Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Overcoming the Odds: She resisted pressures of conformity, loved herself, embraced her flaws and became successful, Comedian Loni Love.
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: If you're about to make a change in your life
- 0:03Speaker 1: and you feel uncomfortable, that's the best feeling you.
- 0:05Speaker 2: Can have.
- 0:08Speaker 1: Because for the first time in your life, you'll make
- 0:10Speaker 1: a new decision that's going to be best for you
- 0:13Speaker 1: and not what somebody told you to do. And that's
- 0:16Speaker 1: when all bets are off. Welcome to Money Making Conversation Masterclass.
- 0:20Speaker 1: I'm your host, Ushawn McDonald. Our theme is there's no
- 0:23Speaker 1: perfect time to start following your dreams. I recognize that
- 0:26Speaker 1: we all have different definitions of success. For you and
- 0:29Speaker 1: maybe decide to your HM, it's time to stop reading
- 0:32Speaker 1: other people's success stories to start living your own. Keep winning.
- 0:40Speaker 1: My next guest, Different is an Emmy Award winning and
- 0:43Speaker 1: two time NAACP Image Award winning multimedia personality that includes
- 0:48Speaker 1: series XM's Cafe Mocal radio show, talk show, co host
- 0:52Speaker 1: On the Real, comedian, entrepreneur, and actress. She's on the
- 0:55Speaker 1: show to talk about her very very funny memoir I
- 0:58Speaker 1: tried to change so you don't have to. Please. Welcome
- 1:01Speaker 1: to the Money Making Conversation, Honey.
- 1:02Speaker 3: Love, Thank you for the time.
- 1:07Speaker 1: Loney, I'm telling you something. Let me just read this
- 1:08Speaker 1: little from what I took from the book, because I
- 1:10Speaker 1: want to want to set the stage before we started
- 1:12Speaker 1: writing talking about this very funny book, and a very
- 1:15Speaker 1: funny book memoir. In reading this book just came from you.
- 1:18Speaker 1: In reading this book, you should remember that I am
- 1:20Speaker 1: a comedian. I am also a television host and an
- 1:23Speaker 1: actress and electrical engineer. This is my memoir and tells
- 1:27Speaker 1: you about my life. But it's a tale told from
- 1:30Speaker 1: a comedian perspective, a comic perspective, and I believe that
- 1:33Speaker 1: this entitles me to a good number of liberties. I
- 1:36Speaker 1: re ordered and combined events and people. I changed a
- 1:40Speaker 1: whole lot of names and identify how details. And I've
- 1:43Speaker 1: exaggerated and made some things up all together I hope
- 1:46Speaker 1: make you smile or even laugh. But I have not
- 1:48Speaker 1: changed the reality of my life, where I came from
- 1:52Speaker 1: and how I've got here today. Ladies and gentlemen, Loney
- 1:56Speaker 1: love that's beautiful.
- 2:00Speaker 3: Called when the attorney talks.
- 2:05Speaker 1: Loney. You know, you know you've been on the show before,
- 2:08Speaker 1: and I'm a big fan of yours, and uh you
- 2:10Speaker 1: know it always you know, like I always call you
- 2:14Speaker 1: a text you Uh just just I'll let you know
- 2:16Speaker 1: I love you and uh you're just a gifted young
- 2:18Speaker 1: lady and never be down on yourself. And I read
- 2:21Speaker 1: this book. It's a journey from Detroit to Houston, Texas
- 2:24Speaker 1: to El Segondo to Los Angeles. I guess it all
- 2:31Speaker 1: started in Detroit. Tell us about that the start, and
- 2:34Speaker 1: then I want to break down some of my favorite chapters,
- 2:36Speaker 1: like chapter eight when you were thrown in jail. That's
- 2:38Speaker 1: that has to be the funniest, the funniest. I know,
- 2:44Speaker 1: I read a lot of books. Now I'm just telling.
- 2:46Speaker 1: I'm just telling. If I'm talking to Lone of Love,
- 2:48Speaker 1: now this is her book. Now, this is number one
- 2:50Speaker 1: I tried to change, so you don't have to. I'm
- 2:53Speaker 1: telling you.
- 2:55Speaker 3: I just think everybody should tell their journey, and especially people.
- 3:00Speaker 3: People don't understand how hard it is for us to
- 3:03Speaker 3: make it. That's why I want everybody to share their story,
- 3:06Speaker 3: you know. And so this is my story. I grew
- 3:08Speaker 3: up in Detroit and Brewster Projects and it just takes
- 3:11Speaker 3: you through that whole life thing, because you know, some
- 3:14Speaker 3: people only know me from real or from Chelsea lay
- 3:17Speaker 3: or you know the shows that Rashan will put me on.
