simultaneously rewarding both extremes. It creates a false sense that we can catalogue humanity, tracking whether strangers are single, if they lost a job, who their friends are, what matters to them, or how they grieve. Worse, it has become the tool by which we measure our own self-worth. The irony of well-intentioned psychologists posting content on a platform built for comparison, warning of the perils of comparison.

Freedom is choosing a life that does not require your constant translation. And choosing that freedom is choosing yourself and choosing yourself is really choosing fearlessness.

Thriving does not look like winning an Emmy or hitting a top market size or salary. My new metrics of love and success are beautifully ordinary, anchored in the present.

For that, I am grateful. This is time for myself I won’t get back.

I am thriving in a way I never knew was possible, not because I am being broadcast into thousands of homes, but because I am finally entirely at home.

xoxo

.

The same house I came home to as a baby, the same home I returned to when everything I’d bet on Texas vanished loudly overnight.

The box wasn’t labeled. but it didn’t need to be.

Memories hold a weight that you can always recognize.

I sat with those pictures until the light in the room changed. And somewhere between the girl in the Elle shirt and the pink wig(or red?) something inside of me cracked open: the institutions didn’t lie to me about whether I was talented enough.

They lied to me about what the talent was for.

✶ ✶ ✶

Let me say the thing clearly, before anything else: I love TV news. Not loved, love. Present tense, alive, unresolved. I love the craft of it the way you love something that has asked everything of you and given back just enough to keep you coming.

The live shot. The breaking story. The particular electricity of a newsroom at 9:47 PM right before a 10pm newscast when everyone is running on adrenaline and passion. I love the moment a story lands, when you’ve made the complicated thing plain for the familiar stranger. That is a sacred thing. I still believe in it. I still want to be part of it.

But after nearly 7 months away and contemplating roles outside of TV news, there are a lot of questions about what getting back there look may look like, what it may require, and whether or not I can or should throw a somewhat regulated nervous system back into unpredictability.

Here is something they teach you early in broadcast journalism: a standard “package” or news story for you civilians, runs about a minute thirty. That’s it. That’s your window to set the scene. Establish the stakes. Find the human. Land the meaning. One minute and thirty seconds to make someone feel something real or learn something new.

I have spent more than thirteen years being told, in ways spoken and unspoken, in feedback sessions and passed-over opportunities that TV news may not be the place you can show up as your full realized self.

The lie we’re told isn’t that hard work doesn’t matter, it does and it always will.

It isn’t.

I have watched extraordinary women, women who hit every benchmark, giving their job or newsroom their best decades and ideas in exchange for the right to exist in their fullness inside rooms that were never built with them in mind. I’ve also been that woman, more than once.

Doing everything right does not guarantee the system will rise to meet you.

Sometimes the system’s mindset is too fragile and too selfish for the purpose you’re destined to carry. But it’s important to remember that not all systems are the same.

Sorting through the pictures and memories stirred up something deep.

It was like meeting myself again and for the first time all at once.

I don’t know whether to be proud of her or grieve for her.

When you’re chasing a dream, especially one that demands so much of you to succeed, there is a shift that happens quicker than you can realize to stop. it.

You somehow master the art of making yourself legible for whatever room you’re entering. I became good at it without knowing and it served me faithfully for a long time but it also cost me the full range of who I am and what I’m capable of.

The girl in these photographs wasn’t performing for anyone. She was seen, she was alive, she was accepted, she was untainted and full of a spirit she didn’t know the power of yet.

I’ve thought a lot about this unique chapter I’m navigating, about what a blessing it is to sit safely in the unknown and the bravery of slowing down.

I studied my wide, unguarded eyes in my childhood pictures and found all of me.

I keep coming back to her with nostalgia and recognition. She understood something that got buried under thirteen years of institutional translation: that the performance was always meant to be in service of something deeper than the performance itself.

I rejected the idea of coming back home immediately after the layoff, I wasn’t ready to surrender. All the oldest, only daughters understand why. We’d rather dance barefoot on glass through fire than ask for help or seem incapable. I fought against giving up the independence that I’d worked so hard for.

But one month at home, and it’s the best decision I could have made for myself. Being surrounded by love and support and true safety is allowing me to heal and re-discover the parts of me that become buried in the need to live up to the perceived idea of success.

Although it’s uncomfortable, this chapter is necessary. I am openly becoming the version of myself I’ve always wanted to be. Adult me needs to the girl in the pink wig and the ballet uniform and the sweet smile accessorizing the vibrant 90s outfits.

The institutions tricked us into believing that success could only be a specific address.

A market size.

A title.

A salary.

An all access pass into exclusive circles and events. And for some people, maybe it does.

I still believe in this industry. I believe in what it can be at its best, what it already is, on the days it gets it right.

I still want to be the voice in someone’s kitchen that makes the world make a little more sense.

I just want to be all of myself when I get there.

The full minute-thirty. Not one second less.

And then the weekend ended, and I was back in my childhood bedroom ( well, my brothers)— the same walls, and a completely different version of me.

This isn’t the version of my 35th birthday I had imagined, but I am learning to be grateful.

I didn’t exactly have the birthday blues, but this year feels different.

What’s even harder for someone like me who is used to being in motion, used to creating, used to working and contributing to something bigger than myself is not knowing what is next for me.

While I’m grateful for this time to recenter and refocus and honestly heal from a turbulent chapter, I am equally anxious for what’s next in my life.

This is the first time ever where that’s true. My feelings about that intersect at excitement and terror. Talk about having blind faith.

I don’t know, not yet. And I’m learning; slowly, imperfectly, that “not yet” is not the same as never.

I left a city. I left a rhythm. I left a routine. I left the version of my life that looked a certain way on paper.

