Brand Building: From Detroit projects to Hollywood, she inspires readers to embrace their authentic selves.
Strawberry Letter
iHeartPodcasts
4.5 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2025
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Loni Love.
Emmy Award-winning comedian, actress, and author. The conversation centers around her memoir, I Tried to Change So You Don’t Have To, and offers a rich blend of personal storytelling, cultural insight, and motivational wisdom.
📘 About the Memoir
Title: I Tried to Change So You Don’t Have To
Tone: Comedic, honest, emotional, and empowering
Purpose: To share Loni’s journey from the Detroit projects to Hollywood, while inspiring readers to embrace their authentic selves.
🌟 Key Themes & Highlights 🏙️ Early Life & Upbringing
- Grew up in the Brewster Projects in Detroit.
- Raised by a strong community of Black women, including her mother, babysitter Miss Brooks (a Jehovah’s Witness), and other influential women like her Girl Scout leader and Miss Fever.
- Emphasizes the importance of the “village” in shaping her values and resilience.
🎓 Education & HBCU Experience
- Attended Prairie View A&M University (an HBCU), where she joined Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
- Credits her college experience and sorority sisters for bailing her out of jail during a pivotal moment in her youth.
- Studied electrical engineering and later worked at General Motors before transitioning into entertainment.
😂 Humor & Hardship
- The memoir balances levity with serious topics like racism, wrongful arrest, and self-doubt.
- Chapter 8, where she’s thrown in jail for trespassing, is highlighted as both hilarious and eye-opening.
- Each chapter ends with a joke to bring levity to even the darkest moments.
💪 Empowerment & Mentorship
- Encourages readers to trust themselves and not conform to others’ expectations.
- Discusses the importance of mentorship and how someone saw potential in her beyond her factory job.
- Shares how Rushion McDonald personally mentored her during a difficult time in her TV career.
🎭 Career & Creativity
- Talks about her journey into comedy, acting, and co-hosting The Real.
- Reflects on her first film role in Soul Plane and the realities of the entertainment industry.
- Advocates for journaling and documenting personal history, especially for Black voices.
💬 Memorable Quotes
- “This is a love letter to my fans.”
- “If you feel hopeless, if you need some inspiration… understand that you are from a strong stock of people.”
- “We have to share our stories to show them the experiences that we've come through.”
#SHMS #STRAW #BEST
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:36.8 | I host a weekly Money Making Conversation Masterclass show. |
| 0:39.7 | The interviews and information that this show provides are for everyone. |
| 0:43.2 | It's time to stop reading other people's success stories and start living your own. |
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| 0:59.1 | Now, let's get this show started. |
| 1:01.5 | My next guest, dear friend, is an Emmy Award winning and two-time NAACP Image Award |
| 1:07.3 | winning multimedia personality. |
| 1:09.3 | That includes Sirius X-XMCA FOMCA radio show, talk show co-hosts on The Real, Comedient, Entrepreneur, and Actress. She's on the show to talk about her very, very funny memoir. I tried to change so you don't have to. Please welcome to Money Making Conversation, Lonnie Love. Hey, it was not. |
| 1:27.3 | Thank you for the time. Lonnie, I'm telling you something. Let me just read this little, just what I took from the book, because I want to set the stage before we start writing, talking about this very funny book and a very funny book, memoir. In reading this book, this came from you. In reading this book, you should remember that I am a comedian. I am also a television host and an actress and electrical engineer. |
| 1:47.1 | This is my memoir. In reading this book, you should remember that I am a comedian, I am also a television host, and an actress, an electrical engineer. |
... |
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