Eboni K. Williams on Solo Motherhood, Book News—and Why She Loves Dating Again

Eboni K. Williams is a true powerhouse. An accomplished lawyer, the host of nationally syndicated TV show Equal Justice with Judge Eboni K. Williams, and the first Black cast member on Real Housewives of New York City, she’s now adding a new title to her resume: Mom. In August 2024, she gave birth to her daughter Liberty Alexandria after a long IVF journey. Plus, the paperback version of her bestselling book Bet on Black will be released July 8, she exclusively announced to The Bump.

In her conversation with The Bump, Williams shared some deep insights about her intentional solo motherhood journey with baby Liberty, her career endeavors and her dating life.

The Bump: Congratulations on welcoming Liberty Alexandria! What has been the most surprising part of being a mom so far? I know 7 months is a very busy age!

Eboni K. Williams: In one way, it feels like she was just born yesterday; in another way I feel like we should be looking at colleges. It’s been quite a remarkable, very surreal experience. She’s brought an incredible amount of joy into my world that’s very difficult to describe.

The most surprising thing thus far in this journey has been how consistently my village has shown up for me since Liberty’s been born. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the tremendous and beautiful tapestry of friends who’ve now become family that I’ve been blessed with here in New York City, nationwide and globally, and by how truly committed that village is to me and to baby Liberty.

TB: What have been some of the main challenges and joys of being a new mom?

EKW: One of the challenges has been that I—which I unapologetically admit—really don’t know what the heck I’m doing here, mothering this sweet little tiny baby. I grew up as an only child. I didn’t have siblings and I never babysat. So the very first diaper I changed in a proper way was my own daughter’s. The very first bottle I ever gave a baby was to my daughter.

But again, I’ve had such fantastic support in this journey. I had a fantastic doula, an incredible Black woman who made me much more confident and comfortable going into birthing and delivering my daughter. By now everyone knows just how scary and even deadly that can be as a woman, and especially as a Black woman, in America. We’re three to six times more likely to die in childbirth. So having that doula who’s done this thousands of times was amazing.

I also had a fantastic night nurse for the first four months of Liberty’s life showing me how to make these bottles and properly bathe her and swaddle her, and do all of this amazing stuff that all you pro moms out there know.

TB: I’d love to talk about your journey with Liberty’s birth. You froze your eggs when you were 34, and then went through IVF, which is a deeply personal and emotional experience for a lot of women. It sounds like there were some moments when you thought the pregnancy wasn’t going to happen. Can you share a little bit about this difficult experience?

EKW: I froze my eggs at 34, and I was disappointed at the onset when I was told that I only retrieved 10 eggs—at my age, I was expecting more. I could’ve done another egg retrieval, but I didn’t, in part because I wasn’t particularly clear whether I even wanted to pursue motherhood in the future. I stored them away and didn’t think about them for a few years. And then life and the pandemic happened, and I ended an engagement with a man who I’d been with for many years. He was older and already had three children, and while he purported to be open to more children; turns out he wasn’t open to it. That was very heartbreaking, and left me in a position to make some big-girl decisions. At the time, I had started doing deep dives into solo motherhood by choice, trying to educate myself on what this journey would be like.

At one point, I felt confident pursuing it. The next step was to get these eggs fertilized. I used a sperm donor through California Cryobank. I ended up getting two embryos that made it to blastocyst. Then I elected to do chromosomal testing and only one of those embryos was genetically “normal.” Then I had another decision: Do I do another egg retrieval, in case this healthy embryo transfer doesn’t take? At this point I was 39.

Ultimately I elected to roll the dice. I planned to do my embryo transfer right after my 40th birthday. And I was blessed beyond absolute measure that the transfer was successful. I was able to carry my daughter to full term and deliver a healthy baby girl in August 2024. Just imagine how much had to go right in all of those steps in that journey for me and the world to get baby Liberty.

TB: That’s incredible. Speaking of solo motherhood by choice, there’s still somewhat of a stigma attached to single motherhood in society. How do you think you’re changing that?

EKW: I’m really blessed to have been in a position to be able to pursue this—including emotionally. The fact that I’ve been able to do incredible emotional healing work via my therapist, via being a proud graduate of the Hoffman Process, internal healing around things that were very challenging in my earlier years. If not for that work, I wouldn’t have pursued motherhood at all.

Historically when we think of single moms, we tend to think of worst-case scenarios. And certainly those do exist. But there are many other versions of what single motherhood can and currently looks like.

