- 1 day ago
The TV personality opens up about her first marriage, RHOA, R. Kelly and the journey she's been on that she's sharing in her new memoir.
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00:00Really, this book to me is, it's kind of a ministry to me because everything in the book
00:05is my testimony.
00:07And so for me, this is a huge deal to be able to go out on tour and talk to women about
00:13their stories and relate to them and hopefully turn a young woman down a different path from
00:19some of the ones that I have been through.
00:21Well, Portia, I'm so excited to chat with you today about your new book, The Pursuit
00:31of Portia.
00:32I read the whole thing.
00:33Okay, good.
00:35Yes.
00:35And I loved it.
00:37I feel like it gave me a different perspective about you, which I thought was very refreshing
00:41and great to learn about you.
00:43So I guess leaning into my first question, I wanted to ask you, what inspired you to share
00:48your life and, you know, following your Real Housewives of Atlanta exit, you know, why
00:53was this the perfect time to release the book?
00:56Well, actually, to answer the last part first, me exiting Housewives just happened to be announced
01:05within the same month.
01:06Like it just happened that way.
01:08It wasn't even really planned like that, but, or maybe it was divinely planned.
01:13Um, but it wasn't, it wasn't timed out that way because I've been actually working on the
01:19book for about a year and a half.
01:21Okay.
01:21Yeah.
01:22And I believe we started it right.
01:26Well, it was in talks a couple of years ago.
01:28And then right before, um, we had to deal with COVID and we're in quarantine, it was brought
01:36up again.
01:36And of course, like many other people during that time, you know, you're doing a lot of
01:40self-reflecting and I just thought about it.
01:43I was like, you know what?
01:44I really do have a story to tell.
01:46And I talked to a couple influential people in my life.
01:49One of them being a man who had two daughters, who's a friend of mine.
01:53And, um, he was like, listen, if you can find it in yourself to have the strength to write
01:58this book, I know it can help my daughters.
02:00And that meant a lot to me when I thought about that.
02:02And then I thought about my daughter, Pilar.
02:04And ultimately I asked my mom, I said, mom, you know, these are the things I want to discuss
02:08in the book.
02:08I didn't go too in detail.
02:10I said, these are some of the things I want to discuss in the book.
02:12Um, basically I just wanted her approval.
02:15Like, yes, you do it, you know?
02:18And she did.
02:19And it just, it just was time to do it.
02:22It was time.
02:23I had taken account for a lot of different things in my life during that self-reflection
02:27moment of being in quarantine.
02:29And when it all summed, it all summed up to the pursuit of Portia.
02:35And you, I really started looking at how I got to this place in my life.
02:39And I realized that I had to push through a lot of hardships and that I really, truly had
02:45a testimony.
02:46And I believe that if you tell your testimony, it can help someone else or bless someone else
02:51or help them get through.
02:52Um, so really that's where that came from.
02:56Awesome.
02:56And I do feel like we're in a time where there are a lot of memoirs coming out from public
03:00figures, uh, just kind of giving more detail and background into aspects of their life.
03:04You never knew anything about, um, as you learn from your story.
03:08And I was wondering if being in this social media age with like blogging and all the rumors
03:13that people put out there in the world about people, if you know, that also inspires the
03:19desire to tell your story in your own way.
03:21Well, I've been on television, you know, on reality TV for 10 years and I've been criticized,
03:31broken apart, lied on headlines, made all of that for about 10 years.
03:36So that hasn't really affected me in this journey of writing the book.
03:42The journey of writing the book as, as related to the, my entertainment world is that I know
03:48people have gotten to know me and have seen a lot of my journey on real housewives, but
03:53there is so much more and there's such a deeper level of getting to know me and how
03:59I'm the portion that they see that I wanted to share.
04:02You know, a lot of my followers, they say, oh, you have grown so much and they're telling
04:07the truth.
04:08You know, I was 30 years old when I started housewives and here I am 40 years old, a grown
04:13woman with a daughter and, and, and, and much wiser.
04:16And so with them saying that I felt like, let me give you the true story.
04:22And so the book actually starts off with me as a child, all the way through housewives close
04:29to now.
04:30But I just wanted to give an in-depth journey for everybody so that they can see that, listen,
04:38I'm a survivor.
04:39I wear my heart on my sleeve.
04:41I'm just like everybody else.
