Air Date: 9/9/21

The Root Presents: It’s Lit!

Ep. 47 - Gabrielle Union is Back With Something Stronger

Maiysha Hello and welcome to It's Lit, where all things literary live at The Root. I'm
Maiysha Kai, managing editor of The Glow Up, and we are officially back from our little
hiatus. Thank you for sticking with us! Today, we are coming back strong with our first ever
repeat guest, the always lovely and extremely talented Gabrielle Union. Our regular
listeners will probably recall that we had Gabrielle on with her husband, Dwyane Wade,
back in May to talk about their children's book, Shady Baby, which was inspired by their
youngest daughter, Kaavia James. But this time around, Gabrielle is here to have a more
adult conversation talking about her new memoir, You Got Anything Atronger? Suffice to
say, it tells quite a different story. Fans of Gabrielle are probably aware that this is her
second memoir. Her first, We're Going To Need More Wine, was a New York Times
bestseller when it came out in 2017 and largely detailed her upbringing, career journey,
first marriage and processing the intense trauma of being a survivor of sexual assault. This
time around, Gabrielle is getting even more open and vulnerable, if you can believe it,
telling us about the intense ups and downs she's experienced over the last four years
since her first memoir, including her fertility journey, welcoming Kaavia through surrogacy,
navigating power coupling and step parenting, and even experiencing the first flush of
perimenopause. It is affirming and empathetic and something I hope everyone reads. It
was such a joy to get to talk with Gabrielle for a second time for the podcast. She is always
so radically open and honest and I can't wait for you all to hear it. I think it was a really
important conversation to have, especially for us women of a certain age. So with that, I
give you Gabrielle Union.

Maiysha Gabrielle, welcome back to It's Lit.

Gabrielle Union Thank you for having me.

Maiysha Well, you know, this is thrilling because you actually you have the distinction of
being the first of our authors to make a repeat appearance on our podcast, which we
launched. I know. Right. Which we launched just over a year ago. But you were here with
us a couple a few months ago with your husband. That would be Dwyane Wade, for the
uninitiated, talking about your children's book that you all wrote together, Shady Baby,
inspired by your daughter, Kaavia James, who is one of our favorite Internet personalities.
And now, you know, that was a very family friendly conversation and I loved it. But I'm
really excited to have you back to have a slightly more adult conversation about your
second memoir...

Gabrielle Union Yes. Yes.

Maiysha You Got Anything Stronger? Now, I'll say this. So you and I are around the same
age, and I love that you have enough story here for not one, but two memoirs, and having
loved your first one, this is exciting to me because I didn't I don't know that I really
expected to bond with this book as much as I did. I bonded so much with your first one, I
felt like there were so many parallels in my own upbringing in yours. I felt very close to you
and I...And there's a lot I want to dig into in this one. But I do want to do something that we
do every time we tape It's Lit. We like to ask each of our guests about a book that
influenced them as a writer. And when you were here last time, you said Anne Moody's
Coming of Age in Mississippi and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, both of which I think

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very were very telling in terms of a lot of the I guess the energy that you put into the world.
Is there anything else you would add to that list now?

Gabrielle Union Well, probably I, Tina. It's a book I reference a lot, so...I don't always give
it the proper credit that it deserves. I read it the first for the first time because I've read it
several times after I got divorced the first time and. Well, hopefully the only time. Yeah.
And it really...Her clarity and her, her just openness and willingness to be open with all of
us, her fans was...I kept thinking, [makes cringing noise] but at the end, because I was all
up in, I was able to see myself. You know, and a lot of memoirs and personal essays that I
read are it's just like a bunch of clichés thrown together because we want people to think
of us as good and wholesome and worthy of whatever. But it doesn't help that anyone in
that kind of way. So I've wanted to to really be able to not just write, but speak about it and
be impactful.

