We’ve watched JoJo Simmons grow from a skinny teenager of a hip hop legend to an accomplished and married father of two on WE Tv’s Growing Up Hip Hop. The eldest Simmons son invites fans into his home weekly on the reality series, showing him in a more intimate light as a loving father and husband, alongside his longtime partner turned wife, Tanice. Fans say the couple is #goals on young, positive, Black love.
“I think it’s dope that we do that but to say it’s intentional would be not right,” JoJo admits. “We’re being us. I happen to be on the show and my wife is on here. We got married for us. We didn’t get married for any narrative or any storyline but on the good side is that it does show Black love, and Black young love and I’m happy we can be, I guess, an inspiration to some people for that.”
While Tanice is new to reality television and is more recently getting comfortable with the exposure that comes with it, JoJo is a vet. Having starred on Run’s House and Daddy’s Girls alongside his family for several years and now working alongside his intimate family at home and his sisters Vanessa and Angela, fans are always looking for the Simmons kids to do a spinoff. JoJo is the humorous one of the bunch and fans love to see their dynamic.
“We definitely speak about it, we’ve had talks about it but right now we are focusing on Growing Up Hip Hop,” he says. “Maybe in the future, we’ll have something going but for now, it’s this.”
And focusing on his family and their personal business endeavors is exactly what JoJo is about. This season, their storyline centered on JoJo working to produce a showcase to introduce new artists on his label. Though he’s an artist himself, an all-around mogul is more of what he has his eyes set on. Sometimes, it’s caused Tanice to feel secondary, but they manage to get through it.
Tanice debuted her baby bump to the world, but it came with a bit of sadness. The couple previously suffered a miscarraige and as viewers saw after announcing her pregnancy, Tanice was afraid she could suffer a similar fate. Still, they feel blessed to expand their family and sharing their story of love, loss, and gain has been therapeutic.
“Getting the coaching from the producers with them asking, ‘Would you feel comfortable talking about this? So many women can relate.’ That was more of an eye opener,” Tanice explains. “I said, ‘Let me use the platform to keep it real, to be honest and show people that I’m not perfect, it’s happened to me’ and once we did it, so many other women reached out…I’m happy that we did speak about it.”
Now that their family is expanding, they want to keep the momentum with their business. The couple are working on things together and individually, including Tanice’s lifestyle brand.
“Seeing us balance being parents and building our brands together is what I’ve been most excited about,” Tanice gushes.
Watch the interview below:
The season 6 finale of Growing up Hip Hop airs Thursday, July 29 on WE Tv.
