Hey Glamazons! I've had quite the weekend. The lovely folks at Johnson & Johnson invited moi to come and serve as the official beauty correspondent for the Ambi Flawless Beauty Lounge at this years' BET Honors awards ceremony. (Ambi was the official sponsor for the afterparty, so my job was to interview celebs on the red carpet before they headed into the party. That's me pictured there, what do you guys think of my outfit?!) This was my first time ever interviewing celebs in front of a real live camera (yeah, my Flip cam doesn't count lol). I think I did a pretty good job! I have no problem running my mouth and it turned out to be alot easier than I thought. (The hard part? Standing up for hours in my super cute Jimmy Choos..a day later, my feet are still throbbing..ugh.)
Luckily, I was able to bring a guest so I took my amiga Elaine and we headed off to D.C. on Saturday morning and arrived by later afternoon. (btw who knew that we'd have so much fun on the Amtrak?! I'm now obsessed with trains and thinking of some other places I can go..wouldn't it be fun to road trip across the U.S. by train?!) We stayed at the new W Hotel and who do we see getting off the elevator as we're coming in? Maxwell. Yes, the crooner himself. He flashed a smile at us as he walked by and all Elaine and I could do was think that we should have definitely spent more time bumping ourselves to hottie status. (We were definitely just on cute girls travelling status in our glasses and no makeup!)
After getting dressed and ready, our car picked us up and we headed over to the venue where we were immediately asked to walk the red carpet. Eeeek! Neither of us had ever done so and it was kind of an intimidating experience...but by the time we got halfway down, we were throwing angles like pros! (Paris and Nicole got nothin' on us!) Inside was a mini cocktail party and we meandered around with our drinks and talked to people. A bunch of guys in suits walked over and started talking to us and they turned out to be members of the band Take 6. (I felt like an idiot after I told one of them "Oh my mom loves you guys!" LOL) One of them professed to us that they were performing a song with Stevie Wonder and they'd only had a couple of rehearsals, so hopefully they remembered everything. (Which they did! They all sounded amazing!) As we were walking into the auditorium for the actual show, we look up and notice they we were directly behind the sex God himself, Trey Songz. (Ok, maybe he's not really a sex God, but he claims to have "invented sex" and between that (and those lips! ooweee!) I think he definitely qualifies as one lol). After a couple of jokes from the L.A. based comedian G Thank (mostly done due to the fact that there were some serious sound issues going on that they were frantically trying to fix lol) the show finally began. Host for the evening was the lovely Gabrielle Union (who later told me that she had a total of 9 dress changes!) and the honorees included Whitney Houston, Queen Latifah, Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, Keith Black, M.D. and Diddy. I had to leave the show a bit early to get set up for my interviews at the after party, so I was I a bit bummed about missing the last half of the show. But, I was so happy that I got to see Patti LaBelle perform live (in honor of Queen Latifah) and Elaine and I couldn't help but to get up and dance to the old school jams Mary J. Blige sang in honor to Diddy!
While we were waiting for everyone to show up, Elaine and I had a bit of down time and taped an episode of 'Meeting In The Ladies Room' (see video clip at the end).
During the afterparty, I was psyched to interview Chris Tucker (but kind of sad that he didn't crack any jokes!), the lovely Gabrielle Union and Debra Lee (President and CEO of BET). After having a blast dancing and socializing, the crowd started to thin out so Elaine and I headed to the next scene: an after party at this club called Avalon. This turned out to be a huge mistake because it was hot, packed and gross. I was groped by some strange man every two seconds and my neatly coiffed bob was starting to turn into a frizzy mess due to the humidity in the air. Also, my feet were completely dead. (As in, if I moved too much, my knees would start to buckle). The only cool part was chopping it up with the singer Ne-Yo (who declared his love for my cheekbones and nose lol).
We decided to head out and (in typical NY fashion) go to hail a cab; which was not such a good idea considering that we were in the "hood" and there were no taxis to be found...only swarms of men declaring that they would more than happy to take us home! (Ha! I think not!) So, because we couldn't stand any longer, I flagged down a cop car and begged him to take us home. Of course, he said no and said that the only way that we could ride in the back was if we were under arrest..to which Elaine promptly told him that she didn't mind being arrested just as long as could get home. At that point, I think he felt sorry for us, so he told us to get in, cut on the emergency sirens and whizzed us back to our hotel. Side note: I have never been arrested nor do I plan on it in the future if only for the reason that riding in the backseat of a cop car is probably one of the most uncomfortable experiences in life!
Anywhoo, below are some of my fave looks from the red carpet. Be sure to check out the show when it airs on February 1 at 9/8 central and my red carpet coverage clips on bet.com!.
Gabrielle Union surprised us all by ditching her usual long, Barbie hair for this cute, elegant braid!
I was smitten with musician Kris Connor! Especially when he stopped to play a tune for Elaine and I...sigh...
Mya looked adorable in this sexy red ball gown!
NeYo looks dapper in this white tuxedo jacket, but my fave part were his eyeglasses. AtotheMazing!
xo
Ferocia