

xoMan: Actor J. Alphonse Nicholson Credits His Success To His Wife & Her Vision Of Their Future
Before J. Alphonse Nicholson was Lil Murda on the Starz drama P-Valley, he was going back and forth between North Carolina and New York to pursue his dream of acting. The actor comes from a creative background. His mother used to write screenplays for their church while he had a passion for music and wanted to be a music teacher and play in a band as a drummer. It wasn’t until he began attending North Carolina Central University that he decided to take a stab at acting and like they say, the rest is history.
But it wasn’t easy. He dropped out of college to pursue acting and as a young parent, he was constantly away from his son and family. Speaking to xoNecole’s Dana Blair for our xoMan series, J. Alphonse opened up about balancing co-parenting at a young age, hustling, and trying to make acting happen while also keeping his mental together.
“It was hard,” he started. “There was a lot of times I wanted to go back home and get my job back at FedEx. And do whatever other side hustle I had going on. And I missed my son a lot too. That was the hardest part for me, was being away from my son.”
xoMan: J. Alphonse Nicholson on Falling In Love, Criticism & Love Languages
J. Alphonse and Nafeesha have a blended family sharing a son and daughter. “It was hard. It was hard. And it was one of those things where I had plenty of moments where I wanted to give up, but I think the same things I wanted to go back to – the same thing that I wanted to be there for every day like my son and not having to worry about you know certain things as an artist – it was also the same things that motivate me.”
“My son, I wanted him to have a better life than I had. I didn’t have a horrible life, you know but it was tough. My mom was a single mom. (J. Alphonse’s father passed away when he was 12-years-old). She had to work multiple jobs to make sure she provided for us. That was a constant reminder that I don’t want my son to have to relive some of the hardships I had to [live] and I want to build a life for myself. So that was my constant motivation. And then just, I knew at some point that I was going to be able to make a mark with storytelling, whether it was big or small. So, this opportunity with Lil Murda (his character in P-Valley) came years down the line. And I’m glad that I didn’t give up.”
Lil Murda may be his breakout role but J. Alphonse has acted in other projects such as Just Mercy and he has also performed on Broadway. For those who may be unfamiliar with the Starz series, P-Valley is about a struggling strip club called The Pynk in Chucalissa, Mississippi and J. Alphonse plays an up-and-coming rapper named Lil Murda who keeps his sexual identity hidden in order to make it in the hip hop industry.
“I had a lot of great opportunities prior to that too. I know a lot of people know me for Lil Murda but the Just Mercy’s of the world, the Self Made’s, and all of the theater stages I’ve been able to step on. Broadway. All those things are milestones that you end up stacking up and it’s like, ‘Oh okay, I’m getting somewhere. Like my foundation is building,’” he said.
“So you have to physically see those things. So a lot of times, yeah, I had to brush myself off, cry, you know, call my girlfriend, my then-fiancee, now-wife you know, to really chop these things up and figure out exactly how you want to move throughout life… It was tough but I think I had the right people in my corner.”
Some of those people in his corner include his best friends and of course his wife. The North Carolina native gushed over his wife and shared how she has been his rock while he was struggling to make it in entertainment.
“Shout out to some of my best friends Denzel and Khalil who are like my brothers, I’ve known them since I was 15, and then ultimately shout out to my wife,” he said. “When I met her, I was still going through it. You know, still trying to make things happen. But I feel like her support and love around me and her vision for who we were as a couple motivated me 100 times more to go out and get it.”
J. Alphonse’s relationship with his wife Nafeesha is a true example of a partnership. The musician explained how they have conversations about the vision they see for their family and their lives. He credited his wife for having patience with him and his career while also making her own dreams come true.
“We always discussed it. It’s kinda like one of those things like, I’m a big dreamer, you know? And my wife, she’s a big dreamer as well, but she’s a big doer. Shout out to my wife. She doesn’t have to really talk about the things that she wants to accomplish or the things she’s accomplished already. She’s accomplished a lot of things that people may not know of but she has an understanding of who she is and what she’s been able to do,” he explained.
“And I’m the one who kinda like, ‘I need this crib down there with the jacuzzi,’ and she’s like, ‘You’re gonna get it. Take your time. Pace yourself.’ It works perfect. It’s a perfect balance. For us, we always have these conversations about what we want our life to be. And then you have a show like P-Valley comes around which is kind of like, ‘Oh okay, this is a different thing that has happened that’s come into our life we weren’t expecting, how do you deal with fame, celebrity, and then how do you deal with such a complex character and the things people have to say about me and the things they place on me personally and place on my wife?’”
