You know what? I come to you today not as a professional on relationships but as an extraordinary single woman with a huge celebrity crush on SZA and mid-twenties dating experience. I was quite happy to see the discussion following a video posted on my mothership's Instagram where the R&B superstar was seen commenting on relationships, expectations, and entitlement. She shared in this dated video that if she doesn't hear from a man that she is seeing for days, she chooses to put her ego aside and focus on his positive attributes as she waits for a response:
"If someone doesn't text me back in like a day and a half. Like if I don't hear from a dude that I've been talking to consistently in like two days, the normal ego-based me would be like, 'What are you doing? You don't care about me. Like, you don't think this is rude?' But it's like, no, I think this is rude. I miss him. I want to be talked to. But does this change the fact - what do I know of him? He's expressed the fact that he likes me, he's expressed he thinks I'm beautiful, he's expressed he's thinking of me. What else do I know about him? He's ambitious and work-oriented...
"Chances are, he's probably just busy or has a lot on his mind, wait a couple of days. Then he ends up hitting you anyway later on. But the entitlement of feeling like, 'This n*gga got 15 minutes...' Things like that, that's what kills relationships or what kills your joy in life because you're expecting too much."
Admittedly, at first, I was shocked to see my melanin queen speak such words, but that changed to gratitude when I realized I was watching a woman who inspires me so much be open-minded and open-hearted enough to share her experiences of her love life at the time. That is what makes her songs "Drew Barrymore" and "The Weekend" so relatable because, at one point or another, even if only in our heads, we have all been that girl that thought less of ourselves and therefore settled for less. The video itself seemed to be a testament to how much SZA has grown into the goddess that we see today, and it made me proud to see the same girl in the video who is confusing having standards with entitlement now singing, "I left a n*gga on read cuz' I felt like it."
If she likes it, I love it. Personally however, I am a woman that gets off on daily communication with someone I am dating so, following the virality of the conversation, I like many women were left questioning if our expectations in dating are too high? I even asked myself if the fact that I had dating standards meant that I was entitled.
Ultimately, I decided the answer to those questions is a resounding hell no. We are more than entitled to our own individual standards. In fact, that's the point of having standards. We live in a world where you can literally send voice messages when you don't have time to hold a conversation and if a man thinks I'm going to take him seriously communicating with me like it's 2005 on AIM chat messenger waiting for him to come home and log in for days, he got me f*cked up!
I haven't always been this sure about myself though, and sometimes I still have my moments of self-doubt. If you are unsure if your standards are too high, try pondering these questions:
What is it that you truly want to find in a relationship at this very moment?
This is crucial because sometimes we catch ourselves in a season when our bodies are screaming for some d*ck, while our heart wants us to be cuddled at night, and our minds know we still have some healing to do. The clearer you are about what type of relationship you want to enter into your life, the easier it is to manifest and to look across the table at that fine, educated, and charming young man to size him up and put him through the vetting process.
Most importantly, the more you know what you really want out of a relationship, the easier it is to communicate them as your expectations early on and a man can either meet them or be weeded out if he doesn't.
You are not entitled to every man treating you the way you desire to be treated, but you are entitled to date until you find one who does.
What truly scares you about asking for/expressing your expectations?
I ask this because I have more often than not been that girl that would play nice, be easy-going, and sell myself short in situations in an attempt to not be difficult because I was so afraid of rejection and abandonment. Thinking that my desires to be treated with high regards would send a man running for the hills, I'd become the 'homie lover friend' before I expressed my desire to be treated like the queen that I am. It all stems from the lack of confidence that I struggle with. Figure out your fears around expressing your desires and work on strengthening yourself by understanding you are worthy of the same love you try to give to everyone else.
What are you undervaluing about him and overvaluing about yourself?
I believe when you start listing the great qualities in a man as if he is the latest model of a vacuum cleaner, it's not even about him, it's about you bargaining with that gut feeling you are having, which is: "I desire more than he has shown me he is willing to give at this point, and this is unhealthy."
You don't have to settle for less than you deserve, no matter how fine and driven he is, there is a lil' baby out there that is going to listen, boo! His potential to be great does not outweigh your right to have your greatness valued and appreciated.
You are the prize.
Do you believe that a man whose love you don’t have to hustle for exists?
One of my favorite writers (who is also a contributor for this site) Shellie R. Warren recently made a point that "an unsure man is a dangerous man" and I think an uncertain woman is a danger to herself because if you do not stand for something, you will fall for anything. If you do not believe you are worthy of a love that will not have you tossing and turning at night with your cell phone by your pillowcase, or typing up long ass paragraphs, deleting them, and then typing them again, that's the biggest issue of them all that will lead you to struggle love.
