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In media where diversity and strong, empowered female characters are on the rise, it’s great to see strong female leads, like Robin Givens playing dynamic characters like Stephanie Carlisle in OWN’s new series, Ambitions.

Robin Givens has had a successful career as an American model, stage, film, and television actress. She is best known for her role as Darlene Merriman in the ABC hit sitcom Head of the Class.

Ambitions, a family saga created by Jamey Giddens and produced by Will Packer, Givens character, Stephanie, is powerhouse Atlanta-based attorney and the current wife of Atlanta Mayor Evan Lancaster, played by Brian White.

Robin sat down to talk about what allyship means to her and how the creators of the show chose to tackle current social issues such as women in leadership, gentrification and embracing the lgbt community.

“I think I’m an ally for women and women’s issues, women’s struggles, women’s challenges. An ally for me, I immediately think friend. An ally is someone on your side, someone to lean on, someone we all need for sure.

I’m on a new OWN series, The Oprah Winfrey Network. Talk about a women – oh my gosh, and an ally for women. Oprah Winfrey is all of that. I’m honored to be on her network. In this new show AMBITIONS.

I play Stephanie Carlisle Lancaster. I like to include her maiden name because that’s a big part of who she is. She doesn’t want to give up. She’s lawyer that wants to run her father’s law firm, which is a very prominent law firm in Atlanta. She wants to take over and she feels that her father is not giving her the law firm because she is a woman.

Stephanie is strong, she is ambitious. She is good at what she does. She lives by her own rules. She wants what she wants and she’s determined to get it. She too is an ally for women’s issues and what that means.

What I love about this show is first of all the LGBTQ community which I’’m so honored that we deal with this issue in such a broad way but an easy way.

We are also dealing with gentrification. My sister-in-law runs a restaurant ‘Thelma’s place’. A restaurant on the wrong side of the tracks and I represent a man that wants to take over and change the community and buy her place, and buy different parts of the neighborhood and build condos or do things but also push out a group of people.

I think the world gets to be a challenging place sometimes, and I think we all need an ally.”

AMBITIONS returns with all new episodes Tuesday, November 12th on the OWN. You won’t want to miss a second of the dramatic antics.