And now I’m here, in the house I grew up in, eating dinner at the table where I used to do homework, watching my parents move through their new routines like a prayer I forgot I knew.

My career is in that strange, tender place where everything is possible and nothing is confirmed. I have done the work. I have sent the emails. I have walked into rooms and owned them. And still — I wait. Not with despair. With something more like patience I’m still teaching myself to hold.

There is grace in a quiet season, even when it doesn’t feel like it. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.

When you’re starting over you can’t help wondering if you took a wrong turn somewhere. You didn’t. The road just got longer and perhaps a bit windier than expected.

Home is not a step backward. Sometimes it’s the place that reminds you who you were before the noise, so you can remember who you’re becoming.

I am 35. I am home. Home with myself. Home with my family. Home with love and safety. And yes, I am waiting, not idly, but intentionally.

With my eyes and heart open. With my bags half-packed.

With faith that the next chapter already has my name on it.

It’s just not time to turn the page quite yet, but I am looking forward to the next chapter.

-KNB

.

Whether you’ve sat through every rose ceremony since 2003 or you’ve never watched a single episode in your life, chances are you’ve at least heard of The Bachelorette.

You know it the way you know American Idol or, dare I say, Wheel of Fortune. It’s just there, woven into the fabric of American television like your favorite decorative pillow that wasn’t quite perfect, but you still can’t bring yourself to throw away.

And it’s working, because The Bachelor spinoff basically prints money.

The entire franchise (The Bachelor and The Bachelorette combined) has reportedly earned ABC close to $86M in ad dollars over the years ( after all, it’s what makes TV go round) with up to 3M viewers weekly in its coveted Monday night time slot. But in the last few years, ratings have been slipping.

And you know what happens when ratings slip?

The Messy, Successful TikTok Mom

Reality tv is part respectability politics, part entertainment and all drama.

The people on your TV don’t just show up. These everyday stars are cast, and everyone has a role to play. The funny one. The smart one. The sexy one. The relatable one. The obnoxious one. The villain and the hero.

When news broke that Taylor Frankie Paul — founder of #MomTok, star of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives on Hulu, a woman whose résumé includes an impressive following and a 2023 arrest for assault and domestic violence that aired on her own show — had been cast as the lead of The Bachelorette, fans were thrilled and critics weren’t surprised.

I’ve said it a thousand times: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is one of the best reality television shows to see the light of day, period. Why? Gossip, a sex-swinging scandal within their friend group, divorce, money, sex, kids, the Mormon church — and Fruity Pebbles. Maybe don’t Google why.

The entire brand of Paul’s reality show was always pure, raw drama.

When The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives premiered on Hulu in 2024, the eight cast members, in their 20s and early 30s, had a combined 18 million TikTok followers. It quickly became Hulu’s most-watched unscripted season premiere that year.

But the casting blueprint for The Bachelorette is different.

For years, the pretty, typically white, traditionally feminine, relatable girl-next-door with a naughty side—who laughed at the right jokes and wore the right dresses to the right events—was the ideal pick to sift through suitors and find true love.

And then came Rachel Lindsay, who now hosts two podcasts, broke ground in 2017 as the first Black Bachelorette after fifteen years and a literal lawsuit alleging the show excluded contestants of color from lead roles.

When she sought to hold a contestant accountable for racist tweets and to interview host Chris Harrison about it in 2021, she got dragged online and Harrison audaciously asked her whether racism was even still a problem “in 2021.”

Ahhh yes, remember? We were suddenly living in a post-racial society after President Obama left office.

Harrison eventually stepped down. Rachel eventually stepped away from the franchise entirely, and eventually divorced her Bachelorette match after 6 years of marriage.

So what did ABC decide The Bachelorette needed to revive a dying franchise?

A Mormon TikTok mom with a criminal record, 2.4M followers, and a chaotic storyline you can’t look away from already baked in.

Let’s talk about what actually happened Thursday, because it moved fast.

Taylor Frankie Paul’s Bachelorette season (Season 22) was set to premiere Sunday, March 22, 2026 — three days away as of this writing. The season was already filmed. The promos were running. She was doing the morning show rounds, sitting on the GMA couch talking about her “journey to love.” On Monday, she attended the Oscars.

And then Thursday, TMZ dropped a 2023 video of her hitting her ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen, throwing barstools at him, while her daughter was in the room — and that daughter can be heard screaming “Mommy!” after one of those stools reportedly hit her in the head. You can hear a child crying in the video as well.

ABC claims no one at the network had seen this video before TMZ posted it Thursday morning. Not sure how that’s possible.

In 2023, Paul pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, criminal mischief, and domestic violence in the presence of a child. She was ordered into counseling and substance abuse evaluation. And the arrest aired on Season 1 of her own Hulu show. The show that Disney also owns.

The show had already documented her messy, volatile on-again-off-again relationship with Mortensen across multiple seasons.

The Bigger Picture

But this is bigger than Taylor Frankie Paul.

The message, intentional or not, is clear: chaos is content when it comes wrapped in a certain package, and in this case it reinforces the influencer-to-reality-star pipeline.

ABC did what media companies do when they choose a platform with suitability: they followed the numbers.

I can see why. Taylor Frankie Paul is genuinely compelling television. She’s charismatic. She’s messy in the way that keeps you watching. Her whole thing is radical honesty — she’ll tell you about the open marriage, the swinging, the arrest, all of it, because that’s her brand. And that brand translates to followers, to engagement, to Hulu renewals.

Taylor Frankie Paul with her children. (Photo: Instagram/taylorfrankiepaul)

But here’s the difference between being a content creator and being a network television lead: when you’re a content creator, you control the edit. You post the confession. You frame the breakdown. You decide when to go live with the apology. The narrative stays in your hands.

The Bachelorette doesn’t work that way. It’s a finished product with a duty to its advertisers and audience.

