Nine months after Bill Speed died on Christmas Day, his daughter gave birth to a son who bears his name. Now the Love Is Blind star is back behind the camera, returning to the storytelling she grew up around.
Lauren Speed-Hamilton with her father, Bill Speed, who died on Christmas Day 2024. Her son, Ezra William Hamilton, is named after him. (Credit: Lauren Speed-Hamilton/Instagram)
On Christmas Eve 2024, Bill Speed sat with family in his daughter's Atlanta home watching a Jamie Foxx comedy special when he grew emotional. "He turned to me and said, 'Wow, this is making me think about my life, and you guys, and my legacy, and what I'm leaving,'" Lauren Speed-Hamilton later told ESSENCE. He died overnight.
Speed-Hamilton, who was in the middle of an IVF cycle after nearly four years of trying to conceive, found him the next morning.
Nine months later, on Oct. 1, 2025, she gave birth to a son, Ezra William Hamilton. His middle name honors her father.
Now the 38-year-old Love Is Blind star is building on the legacy he spoke about that night. On Thursday, she premiered Pull Up, a new interview series she created and executive produces, on the couple's Hanging With the Hamiltons YouTube channel.
"I think about my dad and that word, legacy, and watching that continue from him to me and now to my son," she told ESSENCE.
Bill Speed walks his daughter, Lauren Speed-Hamilton, down the aisle at her 2018 wedding to Cameron Hamilton on Netflix’s Love Is Blind. (Credit: Lauren Speed-Hamilton/Instagram)
Bill Speed spent six decades in the music business. In 1977, he became the first Black editor at the industry magazine Radio & Records. Six years later he helped create BET's Video Soul, the first television show dedicated to Black music videos, according to SoulTracks.
His daughter's road to motherhood was long. She and Cameron Hamilton, whom she married in 2018 on the first season of the Netflix dating series, began trying to conceive in January 2021. Two rounds of intrauterine insemination failed, and a third ended in miscarriage. An IVF attempt also failed.
Speed-Hamilton had been told her fibroids would not affect a pregnancy. She later sought out a Black OB-GYN, Dr. Jackie Walters, who referred her to a Black fertility specialist. She had the fibroids removed and began another round of IVF, ESSENCE reported.
She prayed through the wait. "God, please let me be pregnant so I have a new memory for Christmas next year," she recalled.
The name Ezra came to the couple as the family sorted her father’s belongings and found his mother’s Bible. “When we opened it, the Bible opened to the book of Ezra and a picture of dad fell out,” she told PEOPLE.
Ezra arrived "a little earlier than planned, but perfectly on God's time," the couple wrote when they announced his birth. Speed-Hamilton spent extra days in the hospital after complications from preeclampsia.
Lauren Speed-Hamilton and Cameron Hamilton with their son, Ezra William Hamilton, who was born Oct. 1, 2025. (Credit: Lauren Speed-Hamilton/Instagram)
She has described the months between her father's death and her son's conception as grieving "with an asterisk," because she had to prepare her body for pregnancy while she mourned. A therapist encouraged her to focus on the milestones her father did share with her.
Motherhood has reshaped how she understands the loss. In January, she spoke with The Mirror US about "realizing that grief and the love for my son are really the same thing, just in different forms."
Pull Up returns her to her training. The Detroit native earned a degree in electronic media and film and founded The Speed Brand, an Atlanta creative agency, before Love Is Blind made her a household name in 2020. Her production company, Lawrence Street Productions, works across film, television and digital media, according to her website.
"Love Is Blind changed my life in ways I never could have imagined," she told Atlanta magazine this year. "It gave me my husband, my family, and opened doors professionally. But I've always wanted to use those doors for something bigger."
The series trades the traditional sit-down for an outing built around each guest. In the first season, Speed-Hamilton stops by a recording studio, tests her strength in an aerial class and challenges her husband to an axe-throwing contest, according to TODAY. Guests include The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Cynthia Bailey and comedian KevOnStage.
"Is Cam trying to leave me on this show?" she jokes in the trailer.
Lauren Speed-Hamilton created, executive produces and hosts Pull Up, which premiered Nov. 12 on YouTube. (Credit: Lauren Speed-Hamilton/Instagram)
On her website, she wrote that she has spent the past year "pouring my heart into two things: motherhood and bringing Pull Up to life." She also leads the Eddie-Mae Robbie Foundation, a nonprofit she describes as "dedicated to empowering communities through education and support."
As the second anniversary of her father's death approaches, Speed-Hamilton has said she wants Christmas to hold something new for her family.
"Instead of being like, 'This is the day that Daddy died,' it's like, 'How can we change this day into a celebration of my dad's life?'" she said.