Even after he became more successful, it wasn’t about the money. I wanted to marry Dream because I loved him, not to get my hands on more of his money. There was no reason for me to be like that because he’d always been generous to me and to his daughter. For me, it was always about love, pure and simple.
Some people I’ve known, and even members of my own family, don’t see it like that. Some people are money hungry, and if they find someone who has some, they’ll latch on like blood suckers. If they were in my situation, they would have had every penny Dream ever made, and be mad at him because there wasn’t any more.
Although I’ve never been money hungry, I haven’t always been as independent as I am now. It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do, what I was good at, and what I liked. While it’s nice to spend other people’s money, spending my own, without having to ask anybody for it, or explain how I plan to spend it, is the best feeling in the world.
I’ve never sought fame either, but I’ve learned some things from it, too.It’s nice because I get some pretty amazing opportunities to go places, meet people and do things, but it has its down side, too. For a long time, I wasn’t known for anything other than being Dream’s “baby mama.” I hated that. I hated not being known for myself, but instead only for who I used to be married to. This made me feel like I wasn’t worth anything on my own. It made me doubt myself.
Like money, fame attracts both users and scary people. It sometimes brings out the worst in the people closest to you, too. Sometimes it brings out the worst in people you’d never expect to act that way. If money and fame are what you’re seeking for yourself or through a relationship, you need to be careful. Things aren’t always what they seem.
Ballers and Rappers
I know for a lot of girls, it’s all about getting a guy with money. They want to be with a bailer or a rapper for the fancy things he can give them and the lifestyle he can provide. I can tell you from experience how people treat you when they know they’re in charge. When men feel like they have power over you, they treat you like crap.
For years and years, I had to go to Dream for everything I wanted. As I’ve said, he was good about it for the most part, but every now and then, he’d be upset with me about something and I knew I couldn’t ask for anything. I always had to think, “Is this a good time for me to ask?” I had to be always thinking, always figuring out how to put it, and always guessing what his mood was so I could be prepared to deal with it. If he thought I’d done something, or if he was mad at me for whatever reason, I wouldn’t get what I needed. I always had to wait on him to decide what he wanted to do.
It was his money, not mine.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s nice to have a guy who has money, and it’s nice to have a guy who wants to do for you. Like I said, I’m not money hungry, but I don’t want a broke guy either. I want someone who is ambitious, and who is doing things and making money, like me. I want someone who can do things with me now, but who’s also thinking about the future enough to be planning to grow old with me.
As good as it is to have a man who can provide, it’s just as important to be able to do for yourself. Then you’ll never be in the position that a lot of bailer girlfriends and wives find themselves in, where you’re begging all the time, or even worse, where he gets tired of you and then you’re cut off and you’ve got nothing to fall back on.
Since I started making my own money, I don’t have think about anybody’s mood but my own. I don’t have to ask. I spend what I need to spend when I need to spend it. I can’t tell you how good it feels.
I can’t hate or knock girls who are looking for a bailer or a rapper, but I wouldn’t encourage anybody to depend on a man. It’s best to have your own, too.
Some girls go really far in their efforts to get a guy’s attention, thinking that if they dress a certain way or do certain things sexually, it’s going to keep a man. What they don’t understand is that bailers, rappers and guys like that get women to do all kinds of stuff to them and for them all the time. It doesn’t mean a thing to them other than a good locker room story. It won’t make them make a commitment to you, and they’ll have another girl doing the same thing to them tomorrow.
Don’t embarrass yourself by being slutty, or acting like some kind of freak. If you do get a bailer or a rapper that way, you can be sure you’ll only have him for that one night. There’s no way he’s going to wife you up.
Instead, it makes more sense to be yourself and to show some self-respect. If he likes you for being you, then maybe you have a chance at something more.
On Fame: Can You Listen To My Mix Tape?
Fame has definitely been a mixed blessing for me. I can’t escape from that one relationship that first put me in the spotlight. I can’t help who I fell in love with, but that’s over now and it’s not the only thing I have going on. My new show, Toya’s Family Affair, is just about me. It’s not about Dream at all. My boutique “The Garb” is something I’m doing on my own. I didn’t name it “Dream’s Baby Mama’s Place” trying to build off of him and his name. Even with this book, I didn’t write some tell-all, Dream-bashing story. I wrote about me. Dream is a part of the story, but only a part.
Sometimes I feel like I can’t get any credit for any of the things I’ve done on my own. I can’t get credit for choosing not to live my life completely in the shadow of my relationship with Dream. I’m famous because of who I fell in love with, even though it’s something that I couldn’t help.
Being well-known is cool. It’s brought me some pretty wonderful opportunities. It almost feels wrong to complain about any part of it. There are definitely times when it gets tricky. I try to let those moments just roll off my back, but every now and then, something really upsets me, or really scares me.
