Jeannie Mai Jenkins says baby with Jeezy is already learning ‘how to own who she is’
Jeannie Mai Jenkins and Jeezy are teaching their baby girl about her mixed roots at an early age.
Jenkins, one of the Emmy-winning co-hosts of “The Real,†chatted earlier this week with Jennifer Hudson about how much her life has changed since the daytime series was canceled in April 2022. Before “The Real,†Jenkins said she thought she would never remarry, let alone have a family.
“Now I’m a mom, I got married, I fell in love,†she said on the “Jennifer Hudson Show†on Tuesday. “You just never know what happens. The best part is really being true to yourself.â€
Warner Bros. opts not to renew the Daytime Emmy-winning panel talk show for a ninth season.
Jenkins married rapper Jeezy in March 2021after meeting him on “The Real.†Since then, they created a life together and welcomed “sassy†baby girl Monaco. The 1-year-old has mixed heritage, with her mother being Vietnamese and her father being Black. Jenkins told Hudson that it’s been “the best thing to really teach her how to own who she is.â€
She continued: “She’s a beautiful blend of being Black and Vietnamese and I want her to really understand what that means as a powerful woman today.â€
The TV host explained how Monaco goes across the country to be with each of her parents’ families. The toddler — who Jenkins says is more of a daddy’s girl — spends time in the South to be with Jeezy’s family based in Atlanta. Then the family goes to the Bay Area to be with her Vietnamese grandparents.
“She understands both sides and I only speak Vietnamese to her,†she said. “And then Dad only speaks the South to her. I don’t know what’s going to come out, we’ll see.â€
Though Jeannie Mai is exceptionally close to her mother, the pair’s tastes are at odds when it comes to home decor.
Jenkins introduced baby Monaco to the world in a YouTube video shared in June 2022, five months after the baby’s birth. In a 15-minute video titled “Meet Our Baby, Monaco!,†Jenkins shared videos from the hospital where she gave birth. She documented her first months into motherhood, including her experiences with breastfeeding and taking the baby to her grandparents.
After the video montage, Jenkins’ mother brought out Monaco — well, almost. As baby Monaco burst into tears off-screen, Jenkins said she was feeling nervous about introducing her child to her community. The moment was a “weird combination of being excited about something but knowing that the world is a really mean place sometimes.†Moving past the nerves, Jenkins continued, promising, “I’m ready.â€
For this installment of The Crawl, our celebrity food crawl series, Jeannie Mai Jenkins, host of the new ‘America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation,’ takes us on a four-hour, three-stop Vietnamese food crawl around the San Fernando Valley and shows us the right way to eat pho.
“I’m so excited for you to meet Monaco Mai Jenkins,†the TV star said as her mother, Olivia, brought out the baby.
Jenkins’ YouTube announcement was also the first glimpse viewers got into grandma Olivia’s close bond with the baby. Monaco and her grandmother were seen in matching leopard-print outfits and gold head wraps — the first of many coordinating ensembles, Jenkins said Tuesday.
“Mama Mai — my mom steals her. That is not my baby,†Jenkins joked to Hudson. “That is my mother’s baby. It is not mine. She takes her everywhere. They go matching everywhere. She’s at T.J. Maxx right now down the street if you guys want to find her.â€
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