People are definitely still buzzing about the cast of “Girlfriends” reuniting on “black-ish” on Tuesday, Oct. 8. And now the ladies have all sat down for a new interview with Charlamagne Tha God.
“Girlfriends” ran on UPN/The CW between 2000 and 2008 before being canceled, and it starred Tracee Ellis Ross, Jill Marie Jones, Persia White and Golden Brooks as best friends living in Los Angeles.
Charlamagne’s interview was published on Tuesday, and Ellis Ross said the reunion is something they’d wanted to do for awhile. She also thanked “The Breakfast Club” host for the part he played in bringing them back together.
“We’ve been wanting for it to happen for a long time, and you’ve been one of the people that have been really vocal about that, which we can all say thank you,” said Ellis Ross, who played the lawyer Joan Clayton on “Girlfriends.”
The “black-ish” star also talked about how “Girlfriends” was pretty much a Black show with Black folks working on both sides of the camera. And she didn’t realize how rare that was until later on.
“‘Girlfriends’ and our crew, cast had so much diversity,” Ellis Ross explained. “We were led by Mara Brock Akil, by a black woman, our writers room was majority black women, our crew, our director of photography was a black man.”
“And it changed the way I go forward in my career,” she added. “Because it was such an assumption, and that’s not the way it is everywhere.”
In another part of the interview Jones, who played Toni Childs, talked about leaving “Girlfriends” after the sixth season, and she shot down rumors that her exit was related to beef with the cast.
Contrarily, Jones said her reason for leaving was just a career move.
“What people don’t realize is that ‘Girlfriends’ was my third audition,” Jones explained. “I landed the role when I was 25 and the show was on at the time for six years, putting me at 31 years old. So I made the decision to see what else is out there, because I didn’t know how much longer things would last. So I chose to leave to strike while the iron was hot.”
The ladies also said it would be hard to reboot the show because it ended so abruptly, but they’d be open to a “Girlfriends” movie. But Ellis Ross explained the decision for the popular sitcom to live on isn’t up to them.
“People will literally come up to us and say, ‘Why don’t you guys get on Netflix,’” said Ellis Ross. “But what they don’t realize is we literally have no power over that. We weren’t executive producers or showrunners, we were just actresses, so we have no say in none of that.”
And Ellis Ross had a theory as to why “Girlfriends” ended without a proper sendoff or a closing out of the storylines. “Our show, I don’t think was as important to them as it was to our community,” she stated.
