When Ohavia Phillips was a student at Myers Park High School, her teachers used to try to break up her conversations by moving her around the classroom. It was no use for the girl with dreams of becoming a talk show host.
“I was friends with everybody, so that never worked,” says Phillips, laughing. Now she’s a Spectrum Arena host, Charlotte area event emcee and media entrepreneur. “The back of the class? The back was VIP. They moved me to the side. The side is VIP. You can move me anywhere. It’s going to be VIP wherever I go.”
This is her fourth season as infectious hype girl for the Charlotte Hornets. Whether Phillips is working a crowd at a game, fundraiser, or corporate event, her personality is as wide as her smile. You would never know in her high school days, as a member of the dance team, a pageant girl, and honor student, she was carrying a big secret.
Shortly after the Phillips family moved to Charlotte from Brooklyn, NY, her mother moved with Ohavia and her four younger siblings into a shelter for domestic violence victims at Safe Alliance. Living there, she wasn’t allowed to reveal her whereabouts anyway.
“At 14 years old, your friends are looking for you,” says Phillips, who helped care for her younger siblings, ages 12, 9, 3, and infant, while her mother worked as a nurse. “They want to go to the mall, and I can't go, and I can't give them a reason.”
Only after she began pursuing a career in media, making YouTube interviews as a student at UNC Charlotte, did she talk about her past, but only to a point. She didn’t use the words “domestic violence shelter” until she applied for an internship at Time Warner Cable News and had to explain why she’d lost track of important paperwork.
While she kept her story private, she worked to tell other people’s stories after her internship turned into a full-time job as a TV reporter and producer.
“I wanted to pitch a series where we could highlight young people doing incredible things in the city,” shares Phillips. “[My boss] said, ‘You don't understand. It doesn't work like that. This is television news. If it bleeds, it leads. We don't want to hear positive stories.’”
Phillips quit. She started her own media business, something she’d been dabbling with on YouTube anyway. In that setting, establishing connections in interviews, she began to tell the whole truth about her past.
“I felt like I didn't have to keep the secret anymore,” Phillips says. “I was really free. That also helped me step into my true authenticity. Folks always talk about the light [of mine] they love, the energy they love. I credit it to stepping in fully to a story others would hide. Some wouldn't want to share because it would affect the brand. I didn't care about any of that. I said, ‘I’ve got to be free, and I don't know who I can help.’”
In 2019, Phillips was asked to emcee an event for Teal Diva, a nonprofit supporting women with gynecologic cancer. Attendees there with companies like Bank of America and Ally Financial spread the word. More invitations came to emcee for the Black Leadership Alliance, the Harvey Gantt Center for African American Arts and Culture and other organizations.
In 2021, Hornets arena host Jacinda Jacobs recommended Phillips to fill in for her while she was on maternity leave.
“I didn't have to do an audition,” Phillips says. “I didn't have to file any paperwork. They took one look at my Instagram, and here we are… It's funny how all the bread crumbs have made this delicious loaf.”
Phillips just published a book called “Wearing Expectations Like a Designer.” She is getting married this month to local musician Dennis Reed Jr. She has set a goal of establishing a scholarship at UNC Charlotte for a student who comes from a single-parent home.
Her mom, Mahalia Hanson, has left nursing to begin working as a life coach. She’s also writing a book with Phillips’ help.
“She is the strongest woman I know,” Phillips says. “She never made excuses, and she never gave up when she could have. That's where I get that grit from.”
As for her positivity? Phillips says that came from her faith.
“The things I've been through, anybody else would be walking around like the Grinch, and rightfully so,” she says. “These are things that when you're 14 years old, it’s not fair that it happened to you. I should be a menace to society. [But] I know what it’s like when hurt people hurt other people, and I want to be different.”
Learn more on Ohavia’s Instagram account @ohaviaphillips.
“I felt like I didn't have to keep the secret anymore. I was really free. Folks talk about the light [of mine] they love, the energy they love. I really credit it to stepping in fully to a story others would hide."