We all come with something.

I'm just not ashamed of the somethings that I come with.

I'm just going to start here and say trigger warning.

We're going to go back to how you came into this world.

My mother was at eleven years old, had me at the age of twelve.

She was driven from Saint Augustine, Florida, down to Boynton Beach, Florida to have an abortion, and she refused to do it.

Months later I was born.

I really had a bad relationship with my mom as a kid until I found out how I was conceived.

The minute that my mom revealed that to me, all the hate that I had towards my mom instantly turned into love because I realized that my mom was a kid raising kids.

At twelve years old, I was getting ready to get kicked off of the boys ranch because I kept fighting.

I signed a contract that I would never get into another fight.

Thirty minutes after I signed that contract, I got into a fight.

I tell people all the time.

Now I realized that that was actually my first WWE contract.

Welcome to diffat Wife podcast from King's Court dadd Is Bullder.

Welcome to the Diffie.

You watch the podcast King what's up man?

I asked you, how was your dating life in college and growing up?

He said, well, I wasn't the most attractive growing up or whatever.

I'm handsome as hell now.

Women calling me fine is nothing to me.

But if a woman calls me gorgeous or handsome, gotcha?

Got me?

And Will Packer asked me to do the show several times.

I told him no, I don't do ratchet TV, and he said, well, I'm not a ratchet producer.

There it is for me.

I want to be loved by a black woman that understands, even if it's their second time around, what marriage really is.

I've achieved way more than anybody would have ever expected.

But the proudest thing that I've been able to navigate is fatherhood.

I help thousands of kids every year.

I run the largest back to school bash in the entire world.

I've heard at a football Stavent thirty thousand backpacks with school supplies.

Nobody built the last name Bullard for me.

I have a chance to build my last name to mean.

Something as a black man.

Why is marriage important to you?

The Future Wife podcast has global impact From Texas.

I have been on this journey of healing and self discovery, and this podcast has been a vital part of my process.

God's establishing through you a legacy, a display of freedom, founding authentic spirituality, California.

I learned so much as a single man through your podcast and continue to learn so much as now a married man Nigeria.

This is just therapy for me.

You know, I've been healed, I've been strengthen in my convictions on the still have to do single hoopbita Amsterdam way that you've shown us how it is possible for a man to be as intentional as you are New Jersey.

I appreciate your vulnerability.

I appreciate just being able to see that there is life after divorce to New York.

I am a single woman, so these episodes really give me hope and courage that God does have a husband for me discover.

And recover love.

I'm Laterra Saar Whitfield and this is season ten of the Dear Future Wifie Podcasts.

Welcome to a Dear Future Wifie podcast.

I'm your host, Laterra Sar Wifield.

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Listen, man, this king that I have on the podcast or that you know I always call a lot of men kings when they sit on the yellow couch.

But he's actually on the show show where he's called a king for real.

So, without further ado, welcome to Dear Future Wife Podcast.

My homie from King's Court, Thaddeus Buller, Welcome to the Dear Future Wife Podcast.

King.

Yeah, that's what's up.

So let me tell you something.

One thing I said to you right when you came in the studio.

Was how much I valued how you showed up on this dating show because a lot of times, a lot of dating shows, they become very salacious.

But you've always I mean, on this show, you've been really grounded and you showed up with impeccable emotional awareness.

And let me ask you this, Have you always been like that?

Yeah?

I mean, I guess the most rewarding part about this process and this journey on being on King's Court is that the folks that really know me are looking at the show and they're like, oh, yeah, that's him.

And there's obviously been some growth points for me throughout my life, and I I understand where I am now versus where I was probably three years ago and five years prior to that.

And it has been a process.

And I would tell any man or woman that you know, for me, what you're seeing now is just a person that's a recipient of great therapy, counseling, great introspective thoughts of who I am, and kind of a rebirth of who I am.

I've always felt like I'm that dude, you know, And if you look at my resume and my track record of what has been been accomplished through me.

I sometimes I.

Look at the things that I've been able to accomplish, and it's not what I've accomplished, is what God has allowed me to do.

And you know, when you look at where I've where I came from, how my life started, you know, as to a twelve year old mother and being labeled a kid that would be dead or in jail by the time I was sixteen, and kind of headed that direction.

You know, I truly understand that when I got an opportunity to go to the Florida SHARE's Boys Wrench at twelve years old, and I was told that, you know, by Patrick Minogue, a white guy from Chicago, Illinois.

I was getting ready to get kicked off of the Boy's wrench and because I kept fighting, and I signed a contract that I would never get into another fight otherwise I would be sent back home to Boynton Beach.

And thirty minutes after I signed that contract, I got into a fight, which I tell people all the time now I realized that that was actually my first WWE contract.

But you know, he he took a chance on me.

Like it was fifteen people in the room and he was the president of the Boys Ranch at that time, and he could have made a decision to go with what all fifteen people had agreed to do, and you know, he took a chance and said, you know, I love you and I believe in you, and that there's no such thing as a bad kid.

And at that time I asked him, I was like, how can you say that.

I've been told I'll be deader in jail by the time I'm sixteen.

You know, I'll never graduate from high school, which in my family, nobody had ever graduated from high school.

Nobody went to college.

You know, you got to consider the fact that my mom never even walked across the high school graduation stage until after I walked across the high school graduation stage.

Good.

And so for me showing up on this show like I promised, Will Packer, I mean Will Packer asked me to do the show several times and I told him, no, I don't do ratchet TV.

And he said, well, I'm not a ratchet producer.

There it is, and he said, look, there's no pressure.

I'm going to have someone reach out to you kind of show you some episodes of Queen's Court and so that you can kind of get a feel of what the show is about.

And he's like, you know, I wouldn't put you in a position to dishonor anything that you stand for, he said, And when you get on this show, I want you to be Thattius good because if you are that, if you are yourself, whether you find someone on this journey or not, people are going to love you.

And that's what I want out of this process for you.

Yes, I want to make a great TV show.

Yeah.

And I didn't even know who the other two Kings were at the time either, but I said, that's easy for me, you know what I mean.

I can get on that you know, TV show and be myself.

I mean I've been doing that essentially for seventeen years now with WWE.

Yeah, and.

So what people are seeing now is Statius not Titus O'Neil, even though they're both one and the same.

I recognize that when I go out.

You know, you'd ask me prior to that.

You know, how do people refer you to as?

And it's like they call you tight?

It is that that is the majority of people call me tight.

It is because they know me from wrestling.

But now more people are starting to see that is and that's really essentially who I want people to see anyway, a man that you know it is not.

I'm not ashamed of anything that I had to go through.

I'm not.

A shame that I was married once and got divorced.

I'm not ashamed to talk about, like the depression that I went through during that time, how I felt.

I'm not ashamed to talk about the trauma that I dealt with as a kid.

And so because I do believe that our tests are our testimonies, and our messages are end up being our messages, well, hold on.

Let me tell you something, because you just gave the whole framework about what this whole interview is going to be about.

So this is great, and I'm glad you touched.

You did a great overview.

So we're gonna go back to how you came into this world because you talked about being a son to a twelve year old mother.

And I'm just gonna start here and say trigger warning because even when you talked about this on King's Court, it left one of the contestants or daters or whatever in tears, and so trigger warning for that, and openly share how are you born?

How are you conceived?

I was conceived l rape.

My mother was raped at eleven years old, had me at the age of twelve, against the wishes of many people.

She was driven from Saint Augustine, Florida, down to Boynton Beach, Florida to have an abortion and she refused to do it, and months later I was born and life was extremely hard.

And you know, I've said this numerous times.

I really had a bad relationship with my mom as a kid until I, you know, found out how I was conceived.

At seventeen years old.

She had come up and my grandmother had just passed away from breast cancer in nineteen ninety five.

I was doing really well in school, was number one recruit in high school.

Yeah, and so I think my mom was dealing with her grief of my mom and maybe the issues that they may have had too.

But I think she felt like it was time for me to know, and so she came up to live Oak.

I thought I was in trouble, and she told me how I was conceived.

And I asked her if she knew who did it, and she said yes.

And she asked me if I wanted to meet him, and I said no, I'd probably kill him.

Yeah, exactly.

But you know, the minute that my mom revealed that to me, like all the hate that I had towards my mom instantly turned into love because I realized that my mom was a kid raising kids.

And I think that there are a lot of women that have had to experience what my mom had to EXPERI many of them.

You know, my mom is twelve years older than me now, and I believe in my heart of hearts that my mom is not only my first hero, but I really think that my mom is a is a vessel for what God can do.

Absolutely and even with her being a vessel, and even with me being a vessel and saving and helping so many people, raising millions of dollars for so many different organizations, like I still consider myself the least of them.

And it goes back to how, you know, how I'm showing up on this show like I've achieved way more than I would have anybody would have ever expected for me to achieve.

And I've attained so much.

But the proudest thing that I've been able to navigate is fatherhood, you know, to my three children.

And I had the opportunity, despite going through a divorce of being something that I never had, and being something that my mom could be extremely proud of, not just as a student athlete, not just as a productive philanthropist, but most importantly giving her grandchildren that she can be proud of.

And you know, for me, especially at this stage of my life, like nobody built the last name Bullard for me, but I have a chance to and had a chance to build my last name to mean something.

And I think the greatest gift that a man can give to his family is not the house that they live in, or the cars that they drive, or the clothes that they wear, but it's to have a great last name.

And because that opens up doors for our children, our grandchildren, It puts smiles on people's faces when they were oh you're a fatty Sais sign, Oh yeah, come on in.

You know, and.

My mom, my mom could be so much greater by sharing her story, but I recognize the fact that she's not ready to do that.

So even as I've evolved as a man at forty eight years old and accomplished like being real about who I am and where I came from and what I deal with is honestly league, it unlocks a lot for a lot of people that I never even will meet.

And if I had to encourage anybody about like authenticity and showing up as your real self, it's the greatest gift that you can have, it's freedom.

And at this stage in my life, like you know, I there was the time that I'd never thought I would want to be a husband again, and I realized that that was the enemy and the devil trying to take away something that was for future, not what I have.

I want to be a husband.

I want to be a really really good husband to my wife, and I know that she's out there, and this journey for me was an opportunity to show people like, hey, I can be a lot.

I'm going to be a lot.

I'm going to test you, I'm going to make you happy, I'm going to make you mad as hell.

But I know that I'm a man of God.

I know that I'm a man of substance, and I know that I'm called for a much greater purpose than what they currently see at the moment.

And that's why I understand that whoever my wife is going to be, I have to provide grace and forgiveness for her long before I even meet her.

That part I have to make that decision that I'm going to forgive my wife for anything that she may do to hurt me, because Jesus died so that we can all live this life of freedom.

Absolutely, and we all come with something, and I'm just not ashamed of the somethings that I come with.

