Editor’s note: This Playboy Interview with Jemele Hill originally appeared on Playboy.com in February 2021 with a special twist – it was conducted by Hill’s best friend, Emmy-award winning journalist Kelley L. Carter.

This past January wasn’t the first time white supremacists and Nazi sympathizers overran an American city, bringing chaos and carnage. Those who watched their newsfeeds in abject horror on January 6, 2021 as domestic terrorists swarmed the Capitol might have been reminded of August 12, 2017, when a white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia led to violent clashes and a deadly attack that former President Donald Trump would also condone. This was not an aberration, it turns out, but a harbinger of what was to come. Days after Charlottesville, Trump referred to the “very fine people on both sides” of the incident—an equivocation Joe Biden later said catalyzed him to run against Trump. He also reacted sympathetically to the rioters last month.

Of the voices that emerged to help the country contextualize and understand the moment, one stood out for its clarity and courage.

“Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists,” tweeted reporter Jemele Hill.

Then co-anchor of ESPN’s SportsCenter, Hill had said what many Americans knew to be true. But as so often happens, speaking truth to power came at a price, altering the course of her life and career. If you’re a sports fanatic, you already knew Hill. A fixture in sports journalism, she had written for the Detroit Free Press, Orlando Sentinel and Raleigh News & Observer before joining ESPN in 2006. For nearly 12 years she worked various sports beats across ESPN properties and climbed steadily up the ladder: as a columnist for ESPN.com; as a commentator on shows including Cold Pizza, First Take, Outside the Lines and The Sports Reporters; as the founder and co-host of the His & Hers podcast with fellow sports reporter Michael Smith. And then in February 2017 she landed what should’ve been a dream gig: the co-anchor spot on SportsCenter.

But when her Twitter observation went viral less than eight months into the job, Hill was thrust outside the sports world and into the national spotlight. Trump, never one to let a personal grievance slide, lambasted the network and demanded an apology. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called Hill’s comment a “fireable offense,” while legions of other Trump supporters took to social media to hurl racism, misogyny and death threats at Hill.

Sports, often seen as a respite from politics, was proved once again to be inextricably linked to it. In the era of Colin Kaepernick, “shut up and dribble” and athletes refusing to meet the president, there can be no divorcing the two. In spite of this, Hill remained remarkably unruffled, though she ultimately decided to leave SportsCenter to pursue projects that would soon raise her profile even further.

As impactful as it was, that seismic tweet is perhaps the least interesting thing about Hill. Born in Detroit in 1975, Hill was raised largely by her mother; her father’s long absence and eventual reemergence caused Hill no small amount of anger—though she learned to turn that frustration into strength. As a student at Samuel C. Mumford High School, she discovered a passion for sportswriting, and her ambition and talent for it took her to Michigan State University’s journalism program. Hill, never shy about her hometown pride, is an especially proud alum of Michigan State—perhaps in part because it was at a 2014 alumni event that Hill met her now husband, Ian Wallace, whom she married in late 2019. Though the tweet heard ’round the world put her on the global map, Hill quickly broke out of being defined by it, making calculated professional moves with the steeliness and sensibility of the ballplayers she often covers. Since leaving ESPN in 2018, she has landed a new gig at The Atlantic, narrated a documentary produced by LeBron James, started a successful podcast on Spotify, launched a weekly late-night show on Vice TV, signed a development deal with Showtime and written an upcoming memoir.

In other words, she has a lot going on. Which made us ask: Who better to interview Hill than someone with the inside edge? To take on the task of peeling back the many layers of Jemele Hill, Playboy asked the uniquely qualified Kelley L. Carter—an Emmy-winning writer who not only has known Hill since their days as MSU students, but also is her best friend and business partner. Carter reports from Los Angeles, where she invited Hill to her home for the interview (they’re in each other’s bubbles): “When I met Hill we were both teens, wide-eyed but laser focused on becoming game-changing journalists. We were obsessed with the work of renowned black journalists like the Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page or The Washington Post’s Donna Britt. Jemele would devour their pieces, perhaps inspired by the unflinching way they just told it like it was.

“Ours is a Black Lucy-and-Ethel type of relationship: She’s the rabble-rouser who is always in search of an adventure; I follow along because I know wherever we’re going, we’re going to have a good-ass time.

“She’s the epitome of cool, peppering her shoot-from-the-hip style of conversation with colorfully inventive four-letter-word combos. She’s compassionate, generous and an exceptional listener—except when it comes to talking her out of something she’s set on doing.

