Nicole Avant on Love, Legacy, and Her Must-Read New Memoir

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By any measure, philanthropist and film producer (The Black Godfather, Six Triple Eight) Nicole Avant has lived an extraordinary and charmed life. As Southern California Chair of the Obama presidential campaign in 2008, she helped the freshman senator from Illinois win victory. She became the first and youngest African American female ambassador to the Bahamas. She has been happily married to Ted Sarandos, Co-CEO of streaming juggernaut, Netflix since 2009. The daughter of music mogul Clarence Avant, and his flawlessly elegant wife, the philanthropist and art collector Jacqueline, she was raised in Beverly Hills in the midst of Hollywood royalty, cultural privilege, and exacting standards. The Avants were the sort of parents who insisted their daughter practice her tennis serve until she perfected it, and that she celebrate an adolescent birthday by taking her friends to a performance of the jazz musical Sophisticated Ladies starring their friend Gregory Hines, rather than to the roller rink.

Nicole’s seemingly charmed life was shattered on the morning of December 1, 2021, when an intruder fatally shot her 81-year-old mother with an AR-15 rifle in the very Trousdale Estates home in which Nicole had grown up. It was an unimaginably violent death for a woman who had spent her life helping others, most notably the children of Watts, Los Angeles.

True to her stoic striver’s upbringing, Nicole immediately set about finding meaning in the midst of her family’s suffering. The result is her first book, Think You’ll be Happy: Moving Through Grief with Grit, Grace and Gratitude. As its title implies, the book is part memoir, part guide to grieving and living, but above all, it is a tribute to the three greatest gifts her legendary parents bestowed upon her: deep spiritual faith, pride in her history as an African American, and a sense of purpose rooted in the redemption of the suffering of prior generations. On the eve of her parents’ joint memorial celebration at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, we spoke with Avant about her book, a testament to love’s power to overcome death.

It’s been not even two years since your mother passed away; it will be the second anniversary on December 1st. Most of us would be curled in the fetal position in the wake of an event so tragic and horrific. At what point did you decide that writing this book was the way that you wanted to address this tragedy and why?

At the hospital, when the doctors came out and told us she didn’t make it, all of our bodies went into shock and trauma. I've never felt my body react that way about anything. I decided in that moment that enough had been taken away for me, and I wasn't going to let anything take away my marriage, my relationship with my father, my relationship with my children. I had to make a decision, a choice. In that moment, I had to say to myself, “I don't even know how I'm going to get through this. I do know that the only way out of anything is through.” I knew I was definitely going to lean on my faith, and boy, did I ever.

When did the decision come that you had to write about this?

I was already writing a book on the themes of grit, gratitude, and grace. After The Black Godfather [the documentary about her father’s storied career], a few publishers came to me and said there were themes in the documentary that needed to be in book form for people to be inspired and motivated by. I went back and looked at the movie, and those were the themes that I came up with. And then when this tragedy happened, of course I wanted to stop writing immediately. I thought, how am I going to put out a book on gratitude and grace after my mom was just killed? It was my father who looked at me and said, “You have to keep writing, and I want you to finish your book for me. I need you to finish your book. You cannot give your power away to somebody.” I said, “Daddy, I don't have any energy. I can't do this.” He said, “Nicole, I know it's hard, but if you don't write your book because of what this man just did to our family, then he wins again.”

As a result of this tragic event, what was originally perhaps a book about grace, grit, and gratitude becomes a guide to grieving and living, which is really quite powerful. Can you elaborate on the notion of ‘think you'll be happy?’

I don't believe in coincidences, and I think it's so poignant that the last words that Jackie Avant would say to me were “think you'll be happy.” She really raised me like that, she was a big believer that we all have to think of ourselves as radio towers; you emit energy everywhere through the words and thoughts that lead to your actions. So, anytime I was spiraling about something or disappointed, she'd say, “What are you thinking about? What have you been saying?” Because a lot of times you’re creating situations subconsciously by what you’re putting out into the world.

It's so interesting because we were talking about a sweet potato pie. When they came over for Thanksgiving, my mom was so adamant about what kind of pie could she bring. I said we really had enough, but she said, “I'm going to buy you a pie,” so sweet potato it was. She went out to buy this pie and was very proud of herself, but when my father took home the leftovers, he accidentally grabbed the pie that we never got to and took it home. My mom was furious. So, the week after Thanksgiving, she kept telling me to come get the pie. One night that week, I texted her a little before 5pm because there was, unfortunately, a mass shooting that day at a Michigan high school. My mom was always very sensitive to these horrible events. That’s why she went to sleep early that night, she was laying down because she was so sad about what had happened. And that’s why she was up early that morning when the intruder came in. It's so interesting how when she sent me that text, I said to myself, “Oh Lord, here she comes again about this pie. I'll think about it tomorrow.” I said, “OK mommy, have a good night,” and I purposely put her favorite emoji, the happy face with the hearts, because I knew she was sad about this shooting. She wrote, “OK. Think you'll be happy.” In that moment it was about the pie, but six hours later, she was gone.