For me personally, that’s why I was very intentional around sharing certain aspects of my solo motherhood journey, including my maternity shoot. I still had an amazing, glamorous maternity shoot. I took myself on a babymoon. I had a really good girlfriend who joined me for a fabulous weekend in Sag Harbor in the Hamptons—mocktails, fabulous food and an amazing time. I also made sure to throw myself a baby shower, which was featured in People magazine. And that wasn’t to be braggadocious, it was to do the work of retelling the story about what it can look like to be a solo mom.

TB: Speaking of rewriting the story, your bestselling book Bet on Black is coming out in paperback on July 8. What new audiences do you hope to reach with this edition?

EKW: My book Bet on Black: The Good News About Being Black in America Today first debuted in hard copy back in January 2023. It went on to be a bestseller on Amazon and various other platforms, and now it’s going to be released in paperback, which I’m really excited about. It’s a testament to the book’s popularity and the need for this kind of book in this exact cultural moment. This book is a celebration of Blackness in a moment when I can’t imagine it would be more needed.

It’s very easy to buy into the sad and traumatic story of the Black American experience. Those experiences are extremely real, and they very much exist. And it’s not the only narrative around Blackness. In the book, I go into great detail into all the good news stories about being Black in America, drawing upon my mentors that preceded me—I’m talking James Baldwin, W. E. B. Du Bois, Lorraine Hansberry, Ida B. Wells. I also share anecdotes and bits and pieces of my own life, whether it was my experience in cable news, practicing law or academia. This is a book that begs questions, that encourages and invites curiosity, because I believe that Blackness is the most misunderstood social construct in America. I want to be a part of the work that dissembles and dismantles that.

TB: Touching on your law career, season 2 of Equal Justice with Judge Eboni K. Williams is airing right now. What kinds of stories are you most excited for people to see this season?

EKW: This show follows the vein of all the great court shows before me; Judge Judy, The People’s Court. I’m very excited this season to go even deeper into the types of cases and do the type of storytelling that our show is really getting known for. And that is, equal justice—giving the opportunity to make their case for all the citizens of our community. There’s lots of entertainment, humor and, ultimately, there’s lots of love and learning. I just really love the show, and the feedback we’ve gotten so far has been incredible. It airs in like 98 percent of markets all across the nation, so check your listings.

TB: You were on Real Housewives of New York and that introduced you to a whole new audience. And, you were the first Black cast member, which is huge. What was your biggest takeaway from that experience?

EKW: My experience on Real Housewives of New York City season 13, being the history-making first Black woman on that cast, has taught me many things. It was fascinating to me, and I think to a lot of viewers, that Real Housewives of New York City, which is an iconic reality show, had been on for 12 years before my arrival. It kind of became jarring that for 12 years there wasn’t a single woman of color on the show, specifically a Black woman or a Latina woman, since New York City is 25 percent Latina and 25 percent black. It was 2020 when we filmed. So the peak of the pandemic, peak of the wake of the murder of George Floyd and all of the racial unrest that followed. We were in the middle of the presidential election of 2020. So just take all those elements, put them together and you can imagine the intensity of the moment.

TB: What are some lessons you hope Liberty will learn from the show once she’s old enough to watch?

EKW: I think it’s awesome that Liberty will be able to see this for herself. That’s going to be a milestone moment for mother and daughter. I remember being well into my 20s before I really realized that my mother wasn’t just my mother; she was a whole woman that existed before I was even a thought. That’s one of the things that Liberty’s going to see when she watches season 13.

TB: Has being a mom influenced what you look for in a potential future partner?

EKW: Becoming a mom has totally impacted—and elevated—what I look for in a potential romantic partner. I’ve recently dipped my pinky toe back into the dating pool. And I feel like I’m dating for the first time in a truly authentic way. I was briefly married and divorced in my late 20s, but beyond that, I was very dedicated to pursuing my career. I ended up falling in love in my early 30s and was in that relationship for almost four years. After that relationship, I was dating again but there’s a lot of pressure when you’re dating for the family you’re eager to create. For me, that was actually a part of my decision to pursue solo motherhood. Now that baby Liberty’s here, I’m actually engaging and connecting with men and it feels purely authentic. Certainly I hope to fall in love again, and have that as something that Liberty gets to witness, seeing her mother being treated well and being cared for, and watching me nurture and give back to my romantic partner in a way that she can learn from as well. And having him serving as a wonderful man in her life who helps her feel safer and more loved. That’s certainly my intention—and I feel well-positioned to pursue that.