The season was filmed months ago. And when that TMZ video dropped, ABC couldn’t just post a selfie with a caption about “growth.” They had a 22-episode season with no way to spin the footage sitting on their server.

This is the fundamental misread.

Follower count is not the same as franchise readiness, even if you’re already on a popular reality show.

A built-in audience is not the same as a lead that can withstand the backlash and skeleton’s in their closet. The influencer-to-reality-star pipeline assumes the audience will follow the creator anywhere — but it doesn’t account for what happens when the creator’s real life becomes indefensible in real time.

There has been so much discourse about the context of the 2023 video that ended Paul’s rose-colored dreams before they could begin, but I personally don’t believe Taylor Frankie Paul is beyond sympathy.

Domestic violence situations are complicated. She and Dakota are stuck in a vicious, dangerous and draining cycle. Who is to blame for this particular fallout is another question. But she says she is a victim of emotional and physical abuse.

People are complex and life is messy.

The Bottom Line

The Bachelorette will lose millions behind this, but it will recover.

Maybe the real story isn’t about Taylor Frankie Paul or ABC or the respectability politics that have constricted women of color’s opportunities to participate in the storied franchise: maybe it’s about us.

Maybe it’s about a world where we have helped build an economy and a social ecosystem where chaos is rewarded with cameras, followers are currency and popularity is mistaken for credibility or character.

Nobody tells you that rebuilding looks a lot like standing still.

Nobody talks about the days that dissolve before you can use them — when you wake up with a whole plan mapped out in your head, and by noon it's been replaced by a heaviness so thick it has its own gravity. You had intentions. You had a list. And then you didn't.

The day aren’t always swallowed by sadness.

Sometimes they're swallowed by nothing. A soft, unremarkable stillness that doesn't hurt enough to name but weighs enough to notice.

You wake up every day, grasping tight to the hope of a new day — that the email, the phone call, the text you’re waiting for will come.

The people who love you encourage you to keep the faith, stay positive, to be patient.

All of this is well-intentioned advice. None of it is easy.

It’s so uncomfortable, so gnawing because you’re almost there and if we’re honest nobody wants to be almost anywhere.

I’ve been telling myself that this process has a purpose.

That this time away from my craft and calling that I love and miss so much is intentional, I’ve been tracking lessons learned and revelations along the way.

I recently saw a post that read, “Have you ever considered that the delay is part of the process?.”

And that question may sting, it may even suck, but it’s true.

You're not lost. You're not stuck. You're just not there yet. And that truth is hard.

Somehow that not yet is the hardest place to wait, but also the most profound.

It often feels like right before everything you’re waiting for arrives, the doubt gets louder. The patience runs thinner. The hope feels heavier.

One thing I know for sure: the finish line has a way of hiding itself until you're fully ready to cross it, until the season of drought and pruning has been fulfilled.

And if you’re like me— in that place right now— I hope we’re closer than we think.

🌍 What’s on your feed

💥💥 The Iran War Is Escalating & Fast Defense Secretary Hegseth aka the Secretary of War said Tuesday was “the most intense day of U.S. strikes inside Iran yet.” We’re on Day 11 of a war that’s already killed 1,200+ Iranians, 570 in Lebanon, and 7 U.S. soldiers. Iran says they’ll decide that.

While we’re on Hegseth, here’s the $93 billion spending report everyone is talking about. It documents a pricey September 2025, where Hegseth supposedly spent A LOT $6.9M on lobster tail, $2M on Alaskan king crab, $15.1M on ribeye, $140K on doughnuts, and $124K on ice cream machines and $98,329 Steinway grand piano for the Air Force chief of staff’s home. Weeks later, millions of Americans lost their SNAP food benefits. DOGE was supposed to fix this.

🛢️ Iran Mined the Strait of Hormuz & Gas Prices Are Screaming The national average just hit $3.54/gallon that’s up from $2.98 a week ago. That’s not a typo. To make it plain: traders who buy and sell oil in advance started panicking Sunday night, betting prices would jump and they were right. Crude oil is trading at about $84/barrel, as of Wednesday morning. Some Californians are paying $5.16 for gas. Don’t look too hard at the price when you fill up this week.

OTHER HEADLINES

⚖️ Mahmoud Khalil Is Still in Legal Limbo A year after his detention, the former Columbia grad student and pro-Palestinian activist still hasn’t been charged with a crime and the government is still trying to deport him. The courts keep punting. His lawyers are fighting. The First Amendment is having a moment.

📈 The Economy Is Getting Hit Tariffs are costing the average U.S. household (aka all of us) ~$1,500 this year. Now add an oil shock from the Iran war. The S&P is flat, but International markets are outperforming. Basically: the money vibes are not great right now.

🏛️ The Government is Still Partially Shut Down The DHS shutdown is now on day 25 which means: TSA employees only received a partial paycheck on Feb. 28 and will miss their first full paycheck on March 14. TSA Pre-Check is still open. but Global Entry is suspended right now. Airport wait times have been incredibly long because of this and it’s spring break season. Bottom line: Congress would need to pass legislation to get the money moving again and there doesn’t seem to be a deal in sight.

🗳️ MTG’s Old Seat Heads to Runoff & Dems Are Watching Closely

MTG resigned in January after a falling out with Trump over the Epstein files, and yesterday Georgia held a special election to replace her. No one cracked 50%, so it's going to a runoff. Democrat Shawn Harris, who is a retired Army brigadier general, lost to Greene in 2024. He led the field with 39.9% of the vote, while Trump-endorsed Republican Clay Fuller came in second at 34.2%. Harris also raised more than $4 million. A Democratic win in a district Trump carried by 37 points would be a very big deal. The House majority is currently 218–214. They face off April 7.

