Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / PRETTY VULNERABLE: Karamo on Vulnerability and Betting on Yourself.Â

Transcript

PRETTY VULNERABLE: Karamo on Vulnerability and Betting on Yourself. · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The following podcast is a dear media production.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: This is pretty smart. Vulnerability What a loaded word nowadays?
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: What is it? Really?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Simply uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure to show up and
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: be seen even when there are no guarantees. It's a
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: first date after a breakup or divorce. It's starting a business,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: taking responsibility of something we did wrong at work. It's
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: being next to a loved one that's sick. It's our
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: greatest measure of courage. And that's not a philosophy I
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: made up. Researcher Brene Brown collected thirteen thousand pieces of
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: data over twelve years and could not find a single
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: incident or story of courage that wasn't completely underpinned by vulnerability.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: And that brings me to our guest today, Caroamo Brown Karamo.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: He's known as a TV host, one of Queer Eyes
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Fab five, an author and activist. To me, he's the
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: most comfortably vulnerable person I've ever known. I met Karamo
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: years ago and thought he had always been an old soul,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: but then I read his book and I was shocked.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: He's been through really heartbreaking moments, harrowing struggles with drugs,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: domestic violence, lack of self love, and he constantly talks
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: about them all now openly with grace and even positivity.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: That kind of rawness seems both terrifying and liberating. So
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: I'm dying to know how did he get to this
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: place where he can so easily be pretty vulnerable. So, Karamo,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: there's this quote of yours that I love so much.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: You say, when people hear my story, my hope is
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: always that they start to believe that the life they
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: want is possible for them, because I'm living the life
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I've always dreamed. In our country, being from immigrant parents,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: growing up black in the South, coming out at sixteen
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: years old, being a teen parent, you would assume that
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: my life would amount to nothing, And here I stand today.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: So if I can do it, you can too. Gives
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: me chills every time I read it, and I've read
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: it I wrote it.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that, but it's real, though. You know, we
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: can get these narratives in our head that the circumstances
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: that have happened to us, are going to block us
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and stop us from having the life we deserve. And
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I literally realized maybe about twenty three that I had
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: to throw all those narratives out, throw all of those
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: statistics that you see on the news when they talk
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: about teen parents, about immigrants, about gay people. I had
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to throw all of that out and say, what.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: Do I believe?
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: What do I believe I'm going to get? What do
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I believe that I deserve? And then that's where you
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: start to take small steps every day you start to
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: ask for help, you just keep going. And that's why
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I constantly tell people, if I can make it through
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: all those things you just said, trust me, you have
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the ability to get to where you deserve.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: So I've never known someone so comfortable with vulnerability. I'm
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: kind of obsessed with how you've gone about healing and
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: finding so much love for yourself. But I feel like
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: I can't fully understand the growth without going back a
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: little bit. Can we go all the way back to Florida?
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: You grew up with Jamaican and Cuban parents. What was
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: little Karamo like?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: He was? He was a bit shy, to be honest.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: He felt like he had to be an overachiever, and
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: so that overachiever sort of countered the shyness because I
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: was always like, okay, well I have to put myself
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: out in this way because you know, having parents who
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: are from another country who struggled to get here. It
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: was like no, no, no, we got here, so you.
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: Have to get a's, you have to be involved.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: It's all, you know, all that stuff. But it was
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: like forcing against me being shy, and so I wish
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I was like the fun kid, but I was probably
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: like the scared kid if I think back on it, truly,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: that was more of an introvert. Now I think back
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: about it, I'm glad. You know, I love myself as
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: a younger me. But I'm like, I wasn't that person
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: who went out to a lot of parties or did it,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: like got invited to stuff. I had one best friend
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and that's who I spent the night over. You know,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I wasn't like the uber cool kid.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: It's funny you say that, because anytime I've ever been
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: with you, you are the life of the party.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: I cannot even imagine that. When did that shift for you?
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: I think it shifted around high school, to be very
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: honest with you because my parents got divorced when I
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: was fifteen, and I moved to Florida from Texas to
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: live with my father. And this school I went to
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: is Marjorie Stowe in Douglas, which we all know from
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: February fourteen, twenty seventeen, the school that was shot in Parkland, Florida.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: That was my school, and once I got there, it's
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: predominantly white school. I walked in and I was six
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: two and a half six street my same height, same
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: bodybuild I have. Now I had a gold tee and
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: so I walked into school and everybody was like, Oh
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: my god, who's this, Like, you know, college guy walking ahead,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So all of a sudden,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I felt like. I felt attractive. I felt cool because
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I had had a growth spurt bigger than everyone. I
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: looked like a man, and so all the guys wanted
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: to be friends, and all the girls thought I was cute,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: and I just, you know, I felt like and I
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: think back when it shifted, I realized there was a
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: power in me owning my self esteem growing. And I
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: say that in that way because some people own it
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and it turns into an ego I owned it as Okay,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: this is something that I have that doesn't define me,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: but it's allowing me to break out of my shell
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: and connect with other people. So I think it's shifted
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: about them.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: I love that you talk about that, because my next
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: question for you was how did your good looks play
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: into your desire to be in the spotlight, because I
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: feel like you've always sort of gone after this big life.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I know you thought I was fine.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Have I never told you that.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: You gorgeous too, making me read you're the side.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, one of the things that I
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: do think is unfair about our industry is that we
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's unfair about the world. We give certain
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: benefits to people who other people construe us attractive. And
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: it's sad because I felt it on both sides to
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: some degree. Where when I got into Hollywood, and I'm
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: going to fast forward just a little bit, I remember
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: them telling me immediately like, my nose is too big.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I remember I went to a mallling agency and they
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: were like, your nose is too big. You need to
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: lighten up your skin. I had, Oh my gosh, Oh
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: my gosh, I know you've heard this stuff too, Like
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: we've been friends for a long time, and you know,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I'm sure people have said like little slight shit to
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: you about like your body or anything, and you you're
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: a beautiful woman, but everyone has an opinion of what
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: you should look like. And so because of that, I
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: never had the opportunity to really fall into that space
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: where I thought that I was the most attractive or
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: beautiful person on any cast I've ever been on. I
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: have never been considered the attractive one. And that's just
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the real of it, the real world never I'm talking about,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: And it's not me saying this is about like the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: press and what people and the fans say, Like even
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: on Queer Eye.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't I don't care what I have on.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not the attractive one. On the past, people will
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: say to me, you're the sweet one I want to
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: get to know, You're the one I want to talk to.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: And I don't mind it because I'm not. I'm not
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: someone who needs that type of validation. But I realize, yes.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: I am shot you're the hot one on Oh thank you.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I think I think I appreciate that,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and I'll receive it. But I think that our hot
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: one is hot, you know, And I think that when
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: you and I think about it, we all have such
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: beauty and I just wish that we could all, you know,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: see the beauty. But like you know, we have these
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: lists People's most beautiful man, you know what I mean.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: It took years for someone you know, of color to
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: get on it. It took years for I don't think we
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: still had an Asian People's most Beautiful person yet, you
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. These type of things are crazy
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: to me because those standards can make you think that
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: you're not attractive. And so I do try to understand
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the privilege that I have with being tall, with looking
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: a certain way, but I don't let it get to
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: me because I know it's so subjective and that tomorrow
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: someone's going to look at me and be like, h
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: he's not that, because I've had.