“And there is nothing that scares her. Well, almost nothing….”

PLAYBOY: We realized the other day that we’ve been BFFs for nearly 30 years. Are you jittery about this interview?

HILL: It is a little nerve-racking to be interviewed by somebody who knows you so well. So, I got this vodka because I’m nervous.

PLAYBOY: I understand. But you want me to be unedited, right?

HILL: I do.

PLAYBOY: Back when you were a columnist for the student newspaper at Michigan State, your pieces generated a lot of hate mail. Were you ever scared?

HILL: I remember a column I wrote about how reverse racism didn’t exist. A dude called the newspaper office; they transferred him right over to my desk. He said, “I read your column” and starts going off. I’m like, “Okay, okay,” since we’re taught to defuse in those situations. And then he was like, “I expect a full retraction.”

That’s when the Detroit came out. I’m like, “And what if you don’t get it? What are you going to do?” He was like, “You’re going to see me somewhere when you least expect it,” and hung up the phone. That’s when the lightbulb went off: Oh, these people all know me, but I have no idea who they are. More than likely he was in my class. Who knows? But that was when I realized you can trigger people to the point where they are willing to threaten your life, if not take it.

None of that ever made me—not one time—think, Oh, I need to write softer. I need to change my perspective. I need to not write about race. It actually had the opposite effect. It made me want to write about it more. “Okay, let me really piss you off.” Y’all not going to shut me up. It’s not going to happen. I’m the one with the pen; I’m going to get the last word.

PLAYBOY: The first time you were on ESPN’s Cold Pizza in 2007, you closed out the week wearing a T-shirt from your alma mater, Mumford High School—the same shirt Eddie Murphy wore in Beverly Hills Cop.

HILL: I did wear the T-shirt and a Detroit Tigers jersey.

PLAYBOY: Why was that important to you?

HILL: As my platform became more elevated I needed to show people that good things come from Detroit. I grew up in a city where there was always this idea that people could expect only the worst. Detroit made the national news for almost exclusively awful things: murder rate, Devil’s Night, crime, drugs. I got tired of that being the narrative.

There’s a grit and a soul to Detroit you won’t find elsewhere. I think that has to do with the fact that people there are used to being discounted and disrespected and, frankly, told they’re not worthy. Because people look down on the city, it was important to me—especially being on ESPN—to shine that sliver of a spotlight and represent my high school.

PLAYBOY: Speaking of high school, let’s talk about growing up. I remember a conversation years ago in New York; you jokingly said something like, “You can tell I didn’t grow up with a positive male figure in my life!” Tell me about when you met your dad and how that affected you.

HILL: My mother and father had a volatile relationship. There was abuse, physical and verbal. My mother left him, and my father sunk deeper into drug culture. But even when he was knee-deep in drugs—he got addicted to heroin—my mother would still make a point to try to keep me connected to his side of the family.

I saw my grandparents, cousins and some uncles, but my father was absent. Just M.I.A. During that time my mother got married, so my first memories of a positive Black male figure were of my stepfather, my mother’s first husband. For a period I thought he was my biological dad. But after my father got clean, he started coming around; I was nine or 10 years old.

PLAYBOY: There was a moment when you answered the door, he was there and he had to explain to you who he was, right?

HILL: It was very awkward. I did not know how to fit him into my life. It was just like, where’s this person supposed to go? He would show up for certain things. He came to some of my softball games, we went to the movies, he bought me things. But the emotional connection was missing, and I didn’t know how to make up for it. Then, as I learned about things that happened between him and my mother, the anger started. I wasn’t sure if I wanted a relationship. I had to really sit with it, and I wrote him a letter when I was living in Raleigh, North Carolina, working at the News & Observer.

PLAYBOY: How old were you when you were working for the paper in Raleigh? 22?

HILL: Yeah. I wrote him a letter and went off. It was just like, you had a lot of nerve just to try. My father was never demanding, but I thought he never really took responsibility for not being there. Me and my mother had a lot of struggles, and he could not be relied on. She was battling her own substance abuse issues, and when our house got foreclosed on, where was my father?

I had to resolve that those moments were over. I needed to move past it—not for him, but for me. I didn’t want it to be something I’d always be sensitive about that’s always going to trigger me. The best thing I could do is accept him for who and what he is—shortcomings and all. And I did that. Once I got it off my chest, I was good.

