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by Coffey, Tabatha

  Around the middle of the day, a group of government officials came into the salon and spoke to the local distributor, who was also my translator. The men were fairly intimidating and everyone stopped working while the distributor dealt with them. Apparently, there had been a lot of commotion over a “white” girl being in the salon doing hair and they had come to check on us. Again, I chose to keep pretty quiet during the visit. And after they left, the distributor told me they were the “morality” police and they’d heard we were spreading propaganda. When I asked what happened, he explained that he paid them to leave. So much for morality in Vietnam.

  The day of the show, the opera house was packed and I was anxious to make sure everything came off perfectly, which it did. None of the officials gave us any problems, the models were really good, and the crowd loved it. After the show was over, I went outside to have a quick cigarette and gather my thoughts. In front of the opera house a line of armed guards had formed, presumably to protect the officials inside, and I looked up to see a sign written in Vietnamese except for the words “Tabatha Coffey.” It was surreal and very satisfying to accomplish something no one had ever done before.

  I like accomplishing things that are firsts, whether it is something no one else has ventured to do or something that I have never done. And I always try to follow my instincts when taking on new challenges.

  As long as I’m telling travel stories, I have to tell you about the time I went to Amsterdam to do a trend collection training for Joico’s European artistic team. After an all-night flight, I went straight to prep the models. At the end of a fourteen-hour day I was exhausted and jet-lagged, as usual. It was drizzling when I finally got to the hotel, and as I stepped out of the car, my boot heel caught onto the bicycle curb, sending me face-first into the hotel steps. I knew before I lifted my head that I was in trouble. I just prayed I hadn’t broken my nose. Instead, I had put my teeth through my lip, splitting it in two, and I had banged up my knee, as well. There was blood everywhere. My two coworkers looked freaked as they rushed me to the hospital. Ironically, Amsterdam may be a city filled with drugs, but don’t try to get any painkillers in the ER! The first thing the doctor asked me was whether I was high. When I explained the situation, he insisted he would have to give me all fourteen stitches without any anesthesia. I begged him to give me something to numb me, especially because I was so tired and upset. But he denied my pleas. Two nurses had to hold me down while he went to work. After they finished, the doctor suggested I go score some hash or pot to make myself feel better. I guess that’s socialized medicine for you. When I pointed out that I also had a gash in my knee, they wanted no part of it. I reluctantly went back to the hotel and cleaned it up as best I could. I woke up the next morning and got onstage to do the training with a giant swollen lip held together with strands of black thread. I looked like Herman Munster, but I powered through. A lot of the people didn’t know what had happened to me, so they kept telling me I had a hair on my lip, or worse—they tried to pull the threads. By the time the training was done, I felt woozy and weak. I had to fly out the next morning, so a coworker took me back to the hospital for a follow-up. The doctor left me waiting and then insisted the stitches were fine. By the time I got back to the States, I was feeling worse and running a high fever. Because I had to leave for Brazil the next day, I went to my own doctor and discovered that the wound on my knee had become infected. She gave me antibiotics and painkillers—finally.

  I don’t want to make all of my travel adventures sound so harrowing or disastrous. There have been a lot of extraordinarily good trips, too. One time, I realized that I was a few thousand miles short of maintaining my 1K status (the highest status) on United. So I called up the airline and asked where I could fly that used the required number of miles. I wound up jetting to Hong Kong for dinner. I landed, went to a restaurant, and ate my favorite dishes—barbecued pork buns and lobster with noodles, and flew home on a full belly. How many people can say that?

  But by the start of the new millennium, having spent the better part of two decades working for other people and managing salons on both sides of the Atlantic, I had the gut feeling that it was time to open my own business. I’d never cared about this before, but I was sick of complaining to myself about how everyone else did things, so I decided it was time to do them my way.

  For me, hairdressing is all about the client. So I wanted to establish a place where stylists could do great work and maximize the client’s experience. To that end, I set out to create an environment in which the people I hired would be eager to show up and willing to learn. Uncooperative attitudes wouldn’t be tolerated, and neither would subpar results. I wanted to attract customers who’d expect the best and not be disappointed.

  As soon as I thought, “I should do this,” I was on fire to make it happen no matter what. I always had a business mind and invariably looked at things not only from a creative standpoint, but also from an entrepreneurial perspective, so writing a business plan was relatively easy. And the location was fairly obvious—I had been working in the upper-middle-class village of Ridgewood, New Jersey, for eight years and had a great loyal clientele, whom I had come to know and respect and who had clearly come to know and respect me.

