Keri Hilson reinvented and ready to make her mark in the film industry
It was supposed to be a joke.
The holidays were near. She was on set, having a good time, admiring her makeshift figure, when she decided to snap a picture of her swollen belly. She posted the shot along with an upside-down smiling emoji, followed by a smiling-faced emoji with those heart thingies scattered about its grill.
No sooner than she hit send, her followers lost their collective minds, wondering how Keri Hilson was pregnant all of a sudden.
“It was like a social experiment to me because I didn’t realize when I did it that people would really believe it,” Hilson explains.
Deborah Joy Winans for her role as Charity in OWN’s
Greenleaf but the fans of the actress with the soulful voice have never seen her quite like this before. As the lead in TVOne’s latest offering,
Don’t Waste Your Pretty, we get to see a much sexier side of the brown-skinned beauty in the flick based on the book by
Demetria Lucas.
“I loved this because it was such a departure from what people know me. I am always so incredibly grateful for
Greenleaf. I love Charity, I loved her arc from beginning to end. I think you met a full woman. You met her when she was young and naive and you left her when she was grown and bold and strong and a fighter and you got all of those facets in between,” she tells
Deborah Joy Winans Talks Don t Waste Your Pretty , Therapy, And Not Taking Anything For Granted forbes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from forbes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Redaric Williams and
The
Greenleaf star plays Jeanné, a recent divorcee who now struggles in the love department, although she finds it in someone close to her.
“In playing the role of Jeanné, I think that you see a woman that has just really struggled with her hurt and her betrayal,” Winans tells ABC Audio. “And so she holds on to it for so long that she cannot see the love and the beauty that’s right in front of her. And I want people to recognize that it’s OK to be hurt.”
“It’s ok to feel betrayed and to be vulnerable and to just recognize what that is,” she continues. “It’s not ok to hold onto it. All you do is stifle your own growth [and] your own journey. When you’re holding on, you’re looking back and I think I want people to be able to walk away from this saying, ‘I’m letting the past go so that I can truly embrace my future. I can embrace the very blessing that’s right in front of me. ”