The Diva Rules Page 12
rule no. 21:
IF YOU TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER TWICE, YOU’RE F*CKING UP.
You may love your job. You may love the people you work with. You may even love your boss. But, no matter how chummy you all are, when it really comes down to it, no one in your office is ultimately going to look out for your career as well as you will. That shouldn’t come as a shocker, either, especially if you think of your workplace like Drag Race’s workroom. (Of course, your office probably doesn’t smell like eau de sweaty hip pads, but still.) The contestants usually help each other in the workroom. They become friends. Some more experienced queens will even take on a mentor role to the younger ones. But at the end of the day, everyone knows that only one queen can win, and each will do whatever she can to make sure it’s her. Everyone plays hard, but also fair.
And then every once in a while at work, like on Drag Race, a horrible person will enter the fold, someone who would, as Bianca del Rio once put it, “sneak in your room at night and cut up all your wigs.” If it’s a coworker or underling, you can probably shut her down on your own with a quick, honest confrontation. But if your boss is the one who is being purposefully nasty to you—he’s claiming your successes as his own, he keeps you out of important meetings, he prevents you from realizing your true potential—then, baby, you’re in a real tough spot. To not let him mess with your own success, you’ve got to be smarter. Do your job, kick ass at it, make a reputation for yourself as a hard worker, and make friends. You’ll need their support. And if that doesn’t do the trick and your boss blatantly tries to block your success repeatedly, there is no question in my mind: You’ve got to get the hell out of there. #ByeFelicia! You cannot win if the person standing in front of you is purposely blocking your light, hogging your applause, or hip-checking you off the stage before you have a chance to walk your walk.
That’s exactly what happened to me in West Palm Beach. The station was called Sunny 104.3, but should’ve been called Shaaaaady 104.3. As I related a few chapters ago, when I asked my boss for permission to tape season one of Drag Race, he issued me an unconditional “no,” claiming that by taking my seat next to Ru at the judges’ table, I would harm the station’s otherwise wholesome image. At first, I thought it was just a managerial mistake on his part, but eventually I came to realize that, due to his personal prejudices, working under him and fulfilling my destiny were mutually exclusive endeavors.
By the time Ru was prepping for season three of Drag Race, the hurt I’d caused him by abandoning him for season one had at last faded, and all was fine again. Ru is on the show, as he is in real life: sweet, spiritual, gentle, and caring. He naturally plays the mother figure to all these queens, but he knew that to grow Drag Race’s ratings, it needed more than a drag mother and her fashionista friends. It also needed a loving but loud-mouthed aunt, one whom you can count on to make slightly inappropriate but always spot-on comments. So when World of Wonder called me to ask me for the second time if I’d take my rightful seat next to my best friend at the judges’ table, I wasn’t going to let anyone stop me.
The next day, after I finished my morning show, I took off my pink, fuzzy headphones and marched down the hall and into my boss’s office to ask him, once again, for his permission to tape Drag Race. Once again, I had it all planned out how I could tape the show without it affecting my radio job whatsoever, but we never even got that far. “Listen,” I said. “I’ve been asked to be a judge on Drag Race again. The show’s a huge hit, and . . .” He cut me off before I could even finish my sentence, and without ever looking up from his papers, he said, “No.” Just like that. “No.” I stood there stunned for a minute, and not knowing quite what else to do, I stormed out of his office, slamming the door behind me.
I was so upset that by the time I reached the parking lot I was practically hyperventilating. You know what I did next? I’m a little embarrassed to tell you, but f*ck it: I called my Kabbalah teacher. (I know, I know, it sounds so disgustingly pretentious, but you’ll have to forgive me. I was on a Jewish mysticism kick at the time. Who wasn’t?) Anyway, she said to me, while wind chimes—die casts of Ashton Kutcher’s balls, no doubt—clinged and clanged in the background, “You are at a crossroads in your life. You can either stay and have your security, knowing that things will never change, or you can push yourself, make a change, and make a difference. This is your big moment. What are you going to do with it?”
