Shemane Nugent wears many hats, including author, fitness expert, and documentary filmmaker. She hosts the podcast “Faith & Freedom,” and recently wrote “Abundantly Well,” a Bible-based guide for good health. She and her husband, rock musician Ted Nugent, live on a ranch in Texas.
American Essence: What’s your morning routine like?
Shemane Nugent: I love getting up early before the sun rises. I check the news, I have my coffee, and then my dogs and I will go out and check on my garden. Listening to the birds, breathing fresh air, and getting that first sunlight in the morning really helps me to reset and refocus my day on positivity.
There are so many things in this world to be stressed about, but when you can grow little baby tomatoes, squash, strawberries, peppers, or carrots from your garden, like, “Oh, I can’t wait to see what God’s going to give me to eat today,” it puts everything in perspective.
We live a very different lifestyle. We have traveled all over the world, of course, with my husband’s touring, and we both really love being at home. We both love living off the land, growing a garden, and we hunt. I’m a bowhunter, so it really makes us appreciate God’s design. I’ve been a health nut all my life. Especially when I got sick and almost died from toxic mold, I became a label reader. I can’t eat certain things because they make me sick and give me headaches. The closer I get to the ground, the dirt, the tree, or the hoof, the better I feel.
AE: What daily wellness practices keep you grounded?
Ms. Nugent: For sure, gardening, getting my hands dirty, getting my hands in touch with God’s great design. I live by the 80–20 rule: Eighty percent of what I eat is clean. Twenty percent—I like Fritos, pizza, and chocolate chip cookies, but I don’t have them every day. I also work out a lot. I’m fortunate that when I was growing up, I was an athlete. I was a two-time state champion swimmer, I raced motocross, and I was in pretty much every sport—track, volleyball, basketball, and gymnastics, and that kept me active. I’ve been teaching group fitness classes since 1980. I just love the way that our bodies are designed to move. When you get sick and almost die, your life changes. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I say a prayer, thanking God for a body that moves, for eyes that work, and to be able to hear my husband tell me he loves me or my dogs whimpering, and to be able to dance again. It really makes you appreciate the little things.
AE: What inspires you and keeps you going on tough days?
Ms. Nugent: If I really take a look at my life, how grateful I am to have my health. If you wake up in the morning and you have an attitude of gratitude, it changes everything. And having faith. The most grounding thing for me is to have faith. Every time I open the Bible, it speaks to me. I hear a phrase that I really needed to encourage me to get through the day or to help deal with a relationship issue or whatever seems to be stressing me out.
AE: How do you wind down in the evenings?
Ms. Nugent: We are blessed to live on a ranch. It’s not a big ranch, especially according to Texas standards. We have a 300-acre fenced-in ranch. Right now, I’m looking at scimitar-horned oryx—they’re big, white antelopes—and blackbuck antelope. In the evenings, Ted and I sit on our deck, which overlooks this big field. We call it the Serengeti. We’ve been to Africa many times, and it reminds us of the Serengeti. We put a feeder behind our house, just so that we could see the animals come in at sunset. Watching the sunset, watching the animals come in, having our dogs right next to us, and having a glass of wine, that’s the perfect evening.
AE: What has motherhood taught you?
Ms. Nugent: Patience and selflessness, that your child’s needs come before yours, no questions asked. During those times, I remember when my son was a year old, he didn’t sleep very well when he was a baby. He was born in July. I remember Ted asking me what I wanted for Christmas that December, six months later, and I said, I just want to sleep through the night.
The little things become so big because if you don’t get your sleep, you don’t feel well; if you don’t feel well, you can’t show up for people who need you in their life, and you can’t continue to do God’s good work. Motherhood has taught me patience, selflessness, kindness, and the art of giving without wanting anything in return. The joy of seeing my son happy and healthy is such an incredible blessing and gift. That’s what I believe life is really all about. The Bible does tell us, the greatest of all these things is to love. Motherhood has taught me to love.
AE: What’s a favorite family tradition?
Ms. Nugent: We celebrate Christmas, but to the extent we’re all grown and we’ve got grandkids and one on the way. I’m excited about having family, and wrapping paper on the floor, and having big meals together, and exchanging stories and catching up. The days, weeks, months, and years just fly by and suddenly, I’m 62 and my son is going to be 35. Where did the time go? I really do cherish those moments where we can get family together.
AE: What’s your proudest moment?
