Photoshoot week had arrived, and Veronica and I had, finally, figured out the boundaries we all could live with. Then two days before the shoot, as my mom and sister boarded their planes to LA, it all went to shit! Without any warning, Veronica suddenly changed her tune. She denied everything she had said about a Maxim-style shoot and told us point-blank that this was Playboy and if I didn’t sign the agreement for full nudity, there would be no shoot. Period. And there it was, my Hobson’s Choice. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This woman, whom I had grown to trust and feel empowered by, was no better than a common street hustler. I was devastated and, frankly, a little embarrassed that I didn’t see this coming. I suppose it was naive of me to think that a non-nude shoot was even possible at Playboy, but I was very straightforward with them from day one. What the hell kind of business were they running? It felt like I was ass-up on the wrong end of a sixties stag shoot.
I couldn’t even comprehend what was happening, and how I was now being threatened by some sort of schoolyard bully. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t like being lied to and fucked with. This dream scenario had turned into a fucking nightmare. The only difference was that I had been dealing with bullies all my life, and I wasn’t about to be forced into anything. Nothing was worth debasing myself for. And as much as I was excited about doing the shoot, it was always going to be on my terms. Fuck this and fuck them.
The project falling apart had left me so disappointed. Especially as my mom and sister arrived in LA only to discover that the shit had hit the fan and there was likely not going to be a shoot. It was all a giant buzzkill. But it ended up being a real blessing to have them with me during what turned out to be an emotionally draining time. To be perfectly honest, I think my mom was a bit relieved. She was leery of this whole thing from the very beginning. I guess she saw through them even though I couldn’t. My sister actually did a lot to cheer me up. After giving me the requisite amount of time to sulk, alone and without judgment, she showed up with a bottle of my favorite pinot and three glasses. I was about to tell her that I wasn’t in the mood, but my eye caught the giant wheel of Brie under her arm. At that point, I knew that whatever disappointment and self-pity I had committed to would have to wait. A wheel of Brie trumps pretty much everything. Growing up, my sister always had a knack for laying on the cheese when it counted. My mom’s and Kate’s words and comfort meant the world to me. It was just what I needed right when I needed it.
The next morning I woke up feeling PISSED OFF (and a smidge lactose intolerant)!! I knew who I was, I knew what I was willing to do and what was out of the question. I wasn’t about to compromise my dignity. If building No Good TV had taught me anything, it was that. I was No Good and damn proud of it, and nobody could take that away from me. I was so angry I refused to budge. She could take her Hobson’s Choice and shove it up her ass!!
“I don’t want to do it,” I said firmly to my publicist. “No way this chick is going to bully me and make me second-guess myself. Fuck that. We’re done!”
And just as soon as I called it quits, I got an urgent call from a senior editor at Playboy asking WTF had just happened. Oddly enough, this was the first time we had actually spoken to someone from Playboy. All business prior to this had been conducted with Veronica. Turns out, Veronica was a bit of a hustler and totally misrepresenting us both to each other. It seemed that the whole time she was promising me that I wouldn’t have to do anything nude, she was assuring Playboy that I had agreed to give up the full Monty! I guess she figured she would have the leverage to coerce me into doing it right before the shoot. Later on I would be told that she was losing favor with Hef and that this had the makings of some desperate attempt at winning him back. She had gotten word that Playboy was interested in me and decided to be the one to bring me in like a “Prize Turkey.” Not sure it quite worked out the way she had hoped.
Much to my relief, the editor was astounded and completely shocked to hear the sequence of events. She was in an utter state of disbelief, but fortunately my team had held on to and sent over all the correspondence between us and Veronica to support our position. She was beyond apologetic, embarrassed, and mortified at what had happened. I can only imagine that playing the old bait and switch is bad for business, and it’s the last thing you want out there. I was glad that Playboy had not been involved in the deception, but I kind of got the feeling that this wasn’t the first time a girl got hustled by a photographer in this town.
After apologizing profusely, the editor, wanting to make up for this whole mess, found a way to give this saga a happy ending. She offered me the tamer “Babe of the Month” pictorial, which meant no nakedness.
“Yes!” I said, so happy. “That’s all I ever wanted to begin with!”
They ended up bringing in a wonderful photographer whom they use quite often named Brie Childers, who was very good at making an uncomfortable situation way less weird. “Just relax and try to feel sexy,” Brie said. “Umm … You’re gonna have to show me what to do,” I responded.
To make things even more interesting, this pink-haired punk chick happened to be nine months pregnant. So there she was during our photo shoot, literally rolling around on the floor, showing me how to pose like a pinup girl, all belly-with-baby. She had me roaring with laughter.
I imitated her moves, and for the first time in this whole mess, felt safe and sexy. After starting out so dodgy, in the end my pictorial turned out to be the perfect collaboration, and I owe it all to Brie, that kindhearted little mama. I loved the photos, and I loved the interview.
I stuck to my guns, and now I’m able to say I was in Playboy on my own terms, without compromising my rules.
