Words by Leslie Monet
In addition to breast cancer, the month of October has also been dedicated to pregnancy and infant loss awareness, a timely platform for BET’s Being Mary Jane star, Gabrielle Union to publicly announce her struggles with conception since 2014 after having found a new love for motherhood with her husband Dwayne Wade and his children from prior relationships.
The 44 year old candidly spills her struggles and triumphs as a black woman in Hollywood in an upcoming memoir “We’re Going To Need More Wine” scheduled to release on October 17, 2017.
Union isn’t the first to use her platform to bring awareness to child loss and alternative forms of conception. Gabrielle and Dwayne are accompanied by some of the most famous entertainment couples in the world including Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon before conceiving “Dem Babies” (via Ranker.com) and Janet Jackson, who recently gave birth to a healthy child at the glorious age of 50 (via Huffington Post) and of course Beyonce and JAY-Z who made history with his-and-hers album releases giving listeners an exclusive ear and eye of their marriage during tumultuous times.
JAY-Z dropped heart-wrenching lyrics on the title track “4:44”, his alleged response to his wifey’s LEMONADE album, to publicly apologize for his direct contribution to Bey’s miscarriage before Blue Ivy:
So I apologize. I’ve seen the innocence leave your eyes. I still mourn this death. I apologize for all the stillborns. ‘Cause I wasn’t present, your body wouldn’t accept it.
Gabrielle’s recent Instagram post also indicates that she is a survivor of sexual predator’s comparable to Tina Turner’s story. Stepmom to Xavier Zechariah, 3, Zion Malachi Airamis, 9½, and Zaire Blessing, 15, Union has naturally entered her role as the full-time mother figure in the household with grace and determination to achieve conception of her own child with her husband. We all hope this chapter of failed pregnancies shall also too pass and a Union can soon attest to a 360 degree transformation of sexual abuse to her now seemingly fairy-tale with Wade as just the beginning of a foregoing list of continuous victories for the hopeful mother-to-be.
The clever title and brutally honest essays are sure to gain heavy interest of her fans and critics as New York Best-Selling Author of The Mothers, Brit Bennett noted the book as “a hilarious and moving memoir from a natural storyteller. Gabrielle Union explores love, family, trauma and racial identity in a book that somehow manages to be both heartbreakingly honest and laugh-out-loud funny.”
Union, a now acclaimed activist of women’s reproductive health and victims of sexual assault will begin her book tour on Tuesday October 17, 2017 at the Gramercy Theatre in New York, NY followed by a Q&A at the Alamo Drafthouse on the 18th in Brooklyn, NY.
