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Eve plays a rapper who juggles mommy duty with five kids on the new ABC drama “Queens” — and now she is about to become a mother for the first time.
In fact, the hip-hop diva announced her pregnancy just days before “Queens” — in which Eve co-stars with Brandy, Naturi Naughton and Nadine Velazquez as a ’90s rap girl group on the comeback trail — premiered on Tuesday.
“I couldn’t have planned this — both at the same time — but it’s amazing,” said Eve, 42, who is due in February after years of struggling to conceive with her husband, British entrepreneur Maximillion Cooper. “You obviously want and wish and hope, and you continue down the path and you try, and I think you get to the point sometimes when you’re like, ‘Is it ever going to happen?’ And thankfully it did happen. I feel incredibly, incredibly happy and blessed.”
The Grammy-winning artist behind such hits as “Let Me Blow Ya Mind,” “Who’s That Girl?” and “Gangsta Lovin’ ” is returning to series TV after her 2003-2006 sitcom “Eve.” But her “Queens” character — Brianna, aka Professor Sex — has decidedly more in common with the real Eve.
“The parallels are real,” she said. “I do come from that time in hip-hop — late ’90s into the 2000s. I’m now married with four bonus kids and one on the way. So it’s kinda crazy but also kinda cool to play, ’cause I definitely pulled from my life for certain things when it comes to Brianna. But it was also nice to find who she was and what her voice was.”
Like her character, Eve is figuring out how to keep it sexy in her 40s. “It’s just being confident,” she said. “Actually, I love getting older. I actually feel more of a woman the more that I grow in me, in my skin. I think that’s what makes a woman sexy is when you’re comfortable in your skin.”
She said that, although she left “The Talk” last December after four years as a co-host on the daytime show, the experience helped her to grow. “That show actually healed a lot of things in my life,” she said. “I talked about a lot of things that I’ve never spoken about — fertility, drinking and the problems I have with anxiety. I actually dealt with a lot of my issues, so I do miss that part of it.”
Eve also misses DMX, her beloved comrade in the Ruff Ryders rap collective, who died at 50 in April after a heart attack brought on by a drug overdose.
“It was really horrible. I was actually finishing the pilot of ‘Queens’ when it was all kind of happening,” she said. “People who knew X, we all knew his issues … but you kind of felt like he was one of those people who would be here for a while. But I really, truly feel that his soul and his spirit are at peace because unfortunately he had these demons, and he lived with them for so long.”
And now the rapper-actress born Eve Jeffers will bring a new life into the world in February. But she likely won’t put the kibosh on any explicit lyrics as a mom.
“I don’t think I would shy away from much because I think I’ve always been transparent in my music,” said Eve. “I’m actually interested to see, once my baby is here, what kind of stuff I will write. I am looking forward to that.”
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