Should Misa have remained single and dependent? I mean, look, she was getting somewhere in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars a month. And Kim Porter is reportedly getting about five to eight times that amount every single month. (Kim Porter took Puffy to court a couple of a years ago to prove paternity, and under their settlement agreement the exact amount she is receiving was undisclosed.)
Kim Porter is playing the baby’s mama game very well. “Give up the money, or I’m blowing the whistle.” Blowing the whistle on what? I don’t know. But I do know that she can’t be Puffy’s woman without knowing some secrets. And that’s Course 102 in the BM School: Use every advantage to stay ahead of the game.
Personally, I believe that a baby’s mama should move on and work on building a life for herself and her child apart from the dad, Ã la Misa Hylton-Brim. In some circles, a woman who can do this actually gains the respect of the father.
I spoke with Suge Knight about the issue. He has four children by four different women—very sloppy, in my opinion. But he’s managing it all. Unlike some men, Suge would prefer the mother of his children to move on. He is even willing to pay for the wedding!
SK: You know, to me, it’s like a lot of women that I done messed with and dated had a baby. But the most important thing is for them to get married. And I used to tell them all the time, “Get married. I’ll pay for the wedding.”
WW: (Laughs.) Just leave me the hell alone!
SK: I’ll walk you down the aisle; I’ll give you the biggest gift.Because it’s nothing worse than having an ex who’s not involved with anybody.
WW: Meanwhile, you go on and get married and then they’re miserable and they’re calling—
SK: Or you know, you’re just trying to do your thing. Either you’re working or you wanna date or whatever you wanna do, and they’re like stalking you. You at the movies and they stalking you. You go in here and they stalking you. But if you don’t get them to get somebody and they don’t have somebody . . . you know they always gonna be the ones that mess with you.
WW: Yes.
SK: But if they got somebody, they gotta calm it down because they don’t want they hubby or—
WW: Yes, yes—
SK: —they dude to see what’s going on. So the best thing for any ex is to have somebody to keep ’em away from you.
To get involved or not to get involved is one of those rules that depends very much on the man. But here are some other rules to consider if you plan on being a baby’s mama:
RULE NO. 1:
Get the celebrity name on the birth certificate.
This seems like a no-brainer. But a lot of women get pregnant by rappers or entertainers or athletes who may already be married, and getting the man’s name on the birth certificate may not be so simple. Nevertheless, it will save you a lot of time on the back end if you do this first. Still, there are no guarantees.
RULE NO. 2:
Don’t expect acknowledgment.
Just because you named the kid Celebrity Jr., don’t expect the man to claim him. Case in point: Actor and former rapper Ice-T had a one-night stand with a girl in the Bronx. She got pregnant and named the baby Tracy Morrow Jr., thinking that would force Ice-T to pay up and step up as a father. It took years and many court battles and DNA tests for Ice-T to finally pay. He still doesn’t acknowledge the child. Is the baby’s mama set for life? Probably. Was it worth it? Probably.
RULE NO. 3:
Don’t get pregnant by a married celebrity.
Preferably you want to get hooked up with a man who is available, someone who will at least put you in his starting-five rotation. You want to make sure you are on that list to spend time with during the holidays, birthdays, etc. You will never be on that list if the star you’ve trapped is married. You will never be anything except a sore topic in his mind. You will never be number one and will not live the lifestyle you may have dreamed of living.
RULE NO. 4:
Get pregnant by someone who has a future.
This also seems like a no-brainer, but the reality is that all that glitters certainly isn’t gold, or platinum or diamonds. Many of these so-called stars are broke. He may have a hit record today but be one busted single away from being dropped from his label. And then what?
If you’re going to hook up with a star, make sure it’s someone like a 50 Cent, a Lebron James, or even an Ice Cube, someone with endorsements, a multideal contract, movie deals, and a future. Otherwise, you could end up with one huge headache and a baby.
