The chocolate beauty Tika Sumpter is on the cover of the latest issue of VIBE Vixen. She gets down to it as she explains what it was like growing up with her mother, the entertainment industry, and being Jenna on BET's The Game. Take a look inside...
VV: Growing up in a single-parent home, were there any struggles that molded you?
TIKA: Not growing up with a dad was really hard, but my mom was so on point. She was a lover and the authority that basically gave us whoopings. If you missed that bus to school, you were walking. I saw my mom struggle a lot which made me not want to do the things normal teenagers do. I was super prude in junior high and high school; the prudest person in the pack. I was so active in school that I wasn’t even thinking about sex. Even my girlfriend and I, who are best friends since junior high, we were talking and she was like, ‘Tika, nobody knows what they’re doing in junior high, middle school or high school with sex, so why is everybody in a rush?’
VV: [Laughs] Would you say that you were shy or just conservative about those activities?
TIKA: I think I’m both. People might think I’m not shy, because when you see me, I talk, but I was kind of shy. I was shy, I was scared, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I don’t wanna get pregnant; I have too much to do in life right now.’ It scared me a little bit.
TIKA ON THE PRESSURE OF ENTERTAINMENT
VV: Like you said, your character Jenna Rice had a lot to live up to. Do you feel that you have a lot to live up to in the acting world? Do you feel like you have to maintain a standard?
TIKA: I think there’s pressure on everybody; let’s not deceive ourselves. It’s definitely a beauty business. It [matters] how your face looks, how your body looks, how everything looks. All the blogs talk about it, and they pick on people. The blogs and magazines will be quick to show what’s wrong with a person, so I think there’ s a lot of pressure to try to maintain themselves as much as possible.
See the rest of the interview at VIBE Vixen!
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