BACON MAGAZINE
Naturi Naughton- Lewis: Fulfilled

The Singer, Actress, Producer, and Director on Alignment, Intentional Living, and What It Looks Like When a Black Woman Decides She Gets to Have It All

Naturi Naughton -Lewis has spent over two decades in the entertainment industry, earning the kind of reputation that cannot be manufactured: the artist who shows up completely, the producer who stays on set because she actually believes in the story, the director who is unafraid to take risks. She is, by every measure that matters, exactly where she is supposed to be.

There is a version of this story that begins with the accolades — and there are many. The two NAACP Image Awards. The six-season run as Tasha St. Patrick on Power, Starz’s decade-long cultural phenomenon. The world premiere at Tribeca, the sold-out screenings, and the festival circuit dominance of Color Book. The return to Starz in January 2026 as both star and executive producer of The Nowhere Man, the action thriller that announced, without question, that Naturi Naughton -Lewis is no longer just talent — she is infrastructure.

But that version of the story, while true, misses the most important part. Because what Naturi wants you to know is not what she has done. It is how she feels about who she has become.

“My whole life really feels aligned of late,” she says.

“I used to feel like I was always chasing something. Now I feel like I’m building something. There’s a difference.”

THE WOMAN BEHIND EVERY CHARACTER SHE HAS EVER PLAYED

Before she was Tasha St. Patrick, Lil’ Kim, or a platinum-selling artist with 3LW was a girl in Newark, New Jersey, singing in the choir at New Hope Baptist Church, the same sanctuary where a young Whitney Houston first discovered what her voice could do. Naturi Naughton -Lewis has always known, on some cellular level, that performing was not something she had to do; it was something she was called to do.

The calling took her through 3LW and onto Broadway, through the remake of Fame, and into the skin of Lil’ Kim in Notorious. It took her to Starz, where Power made her a household name and Tasha St. Patrick became the kind of character viewers don’t just watch — they claim. She is asked about Tasha constantly. She answers graciously because she understands what that character meant to people. But she is also clear-eyed about the distance between a role and a woman.

“I never want to be one-dimensional,” she says. “Just like playing a character in a movie — I want to play all different versions of who we are as women, particularly as Black women.” This is a woman who delivered a keynote address to students at FIT, who writes poetry in her journal, who hosts game nights at the house, and who has studied every director she has ever worked with closely enough to step behind the camera herself. Tasha St. Patrick is a chapter. Naturi Naughton -Lewis is the whole book.

THE PIVOT IS NOT A BACKUP PLAN — IT IS THE BLUEPRINT

The entertainment industry in the post-SAG-AFTRA strike era is a changed landscape. Budgets are tighter. Green lights are harder to get. Studios are retreating to familiar IP rather than betting on original voices. Naturi does not soften this reality when she speaks about it. She names it plainly. But what is equally plain is that she has decided not to let it define her lane.

“No one wants to take chances on new material or new ideas,” she says. “It’s often such a big risk, and a lot of people are not prepared to take that risk financially. So, they just reinvent old ideas and keep doing the same things over and over again.” She pauses, and you can feel her humility. “But I’m grateful for the quality of work that I am offered. It may not be as much quantity as I would like. The quality is there.”

Quality, for Naturi, is not a consolation. It is a conviction. She mentions the women she aspires toward in the same breath — Taraji P. Henson, Nia Long, Viola Davis, Kerry Washington, Angela Bassett.

Together with her husband and producing partner Xavier “Two” Lewis through their company Take Two Entertainment, Naturi has constructed a creative infrastructure designed to bring the kinds of stories to screen that Hollywood has historically overlooked. Not because the stories are niche. Because the people who make the decisions have not always had the imagination to see their full value.

“Those are the stories I’m most passionate about. The ones that are untold, uncelebrated, and underrepresented. Giving a platform to those who don’t have one.”

COLOR BOOK: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU BET ON A STORY NOBODY ELSE WOULD TELL

Color Book, written and directed by Atlanta filmmaker David Fortune, is a father-son story. A Black father, recently widowed, navigating the daily, profound challenge of raising his son, Mason, who has Down syndrome.

Naturi and Two Lewis executive-produced the film through Take Two Entertainment, making it one of the centerpieces of the 2024 Tribeca Festival. Since its world premiere, the film has accumulated over 20 jury and audience awards across the festival circuit — including the Austin Film Festival, the Deauville American Film Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival, the Denver Film Festival, and AFI FEST, among many others.

“I believe in stories that showcase people of color living their best lives — the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, the challenges, the excellence,” she says. “Not making it about the disability but making it about love. About how to grieve. About how to get through a challenging day together. About Black fatherhood.” She lets that sit. “Those are the stories that move me.”

THE NOWHERE MAN: POWER MOVES IN A NEW DIRECTION

When The Nowhere Man premiered on Starz on January 16, 2026, it arrived as a statement. Not just that, Naturi Naughton -Lewis was network-backed, but that she was back differently. As Ruby, the quietly fierce director of a shelter in Johannesburg who becomes a lifeline for a former mercenary named Lukas, Naturi inhabits a character who shares her most essential quality: an absolute refusal to give up on people. As executive producer through Take Two Entertainment, she brought that same energy behind the lens.

“The Nowhere Man represents an exciting evolution for me as both an actress and executive producer,” she said when the deal was announced. Starz President Alison Hoffman echoed the sentiment publicly, calling Naturi “an extraordinary talent viewers know and love.” The reunion was meaningful. But the evolution was the point.

