hard to remember when you were first introduced to Adrienne Bailon-Houghton, given that she was a staple in many of our childhoods. Maybe you met her as the bubbly Chanel in the cult-classic “Cheetah Girls” movies. Or as one-third of the girl group 3LW, when
she sang the now famous refrain “Playas Gon’ Play.” Perhaps you connected with her decades later as the voice of reason on Fox’s daytime talk show “The Real.”
Somehow, she’s always been a friend in our heads, a constant fixture in the cultural zeitgeist.
When you ask Bailon-Houghton which era she returns to when she needs a dopamine boost, the answer is easy. “Music will always be my first love,” she tells Popsugar, between takes on the set of our Feel-Good List cover shoot in Manhattan. “Anything that I get to
do in the music space always gives me that feeling” — the sense that “this is why I do it.”
The Feel-Good Icon
BY JESSICA ANDREWS
PHOTOGRAPHS BY NELSON HUANG
WELCOME TO
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If music is her first love, acting is the long-lost love she wants to rekindle. This February marked her return to the big screen in Roku’s “Chef’s Kiss,” a romantic comedy featuring a driven marketing exec (Bailon-Houghton as Lauren Navarro) and a handsome chef (Tim Robards as Mason) — set against the picturesque backdrop of Tuscany, Italy.
Bailon-Houghton’s first rom-com debuted more than 10 years ago: superfans remember her 2013 movie “I’m In Love With a Church Girl” with Ja Rule. This year, she found herself eager to return to the world
of “morning calls and side sheets and memorizing lines.”
One of the most enduring lessons Bailon-Houghton has picked up over
the years is the power in saying “no.” In the early stages of her career, “it was a mentality of ‘work hard, take every opportunity that comes to you,’” she says, repeating a refrain very familiar to millennials. “I’m just now learning how to [say no] and not have FOMO.”
By giving herself the freedom to step off the hamster wheel, Bailon-Houghton unlocked a new level of joy. “I always heard the saying, ‘Do
what you have to do so that you can do what you want to do.’ And I'm at the do-what-you-want-to-do stage in my life and that's really exciting,”
she says. “I do things that I'm passionate about, while at the same time being a mom and a wife — and I get to prioritize those things. That to
me is definitely the most joyful.”
She isn’t shy about expressing gratitude for the everyday luxuries of life — in fact, it’s a hallmark of her faith that she hopes to instill in her son: “We wake up
in the morning and the first thing we do is pray and say that we're thankful. I say it in Spanish, and we literally have a whole list. My life, our health, our home, our safety, our family. He thanks God for his toys.”
This lesson, she says, will be the greatest foundation of his joy. “The last thing I would want is to have a child who is never satisfied.”
There’s also bliss in living with intention. Bailon-Houghton’s mantra for this year: “I'm not waiting for some specific thing to give me permission to do the thing that I want to do. If you ever had a restaurant you wanted to go to, but you're waiting for all your girlfriends to have the perfect date, no. Even if I go solo dolo, I'm going to do it,” she says, her voice rising with excitement. “I have this dress I've been wanting to wear. I'm waiting for this special — no, I'm going to wear it to the grocery store.”
Quickly, she lands back on her first love: music. “I've been saying forever that I want to work on a solo music project. I have a studio at my house. There is
no excuse. I'm going to go down and just start the process,” she says. “I'm just going to do it.”
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“There was that moment of excitement and that feeling of ‘I'm gonna be back on set and we're gonna have a trailer,’ and just all those old things that I remember so fondly about moviemaking,” she says. “But now, doing it as an adult and bringing my son to the set, makes it that much more special.”
She’s a different person than she was a decade or two ago, having developed a wealth of life experience as a mother (to 3-year-old son, Ever), wife (to gospel legend Israel Houghton), and entertainment icon. Her journey has only made her more intentional about cultivating optimism, which is why we named Bailon-Houghton our Feel-Good
Icon as part of our inaugural Feel-Good List, a celebration of the people, places, and moments delivering joy when the world needs it most.
Bailon-Houghton is a consummate professional on set — exacting about her poses, her outfit, her interactions — but when she talks about her home life, her guard completely melts away. “I am a creature of comfort and am also very much a homebody,” she says. “Leave me at home, candles lit, a clean house, my son taking a nap. I'm in the fetal position on the couch with a comfy blanket watching ‘Gilmore Girls.’”
Creative
Editor-in-Chief: Kelsey Castañon
Photographer: Nelson Huang
VP, Creative, Vox Creative: Colleen Lennon
Senior Art Director, Vox Creative: Meg Konigsburg
Senior Visuals Designer: Summer Bockart
Visual Designer, Vox Creative: Binlin Cao
Photo Assistant/Digitech: Ren Jheng
Senior Style Director: Jessica Andrews
Shopping Director: Sarah Wasilak
Assistant Shopping Editor: Naomi Parris
Talent, Hair: Hayley Logan
Talent, Makeup: Sierra Matthews
HMU: Cami Talbot
Production Designer: Katie Bloom
Set Designer: Miles Bettinelli
Set Assistant: Max Kotsonis
Retoucher: Vianca Maldonado
Director of Production: Alex Friedlander
Associate Producer: Dominique Guillory
Editorial
Senior Director of Special Projects: Lena Felton
Director of Audience Development: Kaitlin Hatton
Managing Editor: Karen Snyder Duke
Editorial Operations Coordinator: Caitlin Oates
Video
Director of Photography: Thomas Jezik
Head of Video Production, Lifestyle: Stefania Orrú
Vice President of Video, Lifestyle: Stephen Pelletteri
Supervising Producer, Social Video, Lifestyle: Jordan Shalhoub
Associate Social Talent Manager: Mia Marquez
Styling
alice + olivia Coat, Zara blazer and shorts (via Pickle), Jennifer Fisher jewelry, Tights and pumps, talent's own
