That’s My Woman FT. Devale & Khadeen Ellis

Summary

Pour Minds Podcast: Episode Summary - “That’s My Woman FT. Devale & Khadeen Ellis”

Release Date: July 4, 2025
Hosts: Lex P and Drea Nicole
Guests: Devale Ellis and Kadeen Ellis

---

Introduction

In this highly anticipated episode of the Pour Minds Podcast, hosts Lex P and Drea Nicole welcome Devale and Kadeen Ellis—one of the few couples to appear together on the show. This marks a significant moment as the first time a married couple shares their insights on navigating life, love, and fame together.

---

Meeting and Building a Relationship

[04:00] Kadeen Ellis:
Kadeen shares the heartwarming story of how she and Devale met during their college years. Their connection was almost predestined, having known each other since elementary school and crossing paths repeatedly throughout their upbringing.

“I remember him in elementary school, and it felt divine because we kept crossing paths,” Kadeen reflects.

Despite initially resisting the idea of being together, the undeniable chemistry kept drawing them back. A pivotal moment occurred during a scholarship banquet where Kadeen decided to "shoot her shot," leading to their eventual union.

[05:34] Devale Ellis:
Devale emphasizes the importance of taking the initiative in relationships, highlighting how Kadeen's courage to approach him set the foundation for their enduring bond.

---

Modern Dating and Social Media Impact

[06:13] Kadeen Ellis:
Kadeen discusses the shift in dating dynamics due to social media, contrasting it with their own experiences where relationships were built on genuine interactions rather than curated online personas.

“We spent quality time together without worrying about Instagrammable moments,” she notes.
[06:52] Devale Ellis:
Devale adds that social media can complicate relationships by prioritizing appearances over authentic connections, something they navigated successfully by focusing on getting to know each other deeply.

---

Balancing Fame, Career, and Family

[33:57] Kadeen Ellis:
Transitioning into their careers, Kadeen recounts how their joint venture into social media blossomed into a successful podcast, book, and acting opportunities.

“Initially, I felt stuck, but when Tyler Perry reached out, it was clear that God was preparing me for this moment,” she shares.

[44:32] Devale Ellis:
Devale highlights the pressure Kadeen felt stepping into the acting world, battling imposter syndrome but ultimately delivering a stellar performance thanks to her unwavering support.

[48:42] Devale Ellis:
Kadeen reflects on her role in Tyler Perry’s "Divorced Sisters," expressing the challenges of portraying a character so different from her real-life persona.

[54:29] Lex P:
Lex praises Kadeen’s dedication and asserts that their strong partnership allows them to support each other's careers without competition or jealousy.

---

Parenting in the Public Eye

[85:08] Lex P:
Discussing their children’s involvement in the entertainment industry, Lex stresses the importance of protecting their kids’ privacy and ensuring their well-being amidst fame.

“We protect our kids at all costs and ensure their participation is age-appropriate,” he explains.

[89:02] Kadeen Ellis:
Kadeen echoes the sentiment, emphasizing the necessity of consent and comfort when involving their children in public content.

---

Serving Each Other in a Relationship

[60:10] Kadeen Ellis:
Kadeen and Devale delve into the concept of serving each other within their marriage, advocating for understanding and meeting each other's specific needs over generalized gestures.

“Serve them how they want to be served, not how you think they should be served,” Kadeen advises.

[67:27] Devale Ellis:
Devale discusses the importance of leaders in a relationship being willing to grow and adapt, ensuring that both partners feel supported and valued.

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Handling Public Scrutiny and Rumors

[113:54] Kadeen Ellis:
Kadeen narrates an experience where false rumors about her health surfaced online. She firmly rebukes the misinformation and stresses the need for authenticity and support within their community.

“Someone falsely claimed I had breast cancer, so I had to publicly deny it,” she asserts.

---

Sexual Health and Intimacy

[107:47] Kadeen Ellis:
In a lighter segment, Kadeen and Devale share humorous anecdotes about sexual mishaps and injuries, emphasizing the importance of communication and mutual care in maintaining a healthy intimate relationship.

---

Audience Interaction: Pour Your Heart Out

[86:47] Listener Question:
A listener, Shay, seeks advice after discovering her boyfriend has been unfaithful despite her efforts to be transparent and supportive.

[125:44] Lex P:
Lex advises Shay to recognize her worth and move on if her partner isn’t committed, stressing that mutual respect and commitment are non-negotiable in a relationship.

[127:28] Kadeen Ellis:
Kadeen reinforces the importance of setting boundaries and not engaging in a cycle of unhealthy dynamics, encouraging Shay to prioritize her happiness and self-respect.

---

Final Segments: Music and Recommendations

[119:03] Kadeen Ellis:
The couple shares their favorite tracks of the week, highlighting artists like Lizzo and Joey Badass, and discussing how music inspires their personal and professional lives.

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Conclusion

Devale and Kadeen Ellis wrap up the episode by promoting their own ventures, including their podcast "Ellis Ever After" and their New York Times bestseller book "We Over Me." They emphasize the power of authentic communication, mutual support, and personal growth within relationships.

[133:44] Kadeen Ellis:
“We love y'all and hope you find inspiration in our journey. Remember, genuine love and support are the foundations of any strong relationship.”

Notable Quotes:

• Kadeen Ellis [04:00]: “I feel like it was really just divine, because our entire life thereon after, we just kept crossing paths over and over again.”
• Devale Ellis [05:34]: “Look at your relationship, it never intimidated me that she could be a bigger star than me. We’re building a life together.”
• Kadeen Ellis [60:10]: “Serve them how they want to be served, not how you think they should be served.”
• Kadeen Ellis [113:54]: “Someone falsely claimed I had breast cancer, so I had to publicly deny it.”
• Lex P [125:44]: “If he’s not committed, move on. Your worth isn’t determined by someone else’s inability to value you.”

---

Takeaways

• Initiative in Relationships: Taking the first step can lead to meaningful connections.
• Authenticity Over Appearances: Genuine interactions build stronger, lasting relationships compared to curated online personas.
• Balancing Career and Family: Mutual support and understanding are crucial in managing public life and private family dynamics.
• Protecting Children’s Privacy: Ensuring children’s comfort and consent is paramount when involving them in public platforms.
• Communication and Growth: Open, honest communication fosters personal growth and strengthens partnerships.

This episode offers insightful discussions on maintaining healthy relationships amidst fame, the impact of social media on dating, and the importance of serving and supporting each other in marriage. Devale and Kadeen Ellis provide valuable perspectives drawn from their personal experiences, making it a must-listen for anyone navigating similar life dynamics.

Transcript

[Kadeen Ellis]

This is an I Heart podcast, and sis got her little right side split back now to do the center one. That's still going to require a little bit of work. But I'm saying that to say that has come in very handy as of late in the bedroom, because it's been like, he's just like, yo, your hips be a little more open. You know, even.

[Deval Ellis]

Him, too.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It's just like, you know, it just.

[Deval Ellis]

Allows the hips be open.

[Kadeen Ellis]

The hips.

[Deval Ellis]

You be stretching, too. Come on now. Come on. Get it, get it.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You ain't getting a little old.

[Deval Ellis]

Getting a little old. That's.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That's it.

[Deval Ellis]

That's too young to know about the Melvin. What's up, y'? All? It's your girl, Lex P. And it's.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Your girl Drea Nicole.

[Deval Ellis]

And you are tuned in to another episode of Poor Mind, where a drunk mind speaks sober thoughts. We got some guests today. We got some guests today. Now this highly, highly requested. First off. Okay, what? Absolutely highly requested. Okay. Second of all, this is the first time because we have never had a couple on the show. Okay. What, you don't have a couple of minutes? No, we haven't.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Not us. Making history.

[Deval Ellis]

Four months. History. And third of all, it is a small. When I say small list of people who have been on the show twice, but episode went so crazy, we had to have him back asap.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Okay?

[Deval Ellis]

So we have authors, entrepreneurs, actors, family oriented that let you know that black love is still alive. We have our faves in the building. Kadeem. And.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Clap it up. Clap it up. I am so happy to be here.

[Deval Ellis]

Come on.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Intro.

[Deval Ellis]

They have. She doing a hell of an intro.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Sure do. You over here hyping me up, and I ain't. You know, I love that. I love that, girl.

[Deval Ellis]

When I say they have been blowing us up, they have to get you on. No pressure, you know what I'm saying? Ever since we had devale on the show, they was like, where's Kadene?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Where is Kadeem? You know what's funny? I look at a lot of his, you know, press stops and stuff when he's going solo, and I'll be like, oh, babe, that was cute. I watch it like a couple minutes. But y', all, this episode was really good.

[Deval Ellis]

Thank you.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Y' all had so many highlight moments.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, my God.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I was like, oh, I have to come back here. Like, I gotta be here with him. I love that. Thanks y'. All having me.

[Deval Ellis]

Every clip that we had together get like a million views. Yeah. Even the preview of the episode, like, it didn't even show what we were talking about. And the preview hit a million views for sure. Like, everybody was excited. The episode went crazy. So thank y' all for being here.

[Kadeen Ellis]

No, we are so, so excited here with y'.

[Deval Ellis]

All. So I couldn't wait to get you on the couch. You know, we finna get into.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Come on now. All right. That's why you gave me the shot.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, we love to get into the tea.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah, I know.

[Deval Ellis]

I understand.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You're so close.

[Lex P]

I'm on the outside.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Give me my man back.

[Deval Ellis]

We had to separate y' all so y' all couldn't tap. Cause that's what me and Dre'll be doing. We do interviews. We be tapping each other. Like, tell this.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Shut up.

[Deval Ellis]

And we just cut up. Whenever we sitting by each other, we just start making it about us. And it's like, that's not. You know, we gotta separate each other. Each other separate ourselves. So. So last time you were on the show, you were telling us, you know, how y' all got together, and you were saying that, you know, you was, like, not playing. You was like, you my man.

[Kadeen Ellis]

And we, baby, we go together real bad. Before he knew that, we went together real bad.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know, it was one of those things where, you know, boy meets girl, girl meets boy. It was elementary school that I first had eyes on this man.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay.

[Kadeen Ellis]

This given, like, seven and eight years old.

[Deval Ellis]

Wow.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Okay. I was a little bit his senior. I was one year older. You know, that's neither here nor there, but, you know, I remembered him in elementary school, and I feel like it was really just divine, because our entire life thereon after, we just kept crossing paths over and over again. I mean, we went to rival high schools. I would see him at football games. I was cheerleading for the other team. Like, there were so many moments that I was. Oh, nah, he keeps coming up. He keeps appearing. He keeps, you know, circling in my orbit.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So when the opportunity presented itself, when I was hosting, well, I was co emceeing this banquet, a scholarship banquet. I looked at the list of honorees, and when I looked at the list of honorees, his name was on the list. So, baby, I was plotting.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, that's right. I love a good plot.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I love a good plot.

[Deval Ellis]

You better know what you want.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That's exactly what it was. And I said in that moment, I'm a shoot my shot at the banquet. So, you know, sis got her little dress together. Okay. I had just won a pageant that summer, so I would want my crown and banner because that already brings a lot of attention, right? But.

[Lex P]

Oh, you rap for me. I ain't know that, huh? Let me add that to my.

[Kadeen Ellis]

He, like, I'm nine years old.

[Deval Ellis]

I didn't even know this. Let me tell you what.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You didn't do that. So that would bring a little attention. But either way, I knew I was going to approach him. Like, I already, in my mind, had said that because there were so many opportunities that I had over the years. You know, talk to him, start conversation up. But I was a little too shy. But not in that moment, honey. I said, we're going to be in close proximity. And I walked right over to him, and I was like, deval Ellis.

[Lex P]

Oh, she did?

[Deval Ellis]

Yep. And I feel like that's so beautiful. That is because it's so many women that are afraid to shoot their shot at men. And look at y' all's love story. It ended up working out, like. And what would have happened if you would have never walked up to him and said something, you know?

[Kadeen Ellis]

But what do y' all think? Do y' all think it's that this day and age, people are just so wrapped up in, like, social media and the appearance of things that you feel like, as a woman, like, I can't shoot my shot because I'm not supposed to, or I'm not supposed to be the one to make the approach, or is it corny to do that? Because I feel like back then, there was nothing to really lose other than maybe my ego getting hurt. But I was like, no, I'm fly. Like, he's gonna be all right. That's crazy that you'll be all right.

[Deval Ellis]

Because I was just gonna say that because I could never shoot my shot to somebody, like, in this, like, right now. Like, right now, I could never do it because I feel like just. I don't know. I feel like somebody might get on there and be like, yeah, Lex P wanted me. Let me show y', all, you know? Cause that's what people do for attention now. But I feel like dating, you know, whenever y' all probably met was a lot different then because social media wasn't a thing. It was like, I'm really trying to get to know this person versus, you know, oh, let me post this and post. Oh, girl. He took me out to get lobster. Or he done took me. It's not like a show. Like, y' all were probably like, okay, let's see what's going on. Like, people used to really go outside and get to know each other.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Is that true? And There were no real major explosives. Like, when I think about it, at 18 and 19 years old, we both knew that we was broke.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Kadeen Ellis]

We had no money, you know, so you had to be creative with dates and going out and doing things together, spending quality time. And it wasn't about Instagrammable moments. It was really about getting to know each other. But of course, getting together that young, being 23 years in, it comes with its fair share of, you know, times too, you know, but we work through it.

[Deval Ellis]

So would you. Well, I was just gonna say, for me, it's not even about social media. It's more so about gender roles and being conditioned. I think from like a young age that, like, oh, the man's supposed to approach you. If he wants you, he gonna holler at you. That's more so what it is for me. But I think as I've gotten older, I've become more comfortable with the idea of like letting somebody know that I have interest. Right.

[Kadeen Ellis]

How you do that?

[Deval Ellis]

You know, I done double tapped a few pictures from 52 weeks ago.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Right, right.

[Deval Ellis]

I'll be like that. That's how I do in the club. You know, if I'm doing a little duck, I want to.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Come on, go too wide. M. Go too wide. I know what you're talking about.

[Deval Ellis]

I know a. I gotta rock my little hip.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Come on now.

[Deval Ellis]

That's enough. That's all I'm doing. I just sent a little heart to the dm. Yeah. Would you give advice, though, to women to shoot their shot? Like in today's society, you know, it's difficult.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'm conflicted with that because I feel like I don't have much dating advice because I haven't been on the dating scene and it's so different now, you know, but my sister, for example, who's 10 years younger than me, she's now newly single after breaking off an engagement. And she tells me how difficult it is to be in that space. But I have been encouraging her to be the one to make the approach if she's interested to shoot her shot. For example, she said she was out to dinner one night, you know, with a group of friends. I believe it was her birthday. And I forget where she was in the city, but it was a cute little spot, very exclusive. So she knew that the people coming in there were like, okay, they're about something, they're doing something.

[Deval Ellis]

Some bbb, some boss. That's all right. In the building.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That'S all right. My husband over there. That's your right, baby. You know, that's all right.

[Lex P]

I don't judge. I don't judge.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Listen. We listen, but we don't judge, right? So I said her. I said, go ahead and do so. Apparently there was a dude that walked in that caught her eye, and she was like, ooh, I wanna shoot my shot. Her friends at the table was like, no, you gotta wait for him to notice you and go to the bathroom and walk past and see if you can make eye contact. This, this, that, and the third. So she said her gut was telling her, you know what? I'm gonna send him a drink. Because usually when you sit back at a restaurant or wherever or a bar, it'll be the guy to initiate sending a drink to a woman, right? So she said, I should have hit you in that moment. Because they were all like, send them a drink. I said, all your single friends is telling you not to send a drink.

[Deval Ellis]

All right? Now, come on now. You preaching the word.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So I said, what made you feel like you had to listen to that? If your gut was telling you that knowing who your sister is, she shot her shot and found her man, you know, why would you not do it? She's like, I knew I should have called you in that moment to just. Because sometimes you need somebody to hype you up, right? You need a friend. You need some advice. You need somebody to be like, nah, do it. Because what's the. What's the worst that could happen?

[Deval Ellis]

I agree with that. And I'm a drinky.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Right, Exactly. Then you and your single friends could drink the drink.

[Deval Ellis]

Ooh. Now, see, But I do agree with that. I don't think there's nothing wrong. Cause that was actually a debate on Twitter the other day.

[Lex P]

Like, what was a debate on Twitter?

[Deval Ellis]

Drinks always, like, is that a bad thing? And, like, they were tearing people apart. I mean, I got ripped to shreds. Cause I said, man, I remember back in the day when men would buy a bottle and, you know, make sure the girls had a good time. But now it's like. It's just a little different. But people were arguing about, like, if a woman should send a man a drink, like, if she's interested.

[Kadeen Ellis]

How would you feel about that?

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, how would you feel?

[Lex P]

Male perspective? I'm glad you asked the question, because to me, I think that's the biggest issue here, Right? Men have questions about women. So you know who they ask? They friends. Why don't you ask a woman and then just be willing to deal with whatever the truth is that she tells you and vice versa, if you're a woman and you have issues or interested in questions about men, why don't you ask men? And rather than judge men for the answers they give, you say, well, I want to be with men. Let me just accept the truth they give me. And that's why I think we have this issue. Women and men both want their gender to quantify and validate all of their feelings individually. And that's just not going to happen. Cause all women ain't the same and all men ain't the same. So when you go to your friends and say, I want to try this, and then a group of your friends say, no. A lot of times as men, we do the immature thing and say, well, my boys say I shouldn't do it. And they don't. We should start doing more of this.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, right.