- 3:23Speaker 1: So but you.
- 3:25Speaker 3: Know, it's a whole journey, and I just wanted the
- 3:28Speaker 3: people to understand, you know, my journey and why I
- 3:31Speaker 3: appreciate where I am, why I'm vulnerable at times, while
- 3:34Speaker 3: I'm sensitive at times, while I'm strong at times, because
- 3:38Speaker 3: the fact is that it hasn't been an easy road.
- 3:41Speaker 3: And I also wanted to inspire and get people some hope.
- 3:45Speaker 3: So that's that's what you're reading. And it's just a
- 3:47Speaker 3: love letter to my fans. That's what it is.
- 3:50Speaker 1: It's an honest letter. And the thing about it is
- 3:52Speaker 1: that I've read a lot of memoirs during the show
- 3:54Speaker 1: money making conversations. But I love George because it was
- 3:57Speaker 1: just funny, but it's also trueful. It was also painful.
- 4:02Speaker 1: It was also I was like, you know, I had
- 4:04Speaker 1: a reason to cry. I had a reason to feel
- 4:06Speaker 1: sorry for you. I had a reader to root for you.
- 4:08Speaker 1: I had a reason to call you a fool. You
- 4:11Speaker 1: know that's stupid, why you do that. And but one
- 4:14Speaker 1: of the things that came out that stood out for
- 4:16Speaker 1: me was like, you know, you know, it was a
- 4:18Speaker 1: point in your life where you were surrounded by blackness.
- 4:20Speaker 1: That's why I called in your book, you mentioned it
- 4:23Speaker 1: yourself surrounded by blackness, protected you. The HBCU experienced a
- 4:27Speaker 1: privyer and m the Black sisters of your sorority, Delta
- 4:32Speaker 1: Sigma Theta. You you experienced that HBCU experienced and being
- 4:36Speaker 1: surrounded by the sisterhood who bailed you out of jail.
- 4:39Speaker 1: Uh second, yeah, thank you to my sro.
- 4:45Speaker 3: They had you know, they had some credit cards. They
- 4:47Speaker 3: was able to do that and they you know, and
- 4:50Speaker 3: I had to lean way on the shield that that night,
- 4:53Speaker 3: almost hard. But it's just it's a wonderful st story
- 5:00Speaker 3: of how you know, at nineteen years old, even though
- 5:03Speaker 3: growing up in the project, I knew nothing about the
- 5:06Speaker 3: police because my mom always protected me from that. You know,
- 5:10Speaker 3: the police never came into projects unless you know, somebody
- 5:13Speaker 3: got shot. So I didn't. I didn't have this experience
- 5:16Speaker 3: till I was in college, and I didn't realize, you know,
- 5:19Speaker 3: I didn't have to talk. I didn't know nothing about
- 5:22Speaker 3: you know, racist cops, and you know, I've never I've
- 5:26Speaker 3: never experienced that. So when I experienced it, and the
- 5:29Speaker 3: story is so interesting. It goes through the whole process
- 5:32Speaker 3: of being arrested, you know, going to the booking center
- 5:36Speaker 3: because I was it was a felony for trespassing, walking
- 5:39Speaker 3: in the kitchen. I was put in a you know,
- 5:42Speaker 3: in a sale with you know, murderers and felons and
- 5:46Speaker 3: stuff like that, at nineteen years old with no experience.
- 5:49Speaker 1: You know, the reason I liked the book is that
- 5:52Speaker 1: I kind of understand you a lot more, you know,
- 5:54Speaker 1: because you've really outspoken and you first of all, you're
- 5:57Speaker 1: coming from you know, when you talk about prison or
- 5:59Speaker 1: jail or wrong flair, incarcerated, or talk about being a
- 6:04Speaker 1: call out by your name, racial statements thrown your way.
- 6:07Speaker 1: And the thing about it in your book when I
- 6:10Speaker 1: would is the churches in the church plays a role
- 6:13Speaker 1: Miss Evil, jehovah witness, you know how she built those
- 6:17Speaker 1: Just talk about some of the ladies besides your mom,
- 6:19Speaker 1: who played an important, defining role in your personality. How
- 6:22Speaker 1: you looked at life, how you looked at love, how
- 6:24Speaker 1: you looked at relationships and all that stuff. Talk about
- 6:26Speaker 1: the other women that were important in your life in
- 6:29Speaker 1: this book.
