Former NBA star-turned-podcaster Paul Pierce is defending Dr. Cheyenne Bryant as social media users continue to question her credentials and stir backlash over her lack of a license.
Dr. Bryant, who claims to hold a Ph.D (Doctor of Philosophy), has been at the center of controversy after reveling she is not a licensed professional.
Dr. Bryant, who has worked in her field for 18 years, has said that licenses are really only needed for professionals to bill insurance companies. Amid the backlash, she has reiterated that she considers herself a “psychology expert and life coach” versus a therapist.
The always-viral life coach and relationship expert made the reveal on Joe Budden’s podcast in late April. The revelation led to scrutiny of Dr. Bryant’s education, and qualifications in general.
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Dr. Cheyenne Bryant Addresses Backlash After Claiming She Does Not Have License, Only Degrees
On May 12, Dr. Bryant appeared on The Breakfast Club, where she addressed the legitimacy of her doctorate, and more. She said she was only going to clear things up this one time and said she “doesn’t give a f**k” about other peoples’ narratives.
Bryant went on to reveal that she attended Argosy University, where she pursued her doctorate degree in Counseling Psychology. However, she said the school lost its accreditation in 2019 and closed permanently.
Subsequently, Bryant said she’s now unable to access her records to prove she earned her doctorate. However, she confirms she did undergrad, has a Master’s of Science in Counseling/Marriage, Family & Child Therapy, and then completed a Doctorates program for Counseling Psychology at Argosy University.
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On May 14, Dr. Bryant ended up addressing the backlash while appearing on Fox5 DC’s ‘The Marissa Mitchell Show.’ There, she talked about her new book, ‘Live Your Promise: Escape Your Wilderness, Heal Your Pain, So You Can Manifest the Life You Want.’ She was also asked about the controversy over her doctor credentials.
During the interview, she pushed back and said that if she deems herself a doctor, then that’s what it is. She declared:
“I have multiple degrees, and my thing is that my proof isn’t something that I have to prove to individuals. My proof is already within my credentials, my degrees, and also more than just my titles, it’s in how effective I’ve been.”
Dr. Bryant continued to mention her “live sessions” with celebrities like Nick Cannon, Cam Newton, Shannon Sharpe, and B. Simone. She added that the public has only come to know about her work because of her public sessions with them. She continued to share:
“They deemed it as my work being effective. I am effective at what I do. I’m educated, and I’m successful in my lane. I created my own lane. And so a lot of times, when people see that you created something that maybe they couldn’t, admiration turns into envy, and you’ve got to be okay with [that] … I’ve earned the title, I have multiple degrees and I’m not going to prove anything to anybody.”
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Paul Pierce Defends Dr. Cheyenne Bryant Amid Credentials Backlash
Amid Dr. Cheyenne Bryant’s credentials backlash, Paul Pierce is defending her. On his podcast with Azar Farideh, ‘The Truth After Dark,’ he said:
“I get it that people want to tear Dr. Cheyenne down. But you have to listen to what she said. Because I’m like, ‘Yeah, maybe she isn’t a credentialed doctor like everybody else is who’s in this space, but she’s made a lane to where she became famous off of being in this lane. And so many people want to do it.’
And she said, I heard her. She said, ‘I created my own lane. Did you hear that part? She created her own lane to where, listen, if people are going to listen to my advice and I can change lives and I can help you go from a negative to a positive, regardless of my credentials, do I have to go to school to be qualified?’
Like people feel like you got to go to school to be qualified to be at a certain level. And I get it. I feel like if you’re changing lives and you’re able to walk away from Dr. Cheyenne, like, ‘Damn, that really helped me out,’ just because she put doctor in front of her…I mean, people do that all the time. You think she’s the only one? No, she’s the most famous one. There’s a lot of people that I know that got the doctor, they know they’re near, got the credentials for that.
So, I’m just like, man, she created this lane. Once she grows, she grows. She’s getting bigger and bigger. Now people are like really questioning it, like, ‘Oh, where’s your license…’ Like, listen, man, she has created something that is like positive. She’s influential. And to some degree she knows what she’s talking about.
Because these people who go to school that become doctors and intellect and conversation to where you’re a psychologist and you can do things, therapists and all these things to get the doctorate—just because you went by the book, that don’t mean she’s less qualified. She did it a different way. People questioning it as if she don’t [have her doctorate]. Even if she don’t and she can’t prove it, she changing lives is what I’m saying.
And to go back, I was telling my boy this. I was like, have you ever seen that movie? ‘Something The Lord Made?’ Mos Def was a janitor. He worked with a doctor. He learned all the doctor stuff. He learned the first surgery, how to cure blue babies. But he wasn’t, he didn’t went to school for this. He just studied in there on his own, learned watching and doing all this stuff. And then he learned it.
So, does that make him, he changed the world without the license, he changed the world. And so now does that make him not qualified? And the person who got the credit was the doctor who he learned that from, he got the credit for his work. And so does that make the doctor more qualified or the person who showed the doctor that he was qualified, even though he didn’t have a license. So, I was saying that like, man, she let her do what she do. She says she created her own lane. She’s changing lives. She’s being successful. And that’s what I feel about it.”
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