Maiysha Yeah, you know, I love that you brought up I, Tina, because I do remember you
citing that book in your first memoir and and it's a book that's resonated with me, too. And
for people who don't understand what we're talking about, this is Tina Turner's memoir, her
first one, because she's written several books. But I love what you just said about how it
drew you in, because I had the exact same response to You Got Anything Stronger? By
the way, I also love the alcohol metaphors, and they just they resonate with me, too. The
first time around, the first round, if you will, with I Think We're Going to Need More Wine,
you know, you really brought us into it. You gave us a lot of context on who you are and
your childhood, your upbringing, all those kind of things. This gave us a lot more context, I
think, on the last few years. And I know you'd already been really transparent and open
about a lot of the things that have gone on. You know, having your first child with Dwyane,
you know, that that journey and how ultimately, you know, painful and incredible and
inspiring that whole journey was and you get really transparent here I was I was I was
actually not prepared to weep within the first 30 pages of this, but I did. And having talked
about it publicly before, I mean, you know, you talked about this with Oprah. You've talked
about this with lots of people. Why did you want to go even deeper into that process?

Gabrielle Union Well, the bulk of this was written during the pandemic. And just watching
so many...Me and so many of my friends just feel like you're drowning, you're just
drowning in plain sight and people are kind of glancing and then walking by you like they
didn't see. And it just feels so...You feel so helpless and alone and and like you're literally
going to drown and no one's going to give a shit. And the more I am honest and
transparent about most of it, people are like it's like I'm throwing the life preservers like I
see you and this is how I got through. Doesn't have to match your journey, but I see you.
You're not alone. There is help like. Hope on the other side is just too many of us are just
drowning, like unnecessarily.

Maiysha Yeah, I entirely agree. And I, and you did something here that I felt was really
powerful because I think we do this thing. I mean, I see it a lot as a writer, you know,
because I'm a journalist and there's a comment section everywhere I go. I see this
dismissal that happens sometimes with people who have privilege. Right. You know, like
you all cease to be human. You cease to have, you know, the same kind of traumas and
insecurities and misgivings and hiccups and all those kind of things that everybody else
has. You know, no matter how many how many times you put up the "stars, they're just like
us," you know. But, you know, you explore everything here from the infertility journey to
then going into your insecurities as a new as a parent of a young child. I mean, you'd
already been a step parent, but this obviously added a whole new dimension to things.
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And you even get transparent about it, more transparent about your marriage. And I think
people kind of idealize like they see you and Dwyane there. And you guys always look
amazing. You're on the red carpet getting along great. Everything you know, and you're
giving us this inside lens into what that dynamic looks like. How do you navigate that with
your family? How do you how do you prepare them for this level of transparency? I know
you guys were already out there, but I also know you have to set very necessary
boundaries and you're really kind of letting us in here. How do you how do those
conversations go?

Gabrielle Union Well, with the kids, anything that has to do with the kids, I don't include
anything with them, you know, without their permission. And even then I go back through
and I'm like, it doesn't serve anybody to to add this to to share that. So that's going out.
And that goes that goes into this because it's not about dishing for the sake of dishing for
attention. It's if I'm if I'm going to share a story that involves my family, it's for a very big,
important reason because there's other families experiencing similar things. But yeah, but
when it comes to like me and my husband, I write, I write the truth. And, you know, it's the
truth doesn't change because we want we want it to. The truth doesn't change because
you have great publicists. You know, the truth doesn't change because people have very
short memories for whatever reason it is. It exists. It's it's forever. So, you know, I don't
need to ask permission about that. But not with, not with a grown-up. Not with a grown-up.

Maiysha Yeah. I don't get the I wasn't actually thinking you you would ask permission. I
guess I was thinking more like, like one of my favorite quotes from a writer is Anne Lamott.
I'm going to be paraphrasing here where she says, you know that famous quote, "If you
wanted me to write something different or you wanted me to write about you better, you
know, you better behave better." And you by no means write badly about Dwyane in this
book. But there are nuances here and being transparent myself that for me deeply
resonated not only as somebody who is partnered with somebody who is nine years
younger than me, but also I'm used to being the star in my relationships. And I'm with a
man who's for the first time in my life, you know, has a bigger, broader, splashier platform
than me. And I'm like, what is this? You know? Like, I make a joke. I'm like, "OK, I need to
be the star at home." So, you know, when I say this resonated with me, I mean, you know,
probably more than most books and most interviews with most authors that I have here, I
was like, yeah, this is me and this is my life, you know?