[Lex P]

Open conversation where when I answer, please don't judge me.

[Deval Ellis]

Right?

[Lex P]

You know what I'm saying? And I'm giving you that before I give my answer. This is my thing. In this day and age, the world has changed. Back in the day, men never looked at women as a source of revenue. That just wasn't what it was. You know what I'm saying? If we gonna be realistic, all the OGs told us based on the way the world was when they were growing up, it's not the same, right? So let's put that out of it. We can't go back to the way things were as a man. Now, if I was single and a young lady sent me a drink, the first thing that shows me is that she's not looking to make money off of me. She has her own cause, she sent me a drink. It also shows me she has the confidence to step out there in this faux pas type of feeling to do something that's outside of what the norm is. Which means that that's the type of person I might want to build with, right? So to me, the gesture tells me a lot about the woman more than the drink. It shows that she's not afraid.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, I ain't gonna lie. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. It could be her last $10 happy hour rolling. She like, I'm finna show him. I got $15 drink, let's do it.

[Lex P]

But let me. You know what that tells me.

[Deval Ellis]

And it might end up working out.

[Lex P]

Yo, you got moxie, though. As a man, I'm like, even if she spent her last $10, I was worth her last $10. But here's the thing too. As a woman, you send that drink. If he's not accepting of the drink. You can't take that on yourself and say, what's wrong with me? He ain't accept my drink. You can then say, hey, that wasn't the man to accept my drink.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

And just leave it as that.

[Deval Ellis]

You never know.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That could have been a thing too. You might have married a bit or.

[Deval Ellis]

Been in a relationship.

[Lex P]

That's why you never personalized. When you send someone a drink, if they don't accept it, you don't know what they've been going through. What if he found out the worst news of his life that day, and there's no drink that's gonna accept, like, change that? It doesn't matter that you sent it. You know what I'm saying? But now what do we do? We personalize that life.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, we do. The worst day of my life.

[Lex P]

I would tell you to send the drink.

[Deval Ellis]

Send the drink.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Send the drink, y' all gesture and.

[Lex P]

Use it as discernment.

[Deval Ellis]

True. Cause I'm not gonna lie. I feel like. Have I personally ever sent Amanda drink? No. But at this age, like, if I was, like, single and still, like, dating around, like, I wouldn't be against it. Cause whatever I've been doing, obviously it ain't work, right? Send the Don Julio bitch.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Listen. And if he sends it back, then that's clearly the kind of man you may not want to.

[Deval Ellis]

I'm gonna get drunk anyway, period. You don't feel cranky? A win is a win.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That's it.

[Deval Ellis]

It's gone. There you go.

[Lex P]

You don't lose anything. Sending.

[Deval Ellis]

So being the connection that y' all have, and I know we talked to you about this last time. Do you feel like sometimes. And you know, we gonna be honest, this is why we separated, y'.

[Lex P]

All. I get it.

[Deval Ellis]

Do you ever feel like you got married too young or like you missed out on anything? Like, I know at this age now, you probably feel like, you know, this is where I'm supposed to be. There's no regrets. But was there ever a moment, like, in your 20s that you felt like, man, this is a lot in your life?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I had several.

[Lex P]

Yeah. Ye.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Camera at Zoom.

[Lex P]

I'm on five. I think that's four.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Come on, now. I've had several moments like that because it's difficult. You think you're so in love at 18 and 19, you got no responsibilities. You going to school, you got your little job. You're doing your little road trips during spring break. For me, in that moment, I was in this utopia, essentially. And I didn't realize until I was Moving into our 20s, mid-20s, late-30s, I feel like I missed out not necessarily on dating other people, but just having my own space. You know, I look at. My favorite example is like, Sex and the City, you know, you got your little apartment, the shit is all white. You got your flurry rug. Like, you have all the things. You come home, you know, you have your little drinks after work, kikis with the friends. Like, that's what I didn't have. Okay. So a part of me used to mourn that and be like, damn. I never had a chance to just be a single woman who was in control of everything that she had going on. I had essentially a crutch in my husband because if things didn't work out for me in a certain job atmosphere or something, I had somebody to fall back on, which I realize now was a blessing in disguise because it's so much easier to do things.

[Deval Ellis]

You're trying to sell that thing, doing.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Something strange for a little change. Yeah. You know, so I just. You might have saved me from myself.

[Deval Ellis]

You never know.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Because I promise y', all, show me.

[Drea Nicole]

How good it can get today, God, and show the rest of the world what we already know. It can't get. No better than being hella black, hella queer, and hella Christian. My name is Joseph Rees. I am the creator and host of Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian. A fully black, fully queer, fully human, fully divine podcast edit. Explore society, culture, and the intersections of faith and identity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian to hear conversations about what it means to sound the way you look.

[Lex P]

I think what I've had to make peace with is that every iteration of my voice is given to me by God, and I love it.

[Drea Nicole]

Books that validated our identity.

[Deval Ellis]

The library now for me is a safe space. As someone who is writing books that they're trying to take off of shelves.

[Drea Nicole]

And how we as, as black queer folks relate to our Christianity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Kadeen Ellis]

When I went to college, okay, this was 2020 2002. Agent myself, Lord. But yeah, I was ready to get out of my, you know, very sheltered, overprotective, very Caribbean household. And I'm not gonna lie, I was ready to wild the fuck up. You know what I'm saying? I was like, I'm going to college. I'm gonna be on campus. You know, I'm gonna be at all the parties. I'm gonna be doing all the things right. So I was looking forward to that. And then literally, going into my first semester transferring to Hofstra is when I met him at this banquet. And we both fought the. The idea of being together so much because I didn't want no man. Like, I didn't want to be locked down. I wanted to experience life. I wanted to see who Kadeem was. I wanted to know me as an individual. What do you like? What don't you like without being impacted by anyone else.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So when we met each other, there were so many moments where we were just like, we don't want this.

[Lex P]

Yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

As much. So many times we tried not to be together, and it's like everything was just pulling. You know that song? Every time I try to leave something together, he's pulling me back, me back, telling me I need you. Like, it was literally. That was the soundtrack for us.

[Deval Ellis]

College.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'mma embarrass you right now. Why hold up.

[Lex P]

Embarrassed. This is what they wanted. Don't let them separate us, baby. No.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Y' all was fuck for this. Y' all was fun for this. So there was this one particular moment in college. It was when I was in grad school, right? First year of grad school, and he. Or it was my second year of grad school. When did you go to league? Is that my second year?

[Lex P]

2006.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Okay. So that was my second year of grad school. Right. So, you know, he's over in Detroit doing his thing in the NFL. I still have one more year of grad school to finish. So it was just hard at this point because we had this codependency after being together all those years of college where we were together every day. We were sharing an apartment together. Like, we were together, inseparable. We were Mr. And Mrs. Hofstra. And then it went to him, essentially, now being away in Detroit. The distance was one added layer of stress on the relationship. And then when he came back home, we were at odds about a couple things. So I was just like, you know, Deval, like, at this point, I feel like I'm done. Everything that needed to be done is done. We clearly not seeing eye to eye.

[Lex P]

She was moving with her hands like this, too. You see that?

[Kadeen Ellis]

The New York layer. Giving very much. Brooklyn, very much.

[Deval Ellis]

I'm not buying.

[Kadeen Ellis]

This is what the deal is. So I said, I'm done. We've done everything there was to do in this space. I said, maybe this was God's way of saying, you know what? You Go to Detroit, do your thing. I'mma finish grad school here. Wherever. Cause I went to school for broadcasting and performance. So I'm like, wherever. Theater, news, whatever takes me. That's it. So he was like, you know what? It's fine. Whatever, whatever. You know. So we going back and forth and, you know. So he packing his suitcase up, shoving stuff in his suitcase, and I'm helping him pack. I'm like.

[Deval Ellis]

I'm standing there. I was like.

[Lex P]

I said, don't touch my stuff. Don't touch my stuff.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'm like, let me. Let me give you a hand.

[Lex P]

I need your help, you know?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Next thing you know, he going to the fridge, try to take out. I said, ah, ah, leave the groceries.

[Deval Ellis]

I gotta take the baloney.

[Kadeen Ellis]

The baloney, honey.

[Lex P]

She got cold cuts. I didn't get cold cuts. I gotta leave with. I'm leaving with something.

[Deval Ellis]

I'm leaving here with some Dr. Trina saying groceries.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So it was dead winter. It was like late January, February in New York. So it was blizzard out in Long Island. Right? You know, I'm going with this.

[Lex P]

I.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So, yeah, it's like, blizzard outside or whatever. So I'm thinking to myself, to be honest, because there's always that part of you that's just like. I really want him to just stay. Yeah. You know, him to fight a little bit.

[Deval Ellis]

Fight a little bit. Throw a feet. He's like, damn. He needs.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'm like, I need you to fight a little bit.

[Lex P]

Y' all hear these fellas? You hear the mind games they play? They psychological terrorists. They psychological terrorists. They playing all these fucking games.

[Deval Ellis]

I'm like, fight for me. Fight for me, please.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know? So he packing his stuff up. I'm helping him or whatever. And I'm like, oh, he really trying to get the fuck up out of here. I'm like, all right, well, Ryan then. So packs the suitcase. He opens the door. And then I see the moment of doubt because it's like this much snow outside, right? So I'm just like, mm, Sit back, waiting to see what he gonna do. So he leaves with his suitcase. He's trucking it through the snow, whatever. So I slam the door, not close it. You know, he trucking through the snow with his suitcase or whatever. So I was like, what if I think I'm fine? I'm fine. I'm gonna be fine.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So I sat down with him maybe.

[Deval Ellis]

Like 20 minutes later. I'm so weak.

[Kadeen Ellis]

But before that, he's leaving, right? And he put the scarf over his head, and then he, like, flung it around. And he was so dramatic. That's why he said, you know who he looked like? You know, Mary J. Blige. I was your lover in your.

[Deval Ellis]

Working every day of the week. Come on now.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It was on the job window. I mean, it was given. Not Gonna Cry video.

[Deval Ellis]

I love it.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Okay.

[Deval Ellis]

Drama king.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It was the whole.

[Lex P]

Do y' all believe this?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Knowing Deval, y' all know that's the truth.

[Lex P]

Yeah.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay. I see it.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So. And he's the best.

[Deval Ellis]

Young Devale. Yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, yeah. This was like 21ish, 2ish year old Devale.

[Deval Ellis]

Absolutely.

[Lex P]

I remember all of this.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So. And I'm looking at him. Cause the contemplation before he trucks through the snow with this thing over his head is like. The snow is blowing in his ey, you know? So I'm dying to myself inside. Cause I'm just like this nigga.

[Lex P]

Look.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Look at. Look at you, fool. So 20 minutes later, he circles back, and he was like, I think we should talk. I said, you just ain't had nowhere to go. Cause where were you going? It was a blizzard.

[Deval Ellis]

It was fucking blizzard.

[Lex P]

Do you remember? Do you remember what happened?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Where'd you go? I was too strong up on. Sorry.

[Lex P]

I got in my car, right? And I got on the Belt Parkway, and I was. I was like, fuck, I can't drive back to Brooklyn all the way there. So I'm like, fine. I'm gonna go stay with one of my young boys, right? I went in the dorm. I got in the dorm. I pulled out the meat that I.

[Deval Ellis]

Stole from K. Wait, I got buns. Wait, no, no, I get it, though. I pull out a can of beans in a minute.

[Lex P]

That's why I was laughing.

[Kadeen Ellis]

And some franks.

[Deval Ellis]

Pull it out.

[Lex P]

I was laughing because she wasn't lying, man. I was hungry as a motherfucker, and I was gonna get something. And she was like, nah, those is my. I can't eat that. I can't eat that. Fine. So I was like, I'm not taking the cold cuts. But all the frozen shit, I was just like, that shit I bought. So I thought. I took the frozen shit. I went in my young boy's room. I was like, yo, with a microwave or. We don't got a microwave. I'm like, all right. With a formigirl. And it was like, we don't got no formal grill. I was like, y' all don't got shit in here. All my frustration.

[Deval Ellis]

Ready to go home.

[Lex P]

All my frustration that I had on K, I let out on all of them. And I'm like, y' all don't got nothing in this house. Y' all don't got no fucking microwave. Y' all got no Jordan for me, girl, this is the problem. And also, this is a microcosm of your grades. Look at you. You been below a B average since I know you. I'm screaming on them about everything. You not starting your work ethic piss, everything. And I'm just going in on them. Then I get my scarf, and I throw my scarf around my neck.

[Deval Ellis]

See, you did do it.

[Lex P]

I did.

[Deval Ellis]

You did do it.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That's why the citizens speak comes out, y'.

[Deval Ellis]

All. You don't have a George Farley grill.

[Lex P]

A blacked out. A blacked out.

[Kadeen Ellis]

When is he gonna defrost his peas, Right? That's what it was.

[Lex P]

I was trying to defrost my stolen goods that I had.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, my God.

[Lex P]

And then that was the first lesson I learned about having a woman, though, because we all athletes. I ran back to my homies and I was like, yo, I'm gonna go stay with my young boys. And they ain't have nothing that I needed. So I took my ass back to the crib, had my little roll away. I was like, look, we gonna have to talk about this, because I don't wanna leave you in here by yourself. It's not safe for you. I'm worried about you right now.

[Deval Ellis]

It was about Hood. Whatever.

[Lex P]

Yeah, I would have been fine.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

But I definitely stood at the door.

[Deval Ellis]

Like, I know you was happy, though.

[Lex P]

Now, how about this, though?

[Deval Ellis]

Deep down inside, you couldn't show it.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I just couldn't wait.

[Deval Ellis]

You. You didn't stay long?

[Lex P]

No, I didn't stand there long.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, you didn't stay there.

[Lex P]

It was like, fuck. Knock, knock. The door was open.

[Deval Ellis]

So you still came back, though?

[Lex P]

I did come back. But I knew she was ready. I knew she was ready.

[Deval Ellis]

She knew she was waiting.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So he was ready to give his spiel. And I just turned around and I walked inside. And then, you know, one thing led to another.

[Lex P]

I know that's right. Tell them what you had on when I came back.

[Deval Ellis]

Tell the truth.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Go ahead on up here. About to ride on you.

[Lex P]

See how they do it?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Okay. You see how they do it? A little dirty wine action for you, baby. You know what? Look at random nephew. Ready? Ready. She ready for the romping shop.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, look, now, y' all got a bunch of little Ray and nephews around. His nephew and his cousin and his best friend. I remember watching everybody y' all A long time ago. And like the. The boys was coming out. It was like one. I thought I was like, God damn.

[Kadeen Ellis]

After the other, after the other. We always joke that they look like the WI FI signals. Aw.

[Deval Ellis]

You know, they do. They really, really do.

[Kadeen Ellis]

WI FI signal.

[Deval Ellis]

I was gonna say. I think that's one of the beautiful things, though, about meeting your person so young. Because y' all are willing to go through things together and work through it together. Because it's like, I'm really in love with this person. And I was with them when they didn't have anything. Versus I think when you get older, you always feel like it's something better, especially once you get established. It's like, okay, I don't gotta deal with this cause I can find somebody else, right?

[Lex P]

I think you're right. Because. Because the fact that we both had nothing at the time didn't matter. That's why when people ask me about dating, I have to be honest and say, I can't give you my perspective and tell you it's gonna be the same. Take you guys, for example. You guys have worked your asses off and been able to build something on your own, right? So whenever you meet someone now, you have to have something in the back of your mind just to say, I hope this person is here for me. And not what they have access to. When you 18 and you don't got shit, and you 18 and you ain't got shit. I didn't have to think about that with K. So it's so very different. That's why I don't judge people when they come to us with relationship issues and they like, I know we not perfect. I said, first of all, we not perfect neither. So you can throw that shit out the window, but we not gonna judge you. Because we also understand that we were 18 with nothing when we met.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Which was so funny because there was. I guess this is like one of the earliest forms of like a shade room. But when Deval first made it to the league, there was this website called talksports or something.net and it pretty much was like a gossip site. It was like a site where people was airing out people laundry, you know, who in what league they had it broken down according to sport.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh my God.

[Kadeen Ellis]

According to league, according to team. And there was the NFL, the NBA. Yeah, all that. So under devouts tab. Cause somebody sent it to me one day. There was definitely people on Facebook. Yeah, they went looking. No, no. I didn't even know it was a website, okay. Until somebody.

[Lex P]

And then Lex Be lex be knowing. Tell the truth.

[Deval Ellis]

We used to use spotrack. Spotrack was the site where you see how much they made. I don't care about the mess. What that chick look like. I don't care how many baby mamas you got. Spyreck was the website. It's like, what you say his name was? Girl, hold on. Don't be looking back.

[Lex P]

I've never heard of that.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Is he on the active roster? What's the deal?

[Lex P]

Young Young Kings. Y' all see what's out there.

[Drea Nicole]

Young Kings.

[Deval Ellis]

Hey, Young Kings. Back in the day, though it's probably.

[Lex P]

Even worse now with AI Young Kings. All right, pay attention.