The six-episode series, set against the visceral landscape of Johannesburg and featuring South African lead Bonko Khoza alongside Naturi, is a global action thriller built on a deeply human story — trauma, redemption, the cost of violence, and the grace of unexpected connection. It is a bold piece of television. And it could not have happened without Naturi choosing, with full intention, to be part of it.

“Obviously, I learned so much on ‘Power’ about what works for television,” she has said of her producing approach. “My years on set taught me what it takes to get a project to the next level. And I’m willing to do the work.” That willingness — not the talent, not the résumé, but the genuine willingness to show up and do what is required — is what the people who work with her keep returning to.

“I’ve always been one of those curious actors who paid attention to what was going on not just on my side of the camera — but behind it.”

ON STAYING GROUNDED: THE FRIENDS, THE FAITH, AND THE THINGS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH HOLLYWOOD

There is a specific kind of intelligence that Naturi Naughton- Lewis possesses that does not show up in a press release. It is the intelligence of a woman who has been in rooms that could have consumed her and came out still knowing exactly who she is. She is warm, but she is not soft. She is gracious, but she is not vague.

Her circle is intentional. Some of her closest friendships are with women she has known since the fifth grade. Others are colleagues — Danielle Brooks, Nicole Beharie, Teyonah Paris — women who understand the specific terrain of being a Black woman building something real in this industry. She also credits director Crystle Roberson Dorsey as a mentor who has encouraged her most recent ambition: stepping behind the camera to direct.

“Having people who are not jealous — people who are genuinely supportive of your light and don’t try to dim it,” she says. That is the standard. And it is non-negotiable.

Beyond the professional, Naturi keeps spaces in her life that have nothing to do with the next project. She journals. She writes poetry. She dances. She hosts game nights. “I like to do things completely unrelated to ‘what’s my next project,’ just something to release,” she says. Her faith is not a talking point — it is the framework everything else is built on. “Just recognizing my faith in God, my power in prayer, my ability to just take a moment to decompress.” She says it the way people say things that are simply, quietly true.

THE BODY, THE MINDSET, AND THE MOMENT SHE DECIDED SHE’S GOT TO HAVE THIS

There is a moment that Naturi describes that is easy to gloss over but worth pausing on. It was after the 56th NAACP Image Awards in February 2025, where she won Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie for her leading role in Abducted at an HBCU: A Black Girl Missing. She looked at photographs from that night and made a decision — not the kind fueled by self-criticism, but the kind fueled by self-knowledge. She knew herself. She knew what she was capable of. And she decided it was time to pour back into her body the same way she had been pouring into her work.

“I changed my mindset,” she says. “The things I would be like, ‘I’m not doing that, it asks too much’ — I started saying, ‘I’m doing it.’ And eventually, how I felt on the inside started to reflect how I looked on the outside.”

She worked with her trainer, Jerry Joseph, leaned into the outdoors — running through Brooklyn, discovering that jump rope, a sport she once competed in as a Double Dutch champion, was not just nostalgia but serious cardio. She changed her relationship to food. She moved with joy. She is quick to point out that the transformation was never about a number or an image. It was about remembering what her body was capable of.

“I started as a dancer and a singer. I was always active. I just got back to my roots.” The simplicity of that framing is, in its own way, profound. She did not overhaul herself. She returned to herself.

Her children, Zuri and Tru, are at the center of why all of it matters. They are why she works this hard. They are also why she has learned, finally, to rest. To play. To be present in the ordinary moments that do not make a highlight reel but make a life. “When I put family first,” she has said, “that’s when my career really took off.” She is no longer surprised by that correlation. She has come to trust it.

“How I felt on the inside started to reflect how I looked on the outside. I changed my mindset first. Everything else followed.”

THE MARATHON: WHAT SHE WANTS YOU TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO

Ask Naturi Naughton -Lewis what she wants people to walk away with when they see this version of her — this woman who is building an empire and raising children and producing globally distributed television and mentoring the next generation of filmmakers — and she does not reach for something grand. She reaches for something true.

“It is not a sprint,” she says. “It is a marathon. None of this happened overnight. I want people to be inspired to not give up. To continue to be persistent and tenacious as they move forward.”

She talks about the power of the pivot — not as retreat, not as reinvention born of failure, but as expansion. “People think I was just a singer,” she says. “Then I was just the girl from Notorious. Then I was Tasha. Now I’m producing and directing. I just continue to pivot.” Every version of her has been intentional. Every door she has walked through, she has walked through fully.

What emerges from a conversation with Naturi Naughton -Lewis is not what you might expect. You expect the star. You get the woman. You expect polish. You get honesty. You expect someone managing a brand. You get someone quietly, rigorously, joyfully living a life they have chosen with both eyes open.

She has played fierce women. She has played complicated women. She has played women carrying the weight of impossible situations with impossible grace. But none of those characters — not even Tasha, beloved as she is — quite captures the fullness of who Naturi Naughton Lewis actually is. Intelligent. Intuitive. Conscious. Deliberate. Warm in a way that does not feel performed. Aware, deeply aware, of what this moment means and what she intends to do with it.

She is not waiting to arrive. She is not chasing the version of herself she used to think she needed to become. She is here. She is building. She is, by her own word and by every visible measure, aligned.

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