Is You Okay? (11 page)

It took my bff, Jacqui, to call me up one night to tell me about the video that had gone over a million views. She was good lookin' out on stuff like that for me. I didn't believe her at first—was she sure they weren't like spam views, or a typo? A million views? For one of my videos?
Why?
I didn't know why then, but I know why now: I'd jumped onto this new path with both feet.

With faith in myself and my work ethic, I found the courage to let more of my true self come through.

It wasn't more than a few weeks later that I was pulled out of the line outside
The Tonight Show
by a page and escorted into the green room. Contrary to what you might think, the green room was not designed especially for me; it's where guests of the show wait before coming onstage. There's a nice sofa, some comfy chairs, lots of yummy snacks and drinks on a table. I thought,
This is it! They must have seen my Nad's video and want me to do a sketch. Or be a guest! OMG OMG OMG!

I could not have been more wrong if I guessed they wanted me to guest host while Jay was on vacation, like he used to for Johnny Carson. They sat me down, and some security officer I'd never met before announced that I could no longer attend
tapings of
The Tonight Show
and that I was hereby barred from entering the premises.

Ehhhhh-xcuse me?!?

I couldn't even comprehend what they were saying.
The Tonight Show
was everything to me. It was all I had. It's not like they were paying me—I wasn't employed by the show, yet I was basically being fired. It was like a scene right out of that
Seinfeld
episode when Kramer gets fired from a job he doesn't have.

I couldn't believe my ears. Why don't you just turn Disneyland into a cemetery while you're at it, because California is clearly trying to kill me! With my world circling the toilet and my stomach in my shoes, my first thought was,
What are they going to do without me?
But that was really just my brain covering up the real question in my heart, “What am
I
going to do without them?”

I didn't know why they kicked me off the lot. The rumor was that it came from Jay Leno himself, but I'll never know.

Jay Leno had not just been a role model for me in comedy and entertainment, he had also been a mentor (from afar) in life as well. He had an incredible work ethic; he almost never missed a day. He didn't go on crazy long vacations—in fact, his dedication reminded me a lot of my dad. On weekends Jay
still did stand-up at The Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, or he'd fly over to Las Vegas and do shows there. He didn't need the money, he just loved what he did, and I loved him for it. (You know it's true too, because it says so in the name of my blog,
glozelllovesjayleno
.)

A lot of people have someone like that in their lives: a mentor; an idol; a hero. Maybe they dream of meeting that person one day, but rarely do they think,
One day that person is going to fire me and ban me from their presence
. (A friend of mine was once fired by a boss they'd known their entire life . . . their mom. Getting kicked out by Jay felt even worse.)

When I heard that Jay might have been the one who banned me from
The Tonight Show,
I was crushed. I realize now I probably came off as an annoying pain in people's sides to some extent. Was I just an overly enthusiastic fan or an obsessed crazy person? I was totally harmless, but how could they know that? Still, I wasn't really all that surprised when I got the news. I was used to being judged unfairly by people my whole life, often for things that were out of my control or not even my fault.

When I think of that day being booted from
The Tonight Show
lot, I compare it to six months earlier when I'd gone to a taping of
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
. Ellen's show filmed on the same studio lot as
The Tonight Show
. It was her first
year doing her Christmas giveaway, so we all got gifts—I got a watch and a log that smells like coffee when you burn it in the fireplace. But the best gift was when Ellen came over during the show to talk to us. I'd managed to end up in one of the front rows, so I was right in her line of sight—the tall young black woman straight losing her mind. When she asked my name, I got so excited that it cracked her up and she talked about me on the show the very next day! I remember thinking at the time,
Yeah, THAT'S how you do it Jay! That's how you treat your most loyal fans!
I don't know why I stayed so completely dedicated to Jay Leno and
The Tonight Show
after that; I'm just glad something good came out of it.

Looking back, I'm so thankful that my time at
The Tonight Show
ended when it did, because I might still be there otherwise. It's a very real possibility that scares me when I think about it because in those moments in 2008 my path was forking again.
The Tonight Show
was going one way, and YouTube was taking me another.