PLAYBOY: Writing feels like your most powerful tool. That had to feel very therapeutic.

HILL: It did. Writing has always been important to me because in person I can struggle to tell people how I feel. I think too much, and I brew, and I stew, and I turn things over in my mind to the point where, verbally, I’m not the best communicator with certain topics. With the more volatile emotions, be it love or anger, I’m very stunted in that way. I’m going to struggle to tell you those feelings. I can easily express myself in writing in ways I can’t in conversation. Growing up, I always kept journals because it was the best way to stay in touch with my feelings and get that shit out.

PLAYBOY: Do you think the fractured relationship with your dad impacted how you relate to Black men?

HILL: It’s funny you say that because I have noted the fact that he’s a recovering addict in previous interviews. He has been clean and sober for decades now, which I also often note. Yet there is this narrative that I hate Black men because of my father, which I find to be weirdly weaponized.

I didn’t ever look at my father and say, “Well, all Black men ain’t shit because of what my daddy did.” If anything, it helped me give Black men even more grace because I had learned to accept somebody for who they are. It’s understanding that he dealt with a very serious addiction, and the way he picked himself back up was not easy to do. I have much more grace because I lived through that experience. I don’t look at all Black men and see somebody who will ultimately disappoint me—not at all. Otherwise, I would not have married a Black man.

PLAYBOY: You seemed to be having the most fun when you and Michael Smith (who would later be your co-host on SportsCenter) were doing His & Hers on ESPN2 in 2015 and 2016. Why do you think that was?

HILL: Sometimes you don’t know you’re having the best time of your life until it’s over. We did—and I mean this in the most complimentary way—some of the stupidest things ever seen on television. It was great. It felt like we were left home alone and the parents were on vacation and had no idea we were throwing a massive party. There’s a level of fearlessness that we had. We really didn’t care what the executives thought about it.And luckily for us, they weren’t thinking about us because they weren’t watching us. We were able to get away with a lot on ESPN2. Because of our authenticity, a His & Hers community had developed. The people really fucked with us because we were not afraid to do certain things, talk about certain things. People get caught up in all the silly shit we did that was a lot of fun, but we had groundbreaking conversations on the network.

The conversations we had about Trayvon Martin, about Philando Castile, nobody had on the network. And we’d talk about it as long as we wanted. Our conversation after what happened to Philando Castile was 15 minutes—you’re not supposed to do that.

PLAYBOY: That’s a long time on TV.

HILL: You can’t do that on TV!

PLAYBOY: When you were negotiating a new contract in 2017, you and Smith both had a chance to exit and go to another network. But ESPN came back with a strong offer—one you hadn’t considered before: co-anchoring the six o’clock SportsCenter. What made you stay?

HILL: They came stronger than either of us anticipated. And the weird part was, it was the easiest contract negotiation I ever had at ESPN. Mike and I were in the middle of the ESPN newsroom in good old Building 3, and [senior vice president] Rob King and another executive walked past. King was like, “Hey, what do you guys think about hosting SportsCenter?” We thought he meant to fill in. “Oh, yeah, we’d be happy to fill in whenever you guys are short.” He’s like, “No, no. I mean, hosting it.” And we just busted out laughing because we thought that was the dumbest idea. “Why would you want us? Have you seen our show?” The combination of the role, the money and being elevated in a whole different way—it was a no-brainer to take the job.

PLAYBOY: You started in February 2017; six months later, you sent out the tweet heard ’round the world, calling out President Trump as a white supremacist. The White House called for you to be fired. ESPN later (unrelated to that tweet) suspended you for two weeks, and you left SportsCenter shortly after. Were you surprised at the backlash?

HILL: Hell, yeah! I didn’t feel it was that controversial. I didn’t think it was breaking news. I didn’t think it was particularly intelligent, from the standpoint that it didn’t teach people something new. That was my impression. But the fact that people responded to it in such a strong way had to do with gender, race and platform. And by platform, I don’t mean Twitter; I mean me being somebody who represented ESPN. I’m representing a show where the hosts are not known to have those kinds of opinions. Even though I did not make the observation on an ESPN platform, to a lot of people it was the same thing. I was stunned.Consider the context of the narrative ESPN was caught up in at that time. It was being accused of being too political and too liberal by people who had their own agendas. When they said too political and too liberal, they meant too Black, too diverse, too inclusive. As soon as certain faces became more prominent at the network, ESPN was accused of capitulating to the liberals. Bomani Jones and Dan Le Batard were in a really elevated position, and myself and Mike had taken over the six o’clock SportsCenter, and Sarah Spain and Kate Fagan—all these new faces representing different things.

