Ever since Meagan Good and DeVon Franklin jumped the broom back in 2012, folks have been critical of the Think Like A Man star’s outfits. While Good’s been in the entertainment business since she was a kid, her critics seemed to expect the sexy actress to overhaul her wardrobe once she married Franklin, a Seventh Day Adventist minister.
“A lot of people came for me, and it was really hard to process,” Good said during an ESSENCE Festival empowerment panel on love and marriage.
Though Good’s been saved since she was 12, the flack she received from her fellow Christians hurt.
“It kind of made me upset with the church for a while. People don’t know what they do, but you have to love them regardless,” she said. “But you have to own your truth.”
Her husband agreed. In addition to being a minister, Franklin has been in the entertainment business for 18 years. The former Colombia Pictures executive said the problem is that some religious folks are just too judgmental.
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“So many people try to live by a label, but that’s not the box God put us in,” he explained. “Who we are is not defined by a box. When I live by your expectations of what I should do, then I limit who I am and then I become depressed because I can’t be my true self.”
Apparently, what Franklin should do, according to the couple’s detractors, is control what his wife puts on. But he has other ideas.
“I don’t own her [and] she doesn’t own me. We are together and I respect whatever she chooses to put on,” Franklin explained. “When I married her, I said, ‘I accept you for who you are. And whatever you choose to wear, that is your right.’”
Franklin’s open-mindedness about his wife’s style choices was tested when Good wore a stunning, low-cut dress to the 2013 BET award. While many balked at her choice, Franklin said it was cool with him.
“I saw her before she walked out, and I said, ‘Amen, praise the Lord,’” he jokingly told ESSENCE Festival attendees.
“The only ones with the guns out were those that read the same word that says, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ But the love was not there,” Franklin explained. “I don’t have an issue [with her clothes]. It’s not about the dress; it’s about her heart. And I know her heart is amazing, that’s why I love her.”