Harlem native Bevy Smith has experienced career highs and lows throughout her professional tenure and has revealed her reality into a new book ‘Bevelations: Lessons from a Mutha, Auntie, Bestie‘ documenting her journey.
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“You have to understand something, that just because we work towards something and just because something was once a dream, if we find in the middle of the process that it’s no longer fulfilling, do not be afraid to say, not anymore, no longer a dream. I’m going to pivot and I’m going to try something else,” Smith said to theGrio.
The 54-year-old has a career modeled with that exact mindset. Smith is most known for being a television personality and media professional. However, she has also made waves in various industries including fashion, business, and advertising. She shared a magnitude of her experiences of the past and what is to come in conversation with theGrio as well as details on her book.
According to Macmillan Publishers, in the memoir “Bevy invites readers along on the route of her personal transformation to reveal how each of us can live our best lives with honesty, joy, and when we’re in the mood, a killer pair of shoes.”
Smith said she was encouraged to write the book by others.
“Bevelations: Lessons from a Mutha, Auntie, Bestie was really a book people urged me to write. I was minding my business and my agent says ‘you have to write a book,’ and I said okay, and paid her no mind. And then literally, like a year later she called me and she said Bevy just come into my office, we’re going to just do an outline of stories of yours, and then we’re going to start shopping around for a book deal. I’m like OK, sure, fine, whatever,” she shared with theGrio.
The expert commentator also offered her take on recent events including the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol which resulted in multiple arrests and fatalities.
“The moment was giving madness. The moment was giving white privilege. The moment was giving, the chickens have come home to roost. When you look at it, first of all, if they had been Black people…let me just explain something to you from a fashion point of view. If they had been Black people, they automatically would have been stopped down as soon as they hit Washington D.C.,” she shared.
Smith continued by exploring the civil rights movement and the politics of protest attire.
“When we went to march, we had to show up and show out. These folks marched in pumps and Sunday’s best. These people came looking like they were at a college football game or some kind of fraternity row shenanigan event,. They were so distasteful on so many different levels, and I think one of the most scary parts of it is they did really look like barbarians.”
The author went on to discuss the absence of Sundance Film Festival this season. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the annual event will hold some virtual events. Smith has hosted events affiliated wit the festival for over a decade.
“I’ve been doing Sundance now, for about 12 years,” she said. “Sundance is my jam, but what I will tell you is when we had those couple of snowstorms in late 2020, I wore a couple of my Sundance looks and the kids were gagging… I had to tell them, well this is actually my Sundance wardrobe.”
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