What You Don’t Know About Destiny’s Child Member Michelle Williams

In today’s day and age, world-class celebrities and entrepreneurs are practically synonymous. Moguls like Cuban, Gary Vee, and Jeff Bezos are now household names with their number of social media followers slowly catching up to their prodigious net worth.

On the other side, athletes, entertainers, and influencers like LeBron James, George Clooney, Venus Williams, Jay-Z, Mark Wahlberg, Jessica Alba and many more are using transferable branding skills, financial and personal investments, emotional inspiration, and sheer grit to venture into the entrepreneurial realm. Grammy award winner Michelle Williams embodies this idea.

Many know Williams as a member of  Destiny’s Child, one of the best-selling music groups of all time. However, she’s also added the titles of actress, inspirational speaker, television host, designer, wedding planner, and world-class serial entrepreneur, to her already robust resume (despite a tremendous amount of adversity, as you’ll see later). This past September, she shared some of her life stories and business lessons with attendees at CCW Austin. The discussion had guests on the edge of their seats. 

From singer to entrepreneur

Since her days of making fire hit after hit as a member of Destiny’s Child, and later as a solo artist with four critically acclaimed albums (Heart to Yours, Do You Know, Unexpected, and Journey to Freedom), Michelle redirected her passion and placed an arguably greater interest in her personal and professional business life, in which she’s having a tremendous amount of success.

She has undoubtedly enjoyed the prosperity that her singing career has brought her, but she is now focusing on the projects and ventures that she feels she was really put on Earth to do. One of those money-making ventures is a digital commerce company known as Evine, which has opened up a line of “Believe by Michelle Williams,” that sells home products. Michelle’s goal is to turn this brand into a one-stop shop for all home decoration, furniture, appliances, and more. 

Michelle's background

Still considering herself in the heart of her professional career, one of her greatest talents is her ability to innovatively dominate the game of branding which has been the primary focus of her home décor business. If you’ve ever met her, you would probably know that she studied sociology in college and almost went into psychology before “being literally thrown into Destiny’s Child,” as she described to us at the event.

These personal interests have helped her relate to fans, business partners, and customers through her constantly evolving marketing skillset and entrepreneurial way of thinking. She knows her customers and she knows how to deliver a message to an audience, as we saw at CCW Austin.

Where her passion really comes from

But it wasn’t all always “Amazing Love” for Michelle Williams. When CCW Executive Director, Mario Matulich asked Williams about women’s health, specifically “stepping out of your comfort zone” as it relates to her career and our women’s initiative, CCWomen, Michelle responded very honestly and passionately.

“I’m very transparent, especially in the area of mental health. I was diagnosed with depression some years ago… last year I voluntarily checked myself into a hospital,” she said, while confirming she had suicidal thoughts. However, “many women, and men, after I came out about the story I got a lot of men that would come up to me and thanked me for being transparent about depression. But as far as women are concerned, not only are you in the room today, you’re probably looking at your phone making sure your kids are okay… you just have so many hats you’re wearing… But at the same time, you can get so overwhelmed feeling like I have to be superwoman but I cannot have depression. So you kind of mask it… You’re not alone.” 

As she continued to hold the audience’s attention in the palm of her hand, she ended with “No one came in this room to hear about this. We came to talk about Customer Contact Week and business is thriving. But I just want your mental health to thrive as well.” The crowd erupted. 

Indeed, mental health was not the primary focus of Michelle’s session. But her candid, vulnerable chat offered an important window into not only what it means to be a celebrity, entrepreneur or mental health advocate but how one can turn adversity into a strength. For example, she stated that she spent much of her life pleasing others until recently. Now she does what she wants. 

As the founder of multiple businesses, she now works for herself, using her personal passions to motivate the operation of her projects. To start your own business and enter a competitive market, you have to statistically defy odds. You have to have a “grit” factor about you that drives your desire and innovation. It’s clear that her personality traits and interests are what drives her philanthropy projects and entrepreneurial spirit. In other words, Michelle Williams embodies what it means to be a 21st century entrepreneur.