💣 Homemade Bomb Thrown at Protest Outside NYC Mayor's Home A homemade explosive device was thrown during a violent clash between far-right protesters and counter protesters outside Gracie Mansion in Manhattan. Police confirmed it was not a smoke bomb, but that it was an IED that could have caused serious injury or death. Two people were arrested. The protest was over Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Muslim faith.

🎬 What’s in the group chat

🏀 Luka’s a Mess Off the Court Luka Doncic isn’t getting married to Anamaria Goltes anymore. Instead, they’re now sorting out custody over their two daughters. His lawyers are busy, but his shot isn’t stopping. Doncic scored 31 points last night against Minnesota.

🎬 The Oscars Are This Sunday — and Sinners Is the One to Watch

The 98th Academy Awards air March 15 on ABC/ Hulu. Conan O’Brien is hosting again.Sinners Ryan Coogler’s original Southern Gothic vampire film starring Michael B. Jordan X2, broke the all-time nomination record with 16 nods. More than Titanic. More than La La Land. Don't hold your breath — but also, maybe hold your breath.

💔 Dak Prescott Calls Off His Wedding

No ring (of any kind) for Cowboys QB Dak Prescott, at least not anytime soon. He and now ex-fiancée Sarah Jane Ramos were supposed to get married in Lake Como next month — but nope, not anymore. First, rumors had it that it was over a prenup. But in the last couple of days, reports surfaced that Sarah Jane allegedly caught Prescott using secret social media accounts to slide into DMs with multiple women and exes. SJ hopped in the Instagram comments to clarify the breakup wasn't about a prenup. Yikes.

📺 Are you watching Paradise on Hulu?

Sterling K. Brown’s post-apocalyptic thriller is having a moment. The OG’s who have been watching since S1 are enjoying the storytelling that’s front and center. Season 2 hit #1 on Hulu’s U.S. streaming chart within a single day of its premiere and the season 2 trailer alone pulled 29 million views. Critics seem like they’re more into it this time around with 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, up from Season 1’s 86%.The show shifted from bunker murder mystery to full post-apocalyptic survival series and it’s working. If you’re not watching, you’re behind. New episodes drop Mondays on Hulu.

P.S. — I got a bit overwhelmed watching because it felt too real at times. Just saying.

🏈 The Maxx Crosby Trade Imploded Spectacularly

The Raiders and Ravens had a deal. Two first-round picks for five-time Pro Bowl pass rusher Maxx Crosby. It was the blockbuster of free agency until Crosby failed his physical Tuesday and Baltimore backed out with about 12 hours to go before it could become official. The internet went wild. The Ravens pulled out over medical concerns that surfaced during the physical, but there were no details shared. Crosby’s agent says he’s “ahead of schedule” in his recovery from January knee surgery. Then, Crosby posted a video on his private jet with zero context, so ?? The Cowboys, who had offered a first and a second pick aren’t expected to come back to the table now. The Raiders now hold the #1 overall pick and still.. a pass rusher named Maxx Crosby.

Other League Moves:

• Tua Tagovailoa is signing with the Falcons for the veteran minimum after Miami ate a $99M dead cap hit to release him.

• Mike Evans to the 49ers. Kenneth Walker to the Chiefs. Malik Willis somehow getting $67.5M from the Dolphins.

• Riq Woolen who just won the SB with Seattle signed a 1 year, up to $15M with the Eagles. The Birds also re-signed TE Tommy Calcaterra and picked up blocking TE Johnny Mundt.

The chaos and drama of free agency is off to a juicy start… and we still have weeks until draft day.

• He’s a former pro MMA fighter: Trump highlighted his background as a former professional mixed martial arts fighter and he’s not shy about it. He’s had physical confrontations even in the Capitol.

• Mullin identifies as a Cherokee Nation citizen: Mullin is on record as the first Native American U.S. senator since Ben Nighthorse Campbell retired in 2005, and only the second Cherokee citizen ever elected to the Senate.

• He’s a businessman turned politician: He owned a plumbing company and other family businesses before entering politics, and by the end of 2021 his reported assets had grown to between $31.6 million and $75.6 million.

• He’s a loyal Trump ally: Mullin has consistently aligned himself with Trump, embracing his policy positions and getting involved in high-profile debates over federal funding, energy policy, and election legislation.

• He takes office March 31 : Pending Senate confirmation. Mullin would need to be confirmed as DHS secretary by the Senate, but Trump said he would begin serving in the role on March 31, 2026.

🧣 Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has been fired.

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on March 3, 2026

🚨 President Trump announced Thursday via social media that Kristi Noem is being removed as Homeland Security Secretary, with Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin tapped as his nominee to take her place.

HOW WE GOT HERE

Earlier today, WSJ cited trusted sources close to the president who say Trump is considering moving forward with tossing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

They say Trump has already started quietly canvassing aides and Republican allies on the Hill for potential successor names.

DHS offered, “Secretary Noem serves at the pleasure of the President,” while the White House didn’t respond to requests for comment.

6 Quick Things to Know:

• Trump is reportedly actively shopping for her replacement, already asking aides and GOP congressmembers for suitable names.

• The final straw was her combative Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week, which drew bipartisan frustration.

• A $220 million DHS ad contract went to a company formed just days before receiving the deal, which then subcontracted work to a firm tied to Noem’s past campaign. Critics called it corruption; Noem denied involvement.

• Noem then told senators Trump had approved the ads, which he denies, and that lie reportedly enraged him.

• Part of the Tuesday’s contentious hearing focused on Noem’s aide/alleged romantic partner Corey Lewandowski, who Rep. Jamie Raskin says fired a pilot mid-flight on a trip back to DC, over a forgotten personal blanket belonging to Noem, and then had to immediately rehire him since no one else could fly the plane.

• This is a developing story.

