Montel Williams is a military veteran who for many years has been paying it forward to other veterans in need. One of those ways is through home renovation.
Williams has been in the spotlight and in American homes for decades, becoming a national sensation in the 1990s when he hosted the Emmy-winning The Montel Williams Show—which ran in syndication from 1991 to 2008. He has also been a New York Times bestselling author, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and advocate for education and health.
But ever before gracing the small screen, Williams served his nation. He was in the United States Marine Corps, becoming the first black Marine selected to the Naval Academy Prep School to go on and graduate from the United States Naval Academy and become a commissioned officer. He earned a degree in general engineering and a minor in international security affairs, serving in the military for almost 22 years.
Williams told Military.com that his military experience was one of the most “important factors” that shaped his life.
“I've had, blessedly, three full almost 20-year careers,” Williams said. “I had the Marine Corps and Navy first, then I did the Montel show, and then I've been working on medical initiatives and working on supporting our veterans ever since."
The military was a really unbelievable foundation for me for everything I've done in life.
His support for veterans has involved a newer role. About eight years ago, Williams was approached to succeed outgoing Military Makeover host and veteran, R. Lee Ermey, a former Marine drill instructor and actor arguably best known for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket.
The renovation program found on Lifetime and the Armed Forces Network will air its 45th season starting this March and feature a military veteran from Florida. Williams’ presence eases guests’ anxieties as they share a common past.
“One of the things about it that is so interesting is the fact that a lot of our veterans that we have selected as recipients for Military Makeover—these guys have a lot of combat experience,” said Williams, also a co-producer. “They know my military experience. I help them like the team leader for the whole project.
“However, I do the more sit-down interview with a family to let the veteran kind of express how he feels and tell a story. They open up to me because we're brethren of the same cloth.”
'Worlds Colliding'
Williams works alongside co-host Art Edmonds, who has been with the show since the beginning, as well as designer Jennifer Bertrand.
Bertrand, who garnered national attention after she won HGTV’s Design Star, has also been a mainstay on Military Makeover. The show is personal not just for Williams and the featured families, but also for Bertrand, the daughter of a U.S. Air Force colonel.
“I always say it's worlds colliding because I grew up in a military camp and my dad was Air Force and NATO, so it's kind of a little Wizard of the Oz for me where you see all the people at the end and think, I just love that I get to have my life come full circle and get to see everything I saw as a child and get to love on all those humans,” Bertrand told Military.com.
Bertrand describes a designer’s role as a “fairy godmother sprinkling the magic.” She’s done around 30 makeovers, but her TV journey happened sort of by chance.
She was a sponsor’s representative years ago and guested on the program, telling Edmonds and the production team that if they ever needed a designer they should give her a call. While filming in Kansas City, they needed a designer and gave Bertrand a ring.
The rest, as they say, is history. She has gotten to know and relate to countless veterans ever since.
I like to think I'm very good at psychology and people and that aspect of design, which is a lot of what you do when you're helping veterans who have a lot of past trauma and they're trying to find footing in their current life.
Surviving a Grenade Blast
The five-part 45th season of Military Makeover features the Dawson family of Palm Springs, Fla.
Matthew Dawson spent his youth between Florida and Georgia. One of his inspirations to enlist in the U.S. military was his Uncle Chuckie, a Vietnam War Army Infantry veteran.
Dawson entered the Army and rose to the rank of sergeant, serving deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan before being medically boarded and honorably discharged. The turmoil abroad at the time affected his unit as well as himself, as he was seriously injured from a grenade blast.
Dawson’s trophy shelf is vast, including the Afghanistan Campaign Medal with Campaign Star, Iraq Campaign Medal with two Campaign Stars, a Purple Heart, and multiple ribbons recognizing his service.
Today, he works as a foreman at a custom welding and fabrication shop. His injuries constantly linger, however, as he manages PTSD, back and hip pain, hearing loss, and nerve damage caused by the shrapnel still present in his body.
