Felicia Pride gets real about the realities of dating over 40 in ‘Come Close’: ‘Black women over 40 deserve love stories’

Felicia Pride can discuss the topic of love with great ease. And not just the romantic kind, but the enduring type formed between family and friends. 

As a co-executive producer and writer for Peacock’s “Bel-Air,” she’s particularly excited about how the show’s final season will spotlight those relationships in all their complexity.

The fourth and final season of the hit dramatic retelling of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” is slated to air on November 24. When it does, viewers can expect the final eight episodes to take Will, Carlton, and the rest of the Banks family through a senior year filled with joy and turmoil. For Pride, it’s a culmination of storylines that have always been about more than just the surface level.  

“I love the work that we did on ‘Bel-Air’ season four, really showing Black love between Aunt Viv and Uncle Phil,” the award-winning filmmaker told theGrio. “Season four is going to have some beautiful familial love, because I always define love very expansively. So I’m very, just very proud of the work that we did on ‘Bel-Air.’”

She described how being in the writers’ room these past four seasons was a gift in itself. 

“It was an amazing experience to tell this story about this Black family,” she gushed. “So I’m just incredibly grateful.”

While audiences wait for the show’s finale season, Pride has something fresh and equally heartfelt. Released in June through her imprint Honey Chile Entertainment, “Come Close,” a romance novella, tells the story of Amaya Ellis, a filmmaker who returns to her native Baltimore to helm her first feature. 

While there, the 40-something unexpectedly reunites with Kyrie Tate, her high-school sweetheart. Naturally, Kyrie had long since slipped from her mind amid life’s ebbs and flows. But their reunion reignites a spark and the possibility for a true rekindling. 

“[“Come Close”] was my opportunity to blend romance with centering a woman who is rediscovering love,” said the author. “The premise of the book is very much close to my heart.”

Pride embodies the same multi-hyphenate spirit with which she often infuses her characters. A screenwriter, producer, director, and author, she has built a career across literature and television, with credits on “Queen Sugar,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and Netflix’s upcoming reboot of “A Different World.”

In many ways, the filmmaker who brought the DMV to life on the big screen not too long ago with the romantic drama “Really, Love,” mirrors her book’s protagonist: a creative and ambitious “honey” — as Pride loving refers to women in their 40s — navigating the complexities of life, career, and love.

In “Come Close,” Amaya’s journey is as much about rediscovery as romance. Her return home forces her to confront old feelings and reflect on her values. 

“She allowed herself to be open,” Pride said of Amaya. “She definitely poured herself into her career, probably to the detriment of different types of relationships, whether friendships, family, love. But now she’s opened herself up.” 

“I think that’s also a great message for myself and others,” she continued. “This ability to be open to love, to goodness, to abundance, to desire, to joy.”

Part of that rediscovery, Pride noted, is tied to the idea of homecoming. 

“When you leave a place to go pursue a dream, there’s so much sacrifice that happens within that,” she expressed. “I like this idea of what it means to come back after you’ve sacrificed so much, but you come back with something.”

For her, setting the book in her native Charm City was a no-brainer. 

“We don’t have enough stories that show the complexity, the beauty of Baltimore,” she pointed out. 

“Baltimoreans, in particular, just have so much resilience, so much heart, so much fight, so much gusto, so much grit, so much love, so much community,” she said, adding how she hopes to turn “Come Close” into a feature film, “so I can really bring that world alive.”

Getting candid about the realities of pursuing art and love later in life, Pride said she’s observed a stark difference between dating in your 20s, 30s, and 40s. 

“At least for myself, there’s less of a desperation and there’s less of a need to be validated through partnership,” she said. “You know yourself more, so there’s more discernment. There’s less playing around. But if you are playing around, you know you’re playing around. There’s just more wisdom that comes from it.”

Pride said she hopes her depiction of a 40-something pursuing love in “Come Close” leaves readers with a real sense of what Black women ultimately deserve, and not just in love. 

“I hope readers take away that Black women over 40 deserve love stories,” Pride declared. “And they deserve fully represented, whole love stories that include all the things—love, friendship, romance, sexuality, desire. They deserve all the things.”