And I let you know right away, I want to go back.

I want to go back because it may be some men struggling with We always about women going through having quote unquote daddy issues, but very rarely do we talk about mama trauma and what that looks like and how that shows up.

What were you dealing with?

You said you had a lot of anger towards your mom all up until the age of seventeen.

What were you dealing with?

It sounded like you weren't.

Were you raised with your mom?

You're raised with your aunt.

I was raised with my mom majority up until twelve years old.

And then you moved to where to life Oak, Florida.

Okay, so it was it was a camp, yeah, boys rancho and was that boy's ranch for kids that were at risk?

Yeah?

Kids that were yeah, not they were on the path to.

You're going to prison of diner yeah, and so what were you going through and that moment towards your mom that made you carry such anger and resentment.

Well, one, we were poor, so I never had the best of anything.

Really, in my eyes, it wasn't the best of anything.

And I, you know, as I got older, I recognized the fact that the best thing that I did have that you can't put a price tag on, is the love of a mother.

So you felt love back then.

At times, but I also felt like I couldn't be like I would ask questions and the answer would be because I said.

So yes, which is what we were always told back then.

Yes, the.

My mom worked a lot, you know, waiting tables, cleaning, doing whatever she could to make ends meet that never met.

We lived in the projects.

I'm surrounded by drug dealer, thugs, everything, and then even going to some of my relative's house because my mom didn't have money to put us in daycare or you know, it was some places that I didn't want to go, and I would voice that I don't want to go here.

Well, I don't care what you want, you need to go, You're going here, And to me, it was very dismissive of the fact that you don't even know why I don't want to go here, So I can't even open up to you why I don't want to go here.

I can't tell you that there's abuse going on.

There's drug, you know, use going on, there's drinking, there's alcohol, and there's things that I just don't want to be around.

And there was a lot of resentment towards my mom because I've never felt heard, always felt do as I'm telling you to do, regardless of what's going on.

And I think that's probably why I have such a huge heart for kids and doing the right thing for children is because you know, you hear all the time that like kids are bad, and these kids are lazy, and these kids don't want to do X, Y and Z and this and that.

Actually they do, they want to do a lot.

And I was that kid that was told you don't you're lazy because I found it easier out to do something than you.

Like we went to school, we had to we had to look up things and thesaurus or encyclopedia.

They got Google.

Now they can get on their phone and get this information like that.

That doesn't make them lazy, That means makes them advanced.

You know, it's a lot of older people, including myself, like, hey man, show me how to work this this phone, Like I now need to do this update, you know.

And so I think a lot of black men, especially that grow up with single mothers, like there's this great amount of joy and pride to be able to make your mama proud, but there's also this huge responsibility because some cases those mothers become entitled like that, well, since you're doing this, now, you need to do this for me, And that to me was a source of resentment as an adult, like you're my parent.

Like I told my kids, I asked them one day they were, you know, twelve and probably fourteen, my two sons.

I said, what do you guys want to be when you grow up?

What do you want to do.

It's like, oh, well, you know, I want to go to play for football, I want to go to college.

I want to do all these things, YadA, YadA YadA, and then I want to make a lot of money.

I want to buy you.

Titus was like, I want to My youngest son's name is Titus.

He's like, I want to buy you a house, and I want to buy mom a house.

And I was like, first of all, let me tell you and TJ something.

Don't buy me and your mom nothing until you're settled for yourself.

Our job as your parent, as your parents is to put you in the best place possible to be successful.

The sacrifices we make is to give you the best life and the best opportunity possible.

But I don't want to own a house that something goes wrong and you get injured or whatever, and now you moving back in with me.

He said, to feed the purpose.

I'd rather you own the house, you set a place for yourself, and then whatever men your mom, whether we're together or not together, or whatever you choose to do for us, that's after you've set your table.

And I think in the black community so often, I'm gonna buy my mama house, I'm gonna buy my mama car, and this and that, and then something life could happens and things go wrong, and all of a sudden you're in that same predicament you were in as a kid, where you're living with your mother or your father or your parents.

That's not life to me, that's not the life I want to live.

The pressure that I want my kids to live with.

I want my kids all of them to have their own space so that if they want to punch the wall, they got to pay for it.

I want my kids to have their own space where they can raise their family, they can have whatever friend they want to have over, and they don't have to look over their shoulder and wonder if dad is or mom is going to get upset about whatever in their house.

Hey, if you want your house to be filthy, that's all your house I want to live.

Yeah, let me ask you this.

When you were seventeen, after you got to a place of forgiving your mom and understanding what she had.

The plight of her life, did you give yourself that ideology I'm.

Gonna buy my mom my house.

We grew up poor, and I'm gonna make sure that the life that wasn't afforded to me that I'm gonna make sure that my mom is introduced to a better lifestyle.

No, I didn't, And I'll tell you why.

I tell you why because you asked me about like having you know, different traumas throughout mind.

So when I had to go to the boys ranch, I felt like my mom gave up on me, which was another trauma.

Yep, yep.

Abandonment I felt.

Yeah, so I felt like my mom had just given up on me, and that was a source of kind of my anger at the time.

So when I tell you that seventeen, like, I'm doing well and I'm understanding that, like my mom was a kid trying to raise kids at seventeen, I'm still a kid, yeah, trying to figure out life.

But I got empowered and motivated and inspired knowing that, like, Okay, this is part of my story, but it isn't part of my ending.

And my mom never had anything to do with what I saw my ending being.

So did she come visit you at the Boys Ranch?

Yeah, but it was kind of controlled, just because while they're working on me there, they're working on her.

He's getting services and I have three younger brothers and so you know, she's raising them as a single mother.

The context, how long were you there?

I was supposed to be there for eighteen months.

I ended up staying for five years.

Five years?

Yeah, could you kept getting in trouble?

No, Actually it's the opposite.

It was the first eleven months, or actually the first six months I was about to get kicked off, and you know that conversation that I had with Patrick Minogue.

It really kind of like I've always been a very rebellious person.

I still am to this day.

Don't tell me what can't be done.

Don't tell me that I can't do something, because for years I was told I can't do, I won't do, I will never do.

And I just realized that like that at those times, that they never saw what God could do through me.

And did you believe in God back then?

I always believe in God, And even now, you know my don't call myself a Christian.

I'm a man of faith.

I think the Christians, the Catholics, the Muslims, Buddhists, I think all of them have their extremists.

And I think that for me, Jesus Christ died for everybody.

I serve him.

But you're referring to Jesus Christ.

Though, Yes, But I won't label myself into a religious institution because as soon as I do that, it's much like politics.

As soon as you name yourself a Republican or a Democrat, then you start ostracizing other people.

From you ostracize other people, and other people look at you like, oh, you know what I mean?

Like if Jesus died for everybody, Like why he and I know that he's using me for everybody.

Then why do I need to go by the label that?

Why do I need to label myself I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not apologetic by the fact.

Yes, I follow Jesus Christ.

I go to church.

I go to a non denominational church.

Now, so when you ask me about my faith walk as a kid, we were in church for hours at a time.

But I also see these same people that were pastors, you know, deacons and folks that were at the church all the time, drinking, smoking, cussing, fussing five minutes after we got out of church.

That doesn't make those people bad people.

It just made me look at like, Okay, is this all a show?

Like a homeless guy at thirteen years old is what led me closer to Christ.

What happened?

So, I'm in high school at Live Oak, I'm in ninth grade, and we used to have a homeless guy come to practice all the time.

He loved football and.

One of our booster club president used to get pastries from publics before they threw him out every Thursday, and so he'd come with a truckload of pay streets every every every Thursday.

That was our walkthrough day because we played on Fridays and we'd all just grab stuff, grab stuff, grab stuff.

Well, I would always on the way by give him stuff.

And I found out that me and him both loved the blueberry scrusl cake, and so he stopped me one day and he said, hey, do you mind if I, you know, talk to you for a second.

And I said yes, sir, So I sat there and he said, you know, God is gonna God is going to use you to do some mighty things.

Really, And I said, man, yeah, man, I can't wait, you know, I'm I can't wait to you know, go to college so I can go to the NFL and make a lot of money, so I can help a lot of people and you know, do all these amazing things for people.

And he said, it has nothing to do with you going to the NFL.

God is going to use you to do mighty things regardless.

Yeah.

And you know the way I grew up, you know, people picked on handicapped people, picked on the homeless people, you know, ladies.

Nobody was spared yea.

And I could have said, well you homeless, how you gonna tell me?

But I received it from him absolutely only to develop this relationship with him over the next few weeks, and I asked him the question.

I was like, hey, if you don't mind me asking, how did you end up in this situation?

He said, if I told you that I was a CEO of a major company with a nice, beautiful home, great family, two beautiful daughters, would you believe me?

And I said, if that's what you say your story is, that's all I would have to go on.

And he said, that's exactly what my life used to be.

Gambling, drugs and alcohol took me away from my family.

And so within a matter of meeting him in the beginning of the year, towards the end of the season, I found out that my high school football coach was best friends with his ex wife.

Oh wow, So then I asked him.

I was like, I asked my high school football coach.

You know, it's it's you know, such and such going to be at the banquet is year.

I heard she usually comes.

And he was like, how do you know her?

And I was like, oh, I just heard a lot about her, you know, And uh, mind you also too.

Matt Fryar and Todd Fryar their father.

Their dad owned their family owned Wayne Fryer Mobile Homes, which was the largest mobile home distribution manufacturer in the Southeast.

And Matt used to always, I mean, Todd used to always want me to go to church with him.

Todd's white we en live of it's a white church.

I grew up in all white church.

I grew up with Simi as of guys.

I was only black family.

So I ended up going to church with him.

And you know, I asked him, you know, do you mind if if this gentleman comes the next week?

You know?

And He's like, yeah, sure, And so I asked him, you know that Thursday following Thursday, I said, hey, you want to go to church with us a Sunday the homeless guy.

He's like, man, yes, man, I've been wanting to go to the house god, you know, just kind of be But I don't have any clothes.

And I was like, well, bro, I don't know if you see me dressed, but I don't have the best to clothes either, And Jesus said, come as you are there it is.

So he was like, all right, but how am I going to get there this?

And now I say, well, I'm going to have the boys Ranch brand driver pick you up because there's a couple of us that are going to go to church.

So meet me here at the school.

We'll pick you up.

You can go to church with us, and then we'll go.

It's a Piccadilly you know.

I don't know if you ever ate there, but it's like a bus or whatever.

So I was like, and then you can go to Piccadilly with us afterwards.

And so he went to church, and I mean, I just saw this dude, like, I mean, I get chills just like thinking about it.

I just saw this guy like so happy and honor to just be in the presence of God, and watching him worship the way that he worshiped was what I thought Jesus should do for everybody.

