Eve has gone through a genuinely jaw-dropping transformation over the years. From rapping
with one of the most prolific crews of all time to co-hosting The Talk, she's done it
all. Keep watching to witness the story of someone who never stops chasing after her
dreams.
Eve Jeffers was born on November 10, 1978 in Philadelphia, to 17-year-old high school
senior Julie Wilch. The new mom thought that her daughter had such a strong presence, even
as a baby, which is why she thought the name of "Eve" matched her perfectly.
Eve grew up in public housing, which she hated. She knew from an early age that she wanted
more for herself. With her father not really in the picture, life was hard. But her mom
carried the weight of being a single parent with strength and pride. Childhood friends
described Eve as wanting to be just like her mother. In an interview with Financial Times,
she described her mother as her mentor, noting,
"She was adamant about me being independent. She was the woman I wanted to grow up to be."
So Eve imitated her mother's strength until it became real.
As a youngster, Eve encapsulated not just her mother's strength but also her fearlessness.
She had a booming personality that would sometimes get her in trouble. On the VH1 docuseries
Driven, Janis Cash, one of Eve's middle school teachers, recalled a time when Eve's mom was
called in because 12-year-old Eve just would not stop talking. So twenty minutes later,
Mom was at the school with masking tape to put on her daughter's mouth.
Eve might've been a bit too high-energy during school, but she also found less disruptive
outlets outside the classroom, as she let her imagination loose on paper by writing
songs and raps. She eventually joined her first rap group called Dope Girl Posse. They
performed everywhere: on the street, in class, at house parties, and even on the radio. But
to their dismay, Eve eventually moved to the Germantown neighborhood area of Philly, which
forced the crew to break up. When she was in 10th grade at Martin Luther King High School,
she formed a new female rap group. This time it was a duo called EDJP. That group also
eventually disbanded, but Eve continued to sharpen her skills by battle rapping anyone
willing to step into the ring. It didn't matter if the battles were in school hallways or
on a crowded street corner.
"I was a battle rapper. I wanted to go up against all the guys, in every cypher, on
every corner. Like, I've always been a tomboy. I did what I had to do. I proved to y'all."
By the time Eve entered high school, she had tunnel vision for the music industry. Books
and homework were the last thing on her checklist, if they were even there at all. School just
didn't pique her interest any more. In those years, she rebelled hard. As her childhood
friend LaRonda Braxton put it on Driven,
"She was determined that at that point that she wasn't going to live up to nobody's expectations
of her. She was going to do what Eve wanted to do."
Eve had been a good student up until then, but she ended up abandoning her high marks
for a chance in the spotlight. As she told the Financial Times,
"I did every talent show in our city. I would pawn little things I had to get a bus ticket
to go to New York City to see if I could see any execs. I was very determined."
She added,
"I loved school. I always loved words — English was my favorite class. But I barely made it
out of high school — I'd made the decision I wanted to be in the music business. A lot
of my education was outside of school, writing beats in a friend's bedroom."
Alas, Eve's hopes of being discovered by the time she graduated high school didn't quite
pan out. She was now fully independent from the strings of a legally required education,
but she was also beginning to doubt her rapping abilities. She frequently traveled between
New York and Philadelphia to no avail. As she told B.E.T.,
"I thought I'd be signed by the time I got out of high school, and I kind of was on the
verge of quitting."
In need of quick cash, Eve met a group of exotic dancers who ended up taking her under
their wing. But some of the people closest to her were genuinely worried about her. Her
mother thought that she was totally different and that she was going through a downward
spiral. Ultimately, her time on the pole didn't last very long. She's described herself as
the, quote, "laziest stripper," and she only lasted about two months before calling it
quits. Her heart wasn't in it anyway. As she would tell her customers:
"I could give you a lap dance, but I am better at rapping."
One person who helped Eve actually make the move from stripping to full-time rapping was
Mase, who was an up-and-coming rapper when he visited her club one night. She asked him
if he wanted a dance, but he ended up saying to her,
"You're not supposed to be here. What is it that you wanna do?"
And she told him that she wanted to be a rapper.
Fortune was ultimately smiling at Eve. She was about to turn 18 when she got a call from
her manager, who told her to drop everything and meet up with Mike Lynn, who was Dr. Dre's
right-hand man at Aftermath Entertainment. She came up with a plan to be disguised as
a delivery girl and spring her skills on the unsuspecting guest. Lynn was both surprised
and impressed by the impromptu performance. According to music producer Mel-Man, Lynn
recalled thinking that Eve was, quote, "the future of female rap." Two weeks later, she
was on a plane headed to Los Angeles, where she would go on to impress Dr. Dre and immediately
sign a record deal with Aftermath.
She began to settle in, but alas there was trouble brewing. She had to fight for Dre's
attention to record a full demo, which was the entire reason she was in L.A. Seven months
after she arrived, Aftermath dropped Eve from the label.
