In this new series, the two talented sports personalities provide audiences with an extensive look into their lives like never before through thoughtful discussions and moving narratives.
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00:00 It has been a little irritating to me and a little bothersome to me to see that the way and the stories that people tell about Black women, a lot of the times are not even from, by, or about Black women.
00:15 I think that the picture of Black women has been painted by people that are not Black women. So to be able to sit and tell our experiences, because we are speaking as something that we have been our entire lives, we know what it's like, and we have lots of Black women around us.
00:32 So we see a variety of perspectives and experiences and just anecdotal lessons that we hear all the time. And Black women are the people that should control the narrative about other Black women.
00:44 It's okay to admit that you have an advantage in a certain space. It doesn't mean that you don't work hard. It doesn't mean that you're not going to have challenges.
00:53 It doesn't mean that that privilege doesn't come with a dark side of things as well and that you're never going to have problems. And people, as soon as they hear privilege, it's like, "Well, I have this, blah, blah, blah." Like, "Okay, well, you also have this, this, and this."
01:05 Yeah.
01:06 And lots of people in different spaces have privilege.
01:09 So for my first question, I kind of wanted you ladies to, can you speak to the excitement and how you're feeling about the premiere of your show next week?
01:18 I mean, we're super excited. I just feel like we have been working on this for so long and talking about what we want it to be. So for the vision to have come to life and then for us to be able to share with everyone in a matter of days is crazy.
01:31 Yeah. It's been a long process putting it all together and going through different versions of what we want the show to be. So we feel really good about it and we're excited to step into a space that we haven't been in together and to have different conversations than we've been having for most of our careers.
01:51 Yeah, for sure. We have been talking about this, but it really does feel like a different phase and just a super exciting moment for us personally and professionally to enter into a new space, talk to a different type of people, a different group of people.
02:06 And it's something that we've wanted to do for a long time. So excitement isn't even a word.
02:11 So kind of expounding on that, why did you two decide to share these intimate parts of yourselves and why do you think now is the perfect time to do so?
02:20 Yeah, I think we were both at the point in our careers where we feel very accomplished and we feel that we're known for what we set out to do, which is to establish ourselves in the sports space at a very high level.
02:37 And we're ready to step into a more personal space in the public eye. You know, a big part of the reason that we are who we are in our sports personalities and our sports realm of our career is because of who we are personally, is because of our experiences, how we talk about sports, how Taylor does her interviews.
02:57 A lot of that comes from who we are personally, and we've never made ourselves the story. So this is an opportunity for us to talk about things that have nothing to do with sports and just our experiences, the conversations that we have amongst each other as women, as friends.
03:14 And that was a big part of the reason why we wanted to step into that.
03:18 Yeah, and I also think too, like on top of us feeling, you know, very accomplished in this space too, right now, we feel very empowered. I think to do something new, to show people who we really are at our core, to bear our friendship and ourselves.
03:34 And I think that with what I do, I'm always asking people to tell me about themselves. And I've kind of sat down and been like, I probably need to tell people about myself. I think it's important to have just like a fully formed kind of persona.
03:51 And I don't think that I have felt fully formed and maybe I've also kind of succumbed to these ideas that I couldn't be fully formed publicly, even though to my friends, to the people that I love, I am like a whole person.
04:04 I don't think that the work has always allowed me to show that I am a whole person. So I am really enjoying adding this element of it because it's me.
04:14 Like it's actually not even really an addition. It's just this part is me and what people are used to seeing both of us doing is what we do. And this show is about who we are. And I think that's been really special so far.
04:27 I love that. And I'm very excited about this show. So I'm glad that you two are linking up professionally like this.
04:34 When I was kind of doing my research and everything, I looked at the two person Instagram page and Joy, you had a clip where you said with this show, you wanted people to feel like they were watching a real conversation and not an argument in the comment section.
04:49 And that kind of, that was really intriguing. Why did you feel the need that you had to address that ahead of the premiere next week?
04:56 Because I think that's a big part of who Taylor and I are, who I am with my friends, who I am with my family, how we interact as human beings outside of the internet is we have real conversations.