[Deval Ellis]

Cause all they gotta do is GPT.

[Lex P]

Listen, see, Work on yourself.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Don't AI that bank account, though. That's one thing that you can't AI in the coin. But, yeah, somebody. So what? People being messy. Of course. In my Facebook inbox one day was this website, and I was like, oh, that's from the random, you know, spammer page, I guess, at that time. And it was the website, and then they put Deval's link in my. In the message, and it pretty much was like, kadina's only with Deval because of the money. At the time, I was like, what money? Money? Like, there was no money at the time. There really was no money. But he just started to get some notoriety, trying to, like, make you don't to the team. So Kadina's only been here with them, and then he used to be sleeping with this person on campus, and I used to be with that person on campus. So the messiness still existed back when we were, like, 20 and 21 years old, too. So saying that to say, like, you really just can't listen to the noise, because the minute you start to feed into that shit, you know, it's like a. It's like a deep hole that you go into and.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You just can't do that.

[Deval Ellis]

So I do want to ask you all that a little bit, because, you know, people probably knew him first because of his career and everything, but how did y' all handle that dynamic? Because obviously, you know, she's a star, too, in her own right. So whenever y' all started doing, like, you know, the videos and stuff, people started gravitating towards her. And now you're in your acting bag, and you're, like, really becoming like, people be like, okay, well, where your wife at? Like, we love you, but, you know, where is Khadid at?

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know?

[Deval Ellis]

So how do y' all balance that as well, too.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Right, right.

[Lex P]

I think Khadij would tell you, too. This was always the plan.

[Kadeen Ellis]

The plan. Yep.

[Lex P]

I'm on record as saying this from before, and I'll say it now. I told everybody. I was like, my wife can be bigger than Kim Kardashian, period. I've been saying that. And it was like, for real. I was like, yo, she's super talented. She's educated. She's a family woman. Like, she has all of the things and the work ethic. So when people used to come up to us in the airport and they'd be like, Like, I know you on tv, but I love your wife, I'm like, you want me to take the picture, period? Because to me, that's also part of the process. Understand that my wife, during that time when I was building everything, sacrificed.

[Drea Nicole]

Show me how good it can get today, God, and show the rest of the world what we already know. It can't get no better than being hella black, hella queer, and hella Christian. My name is Joseph Reese. I am the creator and and host of Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian, a fully black, fully queer, fully human, fully divine podcast that explores society, culture, and the intersections of faith and identity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian to hear conversations about what it means to sound the way you look.

[Lex P]

I think what I've had to make peace with is that every iteration of my voice is given to me by God, and I love it.

[Drea Nicole]

Books that validated our identity.

[Deval Ellis]

The library now for me is a safe space as someone who is writing books that they're trying to take off.

[Drea Nicole]

Of shelves and how we as black queer folks relate to our Christianity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Lex P]

So since she sacrificed, I'm not gonna let her just fall back by the wayside and nobody know her. I'm like, come, come, come. Let them see. So that when you get the opportunity, they'll be like, this is what he's been saying. And that's all that's happening now. So even coming here, I was like, watch. And it's funny that y' all separated us. She'll tell you, I said, both of these two young ladies are super dynamic. They're hilarious, just like you. I told them that they reminded me of you.

[Deval Ellis]

You did say that.

[Lex P]

And I said, the three of y' all gonna end up having a conversation, and I'm gonna be on the outside and I'M gonna enjoy it.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You're a hilarious by yourself.

[Lex P]

Yeah. But not for nothing, though, this is what it's always been. It was my turn for a minute. It's her turn, you know what I'm saying? Like, do this right.

[Kadeen Ellis]

No, he's absolutely right. And to piggyback off of what he said, like, how weird would it be if you have a married couple that was in competition with each other, you know? Cause that exists especially within the industry that we're in. It's just like, oh, like, my wife and my husband got a gig, and I ain't get a gig in a minute. And it's like comparing those. I think that's super weird. Like, he and I, since the moment we sat together for our first date and talked about what we wanted to do, and he was like, yeah, I want to do that. It was on tv. And I was like, oh, you want to be an actor like Martin? He's like, absolutely. I'm like, oh, you too? Yeah. So when he said that, I was like, oh, so me, you know, trying to. Trying to flirt and put myself. Put that down. You know what I'm saying? Put the nail in it. I was like. I was just like, so how we gonna do that? Like, how. How are we gonna help you get that?

[Deval Ellis]

You know what I'm saying?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Because I want to do the same thing. Listen, listen. I should start a little.

[Deval Ellis]

A little agency, you know, a little.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Court, a little pencil, you know, it's like. But no, in that moment, it saw that from that moment on, we were so invested in each other's dreams and goals, and we just talked about all the things that we could do, all the things that were possible. So when I sit here on this couch in this moment, in the present, because I'm trying to be more mindful of being in. In the moment and being present, I'm just like, damn, that's just the shit that we talked about, right? Years ago, years ago.

[Deval Ellis]

And I do honor him. And I do want to give you your flower. Because like I said, we've been doing this a while, so a lot of times, and I know they're gonna be like, lex, stop being a hater. I'm a hater. Y' all know this is what I do. But a lot of times when I meet people in person, I'm like, oh, my gosh. They were like this online, and I get upset when I meet them in person, because it doesn't. So. But just seeing you and seeing how, like, well, how well spoken you are, like, I see that star that he's talking about. Because a lot of people can say, oh, this person is a star. Cause you see him on social media. But that presence in person is different. It's a different energy. So I see you, girl.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Thank you, baby. I feel it.

[Lex P]

Can I tell y'?

[Kadeen Ellis]

All.

[Lex P]

I do want to. I want to say something.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I appreciate that.

[Lex P]

Because y' all do have an audience of young women, right? And there's this narrative going around that men are intimidated by women who have their own. Right. I can tell you that's far from the truth.

[Deval Ellis]

Really?

[Lex P]

I'm gonna tell you, right?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Well, any man worth having.

[Lex P]

Yeah, any man worth having, right? When I first saw her at 18, right. I was like, okay. She won pageants. Like, how your grades? Oh, you graduated Magnum culotte. You was valedictorian. To me, it was like, yo, I found a female version of myself. So when I'm going to do my things, she's not gonna be like, oh, you going to practice again?

[Deval Ellis]

Right?

[Lex P]

Oh. And it was like that all of college, right? When all of our friends was going on spring break and was taking extra vacations, I was like, yo, I'm gonna stay and take another class. She said, fine, since you gonna stay here and take another class, I don't gotta pay for housing. I'm gonna take another class. And it was just a partnership.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

There. Who are looking for women who want to be a part of the partnership. That's the reason why I wanted to tell the story, is because it never intimidated me that she could be a bigger star than me. It was just like, we doing life together. So it's like, if I'm growing and I'm trying to be the best version of myself, and I found a woman who wants to do that, why not do that shit together? And it's just been that way. So for me, I think that you just have to find the right guy high. If you dating guys and those guys are intimidated, say that those guys are intimidated by women. Because let's be real. If I date a thousand women, right? A thousand women, I date a woman. 3. Three different women every day. That's a lot of women. For any other man, right? That's still less than 1000th of a percent of the population. What do I know about women?

[Deval Ellis]

That's true.

[Lex P]

So my perspective just tells you.

[Kadeen Ellis]

He love a city.

[Deval Ellis]

No, it's a.

[Kadeen Ellis]

He's a human calculator. Meanwhile, I'll be over here, like, carry the one. No, carry the one.

[Deval Ellis]

Well, the reason I say that because while I do agree with you, I guess I feel like, of course I can't date all the men. I'm a trottle, but I can't date all the men.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'mma live through you.

[Deval Ellis]

You know what I'm saying? I'm a trial. But I will say, though, just my experience, I'm surrounded by successful women.

[Lex P]

Right.

[Deval Ellis]

And I feel like the conversations that we do have, though, like, men are intimidated. Men, we tend to experience more men that aren't supportive of what we have going on. And not just like us, but, I mean, just like, I have friends who work high in tech.

[Lex P]

Change your environment.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I was about to say pick different men.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

That tells you a lot about the type of men you choose.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay.

[Lex P]

I say the same thing to my young boys.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay.

[Lex P]

I got a lot of young athletes. All these bitches want money. All these. I said, ah, that tells me that you keep choosing the type of women who are chasing money right now.

[Deval Ellis]

They want the money.

[Lex P]

How many girlfriends you done had in your life? I had over 10. Oh, you had over 10 girls. So you know so much about women, and then they thinking about it. Women do the same thing.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

Just because you choose the same type of guy over and over and over, that don't mean all guys are like that.

[Deval Ellis]

But I will say, too, though, you know, men like to put on that. That job interview.

[Lex P]

They do.

[Deval Ellis]

You know, when you go into a job interview, you be like, showing up as your representatives, candidates, and three months later, they showing up late, have not cut their toes crust as they represented. Yeah, they love that representative.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Absolutely. So how long do y' all wait before y' all say, you know what, I'mma move on? Because I think that in the era that Devale and I started dating, right, There were moments where I might have discovered something about him that I've been like, you know what? I'm not dealing with this. It could be a red flag. Maybe this is how he is, and I can't deal with that or whatever. So what is it that people are doing nowadays to know when is a timeframe to say, you know what? I'mma throw in the towel with this person, because I'm over it, to be honest.

[Deval Ellis]

I'm always throwing in the towel with. And that's probably my goddamn problem, because as soon as you have a red flag, I'm gone Immediately. Like, extra stage left.

[Lex P]

That's a question. Serious question.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

Do y' all want to be wives or y' all want to be brides?

[Deval Ellis]

I want to be a Wife. I definitely want to be a wife.

[Lex P]

Y' all know what it takes to be a wife.

[Deval Ellis]

Where I'm at in life right now, I'm like, I don't know if I'm ready to be a wife right now.

[Lex P]

Because those are grown conversations that people are not having. And that's how you get to. To marry.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That's why when people hit Cedar Valley in the airport, they be like, man, nigga, you messing it up for all of us. Be out here being so depressed.

[Lex P]

I be getting pressed. I be getting pressed.

[Deval Ellis]

You over here being, you know, and.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You making it bad for all of us. He gets that.

[Lex P]

And you know what I say?

[Deval Ellis]

But you like, I'm just me and myself.

[Lex P]

No, I say, well, you need to ask yourself what you not doing for your lady that she's looking outside. First of all, this is. I'm gonna just be honest, bro. I ain't no pussy, bro.

[Deval Ellis]

I know that.

[Lex P]

So you could approach me if you want to. You can let the nice guy shit fool you. I'm also a human right? And I will protect my family with my life. So if you ever approach me on something negative, I'm gonna give you the same energy. But y' all know I leave with love.

[Deval Ellis]

Y.

[Lex P]

But a lot of time, these dudes do come like, yo, why you doing that? And we have a real conversation, and then once we have a real conversation, they be like, you know what? I can do better. And I said, that's really why you mad? You mad because you know you can do better. And then I asked them, I said, why do you not do better? And they often say, because she don't do better. And I said, well, let me ask you a question. You say, you the man, right? You the leader. You the leader, right? Yeah. So lead first. You do better first.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, yeah.

[Lex P]

And they be like, that's fair. And to be honest, I think that needs to be the conversation. If we, as gentlemen, want to say that we the leaders of our community, and we're going to be the ones that say we're going to take control of our community. Sometimes you're going to have to deal with the fact that your lady may be a little bit more emotional than you. Right? She may need you to break the ice. That's how it works in our house. I don't do. I do not. She will tell you, I don't do that. We going to be mad at each other for days. And you giving me the silent treatment. I don't do that. I'm grabbing. I'm Grabbing that ass. I'm lifting you up. I'm letting you go.

[Deval Ellis]

Here you go. Now we know. Laugh.

[Kadeen Ellis]

The blue light. Hey, listen, let me tell you some of that blue light. In the mood.

[Lex P]

But look, look.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Look at her face, though.

[Lex P]

Look at her face. Look at her face. Can I be honest?

[Kadeen Ellis]

That's how we got baby number four. If nobody knows. The blue light.

[Lex P]

The blue light special. Yes.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So there was an episode of Zatima. Shout out to my girl Crystal. Val Kasp, my good friend. Love her to death. So, yeah, love. I. I seen this episode. Deval was like, nah, we did this sex scene or whatever with this blue light. And I was like, ooh, tell me more. You know, because the actor in me as well be like, we know what it is like, you know, you simulating sex and whatnot, but when it looks real, it be looking real. So he was in quarantine filming at tps. So he was locked down for, like, three weeks or something. I moved our other boys with my mom cross country from our place in California to Georgia for the second time. For the second time. So sis was stressed, okay? She was stressed. I didn't have no man. I ain't had no date for, like, three weeks. It was a lot. It was a lot happening. You know what I'm saying? No reliever, nothing. So it was around Valentine's Day, and he was like, damn, babe, I got some bad news. We're gonna have to film an extra two days. So I was hoping I'd make it home on the 13th, but I'm not gonna make it home till the 15th. So I was like, damn. I was hoping you could be here for Valentine's Day. We could christen this house honey. You know, do all the things. New house. But I'm like, it's fine. I'll see you when you. When you get out. So I'm walking to the room one night. It's late. The kids are in bed. It's February 13th, about to be 14th. It's almost midnight, and I see this shadow in the doorway. So first of all, I went for my gun because I was like, oh, who the fuck is at my door? I went out.

[Lex P]

We don't play that either.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I went for the Pune. I did. And then I was like, oh, let me. Let me stop. Let me see. And it was Deval. I said, oh. He surprised me and came home early. So when I had planned already, I went on Amazon a couple days before because I was preparing for him to come home for Valentine's Day. And I Got me some blue light. Cause I had seen the episode, you.

[Lex P]

Know, I tried to tell y', all.

[Deval Ellis]

It don't be me.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So I went on trusty dusty Amazon. And I got these lamps and I got these blue lights. So I said, when he come home, I'm gonna do a blue light special here in the house for him. After seeing that episode. Cause I was like, that was good. I hit crystal. I was like, girl, he had you picked up. He did the tricks. She was like, yeah, girl. So we.

[Lex P]

Yes.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So he walks in, and I had the air mattress blown up on the floor in the room. Cause we didn't have our bed set up. Nothing was there yet. And he came home, honey. And it was like three weeks and we hadn't seen each other. This was our new home. It was just so much to celebrate in that moment. Making sweet fast forward not months later. Dakota Ellis is here, and he's our blue light special baby. So anytime I see a blue light.

[Deval Ellis]

I be like, it's another one. Said, it won't be no, turn it off. He told us he got a vasectomy.

[Kadeen Ellis]

And she ended. Yeah.

[Deval Ellis]

Yes. So I wanted to transition a little bit and talk about your career. Okay.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yes.

[Deval Ellis]

I wanted to ask you how hard was it or was it not hard at all to not get lost in being a mom and being a wife? And then also, how surreal is it for you right now that you have a TV show that you're on, Especially with you always being in the arts, it always being something you were interested in, having your degree in it. Dance, pageants, all of the things. So how does it feel right now?

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know, I. I often toe the line between, I can't believe this is happening, and it's about damn time, you know, because I feel like I have spent the past. My oldest is, what, 14? So 15 years of my life dedicated to my family, dedicated to having my children, to being an active mom. And that will never change. That's always first and foremost for active mom and wife. But I feel like all of the years, all of the sacrifices, all of the things that we've done, you know, Deval having the vision to even start social media. Because at first, when he came to me and approached me with this, like, babe, I think we should just start putting videos up on Instagram. I said, hell the no.

[Deval Ellis]

Well, I remember when y' all was in the apartment, I used to see y' all videos.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Apartment in Brooklyn. I said, why would I want to put our life on social media? Like, I am a West Indian Girl, like, we keep our shit close. We keep our cards close to the chest. We don't be telling people our business and airing out no longer. But he was like, nah, I think this would be a good approach and a way to use social media to, like, get ourselves out there as actors and actresses. Like, we'll do these skits, we'll kind of start this, like, battle of the sexes thing, and it'll be fun. And I was like, mm. But then that one little video went viral. I think it was Duracel came to us with a bag. They was like, we'll give you 3k to come to this event. I said, oh, we can make money.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I said, oh, this is like becoming a thing. So in using social media and, you know, the videos turned into a podcast, podcast into a book, the YouTube channel, like, everything started to erupt. So when the opportunity came my way, I'll never forget it, for the show at least January 6th, Tyler Perry hit my phone. Shout out to Mr. Perry hit my phone. And I'll be honest and say I was at a moment two weeks prior in my life where I was just kind of feeling a bit lost. I was like, you know, devale, we've been doing the social media thing for a while. The podcast, I felt like, in my opinion, had run its course. I felt like we did all we had to do in that space. So I said, maybe, like, I'm onto something new. Like, there has to be something next for me. He was already on two number one shows, you know, bet, B, E, T plus. So, yeah, so I'm like, you know, you're doing your thing, maybe. My conversation with God, I was actually in Jamaica at the end of the year 2024, and my conversation with God one morning as we were approaching the new year was, you know, I don't know what's next. I usually tend to be very type A and, like, want to plan for that. I said, but I'm really feeling so stuck. And I said, I feel like I need to be still in this moment and allow you to move. So I'm not gonna make any plans. I'm gonna be content with just being at home with my kids. If that's where you need me to be, at home with my kids and assisting my husband with whatever he has going on, I'm cool with that. But if you have something for me, I'm game. And, baby, when TP hit my phone and was like, hey, I may have something for you.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, my goodness.

