After graduating from Columbia, Watts returned to North Carolina and began her career as a general assignment reporter at
WFMY-TV in
Greensboro, North Carolina. She later worked at
WNBC, where she was nominated for an
Emmy, and
WABC-TV in New York as an anchor of a weekly political forum and reporter. In 1991, she began working as a host of
Attitudes, a talk show on
Lifetime Television. The next year, she took a job on the newsmagazine
Inside Edition as a senior correspondent, weekend anchor and producer.
King World Productions, the syndicator of Inside Edition and also
The Oprah Winfrey Show, then asked her to start her own talk show.
Rolonda aired for nearly four seasons from January 17, 1994, to September 1997. Watts was also supervising producer and one of the owners of the show. In a 2003 interview with
Soap Opera Digest, Watts said she folded the show rather than lose her integrity. "Audiences were saying, 'Well, that was really nice of you to be so respectful, but where's Jerry [Springer]?' We had to make a tough decision, either we go that route or we find something else to do." After leaving her talk show behind, Watts headed to
Hollywood, California to pursue a career in acting. Her first break was in 1997 when she was cast as Vivica Shaw in
Sister, Sister, a role she played for six episodes. Since then Watts has had guest starring roles in dozens of television shows, including
The West Wing,
JAG,
The District Yes, Dear, and soap operas
Days of Our Lives and
The Bold and the Beautiful. In 2002,
Soap Opera Digest named her "Scene Stealer of the Week" for her role as the cut-throat Attorney Cameron Reese on
Days of our Lives. Watts is also the CEO/president of her own production company, Watts Works Productions, which co-produced her talk show
Rolonda. In 2005, she hosted
Lie Detector, a reality series for
PAX-TV. That same year, she took over as announcer on
Judge Joe Brown. She also appeared on
Live With Regis and Kelly where she traveled cross-country as a judge for the show's "Great American Co-Host Search." In October 2006, Watts returned to her talk-show roots. She signed with GreenStone Media, a radio network launched by
feminists Gloria Steinem and
Jane Fonda, to host an afternoon radio show. She hosted the show until the network's closure in August 2007. Subsequently, Watts served as announcer for the game show
Temptation, which ran from September 2007 to May 2008. As of 2022, Watts is the voice of Professor Wiseman in the
PBS Kids animated program
Curious George, as well as voicing "Gladys" in the
Nickelodeon series
The Penguins of Madagascar. Watts is currently shooting two films, with five others waiting for release, including her first starring role in ''A Mother's Love
and leading roles in Christmas Mail
, House Arrest, Soul Ties
, Broken Roads and 25 Hill, a film written and produced by Corbin Bernsen. In the short film Return to Babylon, Watts portrays Josephine Baker; in Defying the Stars''. she plays the role of
Dorothy Dandridge. She recently played the role of Betsy Holiday in
Tyler Perry's first animated film ''
Madea's Tough Love''. In between the months of June and August 2017, Rolonda began her stand up career and was offered a radio show from CBS Radio entitled
Sundays with Rolonda. Rolonda began starting her own webseries entitled
ROmance via
YouTube; she also starred in Bounce TV's sitcom series,
Mann & Wife as a choir director in a principal casting role. In 2024, she voiced Aunt P in
Invincible Fight Girl. ==Filmography==