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In 2018, during an appearance on the tabloid program TMZ Live, Kanye West was delivering his now infamous “slavery was a choice” argument. This wasn’t the first controversy for the acclaimed rapper. The setting of the show was the TMZ newsroom and when Kanye opened the conversation to the mostly white workers at TMZ, he received sheepish agreement. That is, until he heard the voice of Van Lathan.

Lathan, then one of the few Black presences in the Hollywood gossip scene, directly challenged Kanye on the ludicrousness of his comments.

“Now, when he said that, I didn’t respond at all because it wasn’t my conversation. But then moments later, he turned around. He goes, ‘Does it feel like I’m thinking freely?’ And I said, ‘No, it doesn’t feel like you’re thinking anything'” Lathan recalls to Wisconsin Public Radio’s “BETA.”

Lathan and West would go on to have a semi-heated exchange where Lathan ultimately expressed his disappointment with Kanye and his undermining of the Black experience in the world, both present and past.

In that moment, Lathan was the truth to power, and he earned a universal respect, even from the West himself.

“He actually listened. He came over and gave me a hug. I mean, look, Kanye West is not a bad soul. He’s just one that’s incredibly impressionable,” says Lathan. “But that doesn’t mean that he gets a pass for that. There’s a debt that we owe to the people that survived that situation for us to be here. And we just can’t let that type of talk become mainstream.”

Lathan has more truths to speak. In his motivational memoir, “Fat Crazy & Tired: Tales From the Trenches of Transformation” he does just that. In a series of provocative and propulsive essays, Lathan shares his frank and raw experiences and guidance on race, body image, mental health, celebrity and grief.

On body image

When Lathan himself looks back at that video with Kanye, he doesn’t see the inspiring counter-argument he’s making. He sees himself as overweight. It’s something Van has dealt with — including a severe health scare within the halls of TMZ — his entire life. He says that being fat in America is sometimes even harder than being Black in America.

“As a Black man, there are places where I go in the world and people make space for me. If you’re fat, then there’s no place where people actually want to make space for you. They want you to be smaller so that you take up less space, and you’re constantly told wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, that the space that you’re taking up, you don’t have any right to it,” he said.

Growing up in the south — specifically Baton Rouge, Louisiana — Lathan talks about how the culture of food could be at once lifesaving and hazardous to your health. He writes how “seeing my mother in the kitchen could cure any ailment in my childhood” but that wrapping yourself in a “taste blanket” of emotion could lead to disastrous results.

“A lot of places in the south, particularly Louisiana … food is amongst the things that we are most proud of,” Lathan said. “We soothe ourselves with that. So, for me, after a time, I start to connect food with emotion. I started to use food as a mechanism to help me cope, to reward myself and to calm myself down. And that’s kind of what the ‘taste blanket’ is.”

Lathan admits he doesn’t have all the answers for finding the best body image, but stresses the importance of finding your own inner peace with it. The issue of mental health is big for Lathan.

On mental health

In a powerful essay titled, “There’s A Shotgun Under My Bed” Lathan lays out his suicidal ideation during the early stages of the pandemic and his reactions to it. He balances his personal journey to a healthier mindset with the larger conversation about mental health in communities like the one he grew up in.

“The funny thing about it, if there is a funny thing, was that the moment I had the ideation, I realized it. A lot of times in our community, what we don’t have is the opportunity to prioritize our mental health,” he said.

Lathan, who moved to Los Angeles in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, immediately called his therapist. She calmly, but urgently told him to remove all the ammunition for his shotgun from his home and to trust it to a friend and to stay in communication with her.

Lathan speaks about the stark differences he would’ve faced had he suffered the ideation back home in Louisiana.

“If I’m still back in Baton Rouge the first thing is, I don’t have a therapist,” he said. “Nobody had a therapist, that I knew, when I was growing up. So, there’s no one for me to call and get the advice of how to protect myself and how to protect my brain.”

“No. 2, I don’t think growing up that I had a friend that I could call and say, ‘Hey, I’m coming over to give you ammunition to my gun because I don’t feel comfortable having it,’ that doesn’t judge me because of some of the stigmas around that,” he continued.

On grief

Lathan, who has found positive outlets throughout life in sports like boxing and basketball, talked about certain stigmas on dealing with grief. In 2003, the Green Bay Packers traveled to Oakland to play the Raiders on Monday Night Football. That night, an otherwise nondescript game would become historic.

Brett Favre threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns. While career highs, it wasn’t as if the three-time MVP of the league hadn’t done similar feats with the football before. The difference was it was the day after his father and coach, Irv Favre, passed away.

“I understand the bond between southern boy and southern man. That was father and son,” Lathan said. “That night was him beating grief. And so, when my father passed away, I thought that that’s what I had to do.”

“This was, up to this point, the defining moment of my adulthood. ‘How is Van going to respond in front of his family, in front of his uncles, in front of everyone to the death of his father? Is he going to step up and take care of everything?'” he recalled.

Lathan said that when dealing with the loss of his father, he “fumbled.” When his father’s brother, who looked, dressed, stood, smelled and acted the same as dad walked into the funeral home, Lathan had to step away.

“I respect Brett Favre. I respect what he did. I respect his ability to conquer grief,” Lathan said, “but for me, I just couldn’t defeat grief. I had to deal with it. And I still have it.”

Lathan closes out his memoir with the powerful notion that “peace is the answer to every question I’ve ever asked in my life.” How does he achieve it?

“I don’t do anything to try to achieve peace. I try to be accepting of things that bring me peace,” he said. “Peace is just an understanding that you’re mentally, physically and emotionally where you’re supposed to be, and then you have to surrender a little bit to get there.”