Gabrielle Union I mean, it was like it came up I mean, it was a it was a very big deal in the
last book with my dad and my stepmother because I talked about their affair. And my dad
initially was like, "Well, I mean, shit, I did it." And I'm like, "y\You did!" And others, you
know, who participated in that, were like, "Wait, what? What? So much time has passed.
Aren't you guys over that?" We're like, "No, no, we're not. Neither is my mom." And then
after it came out and it was like the waves of people reading it, you have to deal with
people's feelings about their truth. And I'm like, here's the number to our therapist. Here's
a resource of Black therapists in your area, because this is probably an issue, but not for
me. So you should handle that to make peace with how your things impacted us. But I
never and I didn't check it in that way with adults, you know what I mean? Who made adult
decisions, who have to live with no consequences. But I'm also aware that my husband
has the ability to talk to the media, his damn self. And his book comes out a month after
mine. Like a month and a half after mine. So, you know, he has the ability to talk, you
know, to speak for himself. And, you know, he's my co—he's my moderator. How many
times I've been in in the legal system, He's our moderator for the Miami date, so, yeah, so
you can, you know, chime in.
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Maiysha You'd be like, you know, you're right, you were being really extra.

Gabrielle Union Yeah.

Maiysha I'm going to predict that people are going to resonate with this book because I
think that it is a lot of people's story. You know, another thing you go into here that I didn't
know I needed to hear about was perimenopause. I'm like, oh, right. Yeah, that's
happening. That's a thing that's going on. And, you know, these are not glamorous topics.
You are a glamorous woman. These are not glamorous topics, but they are things we need
to talk about. And I think particularly with Black women, we don't get to have these
conversations that much. And I don't know why we have these conversations that much,
but we don't. And, you know, I know I know from our other conversations how committed
you are to our causes in general. But why was this one vital for you at this particular stage
of life?

Gabrielle Union So just in terms of like your numbers. Right. So they'll tell you that you're
perimenopausal based on your your hormone levels. Right. And I was diagnosed as
perimenopausal in my late 30s. Right. But. It wasn't like, it wasn't manifesting as much of
anything or I didn't think so at the time. Cut to the pandemic, and it was like I woke up in
my whole life, changed the overnight. Gained twenty-five pounds. Acne hair falling out like
it was like I was back in IVF again, but not. I was just trying to get through and then I don't
even know if dark is enough is a big enough word to encompass what this depression I
went into felt like and how it manifested. Had a dumb argument with D and immediately
that voice in my head that I learned to listen to after I was raped, that that voice in my head
that said "run out the back." After I did not run out the back and proceeded to be raped at
gunpoint, I've never questioned that voice ever. Right. I have this stupid little argument
with my voice was like, "you should kill yourself. The only way he's going to understand is
if you're dead." And that was unrelenting. It did not stop for two weeks and immediately I
was like something...Something...Like that's not normal. And I call my therapist right away.
And she said, this is passive, suicidal ideation. You don't actually want to kill yourself. This
is situational. More likely than not, hormone hormonal imbalance and induced
perimenopause can present can cause this and surviving that just getting through every
day is like being told by your most trusted, loved one that you should die. And one of my
biggest fears in life is not being understood like I'm forever being like "Am I making
sense?" Like, I hate not being understood. And so this idea that was that was planted in
my brain and reinforced all day, every day for two weeks, was that in order to be
understood, you're going to have to die? And by the time I came out of that, I was like, we
have to include this. And I was up against the deadline, but I was like, I would be
irresponsible not to write about what I just survived. Because if you don't have a therapist
on hand, again, talk about privilege and resources. And I have been in therapy for twenty
five years plus. You are going to kill yourself and feel like you're supposed to like it was the
most natural thing, like, "Oh, time to go to the bathroom. Oh, time to kill yourself."
And...and then I started doing a deeper dive in the stories of of of more famous women
who have taken their lives. And I started doing different, a deeper dive into research about
what is the age range that is most likely to commit suicide. And I was right then smack in
the middle of that and looking at those other women and the way that they were, their pain
and their deaths were dismissed as well. Basically, women of our age were no longer
romantic options or sexual options. You're just not used to being passed over for some
younger. You're starting to get moved out at work. You might be training your replacement.
Also a time where a lot of marriages break up, kids leave the nest, and these things can be
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triggers that can kind of lead down this path. But it's not the it's not the whole story. And if
we start asking for full blood panels when we go to see our OB and when we go to see our
general practitioners and, you know, for a lot of people, I certainly grew up with and know
today we go to Planned Parenthood for their women's visits, ask for a full blood panel and
check all those hormone levels, because I bet there is there is a correlation between if you
have a certain sudden depression, but a depression that maybe has started maybe late
30s or 40s, 50s and onward, that it could be there might be a jetpack fuel of
perimenopause or menopause fueling it. And there's things that you can do. And it is it's it
is dark. It is. I can't say it enough. It is fucking dark, but there is hope. And again, one, by
the time you get out and you're like, OK, what did I just experience now at this point, if I
don't talk about this, I'm actually an asshole, like. People people are dying and people are
just left with, like, I don't know what this came out of nowhere, you know, and it doesn't
come out of nowhere.

