Khadeen & Devale Ellis stop by the ESSENCE office to chat about black love, their careers, marriage and more.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00I do honestly believe that there are a ton of intersectionalities between athletes and artists,
00:06right? For example, there's a process. And a part of that process means that for years,
00:10you have to perfect your craft and you see no results, right? No one knows that process better
00:15than athletes. From the time we've decided, hey, I want to pick up this ball, you spend years
00:20working on something that everyone else tells you you'll never be good at. And then just like
00:24Vancouver, oh, I'm a division one athlete. Oh, I made it to the NFL. I'm actually really good at
00:28doing this thing that less than 1% of the population can do. So then you realize like I
00:34have a work ethic and a discipline that is a standard for the elite. Now I want to tell my
00:41story. What's the best way for me to tell my story? Am I going to sell my story to someone else to tell
00:46it for me and change the narrative? No, I'm going to tell the stories that are important to me and
00:51I'm going to start with my own. And I appreciate Ryan Kubler for doing that because I'm watching him,
00:54a former football player who then went to school after, just like I did to learn the craft is now
01:00being celebrated, not only as a black man, but just as a great director, period. Like everyone
01:05keeps saying he's the first black director. Yeah. But he's also just the first director to do
01:10something. Like, can we just say that too? He wasn't just better than all the blacks. He was
01:14better than everybody. You know what I'm saying? So to me, as an athlete, it's the competition,
01:21the competitiveness, to want to be the best and the greatest. I think that drives so many artists
01:25today that were former athletes. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be 15 years, 4th of July. He always says
01:30that's when he lost his independence, honey. On July 4th. But we don't celebrate that no
01:36happy, baby. Every day, every day. It's been particularly challenging, I think, for us to be
01:43able to navigate the space of balancing work. Yep. You okay? You getting dizzy? No, it's just that
01:50question. I was just talking to Josh. I want to be honest. It's just hard. It's not easy. It's
01:56extremely hard. I'm sorry. Sorry. I am okay. It's just hard to balance everything. I be trying
02:05my best. My wife be trying my best. We be exhausted. I want to be honest. I can't sit up
02:11here and be like, we have a village and everybody know. It'd be hard. It'd be hard and it takes a lot
02:16of faith. I'm sorry. It's just, it takes a lot of this. Like, there's a lot of times
02:25you feel like you don't got nobody else. You solo. You in this by yourself. And I can
02:30look over and I got my mom. Mm-hmm. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And I want to do all the things
02:36as a dad and a husband. And I know she wants to do all the things as a mom and a wife.
02:40Yeah. It'd just be hard. You know? And then people watching y'all and y'all couple goals
02:46and this and this. Like, you don't want to mess this up because if people are believing
02:50in you, you have now a responsibility to be what they see in you because you stepped
02:57out here and said that this is what we want to be, which is what we did. But I'm not going
03:01to sit here and lie to you, which is I was going to sit here and just give you the factory
03:04answer. But I can't. Well, I'm tired. Mm-hmm. I'm tired. You know? I miss my wife. I miss
03:11my kids. I miss myself sometimes. You know what I'm saying? Like, sometimes I get tired
03:20of being a Zach. I'm tired of being the devout. I got to perform in interviews and I want to
03:25just be devout sometimes. I want to just be like, **** everybody today. You know what I'm
03:29saying? I want to. But you can't. And that's just a fact. Because when you decide that you
03:35want to invest in something that is bigger than you, you have a responsibility. Yeah.
03:40And that's just the honest truth. We have a responsibility to do this. We chose this.
03:45We're doing this together. So it's fun at times, but it is hard. It's exhausting. That's
03:50just the most honest answer. And I was, I've been trying to hold back these tears all day
03:55because I'm just tired. You know? And this is a lot of times you watch people on interviews,
04:02go to the breakfast club, go in. They doing everything. How do they do this? This is how.
04:07Yeah.
04:07They go in the room when no one else is looking and they cry. I'm just tired of going
04:11in the room. I'm tired of it. I hope y'all see this, man. It's exhausting. And if it wasn't
04:15for this woman right here and we didn't have each other, because when we done with this,
04:21we're going to go back in that hotel room, man. We're going to get some boobie eats.
04:24You know what I'm saying? We're going to take, we're just going to do nothing, but just
04:27be in this. And not for nothing. That's the answer. You got to remember why you started
04:32it. We started it because we loved each other and we wanted to share a lot of love with people.
04:36Yeah. And we have been doing that, I think, successfully. And that's why I started off
04:40by answering and saying that.
04:41Oh, man, I'm sorry.
04:42It was just fine.
04:44Oh, man.
