luxury locations issue 21

Dawnn Lewis with Luxury Locations’ Nadia Dyson

am more than they could have asked for.” These days, she focusses much of her attention on helping vulnerable youngsters to realise they’re enough too. In 2017, she founded the non-profit, A New Day Foundation. Two years later she received an honorary doctorate from LA’s Next Dimension University for her decades of work with underserved youth. Her foundation provides services and support to youngsters across the US and abroad, including India, Costa Rica and Guyana where her parents originate from. “Our mission is that we want you to recognise that where you were yesterday is not where you have to be today, nor where you need to end up tomorrow. We want to support you, we want you to consider us your new day of opportunity towards your best self,” she says. Anyone wishing to donate to help boost its offerings further, can do so at www. anewdayfoundation.net. As for her enduring love affair with Antigua and Barbuda, islanders can expect to see her back on these shores in the near future. And, like last time, it will be to party. “I will be coming back soon,” she says. “Don’t be surprised if you see me at Carnival covered in feathers.” n by Gemma Handy

“It would have been easy to portray her as a villain,” Lewis concedes. “But with the background that I had, I knew she was a woman doing what she could with what she had to save her life, and we are all human. “Playing her was very important to me. To me, it was honouring my mom and all those women who endured such deplorable circumstances for the sake of the children, for the sake of their reputation.” History has an uncanny way of repeating itself. In her 40s, Lewis found herself married to a man “who displayed those tendencies”. “Almost immediately after marrying, divorce was on the table,” she says. In 2005, former NBA player Johnny Newman was sentenced for domestic assault and battery after a violent attack lasting around 45 minutes – in which he grabbed Lewis by the throat, threatened to kill her and dragged her down a flight of stairs by her legs – that began after Lewis announced she was leaving him. Being part of the musical that documents Tina Turner’s many years of abuse by husband and co-musician Ike was a pivotal time for Lewis. “It meant a lot to give a voice to countless women, and sometimes men, who endure violence in their relationships.

And it’s not always physical abuse; it can be mental, emotional, financial abuse,” she says.

It takes a strong character to manoeuvre and survive the trials and whims of the entertainment sector. Over the last 40 years, Lewis has had her fair share of both. “In this industry, you often feel like you’re not enough. And people are very comfortable in telling you you’re not enough,” she says. “You’re not thin enough, you’re not pretty enough, not famous enough, not unknown enough. It’s wonderful for me to be able to work in so many different environments where I know I am enough, and not only am I enough, I

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