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: That before, you know.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And you really do play so much importance in
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: your soul. It like emanates when you walk.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: You don't lead with those beautiful eyes or those muscles,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: you lead with your soul.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: It's special.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: Oh, thank you, love. I appreciate that. I try. I try.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I ain't perfect girl, No one is.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Did you have a desire for fame in high school?
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: I did, If I can be honest with you, I
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: had a desire of fame because when you grow up
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: that lonely kid, when you grow up in a broken household,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: you think that fame is going to heal you. You
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: think that fame is going to make the world see
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: you and give you some sort of validation. And after
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: being on MTV's Real World in two thousand and four,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I quickly realized that fame doesn't heal those parts of you.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: That it's your job to heal the parts of you
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: that you think are unworthy. It's your job to look
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: at yourself in the mirror and know that the experiences
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: that you went through are only going to make you
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: stronger or lessons you needed, because fame.
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: Won't do that for you, you know.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Like I tell people now, I'm so blessed and thankful
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the career that I have. I work hard for it.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: But I'm not interested in fame. I'm interested in money.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I don't say that like I'm interested in money and
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: like how like some people are like money rules everything,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: not like that. I'm more so in it, like, Okay,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: this is a job. I want to get paid, and
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I want to be able to create generational wealth for
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: my family, for my kids. I want to take us
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: out of the cycle we've been in. You know, But
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: I don't look for fame, because the minute you start
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: putting yourself esteem on fame, baby, oh you know this, like,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: people will go on social media and tear you down.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: You know, people will tear you down immediately. And fame
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: has a beautiful side and ugly side, and I don't
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: want either of those sides. I just want to continue
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: to work and keep doing what I can do that
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: makes me happy and makes other people happy.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: To get to that point requires so much growth.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Have you kind of figured out the piece of you
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: that was hurting in high school?
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Have you been able to pinpoint.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: That, Oh my gosh, yes for me. And this is
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: an exercise that I tell people to do all the time,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: is to really go back and use your notes, to
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: use a journal and think about the moments in your
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: childhood that made you sad, made you feel confused, that
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: made you feel unsure about your place in the world.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: And we can all have we all have the power
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: to reflect and when you reflect, you get so much clarity,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and for me, I realized there was something very critical,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: which was I'm my father's only son, I have four sisters,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I'm the baby. And my father used to tell me
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: every single day, I was a champion. I was his world.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: He loved me. I was the most extraordinary person he
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: had ever met. These are the things that my father
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: would tell me every day. And then when I said,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: when I let him into my life and told him
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: that I identify as gay, he stopped talking to me.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: And I realized, after work of reflection, you know, speaking
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: to people being vulnerable, that that moment was so critical
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: of my life that it caused me to not trust love.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: It caused me not to trust what people say about me.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And so that desire to be famous that I had
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: early on came from a need to fill that void
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: of like, Okay, if I can become famous, then people
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: will love me, and I can trust their love. And
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: I realized immediately that what I was seeking was the
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: same vapid validation that I've gotten from my father. I
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: was seeking, you know, something that was flighty, that could
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: just go away. And I had to realize that in
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: that moment, that what I needed when I was that
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: small kid and he stopped talking to me, What I
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: needed in that moment was to look at myself and
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: tell myself I still love me, and I didn't have
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the language to do that. I had. You know, we're
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: in a space now where we talk about mental health
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and you know, self esteem and new way, But when
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I was in high school, we weren't talking like that.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: And so instead of turning into myself and saying I
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: love me, I love me and practicing that every day,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I practiced the opposite of saying you're not worthy of love,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: You're not going to get it, you can't trust people's love.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: And it affected every relationship I had. It affected how
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I moved through this world. And once I started to
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: let that go and realize that him not loving me
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: anymore didn't mean that I couldn't love myself more than
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: things started to change. And so that was the critical
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: moment for me.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I wish I could hug little you. It was like, really.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Sad, I wanted me to go back and hug little loss.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: I guess you're right, I wish I could hug little
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: me too. Yeah, that's a good point. When I read
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: your book. I was so shocked by some of the
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: things that I didn't know about you. After knowing you
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: for all these years, I didn't know that you were
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: in an abusive relationship.
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was, and I was the abuser.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: And I talk about it openly, in candidly because when
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: people see me and they you know, they see me
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: on television, people who know me, they think like, I'm
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: you know, like all you know, like spiritual and always
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: like whatever. And there was a time in my life
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: that I wasn't. I was filled with so much anger
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: in my in my household, my father beat my mother.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: You know, that was the reason they got divorced, because
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: he was a cheat and he would hit her. And
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: you know, one of the things my father used to
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: say to me was don't ever hit a woman. But
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: he was speaking to a young man, which first of
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: all was contradictory because I'm watching his behavior. But he
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: was also speaking to a young man who was dating men.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: So he's giving me this advice of like, don't hit women,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: But what about when there's two men in a relationship.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: How do I process that? And in my mind, not
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: knowing any better, I processed it the same way most
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: young men who subscribed to toxic Behaviors processed it. It
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I can't hit a woman, but two
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: men we can fight. And so anytime I had anger
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: in a relationship where we weren't coming to some resolution,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: I got physical very quickly, because that's what we were
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: taught on the playground, That's what I was taught on
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the football field. That's what I was always taught, which
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: was to fight back. That makes me more of a
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: man if you can stand up. And I got really abusive,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: and I remember the stopping point for me of wanting
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: not wanting to be abusive anymore was I had just
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: finished into a fight with my boyfriend. At that time,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: he was bleeding and I made him clean up the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: blood off the ground. And I say this not because
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I'm proud of this moment. It's because there was a
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Poe moment that I need to reflect on and hopefully
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the other people can learn from. Is he called the police,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: and I arrogantly waited at the door for the police
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: because I knew the police hadn't been trained on how
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: to deal with same sex couples, which is still true today.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Most first responders don't know how to intervene in same
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: sex couples. So if he was a woman, they would
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: have taken me to jail. But because I was a man,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: these two police officers, both men, laughed it off and said,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: you two figure it out. And I remember I went
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: back in the house and I looked at him and
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I saw my mom. I literally saw my mother's face,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and not her face physically obviously, but like the way
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: that she looked at my dad after he did this,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: like sort of like with sorrow and with sort of
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: like pain and like and I just saw it and
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I ran to the room and I was like, you're him.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: You're becoming him. You're not knowing how to manage your feelings,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: You're becoming this man. And it was very hard for me.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I got really depressed after that, and then I had
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: to say to myself, I need to leave, because you know,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: sometimes when people in abusive relationships, we always put this
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: onus on the person who's being abused of asking them
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: why didn't you leave?