I felt like, here's a man that doesn't have, essentially in the world's eyes, anything, and he is giving everything in this moment to be thankful and grateful for just having the opportunity to be in the presence of God.

So long and short of that story is I help this guy get a job at thirteen years old.

This guy ended up running the company.

By the time I was a sophomore in college.

He had remarried to another wife, the part of the store that's the most powerful part of the story is that, yes, his ex wife came to the banquet, and I had invited him to the banquet.

And we're sitting there at the table as me and him, JW.

Hardy, and three people from the boys ranch.

JW was one of my boys.

He played football, but he's also had the boys ranch with me raising hell and his ex wife comes in with his daughters and she instantly sees him and she just starts bawling, crying.

He gets ready to get up and says, man, I knew I shouldn't have come.

I'm sorry, And a gentleman stops him and says, no, man, please don't leave.

He say, me and my wife pray for you every night.

He hadn't seen his daughters in almost three years.

And the husband says, my wife grew up in an alcoholic family.

Oh, that was the biggest trigger for her, and she didn't want her daughters to be in that situation.

So now this man is seeing his daughters for the first time.

Now they're reconnecting.

He's friends with his ex wife.

Is it's just a beautiful thing to see.

And so when I'm in college, you know a couple of years.

A few years later, he came to one of my games.

He's the biggest Florida State fan ever, so for him to come to a Gator game.

Was a big deal.

He came to the game him.

Patrick Minogue, another guy from the Boys ranch, and like his family, they all came to the game to root for me.

And after the game.

I'm a sophomore inner, so I'm like nineteen.

I met him when I was thirteen.

He says, you remember when I told you that God is going to do mighty things for you through you, He said, at thirteen years old, you helped me get a job, reconnect with my family, and seek God for who he is.

You put me in the presence of God.

I didn't even think I deserved to be in the presence of God.

So men.

Out there, especially black men, but all men.

Literally, life is hard for all of us.

We all are dealing with different traumas, triggers, etc.

And most of those traumas and triggers that are projected onto us, we don't even get a chance to process these things because we're not supposed to have feelings.

We're supposed to be logical, we're supposed to.

You know, women are allowed to just fly off the handle and you're just supposed to love them for whatever, which takes us to a place where we don't seem to want to be vulnerable or be feel safe or you know.

And then you hear them say, well, we should go to counseling.

Well, you don't want to go to counseling with them.

And it's not that you don't want to go to counseling with them, it's actually that you don't feel safe and you don't feel like it's a space of vulnerability.

I can tell you with one certainty as a person that has consistently and will consistently do the work on my own, that counseling is definitely something that you should do for yourself because it will benefit your family, It would benefit everyone around you so much better, and you'll feel more free to be able if you do have to go into a space, even if it's counseling with your friends.

You'll see the benefit in the growth that can happen when you're a healed person versus a person that's like trying to figure everything out.

We all trying to figure everything out, We're all trying to be the best version of ourselves, and sometimes it takes people a certain time period to get there.

And for the women that are in these men's lives, like you shouldn't.

You can't tell a grown man and what he should be doing, like you don't want him to turn around and be like, well, you know, Stacey cook for her husband every night, you know, And she cook and she clean and she do all these things this and that, because the first thing you're gonna say is, I'm not Stacy exactly.

I'm mean, you married me, You're with me.

I don't compare my kids to anybody else.

I don't tell my kids, well, why can't you just be like Bobby and and he do this for his parents, and they do this, and they do this like comparison is the thief of joy yep in any regard.

And you know, the beauty about where I am in life today, nobody compares to me.

I'm a free man.

Nobody compares to That is buller And that is not a ego talking.

That is a healed man that understands and knows who he is more so now than and he knew at eight years old, twelve years old, seventeen years old now forty eight.

So you can't tell me nothing literally about myself that I'm not willing to tell you about yourself.

I'm not ashamed of anything from my past.

That's good, So nobody can use that as a weapon against me.

So you might have said, oh, yeah, man, you remember you cussed out such and so I sure do.

So that is you know, That is what this whole platform was built on.

This whole platform was built in twenty twenty of me saying, I said, journey with me as I discover, uncovered, recover love, and I use this platform as my own personal space of healing where I said, hey, I was married for almost ten years.

Two weeks shot ten years, I cheated on my ex wife after I filed for divorce two weeks shot of ten years of marriage, I said, I need to become a better man.

And then I ended up creating this platform five years later to heal and have conversations with people that would be transparent and vulnerable.

The Bible says that people overcome by the word of our testimony, the blood of the Lamb.

So I said, I want to find transparent, vulnerable people that can sit on that yellow couch and openly share about their idio secrecies, things that they've mistakes that they've made, places that they want to heal in whether they're married, single, divorce, people have dealt with bearing their the loves of their lives.

Let's have conversations so that we can glean insights.

And so I love the language of which you're speaking, because this is totally the heart posture of the dear future WIFEI podcast.

How did your dating life look coming from that seventeen years old, forgiving your mom of that being very instrumental in the life of this homeless man, watching God use you at a very young age.

How did that show up in your dating life?

What kind of decisions were you making, especially in college, you know what I'm saying, having to pick of the litter you down there in Florida, all these women doing what women do?

What did that look like?

And how did that show up in your day life?

Well, I mean, if I told you this today, it would to a lot of people like date a lot of people in college.

I didn't have a girlfriend in high school, like I was like I think I felt like I was an ugly duckling in middle school.

In high school, like I didn't have a lot of dating experiences.

Say dating you'd have a girlfriend, you wouldn't you wun't smash nobody.

No, no, I can't say that.

Okay, when we talked relationships, you actually relationships.

I ain't saying.

I ain't saying I wasn't no lose you just wasn't a committed relationships, just was it I had?

I had.

I had two committed relationships in college.

And if I think about like those two, both of those two women now like i'm I'm, I'm still I would consider friends with I don't talk to them on a regular basis cordial, but we are very cordial.

I'm super proud of both of them.

I would mention them by name, but I don't want they I don't want nobody to go whatever.

But you know, there are two women that I dated in college that were phenomenal women, and to see them now as mothers and wives, I definitely had my fair share of really good women in my life.

And I didn't really to be transparent and honest with you, like I didn't know what a good woman for me.

Was still on this journey to find out what's a good woman for me?

You still feel like that right now, forty eight evolved mostly intelligent.

You still feel like you struggle with what a good woman looks like?

No, no, no, no, I don't feel like I struggle what a good woman looks like for you, But for me, I know what I need, So you know what you need?

Yes, okay, now what I want?

I know what I need.

There's a big difference absolutely at forty eight.

It ain't about once because even those ones says that they can satisfy you now, but give it about five or six more years, and you know, things start changing and stuff start hanging, and you know, I'm trying to hold on to this little thing I got right now as long as I can't, because what I need is a woman that understands that I am a man with purpose and I am not going to shy away from my purpose.

There it is.

I'm going to walk in it.

I'm going to be obedient.

There's no sacrifice greater than the obedience that I am committed to doing within my purpose.

And some people will say that's very selfish.

You can call it what you want.

There's somebody out there that will love me absolutely and understand that you know what I am because he is the greatest version of himself, he will be able to greet the greatest version of a husband.

To me, that part, I don't have a list because to me, those that you know have these lists.

What happens when they check off a bunch of stuff, but then they stop doing a certain certain things that are on the list.

Then you want to check them off out the equations that I want to be exactly.

That's not that's not so.

There's so many different components of love that are built under a godpeep and for me, I want in a gape love absolutely because I know I'm gonna get on your damn nerves, I'm gonna piss you off, I'm gonna make you mad, I'm gonna make you happy as hell in one minute, and the next minute you're gonna be like this Negro is crazy.

And I'm not afraid of any of those aspects because guess what it's gonna be some times that I'm gonna say this, Negro, it's crazy.

And there's a Again, there's a freedom in knowing that you can be who you are and that person leave and yeah, like not that they're not even not necessarily even that they're never gonna leaves that they see you past, that they see you past these things, and I can't be I know for a fact for me, and I talk about it on the show.

Like some people think that I don't regard feelings because I'd be like, I don't care about your feelings.

I do care about your feelings.

But if your feelings don't have anything with anything I said or I did, I can't take responsibility for that.

I take I can't.

So somebody comes to you, I mean, if you're everybody know you got a fiance, right, yeah, Okay, which I met her.

She's she's right here.

She's getting a chance to watch the feelming of dear future wifey for the first time.

You special, I'm honored.

Yeah, go ahead, shout out.

He did drop the fund of a fun fact right there.

It is.

Yeah.

So, if your soon to be wife came to you and you had a conversation with her and you expressed all these things that you saw that were wrong, and you did it very clear, because that's what most men want to do.

You just want to get to the point.

Yeah.

And she turns around and she says, well, I feel like you don't understand because you know you would do this, if you knew this and you would do this, and if you would do that, and I feel like you don't care about X, Y and Z and YadA, YadA, YadA.

So like now you have just literally taken all these feelings that I have given you as a man and all this vulnerability that I've given you as a man, and you have made it about yourself.

But if you come back to me and you say, well, you said this and it made me feel this way, absolutely I can be accountable for that.

I can address that.

I can't address something that I don't even know what you're talking about, because I get I literally just said all these things.

Yep.

So are you listening to respond?

Are you talking to be heard?

Or are you communicating to grow?

That's my question to any woman or any man in a conversation.

I'm not going to go back and forth with you.

I'm not about to argue with you.

I will literally say all right, cool.

So that's why people think you'll have no emotions?

Is that what he feels like?

Yeah, because I'm just real cutting your rye.

Well, I do have emotions, but I can't get emotional.

Why is it?

What is the conundrum when you say emotional, But I have emotions.

Because if I act on my emotions, I'm not I'm not operating in my superpower.

A man that is controlled in his emotions, in his anger, in his fears, is a man that's more powerful to be able to elicit and hear someone's emotions and not be phased, you know, in the same way that other people are faced.

Let me ask you this episode five.

I just watched that and you said it was a test to have you.

Know, to do what Tyson was doing.

Tyson was in one of my plays I did years ago when I used to do plays.

But the list that Tyson has where women signed up to date him, and you were talking to.

The date on the show Yaria.

She had DM me a couple of months ago and asked to be on the Dear Free Twife podcast live in Houston.

She said, Hey, I'm not willing to be on this list.

I don't want to be on no list.

I'm not going to go out like that.

You said, Hey, that was a test.

Was that actual test?

It was actual test because in the confines of what we're at right now, it is a dating journey for all of us.

If you notice and watch on the show.

There are several people that didn't get any attention from absolutely because I was not interested.

That wasn't interesting because they're all were beautiful, they're all you know, successful in their own rights, but because there were things like some wanted to have kids.

Yeah I would, that's not going to happen here.

