Angela Bassett: My kids are in public school. I do not help them with their homework

Publish date: 2024-05-11

2019 PaleyFest LA - '9-1-1'
Angela Bassett was on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week to promote her role on 9-1-1 on Fox. I could relate to what she said about being a parent to teenagers. Angela and her husband, Courtney B. Vance, have boy and girl twins, Slater and Bronwyn, who just turned 13. She said that starring on Black Panther earned her some coolness points with them, and especially with their friends, but that it only lasted for about a year. When Jimmy asked her if she would ever pay half a million for her kids to go to college she said no way.

How old are your kids?
They just turned 13. [Black Panther] made me cool for a good year. But you know these kids have short attention spans. I got to come up with something else. As long as I’m cool with their friends. I hug them up and talk to them and give them attention.

When your children are older will you pay 500k to send them to school?
No. They are in public school. I went to public school. Turned out OK. I do not help them with their homework. They’re doing Ted talks at school. My son did something on ‘do aliens exist.’ My daughter did ‘do dragons exist.’ I let my friend who is visiting tell him ‘you need to simplify it.’ He didn’t [follow her advice]. It went very well, he gets very far on charisma, but no one understood what his Ted talk was about.

You went to Yale for undergraduate and a master’s degree. Is it what you imagined?
It’s more than I imagined. I met some of the smartest people I’ve ever known and I’ve also met some of the dumbest. A lot of book smart but how about common sense?

Did you study theater?
I did. That wasn’t the plan going in.

[From Jimmy Kimmel Live]

So many famous actors did theater at Yale! Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke from Black Panther also graduated from Yale and there were supporting actors and crew members from there as well.

The more I hear from Angela Bassett the more I like her. Kaiser and I talked on the podcast this week about the Operation Varsity Blues scandal. We said something very similar, that we both went to public school and that our parents didn’t help us much with our homework. We both have parents who are teachers too. You have to find your own way and these rich parents are only coddling their children by scamming to get them into college, along with making the system that much more stacked against students who do the work.

Here’s the interview!

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2019 PaleyFest LA - '9-1-1'

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photos credit: WENN

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