Tracee Ellis Ross is one of the most stunning, talented and successful Black actresses today. Yet, some may wonder how content she is with being single and childless at 47.
Well, Ross is doing just fine.
Though it is not the first time Ross has spoken about being single and childless, she addressed the topic again during her interview and feature with Porter Magazine early this year.
On the criticisms unmarried women without children face she says, “It’s one of the reasons I feel so strongly about telling the stories that I tell. I wish I had known there were other choices, not just about how I could be living, but how I could feel about the way my life was. I was raised by society to dream of my wedding, but I wish I had been dreaming of my life. There are so many ways to curate happiness, find love and create a family, and we don’t talk about them. It creates so much shame and judgement.”
Case in point: “I had some big celebrity guy go, [shakes head and taps watch on wrist] ‘You better get on it.’ And that was when I was in my thirties!” she recalls. “People misinterpret being happily single as not wanting to be in a relationship. Of course I want to be in a relationship, but what am I going to do? Spend all the time that I’m not [in one] moping around? No. I’m going to live my life to the fullest and I’m going to be happy right here, where I am.”
While speaking with media maven and self-made billionaire Oprah Winfrey at this year’s annual ‘Oprah’s 2020 Vision Tour,’ Ross had this to say about being the inspiration for many single women, “I, like many of us, what taught to grow up dreaming of my wedding, not of my life. And I spent many years dreaming of my wedding and also waiting to be chosen. Well here’s the thing. I’m the chooser.”
She adds, ” I choose to get married if I want to. But in the meanwhile I am choicefully single. Happily, gloriously single.
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But the stunning actress has given birth, to a new project that is. In her Porter Magazine feature, Ross also spoke on her comedy film, The High Note, scheduled for release later this year, where she worked with an all female crew.
“We are all very strong, opinionated, clear-minded, hard-working women who cared a lot and invested a lot in what we were doing,” she continues of the atmosphere on set. “I’m mindful of not saying what it’s like working with women because it’s like saying what it’s like working with men or why you don’t want to work with women. What I know is that it was a great experience and I was really grateful.”
“It’s been my biggest dream and my most daunting fear to sing,” reveals Ross, who plays a fictional, larger-than-life pop diva, Grace Davis, in her first leading role on the big screen. “But when you have a mother who is epic in that way, somehow secretly inside you think, ‘That’s not the thing to do. Pick something else.’”
While Ross has no regrets about the career she did pursue (“I’ve done quite a good job with the other path,” she laughs. “It’s been working!”), she had been on the lookout for a project that would exercise her secret talent for some time. And this joyful Devil Wears Prada of the Hollywood music industry, co-starring Dakota Johnson and Ice Cube, is the ideal showcase. “Nobody knew if I could sing or not,” explains Ross. “My publicist called my other publicist and was like, ‘But who is singing?’ And she was like, ‘Tracee – she’s been in the studio for months…’ This was life-changing for me. To face one of your biggest fears and to face it in such a public way.”
Ross is also the founder of hair care and beauty brand, Pattern, A brand meant for the care and treatment of 3B to 4C natural hair.
Is there anything she can’t do? It seems not.
Photos:
Tracee Ellis Ross/Instagram
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