“I just could not wait for 2025 to end.”
Around this time last year, actress Gabourey Sidibe was gearing up for her twins’ first birthday, her wedding anniversary to husband Brandon Frankel, and the release of Apple TV’s Number One on the Call Sheet documentary, in which she was featured.
A few weeks later, the unforeseen happened: her mother, Alice Tan Ridley, died at the age of 72.
“Grief is hard. Grief is so big, especially when you lose a parent,” she told EBONY. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I’ve never been in the world without this person,’ right? And so it’s gigantic, and there are plenty of times where I just got to sit and wallow, but then my children want their nuggets.”
Her children, Cooper and Maya, have been the light of Sidibe’s life, which she’s felt even more since her mother’s death. Her mother, Ridley, is best known as a standout semifinalist on Season 5 of America’s Got Talent, but according to Sidibe, she also worked for the New York City Department of Education for 20 years.
“I remember watching her with kids and she had this way of making it look like every child was magic to her,” Sidibe explained. ”And so I really pay attention to my kids. Not the milestones and the things that they’re supposed to do, but the weird little magical bits of their personality that shine through to show who they are.”
One way she nurtures that is through her son Cooper’s love of singing. Sidibe says he knows “more songs than he knows words.” She sees her mother’s spirit through him. Moments like these are what have kept Sidibe moving forward, even if it’s just an inch.
“I’m so grateful that I have something to fill up any corners of sadness, especially ’cause [my children] are so great and I love them so much and I love them so big,” she gushed. “And I’m so grateful that I have them to, not necessarily to lean on, but to distract me. It really does keep me focused because I need to live every single day for them.”
A couple of months after her mother’s funeral, Sidibe met with a few reps at the Lifetime network. Last year, she starred in their heartwrenching drama Give Me My Daughter Back, and the network was curious whether she had any further interest in working with them.
“They said, ‘Well, what do you wanna do?’ And I said, ‘I love directing,’” she recalls. “They were like, ‘Well we have this little romance in the back if you’re interested.’”
That little romance-drama was Be Happy, hailing from Mary J. Blige’s newly extended partnership with Lifetime. The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul has partnered with the network to create and produce movies inspired by her signature hit records. The film sits under her Blue Butterfly Productions banner.
The movie follows 50-year-old Val (played by Tisha Campbell), a wife and mother who wants to reignite her marriage after her youngest child leaves for college.
As the emotional distance from her husband, Ross (played by Russell Hornsby), grows more apparent, Val realizes she needs a change. She takes an impromptu trip to New Orleans, where she meets Peter (played by Mekhi Phifer) – and that’s when everything changes for her.
Three months after her meeting with the network, Sidibe flew to Atlanta to work on her directorial debut. Much like the lead character in the film, it’s just what she needed to reignite her creative spark.
“What [the opportunity] really represented for me was agency,” she reflected. “The ability to choose, the ability to use my voice and not just on camera as an actress, because a lot of times, I’m saying someone else’s words. But also choosing the colors, choosing the way the world looks, this specific world looks has been really beautiful to awaken that part of my artistry.”
Also backing the movie was Monami Productions, led by none other than music manager and producer extraordinaire Mona Scott-Young. Sidibe sang her praises, citing Scott-Young as a “fabulous, fantastic” and a “very smart woman” who was all hands on deck for Sidibe on set. For Scott-Young, the experience was equally satisfying.
“Gabby was, bar none, one of the most prolific, talented, dedicated, caring and nurturing directors,” Scott-Young told EBONY at the Love of a Lifetime premiere event last month. “I always try to support my talent in whatever way I can. Understanding that if they’re good, they’re comfortable, they have what they need – then we’re going to get the best product.”
Production for the film lasted five weeks, which meant Sidibe was away from her comfortable Los Angeles life and family for over a month. Enter her husband, a corporate consultant and marketer, who was now responsible for their twins for an extended period. With the help of a nanny in the daytime, Frankel focused on the children while Sidibe worked in Atlanta. It brought her great ease and comfort, saying that “it was hard on me” to be away from them.
“Let me tell you something about that man,” she began, jovially, yet sincerely. “It’s not always [about] being in the crowd holding signs, tweeting, or, you know, telling everybody about me. That’s not what’s important to me in this. What was most important was him holding down those kids, without complaints and then making sure that they can see me every night and making sure to get them to me so that we can wrap our arms around each other.”
Sidibe called the entire experience “incredible,” particularly because directing made her “remember that I was something other than just the guy that gets the diapers going.” Being a mother and wife fills up her life, but she’s her own person — we all are, in fact. Ultimately, Sidibe is looking forward to the audience connecting with the film’s overarching idea of choosing yourself, especially if someone isn’t cherishing you the way they’re supposed to.
“I want people to be able to relate to the story of this woman who’s been in this marriage, and at some point, her husband has become sort of complacent. She is now lonely, and she decides she’s not going to stay where I don’t feel loved and wanted and supported,” Sidibe remarked.
“And so she leaves, and I think more of us need to leave. I think the idea of the notion that we can get up and leave what does not feel good needs to be presented to us much more, especially black women. We will stay in the situation and pray it through, or we’ll endure and wait till he puts the love on top. Absolutely not. You put the love on top immediately, or I’m going.”
Although the one-year anniversary of her mother’s passing is on the horizon, Sidibe has a few things to look forward to: she’ll be celebrating five years of marriage with Frankel, gearing up to shoot the highly anticipated season 13 of American Horror Story, and her twins will be turning two, too.
And while Sidibe is still adamant about not throwing them a huge birthday bash after her reasoning for not going all out for their first birthday went viral last year, she wouldn’t have it any other way. Everything is exactly how it should be for her, both personally and professionally.
“This part [of my life] has a little more agency than I have as an actor. There’s more choice over here,” she asserts. “I want to create my art. I want to really be in the driver’s seat. I want to produce, I want to direct, I want to star in the vehicles that I create. Those are the dreams that I wanna achieve, and I’m getting close.”
Mary J. Blige Presents Be Happy premieres on Lifetime on February 7.