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Dutchess Black Ink

Source: Prince Williams / Getty

Dutchess Lattimore said her experience existence on Black Ink Crew was and then dysfunctional that when she completed her contract and cut ties with the show in 2018, she realized it had taken a serious toll on her mental health.

During an interview with podcast Talk of the Boondocks Unfiltered recently, the onetime reality star, tattoo creative person, rapper (bet yous didn't know) and baron said she realized that shows like Blackness Ink were meant to do impairment to the people on information technology and the Black community at large.

"Reality TV is meant to diminish mental health not only for the people on the bear witness but for the people that watch the testify," she said. "You really have to have a certain level of disdain not merely for yourself but for Blackness people in general, to desire to picket something that y'all keep seeing Black people, and they never come to a place of success. Every f–rex episode is fight or f–g."

She said that she began to find that the series was going in another direction subsequently Flavor 1, and that it became less about the craft of tattooing and the lives of those who do it, and more than about portraying cast members in a negative low-cal.

"When I started seeing they was playing with that, that's when I was like, 'Yeah, I don't know. This sh-t ain't for me,'" she said.

Simply she stayed for v seasons due to her contract and had problems with the product company behind the serial, Big Fish Entertainment. She said going from Lillington, Due north Carolina to NYC to being on national goggle box was stressful enough, only naught was more stressful than the deportment of production.

"I'll tell you what drove me crazy more than that. What drove me crazy more that was the group of white producers that was literally instigating ignorance and negativity trying to make y'all experience similar y'all actually are f–kin' crazy," she said.

"They are a grouping of racist white individuals that created a relationship with Viacom to further the propaganda of what I feel racism is in this country," she said, going on to share an incident that crossed the line.

"The 24-hour interval I put Cease'due south shoes out on the corner, on the street, do y'all know they called the f–male monarch crazy house to come get me and told the lady to put me in a f–male monarch straitjacket for cameras? But let me tell you how expert God is. The lady that they sent in there to tell me that sh-t, I had just done a tattoo for her like a month agone," she said. "An EMT worker. She told me what they was trying to do to me. She said, 'Dutchess y'all got a back door?' I said, 'Aye, ma'am.' She said, 'I want you to become out this dorsum door and go the f–thou abroad from hither as far as you can 'cause I'll be damned if they gon' brand you wait like this.'"

Drama with Big Fish (a visitor that recently lost its ability to produce shows with ViacomCBS afterwards they got rid of footage of a police involved decease of a Black homo on their at present defunct A&E serial Live PD) as well as issues with co-stars and former fiancé Ceaser Emanuel, sent her on a tailspin once she finally cut ties with the series.

"When I left the show, I went through therapy," she said. "It was necessary. I tried to kill myself seven times. I went through so much bullsh-t. I lost my grandma while I was on the show. I felt so f–ked upwardly because I literally hadn't gone home in damn near a twelvemonth. These muthaf–kas was telling me I couldn't become to my own grandma funeral 'cause I had to film, y'all. When they did that, that's when I was like, y'all ain't of God. I tin can't do this sh-t. The devil is really in this and I can't do information technology."

Things accept been great for Lattimore ever since her departure. She'southward still successfully running her ain tattoo shop in North Carolina, Pretty north Ink, and has even got into doing hip-hop music. Hit the flip to check out photos of the dazzler, besides as to learn more about her journeying.

Dutchess Black Ink

Source: Paul Bruinooge / Getty

During her time onBlack Ink Crew,she was engaged to co-star Ceaser Emanuel. According to her, when producers tried to give her an ultimatum about going to her grandmother's funeral, they also told Emanuel that if he went to support her, he would be penalized.

"They didn't even let Cease go with me to the funeral," she said. "That ni–a was like, 'they telling me if I go, I'thou a have to forfeit a check.' I'm like, y'all can proceed that f–male monarch check. I'1000 going to come across my grandma."

Dutchess Black Ink

Source: Prince Williams / Getty

On the prove, she and Emanuel struggled with the opinions of those who worked at the store, Black Ink, and weren't a fan of their human relationship. He as well had child support drama with the mother of his girl that landed him in jail. Then there was also an infamous incident where she said a co-star, without her permission, went down on her. All of that, according to Lattimore, was real.

"Abso-fu–ing lutely. This wasn't no fake relationship for me," she said. "I can't tell you what was real or fake for everybody else considering everybody else was willing to turn tricks for a dollar. I wasn't willing to do that sh-t. That'due south why I walked abroad with my head upwardly."

Dutchess Black Ink

Source: Prince Williams / Getty

"I walked away, fulfilled my contract and denied money that they were offer me," she said of leaving the bear witness subsequently her contract ended in 2018, despite big money beingness offered to her. She said she didn't want what they were offering because she saved upwards plenty money to move on and non look back.

"Over six figures. Y'all can keep that," she said. "I'm adept. They even offered to open up my tattoo shop for me so that they could control it. I had saved every VH1 bank check. I had never spent non 1 dollar of information technology when I came to North Carolina. That's how I was able to practice everything I've been able to do 'cause I didn't utilise the money. I worked. I nonetheless worked and was still on TV."

Dutchess Black Ink

Source: Prince Williams / Getty

Lattimore said Big Fish Productions was so low downward that a producer gave a cast member struggling with drug addiction cocaine. It got him into big legal trouble, all then, allegedly, information technology would bring about an interesting story line for the show. That for Lattimore was one of many times Big Fish, she alleges, did underhanded things in guild to kick up drama for the show and for ratings.

"When O' Sh-t got caught with that cocaine in his pocket and they tried to revoke his probation, a producer gave him that cocaine knowing he was addicted to information technology," she said.

Dutchess Black Ink

Source: Brian Stukes / Getty

Lattimore said that she hated the fact that producers merely focused on negative things and never tried to show anything positive going on with the cast members. That, to her, impacts one'south mental wellness.

"Everybody in this world got some f–ked up things with them," she said. "Every single concluding one of us. But for yous to have a grouping of people try to nitpick on that sh-t and try to ostracize all of the negativity, that is some f–rex f–ked up mental wellness f–rex shit. Imagine if somebody got to know you and they literally but focus on your flaws. They never celebrate nothing good you do."

Dutchess Black Ink

Source: Todd Williamson / Getty

An instance of oppressive content, she said, was them ignoring positive empowering work she was doing, as well as going to events that historic Black girls and womanhood. She said all of that footage got scrapped for the usual drama.

"People didn't even know that I went to an HBCU and I graduated cum laude!' she said in frustration. "How can you not know that? That is the greatest thing nigh me! They knew everything. They never aired information technology. They filmed me going to Black Girls Stone! Awards, they filmed me going to do women's empowerment events. They never used not one of the footage."

Dutchess Black Ink

Source: Johnny Nunez / Getty

"Imagine this: All of the men on Black Ink had kids. You didn't think none of them ni–every bit was good fathers," she said of how anybody was portrayed on Black Ink Crew. "The women on the testify that did have kids, yous didn't think nil good of them as mothers. What kind of message does that send to our young Black kids? We ain't think nearly that sh-t though."

"This is why I created my ain production company called Ambitious Daydreams," she added. "I feel like being a person that comes from that world, I want to tell stories the right way. Especially for people that look similar us."

Dutchess Black Ink

Source: Johnny Nunez / Getty

She also said the she suppressed her involvement in music while on the bear witness.

"I did suppress it. I created music the whole time I was on the bear witness, too. I never released none of the stuff," she said. "This is what I love about being an artist. For me, being an artist is not just beingness a tattoo artist. I'm a real life artist. I dear creating things off of my creativity, whether information technology'southward art, whether it's tattoos, a painting, a drawing, writing. I dearest to crochet. I beloved to needlepoint."

"Music is no different from whatever other genre of fine art I create," she added.

Dutchess Black Ink

Source: Santiago Felipe / Getty

She'due south hopeful that people will be able to encounter her as a musical artist and not simply a tattoo artist.

"Now that I'm doing it more serious, I gotta get other people to accept me more serious in that lane," she said. "People are then used to seeing me as a tattoo artist, they don't want to see you every bit anything else. What people gotta realize, think of y'all mamas. Y'all mamas had a real job. That lady came home, was a muthaf–kin' chef. Probably did odd jobs for people in the community whether it be doing hair, sewing stuff, cleaning upward. Our demographic of people is just that artistic that we can do and so many other things. Don't put nobody in a box."

Dutchess Black Ink

Source: Johnny Nunez / Getty

Simply whatsoever people encounter her equally, she hopes it won't be but equally Dutchess from Black Ink Crew. She's glad to go out everything involved with that behind.

"I be having young kids come up up to me, vii, 8 years old: 'I love you Dutchess,'" she said of young kids who've seen her on the show. "And I'm similar, 'How do you lot even know who I am?' You should not know who I am."

"Before we get feeding ourselves sh-t, we really need to inspect that sh-t," she said. "We letting our little girls scout this sh-t. We letting our lilliputian immature kings sentinel this sh-t. And they going to school thinking this sh-t is absurd when this sh-t is not f–king cool! Only if we not inspecting information technology, how can we await our kids to know amend or right from wrong from it?"