American socialite Amber Rose wasn’t wilting or melting in the scorching afternoon heat that Saturday as she and her crew walked through Bridgetown on her first trip to beautiful, “welcoming” Barbados. In fact, she seemed to bloom and glow even more as she soaked up the sunshine.
Even more surprising was how gracious and polite she was to the many who recognized her and asked for pictures with her. As she scribbled the umpteenth autograph, there was no one person I could pinpoint who was turned away. Her trip here could end up on international television – a big plug for Barbados – as it is being filmed by a local camera crew that she met here.
Amber calls herself a “normal, regular” girl from Philadelphia and talked about growing up poor and the big dreams she had of making herself something of herself.
She recalls how shy she was growing up and one day seeing actor Will Smith and being too nervous to ask him for an autograph. He is the reason behind her being friendly to people. “I wanted to take a picture with him and if I had asked him and he had said no, I would have felt bad. So I try to take pictures and autographs with as many as I can.”
Seeing her in person, I realized the Internet pictures do not do her justice. Standing five feet, nine inches, the 27-year-old former model (she was signed to mega-agency Ford models for about two years and says she quit modelling because it was “boring”) is smoking hot in body and looks.
Wearing minimal make-up, nude lipstick and huge sunglasses with her short blond do, the statuesque beauty who unashamedly told me she gained 15 pounds and is trying to cut back on her smoking, was very down to earth and accommodating.
Who is Amber Rose and what is she doing in Barbados? The first answer is a little long-winded, so let’s answer the second one. Trevor Pretty, Barbadian choreographer and music producer who launched his new pet project, a musical, Wednesday, needed to bring some flavour to his big shebang.
Pretty, in a short interview, said that he connected with Amber through a friend of a friend of a friend. “My musical Love, Life And Happy Endings is about powerful, sexy, intelligent, talented women. All of that is Amber. So why not her?” he said.
Amber is quick to add that it didn’t take a lot of convincing for her to come to “paradise”. The first day here was rough for her, though, as she was sick the whole day and could not leave her hotel room. The next day she was bubbly and bright.
Now, to answer the first question.
One day Amber was a nondescript exotic dancer in a club and the next she was on the arm of famous rapper Kanye West. The relationship ended last year after a two-year run. Amber has no comment on the break-up. This has put Amber on the singles list and her status has fuelled many more rumours – the big one being that she has moved on with another rapper, 23-year-old Wiz Khalifa. This alleged relationship, as do all relationships, has its share of problems – mostly an ongoing Twitter feud with Natalie Nunn from the Bad Girls Club TV series, who claims Wiz was hers first.
Amber smiles when I asked her about Wiz and says instead she wants to talk about what’s in store for her in the coming months and how she is making a name for herself now.
When she returns home to Los Angeles, it’s to launch her new, live radio show with herself as host along with two girlfriends. Her new boss is singer-actor Jamie Foxx. The one-hour call-in show, she says, will be a bit of everything – celebrity gossip, questions and answers . . . “everything men want to know about women”, she said, laughing.
And what about what people want to know about her? Amber will address all that in her new reality show Behind The Shades, with filming starting late next month. She is the creator and executive producer.
“My life will be an open book”, she acknowledges, and says that nothing will be off limits – life, family, friends.
And on that note she can clear up one rumour for me: “I have no ancestry in Barbados. My dad is Italian and my mum is from Cape Verde [West Africa].” She says she doesn’t know where that rumour started.
And the Amber Rose-rumour mill is in full effect daily – with her name and pictures in magazines and on websites – mostly with stuff she says is not true. She has been linked to a lot of celebrity men and reportedly had been pregnant a couple of times. She took to her Twitter page to clear up most of those rumours after they became overbearing.
She claims she has a “love-hate” relationship with paparazzi and is astonished that the numbers here could compare to the ones in Los Angeles.
“[In LA], some of them are very nice and some are very evil and purposely post unflattering pictures of me. Also there are a lot of rumours and false information on the Internet about me. . . . There are very few facts. It is frustrating to explain yourself when you don’t want to”, she said angrily.
For a long time, Amber says, she didn’t care what people thought of her, even when they called her “fat” and dissected her love life. But her two younger brothers are becoming more aware of what people are saying and now she says she tries to “shut down false rumours”.
She says the “fat” reports come from the fact that she has been super busy doing her own thing and hasn’t found time to go to the gym, although she makes time to run every day, and it doesn’t help that she likes cheesy food – as evidenced by her macaroni pie and baked chicken lunch.
Even though she has made many music video cameos, she has no plans to be on the music scene even though she has a decent voice. She does intend to pursue a childhood dream – learning to play the guitar. She is looking to launch her own line of sunglasses in collaboration with a handful of designers and is the face of Boadicea perfume, launched in London.
As she gets the crew’s attention and asks us all to join hands so she can pray before we eat lunch, she doesn’t lay claim to any faith but says she is a “Christian”. Amber Rose has come to the realization that “in life you are dealt a certain hand that you have to go along with and do your best at”.
What’s next for Amber??She doesn’t know and hasn’t made any five- or ten-year plans:?“Anything can happen in five years,”she stated solemnly. “So much has happened in two.”
