We recently connected with Alexis Joy and have shared our conversation below.

Alexis, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I love being able to talk about my family in any opportunity I get. My mom, my grandma and my great-grandma are the biggest reason I am who I am today and I get to do what I love and am so passionate about for a living, and for that, I’m forever grateful. I think that everything they did in raising me–from the lessons they’ve taught me, to their love, care and support–are just some of the many things they’ve done right.

Each one of them had a big part in giving me the push and motivation I needed to get started in my career as an entertainment news journalist. One of my fondest memories with my great-grandma is when she taught me how to read and write before I even started kindergarten. As a writer and artist herself, my great-grandma is the one who inspired me to become a journalist and introduced me to this wonderful world of being able to be curious about the stories around me and express myself through writing.

If it weren’t for my mom, my business wouldn’t be here. To this day, my mom continues to be my videographer at all the events I cover and interviews I conduct. She has and continues to go above and beyond to support me in everything I do and set my mind to. Prior to moving out to Los Angeles, my mom would travel back and forth with me from New York to LA to be with me to cover my events and help support my dream. No matter how little sleep she got, she would do anything to be there for me and make the impossible, possible.

And, when my mom was at work and couldn’t be my videographer, there’s my wonderful grandma ready to step in. She’s always there to help me with content creation and support.

I’d also like to give a special shoutout to my angels: Papa Ben, Lola and Ronnie and my faith in saints and God. Getting to where I am today with my site has been an entire team effort with my family and I’m so thankful to have them with me every step of the way throughout this journey.

So, to answer the question of “What did your parents do right?” The answer is…everything! It goes to show that having a true support system is the key to being able to do what you love and scale it into something bigger.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m an entertainment news host and creator of AlexisJoyVIPAccess.com where I share the latest news in entertainment, fashion and beauty. Writing has always been a big passion of mine and it’s thanks to my great-grandma for spurring my love for journalism. When I was 13, I started writing for a digital entertainment site and from there, continued to really develop my love for telling stories and doing so through the digital sphere. On 11/11/11, when I was 14 years old, I decided to branch off and launch my own site, AlexisJoyVIPAccess.com. It has been such an exciting and blessed journey, one that I am so thankful for every single day.

For those who haven’t gotten the chance to check out my site, I share trending news in addition to interviews with celebrities and red carpet event coverage. I love having the opportunity of learning more about all of these truly inspiring and hard-working people-whether it’s a musician, an actor, a content creator, an athlete and beyond. Being able to share about their incredible work with their fans and my viewers is something I’m really honored to do.

I think what sets me apart from others is I strive to make my site a happy place for others to be able to visit. I want the people I interview to know that when we do an interview, it’s a safe space for them. They won’t get questions that are personal or something they don’t want to talk about. For me, I think it’s really important to let both the interviewees and the audience who visits my site feel a sense of positivity when they visit my channel. I make sure to not talk about negative stories or gossip. I think it’s better to highlight something a person worked hard on rather than getting the click-bait questions in for views. What I’m most proud of is being able to make my site a place where people feel good after they visit it, because we all need some sort of happy escape. And I’m proud that for over 10 years now, I’ve worked on something so special to me as the sole member of my team-being the writer, interviewer, video editor, social media manager and many other roles I continue to have the great pleasure of taking on.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Resilience has always been a big part of my journey. I’m so proud to say that when I started my site, I didn’t have any connections. But, what I did have was a big dream that I wanted to make into a reality, a wonderful family who supported me every step of the way, and…resilience.

There are many times that I could think of where resilience has played a huge role in my career. I’ve gotten plenty of “no’s” throughout my journey and oftentimes it’s easy to feel discouraged. However, I knew that I needed to be resilient if I wanted to continue on this path and make my site into what I envisioned it to be.

I’ve also balanced being a full-time college student while working on my site. I would go to sleep at 1:00 in the morning and wake up four hours later. I definitely had a lot of sleepless nights when I would travel from the red eye flight coming from Los Angeles and then go straight to one of my college classes in NY, but I knew that it was all worth it because it meant I got to do what I love.

One moment that sticks out to me the most that I feel illustrates resilience was when I covered the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards and was heading on a trip to Australia the day after. I wanted to get my coverage up from the event as soon as possible, so I stayed awake for 24 hours and wrote 16 articles for my site, edited 16 videos and created social posts for all interviews. It was a lot of work and it was challenging to get all of that work done by myself, but to this day, it’s something I’m still really proud of as it showed my resilience and passion for my craft. When you love what you do, you’ll do anything to make it possible.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I think the most rewarding aspect of being a creative is the ability to be able to express yourself in so many different ways. Whether it’s through writing, music or creating content, there’s an abundance of opportunities to be able to share your creativity and make a difference in other people’s lives. What I love about being a creative is that the power lies within you. You have the chance to create what you want and tell the story however way you’d like. Is it through a song? Is it through a blog post? Is it through a TikTok video? Then, from there, your creativity is able to flourish even more. If it’s a song, what lyrics do you want to use to share how you really feel? If it’s a TikTok video, what kind of edits, effects or music will you use to make your piece as visually appealing as possible?

Being a creative means that you get to make an impact in a way that feels most fitting to you. You get to let your talents, creativity and imagination flow and it’s a truly beautiful thing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://alexisjoyvipaccess.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thealexisjoy/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexisjoyvipacc
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexisjoyvipaccess