After a break from Married to Medicine, Dr. Contessa Metcalfe returned for all the crazy shenanigans that went down in season 11. With the season finale about to drop this weekend, EBONY sat down with the entrepreneur, wife and mom to learn what she’s taking away from her return and what she’s looking forward to next.
EBONY: You left in season nine. How did it feel to be back?
Dr. Contessa Metcalfe: It felt amazing. It was great coming back. I feel like I dodged a bullet in Season 10 because I didn’t have to try to understand how it would make sense for Tee to come into the group with her ex-husband there. It was just crazy. It’s just been so much fun being back. It’s kind of like riding a bike. These are some of my true friends…I see them even when we’re not on camera. The only difference is sometimes there’s a camera around now. It’s just been a great opportunity for me to come back again and find my place in the new status quo of the group.
Going back into it, did you feel like there were any loose ends you needed to tie up, or were you open to new experiences?
Completely open to new experiences. I think that’s what life is all about. I really needed to spend some more time focusing on my family. I was able to do some fun things: I recorded three movies. We were able to acquire a building. It was a good year for us to really set down some goals and accomplish them. As much as you start kind of taking for granted, you can balance everything.
As we inch towards the season finale, do you feel like you’ve accomplished the things that you’ve set out to do?
The thing that I was hoping to do was bring a little bit more cohesiveness to the group. It just seemed like everybody was being mean to each other: Quad by herself, and then there was Fedra and Alicia, and it just seemed like everybody was so disjointed. I feel like I was common ground. Right. I’m everybody’s friend. I try to be anyway. I know I don’t always do it. I’m not always successful, but I try to be the light.
Do you feel like you’re ready for that permanent return in season 12?
I would say as long as there is nobody else who has more interesting story than me. I think people are always thinking, everybody always wants to be like the star. I think sometimes it’s okay to be the supporting cast member, right? Yeah. I’m fine with just whatever role I can be in. I want all my friends to be okay. I don’t think there’s any extra power to just me always being the person who’s getting all the attention.
Sometimes if you’re doing good in life, you can help your friends or your family members accomplish their goals, right? And ultimately to me, that’s a bigger impact. And so, if I can support my friends and be there for them too, when they need it, ’cause they got more stuff going on, or they got more craziness in their life, and I’m just balanced right now, I’m fine with that.
It’s so good to see Black women like yourself in such high places.
I’m Georgia Chair of the American Diabetes Association. How crazy cool is that?
Can you speak a little bit about the journey and what pushes you to constantly set such high goals? You’re three times board certified?
And I’m working on my fourth one; I was going to sit for my obesity and my addiction boards at the same time. But I was like, ‘Okay, that’s just crazy, right because the tests are literally days apart.’ But what I’m saying is I, I think about where I came from, going back to my childhood, right? The sacrifices my mom made. My mom was a teen mom. She had my sister when she was 15-years-old.
My dad had a substance use disorder. And so, I just have to not take my parents’ sacrifices for granted. They worked hard to get us the best opportunities and just speak life into us. If you take that for granted, their sacrifices, you just piss on ’em. My dad wanted to be a pharmacist. My mom wanted to be a nurse. And so, I’m a doctor. My brother’s an attorney. We are able to live that manifestation of what they couldn’t because it just wasn’t the same time, and they didn’t have the same opportunities. That’s my motivation. And I got three little kids, six eyes watching me, all the time.
You practice preventive medicine. Can you give us some of the techniques that you use in your own life?
I’m a big tracker and a journaler, setting goals and accountability. Even with my patients, I tell them about these journals that I maintain because I call it “the Bible of me,” right? If my cholesterol is a little bit elevated, I have to then eat eight to 14 servings of fruits and vegetables. Then I check six months later and see if those changes I made led to a positive change in my numbers. And so I can say to my patients, ‘Hey, you do this, and this will work. You’re thinking about the big picture,’ I say over and over again, and I wanna live to 114.
From your point of view, what does your love look like with Dr. Scott? What does that kind of partnership feel like?
I wish you could see this fool, he over here dancing and like doing like this. When you saw us struggling, we stopped having fun in our relationship. It just became about business: who’s picking the kids up? What time do you get off? What time I gotta go in, you gonna take ’em to school today? So again, we started being more whimsical and playful and saying again, even if it’s silly, what do you wanna accomplish? What do you wanna do? He started to make music, right? I always be like, “So my husband wanna be a rapper.”
Just because you get older doesn’t mean you don’t have those dreams anymore. He had to grow kind of quick, too. He’s the youngest of 10 kids and has five brothers. And so it’s the expectation again—when you’re concerned about food and shelter and the basic stuff, you don’t have time to focus on whether you wanna learn how to play the piano or the harp, you don’t get to explore fantastical, whimsical things. It really should be about experiences and quality time and developing skill sets that you want to – for personal wellness and for fun.
What would you say are the key things when you’re trying to find a partner as strong as yours?
Number one, transparency is freedom. People think all the time it’s about keeping secrets and not telling your stuff. I think once you start letting go of that belief that perfection isn’t what I’m aspiring for ’cause perfection is a lie. The messier your life is, the messier your story, the more people can identify with it. And so being afraid of being vulnerable is probably the biggest mistake that anybody will ever have because then people don’t really get to know who you really are.
Don’t be masked in that cloak of trying to reach perfection because nobody believes that anyway. When you show that you’re a little bit flawed, then someone will be more comfortable saying, ‘Well shoot, that’s something I’m concerned about.”
For those that are single or that are newly single, because I have unfortunately a lot of friends who’ve gone through divorces, and now they’re newly single in their forties and fifties and are dating again. They’re almost back to this place of “I don’t need nothing. I don’t want nothing.” Well, what you do want is companionship and friendship.
If you met like a new girlfriend, what would you say and do? You would just approach it with lightness, and let’s just have some fun. Same thing. Let’s just have some fun for one or two days, that turns into four or five. And you’ll find that person who you wanna spend more and more time with. Not because you have to, because you are lonely, but because you really enjoy their company.
What season of your life, of your life are you in, or are you entering? What can we look forward to next?
Well, I think I’m in “naked girl season.” Maybe it’s perimenopause or something: I be hot, so clothes be hot. I grew up Apostolic. I don’t know if people know what that is, but very, very religious. So I didn’t even, my mama didn’t even wear pants for real. Like really conservative. I remember when I did that fitness competition, that was my first time really wearing a bikini. So, now I’m kind of in this place of loving my sexiness in my body and trying new fashion trends, wearing my belly out even though I’m 48. That’s where I am right now. I’m just trying to have some fun, just be light and not take myself too seriously.
Anything else you want to share?
I was Miss Xavier University, so I was in EBONY before, and when I tell you that was the highlight of my life—so thank you so much for having me. I love EBONY. My mama talked about that forever.
The Married to Medicine finale airs on February 23, 2025, on Bravo.
