Golden Brooks stars as Maya Wilkes, a sharp-tongued but good-hearted working mom who is trying to get her life back on track after her recent divorce, in The CW's hit comedy Girlfriends.
Born in San Francisco, Brooks was raised both there and in Los Angeles. She earned a bachelor's degree in sociology with an emphasis on media representation of minorities from the University of California Berkeley, as well as a master's degree from Sarah Lawrence College. Brooks has used her extensive training from Berkeley, where she also minored in theater, to win roles in numerous feature films, including her most recent Something New, Beauty Shop, Time Code, Hell's Kitchen and The Imposter.
Brooks has an impressive list of television credits, including a role in the series Linc's, and guest starring roles in The Parkers, Haunted, The Jaime Foxx Show, Adventures of Pete and Pete and Promised Land.
Brooks is also active on stage alongside Danny Glover with the Robey Theater Company, a nonprofit company dedicated to developing plays about the black experience, as well as interpreting established works. Her other theater credits include University of California Berkley productions of Ntozake Shanges's For Colored Girls, Chekhov's The Brute and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, among others.
Brooks is also a classically trained dancer, both studying and teaching ballet, jazz and modern dance.