Some people I'm just wasn't attracted to from a spirits like, it's just different.

Everybody's attracted to who they're attracted to, and it's fine.

But for me, it's like, okay, if I did put up a list, if you're saying you're genuinely interested in me, for me, you understand that I've said this, whether it's on camera off camera, Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here on a journey and whatever I need to do to get through this journey to hopefully if this person is in this space, do that.

We got a very short period of time to do it.

So if you're interested, you can let it be known and show it be known.

And it's twenty one of y'all and three of us, right, yeah, so show me some inchho like, show me like because you're looking at this from like your ego getting in a way at this point to me because somebody say, Man, I gotta wait in the line for like, I gotta wait in the line for like an hour and a half to be you know, on it to get to get this car.

If I really want that car, you're gonna be in that line.

I'm gonna be in that line.

I can't be like, man, I'm tight and so nil, I don't stand in no line, Like, let me see if I can call such and such skip against the line, this and that.

No, I'm gonna wait.

No, you'll probably make some phone calls.

Yeah, I wouldn't make some phone calls.

I would definitely make some phone calls.

But if even so, I have to also look at the situation.

Yeah, if I'm in the line, Lebron James is in the line, yeah, I'm gonna get Hey, I just got to sit in here and sit in the line.

If Lebron James couldn't call nobody, Barrock Obama in the line, who.

Am I exactly ain't gonna scare nobody.

So it's like, you know, I do test people because I want to know, like, how easy is it for you to quit something?

How easy is it for you to be disinterested?

In something.

So you do that in your regular day life every day.

I do that with guys, girls, my kids.

You're testing everybody.

Do they know you're testing them?

Sometimes?

Sometimes they do.

Sometimes your kids start catching on, Oh they do.

So my kids test me too though.

It's awesome.

Yeah.

So, like I give you a perfect case of it.

My oldest son, TJ, so he knows he knows how to talk to me a certain way that will make me like literally be like here, man, just get it.

So he uh, he wanted to get another car.

So he calls me and be like young King.

This is long before yeah, young King.

I was like, I know we're not supposed to cuss on him, but I was like, TJ, what if you won't?

You know.

He's like, Dad that I'll just calling you to chat with you Van, tell you I'm proud of.

You all this.

Yeah, just butter me.

Yeah yeah.

So he gets to the point and I'm like, yeah, it's just making me laugh, you know what I mean.

But at the same talken like you know the one thing he does and then Titus has started doing it too.

They both calling it's like, uh, hey, what's up, handsome because they've heard me say like, women calling me fine is nothing to me.

But if a woman calls me gorgeous or handsome, got you got me?

All the women?

Yeah, I know I'm fine.

I work out every morning.

I'm not.

This is not this is on purpose, you know what I'm saying, Like, this is on purpose.

I know, like I'm working for this, you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, but one night, ladies you walk up to him and say, hey, hey, you got handsome?

Hey, what's up?

Gorgeous?

Hey girl?

Hey?

How they do it on the Instagram and say your son do you like?

Yeah?

So they but they're really just tested the waters.

But they're also doing it in a comedic way, and it's like, you know, I love my sons, man, I love my daughter too.

I got a chance to spend some time my daughter.

So I adopted my daughter.

You know, so a few years ago and she's at UMass getting ready.

She plays basketball, and then my oldest son plays football at UCF.

Hold on, you can't just talk about adoption.

How did that work out?

Yeah?

So me and her mom were friends for a long time, and her mom had some health complications and she felt like, you know, she was going to go through a procedure and didn't feel like her best and she was like, can you do me a favor and please check on Leah from time to time if things don't go right?

And I was like, you know what's going to happen if they go wrong?

He said, let's be clear, and she was like, well, you know, she may have to move.

You know, she's Canadian, her mom's Canadian, and all her family's up in Canada.

And I was like, well, what if I adopted her?

And she was like what And I was like, yeah, I've always wanted to have a daughter, and if I had a daughter, you know, I'm not physically having any more kids, but if I had a daughter, like I would, Leah would be my first choice, you know.

And you know it's crazy because the guy had laid on my heart.

Probably in twenty fourteen, I had evacuated my kids up to Live Oak.

We went to the boy A Youth Ranch and all the kids that were in the youth Wrench's services were in Live Oak or evacuated up there because of a hurricane coming.

And there were two seven year old twins sien s Guy that I just absolutely fell in love with, and they were in the foster care system and they were all over me and I just I just literally fell in love with these young ladies.

And so I talk with Ms.

Evans at the Boys Ranch and I was like, Hey, you know, what would be the process of me trying to help this family and kind of be like, what's their circumstance situation?

And that was my first like inkling to like maybe adoption is the route that I'm going to go to get my little girl.

And so I started the process of trying to get to the family and get these little girls out of the situation.

And then probably two months into the process, the social worker say, hey, I think this is extremely admirable what you're doing, and there's no question that these young ladies are going to have a great life.

And but I have to, you know, be honest with you about this process because they're in the foster program or if they're foster children, mom or dad can come up, you know, a couple of years after you get these girls and be like I'm ready to be a mom now, I'm ready to be a dad now in unification and you have to, yeah, to end it back over and I was like I can't.

I mean, I just I could not do that to them, and I couldn't do it to myself or to my my sons.

So not even a year and a half later, you know, that situation happens with with Lia's mom.

I've known Liz since she was like seven years old, so it's not She's not a stranger to our family.

And I, you know, revealed to Carrie that I wanted, you know, to possibly adopt her.

And then I was like, hold on, let me talk to my sons first, make sure they're okay with it, which I knew they would be okay.

They were, No, they're keeping the girl.

Oh Leah, Leah Liz sixteen fifteen, she was fifteen when you adopted her.

Yeah, so I took a little bit, but yeah, it's fifteen when I wanted to make the decision, I believe, And so I talked to took my boys out of dinner, and I hit them with their little favorite like, hey, what's up, handsome.

What's up?

Young?

Yeah?

What's up, young king?

So young kings.

I got this little proposal for y'all.

I was like, you know what you guys think if I were to adopt Leah, you know, into our family, and they were both for it.

They knew her, they knew her.

And then Titus was like, well, you know we're a competitive family, right, And I was like yeah, she she if she don't know, she's gonna find I find out.

Yeah.

And so I ended up calling Carrie and.

We started talking to her and Leah, and then Leah was like, you know, you know, why, why are you wanting to do this?

And I said, well, I've always wanted to be a girl dad, and if I had a daughter, you know, you would be everything and more than I would want and a daughter.

And she said, well, you know I'm gay, right, And I said, Leah, this is the time I'm going to guess because I you just got to say, Lee, I don't care if you were purple and got streamers flying out of your ass.

I'm not here to make you be a certain way.

I'm here to help you be the best streamers.

Yeah, I'm not here to make you be a certain type of way.

I'm here to help you be the best version of yourself.

And as long as you are a person of character, I could care less about your sexual orientation or what religious beliefs you want to practice or whatever.

Like I can't make you.

I don't want to make you anything outside of who you are as a person.

And you know, I I talk with the boys, you know afterwards.

But I realized a lot of the reasons why I've probably been an advocate for the lesbian gay community was because I saw my own family members crucify my favorite aunt who was gay, and she was also the most successful person in our family, Like they would talk crazy to her and this and that, and then it's still family members to this day that I have not spoken to because of how they how.

They treat them.

As a kid, yeah, and so I have very I have a zero tolerance for, like bullying.

I got bullied as a kid.

That's why you started fighting a lot.

Well I had to fight back.

Yeah, but at the count were you were people bullying you then?

Or did you become the bully?

No?

I never.

I never was the bully.

I just had an anger problem and a temper problem.

So you're talking about thirty minutes later, he said I would not get another fight.

Yeah, somebody said something about, well that's that's why your mom ain't want you, and yeah, yeah, my mom ain't want me.

All right, Well, your mom ain't gonn want you either.

When I finished with you, she ain't even recognize you.

Put these dune dollas on you.

Would you always be?

Yeah?

I was.

I was always tall and lenky.

I was not big.

I didn't gain a lot of weight until I got into a place that like Florida, where I was eating good and lifting good and all that stuff.

And you know, it's crazy because my youngest son has kind of got the same frame as me, and the correlation between his freshman and sophomore year and mine is just crazy.

Like I wore number fifty three when I first got They just throw you a number, the ugliest number that a defensive end could wear, every three and then coach Sperry unretired number eleven and let me wear number eleven at Florida.

And then, you know, so I've always wore number eleven or seven basketball or or football.

I played multiple sports.

And so my youngest son, Titus, was number fifty nine when he first think him at number two as a freshman, and then he just got his new number given to him, which he wanted was number seventeen.

So he took both of my numbers and combined them to hear my son, you know, and then both of us gained exactly thirteen pounds our freshman the sophomore year.

So to hear my youngest son always when people he's done several different interviews, he was like, I play defensive end because of my dad.

I wear this number because of my dad.

I'll do this because of my dad.

Like in high school, he were number eleven, you know, and then TJ wears number sixteen.

Well, seventeen is powerful.

That's a day you forgave your mom at the age.

Yeah, so that's some powerful symbolism there.

We have a shared commonality.

I adopted two kids.

I adopted my nephew at seven and I adopted my son Armiani at sixteen.

God told me adopt him at fifteen, and then by time came to pass, it was on the sixteenth birthday.

So I always love it when I hear anybody say that they had the compassion to adopt somebody, but especially men.

You very rarely.

You're probably the only man I've ever talked to that adopted a kid, which is very, very unconventional because as statistics will have it, or what society will say, especially as black men, we only want to take care of our own kids.

Let alone goo adopt somebody else's so salute to you, young king for adopting and now you became a girl dad, So that's beautiful.

How long how long has she been in your life?

Well, she's been in my life since she was seven.

She's nineteen now, okay, so I belive she's been a bullard for the last few years, last few years.

And take a quick all right, So, first of all, it's very unconventional for you to say what you just said.

You said that earlier in the interview, you talked about how you desire our marriage.

Let me ask you this from a dating age range, because you said you don't want to have kids anymore.

Actually, medically you can't have kids anymore.

Snip, snip.

And so when you look at I'm not getting reversed and you're not getting to reverse you said absolutely not.

Let me ask you this.

For those who then watch the show, why not why you say you don't want to have kids anymore?

Well, at first, I you know, they have to understand that I got divorced into me like that was my biggest loss in life, not from a standpoint of you know, you you know stuff life happens to everybody, but just because I had achieved everything that people said I would never achieve, and then I finally get a chance to operate in the space of marriage where I have my both of my sons in marriage in wedlock.

I was born out of wedlock, out of love.

And you know, again, I went through problem the greatest point of depression during this not only the process of divorce, but even afterwards of trying to find myself, and I had made a decision that, you know what, maybe marriage is not for me, which I think that if men or women are honest with themselves, they probably come to that too.