Everywhere I go, nearly every day, I meet someone who thinks that, because of who I’m associated with, I can help them with their career in music. Sometimes it’s people on the street, or it’s a friend of a friend, or even I guy I might have gone on a date with.
“Toya! Can you listen to my CD?”
“Toya, can you get that producer you know to sign me?”
“Can you get Dream to listen to this?”
“Bring Dream to my show!”
I have to keep explaining that I have nothing to do with that. I’m not in the music business. Dream is, but I’m not. I can’t just hand him the stuff people try to give me. That would be like me telling him how to do what he does, and I’m not going to do that. It’s not my place and it’s disrespectful of everything he’s had to do to get where he is.
When I try to tell people this, they get mad at me sometimes. They feel like I should try to help them get started in the business, and when I won’t do it, I’m being stuck-up or full of myself.
Here’s the thing they don’t get. From what I’ve observed over the years, hardly anyone really gets a career because they know someone or they are related to someone. Getting a career in music requires the same things from everybody. You’ve gotta get out there and hustle. You’ve got to build a following. You’ve got to show that enough people like what you’re doing and that you will make the label money. You can have mad skills, but unless you’ve got a fan base, it won’t matter much.
Like most things in life, you can’t expect someone else to do it for you.
I had to say this to my own brother. He’s a rapper and he’s definitely got skills. He came to me and he was like, “Toya, you gotta give my stuff to Dream and put me on. You gotta give my stuff to your producer friend.”
I had to tell him that I couldn’t do it and I had to tell him why. He was pissed with me, but I’ve just made that a rule. No exceptions, not even for family.
I know my brother will make his way because he’s good, because he’s grinding, and because people like what he does. Just like with money, it’s better when you know you have earned it.
So please, if you see me on the street one day, don’t ask me to hook you up with
Dream or with the producer I know. Just say “Hi Toya!” and leave it at that.
Stalkers and Crazies
People see me on TV and they feel like they know me. This is good in a way. I’m glad my show has touched so many people, and in a way, they do know me. I’m 100% myself on the show. What you see is my life, for real.
However, you don’t see everything, and the things you see on camera are only a small part of what goes on and of who I am. Although I’m grateful to the millions of people who have tuned in to watch Tiny and Toya and to watch the new show, Toya’s Family Affair, I don’t know them as well as they know me.
Most people understand this, but sometimes I meet people who don’t.
“Hey Toya!” they’ll say, then start talking to me like I’m their best friend. Then they get mad when I don’t respond that way. I can’t help it and I really am sorry. I don’t mean to be conceited or rude. I just don’t know them.
Then there are the guys who watch the show and decide that they are the ones for me. These guys are much scarier, because sometimes they follow me around or try to touch me. Once I met a guy like this who made me so nervous I thought I was going to have to call the police.
“Toya, I love you. I wanna take care of you. I’m gonna treat you right.”
He just went on and on, and he wouldn’t quit. I finally got away from him and got in my car to go home, but when I looked in the rear view mirror, there was someone following me.
My little brother was in the car with me that night.
“Pull into that gas station,” he said.
The car pulled in right behind us and my brother jumped out. It was the same guy who had just professed his love for me, now following us in his car.
My little brother took serious action.
“Leave her alone!” He was screaming at the top of his lungs, and people were looking at him like he was crazy. He probably did sound crazy, but he was trying to help me. He was trying to scare the guy into leaving. “Get away from her or I’ll call the cops!” he shouted, pounding on the guy’s car.
That did it, and my stalker zoomed off. I didn’t see him or that car any more on the rest of the drive home, but I was still all shook up by that. I live by myself and I only have security guys around me when I travel and do events. That was the incident that led me to first start thinking that maybe I needed to own a gun, and learn how to shoot it, just in case I found myself in a situation where I needed to defend myself.
I did get a gun, and I’ve taken some classes on how to use it. I’ve been to the shooting range a few times, but I’m not sure that was such a good idea. I want to be safe and I sometimes feel like I need more protection, but I’m just not comfortable holding a gun. I’ve realized that too many people I’ve known have gotten shot and this has made me terrified of guns. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do to feel safer from stalkers, but I’m going to have to do something. You can’t be too careful.
Toya’s Priceless Gem: Dating bailers and rappers is fine, but remember their fame and their money are theirs. It’s so much better to have your own. No one can ever take that from you.
FRIENDS AND USERS
Everybody’s got some fake friends, and it doesn’t matter where you are in life, there are always gonna be people who only like you because of what you can do for them, what you’ve got, or who you associate with. Even before I had a television show, and even before Dream was as big as he is today, there were girls who only wanted to be friendly with me because they thought they could get something out of it.
You know what I’m talking about. Some girls want to hang with you because you’re pretty and they think you can help them get guys. Some want to hang with you because you’re smart and they want you to do their school work, or because you’ve got cute clothes and they want to borrow them. Still others want to hang with you because you have some money to spend and they don’t have any.