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: And I had to. I realized that I had put
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: sort of manipulated my boyfriend into feeling like this was
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: okay behavior, that I had done so much damage to
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: his self esteem that of course he wasn't going to leave.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: You know, I had made him feel inferior in so
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: many ways, and I realized that I had to leave.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: I had to stop this behavior. I realized it was
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: up to me to release him, to release myself of
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: this behavior, to do the work. And that's that's when
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: life got better. And luckily that stopped at twenty six
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: for me, right before I became a father, because I
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: couldn't imagine if I still had those anger issues when
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I became a dad, because I would have probably hit
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: my children, and so it was a dark time. But
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: also I talk about it now because I don't think
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: we talk about domestic violence enough. We don't talk about
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: enough with same sex couples. I think it needs to
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: be discussed for I agree.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: And I hope you feel okay that I brought it up.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: I only brought it up honestly because.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: Oh oh no, I feel okay. I love that you
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: brought it up.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Bring it up with you you are, But I brought
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: it up because of exactly what you said. I'm sort
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: of in awe, especially after reading your book, as to
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: how that person became this person. Yeah, it takes so
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: much internal strength and self awareness and work. And I
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: think anybody who's in real pain oftentimes feels like there
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: is no out, there is no getting to the other
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: side to it. So to hear you talk about it
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: so candidly, I think is really inspiring.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: Thank you. I appreciate that.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: But you know, it's what you said before and what
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I love about you as well, because every time we
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: have our little catchups, we're both vulnerable each other. And
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: for me, what got me here was the first thing
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I had to realize is that I was in pain.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I was in pain. I was hurting, and everything I
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: did and every way I reacted was because I was hurting.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Then I took an inventory of the people I love
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: in my life and asked them to tell me candidly
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: how they see me. And that's something that we don't
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: do often because we don't want to hear people's opinions
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of us, you know, we especially if we think it's.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: Going to be bad.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: And so I literally went around to people and said, so,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: what do you see me as And people would be like, oh,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: you're you know, you're sweet, we love hanging around you,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: but you're you're a bit of an asshole. You're a
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: bit of this. Really they want honest because I believe
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: we all have our tribe that you can really take
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: inventory from. That's going to be real with you, you
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? Who will tell you what they see?
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: You know. I wasn't asking people who I knew were
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: fly by friends, you know. I was asking like my
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: best friends of you know, fifteen years, sixteen years, eighteen years.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I was asking my sister, I was asking. I asked,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: and I asked two of my ex boyfriends during that time.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I was like, what was I like as a boyfriend,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and you know, they just let me know. And I
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh, I'm writing down what they said,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: and I'm seeing consistence on the negative side and not
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: enough on the positive side. And I realized that the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: negative was happening because I was in pain and I
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: was trying to make people feel what I was feeling
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: because I didn't how a process. And that took day
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: after day of journey, you know. And I tell people
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: all the time, the same way you can knock your
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: self esteem down, because if you practice saying bad things
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: to yourself every day, it's the same way you can
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: change your life and just build your self esteem back up.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: You know, I had to say, Okay, I don't want
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to be this way. I reflect in the moment. It
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: took a lot of daily work, but I was patient
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: with myself and that was the key thing.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: So in that journey of self forgiveness, what was going
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: on is like, what did you have to actually forgive?
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Because this manifested not just abusive relationships, but you dealt
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: with a cocaine addiction. I it was really sad to
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: read in two thousand and six you tried to take
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: your own life. I mean like this got pretty dark. Yeah,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: what did you have to forgive?
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: I first had to forgive myself for the things that
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I did wrong because I knew I did a lot
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: of wrong and I had to forgive myself and that's
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: hard for people to do. It's easier said than done. Yeah,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: as you end up still, you know, I call them
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: cringe moments now where I'm in the in bed at
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: nighttime in a memory will pop up my head and
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I'll cringe and be.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: Likeugh, did I really do that? Oh?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: You know, like and that still happens when those moments happened,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: where I cringe on something that I did in my past.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I have to forgive myself and say, you know what
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: you did it, you did you did it with the
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: best knowledge that you had at that time. Oh my gosh,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: I love that. You know. It's like one of those
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: things where it's just like I had to forgive myself
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: in a moment. And then once I forgave myself, I
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: had to then go and seek out help. And that
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: at first was just reading online, you know, because I
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: couldn't afford a therapist, right, you know, therapists are expensive
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: as hell.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: And people forget that. You know, we throw around very.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Easily like go see a therapist, but therapists costs money.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: And if you're basically struggling to get by or I've
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: never had access to a therapist, you don't know how
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: to get a therapist. And you know, I had to
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: realize that, Okay, there was you know, counseling services, group
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: services that were free or cheap that I could go to,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and so I did that and the REA and that
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: was the second step. Is because mostly time people on
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: their journey of back and forgiveness and growth, they forget
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: to forgive themselves or they go right to the people
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: they hurt and try to get forgiveness there, and I
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: realized early on that's wrong because if I come to
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: you and say I wanted you to forgive me please
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: for the bad I did, but I don't have the
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: tools to show you what I've learned, and I don't
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: have the tools to show you what I'm going to
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: do to make up for this moment, then it's sort
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: of it's very it's vapid. It's like okay, you know,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: like there's there's no depth in it. So I went
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: and did the work first, and then once I had
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the skills and the tools, I then went to all
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: these people and said, hey, I'm sorry. And I said
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry without needing to rebuttal anything they said, which
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: is also hard because a lot of times when you
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: say sorry, people will say something and it's not what
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: you experience, so you'll try to be like, well, that's
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: not really how it was, instead of just saying I'm sorry,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: no buds. That journey as a start to heal me
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: very quickly, forgiving myself, doing the work, and then asking
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: others for forgiveness. And it wasn't until I got to
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: that place of wanting to take my own life, and
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: luckily I didn't succeed at it, because you know, when
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: you're in those dark moments, you think there's nothing will
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: get better. But I was so happy that I didn't succeed,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: so that way things could get better, that I could forgive.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: And I just hope if there's anyone listening right now
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: who might be having any feelings about suicide or feeling
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: like they can't forgive themselves, to know that there's resources.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I can drop you a couple of numbers
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: that you can put in the link in the bio
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and just you know, people just know they're not alone
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and they'll get through it.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And look how much light you've spread since then.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I try, girl, I do travel, you do.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: So when we spoke about doing this interview, originally I
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: was thinking pretty purposeful, pretty forgiveness, because I name them
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: pretty something each episode, and after reading your book, I
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: really would I wanted to name it pretty vulnerable because
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: I saw this interview you did. I think it was
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: an NPR host on stage. It was live, and you
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: were so honest, and you said it with grace and positivity,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: and you were so honest that it made it like
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: I had to confront myself, like it made me a
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: little uncomfortable.