04:43And I have to fight through and using my faith just as I was suggesting one else to do.
04:48Amen.
04:49And, you know, speaking of real housewives in the book, which is all about the journey,
04:54you know, to walk in your purpose, you said you were on the, when you were on the show,
04:58you were a character at times.
05:00Can you kind of elaborate on what, what you mean by that?
05:03Like having to kind of be a character outside of maybe your fully true, you know, whole
05:08self?
05:09Well, when you first, when I first started housewives, I was a wife and I myself had a mask on and
05:18had a label on myself of what the wife was supposed to look like, be like, talk like, act
05:22like everything.
05:23So I can't blame housewives for creating that particular character because I came on the
05:30show with that.
05:32I think the show just magnified it and kind of popped that bubble and was like, okay,
05:37this, you know, it's not the real world.
05:39When I say I was a character on the show, it's because you only get to see really an hour
05:47of, an hour of my life, if even an hour, it's only parts.
05:52And those are the sensational parts, the most entertaining parts, the parts that are made
05:57for TV.
05:58A lot of what is in my book, The Pursuit of Portia is not made for TV.
06:02It is real life, tough times.
06:07And it's a story of a woman really having to fight for her life on a daily basis.
06:12And it's really about taking account of all the things that you have been through and how
06:17you have made it through to realize that you are a survivor and that you can make it to.
06:21So it's, it's completely different, you know, and unexpected when people read the book, what,
06:28from what the portion that they saw on TV.
06:30Yeah, definitely.
06:31Definitely.
06:31Um, and I did want to ask you, you know, you mentioned when you started to show, you
06:35know, you were married and you had a different perspective on how marriage was supposed to
06:39be, how a housewife was supposed to carry herself.
06:42Um, I did want to ask you, how did you cope in those early days of juggling this marriage
06:46that was kind of struggling based on what I read in the book?
06:49Um, you know, with the lack of understanding, you know, that you were getting from people,
06:52uh, online, you know, about some, you know, things that you would say, like you were saying,
06:56you know, you would be nervous and certain things would be said and they would be magnified
06:59and people would kind of come negatively at you on social media.
07:03So with misunderstanding in your home life and also, you know, on TV, I kind of wonder,
07:08how did you deal with that?
07:09Like, how did you not, how did that, you know, permeate maybe your, your thoughts or your mind
07:14back then?
07:15Um, so in my mindset and being a wife, I was very set on being a submissive, um, pleasing
07:23wife to my husband.
07:25So you have to understand when I joined the show, I wasn't necessarily doing anything for
07:31the cameras.
07:32The cameras just showed who I was at that time.
07:35Um, so when it came to me being submissive to my husband or, um, talking to my husband
07:44about any decision I wanted to make first and people were calling it control and all
07:49of that was confusing to me.
07:50All of that was like, wait, what are you guys seeing?
07:53That's not what I thought I was showing you.
07:55I thought I was showing you a young black family who is finding their way, who hopes to have
08:00more children one day.
08:00Like I thought I was showing something completely different, so it affected me looking at those
08:07comments and all that, like, wow, what am I really, truly projecting on this show?
08:14Um, that was just one small piece of the puzzle, but as a married woman in the very beginning,
08:20how I dealt with it was just simply through prayer.
08:22You know, it's not easy for anyone in the first year of marriage.
08:26I know you have heard it before and it wasn't easy for us either.
08:31And my mother literally was like, listen, you're married to two people.
08:37Your covenant is with two people.
08:39It's with your husband and it's with God.
08:41And during those times when I was disappointed by him or the situation or things weren't picture
08:48perfect, how I want it, um, or how they needed to be, she told me to pray about it.
08:54So I literally prayed my way through those tough times in my marriage.
08:59Unfortunately, we didn't make it because clearly that's not what was supposed to happen for God
09:04for me.
09:05So it's not necessarily.
09:07So, so that's kind of what it was.
09:08I was dealing with my real life and I was dealing with whatever you guys saw and how you
09:13guys took what you saw on TV.
09:16Okay.
09:16Got you.
09:17And a big part of who you are today, um, like you spoke about your marriage is based
09:23on what you survived in different relationships.
09:24We learn about a man named Southern John.
09:27Um, we learn about your, your ex-husband, things of that nature.
09:31Um, and then at one point we do hear and read about, uh, a time that you were, uh, in relationship
09:37of sorts with R. Kelly.