05:14 I'm sure you have friends that you get into heated, passionate conversations with who you adamantly disagree with, but you remain friends with them. You continue your night after dinner and go and have new experiences with them.
05:28 You're family, you may not agree on everything, but you still continue to have them in your life. I think the comment section, while, you know, has, has its perks and has its entertainment value is not really how people speak to each other in real life.
05:43 And it's, it's devolved into this space where if you disagree with someone on anything, however big or small, it is completely divisive. It's the end. It's your this, your that. We're already so divided as a society on so many things for many different reasons.
05:59 That when we have conversations, real conversations, they are complex. They have nuance. They have passion. They have reality. They have experiences. They have emotion. And you can't get that in these small spaces that we have provided ourselves on the internet.
06:17 So it's not that it's our way is better or this way is wrong or that, or this, it's just the truth. This is not how we talk to each other in real life. So we wanted to give us ourselves a space, not only where we could have these conversations, where we show that we are, you know, to accomplish people with lots of experiences who come from different places, who are dear friends, but we also don't agree on everything.
06:42 And we don't see everything the same way. And we can still speak to each other in a way where we're not screaming at each other or calling each other names, or it turns into this whole drama that is just not really how people talk to each other. And I just want people to remember that's not how we talk to each other. It's just not real.
07:01 And I think the internet is very discouraging in that way. It's discouraging to me sometimes as somebody who speaks for a living to try and have conversations about, you know, sports or anything at all. And it just becomes, you're this, you're that end of conversation. And I just don't think it's real.
07:18 Yeah. And it's like the way people communicate in the comment section is one thing, but it's also the content of what is in the comment section. A lot of the time it isn't based in reality. A lot of the time, like she said, there is no nuance to what people are saying. People just kind of want to get a point off. It doesn't matter if it's healthy. It doesn't matter if it's even fact. If it's true. None of that feels like it matters sometimes when we are engaging in conversations online.
07:45 And I think it's important to always remind people that that's not how people speak to one another. And also common thought is incredibly important. And a lot of the times the internet can dictate what common thought is and how people online talk about men, how they talk about women, how they talk about relationships, friendships, money, I don't know, celebrities, whatever it is.
08:08 It has become at times a little dangerous because it is influencing common thought. People are online and they think that the worst of people is what the world is. The same way sometimes they think the best of what they're seeing is what the world is. But we all know that the truth and the reality is somewhere in the middle.
08:27 And in the conversations that we're having, we really are exploring like the middle. And we're also exploring things that Joy has gone through, things that I have gone through and how that has been influenced how we interact both online, but also with just the overall discourse that is happening online.
08:44 So I like that the show is where you are, to her point, going to have very real conversations and not just real because we're being honest, real because this is how real people communicate with each other.
08:58 So I wanted you guys to speak to, because I'm on the outside looking in, but you two are very meticulous at your crafts. And I'm just thinking about the shows that you've been on and your interviews, telling everything. Everything kind of seems so structured.
09:12 Can you two walk me through the preparation process for this show? Since it's you guys talking, y'all are friends, is it kind of more just conversational? Is it going to be bullet points or how? What's the preparation like for each episode?
09:25 That's such a good question. I think where we've gotten to with the show is it will feel like a phone call. So we know what it is we're going to talk about, but I don't know what she's going to say.
09:41 She doesn't know what I'm going to say. So it really is going to be like, "Hey girl, I got to talk to you about this." And then we're going to have the conversation. And so I will come prepared with what I want to say, and she's going to come prepared with what she wants to say, but we don't know what's coming.
10:00 And that we want it to be a conversation as we keep saying it's conversation, conversation, conversation. And so that's what it will feel like. It's going to feel like a phone call. And I want people to understand that that is the phone call. That is the dinner. That is the cocktails. That is the Uber ride.
10:21 So we have a lot going on in our lives. We have a lot that we have to balance. We have a lot that we're experiencing or have experienced in our processing. I'm not getting into it with Taylor on the time that I have to speak to my dear friends about some nonsense that does not apply to the problems that we have, the issues that we have.
