(ducks quacking)
- I sometimes wish I was a spontaneous person.
I am on live TV.
Oh, no! - Ohhhhhh!
- You kidding me?
But with this novel,
I perhaps was the most spontaneous,
outside of when I moved in with my husband
three weeks after meeting.
- Oh, boy.
- And so, there was that.
(upbeat music)
- Tamron Hall has been a respected journalist
for nearly three decades.
But it was when she became the first black female co-host
of "The Today Show" in 2014,
that she became a household name.
And after a highly publicized exit from the show in 2017,
she took the time to build and launch her own
self-titled talk show.
Now, after a 2020 Emmy win
for outstanding informative talk show host,
Hall is adding the title of author to her resume
with "As The Wicked Watch",
revealing a story that's extremely personal to her,
in more ways than one.
I met up with her during a break from filming her show
in Central Park, New York.
How long we wanted to write for
and why was now the right time to do it?
- Wow.
So the story, the two stories that inspire this novel,
happened in 1997.
I was a reporter in the same year in Dallas,
and then I moved on to Chicago.
In Dallas, there was an 11 year old girl who was murdered,
who happened to be white.
In Chicago, an 11 year old girl murdered African-American
and experiencing those stories as a reporter,
as a woman, as a human,
greatly impacted me.
So they were...
It was all inside, right?
And I needed this character to deal with
some of those things.
I wanted to put her in these situations
and see how I could flesh it out with her.
Almost like an alter ego, but not.
She's about, I don't know,
40% Tamron.
I was a participant.
I was also a witness.
And I wanted her to benefit from some of that.
So I needed her not to be Tamron.
I needed her to truly be this character.
- Was there some catharsis in awaiting her,
thinking back to your career?
- Absolutely.
The cases I covered in 1997 were prior to me
losing my sister.
And seeing the pain in my father's eye
and knowing what I had to heal within myself.
And we talk about this even on my show,
how we've pushed things down to move forward.
But at some point, these things will have to be dealt with.
The trauma of the world shutting down
and what we all witness.
So we're surviving right now.
But what happens when we finally have a moment
to process it?
And so for me, the pandemic gave me a moment
to process what I had experienced as a reporter,
and also what I had experienced as a family member
of someone whose life was cut short because of violence.
- You left "The Today Show" in 2017,
the transition from there to where you are now,
definitely doesn't sound like an easy one, right?
I think people presume doors just open,
but what did you kind of learn during that process,
of leaving one show to kind of start this new chapter?
- You know, I learned the importance of speaking up
for yourself in rooms where you clearly see there's doubt,
right?
I was pitching the show to a number of networks,
and studios, and I could see they like me,
or respected my decision to leave "The Today Show",
but a talk show with her name,
that might be a bridge too far.
Finding the confidence to promote yourself, right?
Is very difficult.
And I learned the art of really being a salesman
and a representative for myself
and what I had accomplished.
And being confident in articulating that
and tying it into what I felt was a brand worth betting on.
- Making the show you were there from the ground up,
you know, you're putting something into the world
that is unmistakably you.
What did you learn during that process
or what did you kind of figure out about yourself
during that?
- Oh, you know,
I looked at all the shows that I'd done over the years.
At one point in time,
I had five shows on seven different networks,
TLC, Investigation Discovery,
MSNBC, NBC,
and now so many.
Now I can't even remember the fifth.
But I thought to myself, how do I pull in this grass roots,
you know, show,
and how do I make it a grassroots effort
to bring in people from all sides?
I would be the branch,
but the branches are the members
of these different audiences.
And that was something that I studied
and really invested in and doubled down.
Almost like a presidential campaign.
I'm trying to build a coalition.
- This is something relatively new to you.
You write all the time.
But this style of writing that, you know,
when you're a little scared maybe to do something,
or just haven't done it before.
How do you kind of build up
that confidence to just go for it?
- I think you go for it.
- Right?
- I think if you overthink it, you defeat confidence.
I mean think about how many things you've done,
or how many things we've witnessed people create,
that if they took a beat more,
they would have talked themselves out of it,
or others would talk you out of it.
And I didn't share with a lot of people,
they knew I was writing a book.
I think most people assumed a memoir.
Most did not know it was a novel and certainly not a series.
- Yeah.
- They would have talked me out of it, perhaps.
I don't know.
Or I would have talked myself out of it.
- This is Lena Hone.
The Hollywood legend at old building.
Now you have a special connection with her, right?
Like tell me a little bit - Yes.
- About why she inspired you.
- Well, right when I joined "The Today Show",
when I became the first black woman to co-host
the week day today show,
Lena Horn's family put her items up for auction.
And I was lucky enough to get one of her jackets.
And it meant the world to me because what she represented
for me, and my culture,
and African-American history, American history,
it was tremendous.
And so when I signed my contract to join "The Today Show",
I felt it was appropriate to wear something from her legacy.
Because at the end of the day,
I represent that legacy without ever having met her.
I'm her legacy.
- What maybe is like one very specific lesson
that you kind of learned from her career
or how she just managed her own career
that you took into your own?
- Great perseverance at that time.
And we even see it now.
She faced discrimination in Hollywood.
What does a lead look like?
And she persevered.
She was versatile from acting, to music,
to style, everything about her scream to me,
don't settle for one lane.
And that's why the talk show, me writing the book,
all of these things that I've dipped my toe in.
When people say to me, "Oh, my gosh.
How do you have time for all of it?"
I don't, but I make time.
Because if I am going to carry that legacy,
I'll have to do exactly what she did.
Not allow the world to put me in one lane
and reach out and do new things.
- You have the talk show.
Now you have the book that's come out.
It feels as if you are re-introducing yourself
in a lot of ways.
Where do you kind of want to go?
You know.
Where's next step for you?
- It's amazing, I'm 51.
And I have young women, and men,
coming to me all the time asking for advice.
And, I'm getting emotional when I think about it.
I revel in it now.
And I just want to soak up this moment
and discover more about myself as a leader,
not just a leader of the show, but a leader in my community.
And I see community is everyone.
I see everyone around me.
When I say Tam-Fam, I mean that.
I see everyone as a part of my tribe.
I just want to be a voice of leadership
in the tribe of humanity.
And with that, I don't know where it goes.
I know I have the second book in this series.
I have this talk show, but what I will do next,
likely will come to me in the middle of the night,
when I'm half sleep, as this book did.
And I will grab my phone, and hit voice memo,
and it will come out of me.
And I'm excited to see it.
But I think for once in my life,
I just wanna live in the garden that I've grown
and enjoy it.
(uplifting piano)