Meagan Good Talks Life After Divorce, Still Being In Her Prime
If one thing’s for sure: Meagan Good is just fine, according to her new cover story with Essence.
The 41-year-old actress recently opened up about her public divorce from DeVon Franklin, what life has been like since then, and her longstanding career in film. She shared that she began her Hollywood journey in a “unique space,” as peers like Christina Milian and Zoe Saldaña were up for a lot of the same roles as her.
More from VIBE.com
Meagan Good Shares Takeaways From Marriage To Ex, DeVon Franklin
Naturi Naughton Flawlessly Flaunts Baby Bump At ESSENCE Black Women In Hollywood Luncheon
Drew Sidora, Ralph Pittman Both File For Divorce Within 61 Min Of Each Other
Feeling “in her prime,” the Harlem actress opened with, “I can still change people’s minds about me, and I don’t look at that as a bad thing. I look at that as a purpose thing.”
Good also discussed being publicly ridiculed for things like her skin tone.
“I was like, I look so crazy I just have to sit in this, and let people think what they want to think, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” she said of being accused of bleaching her skin.
She revealed that it was sun-damage products that severely lightened her overall skin tone in 2020. She added, “I didn’t realize it at the time, but my concern with what other people thought about me was such a thing that I had to go through something like that where I literally had no other option, and I had to find my joy and my peace regardless of what everyone was thinking.”
A year later, Meagan found herself “devastated” from getting a divorce after 10 years of marriage — something she admits she would have never “chosen.”
“That was rough because my biggest fear was what happened between my mom and my dad would happen to me, which is you’ve been with your husband for 10 years and you break up,” she revealed. “I would say, ‘I’m never getting divorced. I’m in it forever, good, bad, whatever it is, I’m never going to give up. You’re my person, I’m your person, that’s it.’”
“It took me a long time to understand that God didn’t do divorce,” she continued. “DeVon and I both have free will. So, I had to accept that God didn’t lie when he told me that was my husband. That was my husband. But he didn’t say we’d be together forever. God’s word remains true no matter what happens to you and if anything changes, it’s because sometimes life deals you cards you don’t expect or anticipate, but He’ll still bring you through it and He still has an incredible plan for your life.”
In her cover story, she recalled times when it was “rough” being married to a preacher, as people would judge her for simple things like wearing a Halloween costume.
“For years, I was scared to post Halloween pictures,” she remembered. “I would do it anyway because I’m never going to not do what I want to do. If I feel like it’s good between me and God then I’m going to do it regardless, but it was a lot of trauma because I was brave enough to do it anyway.”
She also shared that after accepting that her marriage was over, she felt “grateful” for the time she had with Franklin and their “beautiful journey.” Good expressed feeling a sense of “excitement” that she’d now get to start life all over again, and in her words, “in my prime.”
Good can be seen nowadays playing the career-driven role of Camille on Harlem, and even deems her cast members as her “tribe” off-screen.
Meagan Good Shares Takeaways From Marriage To Ex, DeVon Franklin
“I’ve never hung out with my bosses after work and got a drink and had a real talk about life, not just what’s going on at work,” she shared. “I’ve watched a lot of other actors have that relationship with producers of their show or movies where they kind of move like a unit. I always felt left out of that community so when I gained it, I was like, oh, this is my tribe.”
As she continues to come into her own and prepare for the premiere of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Good is hopeful that people will start to understand who she really is.
“I think people are starting to get who I am,” she expressed. “I think for a long time they didn’t. And I had to get to a place where I stopped caring in order for me to walk into the place where people now are like, ‘No, I actually get her.’”
Read Meagan Good’s full cover story with Essence here.
