From Reality TV Star To Executive Producer: Joseline Hernandez’s Career Pivot Is One To Watch
Whether you like it or not, Joseline Hernandez is here to stay. For nearly a decade, the self-proclaimed Puerto Rican Princess has claimed her throne as reality TV royalty, captivating viewers with her on-screen antics and infectious off-screen persona. Since parting ways from her veteran-run on VH1's acclaimed show, Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta, Joseline has since transitioned into running a show of her own, launching season 2 of her highly anticipated production, Joseline's Cabaret on Zeus Network.
Since its premiere, the controversial, high-action series has garnered a groundswell of online attention from its instant-viral moments. Following the shocking "Double Homicide" comment, along with Joseline's recent appearance on the Wendy Williams Show where she self-advocated for more respect on her name, the show displays all the qualities of must-watch TV.
Courtesy of Joseline Hernandez
Joseline's latest endeavors mark a pivot in her long-standing career, highlighting her ability to turn her past hurdles as a teen-runaway turned stripper — to now mother, fiance, and showrunner — as a feat worth celebrating. Although her path has been unconventional, it's one that's been carved out by resilience and a whole lot of hustle; and she doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon.
For xoNecole, Joseline spoke candidly about what to expect from the new season of her hit show, Joseline's Cabaret, why she's making space for women in the sex work industry, and how she's taking her career back into her own hands.
xoNecole: You've been open about your childhood and being a runaway at just 14 years old. Looking back, how did being independent at such a young age help you become the woman you are today?
Joseline Hernandez: How I started out life was so dramatic, it made me want to figure out a way to cut that tail. You're like, "I don't want to be here, I have to figure out what I want to do with my life." When I was 21-22, I figured out that I wanted to do something like Joseline's Cabaret. I used to be a stripper, I always wanted to entertain. When I was 21, I realized, "I can entertain, I'm about to do this." I didn't have it easy like Beyoncé or Rihanna or any of the other girls who had help from their parents. I did it all by myself.
When you're 21, you're still a teenager. People think you're grown but you're not. Me not having help and having to struggle, I said to myself, "One day, you're gonna be somebody, you're gonna make it. Those dreams that you had as a child, you didn't forget them, and since you didn't forget them, you must fight to get them." And that's what I did.
That's why I think I was able to break the spell for me and my daughter. Moving forward in life and carrying that torch, I was able to do it for my last name and for my family's blood, Hernandez, and I was able to change the future. It came with a lot of pain and suffering, but I made it happen.
"I said to myself, 'One day, you're gonna be somebody, you're gonna make it. Those dreams that you had as a child, you didn't forget them, and since you didn't forget them, you must fight to get them.' And that's what I did."
Courtesy of Joseline Hernandez
Instead of being a victim of your circumstance you’ve been victorious in shifting your story. What was the shift in your mindset that you hope to pass down to the women in your Cabaret?
JH: It's always a decision that's going to make you a better person. I always make a decision to stop doing something that's not good for me, and I never go back. For the ladies at the Cabaret, they really have to make sure that what they do moving forward, is the best decision. And that's how you're going to become great: it's always that one decision that's going to take you to the next level.
Could you take us through the moment when you decided you wanted to make the pivot from 'Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta' to create and executive produce a show of your own?
JH: When you're working for another person for a few years, you realize that everything you were giving to that person, you can give it to yourself. I stayed with LAHHA for six years, but there came a point where I was like, "I'm a mother, it's time for me to do something for myself. What can do that's going to change everything in my life and my daughter's future?" And that was to finally create my passion which was Joseline's Cabaret. To finally put that together was all I ever wanted. I felt like I didn't need to keep doing LAHHA because I needed to do something for me.
Courtesy of Joseline Hernandez
You’ve gone from being the star talent on 'LAHHA' to being the producer of your own show. Is there anything that you gleaned during your time working with Mona Scott Young that you aim to do differently in your own productions?
JH: What makes me different is that the ladies know who I am and I know who they are. I don't have to do fake and phony stuff because I know what's real. I really didn't have to produce any of the ladies this season, because they know what they came to do. It's a competition, four ladies get to perform at the Cabaret and get $10,000, so there's no production there. Everyone has their own energy and their own attitude. And I think that's what makes me different, I don't have to lie to kick it.
Courtesy of Joseline Hernandez
There is a lot of discussion around positive representation for Black women and WOC on reality TV, what do you say to folks who may not fully see the vision behind ‘Joseline’s Cabaret’ in helping these ladies make a positive change in their lives?
