Gbaja-Biamila’s belief in prioritizing health and fitness is also encapsulated in another one of his hosting gigs, emceeing the equally exciting ANJ spinoff, American Ninja Warrior Junior. Plus, he’s partnered with Big Brothers Big Sisters and the outdoor footwear company Merrell to help raise funds for underserved youth. As of September 2021, his to-do list got even longer when he was named a new co-host—and second-ever male panelist, after JerryO’Connell—on the CBS gabfest TheTalk. (Since Gbaja-Biamila’s appointment to the panel, TODAY veteran NatalieMorales has also joined the Talk table, which is rounded out by Amanda Kloots and longtime co-host Sheryl Underwood.) With so much going on, Gbaja-Biamila recently found time to sit down and talk with Parade.com. Keep reading to find out what Akbar Gbaja-Biamila wants to accomplish on The Talk, the advice he got from Tupac Shakur (via one of his co-stars) and his favorite new form of exercise.
Congratulations on TheTalk! What’s surprised you most so far about your new job?
Well, I will say it’s been a long time since I’ve clocked in every single day for work. For Ninja Warrior, we go to a location, we come back for a couple of weeks, rest, go to another location. But I think the part that’s been the most surprising is just how welcoming it’s been and the lack of ego. To be on a team that big—you know, there’s five of us now: Natalie Morales, the newly joinedJerry O’Connell, Sheryl Underwood, Amanda Kloots. We really do work kind of like a basketball five; you’re able to dish around, move around. But I love the diversity, too—not only the diversity in ethnicity and diversity in gender, but also the diversity in experience and thoughts. It really does make for great discussions on how we see the world. I love how we can disagree with each other, how we can agree with each other, but at the end of the day, still be very, very cool with each other.
What’s it like trying to have a conversation on TV? How do you make sure it’s good and compelling without everyone talking over each other?
You get these eight-minute windows to share your thoughts—but you have to share that window with four other people. So sometimes all four of us get to chime in on it, other times just two, sometimes it’s one, and so there is a dance and a healthy balance, but even in an eight-minute window, sometimes you can’t articulate every single thought. So the thing that I’ve been learning is to fine-tune just staying on a specific point. But you can’t make everybody happy. So you might hone in on a specific point—just because there’s a certain amount of time, or you want to be able to share that window with someone else—then you can go on social media and people say, “I can’t believe you didn’t say this!” and I’m like, “I can’t say everything in a small window!” To me, the idea is that you say something that is at least intriguing, that at least gets people to investigate themselves, to be able to look at themselves and say, “Hey you know what, I can do this better,” or, “I never thought about that idea,” or you know, “This challenges me in a new way.”
What topics do you hope to bring up around the Talk table that doesn’t get discussed as much as you think they should?
I get pretty passionate about things. I want to cancel “cancel culture.” I hope that my model of conversation over confrontation will kind of bleed into the world [because] there’s actually a beauty to having a certain level of ignorance because not everyone is exposed to everything. I tell this story a lot; in fact, I talk about it in my book. I grew up in an all-Black community in South Central Los Angeles. And so I was not exposed to having white friends or white teammates because I grew up in an all-Black community, right? So there’s going to be a level of ignorance that I don’t have about the white community. And same is true with some of my white teammates in college who grew up in white neighborhoods and didn’t have Black friends. But when we came together at San Diego State, we had some very—as my friend Emmanuel Acho will say, “uncomfortable conversations.” We had some uncomfortable conversations, but what ensued during the five-year process in college playing football is, we learned to love each other, we learned about our differences, we learned about our ignorances, we grew from that. But now it’s like, if you have ignorance, the pressure to be perfect is insane. It’s like we’re living in a fantasy world now where everybody has to know everything. Yes, information is everywhere, but let’s be honest: We’ve got jobs, we’ve got kids, we’ve got families, we’ve got other priorities. I’m not sitting on a computer Googling every single piece of information, you know what I mean? I said this on the show the other day: After I lost my mother I realized, I mean—I know this is going to sound crazy—but sometimes you think we’re going to live forever, right? You just think yeah, tomorrow will be here. And when that security is gone, when you lose somebody so close to you, you realize, “Wow, I do need to be more conscious of spending time with my kids, spending time with my wife, my friends.” So yeah, I’m not Googling everything out there, you know what I mean? But the topics we talk about [on The Talk], of course, I want to be well informed on. If I can hope to do anything while I’m on TheTalk with Jerry and Amanda and Sheryl and Natalie is that we can end this idea of cancel culture and promote people having conversations and understanding that ignorance is OK because the only way you’re going to learn—we all came from a point of ignorance, so let’s never forget that. We all came from a point of ignorance where we did not know and then we learned and then we got better, right?
How do you think TheTalk has or hasn’t changed now that it’s pivoted away from its all-female panel?
Obviously, there’s change because there’s diversity in the conversation now because for a very long time—and I get it, I understand that having the women’s voice was so important, but I think what the show is doing now is changing the game and being able to be inclusive and being able to have the male dialogue along with the female dialogue, to be able to have a 360-degree view, a 3D type of dimension on different topics. You know, you can hear from one perspective like if I told you what it was like growing up in my neighborhood, you’d only be hearing it from my perspective. But then you get it from a woman’s perspective, you start to get it from different angles so you have a fuller understanding.
What’s the best advice you’ve received from your Talk co-hosts so far?
Sheryl Underwood said something to me—in fact, she got it from Tupac Shakur and I kind of had to stop the conversation real quick. I was like, “Hold up, you know you can’t just be dropping nuggets on me and telling me Tupac!” I teased her. But she said, “Do what got you there.” Do what got you there. And I think about that often and that goes for anything. Sometimes you’re coming into a new space; for me, coming from primetime doing Ninja Warrior, coming into the daytime space, it’s different. Do what got you there. That’s what Tupac gave her and she passed along and it feels so great.
What might Talk fans be surprised to know about what the show’s like behind the scenes and what it takes to produce the show every day?
Oh boy. What might fans be surprised by… Maybe the fact that I get there at 5:30 every morning and get a workout in?
That works! Speaking of health, you’ve long been a champion for getting kids active and outdoors, both through BBBS and hosting American Ninja Warrior Junior. What have you found are the best strategies for making sure kids get that active outdoor time?
I’ll be honest, it was my wife who really encouraged me to be outdoorsy—I’m a city boy, right? And once she opened me up to nature and going on hikes and being able to just kind of experience the outdoors I’m like, yo, this is pretty cool. This is something that I hadn’t really experienced and I love helping to give that to people through my partnership with Big Brothers, Big Sisters. We talked earlier about ignorance; I was ignorant about the benefits [of spending time outdoors.] I grew up in the gym, basketball, football, weight room, that’s what I know. I didn’t mess around with the outdoors. But once I got a taste of it I’m like, yo, my heart rate, I burn 1,000 calories! My wife will tell you this because I’m always thinking like, you’re not really working out if you’re going out for a hike. But man, I’ve seen that it’s a lot easier and refreshing and energizing; you’re introducing serotonin because you’re out in nature and I’m getting the same type of quality workout, but also, there’s something that happens when you’re out in nature that’s just different. I think it’s great, especially for kids who don’t have access to those areas and I think that’s where Big Brother, Big Sister is—I mean, they’re like that lead blocker in football. They are making a way to help kids who don’t have that type of access. So I just want to help promote that, because there’s a beauty to it. There’s a beauty to it. Next, Rosario Dawson on How She Chills Out in NYC and Which of Her Dopesick Co-Stars Is Bound to Win an Emmy
