What’s not to love about a good dramedy starring five badass women slaying from stylish hair do to their blinged out manicured nails and toes!? And I was front and center to see Nicey Nash work her magic! It was an unforgettable experience.
Claws returns for a third season on Sunday, June 9 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Watch the teaser trailer above.
Claws, created by Eliot Laurence (Welcome to Me, The Big Gay Sketch Show), centers on Desna Simms (Niecy Nash), the owner of a Florida nail salon, who uses her mani-pedi proprietorship as a front for laundering money for a local pill mill. She is joined there by Polly Marks (Carrie Preston), Annalise Zayas (Judy Reyes), Virginia Loc (Karrueche Tran) and Jennifer Husser (Jenn Lyon). The series also showcases the criminal gravitational force of crime boss Clay “Uncle Daddy” Husser (Dean Norris). Names such as Jack Kesy, Kevin Rankin, Jason Antoon, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Suleka Mathew, and Harold Perrineau also appear on the series.
Like her character, Nash will be on double duty this season as she directs an episode for the first time.
I have to share this!!! I will be portraying an audience member on an episode of Claws in a Mocked Talk Show featuring my favorite spiritual advisor, Iyalna Vanzant!!! Don’t tell Oprah, but I have a special place in my heart for Iyanla, she has brought me out of the basement of life so many times. I can not give out any more info, but please watch the new season 7 of Claws on TNT, and you will see you girl, Dee aka NolaChic!! As Niecy Nash put it in her animated, outgoing voice, “Yall ready?? Cuz the cameras will be on y’all!! The whole world is going to have all eyes on you!! Your friends gonna call you and say Girl you a star 🌠🎬 I saw you on tv!!!”
Iyanla offered to take a picture with us, but time did not permit, and someone was able to get a not so good picture of her and Niecy Nash on set, but nothing like a picture where everyone is cheering. The experience itself will be treasured for the rest of my life, but I’m thankful that a stranger thought so much of me to send me the picture regardless of the quality.
I have been a loyal follower of Iyanla Vanzant’s since the early 90s. I have all of the books, and all that she embodies has helped me throughout my adult life. My Auntie introduced me to her ministry when I was in my early 20s and had I not got “In the meantime,” then, I would still be in it…
What I love about Iyanla is that she’s so brutally raw, but it all comes from a loving, nurturing and caring place. We do not realize how much we need that gut-wrenching truth, and it’s best received when it comes from someone who has walked the walked.
I never understood what people meant until now when they told me to ” Never stop being transparent, never let financial gain water down my writing and never to let the naysayers take my voice!” It’s exactly what Iyanla Vanzant has been doing, using the lowest and darkest places of her life to helping her followers heal.
People are amazed at all. I overcame, and it makes me look back and say, “Wow, how did I survive that!?” ” I didn’t really go through that? Did I???” I never thought that by sharing my story, blogging about my trials, and tribulations that within the pain of my words, I was helping someone else. But I can see it now as I look at my nightstand at the Iyanla Vanzant books I have read, and those books contain her pains, secrets, but she shared to help others such as me. I still have her 1st live show on cassette featuring Howard Hewitt in New Orleans! I feel proud not only to even possess her written and audio works, but proud of myself for using them as life tools and learning life lessons through them.
Isn’t it amazing that our painful testimonies can be used to help someone else as well as heal us? Taking a look back from where we came is healing and reassuring that we can overcome all that is set up to come against us. The past can be a great reminder and encourager that tells a story of how we made it. The very things that we feel will bring us to our graves will gift us and others with life.
We need to feel proud to bear our scars, and maybe we should start showing them off. We need to tell the stories behind the thick dark healed skin that looks ugly and deformed against our beautiful soft skin, but the markings of our scars prove that we have healed and its there to remind and protect us.
