*We caught up with Julissa Bermudez to dish about her new series “It’s Me, Julissa!,” which reintroduces fans to the entertainment sweetheart after years in the industry’s background hosting various shows and helping others tell their stories.
Per the network, Bermudez’s show is the first original series brought to CLEO TV by Kin x TV One Licensing Partnership.
“It’s Me, Julissa!” focuses on her New York upbringing, sharing nostalgic Dominican recipes, discussing some of her life’s faux-pas, and a new body care brand República Skin
For the season finale episode on Friday (Feb. 4), Julissa is joined by longtime friend, actress, and award-winning singer/songwriter Keri Hilson, and the duo play a nostalgic game of Truth or Drink.
“It’s Me, Julissa! Airs” Friday night at 9:30 PM ET/8:30 PM CT on CLEO TV. In the meantime, check out our conversation with Julissa below about her TV return.
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“I was really excited when the opportunity came about and CLEO TV, particularly because I just am a fan of the network and what the network itself stands for and the empowerment and feel good TV and programming that they have,” Bermudez tells EUR’s Ny MaGee ahead of the finale episode.
Bermudez says the series takes fans inside “things that I’ve experienced to get to where I am and some of those behind the scenes stories of crazy interviews that I’ve had to do and things that I’ve had to endure.”
“I wanted to share some of that because I don’t think we get to see enough of people’s journey when it comes to literally putting a product out there and how difficult that really is because a lot of the times we just see the finished product,” she continued.
“I also wanted to share some of my dating experience, not only being in this business, but also being a woman in her thirties, and sometimes how difficult dating and choosing your career can be versus having a family.”
Did you invite many of your celebrity pals to join you on this journey?
Oh, for sure. I had one of my longest dear friends in this industry and outside of the business, of course, Adrienne Bailon Houghton. We did a show together back in the day so everyone always wants to know, “Are they still friends, are they still hanging out?” We absolutely are still friends. We have such a love for each other. No matter what coast we decide to move to, because now she’s back and forth between New York and LA, and I’m still in LA and try traveling everywhere as well now that things are open again.
But yeah, Adrienne came on and I think it was nice to have this conversation of her and I just basically giving a tour of my new house, which I think a lot of people don’t understand. When you’re on TV, everyone just assumes that you are automatically rich and you live in a big old house and all these things. On It’s Me, Julissa!, I really wanted to tell people and show them that I’ve really sacrificed a lot instead of spending all the big bucks that I made in the beginning. I’m bringing Adrienne on for the house tour episode, showing that we’re both girls from New York that lived in really small quarters growing up and now we’ve been able to sort of accomplish these things along the way and that it hasn’t been easy and that sometimes it takes a lot more than people think to get the nice new home.
She and I down and had some real conversations about launching a brand because she’s an entrepreneur as well. I think the exchange of conversation about our culture was also something that I think was different and to have people see that I felt was important as well.
Why did you decide to end the season with a game of Truth or Dare with your pal Keri Hilson?
Well, we basically played a game where … We see the comments. Honestly, it’s not hard to see everyone’s opinion on you and what it is that they have to say about you. We thought it would be really fun to have the viewers and everyone on social media sort of turn the tables and our producers wrote down a bunch of the questions that they had and comments that they’ve said or things that they’ve been wanting to know about Keri and I. Especially Keri, because obviously we’ve seen her in this business for a long time and as a singer, as a songwriter, and now as an actress, but to see her in a more toned down setting on my show where her and I are just drinking wine in pajamas, answering these questions, I think that relatability really resonated with the viewers.
We really want people to see that we are just like them. We hang out and drink wine and answer questions and ask each other questions that we’ve never asked in the years of friendship that we’ve had. It was nice to just kind of give more a laid back vibe and now the timing of it is perfect because Valentine’s Day is coming up and this actually makes sense because if you don’t have a traditional Valentine, you can get your girlfriends together and do a Galentines and hopefully they’ll be inspired to do that once they watch this episode and you’ll get to know a lot more about Keri and myself.
What do you hope viewers take away from this season of It’s Me, Julissa!?
Honestly, I hope they take away a lot from the financial advice episode, from cooking, from some of the ups and downs that I shared. I got a lot of feedback from the dating episode so I hope they take away things that maybe they had uncertainties about the same way that I did. Hopefully, it inspired them and let them know that they can persevere and keep going. I really hope they take away a plethora of things because I felt in my heart of heart, it’s a really well rounded series. I hope to continue to do more and I really hope that people walk away with some inspiration, some advice, some tenacity. There’s really a mixed bag of things that I hope people walk away with.
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