JH: By the end of the season, they'll understand the whole purpose. I'm just putting the show together, I can't tell the ladies how to act. You can't produce 20 fights in one night, nobody's that lucky. This is real life, it's organic. I can be kumbaya all day, but they're gonna do what they're gonna do and I gotta let them rock. The first whole week, the ladies were going crazy, but I got them together. So it gets better.
You say that if you didn’t have your daughter, Bonnie Bella, that you wouldn’t be the woman you are today if it wasn’t for her. In what ways has motherhood changed you?
JH: When you have a baby, you want them to be strong, smart, and healthy. When you put your focus into that, it makes you a better person. Becoming a mother allowed me to become the best version of myself. When you bring somebody into the world you want to be the best version of yourself so you can teach them everything you didn't learn.
For new episodes of Joseline's Cabaret, tune in every Sunday on Zeus Network. Follow Joseline Hernandez @joseline.
Featured image courtesy of Joseline Hernandez
Aley Arion is a writer and digital storyteller from the South, currently living in sunny Los Angeles. Her site, yagirlaley.com, serves as a digital diary to document personal essays, cultural commentary, and her insights into the Black Millennial experience. Follow her at @yagirlaley on all platforms!
The Reality Of Living With Severe Asthma – As Told by 2 Women On Their Disease Journey
This post is in partnership with Amgen.
The seemingly simple task of taking a breath is something most of us don’t think twice about. But for people who live with severe asthma, breathing does not always come easily. Asthma, a chronic respiratory condition that inflames and narrows the airways in the lungs, affects millions of people worldwide – 5-10% of which live with severe asthma. Severe asthma is a chronic and lifelong condition that is unpredictable and can be difficult to manage. Though often invisible to the rest of the world, severe asthma is a not-so-silent companion for those who live with it, often interrupting schedules and impacting day-to-day life.
Among the many individuals who battle severe asthma, Black women face a unique set of challenges. It's not uncommon for us to go years without a proper diagnosis, and finding the right treatment often requires some trial and error. Thankfully, all hope is not lost for those who may be fighting to get their severe asthma under control. We spoke with Juanita Brown Ingram, Esq. and Jania Watson, two inspiring Black women who have been living with severe asthma and have found strength, resilience, and a sense of purpose in their journeys.
Juanita Brown Ingram, Esq.
Juanita Ingram has a resume that would make anyone’s jaw drop. On top of being recently crowned Mrs. Universe, she’s also an accomplished attorney, filmmaker, and philanthropist. From the outside, it seems there’s nothing this talented woman won’t try, and likely succeed at. In her everyday life, however, Juanita exercises a lot more caution. From a young age, Juanita has struggled with severe asthma. Her symptoms were always exacerbated by common illnesses like a cold or flu. “I've heard these stories of my breathing struggles, but I remember distinctly when I was younger not being able to breathe every time I got a virus,” says Ingram. “I remember missing a lot of school and crying a lot because asthma is painful. I [was taken] to see my doctor often if I got sick with anything so I was hypervigilant as a child, and I still am.”
Today, Juanita says her symptoms are best managed when she’s working closely with her care team, avoiding getting sick and staying ahead of any symptoms. Ingram said she’s been blessed with skilled doctors who are just as vigilant of her symptoms as she is. While competing in the Mrs. Universe competition, Juanita took extra care to stay clear of other competitors to ensure she didn’t catch a cold or virus that would trigger her severe asthma. “I would stand off to the side and sometimes that could be taken as ‘oh, she thinks she's better than everybody else.’ But if I get sick during a pageant, I'm done. I had to compete with that in mind because my sickness doesn't look like everybody else's sickness.”
Even when her symptoms are under control, living with severe asthma still presents challenges. Juanita relies on her strong support system to overcome the hurdles caused by a lack of understanding from the public, “I think that there's a lot of lack of awareness about how serious severe asthma is. I would [also] tell women to advocate and to trust their intuition and not to allow someone to dismiss what you're experiencing.”
Jania Watson
Jania, a content creator from Atlanta, Georgia, has been living with severe asthma for many years. Thanks to early testing by asthma specialists, Jania was diagnosed with severe asthma as a child after experiencing frequent flare-ups and challenges in her day-to-day life. “I specifically remember, I was starting school, and we were moving into a new house. One of the triggers for me and my younger sister at the time were certain types of carpets. We had just moved into this new house and within weeks of us being there, my parents literally had to pay for all new carpet in the house.”
