Meagan Good Opens Up About Career & Divorce With ESSENCE

Meagan Good is ready to step into her “prime” and she’s appearing on her first solo cover story with ESSENCE. The Harlem hottie is opening up about the power of resilience and how she continues to shine despite being overlooked in Hollywood. Not only that, but she’s also setting the record straight about her “devasting” divorce.

Source: Tayo Kuku / Essence

Meagan Good has become a household name in the film industry thanks to her diverse roles in blockbuster hits like Eve’s Bayou, Think Like A Man and You Got Served, but her rise to stardom wasn’t easy.

Good is the latest subject of ESSENCE’s recently launched bi-weekly online cover story series “Of The Essence” and she’s discussing being constantly overlooked for roles, something she experienced at the very start of her career as a young child.

“I take it as a challenge,” she told “Of The Essence.” “I can still change people’s minds about me, and I don’t look at that as a bad thing. I look at that as a purpose thing.”

According to Meagan, her mother introduced her and her sister, La’Myia Good–Bellinger to the world of acting when she was 4 because she wanted to expose them to a different world outside of the confines of their predominately white neighborhood.

“When we met with my first manager, she didn’t even want me,” Good recalled of her first sour experience in Hollywood. “She was like, ‘She ain’t ready yet.’ She wanted La’Myia so our mom was like, ‘Go convince her that you want to do this.’”

With hard work and determination, Good continued to prime her acting skills. She eventually began booking commercials for Marshall’s, McDonald’s, and Barbie. She also filled in as an extra in the 1988 science fiction action horror, They Live.

Now, she’s gearing up to star in DC’s action-packed superhero flick Shazam! Fury of the Gods.

Good discussed her training process for the film, her devastating divorce from pastor DeVon Franklin, skin-bleaching rumors, and why fans may have trouble understanding who she truly is.

On Her DeVon Franklin Divorce

In December of 2021, Good and her ex-husband of 9 years pastor DeVon Franklin filed for divorce, a “devastating” decision that she is still trying to process. She also confirmed that it was not her decision nor was it rooted in her “not wanting to have children”, something widely speculated on the Internet.

Source: Variety / Getty

“It’s nothing that I would have ever chosen, and when I realized that it was happening, I was devastated. I was like, ‘This is me, Lord. I did everything that I could do to the best of my ability. I don’t understand why I did all these things, and then this is my end result,’” she confessed to “Of The Essence.”

“That was rough because my biggest fear was what happened between my mom and my dad would happen to me, which is you’ve been with your husband for 10 years and you break up,” she continued. “I would say, ‘I’m never getting divorced. I’m in it forever, good, bad, whatever it is, I’m never going to give up. You’re my person, I’m your person, that’s it.’”

Good said that it took her a long time to heal from the dissolution of her marriage.

“DeVon and I both have free will. So, I had to accept that God didn’t lie when he told me that was my husband. That was my husband,” she added. “But he didn’t say we’d be together forever. God’s word remains true no matter what happens to you and if anything changes, it’s because sometimes life deals you cards you don’t expect or anticipate, but He’ll still bring you through it and He still has an incredible plan for your life.”

[…]

  “Once I accepted everything, I felt grateful for the time we had together and the beautiful journey. Then there was an excitement. I get to start life all over again, in my prime, with so many incredible things happening in my life and in my career. I get to do this again.”

Good and Franklin’s divorce was finalized in June 2022, just a week after what would have been their 10-year anniversary.

On Training For A Year And A Half Before Auditioning For Shazam!

“Black girls, we don’t get, ‘Let’s hire her now and put her in the gym with a trainer and get her where she needs to be.’ You don’t get to get there and figure it out. You’ve got to come already ready.”

On Skin-Bleaching Rumors

In 2020, Good became the topic of discussion when fans noticed that her skin was becoming visibly lighter. A few internet bullies accused the star of skin bleaching, but Good set the record straight and explained that her lighter appearance was due to a botched beauty treatment.

“I was like, I look so crazy I just have to sit in this and let people think what they want to think, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” she explained of the ridicule.

She later revealed that it was sun-damage products that severely lightened her overall skin tone in 2020.

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but my concern with what other people thought about me was such a thing that I had to go through something like that where I literally had no other option, and I had to find my joy and my peace regardless of what everyone was thinking,” the actress said to “Of The Essence.”

On Gabrielle Union Advocating For Her Role In Deliver Us From Eva

“After we were done rehearsing, she went to the head of Sony Screen Gems and was like, ‘I love this girl. She’s great. You guys need to hire her.’ And from that relationship alone, I did You Got Served, D.E.B.S., Stomp the Yard, Think Like a Man, and Think Like a Man Too. I’ve done more movies with Screen Gems than I’ve done with any other studio.”

You can read Good’s full interview here. 

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