The Big Picture
- Garcelle Beauvais has had a successful career in film and television, starring in shows like The Jamie Foxx Show before her transition to reality TV.
- She has also ventured into other areas of entertainment, such as being an author of children’s books, writing a memoir, and creating a bed clothing line.
- Despite some challenges as the first black recurring cast member on RHOBH, Garcelle has brought her refreshing honesty and has been open about personal issues, including her divorce and her son’s struggles with addiction.
Garcelle Beauvais has kept herself busy in terms of her film and TV gigs throughout the years. And rightfully so, she now stars in Hulu’s 5-episode miniseries The Other Black Girl, which premiered on September 13. She also debuted as a producer in Lifetime’s Black Girl Missing earlier this year. With an extensive résumé in the entertainment industry, Beauvais has been staying true to herself in Hollywood and speaking up for minorities whenever she has the chance. Her acting journey includes her memorable roles on The Jamie Foxx Show with Jamie Foxx, Coming to America, NYPD Blue, and more. Only to be surpassed by her joining the cast of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for Season 10 as the first Black housewife on the cast.
Her four years on the show have been marked by ups and downs, and she’s stated that being the first Black woman to appear as a recurring cast member made her feel like an outsider. Slowly but surely, she’s managed to express her voice, speak up on certain issues, and bring an honest take on the dynamics that happen among the women of Beverly Hills. Her work outside of acting includes being an author of children’s books, an author of her memoir Love Me as I Am, and creating a bed clothing line in partnership with HSN, where she channels her passion for interior design. In 2022, Garcelle was also a co-host on the daytime talk show The Real, along with Adrienne Bailon, Loni Love, and Jeannie Mai.
Beauvais’ ‘Coming To America’ and Beginnings
Haitian native Garcelle spent a portion of her upbringing in the Caribbean before soon migrating to Massachusetts with her family. Her parents got divorced at a young age, and she spent most of her time with her mother’s side of the family. In many of her interviews, she’s reiterated that everything was incredibly new to her, and she had never seen “white people” before. And she first started learning English when watching Sesame Street at home. By 17, she reportedly moved to New York to pursue a career in modeling. Her modeling brought her back and forth between Miami and New York, landing her many editorial jobs and runway shows with designer brands like Isaac Mizrahi and Calvin Klein.
After some experience in modeling, Garcelle landed her first credited television role, appearing in two episodes of the iconic 1980s show Miami Vice as a waitress along with Don Johnson. A couple of years later, she would also get her second role in a film, appearing as a royal rose bearer in Coming to America with Eddie Murphy. Her roles in television became increasingly significant through the span of the eighties, nineties, and early 2000s.
Non-stop Acting Gigs For Garcelle Beauvais
Garcelle has had many recurring-scripted roles on several shows, including Models Inc., NYPD Blue, Siren, Eyes, Grimm, Tell Me More, and the nineties staple The Jamie Foxx Show, where she played Jamie’s love interest throughout the series’ five seasons. Her body of work on television also includes smaller appearances on several shows, including Family Matters, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Life With Bonnie, 10.5: Apocalypse, The Mentalist, and more.
Although mostly smaller roles, her numerous appearances in film include Wild Wild West, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Flight, I Know Who Killed Me, American Gun, Women in Trouble, Suddenly Single, Life, Bad Company, White House Down, And Then There Was You, Girlfriends’ Getaway and Girlfriends’ Getaway 2.
Garcelle Becomes a Pioneer Housewife on ‘RHOBH’
Garcelle marked a historical moment in the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills franchise as the first black recurring cast member. “Life is an audition, and honey, I am getting that part,” as one of her taglines read, is how she was introduced to the show. She began treading lightly, stayed clear for the most part, and slowly began speaking her mind towards certain things that didn’t sit well with her. During her time on the show, she’s made on-and-off-camera alliances with cast members Sutton Stracke, Kathy Hilton, and former housewife, Lisa Vanderpump. Her son was even given a job opportunity in one of Lisa’s restaurants, and Garcelle has made a guest appearance on Vanderpump Rules.
In conversation with the crew of The Breakfast Club radio show, she explained of her casting, “I was a fan of the franchise. And I obviously had friends in Beverly Hills, but as an actor, I was traveling so much. My kids were about to go to middle school, as it is because I’m divorced, I have them half of the time, and I really wanted to do something that was going to keep me in LA. So that was a big factor in it.” On RHOBH, she’s been open to discussing personal issues like her painful and public divorce, her kids growing up, the hardships of dating life, celebrity relationships, and her son Oliver’s growth after going through addiction when he was younger.
Her time on the show has been overall “fun,” as she recalls from an interview with ABC, despite her ups and downs and disagreements with other cast members. During the span of her time on the show, she’s had arguments with Kyle Richards regarding allegations that Garcelle hadn’t donated what she had promised for a charity cause. She explained on and off the show that this “cut her to the core” because of the stereotypes surrounding her community and not paying what they’re supposed to. Another one of her most controversial moments involved questions about “victims” related to Erika Jayne and Tom Girardi’s embezzlement case. She and Sutton Stracke have expressed that her demeanor towards the situations shows a lack of “compassion”.
On her fights on camera, she also stated, “Yeah, that was tough for me; I mean, it’s still tough for me. That’s the hardest part of the job because we’re supposed to be friends… And sometimes it’s like I wouldn’t be friends with somebody who can throw me under the bus too. So that’s the challenge for me on the show.”
Garcelles’ Memoir, Family Life, and Next Chapter
Last year, Garcelle’s Memoir Love Me as I Am was published and had an overall positive reception. The book touches on her past marriage, her kids, moments of struggle, and her time on RHOBH. In regard to her family, she notes that she would’ve wished for her father to be more present so that she could’ve had a better understanding of him. On the Housewives topic, she brings up an issue she had with Lisa Rinna about a comment she made related to her daughter’s struggle with an eating disorder. She explains that she wanted to ask Rinna a motherly question, but Rinna had taken it the wrong way and became defensive about it. The book is available on Amazon for physical copies, ebooks, and Kindle.
She’s also expressed that she’s been dreading the moment of seeing her grown boys leave the house for college and that she wishes that they would like to spend time with each other just as much as she does. Despite having a divorce years ago from producer Michael Nilon, she’s at peace with their co-parenting skills and has a healthy relationship with him and her sons.
In her recent movie Black Girl Missing, she plays a concerned mother whose daughter has disappeared under strange circumstances and struggles to get authorities to treat the missing case with due diligence and in the face of racial stereotypes. The Other Black Girl is about a black woman, Nella, who, along with her colleague Hazel, is being haunted by her publishing company. Garcelle plays an estranged author who had some bad blood with the company but had a fallout with them when doing business. The show is streaming now on Hulu.
When asked about her next iterations in her ABC interview, she explains, “That’s a very good question. I think the next chapter is probably producing, spending time with my kids before they go off to, you know, college. As you know, I’m dreading that, but I’m open. And I love being open to seeing what’s next. I have my home line with HSN ‘Garcelle At Home’…So I’m open.” Her bed clothing line came out in May, and much more of Garcelle is expected to be seen later this year when season 13 of RHOBH premieres.