  Everything was falling into place and then September 11, 2001, happened. There is no way I can possibly make that massive tragedy about me or my small business. A lot of people who died that day actually lived in Ridgewood, so the town was really hard hit. In fact, they have since erected a memorial in the village square. But at the time, the whole country was crippled and the economy came to a crashing halt. I wasn’t sure what to do. Everyone in my life, as well as all the pundits on TV, were saying things that should have sent me running from the huge responsibility of a shop lease or a business loan. The stock market plummeted. People were out of jobs. Everyone was depressed. It was grim, especially in a community where a lot of people were still commuting to offices with a view of the smoldering wreckage of Ground Zero. I regrouped and made the gut decision to move forward. My dream would become my staff’s dream and that in turn would become my clients’ dream. The truth is, the thing I am best at in the world is making people feel better about themselves and their lives, and clearly we were at a moment when everyone needed a little of that. So in January 2002, I opened my salon, Industrie Hair Gurus. It isn’t a huge salon and it isn’t a superfancy place. But it personifies my belief system and my work ethic and that is what has made it successful, not the square footage or the price tag on the fixtures.

  It’s funny how a lot of people who watch my show don’t realize that I’m actually a hairdresser and business owner. This is odd because the show’s about saving salons. But viewers assume I am some kind of celebrity now who doesn’t need to cut hair or run a business. The fact is, when I am not out taking over someone else’s salon, I am in Ridgewood, behind the chair, running my own. That is what keeps me honest and true and that is why people like to watch what I do on TV.

  One night, after we finished filming at a failing salon in Boston, I had dinner with two crew members at a steak house near our hotel. When I went outside for a cigarette, this big burly guy walked over to me and said, “You look really familiar.”

  I just smiled. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Tabatha,” I replied, prompting him to shout, “Oh my God! I watch you all the time.”

  Looking at him, I thought, “You are so not part of the demographic that I’d expect to be watching my show.” Not only was he a rough-and-tough-looking guy with a Boston accent, but he didn’t even have any hair!

  “I own a sheet-metal company,” he continued, “and I love you.” Then he turned to a friend and told him who I was, and I could see the guy thinking, “Are you fucking kidding me? You watch a show about hairdressers?”

  “Oh well,” the friend commented, “she can’t help us,” to which the burly Bostonian responded, “Get outta here! She’s got bigger balls than we do and she could totally he
lp us run the company!”

  The next thing I knew, he was asking me all of these business questions:

  “So, how do you deal with staff when they don’t turn up on time?”

  “How are you so honest and able to tell people what you think?”

  “Aren’t you scared your staff might walk out on you?”

  It was fascinating. Frightened to tell his staff what to do, this great big guy was asking me for solutions. But then, being afraid has never been part of my nature, and this includes all of those instances when I’ve gone with my gut and taken chances. Pushing myself keeps me invigorated and interested in what I do—if I got up every day and did the same things without challenging myself, my life would become really boring and I’d be in danger of losing my passion and my drive. That’s why, although other people can push you, it’s important to take responsibility to push yourself. I’ve never, ever rested on my laurels.

  Any business owner who thinks, “I’m successful and that’s good enough,” is ridiculous, because the competition will pass them by. Good enough isn’t good enough. As soon as you reach a certain level, you need to raise the bar a little, and that’s what it’s about for me. I’m constantly raising the bar so that my business keeps expanding, along with my knowledge and my professional skills. To do that, I need to take chances. Opening the salon was a calculated risk—I didn’t do it without running the numbers, having a business plan, having a mission statement, and having the skill set to back it up. Sure the timing was a major risk, but I followed my gut and trusted myself.

  There are times, however, when I have taken chances based purely on gut instinct without calculating the risk—such as diving into the world of TV—and in those cases I don’t lose my nerve and I won’t give up no matter what is thrown my way. I’ve never been scared of failure. I’d much prefer to take a chance and try something new than just sit there and say, “Shoulda, woulda, coulda.” So long as I don’t lose a limb, kill someone, or end up in jail, I can at least learn from the experience, and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll keep moving forward and do something else.

  In early 2007, an L.A. talent agency that provided models for my work with Joico sent me an e-mail about an open casting call for a new Bravo reality show called Shear Genius. Hosted by former Charlie’s Angel Jaclyn Smith, the show would pit hairdressers against each other in a competition to create the best hairstyles. A panel of experts would judge the contestants based on their technical skills and ability to complete each show’s two challenges. The top stylist would win $100,000. And I certainly could have used a hundred grand.

  The open call was on a Sunday afternoon at—interestingly enough—Toni & Guy in New York City. The producers were apparently looking for outgoing professional hairdressers—it sounded like me. The idea piqued my curiosity and appealed to my competitive side. It was different from anything I had done before—owning a business, educating other hairdressers, or traveling the world—and it seemed like it might be a fun new challenge. Without mentioning it to anyone, I followed my gut instinct and went to the casting call.

  When I arrived, about thirty hairdressers all stood in line on the street. I knew a couple of people and started chatting with some others. I thought they were going through the line in order, but then someone came over to me and asked me to come upstairs. I was taken in to sit with the casting producers, who asked me a series of basic and banal questions about my background. And then they asked me why I wanted to be on the show. I paused for a moment trying to game the right answer and then just followed my gut. I told them the truth. It was something I had never done before and I wanted to try it. They asked me how I felt about living with other people and I said it would be disastrous because I don’t like living with other people. My honesty obviously won them over because they called me back the next day for a longer interview on camera.