A mature man, someone with some years in his game, is preferable to a newbie, someone fresh in the game. You want to hook up with someone with a lot to lose so that even if you aren’t in his starting five, even if you aren’t on his A-team, even if you violate Rule No. 3 and he is married, you will be well taken care of just to keep quiet. Michael Jordan had a little baby scare a few years ago and his wife, Juanita, was going to leave him. Remember that? Well, the Jordans worked things out and you haven’t heard a peep from the woman crying pregnant, have you? I bet she is luxuriating right now.
A man with a clean reputation, or at least a very Hollywood family image, would be even better. He would do just about anything to keep the news about your little bundle a secret.
RULE 5:
Find out how many other kids he has.
And also, find out how he is taking care of his other children before you even have sex with him. The last thing you want to do is accidentally get pregnant by a man who is already a deadbeat dad. And if you’re planning properly (and I always believe a woman should plan things out), make sure you know exactly the kind of man you are dealing with. Kim Porter didn’t do her due diligence with Al B. Sure, but you better bet that she watched how Puffy doted on Justin and you better believe that it was a deciding factor before she became a BM again.
RULE 6:
Get on your grind!
Okay, you got the child support from Celebrity X. Now you have to make that money work for you. Don’t just sit on your behind and luxuriate, get out and make sure you are set. Learn a craft, build a business, try to stabilize a future for yourself.
Misa Hylton-Brim is the best example of a baby’s mother who got on her grind, made that money work for her, and created her own career. And look at Misa today. She’s a leading stylist in her own right. She is China Doll. And you have to applaud this woman. She did not have to go out and start her own business and do her own thing. Hell, when she hooked up with Puffy she was a teenager. She was “young and dumb.” And as a young person she could have easily been dazzled by all the flash that was Puffy and just totally relied on him. But she didn’t. She got on her grind.
And while Misa is suing Puffy for more child support, it’s not because she needs the money. As she pointed out, she can afford to pay him what he’s paying her. But she’s suing him to get what she’s entitled to, and that’s only fair.
RULE 7:
Keep your lifestyle clean.
Another no-brainer. But, ladies, if you aren’t on the up and up it can cost you dearly. I’m not sure what the deal is with the baby’s mama of Roc-A-Fella Records executive Damon Dash, but a court awarded custody of their son to Dame Dash. He got custody!
How tragic is that? And what does this say about the kind of mother she is that a judge would rule that he would make a better parent?
I know some of you are saying, why can’t he make a good parent? Let’s look at it from a very fundamental level. Even if he weren’t Damon Dash and was just an ordinary man, a plumber, a teacher, a banker, he still wouldn’t be a better parent than the child’s mother, in my opinion. That is, unless the mother is a total mess.
By and large single men do not make good parents. And if you’re a single man, taking care of children and getting the job done, I am not talking about you. But look at Dame Dash and factor in the parties, the trips, the champagne, the hos. Factor in the international playa status and you begin to get a picture of what kind of mother we’re dealing with tha
t he is more desirable.
The very basic question I have is: What must she have done to make the courts give that child to him?
I don’t know, but, ladies, keep your lifestyle clean—especially if you’re a baby’s mama. You never want to lose custody. As long as you have custody, you have a little hold on his pockets. Lose the custody and you did all that hootchie-ing and plotting for nothing.
RULE NO. 8:
Get the goodies in your name!
This may be the most important. You will learn that things can turn for you at a moment’s notice, and you never know when he wants to get nasty.
If the house, the cars, and everything are in his name, you basically have nothing but a baby. Make sure everything is in your name. Also, make sure you stash a little (or even more) from each child support check—just in case. Even a baby’s mama needs some fuck-you money. Actually, a baby’s mama needs that more than anyone else. You definitely need to make sure you have some money for a rainy day, because when you’re a baby’s mama, the rain falls fast and furious.
CHAPTER
9
Misa Hylton-Brim, the Mother of Justin
Misa and I met on a very chilly fall night in 2003 at a public spot in Manhattan. She came by herself and pulled up in a white Navigator. She was on time. Misa was charming in her burgundy-and-light-blue Von Dutch baseball hat, pulled down low. Her hair was drawn back, colored in a beautiful shade of deep red. She had on a burgundy Juicy velour couture sweatsuit. And she was dripping in diamonds. Not for nothing, we looked like two fabulous women having a great time.
We drank martinis and before she would allow me to turn on the tape recorder for the interview, she wanted to have a conversation with me. The conversation basically went like this: “Wendy, what are you going to ask me? Wendy, what are you going to ask me? Wendy, what are you going to ask me?”
By the time she finished with her interview of me, I was exasperated. I wanted to dunk her head in water and say, “You know what, forget it! Damn you!” But I endured. She finally conceded and allowed me to turn on the recorder. And the next chapter is what we talked about.
I first met Misa Hylton-Brim when she was just Misa, a high-school girl who was Puffy’s girl. I didn’t know she was in high school. She was mature and sophisticated even back then. Puffy was the intern at Uptown Records who moved quickly up the ranks to become head of A & R. He was responsible for pushing Jodeci and Mary J. Blige to success and as their stars rose, so did his. Puffy seemed to be everywhere back then (and not much has changed). And wherever you saw Puffy, there was Misa by his side. You may remember her as the young lady with the short blond hair in Biggie’s video “Big Poppa.” She’s in the Jacuzzi next to Puffy.
As Puffy became more famous in his own right and became grist for my mill, I became persona non grata—someone to be avoided. But Misa never avoided me. While other folks were heading in the other direction when they would see me coming at events or parties, Misa always had a warm smile and a sincere hello for me.
She eventually grew into more than Puffy’s armpiece. She became a stylist. She styled many of Puffy’s early groups, like Jodeci and Mary. And on occasion I would talk about some of the outfits she styled or would mention her in some fashion sense on my show. In addition to gossip, fashion is always a topic of discussion on my show, and it was that way back in the day as well.
Then Misa gave birth to Puffy’s son and all of a sudden she became more of a fixture in hip-hop culture. She not only had a baby with a man who was fast becoming one of the most powerful men in hip-hop, but she began also to step up her styling career. She started styling Lil’ Kim, and Lil’ Kim was becoming just as famous for her outlandish outfits, like the mink bikini, as she was for her rap.
I would see Misa at the VH1 Fashion Awards and we would finger-wave, which to me is the friendliest kind of wave you could give. And no matter where I would see Misa, she was always cordial. Even when she was with Puffy—who to this day might shade me out—Misa has always managed to be civil, if not more than civil, with a two-cheek kiss, then a nice smile from across the room.
She’s been civil even when I haven’t been. For example, there was a story that came to me about Misa in a club with Baby from Cash Money. The rumor had it that Baby was in town attending a birthday party that was being thrown for him. He was being his very Negroidian self with the Cristal bottles lined up and a stack of hundred-dollar bills on the table. Allegedly Misa was throwing herself all over him, which is scandalous only because she’s a married woman. I talked about it on the radio. I had to. It is an incident that Misa completely denies. (See following exclusive interview.)
There were also rumors about Misa being involved in some sort of triangle with Missy Elliott and rapper Trina (something which she addresses and denies in our exclusive interview). I was hyping it up on the show, getting ready to talk about it in the four o’clock hour, when all of a sudden there was a special delivery to the station. I open it and there is a fabulous pink Fendi scarf (she knows I love pink) and the most motherly tear-jerking note basically saying, “Look, I’m on the PTA. I am a carpool mom. . . .” She’s pulling out all of the mother stuff. And it got me. I had to tell my audience, “Guys, I’m not going to tell this story.” She weakened me with the kryptonite: “Wendy, mother to mother . . . Wendy, I’m a mom.”
