“Michael Vick” On What He Learned In Jail

    Check out  Micheal Vicks Exclusive interviews with Essence magazine and see what he tells us about his experience about being in jail.  Along with his release from Jail Micheal has also decided to join the reality tv world and has debut hisown show called ” The Micheal Vick Project.”  I have no idea what he show will entail, but should be interesting.

ESSENCE.com: I know of your football fame and success, but after being in prison and returning to outside life–the NFL, your family–there is so much written about you, but I’d like to ask you: How are you, Michael? How is this new phase of your life going?
MICHAEL VICK: I am doing well. It’s been a tough road–18 months locked away–but I am doing better because I detached from the people and the activities that were hurting me–that risked everything I’d worked for and that was ruining all of the goals I had attained.

ESSENCE.com: You mention the “people” you had to detach from–you mean your old friends from growing up? Did you somehow feel responsible to take care of them?
VICK: I did feel I had to take care of my old friends, the people I came up with. Here I was, making all this money and I wanted them to have a shot, too. I wanted them to be in a position to have a good life, too. I felt a responsibility to keep something going for them. I grew up with them, love and respected them. At the beginning of doing this thing for them, i never thought it would end up as it did.

ESSENCE.com: And by that you mean the dog fighting, the Bad Newz Kennels?
VICK: Yes, it was something they knew, something they did, it was around a lot. I know it is so wrong now. And, I am doing a lot of work with the Humane Society to try to give back, to do something positive, to go against all the negative I did, and that went on in that business. I just felt this pressure to keep the financial end going for those guys, and I’ve learned to let that go, and let them go, and what I was doing with them. I had to detach from all of it.

ESSENCE.com: Your fiancee Kijafa Frink has stood by you 100% and so have so many of your fans. That support must mean so much to you.
VICK: Absolutely, that support means everything. It’s all you have when you are in prison. I am grateful to my fans, and most of all to Kijafa. I was sitting there incarcerated, feeling angry, disgusted… At first you just want to blame someone else, I just couldn’t believe I ended up in that cell and I would get full of rage thinking about the people who put me in that position. But Kijafa gave me support and guidance, and told me how feeling that was only going to hurt me, not anyone I may have been angry with. She helped me to focus on getting better, healthier, stronger in a spiritual way–and that gave me a positive focus instead of a negative one.

Read more: Essence Magazine