Reggie Yates Reveals The Secret To Staying Driven & Reaching Your Potential | E90

Reggie Yates traces his journey from a single-parent household on a Holloway council estate, raised by West African immigrant parents, to a three-decade career across acting, presenting, radio, documentaries and now feature filmmaking. He explains how early child-acting on the sitcom Desmond's let him see behind the curtain that work could be joyful and aligned with passion. He opens up about therapy, getting to know his shadow, a public scandal that offended the Jewish community, and the lessons that came from it. The conversation ranges widely across fatherhood, his absent biological father, leadership style, dating as a moving target, and what love and fulfillment mean to him. Throughout, he returns to his core drive: understanding the power of his platform and using it to empower young, diverse talent.

• As a child actor on Desmond's, surrounded by Black cast and crew enjoying work, Reggie realized work didn't have to be hated the way his family experienced it.
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• Reggie says a few years ago he publicly said something that deeply offended the Jewish community and learned 'your intentions mean nothing if you hurt people.'
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• Daniel Kaluuya told him 'there's a reason golf balls have dents in them... golf balls with dents go further,' which reframed the scandal as growth.
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• He reveals he never had a present father but had 'bits of dad' from mentors, the basis of a book he's writing called Bits of Dad.
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• He has completed his first feature film, Pirates, a 1999 UK garage-set story about three 18-year-old men of color, which he wrote, produced and directed.
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• Reggie walked away from prime-time TV and a decade-long Radio 1 chart show, taking a financial hit, to pursue documentaries and filmmaking.
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• He is creative director and business partner in Blue Skies, a dairy-free ice cream made in Ghana that employs 3,000+ people, sold on Amazon Fresh and in Waitrose.
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• He forgave his absent biological father, a musician, and cries listening to his song 'Jojo's Song' because of the beauty the man gives strangers.
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• Both Reggie's parents were born in Ghana and came to London as children; he was born on Tottenham Court Road and raised in Holloway.
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• At about nine years old he saw his first machine gun when police raided a flat on his floor of the estate.
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• As a child actor he had tens of thousands of pounds in a bank account before secondary school while his mother struggled to put food on the table.
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• His grandfather worked two jobs, a night security guard and a daytime mathematics professor, to build a home in Ghana.
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• Reggie's first acting job at age eight was on Desmond's, described as Channel 4's longest-running sitcom.
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• He interviewed the Spice Girls at age 12 and has had a media career spanning over 30 years.
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• Reggie wrote drafts of Pirates at Richard Curtis's seaside home, on the same desk Curtis wrote Notting Hill.
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• He has installed a movie theater in his home and goes to the cinema twice a week.
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• His company Five Seven is a people, product and content business including the 'Pass The Mic' platform for young diverse creatives.
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• His mother believes everyone is born with a gift and told him since childhood his gift is to see and to communicate.
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