04:45I got you, babe. But it's been particularly challenging over the years because we've been
04:49having to juggle so many things. And then you feel guilt sometimes because something
04:53may fall out of the wayside. Sometimes it's the marriage. Sometimes it's like, man, I
04:57haven't even clocked into having my husband with me because we've been balancing all of
05:02the other things that have to be done because we have deadlines and we have responsibilities.
05:07We have children, you know? So it's a juggling act. It really, really is. But he and I try
05:14the best, as best as we can to stay locked into each other. We do. Because I can always tell
05:19when he's on the brink of something. And even this morning, I was like, we're going to be
05:23okay?
05:24I've been like, yo, I got it. I'm good. I got it.
05:28And think about it. Our men are always forced to kind of hold it together, right? And don't
05:33feel like they often have safe spaces to be able to do something like this, you know?
05:37But we're here at Essence where we create safe spaces for our men and our women.
05:42So think about how many times you'll just ask, I think just because it's so commonplace,
05:45is, hey, how are you? Do you, and you want to do people really care how I'm doing in
05:49the moment?
05:49Most times they don't.
05:50You know, it's just the thing to say.
05:52Yeah, I asked Josh bring up Thor of a point to me that he was just like, you know, to
05:55us, devout, you're like Superman. I'm like, me how? Because I look at myself in the mirror
05:59and I'm like, there's so many things I still want to do and haven't done or not being recognized
06:04for that I'm busting my ass to work towards. And he was like, think about it. You came from
06:08the same hood we came from. But you on TV twice a week. You got a book. You and your wife
06:14on Instagram every day. Your influencers, your public fliggers, people are proud of
06:18y'all. And I never thought about it like that. Like, I never thought that people would view
06:24me like that because I don't view myself like that. So when you ask, when people ask, you
06:29all right? They automatically assume my answer is going to be okay before I respond.
06:35Kay reached out to my parents three days ago and was just like, Kay, I was going to reach
06:39out because the vow had this going on, do not disturb. And I wanted to let y'all know that
06:43he was going through some things before she even finished. My parents like, oh, it's
06:46cool. We good. We know y'all got a lot of work to do. They weren't really listening.
06:50They were trying to be supportive of the fact that maybe we weren't as communicative
06:54as we typically are. And in that moment, my dad was trying to be of support to my wife
06:59and say, it's okay, baby. You don't have to apologize. But he really wasn't listening
07:03when she was saying like, yo, the vow needs some help.
07:07Yeah. And it just be a lot, bro. And I'm not trying to see her act like a victim. Like
07:13I'm not a victim. It just do be a lot.
07:16Yeah, human. I keep telling him that. I'm like, you're human. You're human.
07:19And not for nothing, I'm human too. Because she going to sit up here with the smile on
07:24and look cute and look pretty. But then at the end of this, she going to pull me out
07:27there and be like, yo, we done with these fucking interviews. Like, are you okay? You know
07:30how wives are? She'll be like, if you are done, we are done.
07:35But it's collective. It is. It is. And that's how we do it. We've been doing this for almost
07:4023 years, y'all. You know? So I know enough to know when my baby's having a moment.
07:46And I'm good. This wasn't the thing that set me over the top. It was just the honest
07:50question, like at the right time. Like, kudos to you for interviewing and not like that.
07:54You think you're a big one during this.
07:57Yeah.
07:59No, it's pretty steep. Seriously, that was the perfect question at the right time. And
08:02actually, I do feel better. Same.
08:04You feel better. It's just saying it. Like, oh my gosh. Because Josh had said to me, like,
08:09you don't tell us this. How are we supposed to know? And I had to sit back and say, you
08:13know what, Josh? You absolutely right. How do you know? How do you know if I always make
08:18it seem like I'm perfectly fine? That's unfair to everybody else. It's unfair to him, the people
08:23I work with, to my wife. And just now saying that to everybody, it just felt good. Like,
08:29I feel like that's going to be my thing from now on. Like, when people ask me the facts,
08:34I'm not going to go to the factory setting of what I'm supposed to be as a masculine
08:39black man.
08:39How you feeling, DeVal? Not the best today. Tired. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like,
08:45I feel like I need to start. And then when you're honest, sometimes people look at you
08:48and they're like, they don't know what to do with that. Like, oh, so you're tired. So
08:51how do we help that?
08:52Like, the fact that y'all were like, bro, we're good. It's okay. It was like, okay. So
08:57let me tell you how I feel. Like, I appreciate y'all. Thank you.
