Deborah Joy Winans – Age, Family, Career

Deborah Joy Winans is a singer and also an actor although she has a very short credits list. Now, wait a moment, you think the name Winans rings a bell? If you think so, you are right. You may have heard of CeCe Winans and wonder aloud if Deborah Joy is related to her, we can say she is and that would be the principal fact in our tale.

Deborah Joy is 5 feet 7 inches (or 1.73m).

Deborah Joy Winans – Age and family history

The Winans are a popular African American gospel singing family. It all started with the Winans patriarch David Winans Sr who is known on stage as Pop Winans. He was born David Glenn on April 20, 1934, in Detroit, Michigan, Glenn being his mother’s surname as his mother and father were never married.

In fact, his father denied that he was the father of the baby. David Glenn’s father’s father was the pastor of the church his mother attended and in which David grew up. His grandfather Isaiah Winans adopted him and made him take the Winans’ name and the name became part of immortality.

David Winans got married to Delores Ransom in 1953. She was seventeen years old as she was born in 1936. David was nineteen years old. We sometimes used the word “fruitful” to describe marriages that produced offspring. I believe with Mr. and Mrs. Winans, this word has its most effective use. Delores Winans gave birth to ten children.

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David Winans was a preacher something he began doing in 1966 which he did even on TV and running a philanthropic youth group. In the 1980s, Mr. and Mrs. began to sing which cumulated in the release of their album titled their stage name “Pop & Mom Winans” in 1989. The album was nominated in the Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album category of the Grammy. The stage opened for the family on the music stage.

Of the ten children born to him, David Winans Sr demonstrated his Christian love and forgiveness side when he named one of his children after his father who denied him. This son, Cavin Winans, is child number three and he grew up to marry Deborah Kerr who gave birth to four children one of them was named Deborah Joy Winans. Deborah has two step-siblings from her father’s second marriage.

Deborah Joy Winans was born on September 6, 1983. She is 36 years old.

Deborah Joy Winans – Career

Deborah Joy Winans is well-trained to be an actor on two continents. She studied at Moscow Art Theatre School and got BFAs from Wayne State University, Detroit and an MFA in acting from the California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita.

Deborah Joy Winans became an actress in 2014 when she appeared in a short film titled “Fighting the Battle”. In 2015, she played what is her most prominent role in a film when she portrayed her aunt CeCe Winans in the film “Whitney” on Lifetime Television.

It was a biographical film about Whitney Houston and was rather well-received by critics. Two years later, she once again portrayed her aunt in the musical revue “Born For This: The Bebe Winans Story”. It seems like she has an exclusive right to play her aunty and might even sue if someone else plays CeCe Winans.

In 2016, Deborah was cast in the TV series “Greenleaf” as the last child (Charity Greenleaf-Satterlee) of Bishop James Greenleaf (David) and Lady Mae Greenleaf (Whitfield) lord and lady of an African American megachurch in Memphis on Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). Outside of the United States and Canada, you can catch the show on Netflix. The show has now run for four seasons of 52 episodes all of which Deborah featured in.

Deborah is not just an actress, she is also a host or guest speaker on a handful of TV shows including OWN Tonight.

Is she married?

Yes, Deborah Joy Winans is married. She is married to Terrence Williams an attorney and community activist just like a certain Barack Obama in his youth which is to say we might see a Winans in the White House (you will admit that there is more than a small likeness between Deborah and Michelle Obama so dream on).

In October  2021, Deborah Winans gave birth to her son, Terrance David Williams via an emergency caesarian section following complications with fibroid. She later described it as “probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

Image source: Empire BBK