HOW IT HAPPENED

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee voted today to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi, demanding her testimony about her role in the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The vote was 24-19 and notably crossed party lines.

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, who forced the vote, was joined by both Democrats and a handful of fellow Republicans including Lauren Boebert and Tim Burchett.

It’s a rare moment of bipartisan pressure on a Trump cabinet official, and it caught some members off guard: Mace actually pushed the vote during a hearing that had nothing to do with Epstein at all.

The subpoena is the latest escalation in Congress’s ongoing investigation into Epstein, which got new teeth last year when lawmakers passed a law requiring the DOJ to publicly release its full investigative files.

So far, that release has satisfied almost no one. Members on both sides of the aisle have complained the documents were too heavily redacted.

Before today’s vote, Oversight Chairman James Comer said Bondi had offered to give members a private briefing on the files in small groups, but that apparently wasn’t enough to stop the subpoena from moving forward.

The BBC reports the situation is only getting more explosive, with a top Democrat now claiming he personally saw the unpublished documents containing sexual abuse allegations against President Trump himself, which is a contention the DOJ denies, saying nothing has been deleted or improperly withheld.

FIVE HOURS OF CHAOS

Bondi's last hearing was on February 11th and it was chaotic by all accounts.

Bondi spent five hours before the House Judiciary Committee fielding questions on the redacted Epstein files, the DOJ's handling of the investigation, and a range of other controversies.

Tensions boiled over on both sides, with Bondi trading sharp words with several lawmakers, including calling one Democrat a "washed up loser lawyer" and clashing with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie.

Notably, all 11 Epstein survivors present in the room raised their hand when asked if the DOJ had been unable to meet with them.

Democrats afterward released a list of 15 questions Bondi declined to answer during the hearing, among them how many of Epstein's co-conspirators the DOJ had indicted — the answer being zero. That context is a big reason today's subpoena vote landed the way it did.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

No date is on the books yet.

The subpoena is for a closed-door deposition with video that would be released to the public afterward, but there's no scheduled date for Bondi's testimony as of now

A subpoena guarantees Bondi’s presence, but what happens after is anyone's guess.

“What’s next can’t co-exist with who you were surviving as.”

That’s the line from a TikTok about the spiritual implications of being professionally repositioned that made me shout like it was First Sunday and the Eagles were playing.

The creator GossGirl, continues, “…elevation often begins with detachment. Space is created by subtraction. God will break your dependency on a system before He expands your influence beyond it.”

Space is created by subtraction. Whew.

She’s right and it all begins with shifting your perspective.

How you view an unfavorable life circumstance determines how you alchemize it.

THE REFLECTION

I relate deeply to the notion of what it’s like living through your own survival season.

When you’re in it, you don’t know you’re in it because your body has adjusted to the daily chaos, but you know deep down you are not your full self.

The survival version of you is often grossly misaligned with who you actually are.

Survival has a way of borrowing your identity without permission and returning it to you unrecognizable.

You’re drained in ways that rest cannot restore.

Your ideas and contributions are good, but still somehow feel hollow.

But it’s not because you aren’t enough. It’s because you’re trying to function in the relationship or the role that was only built for you to endure.

The beauty is this: the person who rises from the other side of survival is the person who knows to never shrink or over-perform, ever again.

THE REFRAME

You could fall apart trying to dissect how or why you ended up in that place. Or you can thank the misalignment for redirecting you.

The moment you stop asking “how did I get here” and start asking “who am I without this” is the moment you free yourself.

But remember this distinction : there is a profound difference between starting over and starting again.

In your season of waiting for the right job, the book to be published, the business to profit, the content to go viral, or whatever dream you hold dear to find its sunlight — the season that feels like drought is really the season that punctuates the real you.

You allow uncertainty to birth creativity.

You re-align your goals to ensure they’re congruent with your values.

You silence outside projections and opinions.

THE REBUILD

The buzzwords ‘pivot’ and ‘rebrand’ has been everywhere lately, and for good reason in this current economy and job market. But I also know what I am called to do.

I’m not going to suddenly enrolling in cosmetology school because one chapter in my story is over. ( but ask me again in 6 months)

But what if I told you that you are the pivot?

Your mindset, your drive, your willingness to keep going when the season feels long and cold?

The inner pivot is finally seeing the windy roads on your path as destined, while appreciating the detour.

I truly believe that who you become on the other side of a storm you never saw coming is the harvest from every hard, unseen moment when you refused to quit.

Because while your position can be laid off, your character cannot be.

Creativity cannot be laid off. Integrity cannot be laid off. Talent cannot be laid off.

Vision cannot be laid off. Annointing cannot be laid off.

Starting again leads you to confront the reality of what didn’t work for you before.

It’s the space and time to read the notes etched in the margins.

It is a homecoming, a reclamation, and a reminder that what is meant for you will find you, even when the road detours through shadows of uncertainty and loss.

Being anxious for your personal or professional desires to meet it’s destined soil is normal, but the gift of time— the most valuable and expensive commodity for all of us — is yours to steward.

Whatever has brought you to your offseason, here’s a few things that can help you steward your time wisely:

1. Habit Audit: what’s helping or hindering your daily routine?

2. Do Something New: I launched a digital series called “The Layoff List” (part 2 is launching soon!) depicting my newfound freedom adventures. Try something on your wish list. Take the course. Book the trip. Read the book. I have!

3. Embrace your circle: Reconnect with people you haven’t spent much time with. Also read: re-evaluate friendships. Your offseason reveals who’s truly in your corner.

4. Rest with intention: Prioritize sleep, mental health and self-care and make time to move your body.

5. Work the plan, don’t just dream: take a step. it can be small, but do it. a goal roadmap with milestones for your new season is the secret to staying grounded.

THE RETURN

In this offseason of my career, I have reprogrammed my brain to see myself as an athlete, preparing for the perfect team to sign me.