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: Wow, I want to know what I've said.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Then it was honestly, a lot of it was in
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: your book, but you were able to just communicate and
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: articulate your true feelings in a way that I think
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: sometimes I only say, like in bed at night to myself,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: you know. And then I started reading more about vulnerability,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: and I realized that it feels like courage.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: In you but weakness in me. It's the first thing
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: we want from other people and the last thing we're
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: willing to give. And so when I hear you.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: Beautiful out of me, that's like, wow, that is gorgeous.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: We'll put the.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: But it was like I had to overcome this initial
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: panic to get to your magic.
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: Have you ever had that feeling?
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yes, consistently, you know what I mean.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I still had that feeling of sometimes when I'm about
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: to go out, because this is the part about vulnerability
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: is that it's frightening because our truth scares other people,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: and people judge our truth, and you want people just
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: to be like no, no, no, listen, I get it.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I see how vulnerable you are, but like to be
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: rejected when you've been vulnerable is the worst feeling ever.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: It's like I let my guard down, I let you in,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and you still rejected me, and then it's like I
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: don't want to be vulnerable again. So yes, I've experienced that,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: you know, I've experienced that so many times. But what
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: I try to help people understand when it comes to vulnerability,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: this is a saying that I heard a long time ago,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: and I just love it. Is that broken crayon still
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: color And it's my way of saying. And what I've
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: taken away from that saying is, you know, no matter
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: how much I've been broken, how many things I've done
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: that are bad, I still have the ability to color
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: this world with bright, beautiful light. Vulnerability, you know, understanding
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: because my brokenness or the things that broke me or
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I thought that were going to break me didn't stop me.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: It didn't stop me. And so it propels me to
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: know that I still have the power and ability, until
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: there's no breath in my body to continue to color
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: this world in the way that I see fit that's
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: going to make it more beautiful. But I do have
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: those moments.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it allows you to connect with
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: people on a whole different level.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Than amen.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: As I was reading more about vulnerability, Brene Brown obviously
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: came up and she says that it's rooted in courage.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: M hm.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: So what is the most courageous know or the hardest
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: boundary that you've had to put up?
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Ooh, first of all, shout out to Brene Brown. Love
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: her to death. It's so funny. I still have never
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: met Brene Brown and never worked with her, and I'm
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I keep trying to put that in the universe. I'm like,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: how is it that we are sitting in the same
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: space and I've never met this lady who I admire
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: so much?
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Oh my god? And how much would you love each
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, she would love you.
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: I love her to that.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to put that out for you.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Maest, please please, please, let's manifest that together. I say,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: all three of us do like a brunch and lunch
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: or brunch and talk or something.
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: Fun.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: But the thing that I had to be most courageous
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: throughout instead of boundary, when we have the five of
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: us have group events. I can tell you they like Netflix.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: They does these events all the time, especially during amy seasons,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: or we do things and they'll line us up in
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: our own little boots. And you know, Johnthan's line will
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: always have people coming out with me and like, oh
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: my gosh, touch my hair. You know, let's twirl, let's
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: have fun. You know, Tanse line always has people saying
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: like took out my fashion? Do you think my boyfriend
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: looks good? And I will literally had the longest line
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: no joke of people coming up to me and say,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: my grandfather just died. I don't know how to process it.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I'm in abuseul relationship. I don't know what to do,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: like a long line of people crying and taking their
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: stuff out. And for me, I learned how to understand
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: my capacity of being able to give, and I'm not
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: afraid of telling people that I'm not able to give today.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: So that was a boundary I learned a long time ago.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Is saying that it's okay that to say I don't
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: have the capacity it is and helping people to understand
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: that that doesn't mean that I don't love you and
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I don't care for you. It means that I don't
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: have the capacity to day. You know, I heard someone
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: once say that, like, if you think of your brain
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: as computer tabs that are open, you know, Internet tabs,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: that are open. You know, once you have forty tabs open,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: your Internet starts going slower. You don't have the ability
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: that sometimes you just got to be like, nope, got
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: too many tabs open. I can't today. And that is
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: something I'm very comfortable with, and I want more people
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: to be comfortable with, because we look at no as
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: a dirty word, and no should never be a dirty word.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: No could be used to protect yourself and protect others,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: because if I try to give advice when I'm not
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: in a healthy place, and all I'm doing is doing
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: at the service to somebody who actually was seeking my
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: advice and my expertise. But I think the most courageous
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: boundary I've had to say to be honest with you
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: would be with my father.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: And I say that because as I became a father,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: I had to struggle with my father meeting my son,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: and I always was like, I don't want my father
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: to ever put his negativity or anything onto my children
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: to make my children feel like they had to choose
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: between their father and their grandfather. And I I found
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the courage, you know, years ago to say to him, Hey,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: I will allow my children to be in your life.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: But if you ever say anything negative about me or
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the LGBT community, then I'm going to not allow you
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: to see my children. This is my one thing. You
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: can see them as long as you never try to
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: disparage me or my community. And that was a hard
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: thing because you know, it was like me setting a
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: clear boundary with somebody who I'm, to be honest, a
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: bit intimidated by, even though like as I get older,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I'm still intimidated by him because I still feel like
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: like that small child that can't speak back, that feels
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: like he deserves his abuse.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: He's still your dad that never goes over exactly.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: And it's so weird because as I get I'm forty now,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: just fur forty last November, and I'm like, why am
