BLACK-ISH Star Tracee Ellis Ross Covers INSTYLE’s Spring Digital Issue

Tracee Ellis Ross is covering InStyle’s Spring Digital Issue! And right now she’s saying goodbye to ‘Black-ish,’ recalling bygone fashion eras, and being her own dream come true.

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• On her role on Girlfriends: “Then I was on Girlfriends, and then I was on Girlfriends, and then I was… yep… on Girlfriends,” Ross says. For most of the aughts, she played attorney Joan Clayton, the stylish and oft unlucky-in-love glue of her friend group. “I felt like I entered that show as a decently talented person who thought she was silly and cute and I became a seasoned, vetted comedic actress after we did 170-some-odd episodes.”

• On Girlfriends: “It’s really important to me that it’s recognized mostly because it was a great show,” she says. “It was so representative of who we are as Black women. The fashion was great; the storylines were ahead of the time. People always say, ‘Oh, Black-ish deals with such heavy issues.’ I’m like, so did Girlfriends. We dealt with chlamydia, we dealt with colorism … all those things, and we were four Black women leading a show.”

• On roles in Hollywood: “I really thought the pearly gates of Hollywood were going to open,” she says of the months after. “They did not. I thought there would be stacks of scripts at my door. There were not.” And she wanted — and needed — to work. “I had done decently well in terms of my salary, but keep in mind the landscape of television and Hollywood: I was a Black actress on a show that was on UPN and CW. It was a very nice living, but it’s not like I could stop working and be fine for the rest of my life.”

• On Black-ish: “We have the best crew, we have the best cast, and we had a ball,” she says. “I’m so proud of the work we did, and we got an end. The combination of those two things allows me to leave with a lot of joy and pride, and a really full heart.”

• On her relationship status and childhood dreams: “Culturally, young girls are taught to dream of their wedding and not the life they want to be living or the people they want to become,” Ross says, “and I was not spared that messaging as a child — not from my mom or my dad, but from the world that we lived in. I spent a lot of time dreaming of my wedding. I can only imagine how much more I would’ve dreamt of — or how much sooner I would’ve got to some of my dreams — had we been in the conversation that we’re in now, had I had people like myself and others to hear from as different examples of how to cultivate happiness and joy and a life that matches you.”

[Photo Credit: AB+DM/THE ONLY AGENCY, Courtesy of InStyle Magazine]

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