Pregnancy and marriage definitely agrees with
Flavor of Love season 2 winner Deelishis (real name London Charles Gordon)! A little over a year ago (September 2008)
I blogged about Deelishis' announcing her engagement to Detroit business man Orlando Gordon in
S2S mag. In that interview Deelishis mentioned that she and Orlando planned to have a large bridal party that would consist of 35 members including 15 bridesmaids and groomsmen. A lot has changed since then...both in her personal and professional life. Many folks throughout the blogosphere thought her wedding would never happen. Well, they were right BUT we have to remember the words 'wedding' and 'marriage' are two different things. And needless to say, a marriage trumps a big, lavish, expensive wedding all day every day. I ain't ashamed to tell yall that if a man as good-looking as Orlando wanted to wife me up in a courthouse or in a small intimate setting, all I want to know is what time does he want me to be there! Real talk. But it's only fair to say that their decision was a decision they both made together.
Anyway, Deelishis sat down with
Sister 2 Sister magazine's H.S.I.C. (head sister in charge), Jamie Foster Brown and dished on everything from her marriage to her work to her pregnancy and the reason why they chose to name their unborn baby girl Lexington Brielle. Peep the excerpts below.
DEELISHIS ON NOT HAVING A BIG, LAVISH WEDDING: "I couldn't. I put it like this: I wouldn't. I had decisions to make if I was going to take the work that was coming or if I was going to sacrifice the work to do the wedding. Since I was a little girl, I was like most little girls who, when they grow up, want this huge wedding. It's the most important day of their lives. But by this time it was important for me to make sure that I was making the right decisions for my career. Our marriage was going to be there regardless of the wedding. So I don't know if it's a part of my growth and maturity but I was okay with not having the wedding...There was no wedding. It was a straight-up marriage. We just had a judge and a couple of witnesses. It was quick 'cause let me tell you this: the day that I actually did it, later on that evening I was on set. Myself, Garrett Morris and Joe Torry were working on a film called Pawn Shop. It's a comedy. I was getting paid by the day, so I was back on set later on."
DEELISHIS ON WHY THEY DECIDED TO HAVE A CHILD TOGETHER: "We had been trying. We tried for a little while. I said I was going to work on my album and I wasn't going to do a reality TV for a while. And I was constantly getting work as far as hosting parties, but that was not something I wanted to do permanently. So I said, 'Well, you know what? I'm going to really go hard with my music, and I'm going to go really hard with film. I'm going to audition for any and everything that I think is good for me in movies.' So I said, 'Listen, I may as well have my babies now--or my baby.' I wanted at least one more because Jasmine is 10 years old and I wanted another baby and I made that very clear while we were dating. Just in casual conversation he would ask, 'Do you want any more children?' I would say yes and I would ask him how many he wanted. He said, 'Well, maybe one or two. We both came from the same background mentally where we didn't want a host of children, but we did want one together. He has a 5-year-old daughter and I have a 10-year-old."
DEELISHIS ON HOW THEIR RELATIONSHIP TURNED INTO MARRIAGE: "I wanted a marriage, but what he wanted was he didn't want to change. Orlando has always had--I won't say a fear of commitment--but he never was required to be in a commitment when he dated other women. Yeah, he's gorgeous and he takes care of his business. You know what I'm saying? He's a go-getter. He doesn't want to be without, so he handles his business as a man and I really love that about him. And I know most women had to in the past, so they never required that he commit to them. So I asked him when we got together, I said, 'Well, you know that not who I am. I have to make sure that this is something that makes sense. And I don't care how promiscuous the picture, the web site, the video, whatever you see of London, I'm a well-adjusted person and I have a daughter. So I don't care what you ever heard of me, you've never heard a long line of accusations of men when it related to me, and I wanted to keep it that way.' I think the rumor that you may have heard was Allen Iverson, and that was unfortunate. I told him I needed that security within our relationship. So, he said, 'Okay, I think you're worth it, and I'll give you that.'
So we became boyfriend and girlfriend. Then eventually he was like, 'Okay, let's spend the rest of our lives together.' So, I said, 'Okay, when you put an engagement ring on someone's finger, especially mine, you make sure that it's not just to keep me still. You have to put a marriage behind that.' I would always tell him how fruitful our household and our lifestyle would be. If you give God what He wants, He'll give you what you want. So he said, 'I don't want marriage to change us. If you believe that we have to be married for the sake of God being okay, then that's fine.'"
AFTER THE JUMP, FIND OUT THE MADNESS THE PREGNANCY PUT DEELISHIS THROUGH AND THE DRAMA SHE PUT ORLANDO THROUGH DURING HER PREGNANCY AND HOW THEY CAME UP WITH THEIR BABY GIRL'S NAME. PLUS MORE PICS FROM THEIR S2S PHOTO SHOOT.DEELISHIS ON BEING PREGNANT THE SECOND TIME AROUND & WORKING ON HER MUSIC: "Orlando talks about me now that I'm pregnant. He says that I am an emotional wreck most of the time, so he has to go into mute world; he nods his head. I think my father taught him this. I will speak and he won't respond until I'm done with my yelling or venting or saying whatever it is I have to say. And then he says, 'Okay, yes, dear.' He has the honey-do thing down pat. So when I say, 'Honey, I need you to do this. Honey, I need you to do that,' he says, 'Okay.' At the beginning of this pregnancy I was very whiny. I didn't experience this with Jasmine, but my first trimester was just miserable. I used to call Taj (of the SWV) and I would cry and complain because she had said her pregnancy with Eddie George--their youngest child was so bad the entire nine months. I said, 'Well, you had to have found some release in some fashion. What did you do for that?' She said, 'The only relief was, like, loading up a gun. So I had to decide if I was going to pull the trigger or not.' By the time I reached my third month, people said that if I wasn't going to have one of those nine-month-long sickness pregnancies by the time I reached my third month, that I would be okay. That's true. I'm eating a little bit better. I get around a little bit better because I was miserable. Orlando would cook and I would say, 'Close the door. I don't even want to smell it. I don't even want you to sleep in this room. I have a little Yorkie puppy, and it was so bad I was considering giving her away. I couldn't take the smell of her either. I went from a 36B to a 38DD. Ma, when I tell you I feel the difference, sometimes I feel like I'm suffocating. I can be driving and I have to unstrap myself in the back from feeling suffocated in the front. So flying has really become a problem for me. So, I said at the end of November that I was going to be done with flying by mid-December. And Orlando said, 'Well, you can totally take advantage of your music.' So I've been recording down in my home studio, and I'm excited about that because I never really took the time that was needed. I'm writing. A lot of this will be from me.
I'm very conscious right now and I think this baby is a different baby than Jasmine because I don't typically like water unless I put some type of Crystal Light or some Tang or something in it. I'm not one to drink water. This entire pregnancy, I love water. I love it. I love it warm, cold, frozen. This baby loves vegetables and I'm a big fan of Boston Market's creamed spinach. I like cooking now with vegetables; I don't like fried foods. But I love vegetables and water and fruit."
DEELISHIS ON WHY SHE & ORLANDO NAMED THEIR DAUGHTER LEXINGTON BRIELLE: "Orlando's name is a city. My name is a city. So we wanted to think of a city that was cute enough for her. So I was looking all over the map. He's Orlando, Florida, and I'm London, England, and so we gave her Lexington, [Kentucky.]
READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP!