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I still feeling this way about him? And you're right,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: this is your father. But when I told him that,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: because I was so confident and was so clear and
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: what I expected and what I wanted. He has a
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: relationship with my sons all these years, and not once
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: has he ever disparaged me or said anything about the
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: LGBT community in front of my kids. And because of them,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: they've been able to have a relationship. So they talked
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: to Grandpa all the time, or that he calls them
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: G Paul if they talked to g Pau all the time.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: And it feels good to know that my children have
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: a relationship with him. That's healthier because I set a
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: boundary with him to say this is not okay and
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: you can't do that. And I think that was one
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: of the most courageous moments of my life, because otherwise,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: if I didn't find that courage, I wouldn't have been
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: able to do that and would have probably destroyed three
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: generations of relationships versus just two.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: You set the framework for that. That's amazing.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: In Kabbala, they believe that children choose their parents to
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: teach them the lessons that they needed in this lifetime.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: And as I was reading your book, I kept thinking, Wow,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Karama was chosen to be his father's son and it
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: caused you so much pain.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: But I kind of believe that.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: Oh it's Kabala that believes that. I want to read
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: up more on that.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll I'll send you a book because.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: How come I couldn't pick Barack Obama because I would
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: have loved hid to you, my daddy, Like I don't
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: know Baroxie like he'd have been dope as dad to have.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying, I mean, no one's perfect.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: It's true you could have gotten any internship, seriously, any.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: Like damn like. But yeah, I'm with that. I'm with that.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: I do believe the people that come in our lives,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: you know, are supposed to give us a lesson. You know,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: there is something special magical about children and parents that
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: we don't fully understand, you know what I mean, Like
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: this young person comes to you and grows in this
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: woman's body and then is delivered to us, and we're's
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: meant to guide it and we're meant to learn, and
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: so I do believe there's something of that. So that's
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: pretty awesome. I can't wait to research that more.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: You mentioned Queer Eye, and I was wondering what you
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: felt was potentially misunderstood about your life publicly because there's
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: so much out there, right, there's so much on the
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Internet and Instagram. Do you feel like your inner life
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: fully matches the outer life online or is there a
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: piece that is misunderstood?
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, hell yeah girl, you know. I mean we're friends.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: I like to party and get down.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I'm glad to tell we see.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: That with your Instagram. Yeah, videos, you let us in.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: I try to a little bit, but you know, I
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: really people think all the time that I'm like, like,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I'm always talking about like deep soul stuff and I do.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: And I love conversations about vulnerability. You know. We've had
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: moments where we've just gotten deep and just like and
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I think that's so beautiful, like when friends can like
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: really just go there. But then I also love when
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: friends can just be like, girl, we just gonna cheers
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: and have a lot of drinks and you know what
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: I mean. And so I think that people.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: Don't get enough of that side, which is all right.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: You know, But I hope they just know that you
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: can be balanced, you can do both. You can have fun,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: you can be spiritual as long as you're not hurting
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: yourself or hurting other people.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: You really do turn up.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: I turn up, girl. I love the turn up. You
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: turn up is the best thing ever for me.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: And you know how to set the scene of a party.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: You get catered, you do like you have it by
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: the pool.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: It's all good.
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: I try to. I try to.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I try to always make sure there's enough food, drink.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: That's my that's the Caribbean.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: Side of me, my mother and me.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: That's like every there always has to be enough. Food
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: has to be enough, drinks has to be enough. Everything. Yeah,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I'm ready for I just got my first vaccine shot.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: I have my second one coming up in two weeks,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and I'm thank you and I'm just I say that
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: particularly because, first of all, there's so much distrust with
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: African Americans and Latinos when it comes to vaccines. Rightfully so,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: because we've had issues in our country where we were
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: experimented on. But in this particular time, I've done the research,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: and I'm just employing anyone who's African American or Latino
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: or young who has apprehension to know I've done the research.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Do your own research.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: It is safe.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to, you know, turn this conversation into this,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: but I just want people to know to get vaccinated.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I did it because I'm ready to get back out
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: there and have a good time. And I said this
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: all to say, the minute that everyone gets vaccinated in
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: my circle, we are about to turn up, like you
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: can imagine it. Okay, I'm just said you know that
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: the day that that happens, I'm like everybody comes to
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: the house. We are in the pool. We were gonna
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: have a good time. Because I'm so dumb with COVID.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: I'm so dumb with quarantining. I say the.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Same way it hit me a few weeks ago. I
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: have done done.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I am done. Like I was jealous of Texas for
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: a second the other day, my sister's Texas, and when
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: they said everything opened back up for like a good
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: ten minutes, I was like, I'm so jealous. But you know,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: it was like that feeling of like, y'all get to
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: go bowling again. I want to bowl, you know, like
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: little pig.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Even the stuff I didn't like to do, I want
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: to do now because I just can't exactly.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: I have the same feeling. So so please everyone can
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: take care of yourselves, and if you're able to get
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: a vaccination, please go.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: So you know, I've never asked you this, but I
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: looked up the dates.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: So February sixth, twenty eighteen, you wake up as Caramo,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: you make breakfast with your kids, you're in your house.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: February seventh, twenty eighteen, the day after you wake up,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: your Instagram shoots to a million followers and it's May.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: It was literal mayhem. I remember checking your Instagram and
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: being like, holy.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Shit, overnight, overnight, what the hell? Yeah, it was it
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: was crazy.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: It was what and I saw it happen in real time.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: It was like two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, one million.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: So what was it like to wake up twenty four
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: hours later and have your life just be total mayhem?