Plus my self-worth had become so wrapped up in that show that it wasn't healthy. Now, with nothing else occupying my time—no husband, no stand-up comedy, no
Tonight Show
—I immediately started working more on my videos and quickly
had my first truly viral smash hit: “My Push-Up Bra Will Help Me Get My Man.”

That video was total improv. I was actually headed to the park to film something else when I came across a car fire on the road and flipped open the camera on a whim. It happened during the day on a Monday, and if I'd still been at
The Tonight Show,
it never would have happened. And just like the car I passed on the street, the video exploded. (Years later, it's still in my top five most popular videos ever.)

Not long after, I got recognized in public for the first time. It was at a Costco, by a young girl who followed me from aisle to aisle as I helped myself to the free samples that make Costco on Saturdays the happiest place on earth if you're still kind of poor (Kirkland cheddar cubes are delicious, #sorrynotsorry).

In those days, I went to Costco every Saturday, so at first I thought maybe the girl went shopping with her mom every Saturday too, and that's why she was staring at me—because
she recognized me as that lady who loved the samples
. It turns out that she had actually seen the Push-Up Bra video and watched it, like, fifty times.

I started getting recognized more often after that, and a funny thing began to happen: people would ask about my “GloZell character.” Character? Isn't this how people act when they're with their friends or just being themselves? The question confused me. My “on-camera personality” (I'm still not even comfortable saying those words) isn't a character. It's not contrived at all. It's me. In many ways, it's actually me at my most comfortable and most authentic. Anybody who knows me—going all the way back to Calvary Presbyterian School—isn't surprised by the person they see in my videos. They know that this is my truest self. They understand when I talk to them about what I do that this is the path I have always belonged on.

I've learned since my early YouTube days, and from getting to know other YouTubers and trading stories with them (like comics or moms do), that the question about “my character” is pretty common. “Normal people” struggle to understand people who have big personalities. We aren't putting on airs, I promise—it's just the way we are when we let our true selves come out and play. It's something anyone can do, at any age.

And it's not just running, jumping, singing, and dancing, like Steve Harvey said. It's anything—from his partner with the landscaping business in Cleveland, to my mom in Orlando
who calls me fifty times a day and makes crazy hats out of stuff, to you and whatever gift God endowed you with and packed in your parachute: if you can figure out that gift, accept your truest self for who it is, and remain open to every path you encounter, then you don't ever have to be afraid to let it rip!

     
Q:
  What's your favorite Thanksgiving food?

     
A:
  Stuffing. Some people call it dressing. It's whatever your grandma makes with all that love and about a hundred thousand calories in it and makes you want to go to sleep five minutes later.

Haters gonna hate.
It's a reality I tried to deny for a long time, but ultimately, I had to accept.

Have you ever noticed how haters only come after the things you really love, particularly when those things are going well? It's like they have a nose for not only our weakest points, but also for what we value the most. If you don't care about
fashion, nobody bothers to say anything about your clothes, if they even notice at all. If you would
die
for fashion—and you spend a lot of time and energy developing your personal style, picking the
exact right outfit
every day—that's when the haterade turns from a trickle to a tidal wave.

I used to think haters were just angry or jealous people (sure sometimes they are), and if I only had a chance to talk to them and let them get to know me, their haterade would dry up. But as I looked a little closer at the things haters say and do, and I learned a little about a few of the haters circling my life, what I found wasn't anger or jealousy at all—what I found was fear.

The people being mean to you? They are
afraid
to do what you had the courage to do, which is be true to yourself, and be open to the path in front of you. They are afraid of being different, afraid to take a step in a new direction, because they're worried they'll hear the same kind of nasty judgment thrown at them that they throw at you. And instead of taking responsibility for their own fear, they hate on you for taking control of yours. It's like you're a reflection of all their fears and failures, and instead of looking into the mirror, they want to smash it to pieces.