[Kadeen Ellis]

And it was literally like, like, days later, this was December 31st. Okay. Days later. And I already know that God was working because he was just preparing me for this moment.

[Deval Ellis]

Right? Yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Deval said to me the other day, he was like, yo, do you realize that here you are, 41, pretty much moving like a girl in your 20s because.

[Deval Ellis]

And looking like one.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Thank you. They keep me young. They keep me young. But he said, you are literally a woman who. Who has all the things. Like you have your family, you have your husband. You are, you know, essentially taking care of your parents. You know, like we're at that age now where it's like we parents to our parents and, you know, so I feel like it's about time. And I fight imposter syndrome every day. Oh my goodness, I do.

[Deval Ellis]

We talked about that before. A bitch will look at it. I don't want to see that chick look happy against these. You too happy.

[Kadeen Ellis]

No, it should be contagious, cuz that's what I want for every woman, though. You don't want every woman to feel like that. So even going through the process of filming, so I went from my chemistry read and my audition in LA in January, finally got the call that I booked the role early February. And then, baby, I went back into the lab because it's been a. It's been a minute since school and, you know, having an acting gig, consistently acting in this capacity, acting in the TPS universe, which is.

[Deval Ellis]

That's a big deal. Which is you're gonna get spin off for eight years. Come on now. It's gonna be 67. Talking about Dominivor and you shooting it in two weeks. Let me tell you what happened.

[Lex P]

Facts, though.

[Kadeen Ellis]

He gonna be using 16 episodes in nine days.

[Deval Ellis]

So if two weeks.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yes.

[Deval Ellis]

Well, that's less six. 16 episodes.

[Kadeen Ellis]

16 episodes loads in nine days.

[Lex P]

Weekends off.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah, weekends off, yeah.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay. Okay.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So for me, I felt an immense amount of pressure first because I'm like, all right, God. You gave me this opportunity because you felt like I was ready. So me having imposter syndrome was crazy because I'm like, he would have never put me in this position in this moment in time if he didn't think I could. That was the first thing.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Drea Nicole]

Show me how good it could get today, God, and show the rest of the world what we already know. It can't get no better than being hella black, hella queer and hella Christian. My name is Joseph Reeves. I am the creator and host of Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian. A fully black, fully queer, fully human, fully Divine podcast that explores society, culture and the intersections of faith and identity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian to hear conversations about what it means. Means to sound the way you look.

[Lex P]

I think what I've had to make peace with is that every iteration of my voice is given to me by God and I love it.

[Drea Nicole]

Books that validated our identity.

[Deval Ellis]

The library now for me is a safe space as someone who is writing books that they're trying to take off.

[Drea Nicole]

Of shelves and how we as black queer folks relate to our Christianity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

[Kadeen Ellis]

And TP thought I could cuz he gave me the opportunity, right? So there's the pressure of feeling like, okay, Kadeen, you got to deliver because this man is giving you an opportunity. And in this industry, all you hope and pray for is somebody gives you a shot so you can show what you could do. Then I have my husband, who I don't want to disappoint because he's pretty much missed the TPS with $2 one shot, you know what I'm saying? So what I look like going in there and they be like, yeah, this bitch terrible. Come on, nepotism. She just got the job because her husband is on the show who he asked for a favor, you know, so that's going through my head. Then I have my sons who are looking at me like, damn, mom, like, you really locked in. You back in here studying with your acting coach. You gone three, four, five hours a day. You know, I had to fly my in laws in at one point because I'm like, guys, I need help, like all hands on deck so I could just focus. So there were so many things happening at one time because I just wanted to do a damn good job. I was doing my nails shortly after I wrapped and she was, she was like, do you have any, like regrets or anything you feel like you could have done differently? And I sat and thought for a second and I was like, I don't. Like, I really feel like in that moment I put everything out there. I was so prepared for it. And not to say that there's nothing I have to learn, you know, I can't wait to like watch and like dissect myself and my character and see what more I could do. But I really genuinely feel like, damn, I gave it my all because I know I could not fumble the opportunity. So I'm grateful to answer your question. I feel like all of the things right now has been for this moment, you know, and having my husband, who has just been like, rooting for me and telling me that I could on days that I felt like I couldn't, and, you know, taking the kids away so I could do what I gotta do and vice versa on moments when he needed that. Like, the best moment for me, most recently, after everything, was maybe about two or three weeks after rapping my oldest son when I was washing dishes after dinner one night, came up to me and just threw his arm around me, and he was like, mom, I'm just.

[Deval Ellis]

So proud of you.

[Lex P]

Oh, yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

And I was like, that's so sweet. I stopped and I looked at him. I was like, damn, Jackson. I said, thank you. I said, I appreciate that. I said, I always feel like you guys are proud of me, but hearing it.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know, is reinforcement for me. He was like, nah. I honestly feel like, yo, between you and dad, like, I have no reason not to be great.

[Deval Ellis]

Right?

[Kadeen Ellis]

And that was just so. So.

[Deval Ellis]

Because that's the goal with raising kids. Like, you want them to want to be like you. And I think that's a testament, too, the fact that you had to go and film all that, and everybody was just ready to surround you and help you and be like, all right, it's your turn. Go do what you got to do.

[Kadeen Ellis]

All hands on Zach. Zach. Deval was literally like, don't bother your mother. I'mma take care of this. It's like mirror. Like two, right?

[Lex P]

Nah, for real, though.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It was like two sets of grandparents. Because my parents live with us, my in laws flew in. So it's like, you get a kid, you get a kid, you get a kid, you get a kid. Y' all rotate. Whatever you gotta do, you know? And then he had to film two weeks after me. So then the minute I wrapped, it was like the role reversal. But this is what we've been doing our whole life.

[Deval Ellis]

But they say it takes a village.

[Kadeen Ellis]

A whole village, honey. And thank God for the village.

[Deval Ellis]

But I can't wait. Yeah, I can't wait the show. Because I love love sisters. I love sisters. I am. I am a st. So I have a question.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Uhhuh.

[Deval Ellis]

Which sister's character would you compare your character on this new show to?

[Kadeen Ellis]

O.

[Deval Ellis]

If you had to pick one question. Cuz I'm going to who I hate.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, okay.

[Deval Ellis]

Every time. Karen, my least favorite. She's the.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Is she really? She's the worst. You don't like her character? Why?

[Deval Ellis]

No, because she just can't Let it go, girl. Let it go. Let it go. Like, I just feel like you gotta move on with Grace.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I can see. I think. I think Geneva might have. Well, she's a tinge of Andy, because you learned that she's an attorney, okay? She got a little. She got a little gangster in her. So she might be a little Fatima when she got. You know. But other than that, I think she might be her own new entity. And. Which is the amazing thing about Mr. Perry is that he finds ways to find representation in everyone, right? So there's an ensemble cast of us. Shout out to my castmates, five sisters who all are coming from different walks of life. They're battling different things, whether they're divorced, in the middle of a divorce, on their way to divorce, divorce. And they don't even know it in their own marriage. You know, there's a lot of things happening, but I do feel like there's gonna be a woman out there who can relate to somebody, right? And if you can't relate directly, you'd be like, yeah, that's my girl. That's my homegirl right there. You know? So I'm expecting for there to be a lot of group chat, conversation after the episodes to see who relates to who and how they deal with their situation, their circumstances. But, yeah, yeah, I think Geneva's gonna be a very interesting person. I love that the show actually is Divorces because it's so far from what I am.

[Deval Ellis]

That's what I was gonna ask you next. I'm like, how did you prepare for the role considering you're in such a happy marriage and happy relationship?

[Kadeen Ellis]

It was, like, the best challenge for me as an actor because it made me have to develop Geneva as a character. Like, that's the first thing I did, you know, going back to my acting school days and trying to. To, like, work on my instrument, but also, you know, developing a character, something very, very important, right? Especially a new character who's going to be introduced to people for the first time, right? So it was interesting when I worked with my coach to, like, figure out the nuances that made Geneva who she was and how different she was from Kadeen. But there were also moments where I felt like a little bit of Kadeen could probably surface here, you know? And it was amazing to me. I said we had to dispel the myths. Latoya, Portia and I, we were on the Sherri shepherd show, Preston and. And we were just like, let's just clear the air when people first saw the poster, and it said, Divorced sisters. And I was front and center on it. I thought it was a reality show.

[Deval Ellis]

I was like, I'm finna call this error. What you done did to my queen. I thought it was you was ready to play.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yes.

[Deval Ellis]

Cause I thought it was a reality show. I said, who Getting divorced.

[Lex P]

Well, I did it first, though. How you know she ain't do nothing.

[Kadeen Ellis]

No damn Lex bitch.

[Lex P]

Protect yourself, Queen.

[Deval Ellis]

King.

[Lex P]

King. King. Protect yourself, King.

[Kadeen Ellis]

See how they do insert my hair When I first saw it were like, people.

[Lex P]

We was together.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Everybody calm down. Everybody calm down. It is not a reality show. It is a scripted show where we're acting. But I think that's just the beauty in it where I can just play someone who's so far from Khadijah and, you know, it's fun to do that. It's fun to show the representation of somebody.

[Lex P]

You're going to tell them what we did to you.

[Deval Ellis]

What y' all do, Y' all was role playing. Look, biting his lip, I'm like, y' all had to be doing something freaky. He ready. He ready.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Listen, it was a little Zach meets Geneva.

[Deval Ellis]

Uh oh, okay.

[Kadeen Ellis]

A little like intersection of worlds, if you will.

[Deval Ellis]

Tyler Perry. You can't produce this one.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Come on, now, you gotta produce this one.

[Lex P]

Nah, I'm producing this myself.

[Deval Ellis]

Where was Fasima Egg?

[Lex P]

See, this is the alternate universe that we're gonna follow.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Ain't nobody was worried about it.

[Lex P]

I traveled in time to a completely different alternate. That's what happened.

[Kadeen Ellis]

We actually said that would be funny if, like, one day, like on Sistas, for example, like, you know, he works in the airport. Zach. So if Geneva's, like, going through the airport and they bump into each other and it's just like, oh, that was. Oh, you know, it could happen quickly.

[Deval Ellis]

It could going with Tyler Perry not be on all of a sudden.

[Lex P]

Yeah, it could.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I think that would be so cute.

[Deval Ellis]

Was there ever a moment where you were, like, reading the script and you were like, oh, my man could never do this to me.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, absolutely.

[Deval Ellis]

He was like, how?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Absolutely. Or maybe my man would never put up with this.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh. Cause some of them was the ones.

[Lex P]

See how y'. All See how y' all automatically assume the man was in the wrong.

[Deval Ellis]

I knew he was.

[Lex P]

See what I'm saying, fellas? I'm representing for us.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Hello. Okay. Yeah.

[Deval Ellis]

She said, geneva the one to watch.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, Geneva's the one to watch.

[Deval Ellis]

So Geneva might be me. Sounds like she cuts up.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I am contractually obligated not to give you any Details you're gonna have to watch on bet Plus, y', all, every Tuesday.

[Deval Ellis]

We can't wait. I'm excited. I'm gonna be tuned in. I know I am.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I cannot wait. Thank y' all for the support.

[Deval Ellis]

So, Kyle, what are we drinking today? Cause we already chat.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yes, Very chat.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay, so. Because we have the two lovebirds. And I'm glad you know. Know what? I'm spot on with the blue light special.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Look at that.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay, listen, I taste a hint of coconut.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It is.

[Deval Ellis]

So we have two different drinks. We have a his and a hers is what we're going to call it today. For the hers, she has some spiced rum in there. We have some peach schnapps. We have some blue Curacao floated at the bottom. Some lime juice. And we have some coconut syrup. So that's what you're tasting very much vitamin D. Y. You like that? Little tropical. And then we garnish that one with a blue orchid. So we're getting more floral. Little tropical in there. And then for Davao, we have a. And it's kind of like a play on an old Fashioned. You know, he loves his whiskey. So we have some whiskey in there. We have some 1821 Old Fashioned. It's a barrel. Old Fashioned syrup. And then I made my own bitters, so.

[Lex P]

Yes, you can.

[Deval Ellis]

You know, normally we do, like, an English store. It has, like, a little bit of a spice to it, a little bit more. So, you know, I got crafty a little bit. So we have some of that homemade bitters, and then we garnish it with a dehydrated orange and a cherry. So we have the his and we have the hers. Cheers to y'. All. Your skin is glowing today. Thank you.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yes, it looks very. I love that for you. And the orange. It's giving sunkiss.

[Deval Ellis]

I have been in the gym, you know. Cheers.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Making me feel like I'm on the beach in Jamaica. Honey.

[Deval Ellis]

I know. That's why. That's why I said Wa guan. I wanted his, but I already.

[Kadeen Ellis]

We should name it.

[Deval Ellis]

Why is he laughing at.

[Lex P]

She said wan. It was all my.

[Deval Ellis]

Honorary Jamaican.

[Kadeen Ellis]

She hit us with the bumble clock. It's like whenever you. Whenever you learn a new language, it's like. How do I say fucking Chinese?

[Deval Ellis]

How do I say fucking?

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know, like, you want to learn all the curse words. I love Bumba clots.

[Lex P]

You hear that?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Bomba clot. Blood clot. Push the clot. Ali clot.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay, so I do. We do want to touch on this because you Know, again, y' all are our first couple, so we really. We get into it. We got some couples.

[Lex P]

Come on. Yes, let's get into it.

[Deval Ellis]

So we wanted to talk about serving each other in a relationship because y' all talked about this, you know, in the book that. You know what I'm saying?

[Lex P]

We Over Me. New York Times bestseller, period. The counterintuitive approach to getting everything you want out your relationship.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Come on now.

[Deval Ellis]

Yes. So I want to talk about the importance of that. And I think with serving someone, you really have to know how to let go of your ego.

[Lex P]

Yes.

[Deval Ellis]

And understand I'm not serving them how I think I should serve somebody. I'm serving them how they want to be served. That's so key. So how do you get in the mindset to really do that and not get aggravated? And then also on the other end, when you're receiving this service, how do you properly correct someone like, hey, this is not exactly how I like it, because you have to be able to receive that information, but you also have to understand how to give that information as well.

[Lex P]

Is this not perfect timing?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Spot on.

[Lex P]

Is this not perfect timing?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yep.

[Lex P]

And I'm glad you asked that question, because here, 15 years of marriage going in 22, we still have these conversations, and we want to say that so that people don't feel like, like, oh, it's been six months. I already told this nigga. I done told this bitch. I ain't no. It's 22 years.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

We continue to evolve. So it's an ever going conversation.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It really is. And I mean, you think about it being with someone in our circumstance. For example, from 18, 19 years old to now, there have been several iterations of Devalon Kadeem. Right. So I'm not the same person I was at 18 or 20 something, 30 something. I'm not 41. Like, I've grown as an individual within this relationship. So the things that I require may also be different now than they were then. So that's why it has to be a constant conversation in terms of the ego portion of it. That's something I particularly had a hard time letting go of. And I think it's because me wanting to do things in my mind, which I thought was the perfect way, was not always received by him as the perfect way. He'll be like, yo, I asked for this very specifically, and you chose to give me that. And then in my mind I'm like, wouldn't God gave you something?

[Deval Ellis]

Cause this is better than what you have.

[Kadeen Ellis]

And he's Just like, while I appreciate what you did, you asked me what I wanted, I gave you specifics, and you still chose to do something else. Just give me what I want. And recently, on one of our podcast episodes, we were speaking with the young men who are on our panel as well, too. And he said, men are pretty simple. They ask for what they want. Just give them what they want. It doesn't have to be the theatrics around it, because the reason the question came up, I said, you know, as a woman, sometimes you like a grand gesture. You want the balloons and the fl. When you check into the hotel. And those are some things that you would deem romantic, right? So if I'm doing something for my man, it's like, well, what do I do? That's the grand gesture that you can feel like, damn. She really put all this thought into it. I was like, I don't want no flowers. I don't want no balloons. I asked for head.

[Deval Ellis]

He like, rap. I want the head, but I want.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It in a cheerleading uniform. You know what I'm saying? With your hair and pigtails and some, you know, safety glasses and some shit.

[Deval Ellis]

And no excuse for that. Amazon Prime.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah, that's it. You see what I do with the blue lights?

[Deval Ellis]

7Pm them shorts go on at 7pm or something?

[Kadeen Ellis]

They sure do.

[Lex P]

It's like working the house. I'm gonna show y' all some.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Pulling up receipts. What you got in there?

[Lex P]

You pull up receipts?

[Deval Ellis]

Hold on.

[Lex P]

What is.

[Deval Ellis]

You showing up?

[Lex P]

Since you tried to embarrass me, okay.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, God.

[Lex P]

I'm gonna embarrass you. Nervous?

[Deval Ellis]

What you want to say?

[Lex P]

No. Cause people like to say, oh, people go on pot and be talking about lives they don't live. Okay, this is randomly in the morning mood queen.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, yeah.

[Deval Ellis]

I went, Father.

[Lex P]

I went. I went to take my son to.