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: It was amazing because, as you and I know, I
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: had been hustling a hosting career for years, just like you.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: We had been on every carpet, with every outlet we
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: could do. We have been telling each other about job.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: We had been like talking about agents, and so it
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: felt like, thank god, I never gave up, and here's
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: this moment that is showing me you got to keep
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: pushing because it can get even bigger than this. And
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: so I loved it. It was it was amazing. I
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: can't I wish that I you know that I could say,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I was scared or whatever. I was
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: just like thankful because I've been in the trenches. And
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: that's why I love speaking to you, is because we
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: were in these trenches together, like constantly hustling, you know
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: what I mean, And we're still hustling. I'm still hustling
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: because people think that the minute you get on it's like,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: oh everything comes to you. You still have to hustle,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: you still have to keep finding opportunities. There is some
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: thats that come along with it, but a lot of
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the stuff I still have to be like, hey, can
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: I have a general meeting with this person? And I
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: talked to this person, so.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you started companies like you're a self
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: starter that doesn't just come from same Yeah.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Completely, And that's something that people need to understand, is
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: that you know, you have to be a self starter
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: and you have to believe in yourself and try for
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: yourself more because no one's going to work as hard
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: for you as you. And that's just the real of it.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: And I thought for a second when I became when
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: queer Ie blew up, that everything was going to start
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: coming through me. I really did. I thought like, oh
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: my gosh, all these things are going to start happening.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: And I realized they weren't. And I had to continue
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: to like reintroduce myself to people, and I had to
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: let go of my ego of saying, well, I'm too
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: big to reintroduce myself to people. I was like, nope,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: I'm in another level now. And this is the way
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: I saw it in my mind. It was like I
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: was in one office building and the next door was
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: a medium sized off the building, and I got promoted
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: to that building. And now this building has thirty floors
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: and I got to go through every thirty floors to
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: make sure all these people know me because they didn't
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: know what was going on in this small building. And
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm at floor twenty eight of the
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: medium building and I'm like, Okay, I'm ready to go
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: to the next building, but I know that once I
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: get over there, I'm gonna have to reintroduce myself to
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: every single person again, you know. And I don't have
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: an ego about it. It makes me feel like this
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: is what I'm doing because I love my job. I
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: feel blessed. I'm so thankful. I'm humbled by it. So
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: I walk in there with humility and like, let me
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: keep doing the work and keep working hard and trying
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: to strategize.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: And so is there something that you wish somebody would
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: have told you before it all popped off?
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Ooh so much? Oh my gosh, Luckily, I already had
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: the finances on check because you know, I already knew
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: just being in Hollywood, like when you get your big checks,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: don't go buy you a car anything stupid, like hold
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: onto your money. And luckily, because of that, like I've
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: now set up financially for me and my kids. Is
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I'm very happy about. So that was one thing no
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: one had to tell me. But I'm going to just
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: tell other people. If you get something big, don't think
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: that's your moment to start splurging. You can do something
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: nice for yourself, but save I think the thing that
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I would tell someone to tell me is like, you know,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: your good intentions can be canceled, and you can be canceled.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things I hate is
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: cancel culture. You and I have talked about this for
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I hate hate cancel culture.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: So you subscribe to call in which I love.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Yes completely, Like let's let's have somebody come in. Let's
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: talk about it, because what I know about cancel culture
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: is that people who you cancel, they they're not taking
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: away their money and they're just I see it all
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the time in Hollywood. They just go to another job
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: and now they're not in the public eye, but they're
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: still making money. You haven't really done any real damage.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: But I realized that my positive intentions can be construed
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: as negative and me being hurtful. And that was the
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: thing that that really affected me because for a while,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: you know, last year, I was like, I don't want
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: to do anything positive anymore. I like literally got to
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: this place where I was like, I don't want to
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: do anything good anymore. Because if I'm going to get
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: people to hit me up on my social media saying
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: you're wrong, you're this, then what am I going to do?
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Why do I want to do this? I don't want to.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: I don't have to do this, So why do I
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: want to? I'll give you an example because we're out
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: of the thick of it. But while Trump was in office,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I was very adamant as a Democrat that the only
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: way we're going to see eye to eyes if we
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: sort of reach out to people who have different views
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: in US. And so I made it my mission of
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: reaching out to different Republicans to say, hey, this is
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: who I am, this is how I feel. I met
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: with Karen Pence's chief of staff. You know, I said,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Sean Spicer was a nice guy on Dancing with the
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Stars and try to talk to him. I met with
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: so many Republicans, and every time I did it, people
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: would just be like, You're an awful person, I hate you.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: How dare you? They threaten my kids? It was like
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and I was like, I was like, do you really
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: think my black gay as with immigrant parents is trying
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: to like hurt our community? Like do you really think
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I have some secret agenda of like wanting to hurt?
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: But I'm like, I'm trying to go into these spaces
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: where we normally don't get we don't get into, to
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: try to change these minds and hearts.
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: Will it work?
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Who knows? But every time a new headline came out
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: that I was a trading size and I was a
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: horrible person, it just made me be like, why do
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I want to do good?
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: You know, And I have a couple more of those
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: situations that have happened where I'm just like, I'm trying
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: to do the work the best I know how and
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: maybe in ten years I'll be like, oh, there was
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: a different approach.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: That I could have taken.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: But it feels bad when you put yourself out there
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: because you have a spotlight. People attack you or hurt
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: you for it, and I'm open to criticism. I'm open
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: to hearing what people have to say, but it does
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: hurt my heart sometimes when I'm like, I know my intentions,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: but if my intentions are good and the impact for
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: someone else is negative, I understand where there. You know
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: where they're coming from, But I don't ever see the
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: impact being so negative that you'd want to threaten my kids.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: And so that's one of the things I would have
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: told myself before, like watch out for that.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it feels so evil you can't even imagine
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: it coming.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. The first time someone told my child
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: in person that they wanted to kill them because I
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: was their dad. And this happened in Philadelphia while we're
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: shooting Querai in twenty nineteen. Literally, my son came home.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: This is my grown son came home crying because these
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: guys had stopped him and said, oh, you're that f
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: words son. We want to kill your dad or he
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: wants to be a Republican now, will kill him and
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: show him and all this stuff. And my son comes
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: home crying, and I'm like, there's people really that dishes
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that will find my children. That's why I stop posting
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: my kids so much until recently that my son was like,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: can we get on TikTok? And I was like cute.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: But I stopped posting them because.
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: I was like, dude, okay, we can if you're fine.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: But I stopped posting because I was like, I don't
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: want people to see you and know where you're at,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: and like, yeah, harass you.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: So anyway, Oh, my stomach dropped when you said that.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: That's horrible. Yeah, I'm so sorry that happened.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you of you know, but it's one of those
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: things that I wish someone would have told me before that.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: You know, people can get bile, you know, and for
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: every good person out there, there's always somebody who is hurting,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: who wants to you know, conflict plane and so I just,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: you know, just being smarter about watching out for that
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: is what I've learned since this thing has taken off.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: It's interesting when you talk about hurt.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: I think about how you are the one that transforms
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: people's lives on the show, and yet as a friend
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: and a fan of yours, I've seen your life transform,
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: and I'm wondering how you feel like Queer Eye transformed you.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: What gift has it given you?