Ms. Nugent: There are so many. One just happened today. There’s a young Christian artist named Forrest Frank. He’s blowing up on the Christian music scene. My son is in one of his videos. My son’s a musician as well. I happened to run into Forrest and his wife in a grocery store today in Waco, Texas. I will say a lot of people know me because I’m Ted Nugent’s wife, but I introduced myself as Rocco Nugent’s mom, not Ted Nugent’s wife. Rocco is the perfect combination of Ted and me. He is strong and strong-willed, a hard worker, but also highly sensitive. I think that’s a gift.
Also, I developed a program for Zumba. I traveled the world as a Zumba fitness instructor, training other instructors. I’ve probably taught thousands of fitness classes over the years, and that was pretty cool for me.
AE: Do you have any new projects that you’re really excited about?
Ms. Nugent: In January, I published a book called “Abundantly Well.” That was a great moment for me. But I’m doing something now that I’ve never done that I’m excited about. I’m writing a novel. I love to write. I’ve written a few books, and I am very creative. I can envision things. I have a degree in radio, TV, and film, and I’ve been producing a television show with my husband called “Ted Nugent: Spirit of the Wild.” It’s been on air for 35 years. I love being behind the camera.
I never thought growing up I’d be known as the Mold Lady, but I got sick and almost died from toxic mold. No doctors could help me. I had to become my own investigative sleuth. I researched a lot before the internet and found out a lot about toxic mold. I put it into a book called “Killer House” and then a documentary called “Killer House.” This year, I’m going to release a docuseries. I’m just looking for a network that’ll carry it. Today alone, two separate people have reached out to me needing help with toxic mold, and this happens every day. People desperately need help.
AE: What do you love most about America?
Ms. Nugent: When I’m at a concert or one of President Trump’s rallies or any veteran get-together, and I see the American flag and hear the “Star-Spangled Banner,” it tears me up, because I know what our Founding Fathers went through. I know how brave and bold they must have been to do what they did.
America is strong. America is brave. We have the First Amendment, mostly. We still have the Second Amendment, and we need to fight for it. We are the last best place on Earth.
And funny story—the first time I went to South Africa, we went on safari, and we had our big, fancy cameras, and we’re taking pictures in nice clothes. We were actually at the ranch of our son’s namesake, Dr. Rocco Gioia. He had a ranch in Hoedspruit, South Africa. He had a lot of workers on this ranch, and they didn’t speak any English. They wore the same clothes every day. We’d be there for a month at a time, and Rocco had been coming with us since he was 18 months old—that was the first time he went. He would play with the kids, and they didn’t even have to speak English. They would play together, play ball, or dig in the dirt. I said to Dr. Gioia, “Do the workers look at us with our fancy clothes and things, and are they jealous? And he said, “No, they feel sorry for you because you need so many things.”
Going back to losing everything—our house that was on “MTV Cribs” is no longer there. We demolished it. We walked away from it with just the clothes on our backs, and then got rid of those. We were living at a Holiday Inn and had nothing. We had to start all over again with everything from sheets and scissors and knives and plates. It’s very humbling. It makes you really appreciate the significance of how fragile life is. When you don’t have your health, you’ve got nothing.
AE: What life advice would you give to a young person these days?
Ms. Nugent: Have a relationship with God. You can say, “Be strong and bold and follow your heart” and all that. But I don’t often think you should follow your heart. Sometimes our hearts mislead us. We can have all the plans we want, but God might have a different plan for us that’s even bigger and better. It’s important to have a foundation and get a good education if you can. It’s important to follow your heart in the sense that we all have gifts, and my gifts might be different than somebody else’s. I know people who love numbers, and they are great accountants, and the world needs accountants. If they want to be a singer and they don’t have the gift for that, then they might not end up being successful. So don’t do what the world wants you to do. Do what God wants for you.
3 of Shemane’s Favorite Things
Favorite Book:
I love to read. My favorite author is Charles Martin. He’s a fiction writer, and he writes with intrigue, and it’s adventure. There’s a little bit of a romance in there, which I like. Number one, the Bible, for sure. One of my best possessions is a Bible from the 1700s.
Favorite Movie:
A couple. This is going to be a huge contrast, and they’re pretty much neck and neck. The first movie that ever made a huge impact on me is “The Sound of Music.” And “Man on Fire” with Denzel Washington. I love the cinematography of that movie. The storyline was great, too.
Your Superpower:
Making darn good chocolate chip cookies. I’m a chocolate chip cookie-aholic, I’ve tried them all. I’ve experimented with a lot of cookies over the years. I used to make cookies and sell them to a bakery when I was in my 20s.
From Sept. Issue, Volume V