And I never repeated the rumor and I won’t do it here either. She got me again with “Wendy, mother to mother . . .” when I read from the Daily News a story about her son, Justin. It was a story about his new school—a very private school in Manhattan. It was twenty-five thousand dollars a year. He needed a security detail—it was all straight from the newspaper. And I read it on the air. I talked about how all of the other kids at the school were rich but he’s rich and famous and the son of Puffy. I got a call from Misa during the show saying, “Wendy, mother to mother . . .” That gets me all the time. And she knows this. I don’t know how she knows this. Maybe it is a mother thing. She said, “Mother to mother, please don’t say anything more about Justin and where he goes to school.”
I said, “Misa, but it’s in the newspaper.” She didn’t realize that.
“Well, Puffy is freaking,” she said.
I could tell Puffy isn’t pleased at all that Misa and I are friendly. If he could, he would definitely have put a stop to that a long time ago. There are people who want to be friendly with me in his camp but can’t. Misa, to her credit, has never buckled to that pressure. She has always been her own woman. And even in her soft-spoken, gentle manner, you get a sense that she does exactly what she wants to do.
I got to know her better recently while working on The Cookout, a film produced by Queen Latifah. Misa was hired as the stylist for the film, which is scheduled for release in the summer of 2004. The movie was directed by Lance “Un” Rivera, who was Biggie’s manager and Lil’ Kim’s manager at one point. (In December of 1999 “Un” was stabbed at the Kit Kat Klub in New York by Jay-Z at an album release party for Q-Tip. According to published reports, a fight broke out in the VIP section over some alleged bootlegging of a Jay-Z album, Vol. 3: Life and Times of S. Carter. Jay-Z avoided jail time with a plea bargain and a six-hundred-thousand-dollar payoff to “Un,” who apparently has moved on to bigger and better things.)
Queen Latifah offered me a small part in The Cookout, and Misa had to style my character. You know me and my body issues. I hate working with stylists because they think every big girl—which I am—wants to dress like Queen Latifah or the even bigger girl, Mo’Nique from The Parkers, or Star Jones from The View.
All of these women dress great for them, but I wanted a particular style. And I thought, “Oh, I can’t act like Greta Garbo,” having her pull twenty-five outfits for this tiny part of mine. I mean, it was a very small role playing a TV reporter. I’m not an actress. I was told I would be playing someone true to character; I would be basically playing myself.
Misa had it figured out from the start. She said, “Wendy, I
see you as this sexy TV reporter and you’ll be in a sexy pantsuit.” And I immediately thought, “Oh, my gosh! A pantsuit! There’s potential for me to look like Rosie O’Donnell!” You remember when Rosie used to do her talk show and she used to come out with those lesbianic suits and those How You Doin’? shoes?
Misa ended up pulling this fabulous pinstripe suit for me. I put it on and it fit perfectly and I wanted to kiss her, throw her up in the air, catch her, and kiss her again. I felt so comfortable on the set and at the end of it I asked, “Misa, the tags are still on the suit, can I buy it from you?” She said, “Wendy, you can have it.” Isn’t that great?
We kept in touch after that. Misa’s the keep-in-touch type of person who will call you just to see how you’re doing. When it came time to do this book, I thought she would make a great subject to be interviewed. I wanted to have exclusive talks with people folks have not heard from but whose story they might be interested in knowing. And Misa Hylton-Brim is a woman with a story.
I called her and, thank God, like me, she is a person who never changes her cell phone number. (In the hip-hop world, it’s not at all unusual for an artist to change his or her number every month.)
“Can we talk?” I said. “We can make it private; we can make it secret. I will not tell Puffy. He will not know about this interview until the book is out.” (Because that nigga probably would have stopped it.)
The pièce de résistance, and the reason why she was so eager to tell her story, is that about two days before I called her it was printed in the New York Daily News that she was taking Puffy to court for more child support. She had not gotten an increase in her child support since she’d had Justin ten years before. In the meantime, Kim Porter—Baby’s Mother of the Millennium—was just luxuriating.
The Wendy Williams Experience Page 11