A good friend will provide a friend with opportunities. On the flip side, if your friend is someone who is successful, you might want to come up with an idea or figure out a way to bring value to the relationship, instead of waiting for him to “hit you off.” Or make your dreams known and be willing to work your behind off to make it happen. One of Ludacris’s closest friends wanted to be a chef. So Chris paid for him to go to culinary school. His friend was focused and wanted to do it. And he ended up becoming a successful chef.
Every friend in my life plays a certain position. Some overlap and change with time. But I know who I can go to when I need to get some advice or feedback. When I’m down in the dumps or nervous about an audition, I know exactly who to call: Kelly Rowland. I go to her when I need encouragement. I’ve known her for more than ten years. I interviewed Destiny’s Child while I was on the radio in Los Angeles. Kelly and I ended up dating guys who were close friends, and we started spending a lot of time together. When you’re with your guy and he has friends that he’s close with, you kind of end up becoming friends with his friends and his friends’ girlfriends, too.
Kelly grew into being one of my best friends. What makes her a good friend? She has the purest heart. You can’t get this girl to say a bad word about anyone. It’s unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it. You could come to her bitching about someone who was nasty to you and her response would be, “Maybe she was having a bad day today.”
Kelly is always looking for that silver lining. You may be having problems with someone and you just want to yell, “No, fuck that! She has a messed-up attitude.” Kelly will come back with, “You don’t know what went on in her day.”
She really believes in the best in people. Kelly is also a romantic who believes in true love. You have people who hate life and have been damaged by previous relationships and are jaded. No matter what Kelly may have been through, she still has a great outlook on life. She believes in genuine people and believes that most people want to do the right thing. She always helps me see the big picture and what’s really important. If I complain about being tired, she will remind me how blessed I am to have a career that makes me tired.
I love her outlook on life. It is so refreshing. But Kelly Rowland will not be the person I invite to a pity party. She’s not participating. She is, however, someone I call when I need a reality check.
Ciara is another best friend I can call on to get a real perspective on things. She’s younger than me, but she is so mature. It’s as if she’s been here before. She has a wise old soul. One of the things I like about Ciara is that she’s very selective about who she hangs around. She keeps her circle of friends very tight, very small. So if you happen to be among that circle, she will love you unconditionally and be there for you forever. And you feel special to be included as her friend.
Ciara is someone who will challenge me and tell me if she doesn’t agree with something. She’s also the one who will remind me when I’m not being a good friend.
“I’d love to hear from you,” she’ll text me. “I know you’re busy, but let me know you’re okay.”
With social media, you think you’re keeping up with your friends. Through Twitter and Instagram you know just about every move your friends are making and you’re following their lives. But you have to pick up the phone or drop in to see your friends every once in a while.
I met Ciara while I was on the radio in Atlanta. She was new to the industry and her manager was a buddy of mine. She asked if I would help Ciara, take her under my wing.
She ended up being not just talented but a whole lot of fun. She does impersonations and we can act silly together. I love that about her, too.
I get accused of being everybody’s best friend or saying I’m friends with everyone. And they say it as if that’s a bad thing. But really, my close friends I can name. Aside from Dice, Po, S. Dot, Ciara, and Kelly, there’s Wiz, who I’ve known since the third grade, and there’s Serena (Williams). I met Serena through Kelly and we clicked instantly. One thing I admire about Serena is her drive and motivation and how much she puts into accomplishing her goals. It’s inspiring, and I try to apply that same mentality to the things I do in my life. I asked her one time how she stays focused and keeps in shape. I know for me, I fall off so often it’s not funny.
“I’m always preparing for the summer,” she said.
We all gear up in the spring to get that “summer body” ready. But Serena is always preparing for the summer. She doesn’t wait until the spring. It’s every day for her. Her other thing is, “There’s nothing a treadmill can’t fix.”
While Serena is intense when she’s on the court or preparing for a match, off the court she is the life of the party. She loves to dance and have fun and she is hilarious, which most people don’t know.
Trina (the rapper) is also in my inner circle. I’ve known her since high school. Trina’s so close with me and my family that she frequently picks up the phone and just talks to my mom and gets advice from her on what’s happening in her life. There’s Nadia, who I met while I was in college. We call her News because she knows everything that’s going on in the world. If you want to know something about anything, from foreign policy to celebrity gossip, News will know it. There’s Angie and Sylvia. And Loren. I’ve only known Loren a few years, but she has become very close to me. At this stage in my life, I don’t usually make new friends. It’s much harder because you can’t really know if someone is down for you because of you.
Kim K. came into my life later, after we were both successful. It’s sometimes harder to make new friends when everyone knows who you are. It’s hard to know who is real and who isn’t. But Kim and I bonded during a very trying time for me.
