Sterling K. Brown Surprises His Kids’ Nanny with a Kitchen Makeover: She ‘Deserves a Grand Gesture’ (Exclusive)
PEOPLE got an exclusive first look at the ‘This Is Us’ alum’s heartwarming renovation on the upcoming season finale of ‘Celebrity IOU’
Sterling K. Brown is showing his love and appreciation for the woman who helped him raise his children.
The Black Panther star, 47, is teaming up with Drew and Jonathan Scott to surprise his nanny and friend of over seven years, Zoila, with a complete kitchen transformation. PEOPLE got an exclusive first look at the heartwarming season finale of Celebrity IOU that premieres this Monday on HGTV.
During the episode, Brown expresses his gratitude for Zoila for helping him and his wife, Ryan Michelle Bathe, raise their two sons Andrew and Amaré.
“Zoila is my lifesaver,” he says. “Honestly, my wife and I are both very busy people. To have someone in your home that you trust implicitly is irreplaceable.” Brown adds that because he’s a transplant in Los Angeles (he’s originally from St. Louis, Missouri), he says “you kind of have to create your own family.”
The This Is Us alum works alongside the twin brothers to create a more practical kitchen and dining area for Zoila’s four children and adopted granddaughter.
“I think Zoila deserves a grand gesture,” Brown says. “She radiates joy and light everywhere she goes.”
In the exclusive sneak peek above, Brown gets to work on demolishing the wall in Zoila’s home that was creating an inconvenient separation between the kitchen and living room.
“To be able to connect those two spaces in such a way that they’re not separate and distinct — but a continuum of living — is something that I think is going to be wonderful,” he says.
Drew tells Brown to ditch the sledgehammer and use his hands to break through what’s left of the wall to get an idea of what the space will be transformed into.
The camera then cuts to the actor holding up his hands and joking: “Right here, this is power right here baby.”
During an exclusive interview with PEOPLE in December, Drew opened up about the whole renovation process with Brown and recalled how Zoila “worked really hard” to buy a home so that she could legally adopt her granddaughter.
“She [Zoila] was in the process of adopting her granddaughter,” Drew told PEOPLE, “and the problem is the courts or the system said that she's not allowed to unless she actually had a house that could function for that number of people.”
After finally finding an affordable home outside of Los Angeles, Drew shared that Zoila realized “it wasn't really feasible to have the family there.”
“The kitchen didn't work. The dining area wasn't working,” he said. “So Sterling brought us in to help completely transform it so that she could enjoy it and so that she could legitimately adopt her granddaughter and have her as a part of her home. It's a really heartwarming story.”
Celebrity IOU airs Monday on HGTV at 8 p.m. ET.
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