EXCLUSIVE: Ceasar Emanuel Talks The Wins And Losses Of Being A Boss

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Ceasar Emanuel has been one of reality television’s most well-known bosses for close to a decade. For eight seasons, he has served as the foundational figure for his Black Ink Crew family and brought his loved ones with him to the top. But keeping his family free of dysfunction is a challenge he has yet to overcome.

For the ninth season of VH1’s Black Ink Crew, Ceasar Emanuel and co. have returned to New York City after going to Atlanta during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. After their return, it wasn’t back to business as usual, which left Emanuel perplexed. When MADAMENOIRE asked Emanuel to describe this upcoming season, he replied with a question of his own: “Have you ever seen pit bulls fighting for the last piece of meat?”

“People were on edge,” he told MN. “You have to understand, the last time everybody seen us we were leaving Atlanta, to come back to New York. Now, [viewers] see what happened when we got back to New York.”

After half-jokingly questioning how he got through this season, he said despite all of the “back stabbing and mishaps,” he has remained a mainstay on reality television for almost 10 years to break his family’s generational curse. His great-great grandfather was a successful businessman and even has a school named after him in the Astoria section of Queens. For Emanuel, reality television is helping him continue his family’s legacy.

”[My great-great grandfather] was really someone of stature in my family,” he said proudly. “But then when you start seeing the generation after that and the generation after that, it’s like we didn’t keep up that stature or go beyond it. And I’ve felt like it’s just a curse upon us, like a generational curse. I always feel like it’s going to take a sacrifice of one generation to fix this and I’m going to do it.”

Being a pillar of his family has taken a toll on his personal life, and he has seen some of his closest relationships deteriorate. Last season, Emanuel and Walter Miller’s relationship reached a point of no return when he was accused of stealing from the tattoo shop on Harlem’s 125th street. During our chat, he said he thought about reconciliation but couldn’t get past Walter’s betrayal. When discussing forgiveness and reconciliation being two separate things, Emanuel said he can’t do one without doing the other.

“We can’t reconcile because I still got love for him,” Emanuel said. “That’s the funny thing. I don’t hate him. I’m not that type of person that hate somebody over some money. I just didn’t like how [Walter] moved with me. It’s like bro, we grew up together and whatever you want you could’ve had. I wouldn’t have even asked for it back. Like it’s just like you moved crazy with me and you call me brother?…If you’ll do that to me over that little bit of money what would you do me over some big money?”

He and Donna Lombardi’s relationship took a hit as well. Emanuel said despite her feeling he didn’t support her, he rooted for her as much as he could. Even though he allowed her to sell her SuperCBD juices in the shop and supported her MuvaUnii Hair Collection, Emanuel said he and Lombardi just couldn’t reach an understanding.

“I’m helping you. I don’t have to help you. She wasn’t not my daughter. You’re my friend. You’re my employee, technically. So you know, I help her in many ways,” he said. “But then I started noticing [that] as Donna gets older, she started hating on everybody in the shop. I tried to look past the Tati situation…I don’t think we’re gonna see [much of] Donna this season.”

Emanuel understands that the boss can’t win every battle, but his biggest loss came when he lost the 113th street location of his original Black Ink shop in Harlem. What made it sting more was that his landlord was someone that watched him grow up.

“My biggest regret has to be on losing [the 113th location]. Everybody knows that,” he said. “Like, this is season nine, but up until season seven, that’s seven years. I felt like a failure.  There was nothing I could do about it and it wasn’t my fault. I had a greedy, greedy landlord. I wasn’t going to get extorted like that. I was thinking about paying it but going from paying $5,000 in rent to $25,000 a month in rent for a 750 square foot shop just didn’t make sense…How do we sit here and say we are trying to help each other when we are tearing each other down?”

Despite all the turbulence he’s experienced during this journey, Emanuel said it has made him grow from a boss to a leader.

“It’s easy to say you’re a boss and basically put out orders,” he said. “But it’s different when you get there in the trenches with your workers and with the people. They see you more as a leader…[They understand that] you’re just trying to lead [them] to the promised land. I’m a different type of leader. A boss doesn’t want to see you elevate.  A leader wants to see everybody elevate. That’s all I’ve wanted from day one.”

Black Ink Crew airs every Monday 8:00 p.m ET/PT.