[Deval Ellis]

Basketball practice on the workout.

[Lex P]

Yo, I went to take my son.

[Deval Ellis]

Now you look like.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Thank you. I be working hard.

[Deval Ellis]

Here's the thing.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Thank you.

[Lex P]

I want to take my son to basketball practice. I get a text message. Message with this picture. I'm doing a buck thirty on my way back home. That's what she sends me. This is nine in the morning.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Speed.

[Deval Ellis]

Speed.

[Lex P]

That's my song, though. Shout out Omarion.

[Deval Ellis]

That was a good song, though.

[Lex P]

It wasn't, though.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It wasn't, though. It was. But, yeah, like, you gotta put your ego aside. Cause it's like, if you can't be real with your partner, like, what is we doing?

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, what are we doing here?

[Lex P]

You know, and for the men, it's the same thing.

[Drea Nicole]

Show me how good it can get today, God, and show the rest of the world what we already know it can't get. No better than being hella Black, hella queer, and hella Christian. My name is Joseph Reeves. I am the creator and host of Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian, a fully black, fully queer, fully human, fully divine podcast that explores society, society, culture, and the intersections of faith and identity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian to hear conversations about what it means to sound the way you look.

[Lex P]

I think what I've had to make peace with is that every iteration of my voice is given to me by God, and I love it.

[Drea Nicole]

Books that validated our identity.

[Deval Ellis]

The library now for me is a safe space as someone who is writing books that they're trying to take off.

[Drea Nicole]

Of shelves and how we as black queer folks relate to our Christianity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Lex P]

Like I ask men, too, do you wanna be a husband? You wanna be a groom? They're like, what's the difference? If you wanna be a groom, you wanna take pictures with your wife, y' all wanna look good on social media, you wanna go on vacations. And if you want to be a husband, be ready to sacrifice. Be ready that when she's in the worst mood ever and she don't want to have sex, be ready to say, yo, that's okay, because I know you going through something. That's the leadership part of marriage that most people don't want to talk about, but I'm willing to talk about. Because me and this woman right here, I no longer perform for my gender. That's why people say all the time, like, why this? Why this nigga be on here talking all this other shit? Cause I don't gotta prove to y' all niggas that I'm a real. I have a person I'm building a life with. So the only person I'm pledging allegiance to is my wife. So with that being said, I'm gonna always be ready to serve her. What do you need in this season? Okay, in this season, you don't wanna be a boss no more. In this season, you wanna be flown out on vacations and doing all this other stuff. Since I'm your husband and I chose that, no one told me I had to be a husband. Since I chose to do. Do that. Fly wherever you want to Go, baby, wait. You tired of doing that shit? You want to be a boss? You want to be on tv? I'm your husband. That's my job to do that. So let me make sure I can curate that space for you. So when you're ready in that position with someone and you use discernment to find someone who's going to reciprocate that the same way, it's easy to be of service. Because the same way I'm ready to do all of that when I come home, I drop all of my issues that I've come to through the door with. On the day I drop him at the front door and my wife is there. Bathtub chicken, my weed, the kids.

[Deval Ellis]

That's a chicken. Chicken, weed and bath.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Chicken wing, yo, come on now.

[Lex P]

And this is why I must name those things. Because that may not be the same for your man or your man. So for me to tell any other woman, in order to keep your man, you got to do what? Kay, dude, no. In order to keep your man, find out what your man needs.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

And once you find out what he needs, needs, focus on that. Fuck the world. You don't got to prove to everybody else you a good wife.

[Kadeen Ellis]

And nobody's a mind reader in June. Nobody is a mind reader.

[Lex P]

Exactly.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Say what you want. Like be deliberate and say what it is that you want. So many of our issues were alleviated when we started having those just very raw, candid conversations. What do you need in this space to be successful? How can I make your day easier today? What do you have going on that you want to achieve that? Because if I was a mastermind of coming up with ideas, every other day is a fucking idea. And I'm like, well, then how are we going to, you know, bring this to fruition? You know, but whatever it is that, you know, your partner is interested in and they want to do, it's like you got to ask those questions and you have to genuinely be interested in finding ways to deliver that, but also being comfortable knowing that I can do this because it's going to be reciprocated. Like Deval and I, I think we move like a well oiled machine most of the times because whoever's equipped in that moment to deal with whatever it is, deals with it. Whoever is on the forefront right now because their career is on the. We rally behind that, you know, like there doesn't have to be the internal battle. However, I could serve you to make your life easier in this moment. I'm going to do it because I want to do it.

[Deval Ellis]

That's a. That's a word. But I want to go back to something that you said earlier because you were saying how, like, sometimes if she doesn't want to be intimate, you have to be, as a man, understanding and be like, okay, well, let me figure out what's wrong. Because it was an old episode I was looking at because somebody had commented on it on our YouTube. It was a long time ago when I was saying something like, oh, when your man want it, you gotta give it to him. You gotta give it to him. This was when we was in the red and black background. I was cutting up. But as I've grown older, I'm like, that is so wrong. Because if you have a person who can understand, like, hey, you know what? I'm not in the mood right now. So as a man, you should be understanding, like, hey, she doesn't wanna have sex right now. Let me figure out what's wrong with her and what's going on. Versus. Because women, we're taught like, oh, you gotta cook, clean, give him some coochie, drain his ball. And it's like, sometimes that's not what's gonna keep the home happy. You know what I mean?

[Lex P]

The bottom line is nobody can give you a number of how many times you gonna have sex for your man? It all depends on the man, right? Right. So stop asking your friends, how many times is enough? Speak to your man and say, look, how many times is it enough for you? Once he gives you that, then tell him, this is what we have done in our relationship. I'm the type of person she knows. My sex drive is super high. I can have sex multiple times a day. That's just me.

[Kadeen Ellis]

If you let him, right?

[Lex P]

If you let. I can do it.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Absolutely.

[Deval Ellis]

If you let him.

[Lex P]

But I also know my wife, and I also know that once she orgasms, she's good.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'd be like, yo, wrap it up. All right, Come on. We can go for about 30, 40 minutes now, right? It's about that time. Let's reach the crescendo.

[Deval Ellis]

Right?

[Lex P]

But that goes back to serving, right?

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

If you're a husband, you know, I'm in this to serve. So since I'm in this to serve is, babe, what do you need in this moment to make us get to this point? And I'm not going to lie to you, it is reciprocated a lot in our relationship because since I'm always serving, I don't have to worry about not getting it. She gonna rain check Me once in a while, you know, she tired.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

All right, maybe you was with the kids all day.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Sparingly, but wisely.

[Lex P]

And here's the truth, though. The fact that she said that is fair. Right?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

Just because someone gives you the ability a rain check don't mean that you always gonna throw it out. I'm not ready.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'm not ready.

[Lex P]

I'm not ready because there's also responsibility for women. You want this man to only be with you and not give any attention sexually to anybody else. So since you asked for that, how about you be a partner in helping him develop what yalls sexual plan looks like?

[Kadeen Ellis]

So for us, what we do now is like, sometimes there's days that I'm just like, you know what? I just don't want to be penetrated. She just don't got it in her today. But I know he might need.

[Deval Ellis]

He need that penetration.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know, I see the tossing and the turning happening. You know, the attitude is slightly funky, you know, so I'm like, he might need a little something. So that's when sis is like, you know what? Let me just pull this hair back for a while.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, okay.

[Lex P]

Yep.

[Kadeen Ellis]

But it's a little clip up situation. Sit at the foot of the bed, honey. And I'm gonna do what I gotta do.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know, it's giving Golf Gawk 5000. It's giving, you know what I'm doing. Because he gets what he wants, I essentially get what I want. You know, because it's like it's a 50, 50 situation in that moment.

[Deval Ellis]

You know, it's so crazy because. Oh, go ahead, go ahead. Well, I just wanted to ask y'. All. Cause I wanted to ask a question for the single people. Do you feel like you need to serve your partner before marriage?

[Lex P]

Ooh.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Ooh. That's a good question.

[Deval Ellis]

Because sometimes I think people often feel like, okay, if I'm giving everything before I get the ring, what's gonna make him want to give me the ring? Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Don't you want to test drive first to see if the car has everything you need?

[Lex P]

That's a good point. But I will say this. If you're looking for someone who's looking to be of service in perpetuity, it's not gonna matter whether you're married or not. That person just wants to be in service. I was of service to Kadeen before we were married.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Same true.

[Lex P]

I covered all of her bills. I paid all of her stuff. I protected her with My life before she was my wife, before she was my wife, she made my meals, she. She cooked. She took care of my mental health. She made sure that my daughter was correct. All the things that were considered red flags for women these days, she was doing, but that showed me was like, this woman is preparing to be a wife, not just a bride.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Because now that I think about it, back in the day, if we're using terms like we use nowadays, I probably would have been like, the pick me.

[Lex P]

You would have been a pick me.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I would have been a pick me.

[Lex P]

And I'd have been a simp.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Absolutely. And to me, in that moment, now that I look at it, it's like, damn. I wouldn't think that I'm not doing this because I want him to like me or I wanted him to pick. It was innate in me to want to nurture and take care of someone. And I met somebody who wanted to be taken care of. You know, that may not work for everybody, but that was just who I was, and he received it. Now, if you are of service to somebody that you feel like it's being not reciprocated or it's not respected, or you feel like you're the only one doing it and things are lopsided, then that might be the red flag to say, you know what? This person is not deserving of that kind of treatment.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, that just made me feel bad.

[Lex P]

This is why.

[Deval Ellis]

Because it just made me think about my last relationship that I was in. He was definitely doing all of that stuff before we were even married.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Were you withholding because you felt like we weren't married?

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

Yes.

[Deval Ellis]

And.

[Lex P]

And not for nothing. That's fair, though.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

Because even if you look at today's conversation. Right. A lot of these conversations, I like to say, are being held by the loud much minority. Most of the married people who are in successful relationships aren't on social media.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Lex P]

They're not doing podcasts. So we're listening to the people who aren't in successful relationships tell a whole generation of people how to exist. And that's.

[Deval Ellis]

They listen to us saying damn near my bad guy, my bad. Listening to us on poor mind.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Trend.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Lex P]

No, no, don't apologize. Because the years ago was not the Deval now.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, that's true.

[Lex P]

I had a lot of poor toxic behavior that I can look back on. And to be honest, I love the fact when people call me on that, you know, why they look Deval. You said this then, and I said that's what I felt then. So this is. This is an example of maturity and growth. I was wrong then. I didn't know. I didn't have life experience. So I'm willing to openly and honestly say I fucked up, and I'm willing to fail in front of everybody and say, I didn't do that right then. But look at the difference. That's why you should never hold yourself to the fire and say, damn, I'm doing something wrong. No, speak your truth, because your truth has value, because your truth teaches us of history. Right? Bottom line, what is the history of black women in America over the last 50 years? If you start from the 1960s, when the civil rights movement started, there was an approach on the government to separate the black family.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That was the agenda.

[Lex P]

There was. That was the agenda. And what we're looking. Looking at is the byproduct of that. So when you ask yourself, why do I feel this way? Rather than guilting yourself and saying, I shouldn't feel this way, say, let me understand history. And now that I understand why I feel this way, let me correct it so I can change the behavior so the next generation don't gotta feel the way I feel. That's why I don't mind openly and honestly loving on and empowering my wife in public. People could call me a simp. Don't get why I don't mind crying because I'm going through shit in public is because so many young boys watch niggas stand online and act tough and then kill themselves later. And they say, why? Because he was going through something and he wasn't trying to be vulnerable. I no longer want to play into the dogmas that society have created through this social media. I don't. I want to be myself.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It's exhausting.

[Lex P]

And I want to show people that there's no one way to live.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

Figure it out. You gonna make mistakes. Oh, well, people gonna judge you. Oh, well, they gonna talk about you.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, well, they gonna do that anyway.

[Lex P]

Exactly.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Right? And to piggyback on something that you said here, when you talk about how history has impacted us as a people, Right? One thing Deval and I have learned, even through our podcast, Ellis Ever after, and just learning how to have these open dialogues, because essentially the podcast started with us having these internal conversations. Conversations. And then bringing them to the forefront, like, okay, Lord, like, let's. Let's have the conversation with everybody and see, does anybody else feel like this, or is this just us?

[Deval Ellis]

Right?

[Kadeen Ellis]

The first thing that we got from that was, okay, we're not the only ones so it makes you feel like a little bit of a reprieve because it's like, okay, other people are experiencing the things that I'm experiencing. So our relationship and the issues that we may. That we may have, it's not an anomaly. Right, right. But then there's also the conversations that he and I have have had that trickled back to our family life, meaning when we grew up with our mother and our father and our siblings and the roles and the dynamics that pretty much shaped who we are to this day. Being the firstborn or, you know, being the first of your family to do something or realizing, damn, because my mom and dad dealt with these traumas within their life growing up, that. That has pretty much directly impacted how I am as a person today. And we've learned to give each other a lot more gr.

[Lex P]

Yes.

[Kadeen Ellis]

By learning our parents, by me learning my in laws, by then seeing, okay, these are the things that have shaped who we are. These are our triggers because of those things. And then how do we not pass that down to our children? Like, how can we be very deliberate about how we're raising our boys now or how we even interact with each other? Because some things that, you know, the way I may react to a disagreement, he'll be like, man, that is just like your mom. And then I sometimes take that as a trigger. Like, I'm not like my mom, you know, because I have my own triggers about my mom or dad or whoever. But it just really allows us to have those conversations and you give your partner more grace, knowing that between history and between your family history, this is how we arrived at where we are.

[Deval Ellis]

That's beautiful. Okay. I like that because I think a lot of times people don't look at that, though. They don't look at their, like, trauma from growing up or seeing how our parents grew up and stuff. So I think that is important, though, to, like, break the generational curses of, you know, what our parents went through. And then also, like you said, not giving in to what people expect you to do, because I think that's something that we kind of deal with. Like, if we get a man and we say, God forbid we cook a man some eggs and bacon. They're like, you cooked what? You cooked him some eggs? I'm like, damn, he was hungry. Yeah. They just want us to be so much. And I know you probably deal with that a lot, them being like, oh, my gosh, you do so much and do the doing the most.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah, I've heard that before. You have to. Because who Am I laying down at night with.

[Deval Ellis]

As long as he happy.

[Kadeen Ellis]

As long as he's happy. Like, we are doing this life together. That is. It's not a. Marriage is not a group project, honey. We might have the group chats, you know, but marriage is just not a group project. Your relationship is not a group project. It's not to say you shouldn't have areas, but you can vent sometimes. Like, we both have people who we trust. It should be trusted people who you go to to vent.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I was watching an interview recently. I think it was Kerry Washington said it in one interview and then Will said it in another. And it's like, essentially what they were both saying was like, why would you take advice from somebody who has not done something that you aspire to do?

[Deval Ellis]

Always said that. And people love to say, like, you can get advice from anyone, which I. I mean, I do.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You can.

[Deval Ellis]

You can, but should you take it?

[Lex P]

Right?

[Deval Ellis]

Like, if you're not living a life that I would live, or if it's not conducive to what I. I want, why should I listen to you?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Absolutely. Why am I listening? So that's how we feel like, if I'm not seeing other successful marriages within their scope of marriage, you know, why am I then listening to anybody else who's not married, who hasn't been in, who doesn't aspire to be married? Because that's okay, too. You might realize someday.

[Lex P]

I'm glad you said that.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know what I heard about all this marriage. I read y' all book. Marriage is not for me.

[Drea Nicole]

Show me how good it could get today, God. And show the rest of the world what we owe Already know it can't get no better than being hella black, Hella queer and hella Christian. My name is Joseph Reeves. I am the creator and host of Hella Black. Hello, Queer, Hella Christian. A fully black, fully queer, fully human, fully divine podcast that explores society, culture, and the intersections of faith and identity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian to hear conversations about what it means to sound the way you look.

[Lex P]

I think what I've had to make peace with is that every iteration of my voice is given to me by God and I love it.

[Drea Nicole]

Books that validated our identity.

[Deval Ellis]

The library now for me is a safe space as someone who is writing books that they're trying to take off.

[Drea Nicole]

Of shelves and how we as black queer folks relate to our Christianity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'm about myself. I'm selfish, in a sense. I don't want to have to worry about nobody else. I don't want to have to serve nobody else. That's okay. But you got to be honest about that and not drag people into these relationships that you know is not going nowhere because you don't want to be in a relationship. But it's okay to not want to be married.

[Deval Ellis]

It is. It is. And I think it's really refreshing what you just said as far as you can talk to other people, people that you trust. Because I think we've all been taught growing up, like, marriage is something. It's supposed to just be between you and your partner. You shouldn't let anybody outside of that know what's going on. But sometimes you do need that insight. And that's why I think even in our generation, it's really good that people are opening themselves up to go into couples therapy.

[Lex P]

Absolutely.

[Deval Ellis]

And stuff like that.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Couples therapy and individual. Because you said earlier on that I realized I might have been the problem with some things.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know, that self awareness, when you reach that point where you're like, damn, I might have contributed. Contributed to the issue here. Or you say, damn, I might have dropped the ball in my last relationship because I didn't do xyz, like, that's something that is very big girl. Very grown.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Very, very Demir.

[Deval Ellis]

My marriage, you know, you got the.

[Lex P]

House already, so come on, girl.

