Resolutely fabulous: taking on September 11 in a new one-woman show, breaking up with her fiance, and adopting a teenager, singer-actress-diva Jenifer Lewis is moving on down the road. (theater).

"You're late," Jenifer Lewis snaps as I pull up in front of the minimanse she shares with her 14-year-old adopted daughter in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley. This is not the way to begin a day with a certified diva who once shared the stage with Bette Midler (and probably taught her a thing or two) as a Harlette. But the hostility's a front. Instantly, Lewis, 45, who stars in Lifetime's Strong Medicine and whom you might recognize from What's Love Got to Do With It or the Sister Act movies, becomes as warm as the noonday sun and gently takes my arm. "Since you're late," she says, "you'll have to do my errands and walk with me."

With that we begin a long conversation about Lewis's most recent cabaret show, Jenifer Lewis Now What? (written out of grief over the events of September 11), now in an open-ended run at West Hollywood, Calif.'s Tiffany Theater; her recent, painful breakup with her fiance after three years; and, well, sleeping with Tina Turner.

The lesbians are very happy that you're coming back to West Hollywood. They love you.

They live for me, and I live for them. Let me tell you what I love about lesbians: They are activists, they're involved, they know it is about the children. Every lesbian I know is doing something for the cause, beyond the call of duty. And I love that. I love the freedom of people who are able to stand up and say, "This is who I am." Because this is what I've done. I have stood up and said, "I'm gonna tell the truth. And the truth, we all know, is painful." But hon, I can't be scared of pain. I just broke off my engagement. And that is painful.

Right around the holidays?

Right after Thanksgiving. Try that one on for size. But child, let me tell you something: Don't hold on to a bad relationship if it's the holidays. Don't run away. Don't run to Paris, which is where I was going. Keep your ass at home and go through the pain of not calling him--or her. Sit with it and come out on the other side.

Are you on the other side now?

Honey, I am on the other side. It's still a little painful; I'm not gonna lie to you. And this wasn't a big old scandalous-ass breakup. There was no fighting, no crack cocaine; nobody was drunk and beating the shit out of anybody. It was because the gap was too big in our levels of consciousness. The age, the careers, his friends were young, mine were older ... He couldn't be what he wanted to be in my shadow. He said, "I feel like I'm always playing catch-up." But see, if he had been of consciousness, he would've known that there was nowhere on the fucking planet he could go without being in my shadow because that's how fucking bright my light is! No, I'm not still angry at all.

What did you learn?

I learned that the almighty Jenifer Lewis, the divine, the majestic, the diva, the grand this-and-that-and-the-other, whatever the fuck all else people call me and all the other shit that I've held myself to be in order to survive in this goddamn world, I realize that I cannot fix nobody. You cannot change anyone but yourself.

Now that you're available, who would you date if you switched teams?

There's only one person in the world: Tina Turner. I admit I got a little turned on by Tina when I was very young and I saw her in Toronto. She was fucking a piano. Well, she was seducing it. I'm just sitting there going, "Damn, I'd fuck her." Goddamn it, that's how powerful Tina Turner is. Tina's the only one I would sleep with. I would date Janet Reno. Who else would I date? [National security adviser] Condoleezza [Rice]. She's just gotta get those teeth fixed. I say that in my show. I say, "Conda, girl. We're real proud of you up there in that White House, girl, but let's get your teeth fixed." Which is horrible because that's what makes her human.

You kissed Cree Summer when you played a lesbian judge on that short-lived TV series Courthouse.

I had had this white girl, at first, who was my lover, and I didn't know her, and I didn't want to kiss her on the mouth. It was freaky. But then Cree came in and she enjoyed it a little too much, and I was like, "Yeah, bitch. You don't have no problem with this, do you?"

You began writing your new show, Jenifer Lewis Now What? to heal yourself just after September 11.

I couldn't be there at ground zero with my hands, but I knew I could make people laugh, and you'll hear how cautiously I wrote it because I didn't know if people were ready to laugh. But see, I tell them, "If you ain't ready, fuck you. I am." I got to laugh. I got to mourn. And I said, "I don't know if you-all can feel normal, but I have never felt normal. So we've got to move on."

You really wanted to join the search-and-recovery effort?

I'm one of them get-in-there-and-rescue motherfuckers. See, I studied karate in my 20s. When the Northridge earthquake hit [in Southern California in 1994], I snap-kicked seven doors down. I lived in a condo, and there were people stuck because the ceiling had dropped. Nobody could get out of their house, so I kicked these doors down. I said, "Hey, you old motherfuckers, let's go before this bridge comes down on you." I pulled their asses out, and honey, I had more Jewish food at the door to live on for a year.

I want you to kick down some doors in Hollywood and make somebody give you your own series and three movies a year.

Let me be very honest with you. I'm already a star, for chrissake. I'm a little colored girl from St. Louis, Mo., with a kumquat tree in her backyard. Should I say it to you? Nigga, please! Do you really think I want to be Angela Bassett? I should have been as big as Michael Jackson with the kind of talent I have! I don't need to be living up on a mountain. I just climbed a mountain this morning with my sister because we were opening up to talk about the truth. That's living on a mountain. Shit. How much happier can I be?

Find more on Jenifer Lewis and links to related Internet sites at www.advocate.com

Jones writes Movie Scoop for E! Online.