The offseason is the reps you put in when no one is watching, the film you study when there's no game, the conditioning you build before the crowd returns: it all counts.

Your offseason doesn’t waste time on what has ended. It fiercely clears the path for what is ahead of you.

Champions are built in the offseason.

It's where the underdog has just enough time and discipline to realize he was never the underdog at all, but the biggest threat on the field.

Tuesday, March 3, 2026

💥 THE U.S. AND IRAN CONFLICT IS MOVING FAST

Last Friday, the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Khamenei and taking out top military commanders.

Iran hit back fast, firing on Israel and targets across the Gulf, and the U.S. has already pulled its diplomats and shut down embassies across the Middle East.

Some experts are calling it the biggest military flare-up in the region in decades.

As of today, 6 American service members have been killed in a direct Iranian attack on a U.S. military base in Kuwait. 18 more Americans are seriously wounded.

When asked, Trump said plainly: "there will likely be more before it ends."

⛽ What the conflict in Iran means for your gas prices

Before the attack, the national average was sitting at about $2.96 per gallon last week.

As of this morning, AAA reports the average jumped 11 cents overnight to about $3.11 a gallon. That’s one of the biggest single-day jumps we’ve seen recently.

GasBuddy’s top analyst says markets are reacting to the Iran strikes, and if that bottleneck at the Strait of Hormuz ( the narrow waterway that a third of the world's oil has to pass through) doesn’t clear up fast, experts say we could be paying more for weeks.

📉 Wall Street isn’t having the best day

And yes, there’s more fallout. Maybe hold off on checking your 401(k) today.

Markets opened ugly, directly tied to the Iran conflict.

The Dow dropped over 1,200 points at its worst before recovering some ground, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both still sitting around 0.9% in the red.

Defense stocks are winning big (Northrop Grumman up 6%), while airlines are getting crushed: United, American, and Delta all down more than 5% on spiking fuel costs.

The Fed was already expected to cut interest rates this year, but traders are now pushing that timeline into the summer until the full economic impact of the war becomes clearer.

🇪🇸 President Trump is threatening to cut off trade with Spain

And yes, it’s all tied back to the Iran war.

Earlier today, President Trump said he wants to cut off all U.S. trade with Spain because they wouldn’t let American military use its bases during the current Iran conflict.

Trump told the Treasury Secretary to cut off all U.S. business with Spain.

The U.S. traded roughly $47 billion worth of goods with Spain last year— everything from olive oil, wine, canned seafood to refined petroleum and various machinery.

Spain’s government pushed back, saying their bases can only be used within international legal frameworks.

To be continued…

Share this with someone who needs to catch up! 🗞️

Jordan gave a testimony. You could see it move across his face: the memory of a boy working the grind of child acting, collecting vouchers one job at a time, just to earn his SAG card. Just to belong to the thing he loved. To his craft.

From early acting credits on TV shows like The Wire, The Cosby Show, The Sopranos, and Hardball, to notable film roles like Fruitvale Station, Creed, A Journal for Jordan, and Black Panther — Jordan knows ball. He always has.

Standing on stage to accept his award, Jordan wasn’t a man surprised by his own greatness. He was a man who had always known what he was capable of. A man who has spent the better part of three decades waiting for the industry to catch up.

Hollywood can’t deny it now — Jordan knows ball.

Actor Michael B. Jordan at the 2026 Actor Awards presented by SAG-AFTRA.

But his success isn’t selfish, or even one-dimensional. His work in Sinners not only transcended expectations of what Black art means and how well it can perform in mainstream media, it loudly rewrote the rules of relatability: Blackness in all of its glory is not a niche.

Director Ryan Coogler and Jordan conjure a poetic on-screen partnership that hasn’t just blown away box offices and expectations — it’s forced Hollywood and its gatekeepers to pay attention to Black art and its power to transmute margin into mainstream.

The kind of partnership that spills into barbershop talk, group chats and now boardroom meetings.

Director Ryan Cooler and Actor Michael B. Jordan.

Numbers Don’t Lie

Sinners received a record 16 nominations ahead of the 98th Academy Awards, the most of any film in history — including a nomination for Best Picture.

Then there’s the box office receipts: $369 million worldwide against a budget of about $90–100 million.

Not a Marvel film. Not a franchise. An original, Black-led, Black-directed horror film set in the segregated South.

Black Art isn’t just for Black folks

From the back streets of Oakland in Fruitvale Station to the throne of Wakanda, Coogler and Jordan speak a cinematic language that everyone can understand: Black pain is not a genre. Black ambition is not a gamble. Black love is not a subplot.

Sinners is the rhythmic humor, the historical integrity, and the aching tenderness of a film that understands that Black joy and Black pain have always lived on the same block.

Their partnership matters because Hollywood runs on pattern recognition — it largely greenlights what it’s already seen.

What Coogler and Jordan do is make the unseen undeniable. They don’t ask for a seat at the table. They build a table that makes the old one look like a folding chair.

Michael B. Jordan starring in Sinners as twin brothers, Smoke and Stack.

Like a sculptor profoundly specific about the details he hopes everyone notices, Coogler sees Jordan as more than a paid performer or muse — he believes Jordan is a vessel for the nuanced stories Black men were never expected to tell in mainstream media about themselves; complex stories of grief, morality, rage, tenderness, and glory all living in the same body at the same time. Or in this case, two.

Hollywood tells Black stories, but Coogler highlights the difference between telling a story and owning one.

Coogler without Jordan still works, and vice versa. But together, they produce a rare entity that should be celebrated without being seen as segregated.

And don’t get me started on the cultural brilliance of Delroy Lindo.

English-born Actor, Delroy Lindo, 73, as “Delta Slim.”

