Khadeen Ellis grew teary-eyed as she expressed gratitude that Tyler Perry took a chance on her by casting her to star in his latest BET+ series “Divorced Sistas.” Almost immediately, her husband, Devale, chimed in to remind his wife that she was already a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning podcaster before she booked the role.
The couple is sitting in the basement of their sprawling metro Atlanta home, situated amid the wood-paneled wall and in the fabric chairs that fans of their podcast “Ellis Ever After” might recognize.
“Y’all don’t know what she has to offer. People have only been introduced to her as a wife and mom. And, then a podcaster. But they don’t know how we both have trained for performance. How we both went to school and conservatory,” he said.
The moment inside the Ellises’ metro Atlanta home provided a glimpse into the lives of a couple who has not only starred in Perry’s productions but also built a podcast and other content based on their personal and professional relationship. Their home is filled with photos from their work in media, but also intimate family portraits of a trip to Jamaica for Devale’s 40th birthday last year.
As a couple, they’ve appeared on OWN’s “Black Love” series, grown their family YouTube channel to roughly 500,000 subscribers and interviewed celebrities such as Sterling K. Brown and then-presidential candidate Joe Biden on their podcast. They’ve juggled all of this while raising their four sons, whose ages range from 3 to 14 years old.
For years, the Ellises have been a family package, achieving repeated virality for their commentary on love, relationships and business.
They’ve turned much of their story into content, including the fact that they’re both from Brooklyn and began dating in college. Devale’s been vocal about his desire to become an actor after leaving the NFL in 2009, too. Khadeen supported this dream as he juggled attending an acting conservatory with booking commercials and working as a physical trainer. Devale has appeared in productions such as Perry’s BET show “Sistas” and its spinoff, “Zatima,” for BET+, as well as Netflix’s 2024 Christmas rom-com “Meet Me Next Christmas.”
But, even as Khadeen was working as a makeup artist early in their marriage, her goal was always to achieve success as an actress, too. She received a text from Perry on Jan. 6 asking her what her plans were for the year. “I laughed, and I said, ‘Whatever the good Lord has in store for me,’” she recalled. “I said, ‘We’re rebranding the podcast. But other than that, no major plans.”
Perry encouraged her to take a look at an early script for “Divorced Sistas” and fly to Los Angeles for an audition. “I was in a conflict between ‘I can’t believe this is happening’ and ‘it’s time,’” Khadeen said.
The series, which focuses on a group of friends navigating the highs and lows of relationships, launched in June with Khadeen portraying Geneva. In season one, Geneva is a successful attorney who is struggling to navigate mounting challenges within her marriage. The actresses’ parents have long lived with the couple to help them manage their home and parenthood, but Devale flew his parents to Atlanta for extra help during the two weeks that Khadeen was filming.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
The Ellises relocated from Los Angeles in 2021, convinced during a visit three years prior with Khadeen’s uncle that Atlanta could provide them with the chance to achieve both their personal and professional goals as a family. “We walked around his subdivision with the babies, and I was just like, ‘Yo, I’m gonna get you a house here one day,’” Devale recalled. “I could see (in) her eyes what it would feel like for her to be able to walk the kids and have a big house. In my mind, it was like I have to get us here.’”
Atlanta, he said, provided a lower cost of living than New York and California without having to leave the entertainment industry. Here, there’s no so-called mansion tax. The Ellises can live inside a three-story mansion, tucked inside a gated community, for far less than it would cost in other major cities. “It’s either between Atlanta, Texas or Florida,” Devale said. “And I’m not going to Texas or Florida.”
Devale said living in Atlanta and working for Tyler Perry Studios has provided an opportunity to act but also the flexibility to focus on his family. “For example, an advantage we have working at TPS is that we film a season of television in two weeks, whereas most people have to film for 10 months. I make a lot of money. My wife makes a lot of money, and then for the rest of the year, we get to focus on building our family and the projects we want,” he said.
Among these projects was signing on to coproduce the Broadway production of “Othello” that starred Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal earlier this year. The production broke a box office record to become the highest-grossing play in Broadway history, according to Deadline.
Devale also worked alongside Khadeen to rebrand their podcast. Formerly titled “Dead (Explicit),” it was recently relaunched as “Ellis Ever After.” Devale and Khadeen both said they’ve grown tired of the “battle of the sexes” debates that often happen online and via podcasts. Their goal for the podcast now is to move beyond recycled topics about how bills should be split and who should initiate sex to have deeper conversations about relationships and society. The couple said in an effort to widen the perspectives heard on the show, their producers now appear on-air, too.
Khadeen said she’s hoping for a second season of “Divorced Sistas” and new acting opportunities. “I would love to do more acting. I felt so alive in that space, from a career, professional standpoint,” she said.
For now, though, she’s focused on spending quality time with her family. She and Devale celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary on July 4 and said they’ve both been leaning into having fun with their sons. Recently, they’ve gone bowling, had a backyard barbecue and played cards together.
Devale said he’s working to produce more projects, too, inspired by the lack of diverse roles he’s felt have been available to him throughout his career. “Most of Hollywood is not young, Black men, so how are they going to tell stories about a young, Black dad? I want to tell stories about a young, Black dad,” he said.
In the meantime, though, the couple is content enough with taking on the role of mom and dad within their own family.
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