Flash forward almost five years, and I’d just been hired to become the host of my very first national broadcast television talk show and VH1’s first morning show. I had just arrived in New York and was getting settled in. The excitement and pressure was palpable. I remember getting a call to come in for a meeting with the heads of the network, the executive producers of the show, and the head of publicity, the agenda being the public rollout and introduction of me and the show. So there I was listening to the plan, and suddenly I was confronted by one of the honchos, who was pissed.
“Why are we just finding out you did a naked photo spread in Playboy? This is of grave concern to us as this is a morning show geared towards families, and we don’t want any tawdry rumors out of the gate about our host, and what else should we be worried about? What other skeletons do you have in your closet?” Needless to say, my heart was beating out of my chest because I really didn’t know where this was going. But it presented me with one of the most gratifying moments of that whole experience, as I addressed the room and let them know that whoever did their research was wrong and that I never did a naked photoshoot for Playboy or anywhere else, and that there were no skeletons in my closet. I had done right by me, and the rest is history.
As women in this business, it seems that we’re always going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place or between Sasquatch’s nutsack and Hobson’s Choice. It’s always going to be the way of things until we decide it’s not anymore. But that will require less herd mentality and more real empowerment, not this over-the-counter horseshit we’re being sold by social media’s elites who are willing to showcase their wrinkle star galactica in exchange for your “Likes.”
There’s no denying the powerful effects of this selfie-objectification movement that has engulfed all areas of entertainment, utilizing social media as its weapon of choice. It’s been a highly contagious phenomenon, primarily driven by women, under the guise of taking back control of their self-expression while seeing it as a tool for empowerment. I also understand that it’s a way to get attention and to get your message heard, but at what level of absurdity do we stop? Is it a naked supermodel delivering hope to the downtrodden with a hashtag written on a sign covering her ass? Being charitable for show doesn’t help. I would like to point out that back before there was Internet, if
someone came up and pressed their naked ass against your car window with a Post-it message attached to it, you’d be mortified, and the last thing you’d be thinking is Oh, thank God, I got that message! Today, it makes all the sense in the world. Oh how times have changed.
Somehow we’ve convinced ourselves that objectification by our own hand is perfectly fine. Only at the hands of others is it bad. But the truth is self-objectification is more lethal by your own hand because there’s nothing to limit you. There’s no one to draw any lines. And the belfie is just the tip of the iceberg when examining the sheer number of ways we’re contributing to being sexualized, scrutinized, and analyzed nowadays. You see, whether you’ve taken a selfie, felfie, delfie, helfie, welfie, drelfie, purrfie, shelfie, bedsie, dronie, freebie, groupie, or the donkey shot supreme known as, the belfie, you, too, are part of this crusade to return objectification back into the rightful hands of its subjects. Who are then free to continue objectifying … themselves! Huh?
All this talk about how we need to deemphasize our body parts and focus on what is inside seems to pale in comparison to the influx of sexualized images of body parts being uploaded every day in every possible way. We complained about our magazines Photoshopping images, so now we use other tools to do the same. It’s hilarious! We’re now the ones doing what’s been done to us for decades. Except now have no one else to blame.
If you truly think about it, you’ll realize that this is not empowerment. Empowerment has nothing to do with the way you look and has everything to with how you feel and who you are. It has nothing to do with how you physically compare with others. It has nothing to do with your appearance. Because you are not your appearance.
So when you look at the images on the various social media accounts of countless celebrities, keep in mind that this is not a representation of who they actually are, just who they’re pretending to be. It’s actually a representation of the most shallow version of themselves. And if that’s all they’re putting out there, then maybe they have become who they’re pretending to be. And if their entire social media profiles are just a collection of body parts, especially their dumper, then you’re not even looking at a person; you’re just looking at an ASS!
When I’m not sure what to do, Kourosh always says to me:”Let Carrie be Carrie!” It helps me focus on what’s important. So I’m going to pass it on to you for when you find yourself distracted by all the noise and the funk and you’re not sure what to do: “Let you be you!”
11
FUCK MICKEY MOUSE!
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
—The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac
Each time you walk into a room for an interview with a celebrity, the game board changes like an ever-evolving maze. Much like a snowflake, no two rooms are the same. There are a lot of variables at work on any given day, most of which you’re not even aware of, with multiple concealed agendas converging right before your eyes. It genuinely feels like you’re inside M. C. Escher’s Relativity lithograph. To borrow a famous quote from Forrest Gump, “Interviews are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” The celebrities and their handlers are firmly in control, and if you don’t have your wits about you, you can become nothing more than a marionette who is there for their amusement.
From the timer who places you in your finite box to the publicist’s soul-grabbing eye contact to the studio’s ever-present expectation that you’re not going to shit the bed to the celebrities’ sudden emotional whims. At that moment, you, your planning, and your preparation are suddenly lying on a colonic table, waiting for a wheatgrass enema (apparently you can drink it and blow it up your ass). Some days they clean your clock, but most days you walk out with your dignity intact. Unless, of course, it’s a box of sugar-free chocolates, and anyone who’s had the misfortune of being on the wrong side of sugar-free chocolates knows that, one way or another, it’s going to be painful and sooner rather than later you’ll be painting the walls. (More on that in Chapter 15: A Kick in the Cunt.) It can be frightening, exhilarating, or both.