It was good spiritual counsel, but when a diva is in distress, it’s wise to get some practical girlfriend guidance too. I couldn’t exactly turn to Ru in this moment, because I did NOT want him to know that the boss had said no again, so I called my other best friend, Leah Remini. When I told her what had happened, she was basically the opposite of a wind chime. She handed me my ass over the phone. “You just walked out? What the f*ck is wrong with you?” she said in her thick Brooklyn accent. “It’s not every day that a TV show drops into your lap. I don’t care what you have to do, but you have to take this job! I’m going to call Les. Do you want me to call Les?” The “Les” she was referring to was Les Moonves, the president of CBS. Sunny 104.3, my radio station, happened to be a CBS radio station. “Les is TV, not radio,” I protested, weakly. “Then I will call the head of CBS radio,” she said, to which I responded, “He won’t even know who I am! I’m in Market fourty-seven in West Palm Beach, not number one.” I was selling myself short, and Leah knew it. “You’re one of his stars. Of course he knows who you are,” she said. “Give me his number. I’ll call him.” I wasn’t having it. “What, are you my mother now?” I said. But Leah kept her cool. “Then be a big girl, and you f*cking call him now.”
When I got home, thanks to Leah’s, let’s call it “encouragement,” I decided to call Scott Herman, executive vice president of CBS Radio. Now, this may come as a shocker to you, but people in positions of power have always intimidated me, and though we were acquainted, I was so nervous about talking to him that even my vagina was sweating. But I gathered my courage, I pointed my Vornado on that bitch, and I dialed the phone. When he picked up, he seemed actually thrilled to hear from me. And, the upside with Scott is this: I LOVED him. Yes, he was corporate, but he was (and still is) one of the real radio dudes left in the business. Incidentally, Scott used to listen to me when I did morning in NYC, so he knew with whom he was dealing. I told him my situation: I’d like to take five weeks of unpaid vacation to tape RuPaul’s Drag Race, but my manager thought my participation in the show would reflect negatively on the station. Scott listened patiently and when I finished talking, he just said, “I have absolutely no problem with you doing that. I think it sounds great! Have fun!” I was so relieved to have his blessing. And you know what? A week later, Dockers was gone. Fired. To this day, I’m not sure if his rapid departure had anything to do with me, or if he was failing in other ways, too, but for whatever reason, I know he got what he deserved. And when I arrived in LA to shoot the show, I sat my happy ass next to Ru at that judges’ table, he smiled, gave me a huge hug, and just said, “Now the show can begin.” That was all I needed to hear. The bitch was back.
THE
MOST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD ARE GOOD. I truly believe that with all my heart. But every once in a while you run into someone who isn’t, and if that someone happens to be your boss, then you’ve got to figure out how to deal with it. If he purposefully prevents you from succeeding once, cut him some slack. Maybe he made a mistake. Maybe you caught him on an insecure day. Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and he’ll learn. So, if that’s the case, keep your head down, do what you do best, and win him over or work around him. But if he shuts you down twice, then understand that, like on Drag Race, in order for you to win, only one of you can stay. The other must sashay away. Had I just listened to my boss and turned Ru down for the second time, I would’ve lost not only an amazing career opportunity, but also the most important friendship of my life. Being a strong, successful diva and being a good friend are two of my most essential core values. They’re
what make me who I am, so why on earth would I let some random’s negativity stop me? I let it happen once. I’ll never let it happen again. Divas, you know who you are. You’ve got a destiny to fulfill. Don’t let anyone stand in your way.
rule no. 22:
STOP RELYING ON THAT BODY.
Take a little sashay down memory lane with me for a moment, will you? It’s season three of Drag Race. I’m sitting at the judges’ table next to Ru, watching all the beautiful queens walk the runway: Raja, Manila Luzon, Shangela, Yara Sofia, and out comes the immaculately gorgeous Carmen Carrera, showing off, well, what she’d always showed off: her mile-long legs, sexy waist, and invisible tuck. Early on, she was one of my absolute favorites. I mean, I could not stop looking at her. She was just so damn stunning, she practically made me pop a lady boner. But by the fourth episode, when she walked out once again in her barely there ensemble, I went in my head, Oh, okaaaay. You’re naked—again. Great. Snooze. I was not impressed. We’d basically seen her skin every episode and “oooed and ahhed” over it and by this one, frankly, I was getting bored with the same old schtick. I wondered what else, if anything, she had to offer. So, in five little words that will forever be immortalized in the single “Runway Girl” by Ru and DJ Shyboy (ahem, available on iTunes, baby), I let her know that I’d had enough of what she was serving. With nothing but love in my heart, I warned her, “Stop relying on that body,” and to my surprise (and don’t you know, delight), it became the catchphrase of the season.