Maiysha Right. You think it's happening in a vacuum when it's happening. And I mean and
I say that as somebody who's dealt with hormonally based depression myself and I and
I—love is probably not the right word. I appreciated that you drew some correlations. And
that's not to diagnose anybody, obviously. But we do know that at least I know, you know,
there's been a rash of women, successful, dynamic, gorgeous, amazing, you know, super
talented, super visible women, you know, women who you're like, oh, but you have or you
had community or I thought you did or, you know, you had this great life. You had this with
all the excuses we can make for somebody in the world of what you know, what we're
projecting on to them is success, per se, who have suddenly just disappeared from our
midst and we don't know what's going on. And again, that's not to diagnose anyone and
say what any of those things were. But I agree with you wholeheartedly that the triggers,
you know, like it's not that's not always the cause, right. It's the it's the thing that makes the
other thing possible. The thing that makes that voice possible. And I I guess what I really
appreciate is I don't think anybody, I have not read at least, such a clear description of
what that sounds like. Right. This like because it's clear as a bell and you're like, OK,
what's happening? You know? So, yeah, thank you for including that, because I think even
encouraging people to investigate is really powerful, because we don't we don't always get
the encouragement to do that, especially Black people. I think we're so often told to like
this is a spiritual matter, you know, like you're not you're not grateful enough. You're not
whatever. Give it to God, you know, and that's not always the answer, unfortunately. But,
you know, I noted earlier, you write something early in this book that I love. I'm going to
just pivot a little bit because you write that. And again, I'm going to paraphrase you that
basically writers make readers who then become writers. And you are obviously a person
who reads a lot. And it's something I see all throughout your writing. But also, I have to
mention that you are not only a repeat visitor to this podcast, you are somebody who has
come up again and again in this podcast because of your support of other authors as a
producer. So, you know, we are in a phase right now of I mean, I'm glad to see it. I guess,
you know, books were always being turned into films and things like that. But I think now
more than ever, we're seeing a lot more contemporary works and a lot more works by
people who maybe never would have gotten that platform coming to the screen through
people like you, through people like Ava, through people you know, who have said, no, no,
no, we need to be there, too. I mean, I'm thinking off my head, you know, George M.
Johnson has been on this podcast, Tia Williams was just on this podcast. I know you're not
only producing, but starring in The Perfect Find, which is an adaptation of one of her
novels. Can you talk a little bit about that aspect? Because now as an author, I assume
you also have a different perspective on what it takes to even just get this one thing done,

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the story. So but then bringing it to the screen, like just what that process is like for you
now.

