Grammy Award winner Alicia Keys says motherhood has changed her in multiple ways and that the pressure of fame nearly broke her, in a wide-ranging interview with Lara Logan to be broadcast on the CBS News special PERSON TO PERSON, Nov. 23, 2012 (10:00 PM ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
Keys takes Logan on a tour of her home away from home, her personal recording studio, she calls “The Oven,” and gives Logan a private concert of songs from her new CD, “Girl on Fire.” There, in the comfort of her studio, Keys shares thoughts on motherhood, marriage and her life’s journey.
Keys tells Logan how she struggled with fame and how deeply the death of her beloved grandmother impacted her life. “It was definitely becoming very overwhelming,” she tells Logan. “I wasn’t very happy…I wasn’t feeling very complete,” Keys says. “It definitely…was a different, new, strange world for sure, “she adds. “I needed to lighten my load a lot. And I needed to reconnect with my own self, ‘cause I didn’t know who I was anymore.”
She found herself after a soul-searching trip to Egypt. She’s now married to producer and hip-hop artist,
Swizz Beatz. They have a son named Egypt.
Motherhood, she tells Logan, changes everything. “Perspectives change. I think priorities change. I mean I was such a different person seven years ago. Nothing would stop me from traipsing from here to London to LA and back to London to LA in three days and not sleep and go. And it was, I just thought, that was everything... But to have time to spend with my family and to have my son, it’s like perspectives change a bit. It’s like hold up, let’s not kill ourselves here.”
Her new CD marks a change musically, Keys tells Logan, adding she still has so much more to try with her craft. “Girl on Fire,” she says, “is really about…being yourself… It’s about finding what you feel and feel passionate about, finding your path to getting there. And not just being deterred, not being swayed from that. It’s really just being who you are.”
Her latest work is “a new space” for her, she says. “It’s a new mentality for me. It’s a new day for me… and a time. I really feel a lot more centered than I’ve ever felt before. And I feel a lot more clear and in control. I feel like I know what I want and I know what I don’t want.”
Logan’s full visit with Keys will be presented on the CBS News special, PERSON TO PERSON, to be broadcast on the CBS Television Network Nov. 23, 2012. Logan and Charlie Rose are the co-hosts. Also on the program are New Orleans Saints quarterback
Drew Brees and his wife, Brittany, Oscar-winning actor
Sean Penn and Olympic gold medalist gymnast
Gabby Douglas.
Susan Zirinsky and Judy Tygard are the co-executive producers of PERSON TO PERSON. Patti Aronofsky and
Chris Young Ritzen are the producers.
