The model opens up about why moms can and should be open about their sexuality, co-parenting with Wiz Khalifa, and why the former couple almost took their son off social media after a cyber-bullying incident involving Taylor Swift.
"I'm a true feminist in every aspect," Amber Rose says.
The 34-year-old model and Slutwalk founder is opening up not about her business ventures, or her dating life, but about motherhood. One look at Rose's Instagram account paints her as an unapologetically sexual, business-minded woman, with sweet photos and videos of her 5-year-old son, Sebastian, peppered frequently throughout her feed.
"Moms are allowed to be sexy," she tells ET. "We are allowed to still have fun. We are allowed to go out at night when our kids are asleep and still have a good time. Our lives are not over because we have children."
In fact, Rose admits, she sometimes crosses a line with her posts in an effort to bait the mom-shamers.
"I almost go overboard on purpose to kinda piss people off and make them say mean things about me, so women can be like, 'I need that! I need to see that,'" she says. "That gives them more confidence. ... You can't just sit in the house and not have a life anymore because you have children or because your husband is away working. It's just not fair. You only have one life to live and you should live it to the fullest."
Rose says she hopes to set an example for her son, whom she shares with her ex-husband, rapper Wiz Khalifa.
"I want my son to see me still do amazing things," she muses, "and grow up and be like, 'Man, my mom was having a good time. She took care of me, she got up for school.' I just believe that moms can do it all."
Read on for more frank discussion about motherhood, co-parenting and why it was so important to set aside her differences to wish Khloe Kardashian well with her new baby. The interview has been edited and condensed.
ET: A lot of people say, "Oh, you don't lose yourself when you become a mother," but I believe it must be hard.
Amber Rose: Well, yeah, I mean, as society teaches you, you have to be a certain way. You're a mother, you can't do this. You're a mother, you can't be sexy anymore. You're a mother, you're not allowed to go and have fun anymore, and I truly don't believe that. I believe that you're still yourself, you're just a mom. I just feel like I want my son to see me still do amazing things and grow up and be like, "Man, my mom was having a good time. She took care of me, she got up for school." I just believe that moms can do it all.
Let's talk about your journey. Take me through when you first discovered you were pregnant.
I was engaged to be married. I was planning my wedding and I think I was just so consumed with that that I didn't even realize I was probably, like, a week late. I called my fiance at the time, he was on tour, and I was like, "I'm pregnant." And we were like, "Yeah, woo!" We were so excited. And then I had a miscarriage, which, at that time I didn't realize was actually very normal for women to have miscarriages all the time. I felt like it was the end of the world. A month later, I was pregnant again and my son, I mean, girl, he stuck in there. He grew so fast.
I wanted to have an at-home natural birth, but he wound up being breach. He was sitting upright, Indian-style facing my back, so I had to have a C-section and they pulled him out by his little booty, and here he is five years old now.
Even before we have our children, there's so many things that we're learning are out of our control and we can't plan for. How have you learned to cope along the way?
It's so funny because as a new mom, you're gonna read every book and you're gonna be like, "I am gonna be the most amazing mom ever" and then your baby's gonna come and you're gonna be like, "What do I do now? How many ounces do I feed him? Does he need to burp now? Did he burp, was that a burp? I don't know if that was a burp." You just learn as you go. You think you have it all figured out until you get your baby and then it's just like, you just figure it out. Or you look to the elders, your parents and stuff like that.
What was your support system like at that time?
I was like every other typical mom where I was like, "I can do it. I'm his mother, I can get up all night." Maybe a month went by and I was sleep deprived, it was like I was falling asleep with him in my arms and I was like, "You know what, I'm not gonna feel bad or feel ashamed that I really want a baby nurse so I can sleep at night." And that's what I did, and it was the first night that I actually got 12 hours of sleep or something like that. It was amazing.
Talk to me about dealing with mom-shamers. Do you feel like it's something that you need to fight or is it better to just let them go?
Oh no, I fight. I'm from Philly. All day I fight. I fight for the greater good of moms and women and just, you know, I'm a true feminist in every aspect. Moms are allowed to be sexy, we are allowed to be sexual beings, we are allowed to still have fun. We're allowed to go out at night when our kids are asleep and still have a good time. Our lives are not over because we have children.
You've built a brand on supporting women and supporting women's sexuality, and I think that's something a lot of moms and new moms can be shy about. Why is that so important to you to continue that messaging?
It's just my passion. It just lives in me, it's what I do. I almost go overboard on purpose to kinda piss people off and make them, like, say mean things about me, so women can be like, "I need that! I need to see that," because that gives them more confidence. I get [direct messages] all the time on Instagram where women are like, "My husband is overseas, he's in the military. Sometimes I go out with my friends at night and the neighborhood people, they just think I'm this horrible person because I still want to have a life." You can't just sit in the house and not have a life anymore because you have children or because your husband is away working. It's just not fair. You only have one life to live and you should live it to the fullest.
Tell me about your parenting philosophies and how you're raising your son.
I'm teaching him that he can do whatever he wants. For example, I got a lot of crap because I took my son to the nail salon to get his nails painted because he wanted to come with me. I teach my son to be creative. If you teach your child to be creative and to paint on a canvas, or be a tattoo artist and put tattoos on people, that's creative, but he can't be creative and paint his nails a different color? Who ever said that's only for one gender? Why does it have to be that way? I let my son be fully creative. He wants to dye his hair green, I'll put some green Kool-Aid in there, we could dye his hair. I just want him to be open and just as free as he could possibly be and not live by society norms. He has the rest of his life for people to poke at him when I'm not around. Now that I am around I let him be as pure and as creative as possible.