09:38I do want to ask you, how did you find the courage to open up about your experience with
09:42him?
09:43Because, you know, there are a lot of people who are very much divided about R. Kelly within
09:48the black community.
09:49And so you never know what you're going to get when you open up about that.
09:52So how did you find the courage to speak about it publicly?
09:55Well, I feel like most of the people who are divided in the community about R. Kelly are
10:00people who hadn't experienced what the women of R. Kelly experienced.
10:05Um, we're very clear on what we felt or what we went through.
10:11Um, for me, it was all about me staying as true as to my story as I possibly could.
10:17I felt like if I wrote this book and I left something out like that, um, then I was not
10:24doing my, I was doing myself an injustice.
10:26I was doing the young woman who was going to read the book an injustice.
10:30I wanted to show the faces of, and speak about the faces of all the men who had taken advantage
10:37of someone who didn't know any better at the time.
10:41Someone who had had a pattern of seeing themselves through other people's eyes of a girl who did
10:45not know her worth.
10:46And I wanted to make sure that was very clear in each instance.
10:51So I couldn't leave him out because I didn't leave Southern John out.
10:54I didn't leave anyone out.
10:56It's a full picture to explain the things that my mentality of a woman who didn't know her
11:03worth of a woman who didn't love herself of a woman who didn't have a voice of a woman
11:08who didn't value anything that she had accomplished.
11:12And these are the relationships that I found myself in.
11:16No, I didn't necessarily cause some of the sexual abuse that I went through, but I did
11:21find myself with the, a pattern of men.
11:25And he was one of the men in one of the traps in those patterns throughout the journey of
11:30my life.
11:30So with me writing a memoir and it being about my life and my accounts and my point of view,
11:36I definitely wanted to make sure that I was honest and effective in my purpose of the
11:42book and the purpose of the book is that if any young woman or man is reading it and they
11:48can see themselves and mirror themselves in any of the situations, maybe they would be
11:53able to sidestep some of the traps in life that I found myself in or sidestep some of
11:59the hardships or sidestep some of those devastating times in my life through me being able to tell
12:07my story.
12:08Hopefully it could help them.
12:09And with you not being the woman that you were in those relationships, um, you know,
12:14knowing what you dealt with and, you know, now we know that you're engaged, you know,
12:19you found love again, how going into this relationship, did you protect yourself and do love differently?
12:26Um, kind of, I don't know, how did you approach this relationship differently than maybe some
12:31of these experiences that you detail in your book now that you know who you are, you're watching
12:34your purpose and, you know, you're a different, you're the portion that you're meant to be.
12:40So, you know, you mentioned walking in my purpose, that's very important.
12:44And it's, you know, people pray all the time about, you know, what is my purpose, et cetera.
12:49A lot of times it's been revealed to them and they run away from it.
12:54And I really feel like earlier on in my life, it had been revealed to me who I was, the power
12:59that I had, the voice that I was and what I was supposed to become, but I ran away from
13:03it and I did not walk in it with confidence.
13:06At this point in my life, I'm okay with, and have forgiven and have moved past a lot of
13:14those abusive situations or a lot of those bad decisions that I made when I was a young
13:20girl.
13:21I'm past that.
13:22So I'm to the point now where I love every part of Portia and that's about the, that's
13:27what the pursuit of Portia is about coming to terms and loving that little girl, that
13:32adolescent, that young grown, that young woman to the grown woman, all her imperfections
13:39at this point.
13:40I love every part of her unconditionally.
13:44So that leads me to a place to be very confident in every decision that I make and every person
13:51that I have in my life.
13:52And that even has a lot to do with when you pick a mate.
13:56You know, for me in the past, I was afraid to say, oh, I don't like that.
14:01Or, oh, don't talk to me like that.
14:02Or, okay, this is your vision for your life.
14:05This is how I want my life to be.
14:06Or this is how I want, I never would say anything because I never wanted to disappoint.
14:10And I always wanted to be the perfect puzzle in their, uh, perfect piece in their puzzle.
14:17But at this point in my life, I have my own plan for my life.
14:20I am very self-aware and I know that everything that I want for my life would only benefit
14:27a partner.
14:28I'm not trying to hurt anybody.
14:30You know, what I want for is good for me is going to be good for my husband.
14:34And so with me being confident and outspoken about what I want in life for me and for my
14:40family, when you meet a man and you tell him those types of things up front, and he also
14:45has done the work himself and going to therapy and dealing with his mess, then you can meet
14:51minds and be alike and being kind and be able to create a life together.
14:55So I'm more confident going into this marriage than I've ever been before because I am my truest
15:02self at this moment.
15:03Got you.
15:05Nice.
15:06And going into marriage, uh, is your kind of your outlook on it?
15:11How much has it changed from when you were married the first time you were saying, you
15:14know, uh, how you felt about being a submissive partner and things of that nature, um, going
15:20into this marriage, how do you look at how you want to go about being a wife this time
15:25room?
15:26Oh my God.
15:27So my big, how do I want to say that I took a lot of pride in being a good wife.
15:39I took a lot of pride in being able to be a powerful woman and being submissive to my husband
15:44at the time.
15:46And I always said afterwards that I know God, I even said this to men afterwards who
15:51wasn't quite treating me right.
15:53I said, you know what?
15:54It's cool because I know my blessing is coming.
15:56I know the right man for me is coming because I was a good wife when he gave it to me before.
16:02So just like they say in the Bible, I was a good steward over this.
16:05I'm going to be a good steward over many.
16:07So I knew that because I was a prayerful wife, because I was, um, the type of wife that I
16:15was and I, you know, didn't run in bad situations or cheat and all that.
16:20I knew that God was going to bless me eventually with the right man.
16:24So if it didn't feel right, I would automatically tell men, you know, this don't, this ain't
16:29for me because I know God wouldn't want me to be over here crying like this.
16:32I know God wouldn't want me to be in this kind of pain.
16:34So clearly this relationship isn't the right one for me.
16:38So when it comes to me being submissive to my husband, I'm not going to change that.
16:43I'm just going to change who I'm submissive to.
16:46It has to be someone deserving someone who understands what their power is and their power
16:53is given to them through God and through me as a wife, through me as a wife, how I treat
16:59you as a husband is how he's going to treat me as a wife.
17:02So back in the day, I didn't understand what I was, I didn't understand what I had been
17:08given.
17:09I was playing a role, which was okay because I had to go through that to get to where I
17:15am today.
17:15But back then I was giving it all to a man and the way that I was being submissive was
17:22to throw away everything that Portia was, to kill off Portia literally.
17:28And as you see in the book, it talks in detail about how that happened, but I literally killed
17:34her off.
17:35And that's not what's supposed to happen in this, in my new relationship, I am Portia.
17:40I am, I am more Portia than I've ever been.
17:43And I'm taking her into the marriage.
17:45And as I choose to reverend my husband, choose to uplift him, choose to, you know, go to
17:52him and inquire about something before I make a decision that's out of respect.
17:55And that's okay.
17:56Cause he's the right person to do that with, and he's not going to misuse it.
18:00And I think that a lot of women know early on in a relationship because of some red flags
18:05that I ignored all through the book.
18:07It's about, I should have called the book red flags, red flags all through, all through
18:13there that I ignored because I had this mission of being this wife.
18:18Yeah.
18:19So, yeah.
18:20Okay.
18:21So that perspective has changed.
18:22And also something that changed about you was motherhood.
18:25You talked about how you're being a mother to Clark changed your life, saved your life.
18:30And what else, what other ways has it kind of made you live differently or see things differently
18:35being a mom now?
18:36Yes, my little poo poo Pilar is definitely my, I call her my little lifesaver and she's
18:43got a lot of pressure in that, a lot of pressure now, but she don't have to do nothing, but just
18:49wake up and smile at me to, to fulfill her job.
18:52That's it.
18:53I just being a mother, I always knew that I wanted to be a mother.
18:58And I always knew that having a daughter or a son that loved you unconditionally would fulfill
19:03me.
19:03It's a part of my purpose.
19:05Um, and, and so for me, she is my drive.
19:10She's my reason.
19:11And it's just, it's just something that I always wanted.
19:15And through the book, I talk about different pits that I ended up falling in different losses
19:22that I had when it wasn't time for me to have her, but I had her at the exact right time.
19:28Um, so she has definitely changed my entire life.
19:32Um, you know, I don't get burned out with working too much.
19:36I don't get burned out with doing pretty much anything because all of it is for her.
19:41Um, so I love that.
19:43And I know there, uh, I'm assuming there's a desire to expand your family further when
19:49you're married.