[Deval Ellis]

He gonna open them floodgates, period.

[Lex P]

I do want to say this, though, to our community that's watching. Right. We oftentimes are asking for equality while women are saying they're waiting for men to lead. And black men are saying, let us lead. I will honestly say this. Black men, for us, if we want to lead, deal with the fact that our women have been hurt and hurting for generations. So, yeah, you may come across a black woman that may be hurt, and she may not have found a way to let her hurt go. But don't just get give up.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

You know what I'm saying? Once you realize that, like, I realized that this woman right here was my woman when we were 19 years, 18 years old, I didn't know if I was the right person for her at that time. I didn't think I was. I didn't know if she was the right person for me, but I just knew that that was mine. And because I knew that that was mine, that God had decided that that was going to be my woman for me, it didn't matter what changes I had to go through, what changes she had to go through, we were going to go through what? And not for nothing. That's what a husband does, right? Right. Nobody. A husband isn't. There's no cash value. There's no amount of six packs. There's no height. There's. A husband knows that once he picks a wife, whatever that wife is going through, I'm a deal with it. And a wife does the same thing. And it's important that we say that because it's the same way. I'm asking for these men to give credence, but also give grace to black women. I'm asking black women, please give grace and credence to. To black men because we hurting, too.

[Deval Ellis]

I agree.

[Lex P]

You know what I'm saying? Give us some grace. You know what I'm saying?

[Kadeen Ellis]

We all come on like.

[Lex P]

Yeah, we do.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Soft place to love. Come on, baby. Right on this bosom. Right?

[Lex P]

See where you brought me? Every time you take me to the bosom.

[Deval Ellis]

See, that's why y' all on separate couches. That's why we there.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Take it to the water.

[Deval Ellis]

Go ahead, pray.

[Lex P]

Take it to the water.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay, so I want to get into topic number two. So for the second topic, I wanted to talk to y' all about how young is too young to have your kids in the entertainment industry. So I'm sure y' all have probably seen. It's a little girl named Ms. Shirley, who. She's been going viral a lot lately because she does the boots on the ground in.

[Lex P]

Yes.

[Deval Ellis]

And so her parents have been getting a lot of backlash, like even somebody called CPS on her parents. And I know y' all involve yalls kids a lot in yalls content. And then one of your kids. Kids is actually acting now.

[Lex P]

Well, two. Two of them.

[Deval Ellis]

Two of them are accident.

[Lex P]

Yeah. Cairo is. Is going to be in a feature film that I just did.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, no, that's.

[Lex P]

Yeah, he's been young. Zach.

[Deval Ellis]

Y' all need to adopt me and put me in the goddamn. I knew one of them were on Zatima, but.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah.

[Deval Ellis]

So, like, one of your kids. Well, two of your kids are acting now. So how do y' all feel about that? Or do y' all feel like these my goddamn kids? Worry about yours. Don't worry about what I got going on.

[Lex P]

I feel like, first and foremost, get your eyes out of other people's house.

[Deval Ellis]

Right?

[Lex P]

Right. That's my first thing. Until your house is in order, don't throw stones, because everybody got their own issues. I do understand that people are concerned because social media, to me realistically, is the devil. Right. Kadeen and I have learned to utilize social media. And when I say that, I don't want people to take it and be like, well, y' all are on social media. Yeah, we are social media, but we're also on the phone. I think the phone is the devil.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Lex P]

You know what I'm saying? You know, I think there's a lot of things that can be utilized for evil. The biggest thing with me and Kato, our kids have options. Right. So, Jax, we about to post this video. How you feel about it?

[Deval Ellis]

Okay.

[Lex P]

This is a realistic conversation. Let me see it. This is Jackson now, he's 14. What are we trying to teach in this video? Well, I think that by showing this video we can show blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think my friends can learn something from that. Let's post it. Or I don't really feel comfortable because I don't, I don't know how I feel about it. We not posting it. It's that simple. And we go through that with all of our kids because although this was a partnership and this was my idea, I went through that with my wife. To this day, I don't post anything unless she approves or my kids approve because that's their likeness that they have to deal with for the rest of the of their life. I hope the parents are all doing the same thing. Some parents aren't. Cause let's be honest, you know what I'm saying? It's an easy way to get attention. And every parent feels like if I get my kid attention, my kid is the greatest. I can make a million dollars.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Lex P]

You know what I'm saying? And that's why people probably felt like, let me call cps. But to be honest, I hope that their parents are doing the right thing with checking in with these kids mental health. Because these kids will then start to get addicted to the adrenaline rush that comes with likes that we do as adults, but they don't have the ability to maintain it. You know, imagine a 13 year old looking at their Instagram and they want likes and want likes, and then the minute they don't get likes, they feel like nobody likes them.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Lex P]

That's what parents need to be, you know, understand that that really happens.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

So I hope that those parents are doing it and if they're doing it that way, kudos to them because you may be able to break another great child actor if they're not I hope they realize sooner than later that they're creating more damage.

[Deval Ellis]

Right. Realistically how I feel, I saw a meme that said social media has us in a chokehold because it really have us thinking, 2000 likes ain't nothing. Imagine getting jumped by 2000 people.

[Lex P]

For real, though. I mean, for real. I mean, for real, though. That's a fact. You need to send me that.

[Kadeen Ellis]

A whole lot of people, probably with.

[Deval Ellis]

Kids on social media, too. I think it's also, like, the type of content that. That you're putting out there. Because I think the issue with the Ms. Shirley situation was, like, she's doing meet and greets with grown people. Yeah. That little girl should be at meet and greets for kids.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yes. On play dates.

[Deval Ellis]

Play dates.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know what I'm saying?

[Deval Ellis]

Like, I'm pretty sure if Yalls Sons book a meet and greet or something, it's gonna be like a Nickelodeon or something.

[Lex P]

Absolutely.

[Deval Ellis]

Something that.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Something age appropriate. For sure.

[Deval Ellis]

Age appropriate. So I think it's like that. Gray. I don't have kids, so I really, you know, I tread lightly when I speak, but it's at the same time I have nephews. And I could never imagine somebody like a grown woman being like, oh. Cause my nephew's name is Jackson. Oh, I want to meet Jackson. For What? Bitch, you 36.

[Kadeen Ellis]

There are people like that.

[Deval Ellis]

There was videos of, like, the little Shirley. Like, men, grown men. Meeting her. Picking up.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Picking her up.

[Deval Ellis]

Picking her up is crazy. Put them boots on the ground, nigga. Put her down.

[Lex P]

Lex. Lex, why you so.

[Deval Ellis]

Her boots on the ground. Put your boots back on the motherfucking ground. She is too young.

[Lex P]

I'm fucking done with that.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'm fucking done with that.

[Lex P]

That was great, though. That was perfect.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Because all engagement is not good engagement. Exactly. It's not. But what Deval and I do, too, with the boys. Like, we have learned also to respect them as individuals and humans. Like our third son, Kaz. He could give a fuck.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay.

[Lex P]

He don't care.

[Kadeen Ellis]

He don't care. He's very much like his mom. Very Sagittarius, very moody, Very sometimeish.

[Deval Ellis]

I love Sagittarius. Her best friend. My best friend. My Jamaican best friend.

[Kadeen Ellis]

When's her birthday?

[Deval Ellis]

November 28th.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I love it. So Cass is the 27th.

[Deval Ellis]

My best friend of a sash, too. December 9th. She's December 9th.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'm the fifth. Come on, best friend. I bring a sandwich. I love her.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay. Come on.

[Lex P]

I told y' all when I met y' all that I was like, oh.

[Deval Ellis]

She was Fitting Sagittarius with me.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Listen, and what's your name?

[Deval Ellis]

I'm a Tauri.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You were a Tori.

[Deval Ellis]

I'm a Leo. Okay.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Now, I love Fireside. We know each other. And you close enough to Gemini? Cause I love me a Gemini, too. But you close, you close.

[Deval Ellis]

I'm on the cusp of Aries.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Okay, So I like him. So we good?

[Deval Ellis]

I like him.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I like him. So we good. He Aries. But no, like, for example, Cass, don't really be caring about the camera. So what we do, we respect that. You don't want to be in the video. You want to be in the video. Like, we do that all the time. But there are really random times, and they're far from. Because people will meet us, and for the most part, I would say, 98% of the time, super sweet. We always show love in public, give love back and all that. Deval had an encounter in the airport one time where this man. Well, you could tell the story because it happened to you.

[Lex P]

I've told the story a bunch of times. Long story short, dude thought I met the dude. Dude looked a little off. He was like, yo, I'm from South Carolina. I'm like, yo, I'm from South Carolina. We could be family. Blah, blah, blah. He's like, can we take a picture? I was like, yeah, it was me, Cairo and Cass. I said, yo, y' all want to take a picture? No, it was me, Jackson, in Cairo. They was like, nah, we tired. It was six in the morning. So I was like, all right, cool. Step aside. So I go to take the picture. He's like, yo, they not taking the picture. And I was like, the kid? Yeah. And I was like, nah. He's like, yo, but those are, like, my cousins. I said, no. I said, we could be cousins because you from South Carolina. And then he was just like, nah. And I was like, if it's gonna be a problem, you won't get no fucking picture. Cause then that's when Daddy came out.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Daddy. Brooklyn devout.

[Lex P]

This is another thing I learned.

[Deval Ellis]

Come on, Daddy, you better tell, right? Don't play with our kids.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Listen. Don't play with my kids.

[Lex P]

There's nothing. I learned. I want y' all to learn, too. When you get to a certain level, there's people, Air Marshals, follow you in the airport, okay, to make sure that you're okay. And during that encounter, when the dude started to get hostile and I put my bag down, dude rolled up and said, Yo, Mr. Ellis, you good? And I was like, who the fuck are You. And he was just like, no, I'm just making sure. You good?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

And then afterwards, he told me he was an air marshal. And whenever my name comes up to come to Hartsville and Atlanta, they know someone needs to be there.

[Deval Ellis]

Tyler Perry said, I'm protecting my aunt. Get through the airport. I need your home safely.

[Lex P]

I wish I could do a job. Tyler don't fly.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It's so true. You're right.

[Lex P]

I will say this, though. For parents who don't know, every person you meet on social media is insane. Right? There are people who live on social media who think it's a real place. So be careful with your children. I'm gonna look in the camera and say this because you don't know the person that's gonna say, I know that child because I seen them on social media, then goes to your child's school because you've made your child so accessible to the public that now it's okay for regular people to walk up to them. And this is what happens. You teach your child to be nice to everybody because you want your child to be accepting so that we all can get the money. So now your child sees a person they don't know, and they say, your child's. And they say, oh, yeah, that's so and so. And now your child is gone. I'm just saying, as a parent who thinks about everything, you have to. You have to be very aware of the fact that not everybody on social media is a good person or has.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Good intentions like our boys. Now, like, if they were to. If they were to walk past here and you call their names, they're not even addressing you.

[Lex P]

Oh, that's good. Oh, my kids.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Our kids.

[Lex P]

We don't play that. We've been going through drills since they was real, real little. My kid and sometimes my kids. People will think that our kids are rude on purpose. I'm like, if you don't know who that is, don't say anything. If they're trying to be nice. Hey, Jackson. Hey, Cairo. Don't. Nah. Then get on your phone, call me. Cause I'm there, right in our heartbeat.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Very rarely are they by themselves, but if they are, like, for what?

[Lex P]

I will say this publicly, too. Kadeen got a little bit of a bad rap because she's mama bear all the time. And when we're around the kids, especially at sporting events, events, she's only focused on the kids. So sometimes people will be like, oh, Deval was nice, but Kaden was a little. And I just want people to understand, like, These are really our kids and that's really my wife. And we really a family. Somebody always has to be watching the kids. So when you see all of us, if I was happy with you that night, that day, and she wasn't, it's.

[Deval Ellis]

Cuz she was focusing on what takes one second.

[Lex P]

Yes.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Literally one second. Yeah, Something. So while I try to be personable and say, hey, what's up? Real quick, but like my focus is on where them kids is at all the time. Where we at track meet, basketball, whatever. I'm focused. Cause in that moment I'm in mom mode, you know, so it's hard sometimes because you want people to meet you in public and have a good experience. Like you said, when you meet someone and you've watched them online for so long and you meet them in person, it's like, damn, they didn't pass the vibe check in person. Sometimes it's just not even personal. It's like you might have caught me in a sustained flight. And it's 4am and you want a picture at 4am And I'm like, damn, damn. I have to. You know, it's just.

[Deval Ellis]

To that point though, because I feel like we still at a point where I be like, okay, yeah, but I need to start saying no. I need to become okay with saying no.

[Drea Nicole]

Show me how good it can get today, God, and show the rest of the world what we already know. It can't get no better than being hella black, hella queer and hella Christian. My name is Joseph Freeze. I am the creator and host of Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian, a fully black, fully queer, fully human, fully divine podcast that explores society, culture, and the intersections of faith and identity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian to hear conversations about what it means to sound the way you look.

[Lex P]

I think what I've had to make peace with is that every iteration of my voice is given to me by God and.

[Deval Ellis]

And I love it.

[Drea Nicole]

Books that validated our identity.

[Deval Ellis]

The library now for me is a safe space as someone who is writing books that they're trying to take off.

[Drea Nicole]

Of shelves and how we as black queer folks relate to our Christianity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Lex P]

So let me say this to y' all though, just think about this. People have been watching y' all for hours and hours every every day.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

And now finally, for the first time, they get to see you in person. That's what I always.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That's how we try to reflect.

[Lex P]

It's like, this is the. The only time they may never see you, and they. You don't know how you've changed their life.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Lex P]

Because y' all probably don't even realize this. The fact that you have a platform means that you have something to say that millions of people want to hear.

[Deval Ellis]

Right? Right.

[Lex P]

So you're doing something.

[Deval Ellis]

But I will agree with you on a moment. Cause I had a moment with my nephew as well. Cause I used to post my old all the time. And we were out to eat one day, and somebody was like, oh, my gosh, Jackson, you got so big. I said, who?

[Lex P]

Yeah, the fact they said that name.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, I never post him anymore. Cause he doesn't like to be on. He don't like pictures. He don't like that.

[Lex P]

That's my family.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah. So, I mean, I'll post my little one and the oldest one and the close friends. But on my story, I don't even post them no more. So I can only imagine with you, you know, like you said, me and mama bear mode. Because, like I said, I don't have time.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Children.

[Deval Ellis]

It freaked me out so bad.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It's true. And even with our children are with someone who we trust, like a trusted friend.

[Lex P]

Can I run to the bathroom?

[Deval Ellis]

Go ahead, go ahead.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So even if our kids are. Are sometimes with, like, a trusted, you know, friend or family member, we have to kind of give them the 411 and be like, okay, listen, if y' all are going somewhere public, like, if someone were to approach the kids, because it happened one time where our oldest went to a baseball game with some friends. And at the time when we met them, we really just met them on the surface of they connected as friends. So we're the parents. Let's get the kids together for a play date, whatever. So when they had gone to this ball game, a couple individuals might have recognized Jackson. And they were like. We had adults being like, oh, my God, that's Jackson Ellis.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, my goodness.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So I said, you know what? That was our bad. We didn't even think about the fact that giving the rundown, you know, giving them the rundown. So they were like. We just felt like, all right, let's just protect him, because these are strangers. And Jackson knew not to engage in either. But you have to be mindful of that because, you know, essentially, our kids didn't ask for this. And to be honest, when I look back on it now, doing the family content was cute when we had, like, 3,000 followers. And at the time, I had no idea of the trajectory of where this was gonna go.

[Deval Ellis]

Right.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I didn't think that we would have combined almost 5 million people. Like, I didn't think that this was gonna happen. So when Deval was like, yo, let's do the social media thing, I thought it was cute in the beginning, but now, I guess if I can go back in time, I would have probably been more mindful about how much we engage the children in the content. But for us, we were just like, yo, we just want to show what it's like to be a millennial couple, married, raising kids. You don't see those stories often. Too many times. The narrative around the black family was always something that was super heavy, and the father was absent and all this turmoil, and the one kid that made it out of the hood, there's always, always those stories. So we're like, you know. No. We also know several families who are just like us. Like, we're not an anomaly. Right. So by sharing these stories as a. As a couple, as a family, we felt like it was necessary for our culture. And I will say again, 98% of the time, when we meet our people, it's always love.

[Deval Ellis]

It is always. Majority of the time, it is. Absolutely.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Absolutely.

[Deval Ellis]

Do you ever feel like. I was just going to say, I feel like it's like that across the board, though, because I know, like, even for me, my mom, she still lives in Houston, and she lives by herself. So, like, for a really, really long time, I never used to want to post her online. And then I recently started posting her, and then it's crazy, because we were at our premiere for the. Our BET show. We were at our premiere, and somebody saw her in the restroom, and she was like, yeah. They was like, can we take a picture with my mom right in the restroom. I'm with you. I mean, but, like, so do y' all ever feel that, like, that way about your whole family?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Always.

