Terry McMillan Loses Her Groove

In 1997, I wrote in "Is Love Colorblind?"

Despite these opportunities to meet white men, so many middle-class black women have trouble landing satisfactory husbands that they have made Terry (Waiting to Exhale) McMillan, author of novels specifically about and for them, into a best-selling brand name. Probably the most popular romance advice regularly offered to affluent black women of a certain age is to find true love in the brawny arms of a younger black man. Both Miss McMillan's 1996 best-seller How Stella Got Her Groove Back and the most celebrated of all books by black women, Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, are romance novels about well-to-do older women and somewhat dangerous younger men. Of course, as Miss Hurston herself later learned at age 49, when she (briefly) married a 23-year-old gym coach, that seldom works out in real life.

McMillan is currently divorcing the 23-year-younger Jamaican gentleman who inspired Stella. Newsweek interviews her.

Q. Are you disillusioned with marriage?

A. As everyone knows, I am currently going though a divorce.

Q.That must be very difficult. I'm sorry.

A.That's why my novel was late. He kept me distracted in hopes he could break me down. That was until the night I said, "Why don't you tell the truth about something for a change?" And he said, "You couldn't handle it." And I said, "Try me." And he said, "I'm confused about my sexuality." And I said, "What!" And he said, "I think I might be gay. No, I am gay. I am gay." I had a halogen lamp right near the chair where I read, and I said, "I would like to take this lamp and whop your face. But you know what, I'm not going to because you finally told the truth about something. And look what it turned out to be."

Q. Wow. That sounds like a passage right out of one of your novels.

A. He's a sociopath, a covetous sociopath. Think of Scott Peterson without the murder. That is how sociopaths are. They woo you, and they can convince you of anything. I couldn't put a finger on what he was doing. He cheated, lied and betrayed me. And when I complain about this, he calls me a homophobe.

Q. And yet your new book has a surprisingly hopeful view of long-term marriage. Why?

A. The book was finished before all this happened. By the time it was in the catalog, I was so sapped and so pissed off, I didn't know what to do. My credit cards were maxed out. I almost went bankrupt. I was supporting him in his dog-grooming business. I was miserable, but he was happy as a lark. Now he's got his citizenship, he's coming after me for my money and he's writing a tell-all to capitalize on my fame.

Q. But you had a prenuptial agreement, didn't you?

A. I was a multimillionaire. I married a 21-year-old who hadn't finished college. Of course I had a prenup. I wouldn't marry Eddie Murphy without a prenup. My lawyers are on Madison Avenue. I'm not stupid. I'm not paying him a dime. I'll go to jail first. I have a valid prenup. He's out of the closet. He's committed a crime. His citizenship should be revoked.

Q. What do you think of authors who've suggested that gay black men lead double lives because there is so little support for homosexuality in the African-American community?

A. That's bull---t. They have an excuse for everything. It's difficult for them to come out but it's easy to lie, cheat and put my life at risk? They sneak around, hide behind a woman, in some cases women with children. I'm HIV-negative, but I get tested every month. Sometimes they just like sneaking around. It's cowardly. They shouldn't hide behind a woman.

Q. You sound angry and heartbroken. Are you?

A. My heart was broken and not just because of the gay thing. It was the betrayal. The fact that he was doing this all along. All those years he was acting. It's an awkward situation to be in. Everyone asks, "Couldn't she see?" But they don't know how he behaved around me all those years. He spun a web that was so dense I couldn't see through it.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer