In a new interview from 'Villa del Raye', one of three lavish mansions she shares with her husband, LisaRaye McCoy-Misick, actress and First Lady of Turks and Caicos Islands, dished a load of details on her unscripted life as an actress, mother, wife and her self-proclaimed title as the 'New Millennium First Lady.' McCoy-Misick reveals how her longing to be in love with someone motivated her to marry a man whom she's still in the process of falling in love with...after knowing him for only one month. (Hmm, and here I was thinking the reason folks get married is because they loved and are in love with one another).
The actress also made a startling implication of how her role as first lady is 'alienating' and 'robbing' her of her acting career. She also addressed those pesky infidelity rumors that has surrounded she and her husband since their engagement. The couple insist the 'honeymoon is still going on.'
You can read the excerpts from the interview below. Click on pictures to view their full size.
McCOY-MISICK ON HER ONE MONTH COURTSHIP WITH HER HUSBAND, THE HONORABLE MICHAEL MISICK: "I think you are forever falling in love and the process of falling in love is what we're doing. He said, 'I want you to be my wife, but I want to date you while we're married.'
Our courtship wasn't long; just the entire time it took for me to plan our wedding. He asked me to marry him a month after we met. That was scary for me...but what is a girl to say about that. I was 39 years old, been a single parent, there's no stability in Hollywood and I said you know, I'm tired of playing. I'm tired of being without and I want to be in love. It damn sure feels great to belong to someone and have a partner, have a foundation." Misick, a lawyer and real estate magnate, says when he pursued LisaRaye, he wasn't looking for a first lady, but it was after he got to know her that he could not resist asking her to be his wife. "I thought, OK, she's beautiful and I like her but I wasn't looking to get married; I was a confirmed bachelor," the 41-year-old Misick said, laughing. However, he became "attracted by her inner beauty, her outer beauty, her grace, her kindness."
The couple has been the subject of infidelity rumors since their engagement, but it hasn't rocked their relationship. The twosome insist the "honeymoon is still going on."
LisaRaye's only child, Kai Pace, who just recently turned 18 and begins college in London this month, says she has adapted to her role as 'first daughter. She says the title is really no big deal off of the island because 'then I'm LisaRaye's daughter.' But will she return home from Spring Break to discover that there's a baby brother or baby sister on the way? Probably not...
McCoy-Misick says she's not planning to have any more children. "I have two bonus sons. (Misick's two children from a previous relationship). But if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, we're not so gung-ho about it because we're both 40, he's 41, so we want to live, be able to travel extensively." But then again you never know. LisaRaye went on to say, "We're OK with having our kids growing up...but if it happens, you'll see my belly swelling."
And a LisaRaye article wouldn't be complete without the
actress comparing herself, once again, to actress-turned-Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco. Mc-Coy Misick, who spends '60 percent' of her time in Turks & Caicos with her hubby says,
'There's definitely a difference between the celebrity LisaRaye and the first lady LisaRaye. I don't have to stop acting. I call myself a 'New Millennium First Lady.' Grace Kelly was an actress; she stopped acting, but that was 50 years ago. I'm going to hold it down in Los Angeles and also be a great mother, a wonderful daughter, a loving wife and a supporting first lady. However, I'm not in L.A. as much as I want to be. So it almost has me thinking, 'should I take a step back for a minute and reinvent myself, take a few month off, or should I ride this roller-coaster and keep moving, because you're only as good as your last job. I'm really torned, because for me, this is where my acting stops. The more I'm here (in Turks & Caicos), the more I feel alienated or robbed of what it is I do that makes me shine, that makes me be creative and makes me realize why I got in the business. I've worked 12 years to build my name, my image, my brand. I'm not giving that up. I worked hard for that. That name means something."
But she's also working hard on making 2008 a year the kids of Turks & Caicos will remember. A three-screen movie theater (the first one ever on the Island), aptly named L'Raye Cinema, will open this year as well as a bowling alley and an arcade, thanks to their first lady. 'My passion is really the kids and I think I've got that from being a single parent for 16 years", she says. And it's no secret that LisaRaye has put Turks & Caicos on the map since exposing the island to the West Coast market here in the United States that was almost untapped by the Turks & Caicos Islands, thus exposing the island to thousands of celebrities, movie producers and investors.
Beyond the island, LisaRaye's multifaceted career continues to blossom. She hosts a teen talent pageant, Miss RayeDiant Jewels. She publishes a magazine,
Hip Hop Weekly. She is currently producing a film,
Eight Days to Turks, and working to create a film committee on the island. She was diligent in forming the partnership with the American Black Film Festival to produce the 2008 Turks & Caicos International Film Festival. She is perusing South Beach property in Florida to build a hotel. The former model will also resume her part in the stage play
Gossip, Lies and Secrets later this month.
