I lived in Long Beach and I had a roommate
and she was British.
Big old thick yellow gal from London
and she looked like Sade but she was big and thick.
Tall and thick.
But she looked like Sade.
And she had that accent and she could literally talk
the pants off of any man and she was a hooker.
So I said.
I said mhm like that was just regular information.
Well back in the you know, them days being a hooker
was no big thing.
And so she was dating a comedian.
And, no, she was screwing a comedian
and then they fell in love and they started dating.
- Pretty Woman, comedy style. - The black style.
- Yeah. - Black version.
And I just be talking trash around the house
and he said you're really really funny.
If you ever wanted to do stand up comedy I run a club.
If you ever come down I'll let you on stage
and let you come in.
I'm like yo I don't wanna do no stand up fool,
I wanted to sing background for Luther.
'Cause I had got that Stop to Love video f**ked me up.
I was like I wanna sing behind Luther.
Delusion, that's what that,
before the weed got good you know.
But one night, just sitting on the patio,
me and my girlfriends, hot, you know Long Beach night.
And making them homemade margaritas and shit.
And I guess what he said stuck in my head.
I didn't really think of jokes.
I still don't tell jokes.
But some funny stuff had happened to me recently
and was on my mind.
And said you know maybe we go down this old club
and I'll you know tell this little story or whatever.
And how'd it go?
And we went down, I crushed it the very first time
I was on stage.
And then the minute I stepped off stage
I met a comedian who gave me his card.
And told me he said you's a funny little bitch.
And that was the late great Robin Harris.
Oh.
So that was the first comedian I ever met.
And he was sort of like my mentor to me.
I don't think he even knew how much he meant to me.
But, you know I've always identified with him.
Not being like traditional looking
and sort have a country type of swag.
And just being real regular and accessible.
So, and anyway that's you know basically how I got into
the shit. - Your first time basically.
Yeah, repressed memory shit I came up with.
So then from there you went,
ended up like performing on like Soul Beat.
Soul Beat Television Network in Oakland, California
was like BET.
But before BET.
Black owned, operated, television station.
- Only in LA?
- Only in the bay area.
Like Oakland, Berkeley, parts of San Francisco.
And it was black owned and operated
and this guy Chuck Johnson who was like,
you know the Robert Johnson of BET.
Chuck Johnson had been running stations for years.
And he had a station in Oakland and he just grabbed
some people that he thought would be great
and you know put 'em in commercials
and da da da, and then you start being a VJ
and you know just like on MTV.
And so I had many many shows,
met many many stars through my experience of working
at Soul Beat Television Network.
And I was, so that was probably before I ever left Oakland.
I was, you know this was back when nobody knew how
to program a VCR. - Right.
So nobody would leave the house until
after my show went off.
So you were famous in your hood.
I was already famous in Oakland
before I ever came to LA.
So I've never been affected by signing autographs,
taking pictures, I was doing that shit before I even
came to LA.
So you were there, you're famous in your hood,
and now you're like now it's time to go to LA.
Or were you like called to do something?
Or you were just like look I'm getting too big
for this location?
All of that.
All of that, I'd also just keep being like a hamster
on a wheel going around doing the same thing club,
same club, same club. - Yeah.
And actually I got married.
I met a dude, married him in 90 days.
I had had a kid.
What'd he do to convince you to marry him in 90 days?
Come on Luenell.
He fell in love with me.
That's what he did.
And nobody had ever loved me like my husband loved me.
And it's 19 years later and we still married.
Now we weren't together all that time.
You know them 19 years wasn't,
wasn't all in a row.
We had to take off for the restraining order years
and the incarcerations and the shit like that.
That makes sense.
You know a little absence makes the heart grow fonder.
But, I got married, and I had had a kid with another man.
And we was about, I was about to get evicted.
Wasn't my, my, my new husband's fault.
I was about to get evicted when he married me.
And I was like okay, so if I'm getting evicted out of here
I had an offer to come to LA to do this little janky
movie with Rerun back when Rerun was alive.
And they said if you come out here and finish this movie
I'll give you guys a place to stay.
So my baby daddy said you know go to LA.
But don't go down in that bullshit
and I'll keep the baby.
So me and my husband came to LA
and we stayed various places like that place that they
gave us to stay.
And they were squatting in that motherfucker.
We had to get out of there like why are the,
why are the police here?
Oh they, after it was over y'all was trying to stay?
No, we, no the dude who told us to come and stay.
- Oh and it wasn't legit? - No, he wasn't legit either.
And then I was just saying as we were sitting there
and I'm looking down on Sunset Boulevard
at that Denny's right down there
and I literally me and my husband used to literally sleep
in the car in that parking lot right there.
I used to wake up and brush my teeth in the bathroom
in that Denny's right there.
When we didn't have nowhere to stay,
you know 'cause if you don't have a job.
And you get a job take two weeks before you get a check.
So you can't even get a motel till you got the money.
And you know the shit was just crazy
and everybody.
People won't do for you when you got a husband.
They be like what that n**** doing?
You know so.
We was there for a while.
And right, used to look,
this ain't nothing but a testament that I got,
good God is that I used to sleep right there
and I'm over here doing the interview across the street.