You're talking after coming through a divorce.

After going through a divorce, probably like, you know what, I'll never do this again anyway, So like your divorce, I mean, there was some infidelity.

But I think also too is we got married pretty young and quick, and we didn't really build a friendship, so everything was in the confines of a husband and wife when neither one of us saw a husband and wife as kids.

Stop real quick friendship.

WI is friendship important.

Because you know, when when you don't necessarily feel like a husband that day, or you don't necessarily feel like a wife the other day.

You know, that's still my friend.

And I think sometimes people don't realize that, like, you're still two human beings.

And the experience of a spouse having a spouse is you know, you're under this covenant of God, but that doesn't exclude you from being human and so you'll have some days.

Well man, this joke is getting on my nerves, But that's my best friend.

So part, and they know you, you know, they know you in ways that other people don't know you, and they accept you as you are, knowing that they don't look at it as a blemish on who you are as a person.

That part, because nobody, and I mean no body is perfect.

And so making the decision to have a vasectomy was more so because at that time I was like, I'm never having any more kids anymore because I don't want to have kids outside of wedlock.

I broke the generational curse in my family in every single way possible.

First one to graduate from high school, first, one to graduate from college, first, one to be a homeowner, first, one to be married, first, one to have children in marriage.

Like I set this table and then this table gets flipped over so I can set the table back up, but this time around, I might not have this type of flower arrangement or whatever, Like, I can set this table a different way, right, And I help thousands of kids.

Every year I helped thousands of families.

I run the largest back to school bash in the entire world.

Yeah heard at Raymond James State at a football stadium.

Thirty thousand backpacks with school supplies, thirty thirty thousand eye eyeglass.

Kids get going for an eye examined.

Ten minutes later they get a brand new pair of eyeglasses.

Really that they on the spot, dental screenings, cleanings, extractions.

This year we expanded it to the adults because I recognized that there were so many adults that were just barely getting in there with their kids, and they had health complications.

And as you know, healthcare is not always accessible and it's very it's not affordable.

So I have all my you know, uh, hospital partners and medical partners come in.

We had over two hundred dentists there.

We had a I mean, if you see it, me telling you about it is one thing, You seeing it is another.

We got a whole food activation out in the field.

We got bounce houses, all love the free all free, and this is the eighth year that we did it.

Congratulation man.

Yeah, we had thirty nine thousand families during the holiday season from Thanksgiving to Christmas with food, clothing, toys.

I have my own.

I have a public school that bears my name on it.

Yeah, I saw that.

You let me ask you, this does the homeless guy?

Since you won't to say his name.

He's not living anymore.

I say, do you get a chance to see this back to school stuff?

No, he passed away.

He did get a chance to see me walk across the college graduation stage.

Do you know how it would blow his mind to see this thirty thousand.

He's seeing it.

Oh, yep, he sees it.

He's up there with my grandma looking down and Patrick Monou.

Too, he said, had nothing to do with football.

Nothing.

I've impacted more people outside of the platform of football than I ever would have imagined.

I've gone more places.

There's nowhere in this world that I have not gone, Like, no continent that I haven't touched, not one state that I haven't gone to, not.

World War one, World world wonder that I have not seen.

But is that also with wrestling?

Yeah, wrestling everywhere yeah, literally everywhere.

Places I never I never would have thought I was going to Saudi Arabia.

Been there several times, and like everything you see on the news, it's a lie.

You go to China, you go to Japan.

Japan is the cleanest place you'll ever heard.

Yeah, best food, but it's they have the most respectful culture you've ever come across.

They don't play, you know, So did you see yourself?

We'll go touch on wrestling, because I didn't realize WWE was so huge.

I know, I grew up with it, with the Von Erics and and Huck Hogan and all that.

Like as a kid, I was just like, oh my god, I was just you know, but we were post so we were never gonna get to go to we were never going to have to see that in person, a live event.

But when you see that, when you've known.

First of all, I asked you that you grow up watching.

That as a kid.

I grew up watching it every Monday.

My mom used to fight with my grandmother about allowing me to watch wrestling on a Monday night.

Do you remember Van Erks and all this stuff?

Yes, yeah, they were so popular because they were from Texas.

Yeah, but they're royalty in wrestling, you know.

And there's server families that are royalty in wrestling, and the Van Erks was definitely one of those families.

So what did it think?

What did you think watching that as a kid and now being able to participate in that as an adult.

I tell people all the time, it was we talk about numbers and two's and stuff like that.

Like for me, it was two weeks after I got divorced, and then two weeks after that, I got denied a high school football coaching job, which is what we all thought that I was going to do.

I was going to coach.

I wanted to coach.

And you know, I always say this, and I said in a public setting as well, Richard Shanty, who was an athletic director at Chamberlain High School, I thank you so much because you made me a millionaire by not giving me the opportunity to be the high school football coach at Chamberlain High School.

But here it is now I'm getting ready to do some things at Chamberlain High School.

Yeah, and full circle, full circle moment.

And so Dave Bautista, you know, is one of my best friends, and he used to talk to me about wrestling and this and that, and he's like, yeah, if you get a chance, you should try it out.

It's like, man, I'm not doing that.

You know, I watched it growing up, but it's fake.

And it's just like, first off, it's not fake.

You know, it's predetermined.

So if I pick you up in our body, slam you on this ground, you don't feel it.

If I hit you with this chair, you're gonna feel it.

Uh.

And I was driving one day in South Tampa.

I had a taste for some jerk chicken.

I always tell people that food is like what leads me to all these great things I have, and like, you know, and so I had I had to chase for jerk chicken.

There's a place called the Jerk Cut in Tampa.

And so I was picking up a pair of dress shoes and I just got resold and I was driving and David told me about FCW, which was the place that you know, which is now called NXT, but it was our developmental system, the black and Yellow building.

And so I pick up the phone and I'm like, Dave, is this a place you've been trying to get me to come to?

And he was like, yeah, you know, I was like, he's like, asked for Dusty roys of Steve Kerr and I was like, that's like a Tommy elbow dust time.

You just popped up on the place.

Yeah.

So I go to the back of the building that the signs clearly says f C W and w w E Talent and Employees only.

You say, I'm gonna show up anyway, it's bussed up in the mother just walked in there and it was some guys working out in the ring and Norman Smiley was in the ring and he looked down.

He's like, can I Can I help you?

And I was like, yeah, I was looking to talk to Dusty or Steve Kerran about possibly taking a look at this, and he's like, well, neither one of them are here right now, but we have a TV show.

I'm sure they want to talk to you later on the night if you want to come back.

So I went and picked up my sons, who were three and five at the time.

I said, hey, y'all want to go to a wrestling match.

He's like his uncle Dave wrestling and I was like, no, this is where he would go like before he started got on the big stage of WWE oh wow, and we went we watched the show.

I looked over and I was like, you think Dad can do this?

TJ was like, Dad, you can do anything.

And then I looked over at Titus and I was like, you think you want Daddy to do this?

And he shook his head.

So I had a fifteen minute conversation with Steve Kerr and Dusty.

Afterwards, I'm driving home and John learn Knight has calls me and says, hey, you know, I just got off the phone with Steve and Dusty.

What kind of shape are you in.

I was like, well, I've never wrestled a day in my life.

I work out.

But He's like, well, you know, we want to give you a tryout, you know, to be three days, see if we like you, see if you like it, you know, and kind of go from there.

We'll pay your X amount per day for tryout.

At this time, I had just got divorced.

I just got denied a high school football coaching job.

So and I was actually getting ready to try to go back to Florida to coach defensive be assistant defensive line coach.

So I was due to go back that Monday to talk with the head coach.

Did that look promising?

Oh, it's very promising, but it still wasn't a guarantee.

And meanwhile, I got two sons and child support and all these things that I and so I go that.

I went to the show that Thursday.

I came in that Friday.

I worked out is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

Like it's it's hard.

And I'm driving back home and John Carsey said, all right, kid, we think we're going to give you a shot.

He was like normalists, like so first thing I saw.

So I was like, what really?

And he was like, yeah, you know, I think we're gonna try to sign you know, you know, a normalist like a six to eight month process to get through everything.

And I was like, John, bro I don't have six to eight months this or I'm going to go coach football.

And he was like, well, give me an hour or so and i'll call you back.

So he called me back and he was like, all right, we got to send you to Pittsburgh and you know you gotta pass a physical first, uh.

And so they flew me out to Pittsburgh that Tuesday.

I came back that Tuesday night, that Wednesday day, overnight of a contract.

I got it Thursday, I sent him back and then the following Monday, two weeks after I walked in that back door.

I was learning how to become a ww superstar.

Now, I will say this, I was supposed to get paid for three days and I only worked out one and I just got divorced.

I'm like, hey, what about the brother two days though, He's like, no, We're gonna pay you for all the I was like, yeah, because I need some coin.

So it said.

They said normally six to eight months.

Yeah, even longer too for some people.

And you got in two weeks.

Yeah, that's why you said the power too.

Yeah.

Yeah, and just.

Think if I didn't have a taste for jerk chicken out and my big hungry ass.

So when you look back at that, you did that for how many years?

I mean, technically, I'm you know, my last match was in twenty twenty.

But I was named the global Ambassador of the company, you know, And so yeah, fifteen sixteen years.

God, I'm in the Hall of Fame as a Warrior Award recipient DRAVT World.

I was named the most philanthropic superstar in WWE history, which to me, is, so.

What made you do that?

What made you?

What made you embrace philanthropy?

I've always done it, literally, like what I'm doing, I'm just doing it.

I've literally since high school, always giving back, always found ways to to make people's lives better, put smiles on people's faces, as used to say in WWE.

And God trusted me with the little so that I can avail into much.

Absolutely, and the little I recognize each time, even if it's on a big scale, like it's going to get bigger because I'm going to stay obedient to what He's told me to do.

Absolutely, three hundred plus kids we've helped go to college.

You know, several of them are playing in the NFL.

I get to watch them on Sundays.

Many of them are playing on Saturdays.

Some of them are lawyers, now doctors, law enforcement officers.

Same dude, same dude that was totally it'll be dead in jail by the time when he was sixteen.

So my wife has to understand that that where this this constant what seems to be I'm just pushing stuff Like I'm not pushing anything.

I'm moving in what God has called me to move in.

To me, ask you this when you went on King's Court, where you're going on King's Court genuinely looking for love.

I you know, I say this, you know, with all respect to the show.

I honestly felt like I'm going into this journey single and I'm coming out single.

But it doesn't mean that I'm gonna exclude myself from a connection.

So whether I pick a queen or I don't pick a queen, we're still not instantly going to be in a relationship because it's several weeks and I need some time to know that this person is my person because all that see time and harvest, and for some the harvest never comes because they're not willing to put in the scene in the ground that time.