As Jania grew older, she was suffering from fewer flare-ups and thought her asthma was well under control. However, a trip back to her doctor during high school revealed that her severe asthma was affecting her more than she realized. “That was the first time in a long time I had to do a breathing test,” she describes. “The doctor had me take a deep breath in and blow into a machine to test my breathing. They told me to blow as hard as I could. And I was doing it. I was giving everything I got. [My dad and the doctor] were looking at me like ‘girl, stop playing.’ And at that point [it confirmed] I still have severe asthma because I've given it all I got. It doesn't really go away, but I just learned how to help manage it better.”
Jania recognizes that people who aren’t living with asthma, may not understand the disease and mistake it for something less serious. Or there could be others who think their symptoms are minor, and not worth bringing up. So, for Jania, communicating with others about her diagnosis is key. “Having severe asthma [flare-ups] in some cases looks very similar to being out of shape,” she said. “But this is a chronic illness that I was born with. This is just something that I live with that I've been dealing with. And I think it's important for people to know because that determines the next steps. [They might ask] ‘Do you need a bottle of water, or do you need an inhaler? Do you need to take a break, or do we need to take you to the hospital?’ So, I think letting the people around you know what's going on, just in case anything were to happen plays a lot into it as well.”
Like Juanita, Jania’s journey has been marked by ups and downs, but she remains an unwavering advocate for asthma awareness and support within the Black community. She hopes that her story can be an inspiration to other women with asthma who may not yet have their symptoms under control. “There's still life to be lived outside of having severe asthma. It is always going to be there, but it's not meant to stop you from living your life. That’s why learning how to manage it and also having that support system around you, is so important.”
By sharing their journeys, Juanita and Jania hope to encourage others to embrace their conditions, obtain a proper management plan from a doctor or asthma specialist like a pulmonologist or allergist, and contribute to the improvement of asthma awareness and support, not only within the Black community, but for all individuals living with severe asthma.
Read more stories from others like Juanita and Jania on Amgen.com, or visit Uncontrolled Asthma In Black Women | BREAK THE CYCLE to find support and resources.
Wanna feel old real quick…or at least ponder how fast time flies? In two years, the trilogy known asFifty Shades of Grey will be a whopping 10 years old. What in the world? I’ll admit, had it not been for an organization that I was working with at the time asking me to watch it (or was it suffer through? It’s a coin toss most days) so that I could talk about it on their podcast, I’d probably remain clueless about a lot of its content to this day.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t catch how much of a phenomenon it was for so many women at the time, though; especially white ones. Kinda wild how many ladies said that they hated the entire concept of submission, and yet they were all down to take it up about 10 notches with a certain Christian Grey…oh, but I digress.
Anyway, because you couldn’t go to really any website for a while without the topic of the book series or films coming up, I do remember that many sex experts decided to use all of the hype as an opportunity to get women to feel more comfortable with tapping into their sexual fantasies in order to intensify their sexual experiences. And that’s just what we’re gonna touch on today.
If orgasms are (currently) difficult for you or they aren’t as consistent as you would like (check out “Why Do Orgasms So Often Seem Like A ‘Hit-Or-Miss’ Experience For Women?”) one thing could help you to hit your goal — yep, fantasizing more. I’ll explain.
Never Underestimate Your Biggest Sex Organ
GiphyIsn’t it wild that, when it comes to looking for sex hacks that will help to improve our sex lives, the first thing that we usually think about is ways to stimulate our genitalia when the reality is that we should be prioritizing a part of the body that is much farther north than that? Even though I’m pretty sure that most of you have at least heard somewhere before that your biggest sex organ is your brain, how much do you focus on that fact in order to ultimately improve your sex life?
Maybe it’s because, although that point makes sense on the surface, you need a bit more intel on why that is actually the case. The reality is, there are several reasons. For one thing, when you have sex, it impacts your brain on a myriad of levels. It triggers a wealth of feel-good hormones. It lowers your stress and anxiety levels. It “turns on” different parts of your brain (females especially). It helps to treat depression. It even improves your cognitive function as you get older.
That alone is the reason why so many sex experts don’t find sex to be as “easily casual” as our culture would like to portray. For instance, I once read an article that featured an interview with a chief scientific adviser for Match.com (at least she was at the time the article was published). Her name is Helen Fisher, and she said that the way dopamine affects your brain during sex…let’s just say that it’s so powerful that she says (and I quote), “It’s not casual because when you have sex with somebody, and it’s pleasurable, it drives up the dopamine system in the brain. That can push you over the threshold into falling in love.”
Now, it’s another message for another time, what Albert Einstein once said about “falling in love” (“Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”) because loving someone follows a series of steps and choices. However, I think you get her overall point.