PLAYBOY: People who weren’t cis, hetero, white men.

HILL: Exactly. That was reflexively offensive to some people. They equated it with ESPN going the way of the liberal left and forgetting about the straight, white, conservative, Christian men who had gotten the network to the place it was.

PLAYBOY: The news of your tweet was everywhere. I remember sitting at a bar with you, and someone sent us a round of drinks. When we looked up, a white man raised his glass in salute. Did that catch you off guard?

HILL: Oh, it totally caught me off guard. The little bit I did hear during that time was that white people were pretty upset at me. I also had a big shift in awareness, realizing that I was no longer in just the sports space. I was accustomed to being recognized, but in a much different way; people wanted to come up to me and talk about whether Tom Brady was the best quarterback of all time. Suddenly people were coming up to me and expressing political opinions or the only reason they knew me was because of this tweet. I was seeing in real time that my world was changing, and I couldn’t tell if that was good or bad.

PLAYBOY: You eventually told ESPN you didn’t want to anchor the show anymore. What happened?

HILL: I was wildly unhappy even before the Donald Trump thing popped off. The show wasn’t what I expected. Creatively we were not on the same page. Every day Mike and I had to fight battles, some of which were emotionally exhausting. To have to convince people why you should be allowed to be yourself is very self-defeating. I was tired of it. And I was tired of feeling I was begging all the time. The Trump controversy gave them an excuse to peel the show back to what we affectionately called “make SportsCenter great again.” Once I got suspended, everything became about [finding] an exit strategy.There was something I could never fully articulate that was so hurtful about the SportsCenter experience. Not the Trump stuff, but the way in which Mike and I felt we were not good enough for them. It’s like being in a relationship where somebody loves you in the dating phase, and then once y’all start living together they hate the way you do the toothpaste. And suddenly they aren’t feeling it.

PLAYBOY: After you announced that you wanted to leave ESPN, a lot of people wanted to hire you. Why was The Atlantic the right fit?

HILL: It took me back to the thing I love doing the most. The TV stuff has been very beneficial professionally and financially, but writing is what I love to do. That’s why after I left SportsCenter I chose to write for ESPN’s The Undefeated. I wanted to get back to actually talking with the people I often only talk about. And just from a critical-thinking standpoint, being able to construct a column or an essay or even a reported piece, it’s just a much different brain cell you’re using. I wanted to get back to that. And I love The Atlantic.

PLAYBOY: You also launched a podcast. The initial plan was to have two male co-hosts. After I listened to the first two episodes, I asked you why you felt you needed them. It felt like a solo interview series, and that’s exactly what it became. At what point did you realize that was the right direction?

HILL: Probably as we were trying to book guests. The guests were very specific about wanting to talk to me, and it wasn’t any insult to the two co-hosts. I was coming off a very public situation, and there was a desire to sit down with the person at the center of the public situation. I hadn’t taken a step back to think, You can probably carry this by yourself. And then as it evolved into that I was like, Oh, this probably should have been the idea all along.

PLAYBOY: I love that you ultimately bet solely on yourself.

HILL: It felt odd at first, but as I settled in I knew it was exactly what it should be.

PLAYBOY: During the turbulence of your professional life these past few years, you also were falling in love, marrying Ian Wallace in November 2019. What attracted you to him?

HILL: The first time I looked at Ian, I was like, He’s hot. Immediately the eye-fucking started. He also has a very charismatic personality and instantly was able to make me laugh. He brings out the lightness in me because he is light as well.

Had you asked me what I was looking for at the time I met him, I’m not sure I would have described somebody like him. That’s not to suggest I had a firm handle on what I was looking for, because I actually wasn’t even looking.

PLAYBOY: Before this relationship, you really rejected traditional gender roles in dating. Even in college, homie was cooking for us. I don’t think you’d ever even cooked for or catered to a man until you met Ian.

HILL: Never.

PLAYBOY: But he gets this traditionally feminine version of you. Why?

HILL: Maybe it’s a testament to how love works—not to suggest that you only love your man if you cater to him. But it had always been hard for me to be—or even want to be—nurturing toward a partner. It’s not that I didn’t want to have that as a quality, it’s just that I didn’t really feel like the person was worthy or I just honestly didn’t have the energy to do it.