Honestly, I would’ve been more impressed by Carmen if she’d walked out wearing a circus lion-tamer’s outfit, something to prove she was more than a one-trick ponytail. But episode after episode, it became clear that she believed—and I’d vehemently argue, mistakenly so—that her body was not just her biggest asset, but also her only asset. And hear me out here, divas: No matter how flawless you are when you wake up, the very moment you start believing your body is the only thing you’ve got to offer, you not only become predictable (and therefore—gasp!—boring), but you also run the danger of becoming unhealthy.
Before I go on with that thought, I first want to make clear that I love Carmen. Since she appeared on the show, she’s grown immensely as a performer, and a person, and it’s because she’s finally realized she’s so much more than just a hot body. I hope I had something to do with her having that epiphany, but even if I didn’t, I’m really proud of her evolution.
Anyway, I’m very, very passionate about this rule, because it’s one I had to learn the very hard way. When I was a just baby Visage—picture little ol’ me in high school—I heard some boys making fun of my mom for being fat, and I suppose that that’s when I first got it into my head that skinny must be better and more desirable, and being desired means being noticed. As I started getting more and more self-conscious about my body, I started to eat less and less. My parents were strict meat-and-potatoes, and bread-and-butter, people, and soon enough, every night at dinner, I’d chew my food, stuff it into my cheeks, excuse myself from the table (“I have to go to the bathroom”), and flush it down the toilet. Dinnertime suddenly involved about two faithful trips to the loo, and surprisingly, my parents never even took note or if they did, maybe they just thought I was being a moody teenager. By my senior year, the purging had started. I couldn’t handle puking—bulimia in the traditional way wasn’t for me—so I chose to eliminate the little food I’d eaten the only other way I knew how. I mistakenly thought that by taking laxatives every day the calories that I put in my mouth would be flushed out of my body before they could be absorbed (and turned into fat).
My disordered eating continued—and even worsened—all throughout my early twenties. My laxative habit was easy to hide, when I was home in New York, Vogueing in the clubs, and competing in the body category in the Harlem balls, but when I was on the road with Seduction, it got to be a little more challenging. Not to be crude, but you can only slam laxatives when you know you’re going to be near a bathroom in a few hours. Desperate to remain thin (and, thus, the center of attention, I thought), I was constantly scouting toilets, and as a result, my life started to feel—in more ways than one—completely shitty.
When I did eat, my meals were in no way healthy or complete. I subsisted mainly just on coffee and cigarettes. Eventually, Sinoa caught onto me. She said, “Michelle, put your hands on your hips.” I struck a hammy pose, and she held her hands up in front of her face to mime framing a camera shot of me. “Yep,” she said. “You look just like Mr. Salty.” Now, if you’re too young to know who Mr. Salty is, screw you. Just kidding, I’m just jealous. Mr. Salty was the sailor-hat-wearing mascot to Nabisco’s pretzel sticks. His arms and legs were made of pretzel sticks, giving him a very lanky look. She went on, “Seriously, I’m really worried about you. You’ve gotten so skinny.” At 5'4", I was not much more than ninety pounds. Whenever she started to get on my case—by the way, thank you for that, Sinoa!—I’d join her for breakfast, when I’d have a few cups of coffee and maybe a strip of bacon or a bite of an omelet.