Yeah, and so that's been my shortcoming in the past, which is I see something I'm like.

You know, we joked, they joked about it on the episode last night, like yeah, he'd be like, oh you like me?

I like you?

All right, cool, let's go, let's roll, you know.

So that's how.

You was you and the people you're you're hopeful, romantic.

You just fall in love real quickly.

I wouldn't say I fall in love, you fall in connection.

I think I commit no, I don't commit quickly, you said, you said, I like you, you like me.

Ask you this because you said, this is something that I want women to hear.

I asked you early in the interview about how is your dating life like in you know, in college and growing up whatever.

You said, Well, I was, you know, I didn't come into my own I wasn't the most attractive growing up or whatever.

All now, yeah, I know, I know I am not.

You know you are now.

And then you said, but then you alluded to almost like you was a guy that didn't have a girlfriends, that didn't have that.

Then we started unpacking.

I was like, so you wouldn't pass nobody holding a hold on.

Now I.

Have my first share of entanglements.

So this real quick.

So when you look at that, when you said, no, I didn't have a lot of girlfriends, but I did have sexual partners.

But then you also said that you wasn't the type of guy that felt confident from the looks department.

It didn't stop you from getting no women.

No, but it didn't stop me.

It didn't preclude me from it didn't get me women that I actually.

Would be good for me in the long run.

Explain I think we can find a sexual partner anywhere, men or women.

You can find somebody to have sex with you anywhere, even if some people feel like they got to pay him.

It's possible for you to have sex with literally anybody, anybody.

Yeah, to find somebody that actually values you and values themselves to the point where sex is not the indicator of whether or not we continue our relationship.

That will allow me to see the fact that this woman actually sees me in a way in which other people.

I mean, I jokingly said it on the episode.

I was like, yeah, objectify me, you know, because she's like, well, you've seen them with the shirt off.

Objectify me, you know.

But it's not.

I'm so much more than this shell that I'm in.

You know.

When did that come about?

When did you come to the realization that you value yourself more than just what you can do?

You know, and I'll say, back in slavery, all they used us for is to pro create, And we've been in a dated with that ideology, especially as black men that just have sex with women, no emotions whatever.

When did you come into this evolved man, this comprehensive man that says, you know what I want you to see me for the value of what I have to offer.

I want you to see me for the contents of my character.

When did that shift?

At what age?

Honestly probably around thirty five.

What happened at thirty five?

Uh?

You know, I just started like kind of getting some footing in WWE.

I'm traveling all the time, and when you're on the road a lot, like you don't really have chances to really foster relationship.

I know, and you know, but I always knew that, Like I wanted to be a really good dad.

And so were you married in the time, are you about to get it?

I was not, okay, divorced, And you know, I started wrestling when I was thirty three years old.

And but again, you know, I think being a father kind of it literally saved my life because I had so much of a perspective of like, I don't want to be involved with the wrong person that brings shame to my kids.

Like I tell my kids all the time, like, don't be out there embarrassing us.

You know.

So the likelihood of you seeing me get a DUI is one thousand percent not going to happen, right, The likelihood of you seen me in a domestic violence situation, one thousand percent not going to happen.

The likelihood of you hearing about me slapping the hell out of somebody that was doing something crazy, I give it out about a fifty percent.

But I got to be pushed there because I always tell me much kids like well, for me raising my children, they were never afraid of, like getting a whooping like people would think, Oh, man, I don't want to piss him off here.

It's like I spank my kids here and there, but not really because I got whooped all the time as a kid, and then you get immune to it.

Yeah, keep it up.

I'm whooping behind all right, you know.

Yeah, I I never wanted My kids are more afraid of disappointing me than they are ever getting a whooping.

And that is the same for me.

So in this stage of life, my kids really just want their dad to be happy.

Good.

I want to go back to this.

You said you found your value as a man even after marriage, So that means you said vows are somebody same as I did.

Took vows not realizing your value as a man, and then after your mayorage is when you came to the knowledge of you know, what I want to be more than just this external body.

I want to I want somebody to love me.

And first of all, I love myself for who I really am and my purpose that God has called me to be.

You are traveling a road.

We can only imagine what was offered on the road, and so you get in the dated desensitized by women's bodies all across the world.

I don't get these these sensitize women.

Yeah, but the the I always tell people there's a difference between options and choices breaking down, Well, there are options everywhere, but it's dependent on you know, you have to choose at some point.

And so I chose a lot less than the options that I had available to me.

And I chose a lot less not necessarily based on my coming to this space where I'm just this great man and I shouldn't I should have this type of woman and all this and that it was really like this is not going to last a long time, and I don't have a lot of time to waste.

And if somebody don't understand that time is the greatest asset to me that I can never buy anymore of.

I can't replace it.

I can like I don't want to waste my time being in spaces and being with people that don't understand me.

You understand the illusion of me, You understand all right.

He gotta be sixfold two eighty And like, I check all these kind of boxes for so many different women, right, But the most important box that I want the woman to check is that this man is a man of God, regardless if he cusses, if he fusses, if he does like I am a man of God, I am also a man who is going to tell you ahead of time it's gonna be a ride.

But I look at this illustration like Jesus sat at the table with twelve people that were the worst of the worst and the last Supper, and he chose them as disciples.

Yep.

So if you go to a deeper meaning of who Thattius is, God from the beginning was in me and for me.

My name Thaddeus was one of the chosen twelve disciples.

Is My middle name is Michael, one who is like God.

My last name is Bullard first four letters of bull.

My first four letters of my last name is bull.

My sign is a tarist.

Ladies, I'm giving you the four to one one right out, of the gate.

Why I am hell on wheels at times?

You can do it from my name alone.

And so when you look at from thirty five on up, have you ever been close to marriage?

I have got I got engaged twice and one of those individuals is now my best friend, you know, Lawanda, And you know it didn't work in that space, but she helped me raise my kids and she was a friend to me, you know, much more than she longer than she was even in a relationship with me.

How long ago was that with that engagement?

Say that again?

How long ago was that engagement.

Twenty fifteen sixteen is?

Yeah, I've known her for eleven years, so for twelve years now.

So yeah, And.

So you said you desire marriage, and you said that it's a difference between what you want and what you need.

How do you distinguish the two and do you typically choose what you need at this juncture of your life versus what you want?

I think I'm still figuring that out because nobody's perfect and there's no perfect case scenario.

And that's why I always go with this this list of you know, we say we want them to be this, and we want them to be that.

And we wanted, well, what about when they're not those things?

I have to consciously make a decision that I'm going to love this person regardless of this list.

So throw the list out so you have no list in your mind.

I don't like, I know what.

I don't date, you know.

I mean it's pretty evident on the show.

I'm not attracted to certain people.

You know.

So people, yeah, correct way to say it without offending anybody, but it's just I I I think for me, I want to be loved by a black woman, and I want to be loved by a black woman that understands, even if it's their second time around, what marriage really is.

Yeah, because my kids, you know, are their mom I love like I love my ex wife.

It was a time where she wasn't on my favorite list, but she gave me the opportunity to be a husband.

She gave me the opportunity to to be a father, and which is something we both can be proud of with our with our sons.

And she also gave me an opportunity to become a better man.

Because I can say one hundred percent certainty, there was some times where you know, I don't know that if we were still married, that I would be who I am today, which makes sense.

And actually I can say one hundred percent certainty that if we were still married, I would not be who absolutely, and that's not a knock on at all.

And so I don't think you have to be enemies, especially if you had children with your ex.

I think it's it's actually better for the children if your relationship is at minimum cordial.

But I never felt, you know, years ago, I never felt like I would feel where I'm at today in regards to if somebody would ask me, what's what's something you you want to do that you haven't done or that you would do again if you couldn't do it again, if you if you and it's I want to be a husband, I'm going But I don't want to just be like I have to make this like very plain, like I don't want to just be a husband.

I want to be a husband to the wife that God has selected for me, and that I say I'm your husband, not somebody that says God told me you was my husband.

God gonna tell the whole in an upcoming episode.

Just because God told you don't mean he told me.

We'll see.

Let me ask you.

This as a black man, Why is marriage important to you?

And let me set it up because it's I'm gonna set it up with a lot of stuff that uh, naysayers in the red pill community like to attack marriage men losing marriage, women change too much.

Why in the world would a man and decide to get married and possibly lose half of his income.

That's the worst decision somebody could ever make.

Why in the world, in the world that's so toxic right now?

Would you desire marriage because God laid it on my heart?

That that's that's part of my journey.

Like I don't I don't feel like I need to explain to anybody.

I mean because other people say, you know, I have married friends to be like, bro.

You sure you want to do this again?

Like bro, like you got.

All this and all this and you're willing to lose all this and all yeah, And it's like, but I serve a God man, I can't lose.

Like I when I went through my divorce before, like I I left with literally nothing, me too, nothing And I was fine with that.

Me too.

Was it hard?

Absolutely?

But man, I got God.

Man, God is he is Man.

God has When I say tenfold multiply that stuff to where I'm writing checks for people to go to college, which at this time years ago I was it was probably my salary at best.

I'm writing checks through my foundation that are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to give people opportunities and give people resources.

We're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on mental health counseling for families that are not mine.

So when I tell you I can go outside right now and be free and buttnecked and I don't care and let except for getting arrested for it, because there are laws like nobody can take anything from me that a god won't replace.

There it is, so I can't go into this thing with a fear that, like, you know, this might not work out, Like I'm not even wired that way.

When people say like, oh, well, how we gonna do this and how we gonna do that.

I don't know all the details, but we're gonna do it.

We're gonna do it, We're gonna do it.

And then it gets done and they're like, man, that's so we gonna did it.

I told people We're gonna have the largest back to school bash in the world eight years ago.

Well, uh, what about this and what about that?

I don't know all the details God laid on my heart.

If God gave me the vision, it is possible that part's gonna come in the past.

Well, have you booked the stadium yet?

No, I haven't booked the stadium yet.

But do you how you're gonna get done?

How are you gonna?

Don't ask me no more questions?

You in or you out?

My track record says this is gonna get done.

If that dude says this is going to be done, that's going to be done.

So for me in regards to me wanting and desiring to be a husband, like God gives us the desires of our hearts, that part and it took some time for my heart to accept the fact that I can be successful in this space.

But it it's the same heart that I got married with before.

The only difference is the life experiences, the growth that the the the counseling, the therapy that the released from traumas they're released from certain relationships, the release from certain mindsets on certain things.

And I think in the black community, like we think it's taboo sometimes to go to counseling.

We think it's taboo to go to the doctor.

We think it's that taboo to tell people you're not okay.

And it's like, no, if there's any community that should be telling people April I am, I'm not okay, it's the black community.

Because we have to operate in spaces.