[Deval Ellis]

Always.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Absolutely. Because they didn't sign up for this.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Like, us being in the entertainment industry, this is something that we wanted to do. We elected to do this. So we have to respect the fact that sometimes our family does just doesn't want to be involved. Like my brother said recently, he's like, you know, I'm mindful of how I even conduct myself in public. Going to a bar, going to a lounge or whatever, because I know I'm a reflection of you. The last thing you want is a headline to say, kadeen Ellis's brother is doing xyz. So it kind of forces them to be in a position that they didn't necessarily sign up for. So we tried to be very understanding of how much we involve them in our content because this is what we wanted to do. We didn't ask them for this.

[Lex P]

It also brings up a point about the kids too, because the kids don't always want to be online. And sometimes people be like, oh, I liked it when the kids were online. And I'm like, I appreciate that my kids entertain you, but my kids don't want to entertain you right now. They just. And Jackson's going to high school. He want to focus on his sports and his stuff. He don't want to deal with that.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah. But I also think it's a good point that y' all still realize that y' all are the parents and it's yalls responsibility to take care of the household.

[Lex P]

Yes.

[Deval Ellis]

Because a lot of these parents, they're depending on their kids to pay their bills. True. And I think that's where it's like you don't care that there's weirdos out here and you're doing, you're making this child do things because you don't want to work.

[Kadeen Ellis]

There is a contingent of people who do that. It's true, there are. And. And you know, that's just not our ministry. You know, we just, we protect our kids at all costs, man.

[Lex P]

And before social media, it was stage moms. You know, they said this about all the Disney moms and all the moms who wanted their kids to be on.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Broadway, the Nickelodeon and all that.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

It was an easy way for them to get paid without having to do the work.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Or it's the parent trying to live through their children.

[Deval Ellis]

That's why.

[Lex P]

That'S a fact.

[Deval Ellis]

That is a fact spinning right now. That's. Of course she's spinning in them low rise bras now.

[Kadeen Ellis]

First of all, you gonna have who she is. Oh my go. Right now. Doing it right now.

[Lex P]

Britney is always a reminder to me not to put pressure on your kids. When she spoke honestly about how her.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Parents made her feel.

[Lex P]

And I know we making jokes and she's an entertainer, but seriously though, yeah. It's a serious issue. And not for nothing, I appreciate her being honest about it.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

Cuz how would we know if she wasn't out honest about it?

[Deval Ellis]

Right? Yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Her even Justin Bieber recently with sza, they had a moment on stage together and it's just like, man, I think so many people were just like, wow. But like, just. We feel bad for you, bro. You're going through a lot.

[Deval Ellis]

It's a documentary on Hulu. It is. She recently spoke out about, like, the pressure from her dad, and then it's like a documentary about the Carters. Yeah. Oh, the Carter documentary is good.

[Lex P]

Which one is that?

[Deval Ellis]

The Carter. The Carter. Aaron Carter, Nick Carter, Backstreet Boy.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, okay.

[Deval Ellis]

Their documentary is crazy, but. And I wanna say something about Raven Simone, too, because everybody was, like, calling her a weirdo and stuff. She is a success story.

[Lex P]

Hell, yeah.

[Deval Ellis]

She is a success story because she's still, you know, she's aware. She's very, you know, maybe her story didn't end up like you thought she should end up. But she's healthy, right?

[Kadeen Ellis]

She's healthy, happy. She's living in her truths.

[Lex P]

I love that for her, this is an issue. We do this all the time as people, right? We'll call somebody like Raven Simone and say she's a weirdo. You point out she's a success story.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

Look at what she's accomplished in her life, man. What?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Absolutely.

[Lex P]

But to most of people, that is weird, though. Cause they've never accomplished it. That's why when you look at the vernacular that you use. I hate using this, but I'm going to use it right? Remember when we were all in middle school, we weren't all in the same. Same class, right? We weren't all in the same class. Some of us were in regular class, some of us were in Astral Alert, and some of us was in special ed.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Gifted, talented, gifted, talented.

[Lex P]

Social media for everybody on the same app. So now time you look, you're looking at people who just like, dang, what the fuck are they talking about now?

[Deval Ellis]

We all in the same app. We all in the same app.

[Lex P]

We all in the same people who.

[Deval Ellis]

Say vernacular, I ain't got had no business talking to you.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It's like the. The playing field is level, but it really ain't.

[Deval Ellis]

It ain't supposed to be. I ain't not supposed to be talking to y', all, right? But we also talking to people who don't know how to spell y' all and don't know where to put the.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Who don't know the difference between there, there and there or two, two and two.

[Lex P]

And here's the thing.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Two and two.

[Lex P]

As much as we think we educated, there's people watching us thinking like, them niggas don't know what the fuck they. And when you aware enough to realize that, you start to realize, like.

[Deval Ellis]

But you know What? I think we do a good job. Well, I can't say we. I'll speak for me. I do a good job of staying in my place, though, when somebody is talking and then I know where to correct them. Cause I know the facts.

[Lex P]

Yeah.

[Deval Ellis]

I'll be like, okay. But when somebody is talking, I'm like, okay, I'll let them talk. Cause I'm not educated on it.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'm glad you said that. You know why? Taval and I just, like, once we rebranded the podcast, we started a new segment called Op or no Op. Ooh, yes. Opinion.

[Deval Ellis]

I seen a clip of that.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Or no Opinion. And what we were trying to get going was exactly what you said. What you said, it's okay to not have an opinion on something just because there's a story that went out about, you know, anyone did it, anything. I guess he's a bad example. Cause, like, he's in the news now a lot.

[Lex P]

But just great example, babe.

[Deval Ellis]

I started with a good one.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I was like, I got some facts about it, right? But just there's random things that pop up sometimes and be like, well, what'd you think about this? Is that. And the third. And it's like, I'm not equipped to even have an opinion because I don't know all the facts. I don't know these people personally. I don't know what has been infiltrated into this story. That's just not true. Right now, there is a story going around about me.

[Deval Ellis]

What is it?

[Kadeen Ellis]

That I have breast cancer.

[Deval Ellis]

Really?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yes. Seriously?

[Lex P]

No, it's serious.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I've had people calling my father from St. Vincent. This is a family. My aunts and uncles, like, oh, my God, what's going on? Nobody said anything. Someone literally just falsified an entire article.

[Lex P]

And it's all over Facebook and created a whole page.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Like, it's real, a whole story.

[Lex P]

And this is why I said, social.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Media people are in my DM, sending me healing prayers, remedies, all sorts of Dr. Sebi books. Go alkaline. Go to Honduras. And I'm like, it's not even true. So first of all, I rebuke that.

[Deval Ellis]

Yes.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know, in Jesus name. And there's also people who are really dealing with this nasty illness. Like, why would you make something up? So that just goes to show that there's just people making shit up.

[Deval Ellis]

Right? And that's why I said we talked about, like, Mark Lamont Hill one other week. But if I'm sitting here talking to, like, Angela Ra, I'm Cook, let her do her thing. Because there's a field that she is educated in.

[Lex P]

Yeah.

[Deval Ellis]

And she knows you don't have to debate and argue down with everything. Now, I'm not saying that, you know, educated people can't be wrong.

[Lex P]

Absolutely.

[Deval Ellis]

But I think there's just a certain level of. There's certain things that she's putting. Probably ignorant, too, that I know about.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know, of course.

[Deval Ellis]

But I just think sometimes we got to stay in our lane. That's the fact, you know, we got.

[Kadeen Ellis]

To stay in our lane on the fact. I agree.

[Deval Ellis]

That was a good. That was a good point that you made. Now, okay, y' all ready to move on, Cuz it's time to get into some. The freaky what y' all been waiting on. So now it's time to get into the bed bow the bed bow the be.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Bam.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay, I'm having a ball. I love. He said that we were going to love you down, and we did.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I love you, too.

[Deval Ellis]

I said, what are you doing? I'm having the time. Go ahead, Dre. Okay, so I wanted to talk. I love when she say that. Like. Okay, okay. So I wanted to talk about having a sex injury. Have y' all ever got too freaky? Like, too freaky in the bedroom to where you hurt yourself? Right, right, right. Because I have. You have. Absolutely.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You don't stretch before. Caught a cramp.

[Deval Ellis]

Yes, I did. I caught a cramp.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Caught a cramp.

[Deval Ellis]

I actually pulled a muscle. For real.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Like, needed. Like, needed to go to the doctor. Oh, my God. See, I will say devale and I more recently have been working. Working on our flexibility and movement.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay, that's good.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Because, you know, sometimes when you reach a certain age, you need to have a little more oil in your coil, as we would say back in the islands, you know, you remember the Tin man, where you had to go with the little. The oil, and you had to go in a little. So we definitely have been working on that. And the funny thing is, we were on tour last year for our podcast. We did this big Love against the World tour in a bunch of different cities, sold out shows and whatnot. And devale came up with the idea of us dancing and performing, doing a spoof off of Usher's tour and Beyonce's tour. Cause, baby, I was on tour with sis. Like, I went to Sweden. I went to Atlanta. I went to all the shows. Right.

[Deval Ellis]

I was everywhere.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I was everywhere, honey. I was on tour with B. She just didn't know it, but. So after being so inspired by those shows, we went and saw Chris Brown, we saw a bunch of people, he was like, yo, I think we could do it. Like, you have dancing background. I can dance. Like, we should just do a whole choreography routine. So in doing that, the choreographer shout out to our boy, Brian Jordan Jr. He said, K, you think you could do a split again? I said, my nice. My nigga, I ain't done a split since I was like, nine. Jordan Jr. Yeah, you did. So I did it. I said, let me see if I could get this joint back right? So I started doing, like, my dance stretches again and all of that. And sis got her little right side split back. Now to do the center one. That's still going to require a little bit of work. But I'm saying that to say that has come in very handy as of late in the bedroom because it's been like, he's just like, yo, your hips be a little more open. You know, even him, too. It's just like, you know, stretching.

[Deval Ellis]

The hips be open. The hips, you be stretching too. Come on now. Come on. Get it, get it, get it. Hey, you ain't getting a little old. Getting a little old. That's.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That's it.

[Deval Ellis]

Not too young to know about the Mel V. Oh, my God.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know what I'm saying? You got a headache. You know, it's stability and it's stamina, you know?

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, my goodness.

[Kadeen Ellis]

But we definitely had moments where it's just like, damn, baby, you got to let the leg down, honey. Cuz, she's catching a little cramp.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, I had to learn it the hard way. And I actually started stretching too. Like, about two years ago, I downloaded this app. I'm gonna say the name of the.

[Kadeen Ellis]

App because they ain't pay for it.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, y' all ain't pay for it. But I downloaded this app, and you do like, 10, 15 minute stretches every morning. And you can even decide, like, okay, I want to be able to do the front splits again. I want to be able to do the side or I just want to do full body stretches. So I started back doing that after I injured myself. And then for my 32nd birthday, remember, I decided to bust a split.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Bust it wide open.

[Deval Ellis]

My God. I remember I was feeling real confident.

[Lex P]

You just split at the club?

[Deval Ellis]

No, we was at the pool. No, we wasn't at the pool. We was at the club for my birthday. I remember I had on that long pearl dress. Yeah, you talking about we was in the club.

[Lex P]

I remember.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Okay, I didn't split again at a pearl dress.

[Deval Ellis]

We went to Florida, remember? We Went to Florida because we went to Universal Studio and we was split. That's all. Yes, we both did a split in the pool. We both. Y' all was both doing splits and, you know, I can't bust shit. Double cheeked up.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Wow.

[Lex P]

On a Thursday afternoon.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'm in good company here.

[Deval Ellis]

But I messed my whole dress up, y'.

[Kadeen Ellis]

All.

[Deval Ellis]

But I did the split.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Okay. Now I'm in good company, honey.

[Deval Ellis]

Well, see, no, I feel like y' all's injuries are cute. Like. Oh, I've been stretching. See, my injury was not. You injured yourself, too. I definitely injured myself. Cause I was like, okay. So me and the dude at the time I was dating, you know, it was like a passionate night. Yeah, yeah. And we've been eating oysters, drinking wine. The aphrodisiac.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Aphrodisiac.

[Deval Ellis]

It was about that time. So you know how you just have a moment where y' all just start, like, passionately kissing? You know, we just doing all this. So we're like tossing and turning and kissing. And then he, like, turns me around, like, throws me on the bed. But when I. He threw me on the bed, I stubbed my toe. Oh, baby, that toenail lifted and I'm still trying to throw it back.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Cause Rick Duke, was it the.

[Lex P]

Gotta get it.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Was it the big toe?

[Deval Ellis]

No, it was my second toe.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, the second toe.

[Deval Ellis]

And on top of that, my feet already ugly, bitch. So I'm already trying to hide them. I'm sitting, fidget, fold.

[Lex P]

He didn't care.

[Deval Ellis]

He didn't care.

[Lex P]

I can tell you he didn't care.

[Deval Ellis]

He had already seen him. He's trying to shove my back and I'm like, so hard. It was a bad.

[Lex P]

You got the rent paid.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, you said. What?

[Lex P]

Did you get the rent paid?

[Deval Ellis]

Rent was ended on time.

[Lex P]

You see that?

[Deval Ellis]

Know, like, I was literally, like, hobbling the next day.

[Kadeen Ellis]

If you needed workers compensation, you know what I'm saying? All the things. Call hr.

[Drea Nicole]

Show me how good it could get today, God. And show the rest of the world what we already know. It can't get. No better than being hella black, hella queer, and hella Christian. My name is Joseph Reeves. I am the creator and host of Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian, a fully black, fully queer, fully human, fully divine podcast that explores society, culture, and the intersections of faith and identity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian to hear conversations about what it means to sound the way you look.

[Lex P]

I think what I've had to make peace with is that every iteration of my voice is given to me by God, and I love it.

[Drea Nicole]

Books that validated our identity.

[Deval Ellis]

The library now for me is a safe space. As someone who is writing books that they're trying to take off of shelves.

[Drea Nicole]

And how we as black queer folks relate to our Christianity. Listen to Hella Black, Hella Queer, Hella Christian on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Deval Ellis]

It was so bad, y'.

[Lex P]

All.

[Deval Ellis]

I was so embarrassed. But, like, the whole time. Cause have y'. All. Well, obviously y' all haven't, because y' all been comfortable with each other. But when you're having sex with somebody and you are in that beginning stage, it's the first time y' all messing around. You trying to turn it up and, you know, show out. I couldn't be like, nigga, my toenail hanging off.

[Lex P]

He wouldn't have cared.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That'd have been rough.

[Lex P]

He wouldn't.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'm sure he wasn't concerned about no toe.

[Deval Ellis]

He wasn't concerned about my toe.

[Kadeen Ellis]

He was not.

[Deval Ellis]

He didn't give a damn.

[Kadeen Ellis]

No, you were doing what needs to be done.

[Deval Ellis]

My back. I'm just looking at my toenail. I'm like, please don't fall off. Head, toenail just dangling.

[Lex P]

He wouldn't care.

[Deval Ellis]

What if he would have fell off the face? Oh, I am so squeamish. Don't pull the toenail off. Trying to get that toenail up out of there.

[Lex P]

He wouldn't care.

[Deval Ellis]

Imagine, imagine your feet up and then your toes falling up in his eyes. And then I'm talking. He like, whoa.

[Kadeen Ellis]

What was that?

[Deval Ellis]

What is that? Failing my wig.

[Lex P]

Hey, guys, let me tell you something. He wouldn't have cared. That toenail could have fell on his eye. He'd have been like, what is this? A toenail, please.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Wouldn't have made no difference.

[Deval Ellis]

Take me to the er not put.

[Kadeen Ellis]

The shoulder in it.

[Deval Ellis]

It was, you know, I it out. I get acrylic on my toe. So at the time it hurt. But it was the acrylic that. Oh, the acrylic was hurt.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It wasn't the actual toenail.

[Deval Ellis]

But still, the whole time my legs in the air, I think my toenail is falling off.

[Lex P]

They still worried about the toenail.

[Deval Ellis]

He was.

[Lex P]

You didn't have. You don't even got to have feet.

[Deval Ellis]

I was in pain. That was the point.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Not that you don't even have to have feet.

[Lex P]

I'm going be honest.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You don't have to remember, we have a friend. We had a friend that had an.

[Deval Ellis]

Amputee they got porn for.

[Kadeen Ellis]

We had a friend with an amputee and he was just like, yo, I didn't care about the amputee. I took the shit off and was just like, yo, didn't care.

[Lex P]

Unbuckle the joints.

[Deval Ellis]

Leg on the side of the bed.

[Lex P]

Shorty was bad. Too bad. Had a fatty. All that chicks be throwing it back with one leg.

[Deval Ellis]

All right, okay.

[Lex P]

Imagine. You imagine you only got one leg and you could throw it back on a nigga talent. Make him fall in love.

[Deval Ellis]

I'm not mad at that. You talking about a toenail.

[Kadeen Ellis]

A toenail.

[Deval Ellis]

I didn't know.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It's just a casual.

[Deval Ellis]

It's four. Honey be having toes. True, true that.

[Kadeen Ellis]

True that.

[Deval Ellis]

They don't even have. But that's cause they had the sugars. Nah, that's another topic. We gotta talk about black health.

[Lex P]

I know what.

[Deval Ellis]

But they still be getting it in too.

[Lex P]

I know what?

[Deval Ellis]

Diabetes ain't stop nothing.

[Lex P]

That's a fact, too.

[Deval Ellis]

Diabetes don't stop nothing.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Don't stop nothing.

[Lex P]

If she eating good, the dad's fat.

[Kadeen Ellis]

True.

[Lex P]

That's fat. She could throw it back.

[Deval Ellis]

Is the booty still fats? Is the question.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That's all I want to know.

[Deval Ellis]

So y' all let us know in the comments what sex injuries y' all done had. Absolutely same.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I want to hear that.

[Deval Ellis]

Cute. Sex injuries.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I want to hear that. Yeah, we haven't had anything too major.

[Deval Ellis]

We just need to stretch.

[Kadeen Ellis]

We just need to, you know, little movement, little Pilates, some yoga.

[Deval Ellis]

So now ending up in the er, though. Have y' all ever seen that show? It used to be a show on tlc. Sex in the er. Y' all never seen that show. Y' all need to go Google it.

[Lex P]

What they be doing?

[Deval Ellis]

Have a little couple's movie night or series night. Okay. I'm down in the er. People was doing wild. Like, people would end up in the ER for having like cucumbers items stuck.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Up in there for. Right.

[Deval Ellis]

I couldn't get out like many.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I think I've. I didn't know there was a whole show around it, but I'm stuck in. My sister used to work in the ER and she used to have some crazy stories. I could feel it. People used to be doing crazy stuff on their.

[Lex P]

Let me ask a question.

[Deval Ellis]

It's like, damn, I hope I don't never be that horny.

[Lex P]

How many black people people was on that show?

[Deval Ellis]

You know what?

[Lex P]

Not a lot of us. We know who was on the show.

[Deval Ellis]

We know. We know quite it was some, though. You would be surprised. It was probably more of us than you would think. Oh, we know who was the main stars. We know. So now it's time to get into the Bow.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Hey, wait. What's that?

[Deval Ellis]

Hey, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow, bow bop, bop of the week is the music that we've been listening to.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Okay?

[Deval Ellis]

So it doesn't have to be new. It can be old school, classes that you like, something new, a artist that you love, anything, whatever you've been jamming this week. So I'll go first.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Mm.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay. I need to tell y' all how pleasantly I was surprised at this artist. She's an amazing artist. She's got Grammys under her belt. She's a superstar. Lizzo came out with a freestyle to win whammy. And when I tell you, she. She ate it up. And I think people forget that Lizzo can really rap. Right? Cause Lizzo, I mean, if we're being honest, she makes the music like, I'm free, I'm good, I'm cool.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Right? Right. That's the feel her for the music.

[Deval Ellis]

They be playing in Target. Yeah. That's how Lizzo be rapping.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Haven't been in Target yet. I'm still boycotting, period.

[Deval Ellis]

Lizzo, I know you finna take that. Let's go to the studio and collab. Said, I'm free in a minute. I'm free, I'm good. That's what Lizzo does on the track.

[Kadeen Ellis]

She does.

[Deval Ellis]

But Lizzo got a swammy remix and wrapped her ass off. Cuz she had to remind you I'm a H town queen. She is from Houston. I love. And she was really rapping.

[Kadeen Ellis]

She was. She was doing what needs to be done. I got to. We got to do this. Listen, that on the way song.

[Deval Ellis]

Play Win Whammy remix with the Liz remix. Okay?

[Kadeen Ellis]

The Lizo remix.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah. So she Lizzo, Texas girl, we love you. Now come on, pour mine, sit on the couch. Come on.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Period.

[Deval Ellis]

Come on, girl. What you listening to, Dre? And that's so. That's so crazy, because my bop was gonna be this DeVito song, but I'm gonna save that for the next episode. Okay. I've been listening to Wham Whammy, too, but the one with sexy Red also.

[Kadeen Ellis]

There's versions of it.

[Deval Ellis]

Yes, it's versions of it. You said that was your bop. I'm like, let me look at y'.

[Kadeen Ellis]

All being on the same accord.

[Deval Ellis]

The one with sexy red, I love that song. Can't get no coochie out. The queen can't get no coochie out. The queen got this Lulu on my butt. Lulu Lemon with the Tiktokers.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, my God.

[Deval Ellis]

I like the remix. Yeah, we right here. We right here.

[Kadeen Ellis]

We gotta get. We gotta get with it to the vow.

[Deval Ellis]

So what y'? All.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I. I'm about to be so old.

[Deval Ellis]

Well, Marvin Gaye came.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I be so old.

[Lex P]

If I'm being honest, I know. Joey Badass representing Shout Out. Joey Badass in New York. He did a verse because they were having these ciphers against the West Coast. Shout out to Joey Badass for representing New York, baby. That's what we do. He's a lyricist, man.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

And he said.

[Deval Ellis]

Didn't he come at Kendrick in that a little bit?

[Lex P]

He came at everybody and it was all good, like wholesome. But old school hip hop bars, like no whole bars. He did his thing. So shout out to Kendrick. I'm listening to that right now.

[Deval Ellis]

Okay, okay. Cute.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I was going, I'm about to age myself.

[Lex P]

No, don't go with your fairy baby.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Just don't. Beach Boys.

[Deval Ellis]

I know the Beach Boys.

[Kadeen Ellis]

No, no, no, not the Beach Boys. I gonna age myself because it's crazy when I be in the gym. Depending on what mood I'm in, I will put on some old school like Keith Washington and whatnot. But what I will say I've been bopping to lately. And this is because it's kind of. When is this going to air? After the BET Awards? Yeah, after. So when you see my look for the BET Awards. She was a fairy. She was a fairy. Okay, that's not cute. And then I. I let Deval hear the song and he was just like, what the is the lyrics? I said, don't worry about it. It's a vibe.

[Lex P]

I know the lyrics now.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It's a vibe.

[Lex P]

He's a fairy with a fatty or my daddy, Come on, grab me. You gotta have me. I know. Cause I was in the shit. Like, this shit's stupid n this.

[Deval Ellis]

What the hell? She got a fatty.

[Kadeen Ellis]

We was bottom.

[Deval Ellis]

It's really a bop that you.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It's a whole bop. And I was like, this is my theme song for the BET Awards. So it was after I got my dress. I had like a whole dress fiasco, but finally found this dress. And I was like, oh, this is cute. It might be a little moment. So I sent this to my sister and I was like, yay, your name. She's like, it's giving. She's a fairy. So I'm like, my whole look was inspired pretty much. Around that song I love. Wait, come on.

[Deval Ellis]

It's gonna be.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It's gonna be a little moment. It's cute. You know, BET award, you know, you have a little fun. A little fun? Yes, for sure.

[Deval Ellis]

I love that. Okay, so as usual, item of the week, Muse beauty collection. What you got for her? Cause I know you got something today from Muse Beauty. A box.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Ooh, it's a box. Is it for me?

[Deval Ellis]

Yes, it is.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Look at you, knowing my love language.

[Deval Ellis]

I have some Muse beauty products.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, I love it.

[Deval Ellis]

I bought you a little bit of everything. We just came out.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Is my skin gonna look like yours? Cause I've been on over here in my green hair. You look very much. Oh, this is cute. What happened?

[Deval Ellis]

He like, why my amused beauty I'mma wear this. Well, you know, I'm working. I'm working on some beard oil. Come on.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Beard oil. I. I'll wear this for dress up role play night. So you'll get to experience music beauty, too. Thank you so much. I got lip stuff. Honey, I'm about to go home and pack too. She's coming with us.

[Deval Ellis]

It's so much.

[Kadeen Ellis]

She is coming, coming with. I love it.

[Deval Ellis]

Some blushes, some jelly blushes, mascara in there. Mascara and eyeliner.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know, I love to support our own, so I appreciate you, sis. Thank you.

[Deval Ellis]

Yes. Y' all make sure y' all go to muse beautycollection.com. absolutely. And get all the things that you need. So now we are going to our favorite segment of the week, Pour your heart out. Now, I usually ask the guests, do y' all give a good, good advice? I know y'. All. We know y' all give good advice. When pour your heart out is when the listeners can write in, give us a question, and we'll answer it.

[Kadeen Ellis]

You know, I love that.

[Deval Ellis]

So if you want your questions answered on the show, make sure you email ask poormindsmail.com if you're a Patreon member. Put that in the headline and you get to skip the line. Okay, Dre, you got the question right or who got it? Shay. Shay. No. Maybe. Maybe it's on the phone. My bad. All right.

[Kadeen Ellis]

And that's on P. She did send it.

[Deval Ellis]

Go ahead. You read better than me.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Did you get nervous when you were in school if you had to read?

[Deval Ellis]

You know what? That was my time to shine.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, good.

[Deval Ellis]

Because I could play characters. Y' all finna be. The teachers used to be mad voice and whatnot.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Infection.

[Lex P]

They used to be like, I love it.

[Deval Ellis]

No, nobody else.

[Lex P]

Anybody.

[Deval Ellis]

So ponto. Oh, My God.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, my God.

[Deval Ellis]

I hope you still do the voices today. And I'm not gonna stop. Go ahead. So, Shay, you said you made this shorter. O. Okay. All right.

[Lex P]

We done been there, too. Without listening?

[Deval Ellis]

Yes.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'm like, okay.

[Lex P]

Like, damn.

[Deval Ellis]

We be like, keep it short. But I guess, you know, be short. Okay. Hey, Lex and Drea. I love y'. All. And how you always remind women not to settle. I really need some big sister advice. When my relationship started, I was still talking to another guy. Not serious, but still still wrong. I owned up to it, blocked him, and have been all in ever since. I even let my boyfriend go through my phone to prove I had nothing to hide. I never snooped on him because I thought I could trust him. Now I found out he's been talking to other women. When I brought it up, he laughed, deflected, and threw my past in my face. I cried and he said I was being manipulative and needed to either leave or shut up about it. I feel hurt, used, and confused. I've been trying to make things right, and he's just been doing him with no account accountability. Is this emotional manipulation? Should I have been left? Thanks for always reminding us that love shouldn't mean accepting less. Once blinded, now bothered. I guess that's her name. Anonymous. Look, the unmarried woman is not going to answer. Yes, we'll wait. We'll go last.

[Kadeen Ellis]

But based off of how he responded, what would you think?

[Lex P]

Babe, this is my first thing. We talked about this before about bamboozling. She said. I admit, when I first started, I was talking to other people, but then I stopped. But you stopped on your own terms. Now she wants him to stop on her terms. To be honest, I don't think that's fair. You was able to stop bamboozling him when you was ready. You wasn't checking his phone. You let him do all of that. All right, he may not be ready. Here's the thing, though. If you ready for a serious relationship, not deal with that, let him go. If you want to keep playing games, then keep playing with him. But he just told you by his response that he's not serious about being in a relationship. So why keep going back and forth? Okay, you want to laugh? You want to do this? I'm going to argue back and forth. That's not what I'm looking for. I showed you that I was ready to be in a committed relationship. I left everything. I gave you my phone. I'm trying to give you an opportunity to do the same. But since you don't know. I'm moving on.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It's like, I think she was literally like, step up to the plate. If you're not gonna step up to the plate, then it's like, what are we doing here? I think too many times, we just. A lot of, from what I'm hearing, because we have a lot of listening letters that write into us, too. And they ask the question, but I think ultimately know what the answer is. Yeah, it's like, you know what time it is. Like, what are you. What's your intention? Are you here to play games? Or are you here to make moves? And people tend to show you who they are. Like, believe them the first time. You know what I'm saying?

[Lex P]

So he bamboozling. But since you know that and you don't want to bamboo. Bamboozle, move on.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, I agree. You know, and I also think if you make the decision to forgive somebody, like, if somebody did something to you and you're like, okay, I can forgive them and we can get back together, or I cannot forgive them and I can move on with my life. But if you choose to forgive them, you also have the responsibility of not throwing that in their face.

[Lex P]

That is a fact.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That is so true.

[Deval Ellis]

He was like, oh, but look what you did. And look at. Like, forgave me for this. So why are we still talking about it? You know what I mean?

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah, exactly. Throw out the receipts at that point. Don't keep pulling them up.

[Lex P]

That's a good point. To me, it sounds like he's ready to do whatever he wants to do, and he knows he has a joker. Well, you did this first, so the minute I get caught, I could throw that. Which shows you that's the type of person who's playing games.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It's giving very much tit for tips.

[Lex P]

Let's stop doing that. Hey, I don't wanna do that no more.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, I be feeling like those are the type of situations where he wants you to leave him alone. Like, if you don't ever say nothing no more, you ain't never gonna hear from him again.

[Kadeen Ellis]

So. Meaning, like, he. He wants you to make the decision.

[Deval Ellis]

He wants you.

[Kadeen Ellis]

He wants you to be the bad guy.

[Deval Ellis]

He wants you to walk away. Because it doesn't really seem like he care that much either way. I agree.

[Lex P]

You know how I know he don't care? Because when she said, I was talking to someone else, but then I stopped and I showed him my phone and he said, okay.

[Kadeen Ellis]

He said, okay.

[Deval Ellis]

He said, game time.

[Lex P]

That's literally.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'mma show You, I could do you worse.

[Deval Ellis]

This is the honesty, right?

[Lex P]

This is honesty.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah, Honesty.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

You know what I'm saying? He gonna feel like you do did it first.

[Deval Ellis]

Yeah.

[Lex P]

Now I'm putting it back, so you know what it is.

[Deval Ellis]

And it's gonna be a never ending cycle. Never ending cycle.

[Kadeen Ellis]

That's it.

[Deval Ellis]

All right. Let the people know where they can find y', all, what y' all got coming up and all that good stuff.

[Kadeen Ellis]

All the good stuff. So, of course, Ellis Ever after is our new podcast, formerly known as Dead Ass because, you know, we keep it real Brooklyn, real thorough, real New York. So Ellis Ever after, you can find pretty much wherever you get your podcast, you can find me on all socials at Kadeen. K A H A D double E N I A M. So Kadeen I am.

[Lex P]

And I am Deval. I A M D E V A L E. And if you're listening on Apple podcasts, that's where you find.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Absolutely. And we have our New York Times best selling book, We Over Me, that you can get pretty much wherever you get your books. It's the counter intuitive approach to getting everything you want out of your relationship. So we pretty much are telling our love story not with the pillars of how you can have a successful, but instead telling people about our story and how we were able to pretty much develop into the people we are today through our relationship. So you can get that anywhere you get your books.

[Lex P]

And I want to say I told y' all because I've been telling y' all for fucking 15 years that my wife was a superstar.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Oh, babe.

[Lex P]

And now you get a chance to see it firsthand. I appreciate it, what it looks like because you sat here, baby, and you just did what I know.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Thank you.

[Lex P]

And I show everybody your personality.

[Kadeen Ellis]

I love that.

[Deval Ellis]

I try to tell you as it's.

[Lex P]

Happening, I was gonna be like, yo.

[Kadeen Ellis]

And let me hype you up. Don't forget to watch him on Sistas on bet, Zatima on bet. And of course, divorced sisters. Currently coming out.

[Deval Ellis]

Powerpuff.

[Kadeen Ellis]

All the things, baby. We just getting started.

[Deval Ellis]

Absolutely love y'. All.

[Kadeen Ellis]

We love y' all down.

[Lex P]

Thank y'.

[Kadeen Ellis]

All. I'm so happy I came through.

[Deval Ellis]

This was amazing. Thank you. Our first couple experience.

[Lex P]

Yeah.

[Kadeen Ellis]

And hopefully not your last. Cause like I said, like, we're not the only ones out here doing this life together. You know what I'm saying? So be selective. Pick and choose who you have on here. But it's good to hear perspectives sometimes, right?

[Deval Ellis]

This was fun.

[Kadeen Ellis]

It was a good Time. Time flew by. I love it.

[Deval Ellis]

And we'll see y' all next week. Bye, y'. All. Bye. Now, what's gonna be our group name? I don't know. Kadeen and the Singles. Kadeen and the Singles.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Love you, baby, but that's period.

[Deval Ellis]

Here we go.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Baby, you don't know what you do to me. Between me and you I feel a chemistry. Yeah, I don't want no one Come and take your place. Cause the love you give can't be replaced. See no one else love me like you do. That's why I mild to spend my life with you. I want to please you, you in any way I can. Wanna share my world don't you understand? Cause your love is a one in a million. It goes on and on and on. You give me a really good feeling all day long. Your love is a one in a million?

[Deval Ellis]

It goes on and on and on?

[Kadeen Ellis]

You give me a really good feeling all day long. Turn me inside out, make my heart speak. I need no one else. You're all I need. You ain't looking at me, boy.

[Deval Ellis]

Makes me love everything about you. Your smile, your style is so fly? I can't deny I got a crush on you. And that's true indeed. And I'm be you make me believe.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Your lord of the it goes on.

[Deval Ellis]

And on and on. You give me a really good feeling.

[Kadeen Ellis]

There all day long. Anything you want from me. Anything you want. Anything you need, Anything you so desire.

[Deval Ellis]

Oh, that sound good?

[Kadeen Ellis]

I'll give you. Hey hey. Anything you want from me. Anything you want. Anything you need. Anything you so desire. Anything.

[Deval Ellis]

We ate that. Destiny's cousin Honey's cousins in the dollar bill.

[Kadeen Ellis]

Destiny's cousins on the. On the daddy's side.

[Deval Ellis]

We'll see y' all next week. Bye, y'. All. Hey, little twer Sam.

[Kadeen Ellis]

This is an I heart podcast.