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Oprah chooses “The Many Lives of Mama Love” as newest book club pick
Oprah Winfrey announced her new book club selection, “The Many Lives of Mama Love” by Lara Love Hardin, a memoir that dives deep into Hardin’s tumultuous journey from a life marred by addiction and crime to one of profound change and empathy.
Winfrey said what she really appreciated about “The Many Lives of Mama Love” was that Hardin is still “evolving into the woman she was intended to be.”
“I was turned on by that idea of somebody who has spent their whole life pretending to be somebody else now writes a book that is the truth of themselves,” said Winfrey.
In an interview at her northern California home, Hardin recounted her past, including her dramatic arrests for stealing credit cards and bank fraud.
“The last time I walked through that door, I was in handcuffs,” said the author. “But I never got to come back to the house again.”
Hardin recalled her life in the small community in Aptos, California, where she made headlines being dubbed “the neighbor from hell.” She said she would sometimes hide in the bathroom of the home’s master bedroom and do drugs.
“I was just hiding in there, smoking heroin. Like, that was how small my world (was).”
Hardin’s past includes 32 felony charges, 15 years as an addict and two failed marriages that nearly separated her from her children permanently. She chose a plea deal to ensure she wouldn’t lose her boys. In 2009, she was sentenced to a year in jail.
“I didn’t want the next time I saw my children to have them be in their 30s,” she said.
In jail, Hardin earned the nickname “Mama Love,” helping fellow inmates by writing letters that would present them in the best light to judges. This experience, coupled with her master’s degree in creative writing from the University of California, helped her find her voice and a new purpose.
Post-jail, Hardin’s writing talent became her salvation, eventually leading her to work as a ghostwriter for notable figures, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Her collaboration with Anthony Ray Hinton on his book “The Sun Does Shine,” which was also selected by Oprah Winfrey for her book club, marked a significant turning point in her career.
“I was in a lot of shame and fear that Oprah would find out and what would she think of me? But now Oprah found out and look what she thinks of me,” Hardin said.
Hardin’s story isn’t just one of downfall. It’s also about her courageous battle with addiction and how she turned her life around. In her book, she discusses how sharing her story keeps her accountable.
“I think if there’s anywhere in my life where I feel like I’m pretending, that’s like, that’s my that’s my canary in the coal mine,” she said. “That’s like the trigger warning. That’s the red flag that I need to make sure things are on track in my life,” she said.
Through “The Many Lives of Mama Love,” Hardin offers a look at her life’s lows and highs, she said her relationship with her sons is a testament to the power of unconditional love.
“I think the one thing I have done perfectly in my life is make them feel loved,” Hardin said. “Even when they were visiting me. Mother’s Day sitting in the backyard of a jail, I made them feel loved. I didn’t love them perfectly, because I didn’t love myself perfectly, but they felt loved. One of the things I’m most proud of is I feel like I, by burying, burying all of this, I feel like I’ve stopped this lineage of trauma in my family and I’ve turned and I’ve faced the past. And that is the greatest gift and legacy I’m gonna leave my children.”
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Sen. Bob Menendez “put his power up for sale,” prosecutors say in closing arguments of bribery trial
A prosecutor accused Sen. Bob Menendez in a closing argument at his bribery trial Monday of putting his power up for sale to benefit three New Jersey businessmen who allegedly bribed him with gold and cash.
The presentation by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni, which will continue Tuesday, prompted the New Jersey Democrat to scoff as he left the courthouse, saying: “The government is intoxicated with their own rhetoric.”
Minutes earlier, Monteleoni urged the Manhattan federal court jury to follow a trail of hundreds of emails and text messages between the businessmen, Menendez and his wife to see the alleged link between the businessmen and stacks of cash, gold and a Mercedez-Benz convertible that investigators found in the couple’s home in June 2022.
He said they’ll also be able to match fingerprint evidence linking the businessmen and Menendez to the bribes, including fingerprints on the tape that bound thousands of dollars in cash hidden in coat pockets, boots and boxes inside the Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, home owned by his wife, Nadine Menendez.
Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Monteleoni said the senator “put his power up for sale.”
The prosecutor said it wasn’t enough that the senator was one of the most powerful people in Washington as the ranking member and later the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he could block or approve hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to nations such as Egypt.
“He also wanted to use it to pile up riches for himself and his wife,” Monteleoni said.
Monteleoni’s closing as the trial enters its ninth week in Manhattan federal court was about half finished when court concluded for the day.
As he left the courthouse, Menendez mocked the prosecutor’s closing, saying the government had “spent two hours on charts, not witnesses that came before the jury.” He added that Monteleoni had spent “two hours telling jurors about what they believe conversations should be that they never heard.”
Monteleoni said there was a clear pattern of corruption and told jurors to closely review communications between the senator, his wife and the businessmen to see evidence of bribes along with proof that they were trying to cover up their schemes.
Monteleoni said defense claims that gold in the house had mostly been inherited by Nadine Menendez was belied by serial numbers on gold bars which showed they had come from the businessmen who paid bribes.
“All this talk about Nadine having family gold is a distraction,” he said.
In return for bribes, prosecutors say, the senator took actions from 2018 to 2022 to protect or enhance the business interests of the businessmen — including pressuring a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to protect a halal certification monopoly Egypt granted to a New Jersey businessman, Wael Hana, and attempting to influence a federal prosecution of another New Jersey businessman, Fred Daibes.
Michael M Santiago / Getty Images
Menendez, Hana and Daibes have pleaded not guilty and are on trial together. A third New Jersey businessman, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty in the case and testified against the others during the federal trial, the second the senator has faced in the last decade. None of the defendants testified.
An earlier trial against Menendez in New Jersey ended in 2017 with a deadlocked jury. After the charges were lodged last fall, Menendez was forced to give up his powerful chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Nadine Menendez is also charged in the case, but her trial has been postponed until August while she recovers from breast cancer surgery. She also has pleaded not guilty.
As part of his defense, Menendez’s lawyers have argued that tens of thousands of dollars in cash found in the senator’s boots and jackets resulted from his habit of storing cash at home after hearing from his family how they escaped Cuba in 1951 with only the cash they had hidden in a grandfather clock.
His lawyers have also asserted that Nadine Menendez, who began dating the senator in 2018 and married him two years later, kept him in the dark about her financial troubles and assistance she requested from the businessmen.
Menendez has held public office continuously since 1986, serving as a state legislator before serving 14 years as a U.S. congressman. In 2006, then-Gov. Jon Corzine appointed Menendez to the Senate seat he vacated when he became governor.
Several weeks ago, Menendez filed to run for reelection this year as an independent.
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