  When I received the call informing me that I had been short-listed and would be flown to L.A. for a series of meetings, I actually said, “No, I’m not going to do it.” Suddenly I started to contemplate the fact that I wasn’t getting paid for my time, I’d be leaving my business, and no one could really tell me how long I’d be away because that would depend on if/when I was eliminated. I remember thinking: “What kind of fucking idiot am I to just walk away from my family, my friends, and my clients?” So I decided to tell the casting producers about my friend and colleague Anthony Morrison. I knew he’d be great for the show and would want to do it. And, of course, Anthony did quite well, winning the competition in the end. “Take him, not me,” I thought.

  “I don’t know if I want to do this anymore,” I told the casting producer. “It kind of seemed like fun, but now I’m not sure.”

  “You’ve come too far to just quit. You really should do it,” he advised me.

  At that point, my gut kicked in again and reminded me that I had said I was going to do it and I never back down, so I decided to follow the project through. And while I didn’t ultimately win Shear Genius, I won something more valuable, which was a new phase of my career and my life. Competing on that show led to my getting my own show, which allowed me to travel the country helping failing salons. And I love that work.

  The hairdressing part of Shear Genius was fine with me, but the rest of it was tough, especially since there was no privacy and no contact with loved ones. As a result, the Tabatha Coffey with whom viewers became acquainted was mostly pissed off. And I wasn’t about to hide it, since right from the start the one thing I knew was that I had to be me. Forget the false smiles and fluffy comments. No one was going to edit or manipulate me to be anyone but myself—I wouldn’t give them the opportunity. I didn’t want to go home and turn on any of the episodes and think, “Fuck, I didn’t say that,” or “I didn’t do that.” Love me or hate me, people saw me. It was only one side of me, but it was real. Even though every reality show appears to have its villain, I never felt used in that way. When I was asked questions on camera, I answered them honestly, and if any of my competitors drove me up the wall, I didn’t conceal how I felt.

  Unfortunately, after winning many of the challenges and making it to the final six, I was paired with an annoying little fuck named Tyson. He and I were like oil and water. Talented but narcissistic, Tyson was much more competitive with me than I was with him, and that’s because I’m actually more competitive with myself. My chief priority is to do my best and keep pushing myself forward, and so when our joint efforts fell short of the mark, I felt like I’d let myself down.

  What really annoyed me was that he picked me for his team because, despite our clashes, he knew I was a damn good hairdresser. But then he fucked up the whole thing by not admitting his own weakness. For the Elimination Challenge, we had to design wedding-day hairstyles for a bride, a matron of honor, and the mother of the bride. Having won the Short Cut competition, Tyson and I were able to choose the bridal party we wanted to work with, and in our case the bride wanted highlights and an updo; the matron of honor wanted a French twist; and the mother wanted to have her hair blow-dried. The first two would be the most time-consuming, so I worked on the bride and Tyson worked on the matron of honor with the intention of us getting to the mother when we could.

  I’m not saying my work was stellar, but I did give the bride what she wanted for her special day, and this was important because we were being judged on client satisfaction, technical ability, and how the hairstyles complemented the dresses the clients were wearing. Tyson, meanwhile, appeared to be struggling with the French twist. I kept asking him if things were going okay and he kept saying, “Yes, yes, yes, I’m fine,” until there were only fifteen minutes left on the clock and he finally admitted, “I don’t know what to do with this piece of hair.”

  When I walked over and looked at his work for the first time, the client’s hair was totally trashed. It was stiff and oversprayed, with visible pins; there was undone fringe, a crooked part, and a piece hanging down in the back. It looked, as I said on camera, “absolutely atr
ocious.” So I jumped in to try to save Tyson—and myself. But quite honestly there was no fixing the matron of honor’s hair. I was fucking pissed. Had Tyson asked me for help earlier, I would have been able to do more to salvage the situation and we could have succeeded together. But instead, we were going home. My gut told me so.

  I’m not stupid. This was television. It was a dramatic moment when Jaclyn Smith asked me why I admitted to celebrity stylist José Eber and celebrity wedding planner Mindy Weiss that I had “seen better French twists from beauty school.” My temper got the better of me and I told her, “I don’t care for Tyson very much.” The bridal party said they could tell we didn’t get along, and I confirmed this by informing my nauseating teammate, “I’ve never liked you.” To be fair, he took it on the chin, but I wasn’t going to lie, even if the public and the press labeled me a bitch for saying that “I really want to kick his ass.” At least I was honest.

  Ironically, the episode in which I was eliminated aired the day before my fortieth birthday and the next day we taped a reunion show in which all of the contestants talked about being part of Shear Genius. Clearly, viewers responded to my honesty because I was voted the Fan Favorite, won the $10,000 prize, and got a call from Bravo telling me that they would like to have a meeting.

  “Sure,” I said, without asking why. My assumption was that they touched base with everyone in order to terminate the contracts we’d signed and to say, “Thanks very much for being on the show. Now fuck off.”

  The reality was quite different. At our meeting, the executives asked me if I’d thought about doing my own TV show. When I told them I hadn’t, they said, “Well, would you be interested in doing your own series for us?”