But with him, it’s totally different. I enjoy doing super girly things with him. I love cooking for him. Now the kitchen is actually relaxing. I hate myself for admitting this because I feel like my former self is like, What?! He’s helped me discover parts of myself that I didn’t even know were there. Whenever I’m with him I just feel both emotionally and physically safe.

PLAYBOY: Most of your first year of marriage was spent in a global pandemic, and you still like him! That’s amazing, because it has been very challenging for other couples.

HILL: When we were engaged, we both traveled a lot for work. There would be some weeks when we were like two ships passing in the night. In a given week, we might spend two nights together—three nights tops. We were both very understanding of each other’s schedules. But what the pandemic has taught me is I don’t know if we would have survived doing that.

Our busy schedules never created any tension. He never said to me, “Don’t take that speaking engagement.” But I don’t want to go back to that anymore. This time has really has changed me, and, by extension, us permanently. I was hearing about some couples who were arguing; meanwhile, the only thing I was thinking was, Shit, we are spending a lot of time together. I might wind up pregnant after this.

PLAYBOY: We’ve known each other for more than a quarter-century. How would you say our friendship has changed over that time?

HILL: As grown women of a certain age, we’re going through some real shit now. We’re actually much more willing to be vulnerable about the shit we’re going through. When we were in our 20s, we could talk every day for 45 minutes or an hour. We actually don’t have those conversations as much now. But when we talk, it’ll be like, “So let me talk about this anxiety I have.”

PLAYBOY: We’re also business partners. Our production company, Lodge Freeway Media, just got its first development deal for a Showtime series about two black women who are doing well in their careers. They’re best friends, they’re from Michigan and they went to the best university, which, of course, is Michigan State. It’s not us, but people might see a lot of similarities. How do you feel about that?

HILL: I’m going to have to do a lot of explaining after every episode. “No, I really didn’t take molly. That wasn’t me.”

I think people are going to be into it. We have an amazing team. We’ve come up with an amazing concept. Even if you aren’t living that exact same situation, there’s so much to identify with—especially for Black women. I’m looking forward to people’s reactions, but I’m going to be nervous. Regardless of whether it winds up a pilot or airing for the next 10 years, I’ll feel good about it because we did it our way. We presented and sold the story that was important to us. It’s hard not to feel good about it.

PLAYBOY: You’ve been productive during the pandemic; you wrote a memoir that’s coming out later this year. We talked about an early draft and I was surprised by what you decided to share. Some of those stories I thought we’d be carrying to our graves. What made you want to be so forthcoming?

HILL: Because that’s the only way to do it. It’s a go-big-or-go-home situation. Writing for me is true. I can’t do it unless I can write truthfully. So how could I not do that with my own story? If I’m going to write my own story and grab my own neck, I got to do it in a way that gives it the treatment it deserves. So, yeah, people will be learning some things for the first time. Headlines are going to come out of it.

PLAYBOY: What’s your worst fear about writing a memoir?

HILL: That it won’t be good, which is different from being juicy. Some people think that for a memoir to be good, it needs to be juicy. No. If people don’t think it’s well written or if there’s backlash over how the story is crafted, that would be devastating for me because this is my own story.

PLAYBOY: The people who hate-follow you on social media don’t understand that Black empowerment is different from white supremacy. Does that bother you?

HILL: Hell, no. I can only worry about other people’s opinions so much. They don’t take up a lot of real estate in my mind—none of them write any check that I cash. On social media I try to generally respond to issues more than people. Now, there are obviously politicians that I will either praise or embarrass.

PLAYBOY: We both come from a world that—regardless of what you cover—you’re representing a media organization. You can’t make political statements, even if you’re an entertainment reporter or a sports reporter. When did that change for you?

HILL: We were taught that ethos of, “You’re not the story, don’t be political. Be objective, and stay neutral and unbiased.” But the longer I was in journalism, the more I realized how stupid that was. I understood what they meant, but what they meant is not what they said. What they wanted you to do is reporting that was fair. Fair is not the same as objective.

A major problem in journalism now is that we keep trying to have the “both sides” shit. That’s not our job as journalists. What’s both sides of a bunch of neo-Nazis storming Charlottesville? What’s both sides of that? If I wrote a column about it, should I include pro-racist voices for balance? No, that’s stupid. Asking Black people, especially a Black woman, to be objective about racism is an insult.