- 6:29Speaker 3: Well, the love that I developed a black women came
- 6:32Speaker 3: from my foundation. You know. I had a babysitter and her
- 6:35Speaker 3: name was Miss Brookes. She was Jehovah's witness who I
- 6:38Speaker 3: spent a lot of my time with That's where I
- 6:40Speaker 3: got my religious backing from. I had Miss Eva.
- 6:45Speaker 1: Ice Cream Evil, Yeah, because she.
- 6:48Speaker 3: Was the Bible Sudden Lady, you know. I had my
- 6:51Speaker 3: Girl Scout Truth Leader. And these were women that impacted
- 6:56Speaker 3: me so much that they cared for me and they
- 6:59Speaker 3: could care of me. And this was the foundation. And
- 7:02Speaker 3: I think that's important when they say a village, it
- 7:04Speaker 3: takes a village to raise a child, it really really does.
- 7:08Speaker 3: But then also is my relationship you know with men
- 7:13Speaker 3: in general was actually defined in that era as well.
- 7:19Speaker 3: And you know, the caring of black brothers and sisters,
- 7:23Speaker 3: you know, was also defined from that. So it's like
- 7:26Speaker 3: when I meet people like the fabulous Rashan McDonald, we're
- 7:31Speaker 3: able to connect because we're down home people, you know
- 7:34Speaker 3: what I mean. And so that's so all of this
- 7:36Speaker 3: you can, you know, read about it in the book
- 7:38Speaker 3: and you can really see and feel the foundation. But
- 7:43Speaker 3: I mean, the thing if anybody I want them to
- 7:45Speaker 3: take away from is that if you feel hopeless, if
- 7:49Speaker 3: you need some inspiration, understand that you are from a
- 7:54Speaker 3: strong stock of people. And we constantly prove it all
- 7:57Speaker 3: the time. And I'm just waiting on YELP book.
- 8:02Speaker 2: Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
- 8:05Speaker 2: money Making Conversations Masterclass. Welcome back to the Money Making
- 8:13Speaker 2: Conversations Masterclass hosted by Rashaan McDonald. Money Making Conversations Masterclass
- 8:19Speaker 2: continues online at Moneymakingconversations dot com and follow money Making
- 8:23Speaker 2: Conversations Masterclass on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
- 8:27Speaker 1: Well, thank you, well it's coming, Babba tell you I'm
- 8:30Speaker 1: in this book. I'm telling her Bons and Noble. You
- 8:32Speaker 1: can get online right now. The book is on sale
- 8:34Speaker 1: right now. Please go out and buy it. And the
- 8:37Speaker 1: thing that because it's some relatable things to me in there.
- 8:40Speaker 1: I'm a male, but it's very relatable because this book
- 8:42Speaker 1: is by motivation, is by the inspired, is overcoming odds.
- 8:46Speaker 1: And one of the things was when she came out
- 8:47Speaker 1: of high school, you know, Bright calling NERD. My degree
- 8:50Speaker 1: was in mathematics, so in Husky was mathematics. She got
- 8:53Speaker 1: a degree in electrical engineering and she just went to
- 8:56Speaker 1: work for you know, it was a GM jama for
- 9:01Speaker 1: one of the general motives went on the line, just
- 9:03Speaker 1: just putting carpet, blowing carpet down. When I graduated from
- 9:07Speaker 1: high school, I became a forklift driver. I thought that
- 9:10Speaker 1: was my level. I thought that that's it had it
- 9:12Speaker 1: had a nice pay hourly check tied to it. I
- 9:15Speaker 1: thought that was my level. But somebody saw more and
- 9:18Speaker 1: more in me, more in me than I saw on myself.
- 9:22Speaker 1: And that's really where mentoring comes in. That's why it's important.
- 9:26Speaker 1: I see the role that you play out there. I
- 9:28Speaker 1: see registering people to vote. I've seen how you realize
- 9:31Speaker 1: that look look in your book. And then it talks
- 9:35Speaker 1: about accepting who you are when you're trying to lose
- 9:38Speaker 1: all that weight, trying to be something that you're not.
- 9:41Speaker 1: And that's really and I want to let people know
- 9:44Speaker 1: that this book is so relatable because it talks about
- 9:48Speaker 1: issues and trusting yourself and not listening to other people
- 9:51Speaker 1: who say you should be doing this, trust to your
- 9:54Speaker 1: It's it's really an amazing story, very funny, but very
- 9:59Speaker 1: but very very telling us to what we need to
- 10:02Speaker 1: read today to be motivated to be successful. Great job
- 10:05Speaker 1: on this book, great, great job.
