Entrepreneur April McDaniel’s story is one of hardship and triumph with many highs and lows. Perhaps one of the most difficult obstacles the Crown + Conquer founder had to overcome was the death of her husband.
McDaniel has found incredible success in recent years with her creative agency, which works with brands such as Amazon Studios, Beats by Dre and Adidas to promote their products in a unique way. The Crown + Conquer website describes exactly what makes the agency so special “with our team’s diverse perspectives and individual authenticity, we come up with creative, custom solutions to bring brands to life in new ways.”
But McDaniel didn’t stop there, after founding Crown + Conquer she went on to promote safe spaces for women, creating Let it Break, a community for women focused on personal growth and recovery. McDaniel recently made an appearance on the Tamron Hall show alongside her friend and podcast co-host Savannah James (wife of LeBron James) to discuss their “community driven initiative to help women uncover deeper aspects about themselves.” While discussing the pair’s new joint venture, the topic of conversation turned to April’s husband as Hall expressed her condolences.
What happened to April McDaniel’s husband?
There isn’t much information about who McDaniel’s husband was readily available online and understandably, April hasn’t revealed much about him either. His cause of death is somewhat of a mystery but April did talk about how his passing affected her, “I think in my instance I was in survival mode. I had two small boys, I was 33 when my husband passed, they were ten and three and I think I was like okay we’re going to figure this out.”
McDaniel is 43 at the time of writing so we know her husband passed away around ten years ago. She went on to explain how talking about her grief with her friend Savannah helped a lot and that became the basis for creating the Let it Break community.
“I was like man, it would be so helpful if other people had this type of friendship. And I think we started realizing that people don’t have this type of community. People don’t have this level of support […] I think it was really important for us to demonstrate that no one has it together.”
But McDaniel’s husband didn’t just help inspire Let it Break, he also helped form the idea that would become Crown + Conquer too. According to an article from thealliancerockband.com McDaniel also mentioned that the initial idea for the agency came to her husband but he sadly did not live long enough to see April achieve their dreams. When asked by Tamron Hall where she found her strength to provide for her family and become the success she is today McDaniel simply said, “There’s an inner lion in me that exists that I can’t even explain.”