Lindo was Delta Slim — deep in his soul, so much so that you felt it in yours.

If you’ve had the privilege of meeting Lindo in other projects like Crooklyn, Malcom X, Da 5 Bloods and The Good Fight then his on-screen cadence is nothing new, but just as remarkable.

What Lindo brings to a frame cannot be taught or replicated. It is the kind of work that lives in the bones — seasoned by decades of craftsmanship, sharpened by a life fully lived in the shadows of the good and the bad, as black man on and off the screen. Lindo doesn’t just perform scenes; he anchors the entire film.

Lindo portrays the wisdom we noted every summer in the deep-carved wrinkles of our Black grandfathers’ faces and the volume of their silence.

That is why the improvised monologue in the jailhouse car ride scene brought me to tears the first time I saw it. I felt the first hum in the pit of my stomach.

Together, in Sinners, Coogler, Jordan, and Lindo exude a frequency Hollywood doesn’t naturally produce — or even think to.

Actor Delroy Lindo and Director Ryan Coogler.

Star in your own story

Sinners is far from just a film, or a well-written, well-cast story.

It is an undeniable reminder that Black excellence in film is not a single generation’s achievement. It is a lineage. A passed torch. A debt being honored in real time.

That’s the hook, the harmony, and the hymn of Sinners — and all that it has become in the context of mainstream culture and consumption.

It shook something loose in everyone I know who watched it and understood its brilliance. It embodies as much beauty and power innate to Black culture as it does its painful realities and complexity.

In film, in TV, in life — there is nothing more powerful than the authenticity of powerful, honest, and intricate storytelling.

Storytelling in all its mediums is how we see ourselves, how we find each other, and how we remind the world of the most democratic truth of all: every single one of us has a story worth telling.

For so many, this feels like the year of becoming.

The year of watching joyfully as the caterpillar becomes the butterfly.

The year of written manifestations come whipping to life.

The year armor finally falls away.

The year you keep the promises you made to you.

The year you freely trust what safety feels like.

The year the under dogs stops proving.

The year you reap, with interest.

The next chapter isn’t reinvention, it’s arriving.

The hard season is the soil. 🌟🦋

I have never been good at sitting still.

I have always been someone focused on the next thing. A new idea. A trip. A new beauty procedure. A unique story idea. A level up waiting in the wings.

Before my layoff, momentum was always my love language — until stillness taught me that not everything needs to be optimized.

The truth is, the weight of silence is heavy because silence is a mirror that you cannot turn away from. It reflects your true self against the veneer of yourself that you’ve gotten acquainted with and worse, comfortable with.

But if you steward silence properly, it quantifies the noise. Time uncovers inconvenient truths. Together, time and silence are relentless healers.

They do what nothing else can, they outlast your excuses. They sit with you through every distraction you construct, every story you rehearse, until the only thing left standing is the version of you that was always true.

It takes courage to confront what we constantly push down to stay above life’s relentless current of becoming.

Very early on my faith journey years ago, my aunt told me that if I pray to God for patience, I won’t magically wake up patient. I was quietly disappointed by that. But she smiled through the phone and said, 'God doesn't give us patience, He gives us opportunities to become patient.'

And my Lord, would the next 12 years of my life prove just how right she was.

By the way, I never prayed for patience again.

So often, we ask for something— the job, the partner, the whatever it is. And after we ask, we look for it to arrive precisely as we have described and imagined. We have made plans for ‘the thing.’

Sometimes, it works out and we get exactly what we ask for. It is spectacularly perfect. We feel invincible and validated. We have momentum.

But sometimes, life has other plans.

What life is teaching me about the prayers we pray is this: the fruit we reap isn’t always the thing we asked for.

Sometimes the blessing is the journey it took to get there; sometimes it is who you become along the way.

In 2022, when I left my beloved Baltimore for Texas, I believed at the time it was the ‘bigger’ and better I’d been praying for. More than that, I thought it was the right move. A bigger market, a more prominent role, a wonderful opportunity to elevate.

For weeks at the beginning of that year, I had been sick with Covid and bronchitis. One Sunday, after watching a sermon from Bishop T.D. Jakes, I did something I never used to do.

I sat in total silence.

I was used to my body and my mind being in constant motion. In that 45 minutes of unfamiliar silence, I heard “Texas” whispered into my spirit, and a few days later I received an email about a potential job opportunity there. I called my agent to ask him what he thought and instead, he shared with me a quiet tip about an unlisted position, a female main anchor role within my company.

I suddenly knew exactly why I had been sick and silent.

After my longest tenure in any one city since becoming a tv journalist, I left everything I had built in Baltimore, hoping I could do it again.

I arrived in Texas as myself — fully, unapologetically and what I learned is in some cases that’s celebrated and in others, it costs you.

I was grateful then and I am grateful now, because the woman I am becoming needed the woman I was to get right here.

These days, I don’t just embrace the silence and all it has to say. I make time for it. I crave it. I listen to it differently.

Not every chapter closes the way you imagined, but they end the way you needed.

As bittersweet as it feels in the moment, the endings that sting the most tend to teach the loudest.

Slowing down to honor all the things silence needs to tell you is sensible surrender, perhaps even divine sovereignty.

It’s God, or the universe, or whatever you believe in, handing you a shovel forcing you to excavate. Telling you: now dig for the real thing.

When things don’t go as planned, the detour has a talented way of showing you parts of yourself that the destination you once revered never would have.

Quiet the noise that once soothed you and let it to be the soundtrack to your soul coming home.

Perhaps we all know—and maybe even agree—that being a spectator of grief is often preferred, or at least easier, than experiencing it. Easier than witnessing it firsthand, coursing through each corner of your life.

But what about what grief becomes?

What about its unapologetic and uncanny ability to rip away facades?

