Rolonda Watts

Rolonda Watts, born on July 12, 1959, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is an accomplished American actress, producer, and television and radio talk show host. Her mother, Velma Gibson Watts, was an associate dean at Wake Forest University, and her father, Roland Watts, was the chairman of Winston-Salem State University's Fine Arts Department.

Rolonda Watts attended Salem Academy as a teenager and later graduated magna cum laude from Spelman College in Atlanta, where she was editor-in-chief of the school newspaper. She earned a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1981.

Rolonda Watts began her career as a general assignment reporter at WFMY-TV in Greensboro, North Carolina, and later worked at WNBC and WABC-TV in New York, where she was nominated for an Emmy.

In 1991, she became the host of the talk show "Attitudes" on Lifetime Television and later joined the newsmagazine "Inside Edition" as a senior correspondent, weekend anchor, and producer. King World Productions, the syndicator of "Inside Edition" and "The Oprah Winfrey Show," asked her to start her own talk show, "Rolonda," which aired from 1994 to 1997. She was also supervising producer and one of the owners of the show.

After leaving her talk show, Rolonda Watts moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in acting. Her first break came in 1997 when she was cast as Vivica Shaw in "Sister, Sister."

Since then, she has had guest-starring roles in numerous television shows, including "The West Wing," "JAG," "The District," "Yes, Dear," and soap operas "Days of Our Lives" and "The Bold and the Beautiful."