I refuse to downplay my intelligence... to make you comfortable with your ignorance

Monday, March 2, 2026

HEY BABY... YOU OK???
Oh hell no I missed "Stranded in Dubai"???
Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan

أولاً، كيف حال والدتك؟ لقد شرحتُ علاقتنا، وسأردّ عليكِ بكلّ حزم إذا تعرّضتِ للهجوم. السبب الرئيسي في ابتعادي عنكِ ليس خجلاً منكِ، بل احتراماً لخصوصيتنا. أين أخوك؟ لستِ بحاجةٍ للتوضيح، فأنا أعرف من قابلت. يؤسفني أن هذه المشكلة قد وصلت إلى دبي، ويحزنني أكثر أن مدينتكِ الجميلة تتعرّض للهجوم. كنا نعلم أن هذا قد يحدث. أدعو لكِ ولعائلتكِ ولدبي. كما تعلمين، أنا ملتزمةٌ بتعاليم ديني، ويجب أن أبقى وفيةً لله. لكنكِ صديقتي، إذا كان بإمكاني مساعدتكِ في نشر رسالتكِ، فلا تترددي في استخدام هاتفي.

It did NOT make sense... until last night!!!

Judgment, Memory, and the Truth I Had to Face

It didn’t make sense to me not at first.

When my children and I sat down and talked, I finally heard the words the way they must have sounded to them. I couldn’t understand why someone would refer to me or my mother as prostitutes.

That word carries weight. It carries shame. It carries finality.

I resisted even trying to understand it.

Until I remembered.

In 1992, at the The Ritz-Carlton, Atlanta, I was hired along with my dancers to entertain for an evening. The client was Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who at that time was not the global political figure people recognize today, but simply a wealthy man booking private entertainment.

We were paid for a show.

After the performance, he asked us to stay. We did. No additional negotiation. No revised contract. What happened that evening was consensual. We were entertainers who had completed a booking. Each dancer walked out with $500. I collected commission $2,400 because I organized the engagement.

We parted ways.

That same weekend, I sent a gift to Aaron Hall, who was also in town. Life moved on.

But decades later, that memory resurfaced in a different light.

Why Madea Goes to Jail Hits Differently

When I rewatched Madea Goes to Jail, directed by Tyler Perry, I saw something I had missed before.

The film isn’t just comedy. Beneath the humor is the story of Candace a woman labeled and judged because of her involvement in prostitution.

The movie doesn’t ignore her choices, but it also forces the audience to look at context.

Trauma. Survival. Agency. Misjudgment.

It asks a painful question:

When does a label become someone’s identity?

And who decides?

Watching that storyline, I realized something uncomfortable.

People don’t always care about the details. They hear “money,” “hotel,” “men,” and they fill in the blanks themselves.

The distinction between:

Being hired as entertainment

Consenting as an adult

And selling sex as a transaction… gets erased in the public imagination.

The Oprah and Lisa Version

If I were to “correct the record,” I wouldn’t do it with anger. I would do it the way women like Oprah Winfrey or LisaRaye McCoy often frame difficult chapters not as confession, not as scandal, but as ownership.

Ownership of:

My decisions.

My agency.

My truth.

My growth.

There was no trafficking. There was no coercion. There was no negotiated exchange of sex for money.

There was entertainment. There was adult choice. And there was departure.

Those facts matter.

Talking to My Children Changed Me

The hardest part wasn’t public opinion.

It was explaining context to my children.

It was realizing that if I didn’t tell my story clearly, someone else would simplify it. And simplification is where dignity gets lost.