Tracee Ellis is an icon in her own right.
The actress has become a household name for her beloved roles in popular 90s sitcom “Girlfriends,” “Black-ish,” and received critical acclaim for her co-creation of “Mixed-ish.” Ross has a slew of awards under her belt.
But the daughter of Motown recording artist Diana Ross and music executive Robert Ellis Silberstein says self-love has been something she’s worked hard to achieve.
“I was so uncomfortable in my own skin,” she told Marie Claire, referencing auditions early on in her career. “I was so busy trying to be who I thought everybody else wanted me to be, and there was no space for me. I had wreaked havoc on my soul, and it was torturous.”
Ross also added CEO of a flourishing haircare company to her resume when she founded “Pattern” back in 2019.
“Learning to love my hair in a world that doesn’t mirror that celebration has been a form of both resistance and the claiming of my identity, my selfhood, my legacy, my ancestral lines, the history that I come from,” she shared on her inspiration to tackle the hair market.
But the star’s rise to fame did not come overnight. Nor did it come easily to her.
“The assumption is, ‘Oh, you’re the daughter of someone famous. It must’ve flung open all the doors for you.’ It certainly brought a level of curiosity, but I think when she walked through the doors, people were like, ‘Now what?’ And she really had to figure out who she wanted to be as a performer and what she wanted to say,” her best friend, Samira Nasr, told the magazine.
Continue reading the interview over at Marie Claire.
