‘She Aint Gonna Do That to a Black Woman’: Sterling K Brown Explains Shocking Reason Halle Berry’s Kiss with Adrien Brody Would Never Fly with His Wife
Emmy-winner Sterling K. Brown had the audience in stitches during his recent television appearance where he exposed his wife, Ryan Michelle Bathe’s true feelings about his on-stage kisses.
The actor appeared on the “Sherri” show to promote his show “Paradise” on Hulu, which was recently renewed for season 2.
When host Sherri Shepherd brought up fellow actress Halle Berry’s viral 2025 Oscar moment — where she kissed Adrien Brody on the red carpet in front of his girlfriend — she asked how Ryan Michelle would react if someone tried to recreate the infamous kiss with him. Brown didn’t hesitate.
“She ain’t gonna do that to a Black woman,” he said with a straight face. “If she did, that would be the last person she kissed.”
Sherri burst into laughter as Brown doubled down, saying, “Ryan Michelle would have different consequences and repercussions.”
When Shepherd jokingly asked what would happen if she tried to kiss him in front of his wife, noting that the two are friends. Brown immediately shut it down, even demonstrating how his wife would respond.
“She’d stick her hands right in between our faces,” he said, mimicking Ryan Michelle blocking the kiss with a firm but polite, “That’s great, Sherri.”
After the “Sherri” show posted a clip from Brown’s appearance to Instagram, social media lit up with reactions.
“He ain’t never lied,” one person commented.
Another added, “State the facts, sir.”
One user even said Brown’s remarks reminded them of church: “It’s the way he said it. So calm, like it was Black scripture… ‘One does not simply kiss another Black woman’s man’—Black commandment number 5. Now That’s what I call a[n] interview made me smile from ear to ear.”
Brown’s confidence in his wife’s reaction isn’t just speculation — it comes from nearly two decades of marriage and firsthand experience with Ryan Michelle’s very real jealous streak, which almost ended their relationship early on.
In September 2024, the couple appeared on “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” where they revealed that they nearly broke up for good over Brown’s reaction to Jennifer Lopez’s music video.
According to Brown, while dating in New York, they had came home from a Broadway show to find his roommate watching JLo’s “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” music video on MTV.
“I know I’m not supposed to have a reaction, and in trying not to have a reaction, what had happened was my eyes began to water,” the “This Is Us” star admitted.
His wife, who would have been in her early 20s when the video was released, quickly jumped in to correct that version of events.
“He was WEEPING. Tears! Like big, fat tears,” Bathe emphasized, as the audience howled.
She said she couldn’t tolerate her man sobbing while watching JLo “shaking and shimmying” on the television screen.
Brown tried to plead his case, but his lady was done.
“You crying over somebody else’s booty … in front of me?” she recalled, shaking her head.
She also shared on the show that the tables later were turned when she was cast as Boris Kodjoe’s wife in the 2007 movie “All About Us” and performed a steamy scene.
Brown said he called his wife during filming and found out about an unexpected addition to the script: a sex scene.
Ryan Michelle tried to downplay it, explaining that they used Band-Aids for modesty, but Brown wasn’t convinced.
As a practice the two have learned to share their intimate moments on screen in advance. Brown recently shared with his wife about his upcoming project and the romantic scene he has to execute.
“You have to tell her before,” h said in an interview with Access Hollywood. “You can’t just have her watch and be like ‘You didn’t tell me…”
Brown and Bathe have been married for 18 years and share two sons: Andrew, 13, and Amaré, 9.
The Oscar kiss that kicked off this conversation happened back in 2003, when Brody unexpectedly pulled Berry into a dramatic kiss onstage.
Last month, at the 2025 Academy Awards, Berry jokingly got her “payback” by kissing Brody on the red carpet while his girlfriend, Georgina Chapman, was present. She posted the lip-smacking incident on her Instagram page, explaining the joke.