Being on set with Niecy Nash and Iyanla Vanzant was inspirational and made me feel proud of all that is the black woman. The energy between them was that of loving friends, and it poured over unto us. I felt that what I missed in the past for whatever delay was waiting for me right around the corner. I felt their shine pushing me into my light. My light may not shine on the screen as their’s, but I certainly have the light on me. Their voices echoed of wisdom and love. And their body language was a queen like yet had a headscarf in their purse. I literally felt their spirit, their fun, charming personalities, and everything that radiated from them; it was indeed a phenomenal experience!
This chance meeting happened out of the blue, and I had only been back home two days before my friend called and told me about the work and they called me the next day. I so much needed to feel free, to get dressed up and not go anywhere in a sense was needed. I’m not quite ready to be around people, I been trying, but this is a complicated process. I try to find Shana in everything I do; she was the. I was saying, “Go, Dee, just Go! They know who you are! Go, Dee!” when there was an event that called for a Nola Chic appearance, but I wasn’t quite sure if they felt that way. I went to events because she told too.
I do feel like I’m on the road, I see my light, and I will get there for it to shine on me right on time. Today, I’m still sad, depressed, but I have joy in my heart, and I’m smiling for the most part.
If my being a part of Claws doesn’t excite you, let me tell you that my eight-year-old daughter was cast on Queen Sugar as Blue’s playmate! It’s a birthday party scene, and she’s the little girl jumping on the bounce house. Let me add that I asked Kofi aka Ralph Angel if I could take his picture and he said, “I can do better than that. Let’s take it together.” Like omg, you know I couldn’t contain myself!!😆😍💕
Niyah did well on set. But on our way to the set she vomited in the Lyft. And the driver immediately said “Lyft is going to send you a bill for $300” without looking back to see that it was primarily on her with a little on his rubber mat; which I cleaned as he drove with my scarf as my baby cried. And said she was sorry. As we exited the highway, I asked if we could stop to wash his mat off, and he agreed when he saw it wasn’t bad at all. He didn’t report it after all.
Went to set and the nervousness kicked in along with some nausea, but she didn’t vomit. Not sure how the cast found out that she wasn’t doing well, maybe it was the scene where she laid on the bounce house, but cast including the director, Kofi Similarly, and his love interest came out to baby her. It really touched my heart that they would care about my baby. They literally spent time with her trying to make her laugh n etc. by asking her questions, asking her about her favorite things, telling their nervous moments and 1st time acting even getting ginger ale n snacks they were terrific! I wish I could let them know how much it meant to both of us that they went so far for my baby. We think superstars are these bigger than life ppl who can’t relate to us. They are us full of compassion, feelings you know, and we need to treat them as we would anyone else.
Kofi Siriboe was willing to take a picture with Niyah after, but my phone died. I think he will be cast again so she can have her memories. But seriously, my baby was worried about Oprah being there, and she wanted to do her best for her. I hope when she goes back, she is over her nervousness. Plus she has a disability brachial plexus, and she didn’t want to be treated any different, because of her hand. No one noticed not even the kids, and that was reassuring for her. I didn’t know just how much all of this affected her we were home. She’s my inspiration, my strength, and joy. Niyah is the definition of an overcomer. She does everything with one hand with hardly any help. She adapts to life so quickly it’s amazing. I’ll share her story soon!
I never thought of an opportunity such as this could happen to me, especially at this time of my life. I remember saying the same thing about writing blogging and working on the radio, but amazingly, I have fallen into these rolls of life with ease. Well, the bad heartbreaking roles resulting in a real-life flat face fall that leaves me bruised and broken, but I rise to the challenge.
My life in New Orleans is filled with days of soulful creativity! The jobs I have taken on since I moved back home are all connected in their various forms of freedom of speech, the use of writing, and telling our stories. It’s as if I was written into all the scripts opportunities that have presented themselves upon my arrival. New Orleans is all that I knew she would be. Amid my pain, she helps me pin my sorrows of my soul, giving me an outlet of healing and freedom. The warmth of love here far better than vitamin D. You never know I may be on this path for my last role as a movie writer ☺️!
Dat NOLA Chic 