Charlamagne Tha God on his mental health journey, Angela Yee’s exit and Comedy Central’s ‘Hell of a Week’
The host of "The Breakfast Club" sits down with theGrio's "Acting Up" podcast to discuss the morning radio show's new direction, his personal growth, and the second season of his late-night talk show.
After news broke that Angela Yee would be leaving her long-time post as co-host of “The Breakfast Club” to launch her new show, theGrio caught up with Charlamagne Tha God to get his take on the announcement.
During a recent interview on Acting Up, he revealed that he couldn’t be happier about the transition.
“I feel ecstatic,” he said. “I’m extremely happy for her…we’ve never seen a hip-hop morning show have the kind of run that ‘The Breakfast Club’ is having.”
Charlamagne clarified that Yee’s new show will be “a spinoff of ‘The Breakfast Club,’” revealing “she’s going to be coming on right after us.”
“I think that’s what people don’t realize. Like when you’re traveling around the country, and you hear ‘The Breakfast Club’ on in the morning, literally right after we go off in most of these markets, Angela is going to come on with her show ‘Way up with Angela Yee,’” he explained. “This is the way things are supposed to be. It’s about evolution. It’s about growth.”
Charlamagne also revealed his plans for “The Breakfast Club” and admitted it will take some time to find a new permanent co-host.
“I’m extremely happy for what the next iteration of ‘The Breakfast Club’ is going to look like. We are a franchise, and we’ve always looked at the show as a club. So what does the club have? A club has a lot of members,” he said. “So let’s see what’s next. Let’s see who’s coming next. It might be one person. It might be two. Who knows?
He continued, ”That’s a process, and I’m not even in that zone yet because this is going to be like a year from now before y’all see somebody in this seat permanently–maybe longer.”
Charlamagne insisted fans will likely enjoy a rotating roster of guest hosts until he finds someone that sticks and he’s guessing it will be a woman.
“When you watch shows like ‘The View’ or ‘The Real’ whenever they would lose somebody, they would always rotate the guest [hosts]. I think that’s the thing that makes sense the most,” he said. “That’s honestly why I’m so excited. Because every other week you could hear a new personality. You hear new energy in here, and you know, I’d be lying if I told you all that I’m not 95% sure it’s going to be a woman.”
He added, “I think women right now have the strongest voices in the media. I don’t think there’s nobody speaking truth to power, and I’m talking about on all aspects from politics to pop culture to sports, everything. I think the best personalities nowadays are women.”
Charlamagne described the prospect of having a ”new female energy” every other week or month on the show as “exciting.”
The best-selling author and philanthropist also discussed how he unintentionally became a mental health advocate, after putting in the work to address his issues and examining his relationship with his father.
“I didn’t set out to be a mental health advocate. I just needed the help. I needed to do the work on myself. I looked in the mirror one day and did not like what I saw,” said the author of the 2018 book ”Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks on Me.”
“I realized that I was projecting pain on people. I realized that I was a hurt person and I was hurting others.”
Recognizing the responsibility of his platform, Charlamagne explained, ”When you got this microphone and you are impacting millions of people, that’s not a good energy to have, you know what I’m saying? So even though a lot of things I might have done and said were making people laugh, a lot of that might have been at other people’s expense.”
Speaking of his father, he said, “I love my dad. So I mean this with all due respect, but I would not want to end up like my dad and not wanting to do my wife the way I saw my dad do my mom. I wanted to really just make a change to be a better human.”
Now in his second season as a late-night talk show host on Comedy Central, his weekly show co-executive produced by Stephen Colbert has a new title and a new perspective. “Hell of a Week with Charlamagne The God” premiered on July 28 and features influential guests and Charlamagne’s comical and unfiltered take on the most talked about topics. The 30-minute show has scored another win by bringing on award-winning producer, Josh Lieb, formerly of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” as an executive producer.
The show features weekly guests and panelists, that often include some of the biggest names in comedy and politics to tackle the biggest stories of the week.
For the full interview, check out this week’s episode of our podcast, Acting Up with Cortney Wills.
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