Cee Cee Michaela: Why She Walked Out

 From Broadway to Hollywood her glittering smile and sparkling personality have captured audiences. Cee Cee Michaela is best known for her unforgettable role on the hit TV show Girlfriends. She played Yvonne, the zany unpredictable police officer. Yet at the height of her success, she walked away from a glamorous life to find something more. 

“I was such a singer, actor and dancer. Broadway was everything to me.”

Cee Cee’s love for the stage started early. Her single mother scraped money together for singing and dance lessons.   Although Cee Cee grew up singing in church she didn’t fully understand how to have a real relationship with God until she got older. But she remembers the day she cried out to him… in panic.

“I was on my way to school. And the car just went completely out of control. Everything was just jammed and it was just going straight for a telephone pole. And as loud as I could I just cried out “Jesus” as loud as I could and it was like BOOM! And the car was just like, it was like a crushed coke can. I crawled out of what was left of the window and not even a run in my pantyhose. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it.

Cee Cee believed the lord had spared her life…but she wasn’t ready to make God her top priority. Instead she focused on her career and headed for New York. She got her first big break in the popular Broadway musical, jelly’s last jam.

Mia: “What was it like being on Broadway with people like Gregory Hines?”

Cee Cee: “Overwhelming! It was exciting…do you know who you are?”

Soon after, Cee Cee moved to Hollywood. She landed guest spots on some of television’s top shows such as the fresh prince of bel-air and all my children.  But inside, there was an empty feeling she just couldn’t shake.

Cee Cee: “In trying to grow up and look for love in all the wrong places because I didn’t have a father and I didn’t have a man’s touch growing up, I had no idea that that would really cause me to really yearn and really want to be wanted so to speak. I wanted a boyfriend. It was fun someone to talk to. But I didn’t understand that God comes first.”

In the pews of a small church in Hollywood, Cee Cee discovered the love she had searched for so long. As she read the bible, she began to understand the truth about God.  

Cee Cee: “When I got to Hollywood at a store front church by the name of Burning Bush Church with Pastor Les Robinson, he broke down the Word and it was so easy to apply it. Every Sunday I would want to run home and apply it quickly. I didn’t want to wait.

Cee Cee: So as I began to learn the Word of God honestly and truly, I just said ‘Wow, I’ve got to clean up my act: the way that I speak, the way I act, the way that I walk.

Cee Cee surrendered every part of her life to Jesus... Even her romantic relationships. She’d finally had enough of the heartache brought pre-marital sex.

Mia: “What prompted you to become pure? To live a life of abstinence?”

Cee Cee: “It was the heartbreak. It was the emotions. It was giving him my very body, and giving him everything that I thought he wanted and he still didn’t marry me. I’m going, what am I doing wrong? (begins to cry) Is my technique wrong? Maybe I’ll change my outfit. Maybe I’ll change my make-up. Maybe I’ll change my hair. No matter what I did they still didn’t marry me. I finally said something’s wrong. I went to God in prayer and that’s when I began to read the word.  I went to Proverbs and I just found out, you know what Satan because of the lack of knowledge many things perish and so my virginity perished, my emotions perished. (EDIT) And I just felt empty and I said God you’ve got to come and fill me up and he did. He came and filled me with his word and he let me know that I can be restored and I can be renewed and that I am still beautiful and that I am not ugly and I am not used and I am not abused. You may feel like that but I am going to clean you up white as snow.”

As Cee Cee grew in her faith, her career took a sudden/different turn. At the time, she had a recurring role on the TV sitcom, Girlfriends.

Cee Cee: “I heard it so clearly from God. I woke up and the Holy Spirit said it was my last day. I’m like oh the show is closing and he said it wasn’t closing but this will be your last day. I need you to come and work for me. I’m like oh no. what is my agent going to say? What do you mean? He said watch I am even going to make it easy for you.”

When she read over her script that day, it all became clear.

Cee Cee: “Literally by the time I got to page three or four my character at that time which was Yvonne, it was so not her, not her usual stick. She is usually strong and funny and she seemed weaker to me. She was doing things that she wouldn’t normally do and there were some sexual actions and things and words that they had written.

Cee Cee asked the producers to change the script.

Cee Cee: “They came back and said that I was going to have to do it like they wrote it because they really wanted it to be presented like this. I said I totally understand that you have a job to do here and this is Girlfriends and this is what has to be done so I understand. So I want you to understand the God that I serve and who my father is and his name is Jesus Christ and at this time since it cannot be changed and it is going against what I believe as a Christian then I am going to have to walk away from the show. Basically I walked right off that set and it took me fifteen minutes to pack everything up and the gates of Paramount closed and I have never been back. Maybe one day but I am happy. I am happy about the move that I made and I walked right off of the set and really straight into my ministry, GodzGirl Network.

Now Cee Cee shares the joy she has found in Christ with hundreds of young girls. She encourages them to live a life of purity just as she has for the last eight years. Her story reminds them that in Christ there is freedom from past mistakes and hope for a fresh start.

Cee Cee: “Thank God for the Word and that truth. That truth set me free.”