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It's the Friday before a long weekend and I'm on a Zoom call with Kelly Rowland, who Unilever tapped for a little top-of-year goal-setting session. Sure, I'm doing the interview, but if you listened to a voiceover of my inner thoughts, I'm stuck on how beautiful she is. I know — she's a famous singer, actor, TV host, the list goes on. Of course she's gorgeous. But this is a little different. It's kind of like… she's floating? Even though she's perched comfortably on what from my view looks like a giant gray sectional.
Make no mistake, the beauty is goddess-level, but, talented as she is, Rowland is still very much a person. One of many, she casually mentions after I ask her what she's shopping for at the drugstore (Vaseline Cocoa Radiant Lotion for red carpets and L'Oréal Paris Voluminous Mascara), who got COVID over the holidays. "We were the COVID crib," she says. And while her crib might be bigger than literally everywhere I've lived combined, just like everyone else, she was quarantined up with her family.
"We played games, made Rice Krispie Treats. I did a lot of cooking, I made chicken and rice soup," she tells me, mentioning that she also recruited her husband and older son to help make burgers. There was also water — lots of it. "We had a water-drinking contest because we were trying to empty our bodies out of the virus." (For the record, the recommendation to drink fluids if you get COVID is related to staying hydrated, not because you'll pee the virus out.) Of course, Rowland and her family are okay now and looking forward to what 2022 might bring.
The singer says she's focused on dreaming big — so big she scares herself. "Of all the gifts that Sidney Poitier left us with, the biggest one for me is his quote where he says, 'If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough,'" she explains. Rowland has already lived a life that some of us dream about; now, she's wondering what else she can create or what new opportunity she can take on. Poitier's words are ones she says she lives by and plans on passing the mindset to her sons, Titan, 7, and Noah (who made a brief and very adorable cameo on the call), 1. "I hope that they dream so big that they wonder, 'Oh, my God, how am I going to do of that?' And then they do it. And they surprise themselves and do it even bigger the next time."
As Rowland dreams up her next move (which we're hoping includes a leading role in a Donna Summer biopic, but more on that later), I chat with her some more about her boys, her trick for moisturized elbows, and how the late great disco diva inspires her today.
ALLURE: Okay, definitely appreciated little Noah coming to say hi! I wonder — are there any products you initially bought to use for him that you realize work amazing for you too?
KR: Emu oil! Noah has really bad eczema and I was talking to another mom about it. She's like, "You should try emu oil," so I got some. She told me how great it was for her babies, and it definitely helped mine.
My nanny took some of the smaller socks Noah had grown out of and cut them in half. She put them over his little patches behind his leg. It's a super moisturizing treatment, so I tried it myself. I actually never had eczema until I had Titan. I started to get it up my back and I asked my doctor, "Why is this happening to me?" They said it was a hormonal stress thing.
[After I saw my nanny's trick,] I took an old sock, put emu oil on it and then put it around my knees and my elbows. It helped. The moisture just kind of locks in there. It's awesome.
ALLURE: We have to talk about Donna Summer! The internet is demanding that you play her in a biopic. You've already spoken about being open to playing her with the family's blessing, but I wonder how her beauty looks have inspired you over the years?
KR: Her beauty, the makeup, the hair, her body, the costumes, her elegance, her grace, her vulnerability as she's singing — everything about Donna Summer is golden and iconic. I don't think we really appreciate her as much as we should.
She really carved out a space as a Black woman in the '70s. That was really hard, especially because they were putting so many Black women against each other. Can you imagine the kind of things that they were experiencing at that time? Her story is rich. Her family is just incredible and beautiful.
But back to her beauty. It transcended. I think that how sincere her eyes were and the way she decided to wear her makeup just made you really in tune with her even more. I love how full her lips were when she wore her red lip. And the fact that it was glossy just reminded you of how beautiful and precious a Black woman's sensuality is.
People often looked at Black women's beauty as perverted or dirty. She made it elegant and graceful every time you saw her. She definitely holds a high place in my world. She's one of my heroes.
ALLURE: I know you dressed up as her for Halloween in 2019, but I was wondering if there were any more Donna Summer looks you might want to recreate?
KR: There's a picture where it seems like she's waiting for something to start. She's sitting there and she's crouched down while she's looking up and she has on these really amazing, extreme cat-eye sunglasses and some, I think they're fishnets or some pantyhose and this beautiful corset bodysuit. She looks amazing and her body is sick and she's just sitting. It was so effortless. I feel like every shot that someone has captured of her. She doesn't have to try to look good.
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Now, watch Janet Jackson break down her most iconic music video looks:
