Tracee Ellis Ross sat down with #Instyle Magazine recently and shared some of her personal and professional life with readers, which is everything but ordinary. Tracee discussed “Black-Ish”, growing up “like Blue Ivy” and how happy she is being single these days.
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Ross was invited to the Golden Globes for the first time and took home the best actress award for her work as Dr. Rainbow Johnson, on the hit show “Black-ish”. She was 44 when she won that honor, exactly 44 years after her mother, Diana Ross, won hers for “Lady Sings the Blues”.
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When talking about her mother, she expressed that her and Diana maintain an extremely close relationship. She said, “It’s funny. I think reality television has warped people’s sense of what having money or fame looks like behind the scenes. I have always had a lot of abundances. I was very well educated because of my mother’s gift. I feel very aware of that privilege. There were beautiful things everywhere, but there was a sense of taking care of and cherishing beauty. And also of not taking things too seriously. You could be climbing all over my mom’s head while she’d be sitting in an interview, putting your handprints on everything.” She added, “It’s not navigable without a parent who is choosing you over everyone else. I grew up the way Blue Ivy is growing up, although at least there wasn’t social media.”
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Her role on Black-ish has brought her back to the forefront of cable television and it’s a role Tracee is very proud to portray, especially with the current state of social affairs. “We’re using comedy to discuss some real sh*t,” says Ross. “I think it’s stuff that all of us are chomping on or wondering how other people are dealing with. I would say that 70 percent of the people who come up to me on the street are 11-year-old white boys who are obsessed with our show. Where in their 11 years would the unpacking of the historical context of the N-word come up? I think that’s great.”
Being Dr. Johnson on the show doesn’t reflect much on her personal life, in real life, as Ross is neither married nor a mother….and she isn’t upset about that. “It’s sort of fascinating to be 45 and single and childless. Happily single, I should add. Not at home crying about it”. These are very big and very personal questions that aren’t anyone’s business but that somehow, like the right to choose, become fodder for public conversation. Some of the ability to reflect on what I really want comes from pushing up against a society that shames me for not having the expected trappings. I’m very pleased with my existence these days. Have I had to learn to make friends with loneliness? Yes. I think if I were in a relationship, it would be the same.”
Image via Instyle Magazine
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