With Los Angeles behind her, Eve found herself right back where she'd started. She felt like
she had taken 10 steps forward, only to go back 15. As she explained to The Guardian
in 2019,
"I'd bragged, and had this big going-away party, and then I was back at my mom's house
riding the bus again. I was really depressed, but I needed it to happen. I was a battle
rapper, but I didn't know how to make songs."
But that depression only lasted a month until she received a call from her manager telling
her that she needed to go to Yonkers, New York, which was the home of the Ruff Ryders.
Jimmy Iovine, co-founder and chairman of Interscope Records, knew that she had talent. As he told
BET,
"I know that Dre always believed in her. I always believed in her. And I was always looking
for something, for a spot for her to help her make the record that she wanted to make."
This new opportunity wasn't all sunshine and roses. Eve had to come in and battle to earn
a spot in the Ruff Ryders crew. Anyone who wanted to join the Ruff Ryders had to battle,
and Eve proved that she was ready to handle the fight.
In 1998, Eve became the "First Lady of Ruff Ryders," and then her skills were really put
to the test. The Ruff Ryders didn't treat her differently than anyone else because she
was a girl. As she explained to BET,
"It was important for me that they saw I am going to hustle the way you guys hustle, period.
Do not separate me. And they didn't."
As a new member of the Ruff Ryders, boot camp was required, which meant long days in the
studio writing and rapping for months. In 1999, she recorded her first album, Let There
Be Eve... Ruff Ryders' First Lady, in its entirety in less than two months. It would
become the first female rap album to debut at number 1 on the Billboard charts. Every
song on the record was about Eve's life up to that point. There was even a track dedicated
to her stripping days called "Heaven Only Knows."
By the time of her second album, 2001's Scorpion, Eve was making history yet again. Much to
the dismay of many people on her team, the last song to be included on Scorpion was the
Gwen Stefani-featuring "Let Me Blow Ya Mind." That song would make history in 2002 by becoming
the first winner ever in the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration Grammy. The hypnotizing beat
produced by Dr. Dre captivated the ears of many fans across the world, making Eve a global
sensation.
But "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" wasn't ever even supposed to happen, thanks to the ostensible
differences between the two ladies on the track. With Stefani having mainly a rock background
as the lead singer of No Doubt, Eve's record label initially didn't have the vision to
see how this collaboration could work. But Eve did, and she pushed for it to happen.
Her instincts paid off, as the song's success and Grammy win pushed her career to an even
greater level of stardom.
With a Grammy secured on her mantle, Eve now found herself looking at a new world of possibilities,
as screens big and small beckoned her name. If you take a look at her IMDb page, it's
clear that 2002 was a great time to be Eve, as she starred in two major big-screen releases
that year. The first was the action film xXx, in which she starred alongside major movie
stars like Vin Diesel and Samuel L. Jackson. One month later, she showed up in the hit
comedy Barbershop, alongside a stacked cast that included the likes of Ice Cube and Cedric
the Entertainer.
With a couple of hit movies under her belt, Eve was now ready for TV as well. Starting
in 2003, she starred in a UPN sitcom that was called, appropriately enough, Eve. She
played Shelly Williams, a woman attempting to balance her fashion career and love life.
The show ran for three seasons, with its cancellation coming in 2006 when UPN merged with The WB
to form The CW.
In 2010, Eve met businessman Maximillion Cooper, and they would go on to strike up a long-distance
relationship. After a few years of dating, they officially tied the knot on June 13,
2014. Cooper is the CEO of the Gumball 3000 motor rally, so Eve is now the "First Lady
of Gumball," thus leaving her First Lady of Ruff Ryders days in the past. In 2014, Cooper
gushed to E! News,
"I'm so happy to make Eve my wife. The whole experience has been amazing and we are both
so happy to have tied the knot."
"And I just thought, you know what, I'm not gonna let her get away."
Eve and Cooper met at a Gumball Car Rally, which features ultra-rich competitors driving
their cars 3,000 miles across different countries. Eve had some reservations about dating someone
who hangs in ultra-rich circles, but Cooper turned out to be different than she expected.
As she told The Guardian in 2019,
"I remember thinking: he must be a player, because you can't throw something like that
and not be a player, right?"
Nowadays, Eve splits her time between Los Angeles and London. After marrying Cooper,
she moved to London, where he resides with his four children. Her new role as a wife
and mom keeps her on her toes. As she told The Guardian,
"We definitely went through some growing pains. I moved countries, got married, and became
a stepmom all at the same time. That took a lot of figuring out my identity."
Cooper had never dated a Black woman before, and he hasn't always understood certain aspects
of Eve's life, so the couple have had to develop patience and understanding for each other.
While certain situations have been a challenge, Eve is not one to easily accept defeat. Looking
back throughout her life, giving up has never been an option. One big reason she's maintained
success is by living according to her personal mantra of:
"Have a glass of wine, laugh it off."
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