Free For the Love of Money by Omar Tyree Page A

So instead of being caught up between those two, I just decided to add Grant. Plain and simple.”
    â€œWow. Just like that,” Wendy said. “So there was no funny business going on with the name change at all, it was just a professional thing?”
    â€œYes, that’s all that it was,” I responded. “So everyone out there adding their own particular twist to it needs to grow up.” I was still appalled by the whole lesbian thing. I wondered how far the rumor had traveled.
    Did Mercedes know about
that
? She
was
still connected to the streets more than anyone else I knew. My concentration was blown again. I just couldn’t believe how twisted things could get once you become a celebrity.
    Wendy said, “;So, have you already been asked a bunch a questions about that? Is it an old story for you by now?”
    â€œActually, I
haven’t
been asked a lot about it,” I told her. “That’s why Iknew that I would have to say something to someone sooner or later. I guess I just didn’t know what kind of rumors were out there about it, but I did realize that some people would assume I had married someone named Grant. That crossed my mind when I first decided on it.”
    â€œWell, yeah, especially for the people who read your book,” Wendy said. “We were all thinking,
What’s up with this
Grant
thing?
We all thought that you were waiting to marry Victor Hinson. Then the brother went to jail and changed his name to Muhammad, right? So what was up with this Tracy Ellison
Grant?
”
    I had to give Wendy one thing: she knew her shit. She had obviously read my book.
    I said, “Well, that’s all true, but it didn’t happen like a big old fairy tale. I had to move on, but that does
not
mean that I moved
into
the closet and tried to cover it up with a name change, for all of the people out there who somehow got it twisted.”
    I just could not seem to keep my mouth shut about the lesbian matter. It really bothered me. I guess because I was so
un-lesbian.
    Dee Lee jumped in and said, “Well, why didn’t you just use your middle name or initial? Isn’t that what a lot of other Hollywood stars do?”
    I said, “I thought of that, but I wasn’t too fond of using my middle initial.”
    Wendy took my earlier cue regarding lesbianism and ran with it like a fox who had just spotted the rabbit. “Well, let’s talk about this fear of being labeled a lesbian when we come back. Because it seems like a lot of successful sisters have been called lesbians at one time or another, simply because they could not be attached to a man.”
    Once I realized that I had let the cat out of the bag on the air, I felt like kicking myself in the mouth. Wendy had only mentioned it
off
of the air. Nevertheless, if the rumor was floating around that I was a lesbian, then I had to face it and have it corrected. I couldn’t tiptoe around it and hope that those who believed it would know what I was referring to. That idea seemed silly. It would also seem as though I had something to hide. So I
had
to get it out in the open. There was no other way around it.
    Wendy Williams had set me up perfectly. Just by bringing that crazy shit up she made me address it. I had no intentions of dealing with something like that on a popular morning show in my hometown of Philadelphia, while my parents, fans, and family members were all listening in. I felt like a damn fool! I began to feel really hot and clammy with a headache coming on. I had to compose myself and deal with it like a professional.
    When we came back on the air, I said, “Wendy, you know what this is? It’s all about sexism. A woman is not supposed to have her own money without a man being attached to it somewhere. Even Oprah had to bring her man Stedman all up on her show and parade him around so that everyone would know that
she had
one. You remember that?”
    I decided to get the hell