Celebrity Sighting, D.L. Hughley, the First Celebrity I Met of Many

I've met quite a few celebrities over the years, some in professional settings and others by just being at the right place at the right time. Celebrities I've interviewed in person include Trey Songz, Ludacris, E. Lynn Harris (who I met first at Border's, interviewed later) and briefly talked with Common.

Celebrities I've interviewed via phone include Donell Jones, MC Lyte, Barry Floyd, Brandon Adams, Ne-Yo, Heather Headley, Steve Harvey (who I also bumped into at the 2009 Bud Billiken Parade), Jeremih and Sister Souljah.

I've also met and interviewed some artists you may know by song or project but not by name (yet), but they are just as phenomenal, including Keezo Kane (producer of "Ga Ga" song), Mike-E (spokesperson for the American Cancer Society, Def Poet, member of AfroFlow and Pelle Pelle model), comedians Damon Williams and Damon Wayans, Chicago's Soul Train host Clinton Ghent, Chicago pianist Reginald Robinson (HyPa performer), author Karen Siplin and Chicago singer Ben One.

I once walked into Walgreen's and was pleasantly surprised to see Irma P. Hall (Mother Joe from the 1997 film "Soul Food") at the checkout line. My mother and I kept peeking at her, but neither one of us got up enough nerve to walk up to her to speak.

But the very first celebrity I met was when I was around 11 years old, and it was one of the four "Kings of Comedy" comedians, D.L. Hughley. My mother is the manager at a Chicago credit union, and every year, she'd invite me to the conventions. I'd collect all kinds of office supplies, T-shirts, pens, pins, flyers and other good material to read. Then afterwards I'd hang out in the hotel while she went to company meetings with her co-workers. But one day while we were on our way to my cousin's hotel room (who was also affiliated with the credit union), we decided to drop by a ceramics shop in the lobby.

During my pre-teen years, my mother and I were both really into painting. We could decorate your entire house with decorations, dishes, garden material, board games, kleenex boxes and even design your mirrors from doing so much ceramic painting. We went into the small gift shop to find out what other people were painting and to get ideas about what we wanted to paint next. But there was this guy in there staring at ceramics.

This may sound sexist, but it was a little odd to find a guy in a ceramics shop. We were used to seeing husbands of female ceramics shop owners there to pull out burned ceramic items, but that's where it ended. I'd taken plenty of ceramic classes and met other painters, but I never ran into guys who were interested in painting ceramics. Usually when we saw a man painting, it was painting houses or cars. But this guy was really into it. He was staring in glass displays and admiring everything. I kept looking at the dark mark on his cheek, wondering how that happened. He turned to the side and I looked at his hair and then his build, and my face lit up with recognition.

I whispered to my mother that that was D.L. Hughley. "The Original Kings of Comedy" released in 2000, and I was born in 1981, so I'm positive that I met him before the comedy special because I hadn't yet made it to high school. I knew D.L. Hughley from doing "Def Comedy Jam" and "BET's Comic View." My mother wasn't nearly as nervous to meet him so she encouraged me to walk over. He turned around, flashed us the biggest smile and I said, "Excuse me. Are you a comedian?" He looked down at me and said, "Yes."

I didn't say much after that because him and my mother started chatting about painting and ceramics, and she treated the encounter like a business venture. That's where I get my business savvy from. But when they were getting ready to leave, I blurted out, "You are so cute!" and covered my face giggling. He blushed and said, "Thank you. You are too." I almost melted right into the floor.

For the rest of the year, there wasn't a boy in my entire school who could tell me anything. D.L. Hughley told me I was cute, and I was on cloud nine. It's funny now because whenever I see him on television, even when he's being super rude to the crowd, I always remember he's a very nice guy in person. He certainly deserves his spot (even before I met him) as a King of Comedy.