Queen Latifah is every bit as regal as her name, but she also rules with a bright, knowing smile and empathy that seeps from her pores — even over a Zoom call. The multi-hyphenate star of TV and film and executive producer of her CBS hit The Equalizer has earned a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, two NAACP Image Awards, an Academy Award nomination, and a BET Lifetime Achievement Award during her illustrious career. But even with all of these accolades, she remains dedicated to doing what she can to make life better for others.
A prime example: She recently embarked on a tour with the It’s Bigger Than Me campaign to help unpack the complexities of obesity, encouraging open and honest conversations about how obesity is a disease of the mind, body, and society. “It’s an important conversation to have, particularly in the business I grew up in,” Latifah tells Shondaland. “I know many people that have dealt with it, and I’ve dealt with it myself. If people understood that obesity can be a genetic issue and a hormonal issue, they would probably not treat it the same way they do: ‘You need to run more, you need to eat differently, you need to not eat that much, you need to push away from the table.’ It doesn’t just affect one body type.”
When Latifah was starting out in Hollywood, she felt as if she had to push through stigma to make her mark. “There’s not enough people who look like me, that’s for sure,” she says. “I’m the first Cover Girl who looks like me. Trying to break into the film industry, Spike Lee gave me my first role, but after that, I had to do what I had to do, and a lot of things I had to create myself because it was hard for agents to see me as an A-list actress with the kind of potential to be a star. I’m not a size 2, I’m not blonde, I’m not blue-eyed, etc., etc. Therein lies the issue. What kind of roles are you going to be offering? Do you see me as sexy? Do I have to be frumpy?” She also felt frustrated with her options in fashion. “This body likes to rock the same things that other bodies are rocking that are 10 sizes smaller than me,” says Latifah. “Why can’t I rock those jeans? Make them in my size for my shape. If you have to change them a little bit, do that.”
Not that you can hold back a queen. She’s starred in the TV series Living Single, released numerous albums, created and hosted her own daytime talk show, The Queen Latifah Show, and appeared in countless films, including Chicago, as Mama Morton (which earned her Oscar nomination), and HBO’s Bessie, which saw Latifah give another critically acclaimed turn, as Bessie Smith. After her 2006 collaboration with the brand, Latifah will return to being a Cover Girl face again to create shades for deeper skin tones.
When it comes to her acting career, Latifah now has her choice of projects. This summer, she stars alongside Adam Sandler as his wife in Hustle, a feel-good summer film about a struggling basketball scout who finds new hope in a newly discovered player in Spain. “He’s such a nice person; everyone I know seems to love him,” Latifah says of working with Sandler. “He is so sweet and so cool — I had a crush on him for the longest time in the cutest way. He’s crazy for coming up with some of the characters and things that he does, but he created such a great feeling on set.”
Hustle was shot during Covid, and the cast and crew had to figure out how to cope with an assortment of pandemic-induced limitations along the way. Yet Latifah says they managed to make the best of things and have a great time. “There’s music playing; his kids and his friends that he’s worked with for years and years are around. I had my crew that I worked with for years and years, so it was a big, old camp, which was really refreshing in the midst of all the craziness of lockdowns,” Latifah says. “It’s a basketball movie, but it’s about family and pushing through struggles and supporting each other. I think people are going to love it.”
She may now be a bona fide big and small screen A-lister, but let’s not forget what first put Queen Latifah on the map: her music. She released her first album, All Hail the Queen, in 1989 at just 19, and though she was once dubbed the “Queen of Rap,” Latifah’s most recent albums mark a foray into jazz. Trav’lin’ Light, released in 2007, rose to No. 1 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart, followed by the 2009 rap-infused jazz album Persona. Though it’s been a while since Latifah stepped into the recording studio, music is never really on the back burner. “I think I’m definitely in a position to put out new music. I’ve gone through so many genres through the years, and I have music at home I haven’t even released,” she says. “Definitely jazz music, for sure. I would love to do more hip-hop, of course, and whatever else floats my boat. That’s kind of how I am with music. I’m sitting on so much music, it doesn’t make sense.”
Even with all-consuming projects like Hustle and The Equalizer and the hint of more music, Latifah still always finds time to give back to her native New Jersey. Born in Newark and raised in East Orange, she’s maintained offices in Jersey City and made a point of investing in and supporting local businesses. As co-president of her real estate development firm BlueSugar Corporation (alongside builders Life Assets Development and GonSosa Development), Latifah just broke ground on RISE Living, a three-story building in Newark that will include 16 affordable-housing units for tenants who bring in less than 80 percent of the city’s median income. The structure will also feature a fitness center, a business center, electric vehicle charging stations, and space to house nonprofits. The RISE project, an acronym for “Rita Is Still Everywhere,” is named for her late mother, Rita, a former teacher who passed in 2018 of interstitial lung disease. “Rita is everywhere,” Latifah says. “She’s someone who always gave back to the community.”
Latifah was inspired to start the project years ago when she noticed a sparsely occupied block in the neighborhood. “I was like, I need to build something here,” Latifah says. “My best friend, Tammy, and I met with some great partners, and we hooked up. We both come from those kinds of roots. We’re very homegrown. Part of the development is affordable housing, but it’s going to be beautiful. It’s going to be a beautiful development, and I’m just really happy because I’m watching all the area around it start to be developed even more, so people are holding on to their properties. I feel like you should be able to move up in life and still be able to live in your community, but in a nicer place. Go to your mom’s house, move into this fly apartment over here, but still be like five blocks away and be able to drive over for spaghetti and fried chicken.”
So, what does Latifah, who already does so much, do next? For one, she intends to keep on building — in the literal sense. “Real estate has always been something I loved. Real estate and design, and I have friends who do this on a way bigger scale than me,” she says. “I’m a Jersey girl for sure, but I’ve also lived in California forever and ran in these streets of New York, where I am now. But I always come home.”
Vivian Manning-Schaffel is a multifaceted storyteller whose work has been featured in The Cut, NBC News Better, Time Out New York, Medium, and The Week. Follow her on Twitter @soapboxdirty.
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