10:44 But I will say, "Did you see this?" Because that made me think of this time and this experience. And how did you feel when you experienced that? Because I know that you went through that. And so that's really what the conversation is. So I think it will be interesting to see how people respond to that.
11:00 Because again, the internet has made it seem like all anyone talks about is these over-the-top scenarios and things that really don't apply to our everyday lives. And we have real conversations about serious topics and emotional topics and business and family and relationships and siblings and childhood trauma.
11:24 Those are the things I'm interested in talking to my friends about. I want to have those experiences with the people that I care about. And that's what it's going to feel like.
11:32 Yeah, for sure. And I mean, you just said, people are used to seeing things that we do to be very produced, very segmented. And I mean it when I say this show is people seeing us in a way that they have not seen us.
11:45 So whatever you're thinking about in the TV land, in this content world, this is just us, pure us together. And that's what's really exciting about it. Because when you really think about whatever the perception is of me or Joy, it is a very narrow perception.
12:05 Because we have only allowed people to know certain things about us. So when you're going onto this or watching this show, you're saying, oh, like this is the rest. There is so much more. There's only been this truly like a tiny part that we have let people into.
12:22 And so when you are just being yourself and talking about your lives and the way that we are, like there's no way for it to be segmented. Because this is truly just a conversation. So it is a kind of new horizon and new venture.
12:38 And it's not just different for us. It's different for everyone that has ever consumed anything we've ever put out, which makes it really exciting.
12:48 So with you two being so close as well, I'm pretty sure you know things about each other that everyone else doesn't know. And being on this show and having these in-depth conversations, Taylor, you spoke about your mother in one of the promo clips.
13:04 Has this show served as a sense of therapy for you two? Is it therapeutic?
13:10 I would say it's really nice to talk to somebody that I love and trust about my experiences. And it's also therapeutic in ways for me to hear her talk about her life and experiences.
13:23 Like something I say often because I really realized it as I've gotten older is that being a woman is a singular experience for a lot of people. We go through a lot of the same things, maybe different degrees of going through it.
13:37 But we understand at its core like what womanhood is. And then for us, that is even doubled down by the fact that we are very similar in how we act and what we do and how we interact with others.
13:51 So for me to just be able to sit down and be as honest as possible with her and feel like I can be my full self has certainly been really nice.
14:02 When I did that clip, I was really thinking there are so few people in the world that I would have been able to sit there and cry and talk about my mom and therapy with.
14:14 So to know that I'll be able to do this every week with you and talk about these things with truly someone who holds a very unique spot in my life is good.
14:23 And it certainly is a little therapeutic, I'd say.
14:28 Yes, it's been very therapeutic for me just going through the process of even getting the show ready because it's, you know, when you're working on something that is going to expose in some ways things that haven't been talked about publicly before or spaces that we've, you know, intentionally held back from the public for various reasons.
14:52 It is a little scary and I like to push myself and I like to, you know, grow and not get comfortable, particularly professionally.
15:00 But, you know, the Internet is a very scary place. It can be very daunting to put yourself out there and to have conversations about things that you're passionate about.
15:09 And sports has provided me a great outlet for something that I'm passionate about to give my opinion and then to express myself on these shows and have really fun conversations.
15:21 You know, we get into a little banter here and there that may be outside of sports, but that's all just personality, right?
15:27 Like, we're not having conversations about things that are outside of sports.
15:31 So it's been it's been very fun and revealing to go through the journey of getting the show together and deciding, you know, how and what parts of ourselves we're ready to talk about.
15:45 And I think as we get more comfortable on the show, we'll talk more as well. So, you know, everything we're already talking a lot.
15:54 Everything everything is a journey. But it's been it's been really special and therapeutic for me to be in that space, too, because, you know, publicly we've been on these paths for so long to build up our careers in this particular space.
16:09 And it feels very new. Yeah. And honestly, it feels me doing this with you makes me feel seen in a lot of ways, because I I feel like the public, the Internet, whatever you want to call it, cares about what is going on in our lives.