Your parents lived through a lot of hideous history, but chose always to rise above it, which was a big charge to you as well. You had a wall of historic black figures in your home, and there were two stories that really struck me. One was how much the murder of Andrew Goodman, when your mother was 24, marked her and inspired her, and the other was how, in 1955, when Emmett Till was murdered, your father was working in an office and had an outraged reaction to the not-guilty verdict for the murderers.

I love that you brought that up. It's so interesting that my mom was fueled by Andrew and my dad was fueled by Emmett, and both at the same age at different times—each 24 years old, but 10 years apart. It took those two incidents in American history that changed my parents before they knew each other. When they got together, they spoke about this on their first date, they took these terrible things happened, and decided, oh, I'm going to do whatever I can to change the energy in my nation in whatever way I can.

Your paternal grandmother also really influenced you in your faith.

Gertrude Elizabeth Avon Woods. She was my rock growing up. I was very close to Grandma Gert, and Gert really lived her faith. This was a woman who really had it way worse than my dad, obviously, as they all did, and her mom had it worse. She had been working since she was five years old, domestic work, never had a break, never had a day off. One thing that I love about her is that when I said, “Grandma, didn't you want to quit,” she said, “Yes, of course you want to quit. Of course you're angry, but I realized at a young age that every generation gets better.” She’d always say, “I'm the promise of a generation that doesn't even know who I am.” She didn't quit for me, she believed that I was going to have a better life. So, who am I to quit?

Now let's turn to your two godfathers, who were giants. From Quincy Jones, you’ve said you learned about imagination, and I know Sidney Poitier influenced your choice of The Bahamas as to where you wanted to serve as Ambassador. What else did you learn from him?

Sidney to me was grace in action. I would just look at him like, wow, so this is what grace is. He was so composed, so in control of his energy, and even if somebody was rude or unkind, he would just let it roll right off of him. I watched him move through life with a smile on his face and a kind word to everyone. And you know what I loved about Sidney? I learned from him to always make sure that people feel seen.

When you write about making the transitions from working in the family business to becoming a big political fundraiser—not for your father's candidate, but for your chosen candidate, Barack Obama—you say, “I've learned from and was leaning heavily on the lessons of my mother, a woman who could run rings around most people.” How was that transition?

At first, when I went out on my own and I stepped into politics, there were mostly men in the room. Everyone's looking at me like who's this young girl sitting here and what is she going to bring to the table? It was almost like I was a token person, the Black female in the room. I would say to myself, “I was raised by Jackie Avant, who’s been doing this with her eyes closed, and every single politician who meant anything anywhere was coming through my house. So, I’ve got this.” At a young age, I was thinking, why is she having all these parties? Why are all these people at the house? But the beauty was that she did it so effortlessly—or so it looked as if it was effortless. She was always focused on American progress, moving the country forward. Once I jumped into Obama's campaign, I was very nervous in the beginning, but then I reminded myself of who I was raised by.

To underscore the image that you're painting, for those who did not have the great joy of knowing your mother, we have to paint a little portrait of her.

You could always find my mother with her Cherries in the Snow nail polish from Revlon, her Chanel suit, her Cartier, her Louis Vuitton. She was dressed to the nines every single day, even to bring me to soccer practice. I would look at her like, mom, seriously, it's a soccer game and all the other moms are wearing jeans. She’d say, “But I'm not all the other moms. I am one of the only black mothers in Beverly Hills, I'm showing up for the entire race. A lot of people don't think that we know anything about fashion, makeup, the arts, literature, anything. So, when people come to my house, when your friends come to my house, that great wall is not just for you, it's for them, too. It's me speaking about who we are without having to say one word.”

You say to the reader that in every tragedy, one should ask, what has this made possible? What did this dreadful tragedy make possible for you?

The greatest blessings that I got out this tragedy were the 20 months that I had living with my father. [Clarence Avant passed away in his daughter's home on August 13th, 2023.] Making meals for him every day, sitting with him reliving his life, him telling me stories over and over again, reminding me of everything he's gone through, good and bad. The blessing of this tragedy was really the time that I got with him, not just for the history and the stories, but to actually nurture him back into some sense of being. It was the greatest honor of my life.

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