Kerry Washington is about to tell all with ‘Thicker Than Water’

While many fell in love with Kerry Washington for the first time during her run as Olivia Pope, she has been a beloved among Black folks for years. Many would remember her from roles in Save The Last Dance, I Think I Love My Wife, and Django Unchained. Throughout the years, Kerry has been a staunch advocate for various causes, namely getting people to vote. Even with anecdotes about her personal relationship with the creative arts to interviewing fellow thespians about their journey into the creative industry, Kerry has managed to keep her professional and personal lives separate. For what feels like the first time, Kerry Washington is set to bare all with her upcoming memoir, Thicker Than Water. 

The September 26, 2023 release of her memoir, “gives readers an intimate view into both her public and private worlds – as an artist, an advocate, an entrepreneur, a mother, a daughter, a wife, a Black woman.” Looking back at Kerry Washington’s career, we don’t know much about her personal life. During one interview, I remember her sharing that sometimes she takes photographs of her children considers sharing those images with the world – then she proceeds to share them with a family member or a close friend instead. To this date, I don’t know what her children look like. I am unclear on the details of her marriage because she doesn’t talk about it in public. There may have been a few rumors here and there about her relationship, but nothing ever stuck.

How Kerry Washington has managed her public relations reminds me of something Denzel Washington said in conversation with Jamie Foxx. “You want people to go ‘I can’t wait to see him’ not ‘oh I see him everywhere’…you wanna keep some mystery, you know, keep things quiet.” Beyoncé referenced something similar in her HBO documentary, Life Is But A Dream, saying, “You get up in the morning, you click on the computer, you see all these pictures. And it’s all you think of, is the picture and the image that you see all day every day, and you don’t see the human form. And I think when Nina Simone put out music you loved her voice, that’s what she wanted you to love. That was her instrument, but you didn’t get brainwashed by her day-to-day life and what her child is wearing, and who she’s dating…you know, all the things that really, it’s not your business.”

The public does not need to know intimate details about the personal lives of celebrities, particularly for the entertainers of a specific discipline. Instead, the public should be concerned and interested in the creative outputs of said entertainers. Nevertheless human beings are curious by nature – which is a nice way to say that we can be nosy. If celebrity memoirs of the past few months are anything to go by (we’re looking at you Will Smith and Prince Harry), Kerry “I don’t talk about my personal life publicly” Washington’s memoir is likely to be a revelatory reading experience.