The star of TV One’s R&B Divas, Faith Evans, spoke with Huffington Post Black Voices about the new compilation album named after the show. In the Q&A, Faith addresses rumors about Nicci Gilbert’s role on the show and whether or not she’d ever work with Diddy again.
How did you go about arranging the album’s proceeds to go to the Whitney E. Houston Academy of Creative and Performing Arts?
Initially, I didn’t know what charity I wanted to support. I thought about doing Whitney’s foundation, but after some research we found out that it really wasn’t active at this moment. So a friend of mine, the singer Shareefa, was visiting my apartment in Atlanta and we were talking about it. She was like, “hey, why don’t you think about the Whitney Houston Academy?” So it was really her who gave me the idea…and given that it’s named after her, I felt like that was a great way to honor her memory. And also, support the arts and schools, which was a big part of my upbringing.
What was your reaction to the show making TV One history?
Well, I must say I was pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t expecting people to gravitate towards something that doesn’t have so much negativity. I know one thing that makes our show different is definitely the fact that there’s resolution in the drama and the craziness of it all. [Laughs] So you never know if that’s what people want to see, because other things are pretty popular. So it’s just good that people decided to tune in and continue to do so.
Over the summer rumors surfaced about Nicci Gilbert-Daniels cutting ties from the show. What were your thoughts on the situation?
Yeah, it’s definitely just rumors, as far as I know. This was Nicci’s show before anyone else was involved. So that doesn’t make much sense to me. And as far as TV One has expressed, she still is very much a part of the cast as well as being an executive producer. I don’t really know where that came from, but people have the right to say what they want in public forums. [Laughs] So who knows where it came from.
Looking towards the future, can fans expect you to reunite in the studio with Puff?
Of course! I’m pretty sure that we’ll definitely work together again. There’s been a few records that I’ve played for Puff off of my last couple of albums, since I left Bad Boy, that he was ready to get on. But it just didn’t work out in time.
Faith also noted that at one point, Kelly Price, Lil Mo, Shanice, and Ledisi were all considered for the hit reality series.
You can check out the interview in full over at Huff Post Black Voices.
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