I wasn’t consciously starving myself. If you’d asked me then if I was, I would’ve looked at you like you were from Mars. But the truth was, I was completely and wholly and unhealthily relying on my body. I would walk around naked—or as close to naked as I could get away with—at every chance I got. Even when I went to the Jersey shore, which was full of leering meatheads, I’d wear nothing but a G-string. My ridiculous ass and surgically enhanced, albeit still smallish tits, I thought, were the best things I had to offer the world, and I’d use them to get the attention I so desperately craved. Which is ironic, because I wouldn’t do it at a strip club. I couldn’t get paid for it—it had to be on MY dime, not anyone else’s. Plus, I figured, attention is attention. Even if you look at me and think I’m too skinny, if you look at me and worry, if you look at me and think anything at all, you’re still looking at me, and that’s the point. I didn’t care whether you were ogling or concerned. To me, all of it felt like fawning, and I ate it up. It fulfilled me in a way I thought food never could.
THE
IF YOU HAVE A BIG, JUICY ASS OR NICE TITS, then by all means, flaunt what you’ve got. Werk it, girl! Feel fierce. I fully support nudity, especially when you’ve got a body like Carmen Carrera’s or Madonna’s. But know this: Your body is not who you are, and it’s not all that you have to offer to the world. And if you rely solely on your T&A for your self-worth, you will never be happy. Never. Because by doing so, you’re handing your power over to other people. Strangers, even. If you can grab their attention, you’ll feel good about yourself. And if you can’t, you’ll feel destroyed, wanting, worthless. Divas, I beg of you: Hold on to your power. Rely on your talents, your wits, your voice, your creativity, and your heart, and if you can do that, I guarantee you, you will always get noticed, and you will always feel beautiful.
Then, when I was twenty-six, I got a wake-up call. My boyfriend, Michael, the man I thought I was going to marry, broke up with me out of the blue over the phone after four years of dating. Feeling heart-shattered and lost, I walked into my bathroom, reached for my laxatives, and swallowed every pill in the box. I can’t remember how many pills were in the box, but I think it was about twenty-four. I wasn’t trying to kill myself or anything. (That would’ve been an incredibly shitty way to go. Badump bump.) But I was grasping for any sense of control I could get. If I couldn’t control my relationships, I could at least control my body, and again, that’s all I thought I had to offer. These will flatten my stomach, I thought. If I’m going to be single again, I’ve got to look my best—and fast.
I ended up writhing alone and in pain on my bathroom floor, so cramped I thought I was literally going to poop my intestines out. I probably should’ve gone to the hospital that day, but I never did, and the next day, when the agony finally subsided, I swore off laxatives forever and changed my goal. I vowed to get strong and healthy, whatever that meant for me, not just thin. I literally joined a gym that next day, ate three square meal
s a day, and started to look at myself in an entirely new way. I had so much more to offer the world than my tits and ass. I had my talent and let’s not forget . . . my voice.
I learned a lesson that so many of my girls and gays struggle with their whole lives. I was relying on my body for my happiness, and that is a huge fallacy. Your body is not your happiness. Even if you lose those last five, or ten, or fifty pounds, all the things in your life that suck will still suck after you do. Plus, you’ll be hungry. And no matter how much attention you get for being sexy, take it from me, it’ll never be enough to make you feel whole. I mean, I gyrated on stage nearly naked in front of arenas of 60,000 screaming fans, and it still wasn’t enough to make me feel happy. That’s the damn truth. Besides, let’s face it: Eventually your tits are going to sag and your balls are going to drag, and if they’re your only source of joy, you’re going to have a hell of a hard road ahead.
Now, I listen to my body. I pay attention to it. I nurture it. I eat consciously, enriching it with every bite, rather than starving it, or poisoning it with processed, preservative-filled foods. I go to the gym, I hike, and I loves me a good spin class. I treat myself with kindness and respect. And as a result, I feel not only a million times healthier and more energized, but also so much more comfortable and confident in my skin. I used to say beauty is on the inside, but I just said it because I knew that’s what I was supposed to feel. Honestly, it was just lip service. But the older I get, the more I really do honestly and truly believe it. Some of the ugliest people I’ve ever met have been drop-dead gorgeous on the outside, and some of the most beautiful people I know wouldn’t necessarily stand out in a crowd at first glance. And no matter what size I am, I now know in my heart of hearts that I am beautiful. And guess what? I know you are, too.