In what we can dub one of her cutest interviews to date, Wendy Williams spent close to 20 minutes fawning over South African opera singer Pretty Yende before being brought to tears by her journey thus far.
Yende's upbringing was actually quite ordinary, having been raised with her three younger siblings by a mother who was a teacher and a father who was a businessman in Piet Retief, Mpumalanga.
After seeing a British Airways ad featuring Opera music around 2001, Yende fell in love with the genre and enrolled at the South African College of Music where she later graduated cum laude. She then went on to perform on some of the world's prestigious stages and managed to graduate from the Accademia Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy during that time.
Yende is living in New York while she stars in a production of the Barber of Seville, currently showing at The Metropolitan (aka, The Met, you know, that fancy place where they host the annual Met Gala). After production wraps, Yende will go straight into starring in The Met's production of Romeo and Juliet as Juliet.
She is one of the lucky few artists who gets to secure contracts for two seasons as this is quite unusual at such a prestigious institution.
As part of the show's promotional tour, Yende appeared on The Wendy Williams show where she performed a stunning rendition of one of the parts of the show.
She then appeared on the Wendy Aftershow (an online segment featuring extra footage that didn't air during the main show).
They kicked off the show by discussing shoes and fashion (as Wendy does) and this gave Pretty the opportunity to show off the gorgeous Dolce and Gabbana shoes that she was wearing which she paired with a crazy expensive D&G dress.
She then shared her upbringing with Wendy including her introduction to Opera before the pair spoke about her name (which was a source of pain for Yende as she was growing up), where she lives now, her experience of New York, her love life and her achievements.
Williams commended Yende for leaving behind a life that she knows all to chase a dream.
"I left my everything, everything I knew; who I was, my language, my people, my sunshine, the earth... everything I knew... I almost had to become someone else [and] learn a new language, become comfortable with being uncomfortable, being the only one in the place for people who look like you...It's been a Pretty journey" explained Yende.
To which Williams responded, "Sometimes you have to leave it all behind to find your greatness."
Williams then asked what she'll do once the opera run is over and Yende explained that she also studied business and accounting and plans to go into the business side of opera once she can no longer take to the stage. But for now, she'll conquer performing, travelling the world and music as her debut album called 'A Journey' is currently in stores.
You can watch the 17-minute interview below:
Main image credit: youtube.com