- 10:07Speaker 3: Appreciate it. I appreciate everybody that's that's we're discovering it
- 10:12Speaker 3: and reading about it. It's great reviews. The Amazon has
- 10:15Speaker 3: been number one and Memoirs is number one in comedy
- 10:19Speaker 3: for new releases. So and again, I can't wait to
- 10:23Speaker 3: get your book. But we are just parallel, and you
- 10:26Speaker 3: know when it comes to being like that manual and
- 10:29Speaker 3: how somebody came to help us, it's just a it's
- 10:32Speaker 3: a great story and I'm just thankful that I'm able
- 10:34Speaker 3: to live to still tell it.
- 10:36Speaker 1: And then we then we did something else. We were
- 10:39Speaker 1: musically inclined and we love classic music. See, I was
- 10:43Speaker 1: a B flat clarinet.
- 10:44Speaker 3: That was me.
- 10:45Speaker 1: So you you couldn't have let you went over to
- 10:47Speaker 1: the French Home. And I'm gonna tell you something. I'm
- 10:49Speaker 1: gonna tell anybody this about the French Home. That is
- 10:52Speaker 1: the most difficult instrument to play, because if you don't
- 10:55Speaker 1: put your hands in that right and more right right now,
- 10:58Speaker 1: the sounds because you could just keep blowing on that
- 11:00Speaker 1: thing forever. So for you to go, for for you
- 11:03Speaker 1: to walk past B flat clarinet and go over to
- 11:06Speaker 1: a French home, girl, hands down, you are bad, sister, okay.
- 11:13Speaker 3: And you could use it as a weapon.
- 11:18Speaker 1: It's just beautiful. It's just beautiful with the journey as
- 11:21Speaker 1: as we go through this book, you know it was
- 11:24Speaker 1: Let me just tell everybody about the book, and then
- 11:26Speaker 1: since how it breaks down. It talks about the early
- 11:28Speaker 1: years in the projects and then they talked that's part
- 11:31Speaker 1: of her life. That's important, that first eighteen years. Then
- 11:35Speaker 1: it talks specifically about her college life, her friends, how
- 11:39Speaker 1: she got to college, how that played an important role,
- 11:42Speaker 1: and each each one of those layers is defining for
- 11:45Speaker 1: her because you know, she didn't want to leave home
- 11:47Speaker 1: when she was asked to leave home, and then she
- 11:50Speaker 1: wasn't really ready to go to college, but she saw
- 11:53Speaker 1: an opportunity to go, she went. She learned how to pivot.
- 11:56Speaker 1: That's this book is about pivoting too, because in this book,
- 11:59Speaker 1: Lonnie is a great pivoter. She's said an opportunity, she's
- 12:03Speaker 1: going and it's going to give one hundred percent. A
- 12:05Speaker 1: lot of people pivot and they kind of ease over
- 12:08Speaker 1: that line, and you don't do that, do you?
- 12:11Speaker 2: So?
- 12:12Speaker 3: I know, I really like telling the story, telling the truth,
- 12:17Speaker 3: but bring in levity. At the end of every chapter
- 12:21Speaker 3: is a list of jokes. Yes, because some stories in
- 12:24Speaker 3: the books are dark, some stories are sad, some stories
- 12:27Speaker 3: are really happy. But I want people to know that
- 12:30Speaker 3: after every chapter there's levity, yes, And I think that
- 12:33Speaker 3: that's important because it shapes your frame of mind differently.
- 12:38Speaker 3: So to know that you can get out of anything,
- 12:41Speaker 3: even though it seems impossible, You could get out of anything.
- 12:45Speaker 3: And this is a story for men, women, young old. Yes,
- 12:49Speaker 3: if you're at a point in your life where you're
- 12:51Speaker 3: trying to read and you kind of like you need
- 12:53Speaker 3: some motivations, you read this book. You know, I mean
- 12:56Speaker 3: if you're trying to find love, you know I talk
- 12:58Speaker 3: about that. Oh, yes, you get to where you need to.
- 13:02Speaker 3: You know, you get in situations where you know things
- 13:05Speaker 3: ain't working out or you know, that's the part where
- 13:08Speaker 3: really Rashan, I have to say, we were the chapter
- 13:11Speaker 3: in Real Talks where I really mean doing Rashan to
- 13:15Speaker 3: give me advice and it really helped me to get
- 13:18Speaker 3: through the situation I was in my TV show. And
- 13:21Speaker 3: you know, understanding the studio system, all of that is
- 13:25Speaker 3: explained because you know, it's real easy for people to
- 13:28Speaker 3: see the front side of certain things of television shows
- 13:32Speaker 3: and things they don't understand behind the scenes. Even way back,
- 13:37Speaker 3: my first movie Peven, don't you know a lot of
- 13:40Speaker 3: people don't know that I was. My first movie was
- 13:42Speaker 3: Soul Playing and definitely we all thought it was gonna
- 13:46Speaker 3: make us all a start, Kevin Hart, Moonique, all of them.