I was going through something with my son’s health that I hadn’t shared with many people. When Kiyan was two years old, he was experiencing excruciating pain every time he drank milk or juice. It would usually happen at night, but he would be hysterically crying and complaining that his stomach was hurting him. Everyone had a diagnosis about what it was—too much juice, not enough water, too much milk, maybe he will grow out of it. I knew it was something and that it wasn’t just going away. We finally took him to a hospital in Los Angeles known for taking care of children.
They ran a battery of tests, including a scan where they had to fill him up with dye. The whole process was hell. It took four people to hold him down to put in a catheter, and he was crying for me. I felt helpless and I couldn’t even stay in the room because I wanted to just scoop him up and take him out of there. But we had to find out what was wrong. Then they had to put him in a machine, a scanner where he had to lie flat and perfectly still. He was so uncomfortable and upset he couldn’t keep still. He was only two years old and they had to strap him down. They put him in something that looked like a straitjacket, which broke my heart because he was screaming and crying at the top of his lungs.
When the test results came back, the doctors told me he had a very serious ailment and he would need surgery on his kidney. There was a tube blocked, and all of the toxins were backed up, which was causing the pain. They would have to remove the clogged portion and reattach it.
The doctor told me, “Don’t freak out. He’ll be fine.”
Don’t freak out?! I freaked out. He explained the whole process and it seemed simple enough. But my baby was still just a baby and he would have to have major surgery. It was really too much. It was the scariest time of my life. My mom and Melo were there, of course. But we were all just nervous wrecks.
The day of the surgery they gave him something before they brought him in for the anesthesia and he was out of it. He looked up at me and said, “’Bye, Mommy . . .” and it seemed that he was saying, “Please don’t let them take me.” It was so crazy.
Melo was freaking out in his Melo way, which doesn’t show outwardly. But I know him. When he’s quiet like that, he’s going through i
t. I went to the chapel for comfort, but that too just kept me on edge. This was the pediatric ward of the hospital and there were so many cards and notes and letters in the chapel from parents who had lost their children, who lost their babies. And I just started crying. I was on my knees, begging and praying.
The surgery took about six hours. When they finally came out, they said it went well. We all rushed in to see him. He looked so out of it. They had my kid on morphine. We were trying to keep it together. While the doctor said it went well, the recovery was worse than the illness. He was still in so much pain, and the morphine drips had him so out of it, it was just hard to watch. Everyone came through—all of my family and friends. Even my dad flew in to visit.
While I was in the hospital, I got a call out of the blue. It was Kim K. And while I wasn’t sharing this with people outside our circle, she caught me at a vulnerable moment and I told her what I was going through. We had really only just met. She didn’t know me well at all. And I ordinarily wouldn’t burden anyone with such heavy news, but it was in the moment.
“Oh, my God!” she said. “What hospital?”
I told her, but I actually didn’t want people around me because I didn’t want to break down. And I didn’t want people there seeing him because he just looked so sick and so bad.
But a couple hours after we hung up, Kim just walked in. I could hear the hospital staff outside the room making a fuss and I didn’t know why. Then she comes in, in full makeup and glammed out, straight from filming. She brought food for all of my family and she sat there with us for hours. I mean hours. We left Kiyan’s room after a while and went to the McDonald’s in the hospital and we sat there and talked for more hours. As much as I felt like I didn’t need anybody and didn’t want to see anybody, I realized it was a relief to talk with someone who wasn’t directly going through it with us.
Of course, all of my friends came to visit and sent food and were there for us, but I had just met Kim. She was new to our lives, and here she was going through this trying time with us and being a true friend. I knew there was something genuine about her. She had never met Kiyan before, but she was there for him. So when I hear people say negative stuff about Kim, I always jump in and say that they don’t really know her.
We didn’t know if my son was going to make it, and Kim came to the hospital and sat with us all night. It was a moment when I was like, “Wow!” And we’ve been friends ever since.
I believe friends—real friends—bring balance to your life. They are there as sounding boards, as support, to share their experiences, give advice. I’m leery of people who don’t have genuine friends because I believe it says more about you if you don’t.
Another new friend in my life is Loren Ridinger. She is someone who fit into a void I had in my life. And she has become an important person to me as I’m growing in my career and building my empire. She has a billion-dollar company—Market America, an Internet retailer. To watch how she’s built this company with her husband from the ground up is inspiring. To see what she’s created out of nothing makes me know anything is possible. Loren is a person I can talk to about personal things, but also business matters. I look at her as a sister/mentor, all in one. They say you become like the people you spend the most time with. If I can pick up on Loren’s business savvy, I’ll be great. It’s good to have someone in your life who can guide you in business and those difficult decisions, and who also happens to be a friend. She would do anything for me. I never had that kind of female mentor. I’ve learned so much from her already: from the way she dresses to the way she handles people. I have learned how to be more aggressive. She taught me that I can’t want to be liked so much. That trait can make me make bad business decisions. “You’re running a business, so you have to put your business needs before being liked.” She drills that into me. I keep people around me longer than I need to because I have a hard time firing people and saying no.
