Although I have literally no interest in sports, this week's episode of Red Table Talkoffered a real-life take on love and basketball that did not disappoint.
Willow, Adrienne, and Jada traveled to Charlotte, home of NBA superstar family The Currys, to talk to the First Ladies of basketball about the ups and downs of love, marriage, and managing their mental health in the midst of the chaos. Ayesha was joined by her mother-in-law, Sonya Curry, as well as her sister-in-law, Sydel Curry, and Seth Curry's fiancé, Callie Rivers, who shared what life is like as NBA royalty, and it's not always as glamorous as it may look.
In this vulnerable conversation among the matriarchs of the Curry family, they got real about what it's like to be a powerful Black woman who is married to an equally powerful Black man.
Ayesha, mother of three and host of Ayesha's Home Kitchen, said that it was important for her to become an entrepreneur because she wanted her journey to be about more than just being a basketball player's wife. According to Ayesha, the saying is true: happy wife, happy life, and what makes her happiest is having the ability to be her own person.
"I need to make sure I have something for myself. As well as my marriage. One, it's going to make me happy and full. I'm going to be a better parent. And it'll make my husband a better person as well because he has this strong woman next to him, who has her own wants and needs and knows what she wants. So I feel like I have greater value and passion and I'm just a happier person that way."
At the Red Table, Sonya, who has been married to NBA superstar Dell Curry for 30 years, and Ayesha who has been married to Steph since 2011, also agreed that the thirst is real when it comes to dating a superstar athlete. Although Jada pointed out that it's part of our primal instincts to gravitate to a man in power, Ayesha said that often, women tend to gravitate a little too closely.
"I'm a grown woman so I'll just insert myself. I'm okay with it now. The ladies will always be lurking and waiting for their moment but for me, I honestly hate it. I don't like when I feel leveled off with somebody. It irks my nerves."
She explained that it bothered her so much, that she was forced to bring it to Steph's attention.
"So we had the conversation about it, like when we're going somewhere we make sure that I'm being introduced. I don't like to have to introduce myself. It irks my nerves. So I try and make that known. But there have been a couple of times when I wanted to punch somebody in the face. But that's just human nature."
Screenshot of Ayesha Curry from 'Red Table Talk'
Ayesha shared that women crossing boundaries isn't anything new. Years ago, when she was breastfeeding Riley, she had a traumatic experience that she would never forget. Ayesha said the encounter triggered anxiety that she still has to take medication for today.
"I'll never forget we wanted to go buy bikes one day. And I'm sitting in the back, nursing Riley. She's less than one-year-old. And this lady—this group of people come over and they're trying to ask Stephen for pictures and autographs—this woman opens the car door, sticks her body in the car and is like, 'Let me see.' And I'm like, 'No, get out of the car.' And she says, 'Oh honey, you know what you signed up for.' And that's kind of stuck with me for a long time. I'm like actually no, I didn't. And I think I deserve some type of personal space and so that's where everything stems from for me."
Along with battling ongoing anxiety, her husband's celebrity has also brought on a number of insecurities for the cookbook author that she never knew she had.
"Something that really bothers me and has honestly, given me a little bit of an insecurity is like 'Yeah, there are all these women throwing themselves [at Steph] but me, the past ten years, I don't have any of that. It sounds weird but I have zero male attention. Then I internalize it and I'm like is there something wrong with me? I don't want it. But it would be nice to know that someone's looking."
Overnight, Ayesha's comments at the Red Table have caught fire on Black Twitter and raised a number of opinions. Ayesha is currently trending, and her choice of words is under siege. According to some pretty angry Twitter fingers, her inclination in the past to criticize women for wearing revealing clothing is directly correlated to this comment, and she should be punished… But, nah, sis. If you've ever watched Red Table Talk, you know it's all about vulnerability, and this episode was no different.
If we're keeping it a buck here, everyone wants to feel beautiful, whether you're dating, married, single, or divorced. Her comments don't negate the appreciation she has for her man, but what they do prove is that no matter how rich, beautiful, or loved we are, we all have insecurities that we have to confront head-on.
If we really took inventory, how many times have you side-eyed the waitress for giggling a little too hard at your date? If I saw my man having panties thrown at him by beautiful women every single day, I'd probably be ready to whip out my pimp hand on one of those women, too. But the truth is, just because you're entitled to your insecurities, doesn't make it okay to not deal with them.
Watch the full episode below!
What did you think about what Ayesha said? Was she wrong, or do you think she had a point? Let us know in the comments!
Featured image by Timothy Hiatt/Getty Images
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak