Ten­nille Al­leyne

Whether she's on tele­vi­sion, ra­dio or per­form­ing on stage, come­di­enne and thes­pi­an Nik­ki Cros­by has nev­er waned in her pop­u­lar­i­ty for her fans all across Trinidad and To­ba­go.These days, the fun­ny woman has made a lot of changes both pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly over the last cou­ple of years. As Wom­an­Wise caught up with the dy­nam­ic "Jub Jub' la­dy, she re­vealed a side of her­self that most peo­ple don't see in her on stage per­sona. In this 'no holds barred' in­ter­view, we are ex­posed to Nicole Nathaniel-Clarke, a wife, friend, aunt and chil­dren's ac­tivist. She opened up about her de­ci­sion to leave the ever pop­u­lar "Paul and Nik­ki Show", what in­flu­enced her de­ci­sion to go back to school in her for­ties, and the painful dis­ease that has pre­vent­ed her from hav­ing chil­dren.

These days Nik­ki Cros­by is heard all over the Caribbean –lit­er­al­ly. Af­ter spend­ing twelve years on ra­dio with "The Paul and Nik­ki Show", she made the heart wrench­ing de­ci­sion to leave when she was of­fered an op­por­tu­ni­ty to co host the "Wake Up with Nik­ki and Jace" morn­ing show on an­oth­er sta­tion. "I al­most didn't take the op­por­tu­ni­ty be­cause of my love for Paul, the show and our fans! I have got­ten re­al­ly at­tached to them. But I took com­fort in know­ing that Paul and I would work to­geth­er again" she stat­ed. "I was hired by the Caribbean Su­per Sta­tion which is based in Bar­ba­dos and we are fea­tured in sev­er­al Caribbean coun­tries. It has been re­al­ly em­pow­er­ing be­ing able to con­nect the re­gion to­geth­er" says Cros­by who is fea­tured on the 6 am to 10 pm shift. The ex­pe­ri­ence since their show de­buted has been an ex­cel­lent one, where fans have been grow­ing ex­po­nen­tial­ly. She re­vealed that al­though they op­er­ate out of a stu­dio in Trinidad, the show has not yet been launched here, some­thing that will be done in the fore­see­able fu­ture.

This ear­ly shift has al­so been quite con­ve­nient for the sec­ond year stu­dent at COSTATT who is pur­su­ing a de­gree in Psy­chol­o­gy. "I did not go back to school just to add let­ters to my name" said Cros­by, who al­ready holds a Bach­e­lors de­gree in Busi­ness and Mar­ket­ing. "Chil­dren open up to me and tell me their dark­est se­crets. That's why I need to help chil­dren" she said em­phat­i­cal­ly. The known chil­dren's ac­tivist stat­ed that her best friend and for­mer co-host Paul Richards, en­cour­aged her to pur­sue Psy­chol­o­gy where she would even­tu­al­ly spe­cialise in Child Psy­chol­o­gy. The ex­pe­ri­ence thus far has been hec­tic but grat­i­fy­ing. "When I first start­ed, I was won­der­ing...could I re­al­ly do this? But I go to class dur­ing the day and I'm around 18 and 19 years olds and they def­i­nite­ly keep me in the loop. They look to me as a men­tor and I'm def­i­nite­ly the class clown!" she said with a laugh. Bulk­ing her cours­es ear­li­er in the week has en­abled her to trav­el for work on the week­ends. "I can't slack off be­cause I am on a tight sched­ule. Be­tween work, ex­ams, class­es and re­hearsals I don't re­al­ly have down time" she re­vealed.

Speak­ing of her dri­ve to help chil­dren, Nik­ki touch­es to a painful is­sue that con­tin­ues to leave a void in heart. "I have en­dometrio­sis" she said can­did­ly. "It's a dis­ease that caus­es re­al­ly painful pe­ri­ods and one of the side ef­fects is dif­fi­cul­ty in hav­ing chil­dren". Cros­by re­vealed that she is open about the is­sue be­cause many women and girls suf­fer from the de­bil­i­tat­ing dis­ease and don't even know it. "One of the signs is re­al­ly bad cramps and ex­cru­ci­at­ing pain dur­ing sex. I had a la­paro­scop­ic surgery done which di­ag­nosed me with en­dometrio­sis in my late twen­ties. I al­so had ma­jor surgery which helped to re­move the fi­broids" she re­vealed.Told by her gy­ne­col­o­gist years ago that she could not have chil­dren, she still keeps her op­tions open. "My hus­band and I had an agree­ment that we would try for five years but we end­ed up try­ing for ten" she said.

Des­per­ate to be­come a moth­er, Nik­ki

re­vealed that there is a void in her life, but be­lieves it s all in God's plan whether or not she be­comes a moth­er. Cros­by be­come a lit­tle emo­tion­al and says that she of­ten cries for chil­dren that are con­stant­ly abused in Trinidad and To­ba­go.With­in the next five years, Nik­ki plans to part­ner with Paul Richards who is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing his Phd in Ed­u­ca­tion­al Psy­chol­o­gy to open NIkki­Land Nurs­eries. It will be de­signed as a pre-school for young tots in prepa­ra­tion for school in the fu­ture. Her Nikki­Land brand will al­so bur­geon with the launch of Nikki­Land's Chil­dren's Park which she imag­ines as an in­door and out­door fa­cil­i­ty, geared for fam­i­ly en­ter­tain­ment. Fur­ther­more, there's a tal­ent show tele­vi­sion in pro­duc­tion that will be called "Aun­ty Nik­ki's Star Child" (re­mem­ber Aun­ty Hazel?)With an ad­mit­ted­ly hec­tic sched­ule, Nik­ki Cros­by still con­tin­ues to soar, and as a chil­dren's ac­tivist, she con­tin­ues to give a voice to the voice­less. She thanks her hus­band of nine years who she de­scribes as her "rock" through­out all life's vi­cis­si­tudes. Sur­viv­ing life's curve­balls as they come, the beloved Nik­ki Cros­by is en­joy­ing her jour­ney thus far, which she punc­tu­ates, of course, with her sig­na­ture wit and hu­mour.