There is too much love out here to be settling for knock-offs.
Let this be the last year that you wonder if you are good enough or asking too much from a man, and instead, focus on if he is good enough and doing enough to deserve the love you have to give.
xoNecole is always looking for new voices and empowering stories to add to our platform. If you have an interesting story or personal essay that you'd love to share, we'd love to hear from you. Contact us at submissions@xonecole.com
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Amber Riley has the type of laugh that sticks with you long after the raspy, rhythmic sounds have ceased. It punctuates her sentences sometimes, whether she’s giving a chuckle to denote the serious nature of something she just said or throwing her head back in rip-roarious laughter after a joke. She laughs as if she understands the fragility of each minute. She chooses laughter often with the understanding that future joy is not guaranteed.
Credit: Ally Green
The sound of her laughter is rivaled only by her singing voice, an emblem of the past and the future resilience of Black women stretched over a few octaves. On Fox’s Glee, her character Mercedes Jones was portrayed, perhaps unfairly, as the vocal duel to Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), offering rough, full-throated belts behind her co-star’s smooth, pristine vocals. Riley’s always been more than the singer who could deliver a finishing note, though.
Portraying Effie White, she displayed the dynamic emotions of a song such as “And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going” in Dreamgirls on London’s West End without buckling under the historic weight of her predecessors. With her instrument, John Mayer’s “Gravity” became a religious experience, a belted hymnal full of growls and churchy riffs. In her voice, Nicole Scherzinger once said she heard “the power of God.”
Credit: Ally Green
Riley’s voice has been a staple throughout pop culture for nearly 15 years now. Her tone has become so distinguishable that most viewers of Fox’s The Masked Singer recognized the multihyphenate even before it was revealed that she was Harp, the competition-winning, gold-masked figure with an actual harp strapped to her back.
Still, it wasn’t until recently that Riley began to feel like she’d found her voice. This sounds unbelievable. But she’s not referring to the one she uses on stage. She’s referencing the voice that speaks to who she is at her core. “Therapy kind of gave me the training to speak my mind,” the 37-year-old says. “It’s not something we’re taught, especially as Black women. I got so comfortable in [doing so], and I really want other people, especially Black women, to get more comfortable in that space.”
“Therapy kind of gave me the training to speak my mind. It’s not something we’re taught, especially as Black women."
If you ask Riley’s manager, Myisha Brooks, she’ll tell you the foundation of who the multihyphenate is hasn’t changed much since she was a kid growing up in Compton. “She is who she is from when I met her back when she was singing in the front of the church to back when she landed major roles in film and TV,” Brooks says. Time has allowed Riley to grow more comfortable, giving fans a more intimate glimpse into her life, including her mental health journey and the ins and outs of show business.
The actress/singer has been in therapy since 2019, although she suffered from depression and anxiety way before that. In a recent interview with Jason Lee, she recalls having suicidal ideation as a kid. By the time she started seeing a psychologist and taking antidepressants in her thirties, her body had become jittery, a physical reminder of the trauma stacked high inside her. “I was shaking in [my therapist’s] office,” she tells xoNecole. “My fight or flight was on such a high level. I was constantly in survival mode. My heart was beating fast all the time. All I did was sweat.”
There wasn’t just childhood trauma to account for. After auditioning for American Idol and being turned away by producers, Riley began working for Ikea and nearly missed her Glee audition because her car broke down on the highway while en route. Thankfully, Riley had been cast to play Mercedes Jones. American Idol had temporarily convinced her she wasn’t cut out for the entertainment industry, but this was validation that she was right where she belonged. Glee launched in 2009 with the promise of becoming Riley’s big break.
In some ways, it was. The show introduced Riley to millions of fans and catapulted her into major Hollywood circles. But in other ways, it became a reminder of the types of roles Black women, especially those who are plus-sized, are relegated to. Behind the scenes, Riley says she fought for her character "to have a voice" but eventually realized her efforts were useless. "It finally got to a point where I was like, this is not my moment. I'm not who they're choosing, and this is just going to have to be a job for me for now," she says. "And, that's okay because it pays my bills, I still get to be on television, I'm doing more than any other Black plus-sized women that I'm seeing right now on screen."
The actress can recognize now that she was navigating issues associated with trauma and low self-esteem at the time. She now knows that she's long had anxiety and depression and can recognize the ways in which she was triggered by how the cult-like following of the show conflicted with her individual, isolated experiences behind the scenes. But she was in her early '20s back then. She didn't yet have the language or the tools to process how she was feeling.
