There’s a growing trend where people are choosing to travel the world, see new things, and have memorable experiences but are choosing to do so with individuals they deem acquaintances rather than close friends or family members. For some, going this route might sound absurd, but Eva Marcille says doing so for a trip to Vietnam, captured for her new show, offered an opportunity for not just exploration but transformation in her life.
“Being able to navigate Vietnam during this spiritual transition, with people I wasn’t super familiar with, it happened to be more cathartic than I thought,” she tells ESSENCE. “If I was on a trip with my best friends and my cousins and the people who are super close to me, I don’t think I would’ve felt safe enough to express my true feelings, how sad I really was, and what I was really going through.”
The actress and TV personality is one of the stars of Peacock’s limited travel series, Eat, Slay, Love. The Will Packer-produced project follows Marcille, fellow TV personality Tammy Rivera, and comedian London Hughes as they travel to Vietnam to celebrate the birthday of the trip’s planner, singer and TV personality Nivea.
“Tammy and Nivea, I was familiar with them,” Marcille says. “Not best friends and crazy close, but we all have friends in common. We all live in Atlanta. We’ve all worked together in some way, shape, or form. London, I didn’t know her at all. I had never met her, but she’s from the UK, she’s a Black girl, and she’s out here doing her thing. Nivea vouched for her, so I was like, ‘Let’s go!'”
The 40-year-old mother of three considers herself a “hodophile,” a lover of travel whose appetite was originally whet back when she was a child growing up in South Central, Los Angeles, thanks to her parents.
“My mom was very sincere about making sure her children knew the world and were able to travel. So she would book us a trip every summer and every winter. A lot of times, we were going to like Detroit, but my mom made sure she took us to New York so I could see my first Broadway play. There were a lot of things that she did to make us want to travel the world,” she recalls.
Some of the star’s favorite destinations include Zanzibar and Tanzania, and recent locales she’s visited are Italy, Paris, and Spain. But Vietnam? That wasn’t a place that she had on her radar to see. But her time in the Southeast Asian country left enough of an impression on her that it’s now on her favorites list.
“I was not expecting Vietnam to be what it was,” she says. “It’s just the culture. They wake up in the morning together when the sun rises, everyone goes to the beach to watch the sunrise and do yoga, then they all break and take the kids to school. When the kids were done with school in the afternoon, the whole city shut down just to pick all the kids up. The families would sit and have food together. And I don’t mean big fancy meals, but it was just such a community of togetherness.”
It was also much slower. Having experienced the hustle and bustle of most major cities in America, Marcille knew quick-fast-and-in-a-hurry best. But at the time of her trip to Vietnam with the ladies, she was looking to slow down and figure things out. She’d just gone through a divorce with her ex-husband, Michael Sterling, and needed some time away to heal.
“Nivea decided to do this trip and she promised me this was going to be a spiritual awakening, not just a turn-up. I was going through a divorce, could definitely use an escape, but I needed to be very focused and centered and intentional,” she says. “I needed some understanding in my surrendering to God.”
She adds, “What I learned when I was in Vietnam was to slow down and let the process process. So, I’m looking for my drinks to come out faster, and asking, ‘Why aren’t we there yet?’ All those things. And there was a moment where I just realized, this is why you’re here, to learn how to relinquish control. This is the surrender, this is the letting go, this is the letting God part. I decided to yield to it and give God reign over the moment and when I did, so much happened. But for me, spiritually, I grew so much, learned so much, and was able to release myself, which I don’t think I have given myself the ability to do. I would usually just fold in and put my strong face on when I walked out the door. But here I had a release and had it on TV.”
And, as mentioned, she had to do it with women she didn’t know all that well. Marcille says she found comfort from women who’d been through similar experiences (Both Nivea and Rivera have gone through high-profile divorces), and freedom to open up to people who didn’t know all the ins and outs of her life. There was still sisterhood.
“I was there with a very broken heart. And I don’t think I would’ve been comfortable to show how heartbroken my heart was if I was with people that I knew well,” she admits. “I was just free to be me. I was free to be honest and authentic, with no masks. ‘It’s all good today…Well, it’s not good, actually.’ You know what I mean? I enjoyed being able to learn myself and be free in myself with new people. It was more than I expected.”
Based on the smile she flashed throughout our conversation, it’s clear that Marcille is in a great space now. She had to travel without a beloved vape pen (medicinal and recreational marijuana is not allowed in Vietnam), and decided that in addition to giving up that, she’d also give up her morning coffee during the trip, opting for tea. Doing so allowed her to continue to find clarity once she returned home.
“It has been so beautiful, feeling in control of myself,” she says warmly. “When I wake up in the morning, I’m not waking up looking for that coffee to wake me up. I wake up, I sit in my space, I talk to God, and He speaks to me, and I put out what I want for the day and tell him what I’m thankful for. The moments I would usually have coffee are now spent with God. That wouldn’t even have happened had I not gone to Vietnam and decided to elect to give up something because they forced me to give up something. Now I feel lighter. I definitely still will never be a perfect person. I’m still divorced. I haven’t found anybody, but I’m also not looking. I’m just happy. And I know it because my kids see it. So for me, just being good in my soul, it feels different. I feel like I have everything I need. I lack nothing. I truly don’t.”
In addition to watching Marcille go on a literal and figurative journey with Nivea, Rivera, and Hughes, what can audiences expect to see during the three-part series? Marcille has been on a few reality shows now (America’s Next Top Model and Real Housewives of Atlanta), and this foray is vastly different from the previous displays. She says you’re seeing the most authentic version of her and the other ladies, too. “We all came on this trip with a specific intention as to what we wanted to grow in, and we helped each other do that.”
You’re also going to be motivated to add Vietnam to your bucket list. There are plenty of takeaways from the limited series, but Marcille seems most passionate about encouraging you to find your way, not only to the country but around the world in general.
“You have to go to Vietnam. If you don’t mind traveling for a day, take one person with you, take one bag. Don’t take a whole lot of stuff. You don’t need it. That’s one thing I learned there. We enjoy ‘stuff,’ but we don’t need stuff,” Marcille says. “It is so beautiful. I can’t even explain it. You have to watch the show. But I’m telling everyone, take the time. If you have the luxury to cut back on buying purses and cute stuff to put on the ‘gram, get a couple of dollars together and go travel the world. You will learn so much. Not just about the world, but about yourself.”
All three episodes of Eat, Slay, Love are now streaming on Peacock.