LisaRaye McCoy Said 'The Player's Club' Role Led To An Identity Crisis

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For over two decades, LisaRaye McCoy has starred in many shows and movies but she is best known for her breakout role in as Diamond in The Player’s Club. After the movie was released, she said she had trouble separating LisaRaye from Diamond.

“I had an identity crisis after Players Club because I felt like I had to have the long hair and look like my character, ‘Diamond,’ in order to be recognized,” she told Page Six. “‘Players Club put me on the map… it made me a bona fide sex symbol, and when you are a sex symbol people think that you’re sexy all the time, and that stigma follows you. So I am forever Diamond.”

Now that she is older, she said she understands what it means to embrace your sexy, something she didn’t know how to do in 1998 when she was deemed a sex symbol.

“I’m an older ‘Diamond’ now, but diamonds always shine, so I am here for it,” the 54-year-old beauty continued. “I did not know what sexy was at the time… I think it was best for me not to really know, because I probably would’ve tried to play it up in my role and messed it up.”

The Cocktails With Queens host she maintains her sexy by “taking care of her temple” and has steered clear of plastic surgery.

“I am a natural woman,” she said. “I just take what Mother Nature has given me and what God has blessed me with and keep it [up with my] lifestyle. We know that science is evolving and people are taking care of themselves and getting a nip and tuck here and there, and I’m not judging. If that’s what you want to do, then that’s what you want to do.”