- 13:51Speaker 3: You know, it tells the whole The whole story is explained.
- 13:55Speaker 3: But it's all. And I have so many more stories.
- 13:58Speaker 3: But you know, because I people diary and I tell
- 14:01Speaker 3: anybody you know, right now we're living in historic times.
- 14:05Speaker 3: People diary or a journal, and you know, so that
- 14:07Speaker 3: you can look back in five years and see where
- 14:09Speaker 3: you come from and what you were dealing with. So
- 14:12Speaker 3: these are like just a few stories that I put together,
- 14:15Speaker 3: and it kind of tells the stories, the beginning story,
- 14:18Speaker 3: and it's just something that I'm just I'm just amazed
- 14:22Speaker 3: that people and I'm grateful that people see it and
- 14:25Speaker 3: now they've got to they have a better understanding. But
- 14:28Speaker 3: more importantly, black people are different. We're not all the same.
- 14:31Speaker 3: We're not, but you know, and it's that's why it's
- 14:34Speaker 3: important to push our stories and get our stories out
- 14:38Speaker 3: so that they know that we're real, living and breathing people,
- 14:41Speaker 3: so that they will stop killing us, so that they
- 14:44Speaker 3: understand it. Wow, these people, you know, because they think
- 14:47Speaker 3: that they can't relate to us. But the whole point
- 14:49Speaker 3: is we're living and breathing people, and we have to
- 14:52Speaker 3: share our stories to show them the experiences that we've
- 14:55Speaker 3: come through. And that's what that's what we're doing.
- 14:58Speaker 1: Wow, I'm talking to an winning She talks about that
- 15:01Speaker 1: in the book. Two time NAACP Image Award winning co
- 15:05Speaker 1: host of The Real She's a comedian, very funny entrepreneur,
- 15:09Speaker 1: great clothing line, an actress. You've seen her on TV,
- 15:12Speaker 1: Born Poorly. She has a very very funny memoir I
- 15:15Speaker 1: tried to change so you don't have to Amazon, number one,
- 15:19Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble. Go get it, Londey Love. Let me
- 15:21Speaker 1: tell you what I'm doing. You know, I'm gonna put
- 15:22Speaker 1: it on my social media. You know, don't you know
- 15:24Speaker 1: how I do with you? Okay, on Wednesday's going out
- 15:27Speaker 1: of my fan club, ninety thousand Wednesday morning at nine
- 15:30Speaker 1: o'clock is going out there. So I support you, my friend.
- 15:33Speaker 1: I just wanted to talk about that book. I know
- 15:35Speaker 1: you've got a lot of things going on. I'm short
- 15:36Speaker 1: on time, but I wanted to make sure I gave
- 15:39Speaker 1: the love for this memoir that people need to need
- 15:42Speaker 1: to hear. I read this book. It's funny. I've learned
- 15:45Speaker 1: some things about myself. I learned a lot of things
- 15:47Speaker 1: about Loney love. But more important, it's a love story,
- 15:51Speaker 1: and that's that's beautiful. It's a love story.
- 15:55Speaker 4: About her life, the people who entered her life, how
- 15:58Speaker 4: they shape their life, and how she's happy being herself
- 16:02Speaker 4: when she looks in the mirror with the person who
- 16:05Speaker 4: likes what he sees in the mirror too.
- 16:06Speaker 1: Thank you Linnie for calling my show.
- 16:09Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Rashan for the time lessens brother.
- 16:11Speaker 1: I appreciate you. Stay strong, Stay strong. If you want
- 16:14Speaker 1: to hear more money Making Conversations, please go to money
- 16:17Speaker 1: Making Conversation dot com. I'm Rushan McDonald, I'm your host.
- 16:23Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us for this edition of money
- 16:25Speaker 2: Making Conversations Masterclass. Money Making Conversations Masterclass with Rushan McDonald
- 16:32Speaker 2: is produced by thirty eight to fifteen Media Inc. More
- 16:35Speaker 2: information about thirty eight to fifteen Media Inc. Is available
- 16:38Speaker 2: at thirty eight to fifteen media dot com. And always
- 16:42Speaker 2: remember to lead with your gifts.