I love the mystery of where it’s going to go in the room. I was lucky to have a format that allowed me to go with the flow, and I didn’t have to ask certain typical things or fulfill some mandated quota of inappropriate personal questions that were nobody’s business. Like, “Michael Jackson has just passed away. How does that make you feel?” or “Ben Affleck is getting a divorce from Jennifer Garner. Do you have any comments about his alleged infidelity?” Being free not to have to follow that kind of tabloid questioning model made for some memorable and usually unexpected interactions. Moments that redefined being “uncensored” as something customizable to suit each individual’s boundaries. There were relationships with celebrities that spanned years and had the emotional arc of The Notebook. And then there were the times when I came face-to-face with complicated icons who turned the tables on me and blew my mind. Sometimes you just have to be willing to take that leap of faith and see where the day takes you.
“This fuckin’ movie is incredible! And there’s a couple of real fucks in it … and then some motherfuckers!”
—Demi Moore
I interview the biggest stars on the planet, and sometimes it’s hard to remain calm. I try to make it look easy-breezy Covergirl, but to be honest, there have been a few times I looked cool as a cucumber on camera while desperately holding back my inner Chris Farley. Sometimes I find myself in these surreal situations with AAA-list celebrities that so many people would chop off their left nut to be in, and I can’t help but nerd the fuck out.
The first time that happened to me was at an interview with one of my heroes, Rob Zombie. Yes, technically, Rob Zombie is everything I’m obsessed with stuffed into one long-haired, bearded, “more human than human” being—a head banger and a horror movie director. This guy knows his way around boobs and blood, and that makes my head explode. So when I got to meet him at the House of 1000 Corpses junket, I turned into a tongue-tied idiot. I couldn’t get a sentence out. Just nothing. I would start out asking a solid, well-informed, legit question only to then burst into Anderson Cooper–like fits of giggling. Rob would just look at me, calmly waiting for my giggle-fit to end. He’s a pretty reserved guy, which can be intimidating. But if you can engage him in an in-depth geek-out convo about comic books, horror films, or music, he’ll gab until the day is done. Of course, I didn’t know that yet, so he put up with me nervously giggling my way through this interview.
I brought the tapes back to the office, and my editor, upon watching them, was like, “What the hell happened to you?” He had never seen me lose my cool like that before.
Fuck if I know. Some people just have that effect on you, and it’s out of your control. Take George Clooney. Stop anyone on the street—man, woman, child, mime—and they’ll swoon at the mention of George Clooney. Likewise, in the junket world, he’s the Holy Grail interview, the end-all and be-all, a god. Clooney was one of those white elephants for NGTV. Years went by and we couldn’t book him. I spent so many junkets sitting out in the hall, watching people come out of the room with him with this postcoital glow on their faces. Every woman, one by one, was like, “Oh my God, George Clooney!” and basically had an orgasm right there in the hallway. Every man, one by one, was like, “I want to be George Clooney!” And basically had an orgasm right there in the hallway. I should’ve been handing out Kleenex and cigarettes.
Now, I appreciate George Clooney as a fine physical specimen, too, but he never gave me the sweats the way someone like Jason Momoa did. I always imagined that George Clooney had an aroma of fresh laundry, vanilla birthday cake, and a light spritz of Tom Ford cologne, where I was more into whiskey breath and aged leather. So I never quite got why everyone was so gaga over this guy. I made it through The Facts of Life, Ocean’s Eleven, even the Caesar haircut, never going into a state of musth. Say what? That’s the term for the periodic state of heightened sexual activity and aggression in adult mal
e elephants, characterized by the discharge of secretions from glands near the eyes and the continuous dribbling of urine. Don’t say I never taught you anything, and don’t complain about how you’re not quite sure how to use this information to get laid.
Everyone going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs over George really confused me. How dare I even say that about the two-time winner of People’s “Sexiest Man Alive”—who the hell do I think I am? Well, I guess it’s possible that being left out made me a little bitter. But my bitterness also motivated me. I made it my mission in life to get him, and I refused to give up.
Getting Clooney would be easier said than done. There were two major challenges: How do we book him? Even if we did book him, would he curse?
For any outlet, landing an interview with an A-lister is a tall order. With NGTV’s uncensored format, landing a star that huge was extremely difficult in our early days. The irony of it was that when it was all said and done, many of them were surprisingly game. Brad Pitt, Justin Timberlake, Bradley Cooper, and Johnny Depp, to name a few, totally dug the format and appreciated its humor. At the end of the day, these guys were so big that they weren’t afraid to let their guards down and have fun. They had nothing to prove and nothing to lose. If anything, this was a way to connect to their fans on a more intimate level. Cursing is the language of the masses, and we are the Rosetta Stone.
Everybody Curses, I Swear! Page 20
