Comic D.L. Hughley was featured on Oprah’s Where are They Now on the OWN Network. I know Hughley from his sitcom The Hughleys, which aired on ABC and UPN from 1998 – 2002. He was also in The Original Kings of Comedy in 2000, with the late Bernie Mac, Steve Harvey and Cedric The Entertainer, and now works as a host of a “nationally syndicated afternoon radio drive show,” The D.L. Hughley show. He’s 52 now but looks at least ten years younger, and judging by his Oprah interview it sounds like he’s learned quite a bit over the years.
Hughley has two daughters with his wife of 29 years, LaDonna, and they also have a 26 year-old son, Kyle. Kyle has Asperger’s Syndrome, something that Hughley has discussed in the past. In his Oprah interview he started crying when he discussed a milestone that Kyle recently passed. I got choked up watching this part of the interview (video is at the bottom of the post) and here’s what Hughley said:
[Kyle] graduated from college but everything has to be the same. He goes to work at the same time. He eats the same thing. The other day, three weeks ago, I had to get gas and he says “Daddy, I’ll do it.’ I’m a nervous wreck. He gives me the receipt and the keys. [starts crying] And I could not stop crying because he did something he was afraid to do… I just didn’t believe he could do it. He did it. And I held him and I said ‘you’re going to be alright.’ And I think sometimes I don’t know forsure, but he’s going to be fine.
That really got me. You want the best for your kids and you do the best you can for them. You can tell how much Hughley loves his son and both wants to protect him yet help him grow. Gah!
Hughley was also open about the fact that he was a serial cheater. He’s been married for decades and his wife stuck by him throughout it all. He first discussed his infidelity in 2012. As deplorable as his actions were, he does deserve credit for talking about it with the press. He said “I always thought [cheating] was just part of being a man. I never thought it was a horrible thing to be or to do. I never felt like it was anything I was doing wrong. I think monogamy is what you give your woman so she don’t leave.
“Honestly what I attribute us being married that long is her ability to love me in spite of who I am.” I hope he realizes that being a cheater is not “who he is,” it’s a behavior he chose to engage in. It sounds like he’s a changed man and that he understands that what he did was wrong. It would be nice if he used the past tense throughout, though.
Here’s a segment from Hughley’s Oprah interview. Oprah.com has another segment in which he talks about struggling to make ends meet in the early days of his marriage.
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