And here's the hardest part about dealing with haters: they can come from any corner of your life. They can be younger
than you, or older, or the same age. They can be boys or girls. They can be friends, neighbors, family members, or perfect strangers.

I'll give you an example: Remember my friend Abby who switched schools at the end of fourth grade? She was my best friend in the entire world. I know that sounds silly to say as an adult, but when you think about it, she was my friend from the time I was five years old until I was nine years old. That means when she left, we'd been friends more than half my life!

You want to know why she left Calvary Presbyterian? It wasn't because they bought a new house outside the school district (this was a private school), or because her dad got a job somewhere else and they had to move. No, it was much worse than that: her parents removed her at the end of the school year because our fourth-grade teacher—it's hard to even write this, but her name was Mrs. Stuckey—convinced them that their daughter was spending too much time with just one girl and it was becoming a problem. Yes, she meant
the black girl
. Mrs. Stuckey was worried about Abby, and how such a tight bond between us might affect her future relationships with other kids.

This doesn't happen with race as much anymore, but with kids who are LGBTQ, or “the smelly kid,” or just plain weird,
you bet it still goes on. Mrs. Stuckey initially registered her concern by making phone calls to Abby's parents, and amazingly, to
my
parents. Then there were letters, and parent-teacher conferences. Then more “official” kinds of letters. I was still four years away from graduating, but my friendship with Abby had already graduated from “different” to “a problem.” Mrs. Stuckey wasn't worried about me or how our bond might affect
my
future relationships—oh no, of course not. Don't be silly.

I didn't know any of this was happening at the time, mind you. My parents loved me very much and protected me from the drama. They couldn't protect me the following September though, when the roster for the fifth-grade class arrived in the mail, and Abby's name wasn't on it. (Getting banned from
The Tonight Show
was nothing compared to how I felt when I found out about Abby.)

How does a teacher do that to a young child? Or to two young children? Today, most people would immediately say,
How awful and backward she was! What a horrible racist!
Oh, she was definitely racist—I don't care if she doesn't consider herself racist, actions speak louder than words—but as an adult, when I really think about what happened, painting Mrs. Stuckey as an ignorant racist is just too simple.

No, Mrs. Stuckey was a hater of a different type: she saw these two young girls with no hate in their hearts; two girls who didn't see color; two girls who shared an amazing bond at such an early age, and she was jealous because she'd never had anything like that in her life. And the fact that she was jealous made her angry.
How can these nine-year-olds have something I've never had but always wanted?

The thing is, I bet Mrs. Stuckey could have had a friendship like ours. Why couldn't she? Anyone can have a friendship like that. It's a matter of opening your heart. She was a good teacher; actually, I remember liking her. I would have been her friend; she was perfectly nice. Maybe she was always afraid of what other people thought, and that's what held her back, or maybe she was scared of being her true self, so she tried to keep other people in their categories just as she kept herself in her own lane. She thought it was better to shatter the mirror instead of look into it, I guess. How do I know all this? I don't, it's just a guess, but I watched a lot of
Oprah
and
Dr. Phil
so I'm pretty confident. Plus, don't we all know someone who is bound by these invisible ropes and chains?

And you know what else? I bet she never once, not for a second, stopped to think about me crying in my room about it. Empathy—taking the time to think about someone else's feelings—can overcome all sorts of hatred. It's a superpower we all have. Not enough people use it.

The next time you are considering doing something that might affect another person in a bad way, just stop and try a little empathy. You'll be amazed at how it feels.

In the aftermath of Abby's disappearance, my parents were there for me as I tried to make new friends and make the best out of the last four years at Calvary Presbyterian, but that was about the extent of my support system for a while.

To be honest, I wasn't getting much love from my extended family, especially on my dad's side. This time, I don't have a teacher like Mrs. Stuckey, or a talk-show host like Jay Leno to point to as the culprit—no, this time it was MaDear's doing, and she didn't even realize it.