Melo and I enjoy spending time with Loren and her husband, J.R., as a group. We’ve taken trips to Thailand and Italy together. It’s nice to have a couple who have been together for more than twenty years and are not merely just functioning but are still in love and making it work. I didn’t know how important it was to have role models in your life like that until I started spending time with Loren and J.R.
One season on my show, Tyrese (Gibson) and I got into it. He was coming at me because all of my friends were single. “What I don’t understand about you,” he said, “you’re getting married and all your friends are single. You need some married people around you.” I didn’t agree with him. I felt you didn’t have to be married to understand it. But now as I’ve gotten older, there is a different dynamic to being married than even being in a long-term relationship. And it’s definitely different from dating.
It’s so awesome to talk to another couple about life, their marriage, and conquering the world and business, and to do so with your husband. Melo and I never really hung out with married people before. It wasn’t on purpose; we just never knew any married couples we wanted to hang out with. Except for News and her husband, P. Stew. They are our very own Will and Jada. They’ve been together so long. And it’s like a honeymoon phase for them 24/7. They live in Maryland and we live in New York and L.A. But we talk all the time.
News is someone who saw me grow into where I am now. She was around when I first met Melo. And she gave me one piece of marriage advice that she is adamant about: Don’t be afraid of marriage counseling. That was something I would never even consider. News said that you go through different phases in your marriage and you have to be willing to get help when you need it. That let me know that the road can get rocky, but you have to find ways to work through it.
The road can get rocky, but you have to find ways to work through it.
Sometimes in your life you will have friends who are just there for a season. You may love them and then, for no reason or fault of your own, you just grow apart and stop speaking. I have a friend like that. We were inseparable when I was in Atlanta. To this day, I have never been able to make sense of why we just grew apart. We were so tight in high school. Her nickname was PJ, for Plain Jane, and mine was Holly, for Hollywood. (This was way before I had even thought about moving to Los Angeles. People just saw me this way.) We were so close that I tattooed our nicknames on my leg. We were yin and yang. Opposites who had a lot in common. We both were into music and wanted to be in the music industry. Then we just fell apart. I can’t pinpoint when it happened. But I really miss my friend. So much time has passed that I don’t even know how to patch it. And we probably won’t.
PJ went on to realize her dreams and she became a giant in her industry. I sit in awe of this woman. Everything she said she would do she’s done and more. We see each other from time to time at industry events. We hug and we say we love each other and we promise to catch up. But then we go our separate way and never do. Time? Distance? Career? Maybe we’re both guilty of not making the friendship a priority at some point. I get sad even today just thinking about what happened to our friendship. And I know it’ll never be the way it was. I sometimes wish we had had some sort of blowup so I could make sense of it. But there was no argument, no drama, just distance. It’s been a hard pill to swallow for me. She meant so much to my life and my progression during those early years.
We would sit in my room night after night, talking about how we would get to Hollywood. And we both made it. It’s unbelievable. I will always be her number one fan even from afar. There’s always a special place in my heart for her. Perhaps PJ was my friend for a season. That makes me really sad. I would have never imagined the life I’m living now without PJ in it the way we used to be.
Then I have friends, like S. Dot, who are there for a reason, who are there for certain periods or experiences in my life to help me get through. After my breakup with Doug and my move to Los Angeles, I made a really great friend there who helped me during
that transition.
Shanika Clay, who everyone called S. Dot, worked in the sales department at the radio station. We met in the break room where we all ate lunch. We struck up a conversation one day, and it just went from there. She reminded me a lot of myself. She was a hard worker, not fazed by the Hollywood lifestyle, and tight with her family. She lived with her mom. I would stay at their place some nights after the club because I didn’t want to go back to my empty apartment.
She grew up in Inglewood and knew her way around. She took me under her wing and we would go to clubs together. She let me know the cool places to go in town, and also the places that I should avoid. She introduced me to parts of the city I wouldn’t even have known existed.
S. Dot understood some of what I was going through. She shared some of her heartaches, and we connected. Our friendship happened naturally. God knows I needed a friend, but I wasn’t going up to people trying to make friends.
I was cautious when I came to L.A. After my mother left, it was a bit intimidating. People in L.A. are different from people in New York and even those in Atlanta. Everybody in L.A. seemed to want to be in “the business” and it seemed as if everybody had an angle. Waiters were really actors, waiting for their break. Store clerks were models. Every regular working person was really looking to break into movies, modeling, or music. People seemed to want to be your friend to see what you could do to help further their career. So I was cautious. S. Dot, however, was just real.
The Love Playbook: Rules for Love, Sex, and Happiness Page 10