09:00There are definitely days where, you know, not necessarily DeVal, but I am going to be
09:06like, babe, tonight is the night I will need a rain check. I'll be, I'll be good to say
09:09I'm going to need a rain check. And tonight is not the night. But I just, when you take
09:14away the work, you take away the children, you take away the family, the responsibilities,
09:18everything at the core of everything. This is my best friend. This is my person. He does
09:25it for me in every lifetime. So things like that just come easily. Like it's nothing that
09:30we have to kind of perform. Naturally, after almost 23 years together and 15 married, you
09:35know, there's moments where it's just like, you know, I'm tired or, you know, we may be
09:38in a little rut when it comes to, you know, things sexually, but we always find our way
09:43back. You know, we always find our way back. And we realize sometimes it's the added stresses
09:47of everything else. It's not even just us. So to DeVal's point, the last question is like,
09:51we just have to be honest about how we feel and what we need. Like he tells me exactly to a
09:56T what he needs when it boils down to it. And I do the same. And having that reciprocity
10:01I think really helps.
10:02I do think it's also us understanding each other. Like, um, as a, as a man who loves
10:08intimacy, it was important for me to understand her body, understand how her body changes after
10:14postpartum, after having children, after fatigue. Like the more I understood how her body worked,
10:20I understood how to get to those places where she would be receptive to my advances, even
10:25when she wasn't in the mood, because here's the truth, right? Being in a mood isn't something
10:30that comes just mentally, right? Like physically, physiologically, you have to, there has to be
10:35something there that connects for a woman to be aroused the same way for a man to be aroused.
10:39And a lot of time as men, we don't focus on what a woman needs physiologically, right? Because if
10:44we think about our anatomy, I have to put my thing in her, which means I have to become erect.
10:49What does she have to do? Most men are ignorant and be like, oh, it don't matter. She, the hole is
10:54there. That's not how this works. No, seriously, it's, that's not how this works. I took more
10:59inventory of what my wife needed in order to feel sexy, to be sexy, to be like, you know,
11:05I'm ready for him, whatever. And I watched her do the same thing. Because it was a couple
11:09of times after filming late, where she was dressed on in her red shorts. Everybody knows
11:13the red shorts. And they have just red shorts.
11:16Minute the bow comes in the house, I'm going to put it on in. I came on and I was half
11:20asleep and I'm looking, I'm reading my lines and then I walked by and I said, wait, did I
11:23say anything to you when I came in the house? And she's just like, nope. And I'm like, my fault,
11:27baby, I'm sorry. She took it upon herself to know when he's tired or fatigued, sometimes
11:31he not in the mood. She didn't look at it like, oh, he just disregarded me. Nah, she
11:35took it as something must be going on. Let me investigate. So we just both take more time
11:40to know each other past the physical.
11:42Right.
11:43Because the physical happened with mental and emotional.
11:46I mean, this is, as soon as clocked in, right? So we be clocked in.
11:49We be clocked in. That is a fact. We be clocked in.
11:52I'm standing on the business that we are done having children. I'll say that to
11:56camera. Honey, ain't no more kids.
12:00No.
12:01Coming up out of here.
12:02Zero.
12:03Now what?
12:03Done.
12:04I had a vasectomy.
12:05So yeah, we made the decision collectively.
12:08Can you reverse?
12:09Girl.
12:09Me.
12:10No, the only thing that can reverse is a call, honey.
12:12We're not, we're not doing, no. At this point, we are so blessed to have four
12:17beautiful, healthy, amazing boys. Jackson, Cairo, Kaz, and Dakota, the lights of our
12:22lives. So yeah, we're, we're done with the children. And I just don't have the
12:25capacity to keep anything else alive. As you can see, we can barely stay alive. So
12:29we won't add no other human or living thing to that. Not even a plant.
12:33But also she had some complications out there in Dakota. She had postpartum
12:37preeclampsia. And the doctor told her when you have postpartum preeclampsia, there's
12:41a more likelihood with the next pregnancy that she can have preeclampsia the entire time.
12:45Full blown. Yeah.
12:46And on this scare, she had to go to the hospital.
12:49Yeah. Super high blood pressure. Was on magnesium drip.
12:52I think it was pre, almost like stroke.
12:53Yeah. Like just literally borderline.
12:56You done went to sleep that night and woke up the next morning to vow, there's a
12:59chance that your wife could have just been dead next to you. And I was like, are you
13:02serious? She said, yeah, preeclampsia.
13:03Yeah. It's very serious.
13:05So at that point I was like, okay, let's do birth control. She got on the IUD or the
13:10ring and then she started having heavy bleedings.
13:13Yeah. It was just one thing after the other.
13:15Yeah. You've had four cases. You had surgery after the first one. You had two natural,
13:20two home births. It's about time I do something to protect us, right? It's most important to
13:25protect you. So I got the vasectomy. And it was in and out.
13:29And we had a party.
13:30For everybody who's wondering now, the nut stays the same.
13:34The consistency is exactly as I was concerned about that. So there's any men watching it.
13:39I wanted to make sure that everything stays the same so that she had the same experience.