Just like oxytocin is considered to be a “love hormone” (a hormone that bonds you to another person during intimacy), dopamine ain’t nothin’ to play with either. And since science is pretty much unavoidable when it comes to sex, what all of this confirms (I could’ve given you more examples, but for the sake of time and space…) is your brain is all up in your sex life, like it or not.
And since your brain plays such a pivotal, powerful, and intricate role in intimacy, it makes all of the sense in the world why your fantasies would, too.
No, Your Fantasies Shouldn’t Bother You
GiphyA professor by the name of Mason Cooley once said, “Fantasy mirrors desire. Imagination reshapes it.” Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro once said, “There is art and beauty and power in the primal images of fantasy.” Author Nancy Friday once said, “Fantasy isn’t something that you run out of.” And just what is a fantasy? Probably the most basic way to define it is it’s your imagination when there are very little, if any, restraints put on it.
And when it comes to sexual fantasies, in general, what are some of the most popular ones?
- Voyeurism (watching people)
- Exhibitionism (being watched)
- Sex in public
- Role-playing
- Super over-the-top romantic sex
For the record, these are some of the most common ones, although publications like Women’s Health share many more (they have 30 of ‘em) that are pretty common too (you can check their list out here).
That said, if you can relate to any of these and a part of you is embarrassed, uncomfortable, or flat-out worried about when your mind has gone, most sex experts say that you shouldn’t be — especially when it comes to the five that I specifically mentioned. Just because you think up something, that doesn’t automatically mean that you’re going to act it out; again, fantasies are simply something that helps to fuel your imagination.
Fantasizing can also help to prevent boredom in the bedroom and even “trigger” your body to become more aroused and ready for coitus. And we all know that the more aroused we are before sex even transpires, the more likely it will be that sex will end with a “bang!” (pun intended and not intended…LOL). And that’s exactly why fantasizing can totally help you out in the orgasm department.
What You Should Do About Your Sexual Fantasies
GiphySo, now that you hopefully feel more at ease about the sexual fantasies that you’ve been having, how can you incorporate them into your sex life so that you can have more pleasurable and satisfying sex with your partner?
Share some of your fantasies with your partner and encourage them to do the same. Again, the greatest sex organ is your brain, so if you want to build trust and a stronger connection with the person who you’re having sex with, let them deeper inside of your thoughts. It will make you feel less vulnerable as you boost your own sexual self-confidence. Plus, it will help them to learn more about you. Don’t forget to let them do the same thing…for the same reasons.
Remember that fantasies are just that. I remember an episode of King of Queens where Doug shared with Carrie some of the women he fantasized about — random folks like her nail tech or one of his mom’s friends, and she damn near lost it. For the record, fantasizing about someone and lusting for them to the point of desiring them and then wanting to act on it can sometimes be a fine line (based on how strong your relationship is), yet more times than not, folks don’t even want to go through the steps make their fantasies come true. Why?
Well, for one thing, they don’t want to ruin what they have with their partner, and two — getting to know the person on that type of level would literally ruin the fantasy. Besides, don’t be out here acting like you haven’t thought about what it would be like to have sex with someone else. Besides, again, actually, hearing about each other’s thoughts in this way can also build trust because, if you both know and don’t spazz out, that makes it easier to share other innermost thoughts, needs, and ideas.
Create a “safe word.” As we end this, back to the movie that I referenced in the intro. If you did happen to stomach one or all three parts of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, you probably remember that Christian and Anastasia came up with safe words — these were words to let each other know when things were going from sexy to uncomfortable. That said, say that you want to actually try having sex in a movie theater or participating in some form of BDSM (which is also another popular fantasy), and you end up wanting to stop at some point. A safe word lets your partner know to immediately halt things so that you can process if you want to catch your breath and keep going or stop altogether.
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If you’ve read my content on here long and consistently enough, you know that it’s pretty normal for me to throw in a song for good measure. Today, “push play” on the throwback from Intro, “Come Inside.” Why? Well, there’s a part in there where the lead singer says, “I'm thinking about you/The last time we made love/And I fantasize/So many things that I dream of.” Let the song get you in the mood (‘cause if it won’t, I don’t know what will), pull out your phone, text your man a fantasy, ask him to share one in return, and I’d bet my next paycheck that it will already get you well on your way to some, let’s call them “heightened experiences”. #wink
Use your brain to tap into your sexual imagination.
Let it fuel the ride to some mind-blowing orgasms.
At the end of the day, that’s what sexual fantasies are designed to (ultimately) do, sis.
Enjoy…ENJOY.
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Featured image by Bob Thomas/Getty Images