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Gabrielle Union put on a captivating display as she promoted her upcoming book You Got Anything Stronger in New York on Monday.
The Bring It On actress, 48, looked stunning in two very different yet equally stylish ensembles.
Gabrielle first turned heads at Good Morning America, where she took the plunge in a taupe suit with leather loafers.
Looking good! Gabrielle Union put on a captivating display as she promoted her upcoming book You Got Anything Stronger in New York on Monday
Gabrielle was a vision of style with her raven tresses slicked up into a super chic top knot, putting her stunning complexion on full show.
The star accentuated her radiant complexion with a touch of smoky eye shadow and rosy tint on her cheeks.
During an appearance on Live With Kelly & Ryan, Gabrielle exudes sixties glam in a billowing floral print mini dress which showcased plenty of leg.
Gabrielle is currently promoting her new book, You Got Anything Stronger, which sees her talk about welcoming her daughter Kaavia James via surrogate and her role in the hit 2000 cheerleading film, Bring It On.
She means business! Gabrielle first turned heads at Good Morning America, where she took the plunge in a taupe suit with leather loafers
During her appearance on GMA, the actress said she regretted the way she decided to portray her character Isis, a cheerleader whose routines were stolen by a more affluent school’s squad.
‘I was given full range to do whatever I wanted with Isis in Bring It On,’ Gabrielle said. ‘And I chose respectability and to be classy and to take the high road because I felt that would make her appropriate, the right kind of Black girl. Black girls aren’t allowed to be angry, certainly not demonstratively angry, and I muzzled her.
‘So last summer, it was the twentieth anniversary of Bring It On, and we’re doing all these panels with Kristen Dunst and Peyton Reed our director, and our writer, and we were talking about a sequel, and we’re all like, “We should do a sequel.” But this time it should focus on the Clovers and Isis and should be written by a Black person, and I realize that I need to come to grips and acknowledge where I failed Isis. When given full control, I made her appropriate.’
Flower power! During an appearance on Live With Kelly & Ryan, Gabrielle exudes sixties glam in a billowing floral print mini dress which showcased plenty of leg
The book also sees Gabrielle recount her painful and emotional journey to finally becoming a mother to daughter Kaavia James with her husband Dwyane Wade in an essay.
In an excerpt obtained by Time, the actress recalled deciding to have her child via a surrogate after undergoing multiple miscarriages and an adenomyosis diagnosis.
The decision was difficult for Gabrielle, who had longed to have the ‘experience of being publicly pregnant.’
A doctor suggested she pursue surrogacy, but Gabrielle instead decided to ‘endure more IVF cycles and losses’, and even planned on taking Lupron, ‘which basically quiets the adenomyosis.’
Working it! The actress looked breathtaking in her flirty outfit
However the treatment was not without drawbacks.
‘Dr. Baek told me I would have a 30% chance of bringing a baby to term. But the side effects of Lupron can be intense: you’re basically throwing your body into early menopause and you can break bones very easily.’
Her husband ultimately persuaded her to not try the medication, telling her, ‘You’ve done enough.’
The actress was initially not receptive to Dwyane’s encouragement, but eventually decided to move forward with the surrogacy.
Go Clovers! Union admitted she regretted the way she portrayed her character Isis on Bring It On
As fate would have it, the woman who wound up being Gabrielle’s surrogate was a fan who had her book on hold at four different libraries.
The surrogate, Natalie, eventually became pregnant in March 2018, and the actress ended up landing on a version of her daughter’s name after watching the ending credits of a show.
‘There was one name I saw at the end credits of a TV show or movie: Tavia. That would be pretty, I thought, with a K. Kavia. That name made it onto every hopeful list I kept. Dwyane knew the list by heart, too, and we both felt it. This hope, this starburst, was her,’ she wrote.
But when Gabrielle attended her first 4-D ultrasound appointment with her husband, the pain of her past resurfaced.
Motherhood: The book also sees Gabrielle recount her painful and emotional journey to finally becoming a mother to daughter Kaavia James with her husband Dwyane Wade in an essay
Seeing their child appear on screen gave her new perspective on all her previous miscarriages.
Gabrielle started to cry, but her tears were misinterpreted for happiness.
‘It was grief. I’d had so many miscarriages. I say the following with the caveat that I am steadfast in being pro-choice. I was on a fertility journey at 44. The smallest cell was weighted with the expectation of life. A zygote was a baby, just on potential alone.
‘When one of my eggs was examined, that was a baby. When Dwyane got a sperm analysis, that was a baby. Every swimmer was our baby. But when I miscarried in the first trimester, I never thought I had lost a baby baby. I had never let it count. Looking at the screen, I understood how many potential babies I had lost. That’s why I was crying. A floodgate of grief and sorrow overcame me, threatened to drown me.’
Kaavia was eventually born early following an arduous delivery.
‘The umbilical cord had become tied around Kaav’s ankle’: Her daughter was eventually born early following an arduous delivery
‘Natalie proceeded to go into labor for 38 hours—so long that Kaavia James was in danger. The doctor had to do an emergency C-section because the umbilical cord had become tied around Kaav’s ankle.’
The C-section was ‘fast’ and before Gabrielle knew it, her daughter was born.
‘”Oh my God,” I said. The room was festive almost, people saying over and over, “Congratulations.” Just as quick, the doctor placed her on a little exam table and asked her name.
‘”Kaavia,” I said, my voice a choke.
‘This baby, given a name written on a wish list for decades, then tattooed on her father’s shoulders. She was loved even as an idea. My body seized in a full release of every emotion. Relief, anxiety, terror, joy, resentment, disbelief, gratitude . . . and also, disconnection. I had hoped that the second I saw her, there would be a moment of locking in. I looked over at Natalie and her husband. There was a stillness to them. I looked at Kaavia James on the table, and then back at them. It took all of us to create her, so I wanted to share this time with them.’
Despite Kaavia now being in her life, questions still hang in the air.
‘I will always wonder if Kaav would love me more if I had carried her. Would our bond be even tighter?’
And she finds herself assessing her relationship with her husband, who has children with two other women.
‘I can never know if my failure to carry a child put a ceiling on the love my husband has for me. Yes, I am Baby Mama number three, a label that is supposed to be an insult. But is the injury not that label but instead the asterisk next to my name in the record? The asterisk denotes that the achievement is in question. “She didn’t really earn the title.”‘
Gabrielle’s book, You Got Anything Stronger, will be released on September 14.
Coming soon: Gabrielle’s book, You Got Anything Stronger, will be released on September 14
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