We frequently hear about kinfolk of celebrities wanting to return out of the shadows of their well-known relations, and for good cause. Amara Skye, the granddaughter of Whoopi Goldberg, is an instance of somebody attempting to create a reputation for herself.
The 32-year-old has her arms in several pots on her quest to create her personal legacy. She’s a painter and doodle artist, and likewise enjoys the artwork of storytelling.
Amara’s most up-to-date and maybe most public enterprise is collaborating on the TV present Declare to Fame, a brand new ABC sequence co-hosted by brothers Kevin and Frankie Jonas (of the well-known Jonas brothers). The truth sequence is comprised of 12 contestants, celeb kinfolk, who reside in a home collectively and compete in challenges with the purpose of concealing their identities for so long as doable. The participant who stays in the home longest with out anybody guessing who their well-known relative is wins the sport and $100,000.
“I used to be forged on the present through DM. It was one thing totally different. I didn’t know whether or not to imagine it or not, however I went by means of with it,” Skye tells ESSENCE.
She says she was skeptical at first (previous to receiving that DM, she misplaced her web page to hackers). Earlier than taking such a leap, it was solely proper Skye ask her grandmother, the EGOT winner and present co-host of ABC’s The View, for recommendation about whether or not or not she ought to be a part of the present. Goldberg additionally had her reservations initially.
“She was scared,” Skye says. “However after every part went the way in which that it was alleged to go, she was completely happy. The perfect recommendation she gave me was to only do what [I] gotta do and are available again stronger, higher and, you recognize, ready [because] that is my massive break.”
Skye’s technique in the home has been to be a personable social butterfly versus clicking up or sticking with a set group. Exterior of entertaining individuals on Declare to Fame, she has a number of inventive pursuits.
“I by no means needed to pursue a profession in performing simply because I felt like that was her factor,” the Declare to Fame star says of her grandmother. “However she by no means informed me ‘don’t do that,’ however as an alternative, simply to open myself to every part.”
Skye spends time creating her craft as an artist, discovering pleasure and objective in portray. “I really like to color tales about – and it sounds loopy – my vagina. Yeah, it’s loopy, however the stuff that ladies undergo [can] be tough. However I’ll put it on the web page in order that you recognize you’re not the one one which’s going by means of it.”
The artist has some reveals within the fall the place she’ll be sharing her work. One specifically is curated by Hellotittie, a Black-owned girls’s empowerment model that places collectively exhibitions that concentrate on supporting girls within the visible arts. She additionally enjoys manufacturing and connecting with individuals by means of storytelling.
“I really like creating tales. I really like all of that stuff,” she says. My thoughts is simply so crammed with ideas and issues that I really feel must be put on the market. I don’t know put them on the market, however I do know that it must be heard.”
She additionally enjoys spending time with household. Skye has a robust assist system behind her and says her household is tight-knit. Her mom, Alexis Martin, Goldberg’s solely little one, had her on the age of 16. She then went on to have two extra kids, Jerzey and Mason together with her husband Bernard Dean. Amara was additionally a younger mom. She gave start to her daughter Charli Rose in 2014, whereas she was in her teenagers.
“We’re a younger household,” Amara says. “My grandmother’s mom raised me for just a little bit. My grandmother is a great-grandmother to my daughter. So we’ve created that connection. There’s solely 5 of us in our household. We’re all we’ve bought, so we take one another actual shut.”
The doodle artist is particularly linked to Goldberg, with whom she shares the identical birthday.
“Me and my grandma are tremendous shut. She’s every part,” she says. “It will get irritating as a result of it’s like, how am I going to compete with that? However I’m fortunate sufficient to have that.”
The truth TV star says along with Goldberg being a legend in leisure, she is certainly an on a regular basis grandparent.
“I simply really feel like individuals know my grandmother for being Whoopi. She’s iconic, she’s political, every part she says holds water, however that’s the viewer’s eyes,” she says. “She’s my grandmother and he or she’s additionally actually a grandmother. People who find themselves fortunate sufficient to have them know, grandmothers are annoying and it’s one other father or mother. You like her, however she’s annoying, and you recognize, it’s household.”
She additionally appreciates her grandmother not giving her every part on a silver platter and setting her up for achievement by letting her expertise life as everybody else does.
“She desires us to be actual individuals. Stuff is not only handed to us. It might be, nevertheless it’s not,” Skye says. “I simply need individuals to know that I actually labored laborious for my place and the stuff that I did. I did quite a bit with out my grandmother’s assist. However the truth that she’s there to present me the assistance, you recognize, I don’t wish to run it up. I wish to do what I can do.”
Declare to Fame airs Monday nights at 10 p.m. EST on ABC