Gabrielle Union I mean once like you can't let me in the door, I'm like, I'm coming in, I'm
bringing my shit, I'm setting up shop and I'm holding the door open. While you know,
"Come in! Come in! There's the back entrance!" I'm trying to get everybody on. And
obviously, you know, I'm just one production company, but so many of us have a
production company. So many of us have budgets to option. So many of us have budgets
where we can actually pay authors a reasonable rate for their for their work to option it. So
many of us have a little better, you know, sauce where we can get a project sold through
development and on the screen. And if we can do that for each other, come on. Because
like, if I was waiting, you know, I waited my whole career, you know, I did all the right
things, allegedly did all the right things. They tell you, you know, opening big movies, did
all the things and crickets. So somehow they let my ass in and I'm going to bring as many
people with me as possible. But now that I've been in the literary world and I understand
how hard it is to even get a literary agent to do the whole process is is just lined with dead
dreams, you know. And yeah, again, I'm actually an asshole if I don't use my time, you
know, while I got it to bring as many people on and help at each stage of the process. So,
yeah, I want I want your presales to be through the roof. So to help make sure that your
book is being seen and read and you have those sales and it sends the message to
publishers that, OK, well, not only is this author. She's amazing, but there's a couple others
I met this week. Yeah, like bring them along to give them a chance because there's a
whole community that's here willing, waiting, can't wait to support them. Yeah. And I just
take that energy through the optioning process. I mean, and a lot of these I'm in a dog fight
for everybody wants a lot of these books. So those those few that I have been, you know,
they've been kind enough to to allow me to help them with their dreams. I am dogged I just
I can't stop it for me. I love acting, but the producing side of things, there is nothing more
thrilling and fulfilling than getting a sale in the room and watching somebody's dreams start
to be able to like, you know, step one thousand come to pass. There is no feeling like it in
the world.

Maiysha Well, you know, I also want to point out to our listeners who will get their hands
on this book, I hope that you you know, this is not just...She's not just talking about it.
There's a whole section here where you actually walk us through what it's like to pitch.
Right. You know, and I think for all of us is fire, you know, people are always asking, like,
how do you get a book deal? What's the process like? And you kind of just lay it out here
like, you know, as this person who's had this decades long career, you lay this process out
there like a little. I don't even know how to. It's like both of it's also an instructional guide,
but also kind of a cheerleading like you can do. It has got a chapter here that I mean, I love
that you call it "How to Pitch for Your Life." Like, go for it, go for it so hard because I don't
think that we get those those insider like, you know, we don't get to be the fly on the wall.
We don't get to be at the in the room where it happens or that have that seat at the table to
know, you know, most of us won't get in the room. Right. But I do think that I you know, I
just personally had to thank you for putting that on because I just it's a question I could ask
a lot. I'm like, what the hell do I know? I'm sitting here hosting the podcast know. So I love
that you put that in there. There is one thing you do here that I do want to point out,
because I think so many people, you know, now, the Black folks that we we've known Gab
Union for a little bit longer and in different ways. We know. We've been knowing you since
our teenage years. But I think, you know, most most of America of most of the world got to
know Gabrielle Union through, Bring It On and you do something here. I wasn't even sure
how to feel about like one part of me was like, yeah, the other part of me was like, you are
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dismantling dreams here with the way you kind of take us back through the journey of Isis.
You know, this now iconic character in this cult classic movie. And I don't want to spoil too
much because I think that's a conversation people need to read for themselves. But why
did you feel the need to to give us another perspective on who Isis was and why she was
and what she wasn't maybe.

Gabrielle Union Right. It was a meme. It was a meme that was going around about movie
villains. And seeing.

Maiysha Was she a villain? I never saw her as a villain.

Gabrielle Union Exactly like that. So I'm looking at women and they're like, you know, like
the serial killer in, you know, in movies like The Son of Sam, you know, it was like....

Maiysha Freddy Krueger and Isis. These are not the same things.

Gabrielle Union Exactly. And then there was like. The Clovers and it was Isis was like a
villain? Wow. And it fucked—pardon my language—it fucked me up.

Maiysha If you're at The Root, you can go ahead and cuss, it's fine. It's fucked up. Yes.

Gabrielle Union And I was just like, that's deep.

Maiysha Yeah.

