Photo Credit: Tisha Campbell/TikTok; Gabrielle Union/TikTok
Tisha Campbel appeared on The View Friday speaking about a gift that she gave to Gabrielle Union early on in her career, which was a therapist. She says she did so just to make sure she makes it in the industry. The topic originally came up in 2022 on the show when Union revealed that Campbell had noticed she was “struggling” and then said she still has that same therapist today.
When Whoopi Goldberg asked Campbell about this, she said “It’s funny ‘cause I didn’t even think she would remember, It was just a moment in time for us and I was like ‘please just take this gift.” She said “I want you to have it,’ because I want her to win. I want my sisters to win.” Without explaining exactly what Union was struggling with, she did say it’s easy for people to get addicted to “the fame monsters” and that she just wanted her friend to be okay. “Not that anything was wrong. It’s just that I wanted her to be supported.”
Gabrielle Union is looked at as a beauty icon today, particularly after her stint on Being Mary Jane, but she admitted to People Magazine in 2021 that she wasted her 20s and 30s being unhappy with her looks. “I wasted so much of my youth in my twenties, thirties and certainly my teens wanting to be someone else. I was inundated with images and messages saying, ‘You’re just not as pretty as so-and-so.’” The images that I saw on TV and in magazines and film reaffirmed what they were saying. That I wasn’t ‘it’, and people who look like me aren’t ‘it.’ You couldn’t possibly have that ‘it factor’ and have hair like mine or skin like mine.” She added that it wasn’t until her 40s and with much therapy that she began to love herself.
Therapy is a gift that more people should offer to their friends, for those that have the ability to do so. And given how strong of a woman that Gabrielle Union is today, she’s a prime example for why therapy is such a great gift.