Atlanta’s Ms. Pat, after so much trauma, has found her own American Dream

When Ms. Pat released her 2017 book “Rabbit,” the Atlanta native wasn’t sure anybody would care.

The stand-up comic and actress, whose legal name is Patricia Williams-Lee, told harrowing stories about growing up in the West End of Atlanta, grappling with sexual abuse, teen pregnancy, imprisonment for trafficking crack cocaine and getting shot in the right nipple. But these anecdotes were leavened by her trademark sardonic humor.

The result: “Rabbit” was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work and became a finalist for the 2018 Southern Book Prize.

“I was really shocked that people resonated with the story,” Ms. Pat said in a recent interview in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newsroom. “A story about poverty doesn’t have a color no matter who you are. People who didn’t look like me could relate.”

After wrapping the sixth season of her Emmy-nominated Paramount+ sitcom “The Ms. Pat Show,” she is back with a far less grisly sequel. “Ms. American Dream: A Memoir of Making It, No Matter What.” It largely covers her adult life, following her as she overcomes numerous obstacles to build a successful career and a fulfilling home life.

She’ll discuss the book at a signing Tuesday with former WSB-TV anchor Monica Pearson.

“I gave them so much grime and grit and hard times at the bottom,” she said. “It was only right after all this time to tell you guys that I’m OK now. I’ve found my American Dream with a family who loves me.”

But her new book is hardly rainbows and candy hearts. She didn’t exactly come out of her teens unscathed from her traumas and eighth-grade education.

She struggled to find jobs that paid her a living wage while raising multiple children. The book provides example after example of how companies prey on the poor and financially ignorant in ways that make it difficult to climb the income ranks in America.

“I didn’t know what an interest rate was,” Ms. Pat said. “I didn’t know what a balloon loan was. My savings account was what I could keep in my bra or the mattress. I had no idea how a credit card worked. When I was given a credit card, I asked, ‘Who is Visa?’”

The first time she received a credit card, she spent $3,500 she didn’t actually have the first month, not realizing she had to pay it back. “I was going through JCPenney, swiping away like I was somebody,” she said.

Fortunately, Ms. Pat found a ballast in her husband, Garrett Lee, a stable, hardworking man who balanced her fiery nature. They remain married to this day.

“He is a very patient person,” she said. “I brought so many kids and family members into the household. He never complained. I think he knew my heart. … He’s just a good guy. He is just love.”

Her first effort to claw her way into the middle class was renting a four-bedroom, red brick home in Riverdale in her early 20s, courtesy of a Section 8 voucher subsidy. It was Ms. Pat’s first time surrounded by friendly, college-educated neighbors, and she worked hard to emulate them.

The kind landlady eventually gave the family the option to buy the home.

“It was one of my first big accomplishments, though we almost lost the house twice,” she said. “Bad loans. But we were able to get out of that.”

She left the home more than a quarter century ago but never sold it, providing it for renters. “It’s something I want to pass to my kids,” she said. “We struggled a lot there. That house tells a story.”

Ms. Pat’s full-circle moment

Ms. Pat moved to Indianapolis from Atlanta in 2006 after her husband’s job transfer. “The Ms. Pat Show,” based loosely on her time there, debuted in 2021 on BET+ and became one of the streaming service’s most popular shows. It also earned multiple Emmy nominations.

But earlier this year, BET+ shut down, moving the show to Paramount+. And the Atlanta studio they had used for years also shut down, so production moved to Assembly Studios in Doraville, which opened in 2023.

Ms. Pat has a history with that location. In her 20s, she and her husband worked at the General Motors assembly plant on the property. The GM plant shuttered in 2008 after 61 years and sat empty for 15 before Atlanta-based Gray Media revitalized the space for TV and film soundstages.

“I didn’t realize it was the same place until I pulled up,” she said. “This old General Motors gal could not stop smiling. Don’t let this be the last season. I’ve come full circle. I need three more seasons!”

And although the show has tackled a wide range of serious issues, such as abortion, miscarriage, addiction and race, Ms. Pat said there is still more to be mined from her complicated past.

In the third episode of the upcoming sixth season, she said, her character’s mother and grandmother both show up, triggering a flood of memories from her real life.

“I busted out crying,” she said. “It reminded me of the generation of curses. I broke the curse in my family. I could not stop crying that day.”

Her sitcom is taped in front of a studio audience.

Sheri Rasnake of Fort Worth, Texas, flew in to see a taping in July. Ms. Pat made it a party, hiring a DJ who got the audience to stand up and dance frequently in the risers between takes.

“It was,” Rasnake said, “an amazing experience. The energy throughout the evening was contagious, and it was wonderful to see so many people laughing, connecting, and genuinely enjoying themselves.”

Mary Lou Belli said she signed on as director for “The Ms. Pat Show” after reading “Rabbit.”

“I literally wept for 20 minutes after I finished it,” she said.

And working with Ms. Pat confirmed she made the right decision.

“Her heart is on display on this show in all its generosity, bawdiness and authenticity,” Belli said.

Not that Ms. Pat is Mother Teresa. Far from it. In her book, she recounted how she had to learn that speaking in a writers room for a sitcom at a major corporation isn’t the same as razzing a fellow comic in a pot smoke-filled green room in a comedy club.

During Season 1, a writer filed an HR complaint against Ms. Pat after she insulted the woman’s script and told a ribald joke regarding her daughter coming out that the writer deemed homophobic.

BET hired life coach Trevia Williams to teach Ms. Pat anger management.

“I still use her to this day,” she said. “Whenever I want to say something to a person that I shouldn’t, I call her and vent. She would give me a different way to say things. Instead of saying, ‘This is garbage, I now say, ‘Maybe there’s another way we can do this.’”

And although the now defunct BET+ didn’t necessarily provide “The Ms. Pat Show” the biggest audience, she said she is grateful for their support: “They understood the show. They let us be Black. They let us be funny and push the envelope. Fortunately, since moving to Paramount, we’ve had no pushback.”

She already believes the larger potential viewership is paying dividends since the show moved to Paramount+. “People are coming up to me who had never heard this show existed before,” she said. “It’s all over the world now. They’re watching it in Australia!’

Home sweet home

After the success of the first season of “The Ms. Pat Show,” she moved back to Atlanta in 2021 after 15 years in Indianapolis.

“I love Atlanta,” Ms. Pat said. “This is my home. This is all I know. Every story I tell came out of these streets. I wasn’t going to die in Indianapolis. I didn’t want to be buried in the cold.”

The money also enabled her to purchase a seven-acre plot of land 30 miles south of downtown where she built a mansion with 11 bedrooms, 13 bathrooms and an elevator. (“I don’t like taking the stairs,” she wrote in her book.)

But for all the creature comforts she has earned from her hard work, what she most cares about is her family, be it her four biological children or her multiple adopted ones from other family members.

Earlier this year, with four children already in the house, she and Garrett added her niece’s three daughters, ages 8 to 14.