Gabrielle Union A Black girl that fought for accountability and acknowledgment and who
won on her own terms and using her own labor is somehow seen as a villain. And then it
got me into remembering all the different times people come up to me and they do
impressions of me in the movie and none of it sounds like me. And it got me thinking about
Sandra Bland and and her speaking and to the officer who somehow heard something
different, who somehow made her a villain because she knew her rights and she was
standing up for herself in the moment. She was made a villain and she was murdered for
that. And so you see the obviously the range of what happens when we don't see Black
women as we are and being upset that I didn't fight harder and I fought hard. I mean, that
is well documented. But I should have fought harder. You know somebody making making
mention that none of us had last names. Right. Like over first of all, over a number of
movies that I did during that period. None of the Black characters had names in these like
white teen movies. None of us had last names or parents, while all the white characters,
even ones you see for a hot second, had first and last names just like those little things.
And I was like, OK. And then, of course, over the pandemic we were talking about, if we
were if we were to do a sequel, what could that look like? And we we we had a number of
meetings and whatnot, and the whole time I'm like, I have to do right by this character. In
the same way that I want the world to do right by Black women, it has to start with, if I can't
do right by a fictional Black woman, like, come on, come on, come on. You know, in the
moment when we need people to stand beside us and stand in the gap. Well, ma'am, I got
to start with myself with a fictional character, you know, ease my way in whatever, and just
really doing a deeper dive on all the ways that I had failed this character. And in that, I'm
hoping to point out perhaps to to others that we've all failed Black women. Yeah. And
yeah. And we can do better. I can do better.

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Maiysha Well, I know you interpret it as a failure, but I can say as somebody who again,
is around the same age you are and remembers that movie. Well, for a lot of us, it was the
first time that we even got that close to seeing ourselves represented any way that in any
way, shape or form represented who we believed ourselves to be. And, you know,
obviously, that was now 20 years ago, a little over and you were now raising Black women.
How do you hope they use this book? How do you hope that we engage with this book?

Gabrielle Union I mean, it's it's the same hope I have for everybody. I want you to not be
afraid of being vulnerable. I don't want you to ever look at vulnerability as any kind of
weakness. But it is, in fact, your superpower. And I ran from mine. Until relatively recently,
and you don't have to waste your life being worried about what other people think of your
quote-unquote weaknesses or your shortcomings or the things that aren't, but that's just
how you feel about yourself. And you hide those away and you do anything to protect
those. It's OK. It's OK to be your full self, you know, like all parts of you, the parts of you
that scare you, the parts of you that you wish were a little different, the parts of you that
you love. It's OK to live all of those out loud and all of those things make you
motherfucking unstoppable. And that is that is the message, you know, we have to
constantly remind Zaya of as she starts high school. And, you know, she's a teen and you
know this as a whole, different—

Maiysha It's a rough patch for everybody.

Gabrielle Union It's a lot. You know?

Maiysha Talk about hormones surging. My gosh.

Gabrielle Union So just. Yeah. Embracing all of us. And there's no part of us that needs to
be hidden away, no part of it.

Maiysha Well, every time we get to speak with you, I'm speaking for myself but I'm not the
only one at The Root who feels this way, we walk away inspired. Thank you so much for
giving us your time and giving us another round of your story with You Got Anything
Stronger? Everybody picked this up. It's going to be great. It's out in September and we're
very excited to have talked about it with you today. Thank you.

Gabrielle Union Thank you so much. Thank you thank you thank you.

Maiysha The Root Presents: It's Lit is produced by myself, Maiysha Kai and Micaela Heck.
Our sound engineer is Ryan Allen and our theme song was penned by yours truly and
producer Scott Jacoby. If you like the show and want to help us out, please give us a rating
on Apple Podcasts. It really, really helps us out and we always appreciate your feedback
so much. If you have any thoughts or feedback, you can find me on Twitter at Maiysha.
That's M A I Y S H A and at Maiysha Kai on Instagram.

Maiysha And before we go, we always like to talk a little bit about what we're currently
reading. What I'm currently reading is Unfollow Me by Jill Louise Busby, and I got to tell
you, I am not sure that I've seen a book or read a book rather than I've seen myself more
in. This is nonfiction and larger than life in a way. And I think it really speaks to a cultural
moment that we're in, both including the dynamics of race, but also our engagement with
digital media and does some really kind of masterful unpacking here. And we're going to
have her on the podcast soon to talk about, because I really I got a lot from this book and
8
 Air Date: 9/9/21
I'm really kind of intrigued by it and her and and the questions that maybe have about
myself. So I hope you guys all pick up Unfollow Me.

Maiysha But in the meantime, that's it for this week. Thanks so much for listening and I will
see you next week. Until then, you know what to do. Keep it lit.