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Queen Latifah got nostalgic on a recent episode of the ReLiving Single podcast. Hosted by Erika Alexander and Kim Coles, the podcast delves into the five-season run of Living Single, the Fox sitcom that aired from 1993 to 1998.
In recent years, the show’s impact has become clear, with an entire website dedicated to women who were inspired to become lawyers after seeing Alexander’s character, Maxine Shaw. The co-hosts have brought back the show’s stars, including T. C. Carson, John Henton and Kim Fields, as well as other guests who appeared on the sitcom.
Latifah’s mother, Rita Owens, played her mother on the show, though she was an educator by trade. Fields’ mother, Chip Fields-Hurd, who is also an actress, played her mother on Living Single and Latifah says she was helpful to the cast, especially so to Rita.
“Chip was amazing,” Latifah said. “She coached me, she coached my mother. She was brilliant.”
Latifah also shared that she and her mother were both grieving the loss of Latifah’s 23-year-old brother, Lance Owens, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1992, the year before Living Single started. He was on the Kawasaki bike she’d given him as a gift.
“My mother loved us [the cast of Living Single] so much. She was so very proud of us,” Latifah said. “And she did come visit me. She did. But as you said, my brother—I lost my brother in 1992. We started Living Single in 1993. So I was coming off of that.”
She continued after some affirming words from Alexander.
“Yeah. Definitely wasn’t through it yet,” she continued. “My remembering of these shows that my mother was on was a little nerve-wracking, ’cause I was nervous for her. My body was so tight. And when that show was over, I was like, ‘Oh! Yes!’ I could not wait for it to be over, because then I could calm down.”
Queen Latifah’s mother died of heart failure in 2018 at the age of 69, after a diagnosis three years earlier.
“Anyone that has ever met her knows what a bright light she was on this earth,” Latifah shared in a statement at the time. “She was gentle, but strong, sweet, but sassy, worldy but pragmatic, a woman of great faith and certainly the love of my life. She had struggled with a heart condition for many years and her battle is now over. I am heartbroken but know she is at peace.”
Watch the full podcast episode, which includes an appearance by Chip Fields-Hurd, below:
Queen Latifah Remembers Late Mother on “ReLiving Single” Podcast
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