Tonesa Welch and Vivica A. Fox recently appeared on the “Tamron Hall” show and talked about the First Lady of BMF: The Tonesa Welch Story biopic.
Read the synopsis of the biopic below:
Inspired by true-life story, Tonesa Welch is a middle-class woman, raised in 1980s Detroit, who becomes seduced by the limelight and adventure of being in the drug game.
Tonesa meets H, an older, sophisticated head of a drug organization who gives her a taste of the good life. But when H gets locked up, Tonesa forges a new path with a young, trusted confidante (Southwest T).
Together, they build a notorious drug empire that puts Tonesa on a path of crime, drugs, infidelity, deception, and redemption.
Watch the official trailer below.
Tonesa spoke about how she went into the Detroit nightclub Roostertail at 19 years old and came out a different person.
When I think about who I was, I grew up middle-class family, the only girl in the house, spoiled, under my mom all the time.
I went to this party, and like I say, I didn’t know that part was going to be in the movie, but it was like I did go in a revolving door.
So fabulous, everybody looked so good. It was just like, ‘Woah, I have never seen this before!’
Everybody had on jewelry. Even walking up to the Roostertail, if you know anything about the Roostertail in Detroit it’s fabulous.
And I walked in, I walked in that door, and I looked at the people and it was my world. I wanted to be this.
It came at a cost, and I didn’t realize that then, but I just wanted a part of it.
I wanted to be a part of that life.
Tonesa said the money came easy, but she was indicted on money laundering and spent five years in prison.
She holds herself fully accountable for being sent to prison. She was released in 2012.
…I knew what I was doing. I have to take responsibility for myself.
You know, so, I was a part of it. So, with time to go to prison, I had to take that responsibility.
I lived in that life. Nobody pushed me to do that.
She said it was her worst nightmare ever, and she’s happy she went through it.
She said when her mother asked her, “Who are you?” when she went to prison, and when she realized that her actions put her in prison, she was inspired to work on herself.
Once I was there, getting past the blaming, you know, all of that being angry I started realizing you put yourself here.
You did this to you. You did this to your family. So then it was a time for me to reflect on my life.
I remember my mother saying one day to me, ‘Who are you?’
She knew I changed, and so when I got to prison, and I’m there, I’m stripped of everything that I know, from my family, from everything I had, the homes, the kids, everything.
I had to really reflect on who I was now. I had to find out, ‘ Who are you?’
And it went back to that conversation. So I said, ‘You know what God, imma really work on me. Imma really reflect on ‘Who Am I?… How did I get here?
Vivica A. Fox, in her directorial debut, tells Tonesa Welch’s story in the biopic First Lady of BMF: The Tonesa Welch Story, which premiered on BET+ on October 5.
Vivica spoke about giving Tonesa a platform to tell her story.
I believe women are capable of everything. Anything we want to do.
Don’t let one bad choice define your future.
Watch the clip of the Tonesa Welch and Vivica Fox interview from the “Tamron Hall” show below.
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