He continued, “So, we have conversations about those things and keep each other lifted and we talk about the future too. ‘You got this movie coming up, you got this TV show coming up,’ we can’t wait for that. We can’t wait to get our kids into school and you know get them off to college in the next couple of years. All the real-life stuff outside of acting and entrepreneurship that we build on and I would just say that it’s been probably one of the biggest joys of my life having someone to build with on a constant, on a daily basis.”
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Featured image by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for STARZ
Smile, Sis! These Five Improvements Can Upgrade Your Oral Hygiene Instantly
This article is in partnership with Sensodyne.
Our teeth are connected to so many things - our nutrition, our confidence, and our overall mood. We often take for granted how important healthy teeth are, until issues like tooth sensitivity or gum recession come to remind us. Like most things related to our bodies, prevention is the best medicine. Here are five things you can do immediately to improve your oral hygiene, prevent tooth sensitivity, and avoid dental issues down the road.
1) Go Easy On the Rough Brushing: Brushing your teeth is and always will be priority number one in the oral hygiene department. No surprises there! However, there is such a thing as applying too much pressure when brushing…and that can lead to problems over time. Use a toothbrush with soft bristles and brush in smooth, circular motions. It may seem counterintuitive, but a gentle approach to brushing is the most effective way to clean those pearly whites without wearing away enamel and exposing sensitive areas of the teeth.
2) Use A Desensitizing Toothpaste: As everyone knows, mouth pain can be highly uncomfortable; but tooth sensitivity is a whole different beast. Hot weather favorites like ice cream and popsicles have the ability to trigger tooth sensitivity, which might make you want to stay away from icy foods altogether. But as always, prevention is the best medicine here. Switching to a toothpaste like Sensodyne’s Sensitivity & Gum toothpaste specifically designed for sensitive teeth will help build a protective layer over sensitive areas of the tooth. Over time, those sharp sensations that occur with extremely cold foods will subside, and you’ll be back to treating yourself to your icy faves like this one!
3) Floss, Rinse, Brush. (And In That Order!): Have you ever heard the saying, “It’s not what you do, but how you do it”? Well, the same thing applies to taking care of your teeth. Even if you are flossing and brushing religiously, you could be missing out on some of the benefits simply because you aren’t doing so in the right order. Flossing is best to do before brushing because it removes food particles and plaque from places your toothbrush can’t reach. After a proper flossing sesh, it is important to rinse out your mouth with water after. Finally, you can whip out your toothbrush and get to brushing. Though many of us commonly rinse with water after brushing to remove excess toothpaste, it may not be the best thing for our teeth. That’s because fluoride, the active ingredient in toothpaste that protects your enamel, works best when it gets to sit on the teeth and continue working its magic. Rinsing with water after brushing doesn’t let the toothpaste go to work like it really can. Changing up your order may take some getting used to, but over time, you’ll see the difference.
4) Stay Hydrated: Upping your water supply is a no-fail way to level up your health overall, and your teeth are no exception to this rule. Drinking water not only helps maintain a healthy pH balance in your mouth, but it also washes away residue and acids that can cause enamel erosion. It also helps you steer clear of dry mouth, which is a gateway to bad breath. And who needs that?
5) Show Your Gums Some Love: When it comes to improving your smile, you may be laser-focused on getting your teeth whiter, straighter, and overall healthier. Rightfully so, as these are all attributes of a megawatt smile; but you certainly don’t want to leave gum health out of the equation. If you neglect your gums, you’ll start to notice the effects of plaque buildup, which can irritate the gums and cause gingivitis, the earliest stage of gum disease. Seeing blood while brushing and flossing is a tell-tale sign that your gums are suffering. You may also experience gum recession — a condition where the gum tissue surrounding your teeth pulls back, exposing more of your tooth. Brushing at least twice a day with a gum-protecting toothpaste like Sensodyne Sensitivity and Gum, coupled with regular dentist visits, will keep your gums shining as bright as those pearly whites.
Jodie Turner-Smith Files For Divorce From Joshua Jackson After Nearly 4 Years Of Marriage
2023 has become the year of celebrity breakups with headlines breaking left and right about celebs filing for divorce or ending high-profile relationships. The latest couple to announce their dissolution? British actress Jodie Turner-Smith. TMZ reported that Jodie has filed for a divorce from her husband, Dawson Creek alum Joshua Jackson.
As far as her reason for calling it quits, Jodie cited "irreconcilable differences," according to TMZ, and has requested joint custody of the couple's daughter, Juno Rose Diana Jackson. Late last year there were rumblings of there being "trouble in paradise" for the couple after the media realized they were no longer following each other on Instagram.