19:50Um, you spoke about, uh, having fibroid embolization, embolization.
19:55Yes.
19:55There are some, a procedure for that.
19:57Um, I had a myomectomy myself and I read your book.
20:00I could very much relate to your experience because, um, yeah, I struggled to conceive
20:05when I was struggling with my own fibroids.
20:08So, um, no, it worked out.
20:11My son is in the room now.
20:14Thank God.
20:15Um, so moving forward, um, you know, how do you see, you know, yourself dealing with your
20:20fibroids and maybe trying to expand your family with Simon moving forward?
20:24So I actually, I met Dr. Lippman who performed the fibro embolization for me at my grandfather's,
20:33uh, at my grandfather's opening of his charities.
20:37Oh, well, new location, new location.
20:39Uh, the charity is called for Hosea and he was one of the biggest donors there.
20:45He had actually, uh, gotten $250,000 out of his Apple stock to help my family get its
20:53new location and new warehouse.
20:56And so I heard his story and then I met him.
20:59He said, Oh, you know, I was Cynthia's doctor and, you know, I'm Dr. Lippman for fibroids.
21:04And I was like, Oh my God, like I am completely suffering.
21:06Help me.
21:08Um, and when I say suffering, I mean, big time, like I constantly fatigue, heavy periods, uh,
21:15back pain, every single symptom, headaches, uh, foggy, uh, memory, everything just suffering.
21:25And so when I'm, when he gave me his card, I was like, Oh my God, this is so perfect.
21:28I will be calling you.
21:29And I met with him and he told me about fibroid embolization, which is a procedure that you
21:36can have to actually kill off the blood supply to the fibroids.
21:39Um, and so when I spoke to him, he said that I would still be able to conceive afterwards.
21:45Um, so my fertility should still be intact.
21:48We'll see my fertility should still be intact.
21:52Um, but it, it rid me, it will rid me of them forever.
21:57What, you know, with a myomectomy, what they do is when they cut you open and they take them
22:02out, some of them may still be nestled in the muscle and they end up growing.
22:06That's what we call growing back.
22:07Right.
22:08So I had a myomectomy before 2012 and they had grown back till now.
22:13One of them is like literally resting on my spinal cord.
22:16Um, but hopefully the embolization in the next three months, he's going to check me out and
22:21he's going to let me know, you know, have they died off, you know, how, how successful it
22:25was, which his procedures he said is about 99% successful and killing off these for all of
22:32the fibroids so, um, fingers crossed for that.
22:37So, um, my thing is I just, I definitely want to see how it is three months later and see
22:42if everything is good.
22:43But I want every black woman to go get checked for fibroids.
22:47I mean, I have, I even still now with me being as open as I am about having a miscarriage
22:52from fibroids and Pilar being my rainbow baby.
22:55I still talk to family members and friends who haven't checked for fibroids.
23:00And we as African-American women are the highest percentage to have them.
23:05Most of them is hereditary.
23:07So if you are even thinking, possibly thinking about conceiving, you want to make sure that
23:13you look at all options to rid yourself of those fibroids so that you can have a healthy
23:17pregnancy.
23:18Mm-hmm.
23:19Amen.
23:19That's true.
23:20And, you know, I know that there is, you have your book out now, well, coming out at the
23:25end of this month, the pursuit of Portia, you have a spinoff of your, uh, your from
23:30Real Housewives, you have your own series coming up.
23:32Um, and I know you're doing great social justice work.
23:35So as you continue to be and pursue the, you know, who you want to be, what is next for
23:40Portia?
23:42Everything, everything is possible for me right now.
23:47I hope to be on tour with this book for the next year, honestly.
23:51Um, yeah, I do.
23:52I do because I, it's not just about the book.
23:54I mean, it's not like I make enough money from the book to just stop working.
23:58So it's not about the book.
24:00It is really something it's, it's really a part of my life's work.
24:04It's a part of my purpose.
24:06So, um, I'm excited to bring these different topics up and have them be a conversation for
24:11young girls.
24:13Um, I definitely admonish, I want men to read the book, women to read the book, young girls
24:17to read the book, um, parents to read the book with their kids and talk, have the, have
24:22these conversations that some of them I didn't get to have with my mom at the time.
24:26Um, and hopefully it could bless them and lead them down a great, great path to be in pursuit
24:30of their best selves.
24:32Amen.
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