Riley says she eventually sought out medical intervention. "When you're in Hollywood, and you go to a doctor, they give you pills," she says, sharing a part of her story that she'd never revealed publicly before now. "[I was] on medication and developing a habit of medicating to numb, not understanding I was developing an addiction to something that's not fixing my problem. If anything, it's making it worse."
“[I was] on medication and developing a habit of medicating to numb, not understanding I was developing an addiction to something that’s not fixing my problem. If anything it’s making it worse.”
Credit: Ally Green
At one point, while in her dressing room on set, she rested her arm on a curling iron without realizing it. It wasn't until her makeup artist alerted her that she even realized her skin was burning. Once she noticed, she says she was "so zonked out on pills" that she barely reacted. Speaking today, she holds up her arm and motions towards a scar that remains from the incident. She sought help for her reliance on the pills, but it would still be years before she finally attended therapy.
This stress was only compounded by the trauma of growing up in poverty and the realities of being a "contract worker." "Imagine going from literally one week having to borrow a car to get to set to the next week being on a private jet to New York City," she says. After Glee ended, so did the rides on private planes. The fury of opportunities she expected to follow her appearance on the show failed to materialize. She wasn't even 30 yet, and she was already forced to consider if she'd hit her career peak.
. . .
We’re only four minutes into our Zoom call before Riley delivers her new adage to me. “My new mantra is ‘humility does not serve me.’ Humility does not serve Black women. The world works so hard to humble us anyway,” she says.
On this Thursday afternoon in April, the LA-based entertainer is seated inside her closet/dressing room wearing a cerulean blue tank top with matching shorts and eating hot wings. This current phase of healing hinges on balance. It’s about having discipline and consistency, but not at the risk of inflexibility. She was planning to head to the gym, for instance, but she’s still tired from the “exhausting” day before. Instead, she’s spent her day receiving a massage, eating some chicken wings, and planning to spend quality time with friends. “I’m not going to beat myself up for it. I’m not going to talk down to myself. I’m going to eat my chicken wings, and then tomorrow I’m [back] in the gym,” she says.
“My new mantra is ‘humility does not serve me.’ Humility does not serve Black women. The world works so hard to humble us anyway."
This is the balance with which she's been approaching much of her life these days. It's why she's worried less about whether or not people see her as someone who is humble. She'd rather be respected. "I think you should be a person that's easy to work with, but in the moments where I have to ruffle feathers and make waves, I'm not shying away from that anymore. You can do it in love, you don't have to be nasty about it, but I had to finally be comfortable with the fact that setting boundaries around my life – in whatever aspect, whether that's personal or business – people are not going to like it. Some people are not going to have nice things to say about you, and you gotta be okay with it," she says.
When Amber talks about the constant humbling of Black women in Hollywood, I think of the entertainers before her who have suffered from this. The brilliant, consistent, overqualified Black women who have spoken of having to fight for opportunities and fair pay. Aretha Franklin. Viola Davis. Tracee Ellis Ross. There's a long list of stars whose success hasn't mirrored their experiences behind the scenes.
Credit: Ally Green
If Black women outside of Hollywood are struggling to decrease the pay gap, so, too, are their wealthier, more famous peers.
Riley says there’s been progress in recent years, but only in small ways and for a limited group of people. “This business is exhausting. The goalpost is constantly moving, and sometimes it’s unfair,” she says. But, I have to say it’s the love that keeps you going.”
“There’s no way you can continue to be in this business and not love it, especially being a plus-sized Black woman,” she continues. “We’re still niche. We’re still not main characters.”
"There’s no way you can continue to be in this business and not love it, especially being a plus-sized Black woman. We’re still niche. We’re still not main characters.”
Last year, Riley starred alongside Raven Goodwin in the Lifetime thriller Single Black Female (a modern, diversified take on 1992’s Single White Female). It was more than a leading role for the actress, it also served as proof that someone who looks like her can front a successful project without it hinging on her identity. It showcased that the characters she portrays don’t “have to be about being a big girl. It can just be a regular story.”
Riley sees her work in music as an extension of her efforts to push past the rigid stereotypes in entertainment. Take her appearance on The Masked Singer, for instance. Riley said she decided to perform Mayer’s “Gravity” after being told she couldn’t sing it years earlier. “I wanted to do ‘Gravity’ on Glee. [I] was told no, because that’s not a song that Mercedes would do,” she says. “That was a full circle moment for me, doing that on that show and to hear what it is they had to say.”
As Scherzinger praised the “anointed” performance, a masked Riley began to cry, her chest heaving as she stood on stage, her eyes shielded from view. “You have to understand, I have really big names – casting directors, producers, show creators – that constantly tell me ‘I’m such a big fan. Your talent is unmatched.’ Hire me, then,” she says, reflecting on the moment.
Recently, she’s been in the studio working on original music, the follow-up to her independently-released debut EP, 2020’s Riley. The sequel to songs such as the anthemic “Big Girl Energy” and the reflective ballad “A Moment” on Riley, this new project hones in on the singer’s R&B roots with sensual grooves such as the tentatively titled “All Night.” “You said I wasn’t shit, turns out that I’m the shit. Then you called me a bitch, turns out that I’m that bitch. You said no one would want me, well you should call your homies,” she sings on the tentatively titled “Lately,” a cut about reflecting on a past relationship. From the forthcoming project, xoNecole received five potential tracks. Fans likely already know the strengths and contours of Riley’s vocals, but these new songs are her strongest, most confident offerings as an artist.
“I am so much more comfortable as a writer, and I know who I am as an artist now. I’m evolving as a human being, in general, so I’m way more vulnerable in my music. I’m way more willing to talk about whatever is on my mind. I don’t stop myself from saying what it is I want to say,” she says.
Credit: Ally Green
“Every era and alliteration of Amber, the baseline is ‘Big Girl Energy.’ That’s the name of her company,” her manager Brooks says, referencing the imprint through which Riley releases her music after getting out of a label deal several years ago. “It’s just what she stands for. She’s not just talking about size, it’s in all things. Whether it’s putting your big girl pants on and having to face a boardroom full of executives or sell yourself in front of a casting agent. It’s her trying to achieve the things she wants to do in life.”
Riley says she has big dreams beyond releasing this new music, too. She’d love to star in a rom-com with Winston Duke. She hasn't starred in a biopic yet, but she’d revel in the opportunity to portray Rosetta Tharpe on screen. She’s determined that her previous setbacks won’t stop her from dreaming big.
“I think one of my superpowers is resilience because, at the end of the day, I’m going to kick, scream, cry, cuss, be mad and disappointed, but I’m going to get up and risk having to deal with it all again. It’s worth it for the happy moments,” she says.
If Riley seems more comfortable and confident professionally, it’s because of the work she’s been doing in her personal life.
She’d previously spoken to xoNecole about becoming engaged to a man she discovered in a post on the site, but she called things off last year. For Valentine’s Day, she revealed her new boyfriend publicly. “I decided to post him on Valentine’s Day, partially because I was in the dog house. I got in trouble with him,” she says, half-joking before turning serious. “The breakup was never going to stop me from finding love. Or at least trying. I don’t owe anybody a happily ever after. People break up. It happens. When it was good, it was good. When it was bad, it was terrible, hunny. I had to get the fuck up out of there. You find happiness, and you enjoy it and work through it.”
Credit: Ally Green
"I don’t owe anybody a happily ever after. People break up. It happens. When it was good, it was good. When it was bad, it was terrible, hunny. I had to get the fuck up out of there. You find happiness and you enjoy it and work through it.”
With her ex, Riley was pretty outspoken about her relationship, even appearing in content for Netflix with him. This time around is different. She’s not hiding her boyfriend of eight months, but she’s more protective of him, especially because he’s a father and isn’t interested in becoming a public figure.
She’s traveling more, too. It’s a deliberate effort on her part to enjoy her money and reject the trauma she’s developed after experiencing poverty in her childhood. “I live in constant fear of being broke. I don’t think you ever don’t remember that trauma or move past that. Now I travel and I’m like, listen, if it goes, it goes. I’m not saying [to] be reckless, but I deserve to enjoy my hard work.”
After everything she’s been through, she certainly deserves to finally let loose a bit. “I have to have a life to live,” she says. “I’ve got to have a life worth fighting for.”
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Singer/actress Amber Riley brings the same emotional vulnerability to her art as she does her life—and we are all better for it. The former Glee star and Masked Singer winner opened up about her love life in her recent xoNecole digital cover story, revealing what it took to find the strength to end her engagement and, eventually, find love again.
Credit: Ally Green
Riley first met her ex-fiancé Desean Black, through an xoNecole #MCM post, which prompted her to slide into his DMs and make the first move. After going public as a couple and even appearing together on Netflix's Love That For Us series, Riley and Black decided to call off their engagement. Riley, for the most part, had been mum on the reason behind the split but shared exclusively with xoNecole what led to them ultimately parting ways.