Those rumors were more than laid to rest when Jodie and Joshua went to the 2023 Oscars together earlier this year, and even more recently, when they celebrated her birthday together last month during the September unveiling of the Lotus Emeya.
Jodie Turner-Smith celebrates her birthday with husband Joshua Jackson at the unveiling of the new fully-electric Lotus Emeya on September 07, 2023 in New York City.
Brian Ach/Getty Images for Lotus
Despite seeming particularly happy and in love, perhaps the writing was already written on the wall even then. In the past, Jodie has been very celebratory publicly about her love for her estranged husband, even boldly recounting their love story for the books in a 2021 interview with Seth Meyers.
When Jodie and Joshua met, it was while at his birthday party in 2018. Their relationship was hot and heavy from the start, with Jodie openly noting that they began as a "one-night stand." During her 2021 interview with Seth Meyers, she jokingly referred to their love story as a "three-year one-night stand." She shared:
"First of all, I saw him before he saw me and when I saw him, I was like, 'I want that.' And then when he saw me, I just pretended like I didn't see him. He had to yell across the room to me, and I was wearing this T-shirt from a movie called Sorry to Bother You and [actress] Tessa Thompson plays a character called Detroit, and she has this T-shirt that says, 'The Future Is Female Ejaculation.'
"And so, he shouts across the room, 'Detroit!' He comes over and… does this really cute, charming thing that he does and just all night -- he just basically followed me around the party."
The couple were together from that moment forth, and even made things "Instagram official" less than two weeks later while on a dinner date. Joshua would later clarify to Insider that the night they met in 2018 was not a 'one-night stand' or a 'three-year one-night stand' like his then-wife joked but instead, it was "technically a three-night stand."
"It was sealed with a kiss that night and then we didn't leave each other's sides for, well, three years now," Joshua continued at the time.
In a July 2021 interview with Jimmy Fallon, Joshua dropped more details about the why behind getting married. He revealed that he didn't know he wanted to get married to Jodie until "the moment she asked me."
"She asked me on New Year's Eve. We were in Nicaragua. It was very beautiful, incredibly romantic, we were walking down the beach and she asked me to marry her."
He added, "I did not know [she would propose], but she was quite adamant and she was right. This is the best choice I ever made."
Joshua Jackson Reveals Jodie Turner-Smith Proposed To Him
Jodie received quite a bit of flack for proposing to Joshua because it goes against tradition and what society sees as acceptable for a woman to do to a man, and proposing isn't one of them. No matter how much time has passed, the viewpoints around who should do the proposing and who should be proposed to are still very traditional.
After being on the receiving end of such backlash, Joshua would later clarify to the media in a separate interview that it wasn't just Jodie's proposal to him that sealed the deal of them getting married, he proposed to her too. She might have initiated it, but Joshua followed through.
"I accidentally threw my wife under the bus because that story was told quickly and it didn't give the full context and holy Jesus, the internet is racist and misogynist," he explained to Refinery29 that same year. "We were in Nicaragua on a beautiful moonlit night, it could not possibly have been more romantic."
David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images
He continued, "And yes, my wife did propose to me and yes, I did say yes, but what I didn't say in that interview was there was a caveat, which is that I'm still old school enough that I said, 'This is a yes, but you have to give me the opportunity [to do it too].'"
"She has a biological father and a stepdad, who's the man who raised her. [I said], 'You have to give me the opportunity to ask both of those men for your hand in marriage.' And then, 'I would like the opportunity to re-propose to you and do it the old-fashioned way down on bended knee.' So, that's actually how the story ended up."
Joshua and Jodie would eventually marry in December 2019. Shortly thereafter, Jodie gave birth to the couple's first child, Janie, in 2020.
In a recent interview with Elle UK, Jodie shared the ways becoming a mother to Juno helped to heal her of her wounds from colorism she experienced in the past. "It's interesting because I had a lot of resistance to becoming a mother and, throughout my life, I always said if I were to have children, I wanted to have Black, Black babies so that I could affirm them as children with the love that I felt I needed to have been affirmed with by the outside world," Jodie shared with the outlet.
She continued, "Then I fell in love with my husband and we talked about having kids. I did have this mini pause, where I was like, 'She's going to be walking through the world not only having an experience that I did not have, but looking like people that, in a way, I'd always felt a little bit tormented by.' Now that I've got this little, tiny, light-skinned boss, I feel like it’s the universe teaching me lessons. I've been given a daughter who looks this way to heal my own conversations around colorism."
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Featured image by Amy Sussman/Getty Images