Taking his advice was like ‘chewing broken glass’: the short life of dating guru Kevin Samuels

The self-styled expert was quick to criticize Black women in the relationship sphere - and sympathy over his death was in short supply

As a source of dating advice, Kevin Samuels would seem a last resort for America's Black women. On his YouTube show and podcasts, Samuels criticized Black women for being old and out of shape, and for having children out of wedlock. He sneered at modern women" who flaunted their multiple college degrees and boasted of their independence. He dropped these bombs in the softest voice, in a tailored suit, and bathed in mood lighting with a funky kinetic energy sculpture on his desk.

Yet many women not only tuned in to Samuels in droves, they cued up to Zoom into his show - some in hopes of putting the self-made image consultant turned relationship expert in his place. When Samuels suddenly died last Thursday in Atlanta at 57, as his star was still rising (the Fulton county medical examiners office has not yet revealed a cause of death), his many detractors reacted like Munchkins at the feet of the Wicked Witch of the East. The overwhelming lack of sympathy for Samuels - whose mother reportedly found out about his death as speculation raged online - comes down to his profiting from dismissing single Black women over 35 as leftovers" whose unrealistic desire for high-value men" would doom them to a lonely death.