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Queer eye allows me to believe that good, wholesome content
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: is just as exciting as you know, like ratchet content.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to call it rapt because it
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: sounds like I'm judging because I love ratchet reality shows.
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: I love them.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Give me a Bad Girls Club, give me a love
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: and hip hop anytime I'm watching this, but I love them.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: But it really helped me to see, you know what,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: it's possible. Like my dream, the only dream that I
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: have left in this business, there's only two, is just
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: selling content and you know, having my own production company,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: which I've now done, and I'm going to be announcing
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: two shows very soon that I've sold and that are
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: going to be coming on air, and so you've got
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: to kind of get a little bit exclusive there.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: But oh my god, Mule, that is so exciting.
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: Thank you love.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: And then the second thing is I want to be
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: a talk show host, and so I want my own
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: daytime talk show and.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: Need the world that needs it. Since I have known
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: you that like you are the millennial?
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Are you a millennial?
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: You are a millennial, Oprah. There's no one else that
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: has that gift. It has to it will happen. I
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: know it will.
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: I appreciate that and I received that.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: But what it's helped me Queer Eye, is that I
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: realized in the content that I'm creating that I've sold
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: and then hopefully with my talk show one day, is
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: that it can be positive. And I love like when
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I talk about daytime TV, I love the Sally just Raphael's,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: I love News, I love these are old schools for
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: anybody who's younger that don't know these are eighties. But
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: I also love like the Maury's. I love these shows
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: because you see real people and I believe that there's
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: a way, Like recently, I've had the opportunity to guest
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: hosts for Maury like a couple of different times, and
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: you know, Maury does such a great job on his show,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: but he's given me a chance to go deeper and
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: like to see the humanity in them and to like
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: really have them have breakdown. Was of like why are
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: you on here? And the first time Maury allowed me
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: and this was real, I thought I was gonna get
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: in trouble because I went on this man's show and
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: I had this it was a paternity test I had
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the man who brought this woman on who he knew
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: it was his baby, but he brought her on and
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: embarrassed her, was calling her all keepnine. I was like,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: you need to apologize. You need to apologize for bringing
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: her on national TV and embarrassing her, and then we
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: need to go deeper and find out why you thought
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: that was appropriate page Why did you think this was
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: okay to do? Why do you think And I'm telling
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: this to his guest. This is somebody who called.
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: It his shone.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, these people are not inviting me back.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: But they had this cathartic cry and they were like wow,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: and we got to the heart of what was the reason.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: And I was like, if I could do that every week,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: every day, that'd be amazing. And so, you know, Queer
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Eye gave me that ability to believe that, yes, there's
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: always a space for like the truth and the reality
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: and the corb and where you don't have to judge,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: but you could really help my to grow and heal,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: you know. And so yeah, Queer I did that for me.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: It's cool to hear you say that, because I think
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: shows like Maury had in the last like five years,
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: maybe a connotation of exploitation a bit, and to shift
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: that and to get to the root of the hurt
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: would be amazing for that show.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what I've been doing, and that's why
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: they keep bringing me back. I've just been like getting
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: to the root of it of like let's really talk,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: you know, like let's really figure out what's going on.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Because it's funny we see these we see individuals who
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: call on these talk shows, and from my perspective, you
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: can't always tie everything in a ribbon and a bow,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: but you can set people on the path to get
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: real closure and real healing. I realize I know how
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: to do that professionally and personally because I've lived it,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: and I've lived through most of the things you know
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: that these people have been through. Like I think that's
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: one of my greatest gifts, and that's why I'm so vulnerable,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: is because the more people know I've been through what
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: they've been through, then the more they're willing to hear
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: me and understand that they can make it through. You
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: can't look at me and say, well, you don't know
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: what it's like to have to be a team parent.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: You don't know what it's like to be a single parent.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: You don't know what it's like to have no money.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: You don't know what it's like to be on drugs.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: You don't know what it's like to be an abusive relationship.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: You don't know what it's still in the blank. I'm like, girl, Yes,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: I do lived it, been there and grown through it,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: and now it's time for you to do the same.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: And that's what I think my greatest gift is to
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: this world right now. And it's only because of that vulnerability.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Wow, that should be the stump speech. Can we make
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: a teaser of that?
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: That was so But you're right, the people that have
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: been through the most have the most to give, and
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: it's you're using it as a gift.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, trying every single day.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: So I saw a pinch me moment before we went
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: into lockdown. You were talking about how you met Oprah.
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: Yes, was it everything you were hoping? Or was it?
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: Was she a mere mortal?
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: She was not a mere mortal, And I wish I
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: could say she was. She floated, she floats to the room.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: She's beautiful, she's kind. But what humbled me? And I
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: promise you one of my friends was with me when
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: I met her the first time. I spent three hours
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: crying in a corner because she came up to me
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: and she said she knew my name already. She hugged me.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: I put a bit of it on my Instagram, like
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: a video. She told me she was like. I had
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: a shirt on and said Black Day gifted. She was there.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: She was like, oh my gosh. She was great and
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: an actor. The whuha was finished. She turned to me
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: and she was like, I've been watching you. What you're
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: doing is great. You're next? And I was like, did
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Oprah to say I'm next?
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: I don't even don't. I don't even know.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: She could have been talking about next to go eat,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: but in my mind I was like, she's telling me
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: I'm next. Well, I know what you're saying. She was
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: saying I was next. But I cried for three hours.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: I cried for three hours because it was such a validation.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: It was such validation from somebody I respect so much.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: And talk about that little kid being seen.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: Right, Oh my god, Oh my gosh, yes, I do.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: I think you're next. I believe that.
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: Oh thank you.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: So I have some end rapid fires for you.
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: I like it. Rapid fires.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I will be as honest as I can do.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: Of course you're you, of course you will. Okay, this,
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: I guess is not as rapid.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: But what is a lesson you learned in therapy that
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: you wish everyone could have access to?
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Ooh, I tell people this all time. Comparison is the
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: thief of joy. Comparison is the thief of joy. You
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: keep looking at what other people have. You're forgetting what
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: you already have. Don't compare your journey to other people's journey.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Don't look at them and say why am I not married? Why?
