Black Celebrity Men

Mike Vick and his beautiful fiancee Kijafa (who I thought was Trina when I first looked at the cover...well, a prettier version of Trina) are featured in the April 2010 issue of Sister 2 Sister magazine. Now, usually I hate reading interviews in S2S because they're always like 12 pages (front and back) long...literally! But this time, since I'm a fan of their reality show The Michael Vick Project, I trudged through it and I'm glad I did because it was really a good read. So much so that Mike and Kijafa, who plan to tie the knot next summer, are quickly becoming one of my favorite celeb couples for three reasons: 1.) because this girl stands by her man! 2.) Mike absolutely adores her. Shit, he better! LOL! And 3.) they make such a beautiful couple. Below are excerpts from their interview. They dished on everything from how they met (they both have their own stories) to how Kijafa dealt with Mike's incarceration, their money situation and the way folks treated him after he was released. Mike also spoke about his first night in prison, what he plans to do once he retires from football and mending his relationship with his father.

MIKE & KIJAFA ON HOW THEY MET:

MIKE: "I saw her in a nightclub and she was smiling at me. I called her over, asked her what she was smiling about. She said, 'Because I think you're cute,' I said, 'Cool. Go on, stand back right there. I'll come back there and talk to you in a second, because you know, she was there with her crew, so I didn't want to intrude. So I said, 'Go stand right there; I'll be there in a second.' So I went and talked to my man Rick, came back and she was still in the same spot--still smiling. But it was a cute smile, you know, a pretty face, long hair. Yeah, I liked her. So she gave me her number and we went from there."

KIJAFA: "Yeah, okay! I just want yall to know that is completely and utterly false. He was all up on me. That night I must've been looking real nice because a lot of fellows was in the club and they was buying me drinks, and I had two drinks in my hand and I felt this stare. So I looked over and I see this little chocolate thing looking at me. I said, oh, he's kind of cute. So I'm smiling and he's smiling at me. His story is false, but we always argue about how we met. Anyway, I did smile at him and he was smiling back and, you know, he told me to come in. I said, no I'm not coming. If a man wants you, he'll come to you. So he made his way over to me. Did you come or did you not come?"

MIKE: "I mean, I came, you know, because that was the proper thing to do. From the first time we talked, we talked probably 'bout two hours. I was at Walmart walking around shopping. We talked on the phone the whole time, and we just had a friendship that I never had with another girl and talked about things that I never talked about with even some of my friends. So I felt the friendship aspect of it was there. And she can cook!"

KIJAFA: "Way before the relationship, we had a friendship. He's a great guy. He does nice things for me. One of our first dates, he took me to Hawaii."

KIJAFA ON HOW SHE DEALT WITH MIKE'S INCARCERATION: "I just thought that our life was over. I was pregnant when this all came up. I actually moved out there. I took the children. We lived about 20 minutes away from the prison. I got a house out there so I could see him whenever I missed him."

MIKE ON HIS FIRST NIGHT IN PRISON: "I turned around and looked at the door, and I really couldn't believe that I put myself in that situation--that I was finally playing the cost of my crime. And then every time the guard would come to the door to check on me that first day, I thought he was coming to let me out. That wasn't the case. So, the first three hours I got claustrophobic. I had to get under the covers and pull the sheet over my head for a while to try to go to sleep. I kept looking at the food they gave me. That was a bad experience. I'm glad I got through it but it was hard. But it made me grow stronger as a person.

KIJAFA ON HOW SOME FOLKS TREAT MIKE SINCE HE'S BEEN HOME: "Oh, nothing but love, always. I think that the haters, or the people who dislike him, they just keep quiet. People who love him, they absolutely go crazy when they see him. I love to see people give him positive attention. I just smile and I tell him to sign autographs, and I ask them if they want me to take their picture. Some people don't really care about what he actually did. They just love him for what he did on the field. White, Black, Asian, you know they just show him love. So, I don't like to hear people say, oh, it's only White people who don't like him. I read things and I see things like Black people saying he should never play football again."

 MORE EXCERPTS & PHOTOS FROM MIKE & KIJAFA'S INTERVIEW WHEN YOU CLICK THE LINK BELOW!

MIKE ON BEING PUNISHED FOR DOG FIGHTING: "We always knew it was wrong. We always knew that if we got caught doing it then there would be consequences. But we never thought about what would happen until it happened. Now, looking back, we know that what we did was wrong, and we got punished for it....I think it's almost everywhere around the U.S. but it's so underground that you wouldn't even know. I just think when we was doing it we just took it to a different level. It was too many dogs and too many people involved."

KIJAFA: "I think it came down hard on Mike because of who he is. Of course what he did was wrong. It wasn't right, but there are thousands of other people who do the same thing across the United States, across the world and none of these stories will ever gain the news that Michael's did."

KIJAFA ON THEIR MONEY SITUATION: "A lot of people see him and think he's lost a lot of money, but actually he's gained a lot of respect. He knows how to handle things better now. The money may have changed, but the life is great. I don't want to make it seem like we're broke and we don't have any money. We can still pretty much do what we want. We definitely spent a lot, and he definitely saved even more."

MIKE ON PLAYING BALL & HIS PLANS AFTER THE NFL: "I'm pretty optimistic about it. I think I have a bright future in the NFL. I think I've been doing the right things. I've been trying to stay out of the limelight. I think that's what the commissioner wanted me to do, and that's what I'm trying to do....Once my career is done, I plan on continuing to run my brand, MV7. So I'll have several products out, whether it's Mike Vick football, Mike Vick DVDs---things of that nature. Fun things I can play around with that's going to appeal to the kids. Coaching high school for about two, three years and then coaching college football."

MIKE ON ENDORSEMENTS: "If I do the right thing, they'll come back. I put it in God's hands. It won't be the same type of deals money-wise, but I don't feel like I'm really gonna need them. I feel like my brand will get the right people to back it, and come out with my products, like the DVDs that I'm going to shoot. It's going to be educational for kids on proper football techniques--footwork, the ability to be mobile."

MIKE ON REPAIRING HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS ESTRANGED FATHER: "Our relationship has grown even closer. It's even tighter because of what I've been through. We're able to communicate with each other now. In spite of all these discrepancies and rumors we had in the past, we try to manage and keep moving forward, making our relationship grow stronger."

MIKE ON KEEPING HIS HOME INTACT: "It's just what's in your heart---your priorities, your morals and your values. I just felt once my son was born, even though it didn't work out with his mom, I tried to be there. When my daughter Jada was born through Kijafa four years later, I went from staying out to wanting to be home at night with them. I never looked back. On the other hand, she wasn't allowing me to continue being out like that. I wasn't a wild individual, but I partied and I lived that life. It really wasn't me; it was God who was putting it in my heart to do the right thing."

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