13:44It's the same. Everything's the same.
13:45And then because you hear all the stuff they say.
13:48I can co-sign.
13:48They tell you all the same.
13:50I don't know what they say.
13:51Saying your muscles going to drop, your mood going to drop.
13:53I didn't even know you were supposed to have a vasectomy party after that.
13:57And I missed the mark.
13:59Celebrate.
13:59I sure did.
14:00He had a one-year anniversary after. I wanted to make sure that it was completely 100%.
14:05It worked. And it worked. And then we celebrated after I realized that it worked.
14:10We didn't celebrate nothing.
14:12That's another thing, gentlemen. There's something different about your woman when she knows she
14:16can't get pregnant. When she lays down, it's different. Right? Like she understands like
14:21there's nothing going to happen after this. Except for this nut. I'm good.
14:24Swing from the chandelier, baby.
14:26You can do everything.
14:27You can do all the things. Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, I don't know how y'all going to edit
14:32this together, Lord.
14:33I don't know. I'm kind of nervous.
14:36So for the future, but we have a lot of things that were still left to be done. And I think
14:41that speaks to what Daval was talking about. People feeling like, you know, you guys have
14:45made it. You're doing all of these things. You have the book. You have the podcast. You have
14:48the shows. But we really honestly feel like we're scratching the surface of what God has
14:53in store for us. To get back to Ellis Ever after, our podcast.
14:57We almost stopped doing it. But then we realized that there was a large population of people
15:02who love and support us, who listen to the podcast religiously that said, you guys just
15:07can't stop. Like you have to keep going. And every time that we've tried to just pull back
15:12and maybe try to pivot and do something differently, we realized that there's a voice that we have
15:17within our community that's so loud and so great that people really want us to continue
15:22to share. So we're doing that in the podcast space. I have a project that I am working on
15:28that I'm super excited about.
15:29You could try to be here about it soon, though.
15:31super excited about. And it put me in a space from a career perspective where I felt so alive
15:39in that moment that I felt like this is where I'm supposed to be. So I'm looking forward to,
15:44once you guys found out what that is, looking forward to doing more in that particular space.
15:50The best part about doing this with DeVal is that I knew from the moment that I bagged him,
15:55because I shot my shot, y'all. Ladies, it's okay to shoot your shot. But I just knew I had eyes on
16:01him since elementary school, and we kind of crossed paths our whole life.
16:04You knew that early?
16:05I mean, I had eyes for you.
16:07You was four.
16:08I had eyes for you in the second grade. The second grade, I had eyes. And you crossed my path.
16:14High school, rival high school.
16:15I was starting.
16:16You know, college, we started grading.
16:18Put the button up with the brown flag top.
16:20You were, you were. And then once we got together in college,
16:25just seeing the vigor that he had for life. And he seemed so wise beyond his years. And like,
16:30he had everything figured out. And I was like, wow, like, I felt like I had met my match.
16:34And I think that God has literally divinely ordered our steps to be together through this life.
16:40And I couldn't imagine doing it with anybody else. Wouldn't want to do it with anybody else,
16:45because it makes it that much sweeter. The story, the highs, the lows, the lows don't really ever feel
16:51that low. And the highs feel even higher together. And everything in between, I think is just part of
16:57the process and the journey that makes our story that much greater. And it's building a legacy for
17:02our boys. You know, they are looking at their mom and dad daily who, who love each other, who don't
17:08always agree, of course. But at the end of the day, I think the one thing that bubbled over out of
17:14the Ellis household is just low, low. And that's what carries me through with you. So I love you, too.
17:24You are in trouble.
17:26We're tired. We're okay. I'm a rain shaker.
17:29No, that's actually funny.
17:34This legacy building, they're constantly trying to attack our history and get rid of us.
17:39So the Ellis' is going to make more history. We're going to make so much history, there's
17:43no more going to be the first black to the people. They're going to be like, the Ellis'
17:47is doing that. And then after, the Ellis' is going to be a bunch of other people doing
17:50what we did better than what we did. And that's what we want to do.
17:54That's the point.
17:54That's it. We just want to keep breaking the barriers and doing stuff. Broadway, you're
17:58going to keep doing that. TV film, doing that, books, animated series, everything.
18:03I got another book on Fatherhood coming out.
18:06Oh, yeah, it's going to be good in 2026.
18:10Absolutely.
18:11We just want to keep creating.
18:12Yeah.
18:13Yeah. Making history.
18:14Together.
18:15Together.
18:16Blacked in.
18:17O.F.
18:18Love.
18:19Love.
18:20Love.
18:22Love.
18:23Love.
18:24Love.
18:25Love.
18:26Love.
18:27Love.
18:28Love.
18:29Love.
18:30Love.
18:31Love.
18:32Love.