'The Real' co-host got extremely personal on Wednesday's show.
Jeannie Mai is explaining why she doesn't want to be the leader when it comes to her relationship with her fiancé, Jeezy. The 41-year-old The Real co-host got extremely personal on Wednesday's show, where she talked about the roles she and the rapper plan to take in their marriage.
Mai explained that being submissive in her context doesn't mean she is "lower" than her husband.
"So, I'm gonna say right here, that I, Jeannie Mai, going in to my marriage -- I want to submit to my man. Let me explain," she said. "When I hear this definition ... submitting has a negative connotation. It means that you are less important, you are lower than that person that you're submitting to. It usually can be like, you know, referenced as somebody who works lower than you and that's not what I'm referring to here."
She went on to explain that since she makes so many decisions when it comes to her career, she likes the idea of her husband taking the lead at home. She noted that this approach works for her, but might not for others.
"I'm a very dominant woman. I own my business, I lead my teams, I played my own manager, my own publicist, my own lawyer when I didn't have money to have those people," she explained. "So, I make the decisions in my life. When I come home, I like the idea that my man leads us. That doesn't mean that in this case Jay makes all the decisions for us. That doesn't mean that when he says, 'How are we spending our money?' or 'Where are we moving?' that I just say, 'Yes sir,' or 'Yes, your honor.' Like, it’s not that. It’s a, 'You know what? I think that we would do best here, I want to do this,' and he takes the decision, he formulates it with our overall vision, and he leads us and I like to submit to that."
"I don’t want to lead in our household and in our marriage," she continued. "I want him to lead, and I have all the essence of what I bring as a wife to make that decision, but that I love that my husband will be the man that leads. I like that structure in a marriage and I look forward to that because girls -- it’s tiring being the boss of me. It’s tiring leading all the time in my life."
Mai said how she grew up definitely played a factor in deciding what type of marriage she wants to have -- specifically, she said she tends to be dominant like her mom.
"I grew up in a household – my mom ... she has a very strong force, and she took over a lot of decisions in the household, to the point that my dad, unless it was always going to be a fight, he was like, 'You know what? Go ahead. Whatever you want to decide. Go ahead, and I’m just gonna do me.' And that caused a wedge. And I can have that tendency. I'm just saying for me, I can have a tendency to follow like my mom, ‘cause it’s what I grew up in and I saw it. And I saw in my living space, I would all of a sudden just wake up and go and make decisions without asking and checking in, so I am the fault that can cause an inequality because I am pulling in my habits from my old household to how I run my business today. And that is not OK, and I’m careful and aware of that today. So, I’m just telling that to anybody else who didn’t tell me that when I could have learned that before."
Mai was previously married to Freddy Harteis, and their divorce was finalized in December 2018. She started dating 43-year-old rapper Jeezy last September, and they announced their engagement in April. ET recently spoke with Mai, who is currently competing on this season of Dancing With the Stars, and she talked about her fiancé's sweet gesture late last month -- when he rented out a billboard in Los Angeles with the number to vote for Mai and her pro partner, Brandon Armstrong, ahead of the show's Disney Night.
"Who does that? Who gets their fiancée a billboard just to encourage people to vote for Dancing With the Stars on their birthday?" she gushed. "It's his birthday right now, and he is busy getting me a billboard to help me garner votes. I don't even know what the price tag is on that, but beyond that, just the gesture, to believe in us."
"That is the type of man he is, and I hope everyone seeing that now can understand why the mere gesture of dedicating a dance to him is the least I can do," she added. "Because he truly is the love of my life."
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