When Chike Ozah and Kellie Brown crossed paths in person, she wasn’t ready for a romantic relationship, but Mr. Ozah remained persistent.
The first time the filmmaker Chike Antoine Ozah laid eyes on Kellie Montoya Brown, a journalist, she was larger than life. Actually, her image was peering down at him from a billboard advertising an NBC affiliated television station in New Orleans.
It was late 2018, and Mr. Ozah was in town from New York for a film project. He didn’t know anything about Ms. Brown, but he was immediately captivated.
He saw her again in early 2019 while visiting New Orleans for another work trip. This time she appeared on his TV screen while reporting traffic on a morning show. “I mentioned to my mother how beautiful she was and how I gotta meet her,” Mr. Ozah said.
Mr. Ozah decided to ask a close friend, Edward Buckles, well-connected in New Orleans, if he knew her by chance. “He did,” Mr. Ozah said. They went to Dillard University together. “So, I asked if he could introduce me to her.” But Mr. Buckles didn’t know how to get in touch with her.
Months went by, and Mr. Ozah said he even “floated the idea of throwing a party in New Orleans just to create the opportunity to meet her, sort of like ‘The Great Gatsby,’” he said. But before he had put that plan in motion, fate stepped in.
Mr. Ozah was in New Orleans the same week in July 2019 as the Essence Festival, a music and culture gathering held by, and for, Black women, when he finally came face to face with Ms. Brown. “I was at an event in the lobby of the Ace Hotel and the next thing I knew she came in smiling and dancing with her friends,” Mr. Ozah said. “She had this presence. I will never forget that moment. It’s literally ingrained in my brain.”
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