Coco Jones might be 24 years old, but the burgeoning Hollywood superstar has the wisdom, self-awareness and self-assurance of someone well beyond her years. Hustling for more than a decade to get the autonomy she’s starting to grasp in her personal and professional life, Jones, with the help of Pure Leaf, is giving the people what they want: her two cents on how to stand up and stay true to yourself.
Jones has partnered with the beverage brand to operate their Subtly Sweet “Hotline,” where the multi-hyphenate will dish advice to TikTok users who are struggling with the societal pressure put on women to always be kind. Jones will ask fans to share their “am I being too sweet?” questions in the comments. She’ll analyze them and share her recommendations on how to find the right balance between being sweet and standing up for yourself. It’s a balance the Bel-Air star has struggled with in the past.
“A lot of moments where I was overly sweet, whether it was professional or personal, stemmed from me not being as confident in myself,” she told Blavity.
Jones also expressed that, as a child star, she felt the pressure to always say yes to people and projects. Even if those projects didn’t feel right.
“A lot of it stemmed from knowing how to execute well but not knowing what I really wanted to execute,” she explains. “When you’re a child in the industry, all you know is like scripts and characters and roles, and I knew how to fit those roles really well. But I didn’t know what I wanted to say and how I wanted to dress and what I wanted to sing about.”
She had to learn what she describes as a process of elimination. But, it was tough.
“That’s why I love Pure Leaf’s Subtly Sweet ‘Hotline’ campaign. I felt so responsible for saying yes to people. I felt like I was disappointing them, and I felt I was not as easy to work with if I didn’t want to do something.”
She continued, explaining that she “had to figure out how to communicate why I’m not going to do something. But, I’ll do something else and it’ll be better because it’ll be true to me.”
Learning those communication skills is how Jones has managed to have autonomy over her career at such a young age. And while she’s made incredible strides, she confesses that there’s so much she’s still figuring out.
“The journey’s a little confusing in your 20s,” she says with a laugh. “You do get in these moments where you feel peer pressure and you’re like, ‘wait, I’m grown. Why do I feel this responsibility?'”
There’s so much Jones wishes she knew when she was a young up-and-coming performer. I’m shocked to find out that she regrets not pushing herself harder and taking control of her career even earlier in her life.
“You’re a little too relaxed right now,” she tells me she would say to her younger self. “You’re not busy enough, like, do more. Like, you can really be going to more acting classes, more music classes, learning music production, instead of just waiting on somebody to send you a song.”
When it comes to navigating Hollywood as a dark-skinned Black woman, Jones said she would have prepared her younger self for blocking out the noise and being a little delusional to succeed.
“The world has a narrative for you that doesn’t align with what you want, so you’re gonna have to create your own world,” she said. “Some people look a little crazy, but that’s okay. You’ll get where you want to get because you’re not accepting any narratives that don’t feel authentic to you. Keep doing that and then once you feel like it’s not working, keep doing a little bit more.”
If Jones had a resource like the Subtly Sweet “Hotline,” she expressed that she wouldn’t have entertained the people who did her wrong for as long as she did.
“I’d do something about friendships that I knew were draining and toxic, guys that didn’t value me the way I value myself. I would have stopped a lot of conversations before they carried themselves out into my life and affected me.”
She’d also secure a self-care routine way earlier.
“Self-care is something you learn way too late in the game.”
The Subtly Sweet “Hotline” is just the beginning of Jones sharing more of herself with fans. She’s gearing up to release an EP this fall — right around the time Bel-Air will start filming season two — which the singer says will see her more vulnerable than ever before.
“I really want to take the mask of perfection. I know how to execute and present myself really well, but I want to be able to be vulnerable so that the songs are useful and tap into very honest places that are scary and not as pretty.”
It’s scary new territory, but Jones is ready for it.
“It’s worth it for me to make music that can help someone else,” she said.