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Tracee Ellis Ross Opens Up About Being Single & Happy at 45

Tracee Ellis Ross Opens Up About Being Single & Happy at 45

Tracee Ellis Ross is on the cover of InStyle‘s November 2018 Best Dressed issue, out on October 12.

Here’s what the 45-year-old Black-ish actress had to say…

On the success of Blackish and covering off on important issues: “We’re using comedy to discuss some real s–t. I think it’s stuff that all of us are chomping on or wondering how other people are dealing with. I would say that 70 percent of the people who come up to me on the street are 11-year-old white boys who are obsessed with our show. Where in their 11 years would the unpacking of the historical context of the N-word come up? I think that’s great.”

On being single and happy at 45: “It’s sort of fascinating to be 45 and single and childless. Happily single, I should add. Not at home crying about it…these are very big and very personal questions that aren’t anyone’s business but that somehow, like the right to choose, become fodder for public conversation. Some of the ability to reflect on what I really want comes from pushing up against a society that shames me for not having the expected trappings. I’m very pleased with my existence these days. Have I had to learn to make friends with loneliness? Yes. I think if I were in a relationship, it would be the same.”

On growing up with a famous mother: “I think reality television has warped people’s sense of what having money or fame looks like behind the scenes. I have always had a lot of abundance. I was very well educated because of my mother’s gift…I feel very aware of that privilege. There were beautiful things everywhere, but there was a sense of taking care of and cherishing beauty. And also of not taking things too seriously. You could be climbing all over my mom’s head while she’d be sitting in an interview, putting your handprints on everything.”

For more from Tracee, visit InStyle.com.

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Credit: Horst Diekgerdes; Photos: InStyle
Posted to: Tracee Ellis Ross