LisaRaye – Better Than Surviving, She’s Thriving

She’s one of the most beautiful black celebrities in film and television. She’s just come out of a painful divorce. She’s about to launch a reality show.

Let the hating begin.

But LisaRaye doesn’t really care what the haters have to say. She’s all about showing the public who she really is. There will always be those who have their criticisms of reality TV, but for LisaRaye, the medium is the perfect vehicle to showcase her personality, her ups, her downs, her triumphs and her flaws. And — as she points out — everybody seems to be doing it.

“It’s very obvious to me that that’s the way that everything is going now,” she points out. “There are so many rumors and bits and pieces of information that nobody knows but me. If you want to hear the story you have to hear it from the horse’s mouth — and that’s me. I’m ready to tell the story and open up and let the people see who LisaRaye is.”

Many celebrities gripe and complain about being in the public eye, all while milking every minute for what it’s worth. That hypocrisy is not lost on LisaRaye, and she refuses to be a part of it. She welcomes the chance to show who she is to the cameras — actually, she thinks it’s part and parcel of being a celebrity. And it is.
“I think that you have a responsibility as a public person to shed light on what [you’re] going through and also let people inside your life and let them know that you’re human, too,” she says. “I go through the same thing that the next person does, I eat the same thing that the next person does, and I’m happy like the next person is. When you do an interview you let your fans and the public inside a little bit, but a reality show takes it to a whole other level. [They’re] inside your home, your family and [you’re] letting them inside your world.”

LisaRaye’s world has been the subject of much debate in recent years. Her marriage to the former premier of Turks and Caicos, Michael Misick, was initially viewed as a fairy tale for the then-40-year-old mother. She was a beautiful bride being whisked off to a tropical island by the man of her dreams. But things soon turned sour after sordid rumors began to spread about her new husband. She looks back on that time with wisdom, but there is still hurt in her voice when she recounts her marriage and how things fell apart.

“When you’re in a marriage — when you’re in any type of relationship — there are valleys, there are peaks, there are ups and downs,” she shares. “As much as you may want something to work, there is a time in that period when you say ‘something’s not right.’ You start walking softly and looking harder.”

LisaRaye began to hear stories of affairs and questionable behavior, and she soon began to realize that this wasn’t a situation that she needed to remain in. “As any wife would be, if you hear any disturbing news about your husband, you’re going to go ‘whoa!’ That’s [what] makes me human and makes me a wife. That has nothing to do with the celebrity or anything like that. Your heart is involved, your emotion is involved,” she says.

In August of 2008, it was announced that the couple was getting a divorce. “You kind of say to yourself, ‘Do you want to be happy? Are you happy in this situation? Will counseling do? Will promises do?’ ”

LisaRaye decided to return to her home in Los Angeles and her career and reaffirm her identity as a woman, mother and actress. But the glare of media scrutiny didn’t always make that easy. Nothing sells like scandal, and she was the target of paparazzi and mean-spirited bloggers who wanted to milk every possible angle of her life in search of controversy.

“If you get stuck thinking [you] have to prove people wrong because of what they’re saying, then you’re not living your life,” she says adamantly. “I’m a firm believer in living life to the fullest — no matter what is going on in your life. I wake up every day with an issue or concern. I may cry over spilled milk, but once its spilt, its spilt, you can’t cry over things you can’t do anything about. Was I set on [making] my marriage work? Absolutely — I didn’t want to fail at anything. But that’s life, things happen — and things will always happen. We all fall, but we get up.”

LisaRaye is using her experiences to motivate other women, young and old, to love themselves. She is extraordinarily passionate about reminding young women that they are wonderful just as they are and doesn’t want them to get preoccupied with outside validation or anyone else’s standard of beauty. “I am very passionate about kids, their education, and the image of our young girls [and] what they feel is sexy,” she says.

The actress, whose breakthrough role came as a stripper in 1997’s The Player’s Club, acknowledges that she’s done risqué things in the past, but encourages everyone to be open to growth — because LisaRaye has definitely grown. “Before it was like “See me, see me,” now it’s like “You saw me, [I] don’t have to do that. I was waiting on a grown and sexy video so that I could do that. I wasn’t going to be getting out of a swimming pool with a bikini on. Times have changed.”

She is now wiser and hopes she can help someone else along the way. “I think the only way that you can encourage people is through your experiences — your pains [and] your joys,” she says. “There are things that I’m not proud of, things that I laughed about years ago, that I would cry about now. [But] I was hardheaded, I had to bump my head. Some people have to learn for themselves.”

“I do a  lot of motivational speaking,” continues LisaRaye. “I have a foundation called the LadyRaye Foundation, which houses my teen pageants, [including] a teen talent pageant, called the RayeDiant Jewels. It’s something unique because I look for the most bizarre, untraditional type of talent. Juggling, fire breathing, magic, drumming — whatever it is that the kid feels like they can showcase in front of their friends and family. And that way the audience is entertained and I give scholarships away for college.”

Helping young girls to embrace their uniqueness is of the utmost importance to LisaRaye. “What we need to do as a race and as women [is] come together,” she shares. “Because I bleed just like you do. When we get that mentality and figure out that we’re hurting [each other] — when we honestly get there, maybe the world will be a better place because we’ll grow in the same direction. Once you grow up and get a little older, you have a different responsibility,” she says. “[You have] a different outlook on life.”

Despite the pain of her divorce, LisaRaye is as joyful as she’s ever been. She celebrated her 42nd birthday all over the country — with parties in Atlanta, Miami, Washington, D.C. and other hotspots. She’s loving every minute of her life and she still believes in the power of love. “Who is not looking for Mr. Right?” she says with a laugh. “It’s about the chemistry you feel with someone. You find the things that you want. I think we’re all looking for Mr. and Mrs. Right. I am a fan of love. I am a fan of friendship. I am a fan of partnership. Who wants to fight in this world alone? That’s boring. That’s lonely. You have to be yoked with someone. That’s that foundation.”