Now that Dream is so well-known, a lot of girls want to be my friend because of him, even though we aren’t married anymore and I don’t see him that often. They’re really nice at first, but before too long, they start asking things like “When you gonna see Dream?” and “What’s he like?” and “Can I meet him?”
It’s happened to me so much that I’m a whole lot more suspicious of people than I used to be. It’s harder for me to trust than it used to be, and I take longer to get to know people before I call them “friend.” I’ve learned to be real careful about what I say out in public, even if it’s just chatting with the girl who’s doing my hair. There are some sad and crazy people out there, and it seems like every single one of them has a blog. I don’t want anything that I say to come out on the Internet all twisted into something I don’t recognize. I know it sounds paranoid, but if you’ve ever had someone start spreading some lies about you on the Internet, you know how I feel.
So when I first meet someone new, and even when I talk to my old friends, or friends I’ve had since middle school, I’m careful about what I say and how much of my business I share. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
What I do know is that friendship, true friendship, is very, very important to me. In trying to find and keep true friends, I’ve made my share of mistakes. Here are some things I’ve learned that I hope can help you sort out the fake from the real in your own friendships.
Hanging With the Older Kids
Growing up, I didn’t have many friends, and most of the friends I had were older than me, sometimes by only a year or two, and sometimes by four or five years. When you’re a kid, even a year or two of maturity makes a big difference. There’s a big difference in what you might be doing and feeling at ten than at 12. There’s a big difference between twelve and fourteen, and a big difference between 14 and 16.
When you’re older, age doesn’t matter as much and it’s easy for a 25 year old and a 30 year old to be close. However, being 13 and hanging out with girls who are 17 or 18, makes for a big difference in what’s legal, acceptable and appropriate.
I would have argued with you about this when I was 12 or 13. I would have said that I was plenty mature and I was cool with hanging with people older than me. Now that my daughter is about this age, I can say with absolute certainty that I wasn’t ready to hang with kids that much older than me. They were more mature than me because they were older, and their bodies and brains were in different places than mine. Most of my daughter’s friends are her age, maybe a little younger or not too much older. It’s better for her. It would have been better for me to have friends my own age, and I would have had friends my age if I had listened when Uncle Nat and other family members were trying to keep me away from my older friends.
When I look back on it, though, I don’t think I ever had more than few friends who were my age. I wanted to be with the older kids, so that’s who I looked for and tried to hang around. I thought by hanging around with them, I’d be cool and more grown. I thought that hanging around with them made me as mature as they were, but I really wasn’t. I was still 13 or 14 on the inside, I was just doing grown up things.
Like you already know, this caused me the kinds of problems you want to avoid.
Friends
My closest friends when I was in school were Tasha, Kiani and Ashley. Of the three, Tasha was the friend who was in my life the longest, and who was probably my best friend.
Me and Tasha were tight--jam tight. We did everything together, and everything I had, she had, and every guy I dated, she dated his friend. We used to dress alike, act alike and be alike in every way we could. Tasha lived with her mom and her sister. Everyone said she was the pretty one. She had a cute little mixed look that the boys liked. She had the kind of freedom I wanted to have. She could stay out as long as she wanted to and sleep over at anyone’s house she wanted to. I wanted to do that, too, but at the time I was living with Uncle Nat and Aunt Kris, and they wouldn’t let me. They wouldn’t let me have sleepovers either, so Tasha and I didn’t get to do that, bu
t just about everything else two friends could do, we did together.
We started hanging out in middle school and stayed tight all through school and beyond.
Even then, people were warning me about her.
“Tasha want to be like you,” other friends and relatives said about her. “She always trying to copy off what you’re doing and saying and wearing.”
I did not see it like that. The way I saw it, we were just tight. Of course, Tasha and I wore the same clothes, talked alike, acted alike, and thought alike. It wasn’t that she was copying me; it was that we were just friends like that. I thought it was completely normal for us to be so much the same. I thought that was just part of being real good friends.
Every now and then, Tasha would do something and I would wonder if we were the good friends I thought we were. Once, when she was dating a friend of Dream’s named Bobby, she ended up going on a double date with Dream and another girl when Dream was supposed to be dating me. She didn’t tell me.
I thought it was strange that she didn’t say anything, especially knowing how I felt about Dream and all the drama he was putting me through with other girls. Maybe that’s why she didn’t tell me. She knew how much I was going through and she knew that the information would only hurt me.
That’s what I told myself at the time.
She had her baby a couple of years after my daughter Reginae was born and had to get her daughter everything Reginae had. As Dream became more successful and shared his wealth with me and my daughter, I started to notice things I hadn’t paid much attention to before.
Priceless Inspirations Page 9