I decided some of the rules of our profession just weren’t worth preserving. I hit a point where I wanted to be not just somebody sitting on the sidelines talking about all the fucked-up shit happening; I wanted to be a part of hopefully preventing much more fucked-up shit from happening. So I changed it up a little. I’m definitely a former journalist now.

PLAYBOY: You don’t consider yourself a journalist anymore?

HILL: Sometimes. That’s the best way to put it. I still work for The Atlantic, so I perform a function of journalism when I do that or when I appear on CNN or MSNBC. But am I purely a journalist? No.

PLAYBOY: Do you think of yourself as an activist?

HILL: Hell, no! I think that’s disrespectful to the activists who are actually doing it. There are people who—some of whom have been gracious enough to develop friendships with me—are on the front lines. The sense of optimism they have—that they could change all the things we see—is really quite beautiful. I’m too cynical for that. I’m not LaTosha Brown knocking on people’s doors and encouraging them to vote and getting them registered. However, in the space of influence I do have, I am amplifying those efforts so they are not unseen and invisible. And I think that’s okay.

PLAYBOY: You deal with a lot, including harassment and death threats. How do your friends know when they should be concerned about you?

HILL: Whenever I start to really retreat into myself and wall myself off. The things that bother me aren’t the things people can easily see. I’m more concerned with how my marriage is going than what people are saying about me on Twitter. I can disconnect with social media anytime I feel like it; I can’t disconnect from my husband. Those aren’t even in the same categories. Ignorance bothers me, but never to the point where I feel a sense of unrest or unease about it. I generally just don’t like ignorance.

PLAYBOY: You get offered a lot of projects. How do you decide what to say yes to?

HILL: It’s really simple: It’s who’s doing it. Essentially, do I believe them? Do I buy into who they are as a person? Are they in this shit for real reasons, or is it just a media ploy? I get asked to do plenty of shit that I just won’t because I don’t fuck with the people who do it. They might be well-intentioned, but I have to think about bigger things.

PLAYBOY: You were very vocal about the 2020 election. What was at stake?

HILL: The soul of this country. It was not hyperbole. Democracy was at stake. I don’t even like to use the word was because it’s still at stake. The element that Donald Trump drummed up has always been there, a consistent part of the Republican Party. He was just bolder about it. Ronald Reagan was the original promoter of “make America great again.” There was not a lot of difference. It’s amazing how history is kind to certain people.

People will say, “Focus on the fact that Trump won’t be the next president,” but there are still over 70 million people who voted to reelect him. That’s hard to deal with if you’re somebody of color, especially if you’re Black. White people don’t understand what it’s like to walk around with that, to know that when you walk into work five out of 10 white people you encounter don’t even like the fact that you’re there. That’s what we have at the back of our minds when we go anywhere.

PLAYBOY: Joe Biden says what happened in Charlottesville motivated him to run for president again. And the tweet that earned you so much notoriety was a reply to what happened in Charlottesville. Have you ever thought about that connection?

HILL: I have not, but it is strange because you never know what incident will touch off an entirely different emotional reaction. It wasn’t like I didn’t know the depths of racism before Charlottesville. But that day it was different. Even former presidents who I have not agreed with politically, I could never see them doing that. As much as I hated George W. Bush at one point for his politics, he is not going to get up there and be like, “There were very fine people on both sides.”

PLAYBOY: How do you feel about the new presidential administration?

HILL: Black folks elected Joe Biden. That is a beautiful thing. As much as I have issues with some things that Joe Biden has done—I didn’t vote for him in the primary—I’m looking forward to not waking up every day to find out that the president has had some fucking Twitter tantrum that may have created a war.

I’m a supporter of Kamala Harris. I’m invested in her success, and I want to see Black women win. I’ve had the opportunity to get to know her, and she’s the real deal. I said the same thing about the Obamas.

PLAYBOY: What do you hope 2021 brings for you, professionally and personally?

HILL: I’m going to take the biggest swings of my career. I transitioned from journalist into entrepreneur, and that is going to be even stronger in 2021. I’ll be able to control some narratives that I think our community needs to be affirmed and uplifted.

Personally, I hope for what I always hope for, which is peace of mind. Peace of mind and balance. The balance is much harder to achieve. I don’t have any; I don’t think I’ve ever had any. Professionally, I always hope for discomfort.

PLAYBOY: Is that how you grow?

HILL: It’s the only way you can grow. You can’t grow doing the same things. I know I have big things on the horizon. These experiences may be uncomfortable—but they will be rewarding.

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