You know, some people will colde switch out, code switch.

I am who I am no matter where I go.

But when you have this freedom of who God has called you to be, that is not like something that you make up.

Wake up one day and be like, I'm gonna be everything that God called me to be.

You can make a decision that that's what you want to do.

But then here go Earl or Annie coming in and he's like, well watch this, watch me piss you off this morning and throw your day off, and do this and do that, and there's nothing that's gonna there's nothing that's gonna sway me from what my desire of my heart is.

Like, yeah, I see statistics, I see I see failed marriages, but I also see a lot of successful marriages that part and every successful marriage that's had substance in years that go along with it.

I played golf with a guy two weeks ago at Cedric Entertainer's golf tournament in La.

He was eighty years old.

He's been married for sixty years.

Wow, sixty wows.

And I was like, bro, I gotta know because it was a thing.

I shared my testimony and everything with him, and he was like, man, it's He was like, I was really looking forward to me and my son, like love wrestling.

I was really looking forward to spending some time with you, but to get to know you as a person.

He's like, you're going to be that hudgd.

Actually I got to if I get my phone's the phone, I'm gonna read you a text that he said, I don want.

To see it.

Mm hm hmmmm.

I will tell the future wife he to bring it.

And then y'all see the backside of him walking up.

He was like, oh what, we've seen him.

Yeah, we've seen that dress, saw the hem of a garment.

It's interesting because I know the future wife is sitting there listening and saying, why does why does that?

This a tear sounds so similar, you know, just about everything that you're saying.

The way we look at marriage, the way we made failures in the past, learned from it, went through therapy went through heal and Ben it's totally transparent about our past and saying this is what I've done in the past, but this is what I look forward to being as a better man, the better husband for the future wife, and not letting the naysayers distract us from what God has called us to be.

Go ahead, you want to read it, you want me to read it, go ahead?

Read it?

All right?

Good morning?

That is.

I hope you had a pleasant and unevent and an eventful trip home.

It was a real treat hanging out with you yesterday.

I've seen you on TV many times and couldn't imagine what a wonderful person you are.

You're more than that.

Congratulations on the upcoming wedding because I know you will be an awesome husband.

Thanks George Gibson, he said, upcoming wedding like you're engaging everything.

Yeah, and I'm not, but I will be.

At some point somebody.

Out let me ask you this, if you met the person that God said this is the one.

She's she's connected to your purpose.

She's not getting the way of the things that God called you to do.

Matter of fact, she's coming along, supporting it, advocating for it rillying behind it.

How long will it take for you to marry her?

I'm gonna say, I'm gonna go step put a ring on her finger.

Proposed to Well, you know it's been my problem in the past, just jumping into stuff.

But not long.

So when you say problem in the past in the past, which the quickest you ever proposed to somebody?

Uh?

Probably like two months?

I think two months.

And did you feel like the speed was the wrong decision or no?

I think I got caught up in the surface, okay, and didn't really examine the substance what.

You want versus what you need?

Correct want versus need.

And so now since you identify want versus need is time and issue, so it wouldn't be too fast.

In well, it'll be too fast.

And everybody, come on, not that you know this before, now, no, come on, now, give us a breakdown.

For For me, I I know what I know enough to the point where honestly, if I were to make that decision, it wouldn't be a long engagement, and it would it would not seem because I look at it like this too.

Whenever I make this decision to whoever this person is, be with them like I'm literally looking at this till death do us part.

Absolutely, So I'm not gonna know every single aspect, but I'm gonna know enough from God to be able to say this is this is this is it.

Because again, we're human.

We're gonna go through some stuff.

Life is going to happen, jobs, whatever, like career change, whatever it may like.

Stuff happens for people.

To some people, they get stuck in this space of like, oh, this is this is where we are today.

Now.

I want to evolve, I want to grow, I want my I want to be a true helpmate.

I want to be able to minister to my wife.

Yes, I want to be able to you know, love her at her worst.

And you know, the crazy thing of it is is like I could marry my wife and we could have the most amazing two years and then she get diagnosed with cancer god forbid, or she has some health issue that comes up.

And you know, I got asked this question like maybe two years ago, said would you marry would you marry a woman that?

Would you would you stay married to a woman that ended up like having like you found out she had alopecia with something whatever, Like you'd ever sat I was like, I would probably be the worst human being ever in my eyes to leave somebody at their most vulnerable and downpoint, Like I just I wouldn't want that from me, Like I get diagnosed with some type of illness and then all of a sudden, I'm not attractive and I'm not the person that you're not the person that I married, and this and that, well, it's to death, to us part for sickness and help.

Yeah.

I had a guess on my podcast.

I did an episode in the Bahamas and another Bermuda and one of the panelists her husband left her as she was losing her sight, left her with like five kids, and she.

Ended up going below.

She's one hundred blind and her husband left her as she was losing the sight.

I said, like you said, that's a terrible person.

I'm like the fact that you will leave your spouse fly yeah, when they're blind with the kids, the five kids, I said, terrible, terrible person.

But that's how I am.

It's literally the heart posture I have through sickness and health, through depth, do.

Us part for better or for worse.

And the more I keep talking to you, the more you solidify why I am marrying this awesome woman that God has blessed me with.

I'm not even a lot to you, bro, when.

Our mutual friends, he's he's engaged, and I get a chance to like this is both of our first time meeting.

Yeah, meeting your I mean and you won.

I won.

W You's pretty.

She's pretty.

She's a delta woman.

You know, she's a college graduate business owner.

You know, I ain't gonna say, you know, like getting that got the real pretty got all I had, and my teeth, she ain't got a whole lot of makeup.

You guys, guys, got a pretty smile on my beauty teeth, all nice and pretty.

Yeah, we're gonna make a blush.

Just keep talking to look at her.

Look at her light skin turning red.

Now look at it, mom, here too, mama beautiful.

Hey, so that's the thing.

What you gotta look at the mama is feel the wrists, you know what I mean?

Like Raya, all right, ain't no b city in this family.

Okay, we're good.

She's gonna take care of herself for a long time.

Look at mom, Mom, I'm a beautiful, fabulous I told her, said, mom, single.

Look we got Yeah.

Well, hey mom, you single.

Look at you just giggling over the got a both bleshing.

Listen, man, how can we support you?

I know you've written two books.

Tell us, tell us about those books you've written.

Yeah.

So the first book I wrote was There's No such Thing as a Bad Kid.

It basically tells and chronicles my story about what I was told at twelve years old.

It kind of helped change my life.

And then my second book, my most recent book, is Wrestling with Fatherhood.

It is my championship journey to my greatest title.

It was not WW champ, it was not Super Bowl Champ.

It was dad.

And so I think that any man, what regardless of race, color, creed you, if you have the honor of being a dad, that it's the greatest title you'll ever possess.

And so I just talk about my journey, and I you go on the heels of some other guys friends journey that are father's as well.

We talk about divorced fatherhood, we talk about being in marriage, we talk about growing up without a dad.

And I think it's a very solid read, obviously because not just because I wrote it, but I think it's something it's a perspective of men that we don't get a chance to really necessarily see because we're in the in the in the grind of being dad and being a husband and being servant and being all these things.

And like the greatest thing that you know, no matter how your day is going, you know, when you come home and your daughter your son run up to you and they give you the biggest hug, Like whatever happened outside of those doors, it's all gone away, you know, getting a chance to even at my daughter's nineteen and she came home and laid on my laid on my chest on the bed and gave me the biggest hug.

And all my kids do that when they see me, and having a chance to, like we made butter chicken together for the first time, the first time I made butter chicken.

I love to cook.

I am an excellent chef, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, says letting me out there just so y'all know, probably will be raising up on a cooking show at some point.

But those two books are ways you can support me.

And then obviously my Bullard Family Foundation.

Go to Bullardfamilyfoundation dot org.

B U.

L.

L.

A.

R.

D Familyfoundation dot org.

You'll see all the great things that we're doing, not only in just in the Tampa Bay community, but throughout communities everywhere.

We partner with a lot of people because I do know that I'm just one small source of a greater source, and we all should be a resource to what God has called us to be.

And if God is our greatest source, then we will never like resources.

So I try to stay out of the space of you know, I think religion and politics have been so divisive in so many different cases, and it's up for people.

You know, when people make a decision, regardless of their color, their creed, their political affiliation, that enough is enough.

That's when real change happens.

And you can always center that around what's what's right for the cause, what is the cause of this moment?

And so I want to thank you for allowing me to be on this platform and allowing me to meet you, beautiful fiance and future mother in law, dear future mother in law podcast coming out.

Yeah, I'm a host.

Yeah, I'm a host with you mom.

Yeah.

No, But it's it's much like you know, I give so much credit to Will Packer, Yeah, and and Lighthearted for and Holly and Rodney Pete for giving me a space and a venue to be my authentic self and and also helped me become a better man and and and come closer to the one aspect of the man that I want to be, which is to be a husband.

And uh, you know, it's platforms like this that not only celebrate the opportunity for love, but it also gives you the opportunity to grow.

And I think this was a therapy session for both of us.

It was.

It was beautiful for your eyes.

Oh my god, this is what's going on because because we have conversations like this and I share all that I share all about the power of Covenant and how I was like, girl, you ain't getting rid of me.

I said, This is what I say to her.

I said, if you leave me, we both leaving that nigga.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I said, we're gonna leave him.

Come on, where we're going?

I said, you ain't getting rid of him?

And so that's what it is.

It's literally to death do we part?

When I ask you this question, no spoiler alerts, but what can we look forward to in the rest of the season.

Uh, you can look forward to seeing more of me being me and uh, we do.

We do have a little moment where the woman said that she'll say God told her that she was a husband, but she basically said you a husband.

Yes she did.

She got told her God told her I was her husband.

Uh, we're finish, Sae.

So so maybe maybe that text message is prophetically speaking about y'all getting is at the wedding, he was perfectly speaking about.

I don't know what he's talking about.

Bro.

I got to watch the rest of the show, just like y'all do kind of figure out what's going on myself.

I also remember too and was a lot of things can happen, a lot of things.

But yeah, at the end of the day, I'm going you know, I think, Ah, the beautiful part about this journey here on King's Court is that you get the chance to see authentic Thaddeus at his core.

I'm not afraid to cry, I'm not afraid to laugh.

I'm not afraid to make people laugh.

And you'll also, in my opinion, I feel like I'm a man's man, like I have had dudes text me and be like, Bro, many it.

Was rough, you know, man, I'm so proud of you.

Bro.

Needed more of this we need more to do, like once again, like this is a this is a platform that God has given me to be myself.

There's no greater, no greater like joy and knowing that people are are seeing me from me, you know, and it's resonating.

Well yeah, that's the thing about it, trying to force like yeah, yeah, I'm like like I'm not remembering no lines, and nobody's like instructing me to you go over here and you're gonna say this and that.