What about its autonomous power to force you to dig deeper, like my favorite high school English teacher would suggest?

Or what about its innate guidance to catapult you into a new chapter you’ve been terrified of?

For me, the clarity that comes with loss—or in this case, perceived loss—is wildly sobering.

The thing I feared most, happened. After loyalty and sacrifice and even marked success, my job was gone.

Just. Like. That.

I’ve spent the last 13 years building a career in TV news as a young, whimsical, smart, bold Black woman. I won my first Emmy in 2024. I was happy, on some level. It was never perfect—no job ever is, but I was always proud of the work I’d done. By 31 years old, I had ascended quickly to arguably, what some may consider a coveted local news position in a top-five market. Nothing but God and His favor.

The truth is, I didn’t have a “difficult” path pursuing my dream, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t challenged or doubted or that I didn’t pay my dues. I did. I cut my teeth. I honed my craft. I said yes. I made mistakes. I stayed humble. I earned each elevation in my journey.

The stepping stones to my dream job meant that I missed graduations, birthdays, funerals, bachelorette trips, and birthday trips. Those lost memories, the ones I will always wonder about and never get to live again, were collateral damage.

On one hand, that is the job. It just is. You’re trained to believe that personal sacrifice is what it takes to get exactly where you want to be—that is the cost of entry.

Your early ambition is often willing to pay.

But the true cost is always greater.

I couldn’t tell you the last time a day felt normal, until last October.

I was laid off after seven years with my former company as a main evening anchor, on Zoom, by a manager with whom I never had a healthy professional relationship.

It took me back to 2013 when I was leaving my condo in Midtown Atlanta for a modest apartment in rural Wisconsin.

Think, Nene and the white refrigerator.

I had just graduated from Spelman College, the premier HBCU in the nation. I was as green as I was hungry but I had a natural passion to speak to the camera like a friend, and a love for people and learning. I somehow believed in myself.

After all, this is what I decided on after realizing I wasn’t taking over the funeral home and I was far too irresponsible with math to be a doctor. I wanted my own career, on my own merit.

I held tight to my unshakable faith and innocence, two things I often daydream about and sometimes still crave.

Mama told me that if I wasn’t going to have thick skin, then I needed to walk away from the idea of this tv news business and I needed to do it now.

I was offended at first, it felt prickly, but I knew she was right.

Just as she had warned me before leaving for Spelman four years prior, she was warning me now.

Before college, she told me I needed to be prepared for the competitive and political environment I was matriculating into. I knew Atlanta, and I knew Spelman, since I had attended the Early College Program there as a high school senior. But I didn’t quite know this new world I was about to be immersed in for the next four years.

We knew the truth, I had lived in a privileged microcosm of Jack and Jill and MV summers.

She told me I would not be the only attractive, intelligent, well-traveled, privileged Black girl. She told me there would be hundreds of “me.” Some prettier. Some with more. Some more popular. But she also wanted me to know that no one would be me either.

I never, ever forgot that. Certainly not as I grew up in a business that is as principled as it is choreographed; as desired, as it is delicate.

It wasn’t that my mom didn’t think I could handle it.

It was that she knew I have never had the propensity to play the game.

I hate the game. I hate what it stands for and what it protects. I value authenticity, integrity, and truth above all else. Mom knew that. And she knew I needed to know the truth, too.

So when she told me thick skin was non-negotiable, I was already two steps ahead.

Looking back at what happened on that Zoom in October, seven symbolizes completion.

God was telling me my assignment was complete.

If I’m honest, there were days when I felt that and days when I distracted myself long enough to avoid the deepening truth: my alignment was shifting.

For me, this season of transition hasn’t been about what was lost. Because the truth is, although I am mourning, I didn’t actually lose anything.

Frankly, I had to get over the “loss” narrative for a few reasons, and somewhat quickly.

What this season is about is everything I am learning from grief—what I am learning from its beautiful ability to be the alchemist of pain. If you let it, perceived loss shapes the lesson. It becomes the scaffolding for a new foundation.

It reveals your truest desires and your boldest voice.

Those lessons are precise. And they are different for everyone.

For me, it has started with a regulated nervous system.

I believe in the woo-woo. I call myself a whimsical woo as someone who believes in everything from prayer to manifestation to meditation to reiki.

I have fallen in love with and learned to welcome this much-needed pause.

It’s an overdue invitation to finally slow down. A chance to look left out of the window and see what I’m passing instead of rushing through a light to get to a story or promo shoot. A standing appointment to ground myself and actually scan my body for presence, not just power through a workout to move the day along before getting camera-ready.

It’s reintroduced me to a renewed trust in my own instinct. A clearer picture of who is and isn’t a true friend, what it means to be one, what brings me joy; what God is trying to get me to see, what I will never agree to again, what I will never ignore again; what I will demand more of and from whom, what I will ask for instead, what makes me laugh from my gut, and what doesn’t; what I’m no longer afraid of, and who I am becoming.

Whatever is no longer aligned is now perishable. Cheers to that.

It’s tough to release the thing you’re clinging to when you believe you need it.

I cherish my impromptu adventures and midday walks. The freedom to try a new coffee shop or make an appointment in the middle of the day.

There are days when I cry and pray and resign to doing nothing at all to calibrate.

There are others, when I am fiercely planting every dream I am determined to see bloom.

What I have managed to do, regardless of whatever I am feeling, is look forward.

That’s what you need to do, too: to let whatever was withering away now water you.

I believe deeply that this season is crucial to the elevation of every aspect of my life.

And when you can heal through something like that?

When you can reacquaint yourself with your why, your soul and your spirit?

Your grief becomes the fuel for everything you are already destined to be.

The Kalia Nicole on the other end of this screen is unstoppable—not in arrogance, but in the strength of scattered ashes.

Falling apart is bringing everything together.