"I understand that I probably have more of an awareness of strangers' recognizing me."įor more of Maya's thoughts on Forever and SNL, pick up The Times' Sunday Magazine. "I grew up with people knowing who my mother was, and that isn't lost on me," she reasons. So, it's easy to understand why Maya repeatedly forbids The New York Times' Caity Weaver from describing any interactions involving the four children she has with director Paul Thomas Anderson. Why are you telling me about my dead mother?'" "Complete strangers would just be like: 'I felt like she was this angel!' And you're like: 'I'm 16. ![]() ![]() In fact, it sometimes got "kind of intense," she reveals. "It was weird to grow up that way, thinking, 'I'm the kid whose mom died, and everybody knows it.' Or at least you feel like everybody knows it."Īs the years went on, being the daughter of a dead celebrity didn't get any easier. "I didn't seem as culturally black." Considering she was just a child, "It really didn't help that it was a public experience." For example, two months after Minnie's death, Maya recalls how her seventh birthday party was the subject of a Jet magazine cover story. There's always going to be a f-king name for what I am.'"Īfter Minnie's death, the late singer's fans would often stop Maya on the street, wanting "to know why I wasn't as black as my mother, more or less," she says. "'Be whatever you want to be,'" Maya recalls being told as a kid. "I was the kid that lived in California who didn't grow up around the family." The 46-year-old actress adds her parents never wanted her to feel restricted by things like race. I felt loved, but I didn't feel culturally." the SNL veteran says without finishing her thought. Often, the biracial actress wondered whether she had a place in her community. The detangling system that I use now on my children is light-years beyond anything that would've ever happened to me growing up in Westwood." "First of all, hair products that exist today did not exist when I was a child. "My mom died when I was 7, so when you don't have a woman-" she adds, trailing off. "So much of my childhood was dealing with my hair and being super embarrassed by it, mainly because I grew up being the only mixed kid."įor much of her youth, Maya says she felt "completely" lost. ![]() The Forever actress describes her father as a "pretty adorable Jew" who did not know how to do her hair after Minnie's death. Maya discusses the impact of her mother's death at length in a New York Times profile, published today. But I know that the place that I was with it most of my life was more of a, 'Poor me, why me?' Up until very recently, it was still, like, a sting to talk about her." And I'm genuinely fascinated by it, so I wish I knew all the ways that I do or did, but I don't. I definitely think that children process very differently. And then people tell me stories that I don't remember, like I'd be crying at a roller-skating party, and they were like: 'What's wrong? Why are you crying?' And I wanted to skate with a boy, and they said that I was like, 'My grandma died.' Which wasn't true! But I was f-king laying it on thick. I know I did, but it came out in ways-like when I was a kid, I went to a new school and I kicked people. "I don't remember if I ever did proper grieving. Like my mom was always-it was such a painful-" the actress continues, cutting herself off. ![]() "For many, many years, I couldn't even touch this conversation. I used to think, 'Oh, they're staring at my hair, because it's so big and ugly.' Because I didn't realize people were just staring at my mother, like, 'Wow, that's her daughter!'" the actress says. "When I was a kid, and people would come up to me or stare at me because of my mom, I didn't like it. 1 hit "Lovin' You") and composer Richard Rudolph, Maya was just a child when her mother died of cancer in 1979. The daughter of soprano Minnie Riperton (best known for her No. Long before Maya Rudolph became a star in her own right, she was famous.
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