It's like no, you know, it's just like you know, one of the episodes, Chick came up to me and she was like, hey, I want to get to know you, you know, and this and that.

I'm like, all right, cool, let's go downstairs and talk.

Then she started talking about Carlos.

That's what I love.

So you said that that was cool.

You was like, let's not even be talking about bro, she's up to waste my time talk about.

You said, that's the thing you started by saying, you want to get to know me.

So I'm like, all right, I'm walking down these stairs my knees hurting already.

You want to talk about Carlos, Get up out of here.

You want to hate you said, you said, hey, you need to talk to Carlos about Yeah, yeah, you didn't gonna talk to Carse.

Y'all got some issues whatever it is.

But it's just like that I'm I'm that's that you I am as you know, like people where they see stuff like that or they see, you know, the young lady in the first episode like, Jenny, come on now, like you're a white woman from Tennessee, your mama and your daddy, your dad is a senator, a huge job.

When she said a huge job, I already knew come on now, Jenny.

So if y'all you bring my black ass home or any of us, your daddy and your mama gonna be all right?

What's that?

I'm a realist, bro, Like, come on now, Jenny, come on.

I'm so thankful though that she like came out and she was like I I you know, I gave her a chance to tell the truth out and she told the truth.

So but it was, you know, it was some other stuff that went on that com like at the table, and I was just like, you know, I said, you speaking up and telling that truth, you know, like conversations need to be had, yes, you know, and.

Most of the time, like.

Your or women that look like you can actually get more advancement in the conversation than people that look like me or women that are my color.

Like it's okay to talk about the divide racial divide.

It's okay to if you haven't dated outside of your race before, Like it's not a crime to not date outside your race.

Like if you want to venture into that space, do that, you know what I mean?

But you don't have if you line about this like me as a black man, like I have to look at history, like em Maattil lost his life doing that because a white woman said he whistled at her.

Yep, So there's like this deep root of his like America, I think, oh that was years ago.

That was so long ago that like this thing is YadA YadA, YadA.

Was like I've never seen a white man hanging from a tree, haven't.

Like I've never seen I've never seen white men and white women and children be attacked by police dogs.

Yep, I've never seen.

So when people say, you know, and Jenny had said, you know what, I don't see color and this and that, Well that means you don't see my race, you don't see the things that come along with being a black man or a black woman or a black and brown person.

And so your privilege won't even allow you to see past.

You know, you'll you'll live in this la la land that like everybody should get along and everybody this and that, and everybody's going to love you.

They love you so that everybody's going to love you, and that's that's not the game.

True.

I got black people in my family that like, I don't deal with y'all need like, yeah, yeah, that's that's your wife.

That ain't my wife, y'all come come over here.

She still, she talked loud, she crazy, and you you you barely holding on to your job.

So I know you're gonna try to get close to me so you can help get your bills paid.

Bro.

Man, I'm in a tight spot.

Man.

Yeah, you ain't gonna need me.

You need Jesus.

Jesus who helped me.

That's going will help you and help them.

Call Jesus.

Try Jesus, don't try, don't try me toy we way listen.

Man, I could talk to you all day.

Man.

I love again how you represented on this show as just an emotionally aware man, as a black man, a man that, like you said, you start off the interview saying, Hey, I'm open, I'm vulnerable, I'm transfer.

Nobody can nobody can attact me with with anything that I'm not.

I mean, no weapon got The I say is that the weapons will formed, but they will not prospers as they talk crazy.

You can do whatever, like, nobody can hold anything against me.

Yeah, and I don't think they want to box you either.

Fight.

You don't want to the match because the dude is huge, huge, they call them.

They call them oven mits, frying pants, banana fingers, the Metas they ball up, they become too two balls of fury.

Don't let me revert back to my eight year old, nine year old self, because then you're really gonna get your head beat in, because at forty eight, I'm I might just jack you up, just shake your I have a flashback to twelve or thirteen.

It's a problem.

It's a problem.

He's gonna be at the camp again.

Yeah, I'm gonna be right back at the boys.

Listen, man, how can people follow you on social media?

They can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Titus O'Neil, wwe at t I t U s O n e I L w W.

Yes, the old Neil seems a little off.

I came Irish convincedent man wanted me to have an Irish last name instead of being O n e A L, which is what I originally wanted.

Because you kill O'Neil.

Oh, yeah, you know is one of my frid brothers.

But he's also everything he did in basketball I wanted to do in wrestling.

So he was doing movies and film and all this and that just saw shock.

Yesterday he calls me becuz, Oh he sees me, even though he's like sixteen times bigger than me.

I hate standing around.

I stood.

I took a picture yesterday in between him and Dwight Howard, and I look like Kevin Hart in the picture, Like, come o man.

I started to do exactly what Kevin does too with people that are taller than him and cut the head off the picture.

I was like, yeah, hilarious.

So Titus O'Neil wwe social media on Instagram and Twitter.

Hey make sure y'all go pick up his book.

Go Amazon, go to the website, go dondate to this foundation.

Hey man, I.

Salute your king, young king, as your kids call you, uh, mister aka handsome mister aka gorgeous ladies learned something I don't be over the using.

Let me ask you just before we let go, what is your dating age range?

If you said your wife, is there an age limit from the youngest of the oldest.

I probably would not date anybody under thirty eight thirty eight and then the oldest.

I don't have no oldest.

Okay, you'll get best sixty five.

How old you as mom, whatever she is, that's all of you.

Mom.

Oh yeah, sixty five might be sixty five.

Sixty five, might be sixty five sixty five, right a peach cobbler.

I need some sugar free versions, dairy free versions now, I'm trying to keep this, you know what I mean.

Yeah, so he said thirty eight to sixty five, there it is.

Yeah, it could be older to depending on how they look.

He's taking me a little bit up.

I don't mind a little seasoning at all.

Well, we both were both going, we're both going.

Were both on the back end of life anyway.

So also to the older you are, the the less you give a damn about like a lot of stuff, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, you don't care about no Instagram followers and you know, getting the right angle and all this and that, like, take the picture, man, take the picture.

One, two, three, cheese, let's go, let's roll.

I'm trying to eat.

I need to be laying flat by nine o'clock so I can get up and work out.

I want to watch TV.

I want to watch my story.

I don't know why CNN.

I want to go to games.

I want to go to plays like you're talking about.

Yeah, I don't need nobody trying to go to the club and trying to be at the hookah lounge.

You're not like, No, that ain't mean gonna go eat.

We're gonna go to some some some fun activities.

We're gonna travel and go sleep.

Yeah, We're gonna go to sleep after after after, sleep after after, Yeah, extra curric We never want to preclude that from them.

We're gonna put each other, put each other to bed.

Yeah, amen, go to sleep, Night night night.

Y'all.

Give it up to my boy Patty's Buller aka tit us over nill give it up to him, y'all.

Stay tuned to the end for a letter to my future wife.

Right in these love letters, Ladarium Thrust it suddenly into child protective services.

In twenty fifteen, my nephew black a boy.

The likelihood have been adopted outside out of kinship, slim to none.

Armie sixteen years old, black a boy with five years in the Falseter care system before I even knew his name.

The likelihood have ever been adopted?

Yep, you guessed it.

Slim to none.

While Laderian and Ourmiani were trying to survive and barely thrive in an overpopulated and underfunded false care system, I was living my own life, doing well professionally, having been a single father with a daughter who at that point was doing well in college.

It was my time to live my life right wrong.

I felt unsettled, tireless, agitated.

There are just two many of our black children stuck in ambiguity and in the limbo of the Falseter care system.

In twenty seventeen, I legally adopted my nephew Ladarian.

Fast forward to twenty nineteen.

I had no ties to this other young king, but I felt God instructed me to adopt him also in al Babe, starting over where parenting should have been enough right, Working with various foster care and adoption agencies to help bring awareness to the countless young Black Kings and the foster care system should have decreased.

My agitation right join the board of directors of Advantage of Adoption and organization that helps find permanent adoptive homes for children in falter care should have led to some type of resolve.

Right, No, not at all.

None of it felt like I had done enough.

I now realized that every one of those experiences was land the fundamental foundation for my life's mission.

Kingdom Royal.

Kingdom Royal would be a luxury, state of the art home for foster boys.

Our first location will be in the Dallas Fort Work Metroplex.

We will utilize the whole person approach that instills identity, empowers them to advocate for themselves, and enlightens them regarding new perspectives and limitless options.

That they thought were impossible.

Though the young Kings will attend the local public schools that are in proximity to King of Royale.

Our at home curriculum will broaden their worldview through participating in the arts, attending various cultural events, learning about and engaging in multifaceted discussions about current events and even relevant historical contexts, introducing them to gardening and landscaping, and even caring.

For our animals on our form and on site stables.

We just launched our startup capital campaign with the goal of raising two point eight million dollars.

Now why two point eight million dollars?

Well, In twenty seventeen, I created a web series in which I performed random acts of kindness.

For targeting the homeless community.

One of the most notable successes.

Was that one of the videos went viral, garnering twenty eight million views.

However, one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't raise a single dollar to help in implementing a more sustainable plan for the homeless community.

So, throughout the years, with much remorse, I reflect that am not maximizing that moment.

I knew if at that time just ten percent of the viewers donated one dollar, we would have raised at least two point eight million dollars that could have really established long term support for the homeless community, or at least started a long term.

Initiative to do so.

This is my do over, this is our new beginning.

Together, we can attack this at the route by specifically helping our homeless Black boys who are already disproportionately represented in the American fossil care system.

I'm a Terisarwickfield.

I've been nominated for three regional Emmys documenting my work with the homeless as well as my personal adoption journey.

Despite those accolades, the greatest award for me is truly providing the infrastructure for a transformed life.

Visit Kingdomroyal dot com for more details Crown of King and make a donation today.

Oh man, that episode was very powerful.

I love to chopping it up with fellow kings to be able to be vulnerable, transparent.

I love it when men have gone through therapy.

Y'all know how much I recommend therapy on the Dear Future WiFi podcast.

So I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

And what made this episode extra special was my future WIFEI was sitting in watching us record the episode along with my future mother in love, and she's still watching me as I get ready to record this letter, which she was a beautiful distraction to as y'all hear in this letter.

So here's my favorite part of the podcast where I speak to my future wifey, dear future WIFEI this is the first time you watch me record an episode of the very podcast that was created to find you.

Now you sit on my right side watching me write this letter to you.

Please stop kissing me on my face.

I'm trying my best to concentrate writing this letter.

You are our beautiful distraction.

Okay, letters done, your future love you.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dear Future WIFEI podcast.

Remember be lit, live intentionally and transparently, and don't stop loving.

Make sure to subscribe to our Dear Future WIFEI YouTube channel.

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