Any woman who has worked in entertainment can attest that often the best blessing you could have in life sometimes could spell the end of your career. It is a sad truth that many careers have been derailed over the years but record labels and film studios that pushed women to the side once they got pregnant. Long before Cardi B and Beyonce took to some of the worlds biggest stages baring baby bumps, many fought hard to hide they were expecting from the press. For Lynn Whitfield, who had her first child in 1991, she felt like it was making a mistake that turned out to be for the best.
Lynn Whitfield is a beloved Hollywood staple. Best known for her work in The Josephine Baker Story, Thin Line Between Love & Hate and The Cheetah Girls franchise, it was doing the filming of Josephine Baker that Lynn fell in love with her director, Brian Gibson. Speaking with Oprah’s Master Class, she discussed the time in her life and how she reacted to first finding out she was pregnant. “At the same time the director of Josephine baker and I were falling in love. We were just creating something that was the best marriage that a director an an actress could have. It was an amazing artistic marriage, and I thought it would, we thought it would translate to marriage so we left Budapest and went London and got married.”
Whitfield recalled that she was primarily Christian and believed a bit in the power of crystal and the energies they could pass on. Her husband on the other hand was Buddhist. She recalls a day where he was walking around changing incantations and banging on his gong. Suddenly he had a revelation. “He walks up the stairs and say ‘there’s a little spirit that wants to come in and we should let them. I saw, I saw the spirit and we should let her come in.'” She recalls saying “Wait a minute are you crazy? This is the best role of my life. My stomach is flat as anything from all this dancing and everything I’ve been doing. And life is…i’m just about to break out! Im not going to have a baby right now.”
She was right. Whitfield won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her role in the Josephine Baker Story. However her life was gearing up for a huge change. “I immediately got pregnant, I was just like so upset about all of this. I cried and cried and cried and cried. I have to tell you that my daughter Grace, she’s amazing. I am so blessed.”
She goes on to say “‘Sometimes we dont know. But god knows. Everything that seems like it’s a mistake at the time, that it’s the wrong thing at the time. That it’s too hard at the time. Thats somethings being taken away from you, you’re being given a gift.” Whitfield’s daughter Grace Gibson was born August 2, 1991 and has followed in her parents footsteps working in Hollywood. She is an actress and singer.