16:26 And maybe not always in the way we want them to care. So to know that we are now speaking to a group of people, a lot of them being women that care about us in the ways that we care about each other, that functionally is also very therapeutic to to feel like you are being seen and accepted and heard in all the ways that you want to be seen, accepted and heard is really nice.
16:52 So and either of you can speak to this, but Joy, a couple of times this conversation you spoke about the it took a while to put this show together. Was it because of production or was it just timing?
17:04 Like, what was the reason why it took that amount of time to put the show together?
17:09 Well, Taylor and I are very intentional people, obviously, so we couldn't have just turned the camera on and started talking and found our way through doing a show that way.
17:20 But we really wanted to take time and energy into putting together a show that we felt confident and comfortable with putting out. And we wanted to do something that was a little bit different, that wasn't just, you know, reacting to every trending video and, you know, giving our immediate feedback on things.
17:41 We really wanted to take a step back from whatever the story is that we whatever everyone is talking about and have the conversation that we actually have not, oh, this trending topic is what would you do in this situation?
17:54 It's why is everyone talking about that? Why are we having this conversation? Why do people feel so passionate about this random topic about this incident that happened about this interaction with these two celebrities?
18:09 It's not about that. It's about the story behind that. It's why people care about this.
18:14 And so we really wanted to be intentional about how we put the show together about what it was going to sound like, how it was going to be received, what we were going to be comfortable doing.
18:23 And so that was that was the process that we really put a lot of thought and energy and effort into and it's ours.
18:28 So that is something that we're really proud about as well. So, you know, it was it was a labor of love because we love each other. But we also want to make sure that when people hear this and hear us, that it's not just some off the cuff thing.
18:48 It is our genuine reaction. But like everything else that we are internally, we are thoughtful, intentional, passionate, experienced, complex, nuanced people. And that's the conversation that we'll be having.
19:01 Yeah. And I mean, short answer for me is that like we also we just wanted it to be good.
19:07 Yeah. Like we needed to take the time because we said, what do we want this to look like?
19:13 I also think it's important to say we had the thoughts of what feels like it's missing. And I think that in this space, a lot of times it's like, OK, can we think critically about this thing?
19:24 Are we being thoughtful? And I think that if you're doing those things and everything has to be thought critically about, all of it has to be thoughtful.
19:31 So that's how we approached just the formation of the show, the production of the show, the messaging of the show.
19:37 And that is something that takes conversation. It takes learning. It takes testing. Like if we are going to put something in front of people, especially something that's different from what people know us to be,
19:49 we wanted it to feel like it was as complicated as also what we're going to be discussing.
19:56 But we're happy that we made it here and all that time was well spent.
20:03 So this is actually my final question for you to is a two part question, actually.
20:08 So how is important to you both that black women voices are amplified in media and in what ways can people outside of the media support that cause?
20:19 I mean, it's probably the most important thing to me.
20:24 I feel like in this business, the number one responsibility that I have to anyone is black women.
20:31 And a lot of the times black women aren't seen, aren't heard, are very silenced.
20:37 They have labels put on them that are not true to who they are. And the black woman's experience just can be hard.
20:46 There's really no there's no other way to say it. It can be hard because there are so many people that want it to be hard.
20:53 There are so many people that want you to feel a way about being a black woman.
20:58 And I think that it's so important to always leave that with the fact that we are strong.
21:05 We are resourceful. We are emotional.
21:09 We are all of these things that make us good at our jobs, but that also make us good people that make us good friends.
21:16 And we have to be able to show blackness in all forms and all the ways.
21:21 And the media does not always do that. There is not just one way to be a black woman.
21:27 There are so many things that are not always spoken about, talked about, accepted.
21:34 But black women are talking about them all the time.
21:37 So we want to be able to have those conversations in a space that can resonate with people that look like us,
21:44 people that understand the experiences we're discussing.
21:46 And this is something that truly feels necessary to me, to black women.
21:51 I was so overwhelmed by the response to that video that I post about my emotions and my relationship with my mom
21:58 because there were so many people in the comments saying, "This feels like such a black woman struggle,
22:04 that the world has forced us to not be able to stop and say, 'How do I feel?'"