I loved when you hit back at all of those people on Instagram over the Taylor Swift post. I am sure as a mama bear, you had a lot more to say than what you put out there.
Yeah, yeah, I did. [Laughs] I definitely did. Shout-out to Taylor Swift, she sent him a whole package of VIP tickets and everything like that. He loves Taylor Swift, he loves Chicago, he loves Journey. I take him to karaoke, he sings all the songs. He's a little performer, a little ham. He loves to be in front of the camera. And it's just negative, ignorant people out there because it's like, my son is a black boy and for a black boy to like a white female artist is either gay or unheard of or what the hell are you teaching him? Or where's his father in his life? His father is very much in his life. We're both equally in his life. People just have all these negative things to say instead of just being like, this is just the sweetest, most amazing little boy and he likes what he likes and he has amazing parents that allow him to be who he wants to be.
Tell me about putting him in the public eye. A lot of celebrities choose not to show their children's faces. Was that something you and Wiz talked about early on?
I initially did not want to. But when he was around other people in our family, they would post him anyway and it would wind up getting shared all over. I actually stopped posting my son for about six months and what happened was, people would say, "He's always with his dad and he's never with you." And I'm like, "He's with both of us equally, I just don't post him." And then it got to the point where I was like, you know what, my son brings so much joy to the world from his videos and just how smart he is and how amazing he is.
After the Taylor Swift thing, I got on the phone with his father and I'm like, "What should we do? Should we take him back off social media?" And he was like "No, Sebastian makes people happy. Let's just continue to just keep showing how amazing he is." So that's what we do.
Talk to me about co-parenting. You seem to be in a really good place.
I think you have to get to the point where it's not about me and him, right? So it's not about, "What girl do you have over there?" or "What guy do you have over there?" It's like, "What is your schedule? This is my schedule, let's figure out when you're gonna see the baby and when I'm gonna see the baby." So we don't do weekends or this is my week, this is his week, we live very close to each other. We get on the phone every week, "Hey, listen, I'm not gonna be here this week. Can you take Sebastian?" And vice versa and it's seamless. In a weird way, it's like we became best friends after our divorce and it just works.
Do you have rules about when Sebastian's allowed to meet people that you're dating?
No. We don't do that because we both know that we're both amazing parents and we're never gonna have someone around our child that is gonna be harmful to him. I don't ever ask Wiz, "Who's that girl in the video?" I know his father's amazing and I know his father's never gonna put his life in jeopardy, so I don't ever ask questions like that.
Does Sebastian go on the road with his dad ever?
He hasn't yet.
Do you think he will?
I'm sure. I'm sure, yeah. He'll have fun with his dad.
Who do you see him taking after?
He's definitely musical like his dad, for sure. He's just special. He's definitely smarter than the both of us. He just actually got accepted into a really amazing school
I want to talk about being a boy mom for a second. What are some of the biggest challenges, surprises and rewards associated with raising a little boy?
Boys pee everywhere. [Laughs] They literally pee everywhere. He loves to run around naked. He likes the shock factor of people being like, 'You're naked!" He thinks it's hilarious. He's rough, though. He wants to wrestle, he wants to kick, he wants to fight, but it's just how boys are. I'll kick him right back. It's what we do. We roll around in the bed and we wrestle and do all kinds of cool stuff. I kinda always felt like I was gonna be a boy's mom.
Did you ever see yourself as a girl mom, as well?
No, no.
Do you see yourself having more kids?
I mean, you know, I gotta find a nice guy. It's not easy for me to find a nice guy with my lifestyle and who I am. They need to have a lot of understanding. But, yeah, once I find a nice guy, for sure.
Do you see yourself with a whole houseful of kids or would you max out?
I'll see how I feel after one more. I gotta see first.
I want to talk about the Slutwalk. Sebastian is five, have you talked about the term "slut" yet?
Not yet. Because to me, slut is just a derogatory term that men and women use against other women to down them for their sexuality and for me to explain that to my son at five years old, he's gonna be like, "What?" But growing up with a mother like me, he's gonna know very, very early for sure.
At what point do you want to get him involved in the Slutwalk?
He's little and Sebastian is famous, as well. People kinda don't really understand that when they're like, "Sebastian! Sebastian!" He's like, "Mom, how do they know my name?" So the Slutwalk is a lot. Last year we had over 20,000 people there. It's just a lot for a little boy to come, but he'll see the progression and we have footage, so he'll watch that as he gets older.
Is he starting to grasp the fact that his parents are in the public eye?
I don't know. I don't fully explain that to him right now because I don't want him to look at us as not just his parents. He's like, "Amber Rose? Hey, you're Amber Rose!" And I say, "No, I'm Mommy. I'm not Amber Rose. I'm Mommy to you."
You recently posted support for Khloe Kardashian. How important was it for you to publicly support Khloe at this time?
I mean, look, I'm a woman and I'm a mom before anything. I don't hold grudges. What we argued about four years ago is just so irrelevant to who we are now. I gotta be honest, my heart broke for her. I remember my baby being due in three days. If that were to happen to me, it's like I felt her pain. I really felt her pain. I felt like I had to say something. Of course the internet would be like, "She's being shady," [but] I really wish her the best. I hope that she's happy now with her beautiful baby being here. Kids are a blessing regardless of what else is going on. That was her blessing and that's what she got from that.
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