After my grandfather died, MaDear kept an open door at her house. Kids and grandkids could come and go as they pleased. The small table in the kitchen would always be set, and there would be food on the stove, and drinks in the refrigerator. She was doing that thing a lot of people do who struggled as parents the first time around: she was trying to be a better grandparent. My dad valued her effort, and since he'd become “successful”—financially speaking—he was able give her a little bit of money every time we came over to visit.

MaDear was a proper southern black woman, so she was always grateful and appreciative. Never one for subtlety, she showed that gratitude in a very direct and obvious way: by giving my sister, DeOnzell, and me preferential treatment over the other kids. If we were in the living room watching TV—even
The Price Is Right,
which was her favorite because she was in love with Bob Barker—and we wanted something to drink or we just wanted her attention, she would give it to us. That might not sound noteworthy, unless I tell you about the time one of our cousins tried the same thing, with far different results.

That day, we were all watching
The Price Is Right,
and my poor cousin asked MaDear for a glass of water. Nowadays, you'd just go in the kitchen and get it yourself, but back in the day—and especially at your grandparents' house—things were more formal, and you never took yourself into a different room other than the bathroom without permission.

“Wait for the commercial break,” MaDear said.

“But, MaDear, I'm really thirsty,” my cousin said.

Bad idea.

There was a pause, and then MaDear got up from her chair. Looking right at my cousin, she grabbed a stick that was holding the living room window open—it was a hot, hot day—
and right there and then set about giving that boy a solid beating. (I bet the day Bob Barker retired from
The Price Is Right
was the happiest day of my cousin's life. I can't even imagine what he does at a restaurant when he wants a refill of his water.)

It was hard enough to witness, but my sister and I also knew that it would never have happened to DeOnzell or me, which in some ways made it worse. And it didn't stop there. Whenever we'd come over to visit, she'd let us eat at the little kitchen table, but she'd make all the other grandkids eat on the floor. It didn't matter if some of our cousins were already at the table when we came in, she'd move them to the floor. She didn't think we were
better
than them—she loved us all equally—she just had an old-school way of showing appreciation for my dad's financial generosity.

I can't imagine what it must have felt like to be in my cousins' place. And what made those moments even stranger for me is that I
always
wanted to eat on the floor! That's where our cousins were hanging out eating, and coloring and playing games. That's where all the fun was at, but MaDear wasn't having it.

Guess who didn't like this situation that much either: the rest of my dad's family, that's who. And guess who they took it out
on? Yes, you guessed it: DeOnzell and me. (Not that I blame them, I'd be upset too.)

My aunts and uncles already had a rocky relationship with my dad, and now it felt like they were passing down their frustration like an heirloom to their kids, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

What I learned from this tough situation was this: it doesn't matter what your orientation is, what your skin color is, whether you grew up rich, poor, with two parents or five parents—nobody should ever be punished for something they were born into. They didn't have a dang choice in the matter. And it's scary to feel like you don't have control of anything, like your fate is sealed. Who wants to believe they're unlucky by birth, while someone they are related to and grew up with seems like they can do no wrong?

The point is, you never know when or where or why your haters are going to pop up. And because of that, you can't spend your whole life trying to anticipate, run away from, or defend against them. You just have to live your life, be as true to yourself as possible, and trust your path. If my husband and I are blessed enough to have more than one baby, and they grow up to have kids of their own, I will make sure that I take to heart that lesson and all the others I learned from
MaDear—the great ones, and even the not-so-great ones that led to all this family strife.

I don't mean this to sound like I had some horrible childhood, or that I was a victim of all these vicious haters while I was nothing but pure love. I loved my school, my teachers, my friends and classmates, my church, my family. But I've been a hater too; I think we all have at one time or another. It's part of growing up and figuring yourself out, no matter how old you are.

After my divorce in 2003, for instance, I hated on pretty much all guys for a while. I was afraid I'd never meet another good man I could marry and have babies with, and I blamed
men
for that. I hated on
them,
instead of focusing on myself, and doing what needed to be done to overcome that fear of rejection and loneliness. Do you think I had some hate for my ex and his family too? You bet. But that was the hurt talking. It did nothing productive for me.