22:10 And I think that when people watch this show, they'll almost always walk away from it feeling like,
22:15 "This is also my black woman experience."
22:19 And it's important to talk about these things holistically like that.
22:23 Yeah, and I think one of the biggest things is what I find with being a black woman
22:31 and having conversations with other black women is whatever the conversation is publicly
22:38 is so often not the conversation that we are having privately.
22:43 It will be a story, there's something going on, everyone is talking about this, everyone has an angle on it.
22:49 And I will pick up the phone and call Taylor and be like, "Girl, I already know."
22:55 And it is running in the opposite direction of what everyone is saying is the purpose of the story,
23:02 is the reason this happened, is how we should feel, is how we look, is how other black women look at this black woman.
23:10 And none of it is true. And it feels like there's this space where rational, reasonable thought is not available to black women.
23:21 Like Taylor said, there's not one way to be a black woman, to show up as a black woman, to react as a black woman.
23:28 And we often get put into these categories of, "Okay, this is what black women want.
23:34 This is how black women dress. This is how black women talk.
23:37 This is what black women want to date or expect on dates or will go on dates."
23:43 And it's like everything is so limited.
23:46 And I don't want to say wrong because there is some space for that, but it's just not the conversations I'm having.
23:54 And that is frustrating, even speaking to men or women who are not black.
24:00 I'm like, "I'm not having the same conversations with these different groups."
24:05 And to the second part of your question, I would kindly ask people to listen to what we are saying.
24:17 One of the clips that we posted from our teaser episode was us talking about pretty privilege, which is something that we talk about often.
24:29 Sometimes we talk about random things and sometimes we talk about pretty privilege and the patriarchy at dinner.
24:35 And I was really happy to see some of the responses, particularly from men, to that video.
24:45 Because I'm not going to lie, I was not sure what the response to that was going to be at all.
24:50 I thought it was going to be much more negative.
24:53 And I was really happy to see a lot of the men in the comments understanding what I was saying and not being like, "Shut up. You're pretty. Your life is great."
25:05 It was really nice to see people listening to what we were talking about and what I was saying and understanding that I wasn't just complaining.
25:13 I'm talking about my experience. That doesn't have to be your experience. It doesn't have to be her experience.
25:20 And I think that listening is something that Taylor and I do professionally.
25:26 Yes, we both speak professionally. Yes, we both interview professionally and ask questions.
25:30 But listening is a vitally important part of conversation.
25:35 And I was actually really happy to see that a lot of people listened.
25:41 I would say giving us the space to have the conversations and the perspective that we have, but also listening to what we're saying and not just jumping to, "You're this, you're that. You're saying this, you're saying that."
25:56 So I was really pleased to see that.
25:58 I thought it was a really good reaction. And what sticks out to me too, which is I think kind of a part of your question, is it has been a little irritating to me and a little bothersome to me to see that the way and the stories that people tell about Black women, a lot of the times are not even from, by, or about Black women.
26:20 I think that the picture of Black women has been painted by people that are not Black women.
26:25 So to be able to sit and tell our experiences, because we are speaking as something that we have been our entire lives, we know what it's like, and we have lots of Black women around us, so we see a variety of perspectives and experiences and just anecdotal lessons that we hear all the time.
26:44 And Black women are the people that should control the narrative about other Black women. And too often, especially on the internet, it's other people trying to tell Black women about Black women.
26:57 So I like to see that people listen to you, because you're talking about a very specific, unique experience that can only come from you. And that's what the show is, and wanting Black women to listen to it and say, "I get that and feel that because I know this person.
27:16 And in whatever way, I am this person." And I hope that anyone that watches it feels like we're really kind of taking back the messaging. And we are making sure that everybody sees, again, that it is a variety of Black women.
27:30 It's not just one thing, but you should listen to all of those voices. And we're just really thankful to have two of the voices that we'll be able to put out there on Two Personal.
27:40 Well, Taylor, Joy, thank you so much. I'm really looking forward to the show, as millions of people are. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I appreciate you.
27:48 No, thank you. You're always such a joy. Thank you for taking the time.
27:51 [MUSIC]
27:57 (upbeat music)