He has two younger children with his partner, Christina Jacome, who was his childhood friend growing up. The pair reconnected later in life.
“This is a young man who saw so much in his two deployments, one to Afghanistan and one to Iraq, and he lived through so much,” Williams said. “I mean, in a single day, he watched the Afghani national get blown to bits and then hours later, he himself almost got blown to bits when a grenade was in his way."
He bears the scars, both visceral and invisible.
Bertrand said the family had a slightly unusual request for their renovation: Hobbitcore, or the term used for nature-inspired aesthetics harkening to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
But it worked out perfectly as she had visited the actual movie set in New Zealand, saying that “life gave her research.”
“I like that [the Dawson family is] different,” she said. “I have never been asked to do a Hobbitcore design. … That's the part that I just so appreciate about them because they're a family who's unabashedly themselves.
“I think that's awesome because a lot of times people try to be what they think they need to be or there are insecurities and whatnot. They don't have them. They know who they are and it's lovely.”
How Projects Go From Start to Finish
The design process involves “trying very hard to never learn anything the hard way,” Bertrand said, and the goal is to satisfy the families and their wishes rather than Bertrand or her team.
That often begins with a one-hour virtual call with a prospective family where she gathers information regarding their interests, what improvements they envision, and what items they want to keep.
“I send a design questionnaire that asks a lot of things, like, ‘What's something you really don't want me to touch? What's really important for you?’” she said. “I'll ask about the military decor they have in their house, questions like, ‘What's your favorite music? If you got a vacation, would you go to the beach or the mountains?’
“Because when you start learning that about people, you can understand their personal style, taste, the way their brain thinks. I have a very fun job because you get to be Santa Claus to people. I love what I do.”
Bertrand and her sister, a design assistant at the show, have actually slept at families’ homes to get a feel for the changes occurring. But like most things the projects take a village, which has linked Bertrand and her colleagues to individuals in communities who aid the cause.
I call it design summer camp. You meet locals who really care, who've never met the family, people of all different personal beliefs coming together to love on this one family.
“You get to see the beauty of community and you have all these other people who just have become emotionally invested. We all just kind of do whatever it takes. And then at the end, it's like the end of summer camp because you've had such an intense bonding experience. You can't not stay friends forever," she added.
Of all the home renovations she’s done on the show, she recalls two where she felt iffy about the result but they mostly turned out well in the end anyway.
A Life in Entertainment Fueled by a Military Streak
Montel Williams has interviewed thousands of people throughout his life, notably as host and executive producer of his own show for 17 years.
He attributes every aspect of his military training—discipline, going to work on time, showing respect to everyone—for his success and longevity in a media environment that is certainly not always forgiving.
“I learned as much as I could to help actually produce the show, but also produce a product that people literally every day invited into their living rooms,” he told Military.com. “The time that my show started until the time we went off the air, over 100 other people came and went.”
The reasons behind the entrances and exits, he said, was likely because many hosts of that era perhaps did it for the financial gratification rather than helping others.
“I think the one thing that I took away from the military that helped me the most was, the idea of that if you're going to accomplish something or achieve a mission, you have to understand everything, every aspect of that mission,” he added. “Try to learn as much as you can, learn from, and not think that you are the end-all. There's always something new to learn.”
He understands where veterans come from because he is one. He can empathize with their plight. It’s part of a broader societal trend he sees where “lip service” and thanking veterans only goes so far, when in actuality real help on everybody’s part is required.
“We're at a point where we have taken this democracy for granted in a way that we shouldn't have,” he said. “It's now time for us to step up to the plate and recognize that, though we're about to hit our 250th year, 251 is going to require a lot of work to get there.”
What we're doing is ‘Thank you for your service.' We're showing them that America really does thank them for what they've done for us, and they are deserving of the tribute that we give them.
The 45th season of Military Makeover will debut at 7:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, March 26, on Lifetime, with subsequent episodes airing at the same time on April 2, 9 and 16. The “big reveal” will take place at 7:30 p.m. ET on April 23.