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Why don't I have this? Why don't I have more money?
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Focus on you and be thankful what you have, and
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: then take the steps every day to get to what
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: you want and desire.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: Okay, let's go. The best part of being you right now,
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: at the age.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: You're at, ooh, is that I have a lot of clarity.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: And I didn't have this clarity in my twenties. But
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: I feel clear And that's such a beautiful feeling to
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: wake up and feel clear about where I'm going. And
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that every day I don't have challenges,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: but it means that I'm clear about how to handle
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: the challenges. And to not let them get me down.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: How do you have the clarity and the same abs
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: that you had when you were twenty It's like, it's
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: not supposed to go.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Like that quarantine. Oh please, I'm trying to get it down.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: Oh that does not exist for you.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: It got down for a little bit, but it came back.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, a book that shifted your perspective, something you think
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: everybody should read.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, Jay shetties Think like a Monk? Really, Yes, he's
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine, but I didn't buy his book
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: because of that. I thought I just wanted to learn
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: because he's really is someone who takes the time to
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: really think about how you can be better in practical ways.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Because I love people who are like self help, but
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of them go with people's heads and I
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: hate information that go with you. I need practical one, two, three,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: What do I do today? How do I start? How
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: do I finish? You know all these things and Jay
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Shetty's book Think Like a Monk was extraordinary and giving
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: me even new perspectives. So yeah, I would recommend that
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: all day long.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: Okay, we're going to add that to the library. Thank you.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: A mentor or person that you've met on your journey
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: that you think changed the trajectory of your life or
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: made a real tremendous impact.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Well, there's been a lot of those.
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: I call those the angels.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of people, but I would tell you
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: the one thing consists about all of them, as if
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: they're all women. I think that women are the greater sex.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Not to be a traitor to my gender, but I
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: think they're the best. My strength, my vulnerability has always
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: come from women guiding me. You know, I think that
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: this world be a better place women were running it fully.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to say that all women are
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: just perfect or anything, but I'm just like all of
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: my mentors who have showed me how to be vulnerable,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: how to be kind but also be smart, be giving,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: have always been women. I'm the product of four sisters
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: and my mom. Women have always been the best gift
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: in my life and had been the best gift of
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: this world. And so I just would say thank you
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: to all women out there for you being you and
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: for you putting up with the shit that you've dealt
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: with and still coming out strong and loving and kind.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: And that's it. So women, all my mentors are women, right?
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: So I do a pretty smart question and I picked
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: one at random. I'm very excited at the one you
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: got because you've been to a lot of great parties.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: What's the best party you've been to set the scene
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: for us?
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, the Vanity Fair Oscar Party. I've been now two
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: years in a row. This would have been my third year,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: and when I tell you, it is amazing because you're
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: literally standing next to some of like Hollywood's biggest stars
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: and everyone is so comfortable. So I'm going to give
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: you a story from last year. And it's funny because
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: if my ex was here, he'd be screaming because he
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: was there with me. But basically, I saw these people
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: taking a photo. I was behind them and I was
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: a little kiss like go I, and so I went
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: behind them to sort of like crash the photo and
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: I turned around. The person turned around and was like,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, Karama, I love you. And I was like,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: I took a deep breath and it was Galdado, wonder
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: Woman herself, and I was like, I was like, hi Gal.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: She was like, oh, Carmo, I love you. And I'm
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: thinking I just was photobomming you. I didn't know who
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: you were. I just went behind random people. And her
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: husband was like, oh my gosh, she does love you, Caramo.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: She goes to sleep to your voice every night. I
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: swear to god, I've never shared the story with anyone.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh my gosh, thank you, Dal
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Just like the work that you're doing. I just really
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: love it. And then next to her was Josh Dad
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: and Josh was like, man, dude, I love you as well,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: like really, And I'm sitting here, I'm looking at this
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, what the freaking fuck is Josh Dadd
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: and Gal Galbado like saying they know me and they
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: like me, and I was just like, it was mind blowing.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: But those are two really heartfelt actors. So it's because
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: I feel like real recognize real. It was the law
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: of attraction.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: It was the law of attraction.
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: It was also the law of me being tipsy and
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: me and super and nupty like you know whatever, but
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: it was.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: It was amazing. And in that party I'm talking about,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: You're just coming across like mel Street, like you know,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: like Michael B. Jordan and we're just all hanging and talking.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: And for me, even when I'm in those situations. I
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: still feel like the little gay boy in Texas that
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: was shy and I just had to fight through it
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: because I'm like, this may never happen again, so enjoy
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: this moment. But Vandy Fair Party is the most exciting
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: party I've ever been to in my life. The drinks
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: are free, the food is free, and the people are
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: just kind and beautiful.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: It sounds like it's one of the few that is
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: even better irl than on Instagram.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it's so much better in real life.
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, because on Instagram and look, you see people still,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: but like when you're there, people are just dancing and
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: having the best time, and you be in like a
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: dance circle, and all of a sudden you'll be like, oh,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: I'm in a dance circle with Melissa McCarthy. I was
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: literally in a dance like battle with Melissa McCarthy and
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: her husband the year that they wore tracksuits to the
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: Bandy Fairpark.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, I would say to see that video me.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Too, I'm like, I just wish we were dancing and
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: it was like crazy that You're like, what in the world.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: But anyway, that's when you.
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: Need like a secret personal photographer following you around all night.
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: Right, you do?
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: You do?
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: Okay, This is.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: The last question and you can take it however, like
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: for whatever comes up first.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: What's the smartest decision you've ever made?
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Smart decision I ever made was to bet on myself
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: because betting on myself for me meant then I trust
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: that I had the ability to do what's going to
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: be right myself, to never give up, to ask for help,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: to make a plan, you know, to bet on me
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: because I think a lot of times we don't bet
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: on ourselves, because we've been so broken down by what
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: the world has done to us. And when you truly
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: bet on yourself and you believe in yourself, the world
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: opens up. And I've seen it happen to me, I've
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: seen it happen to other people. So yeah, betting all myself.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: I love you so much. You are as beautiful on
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: the inside as you are on the outside.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: It's very rare.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: I love you too, and the same goes to you.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: I really do appreciate you having me on your podcast.
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: Talk to you soon, babe, I'll talk to you.
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: Good day, all right, Today is a good day to
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: have a good day. I'll see you next week,