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♪ This little light of mine ♪
♪ I'm going to let it shine ♪
♪ This little light of mine ♪
♪ Oh, I'm going to let it shine ♪
♪ Oooh ♪
♪ This little light of mine ♪
♪ I'm going to let it shine ♪
♪ Let it shine ♪
[audience cheering]
[narrator] Please help me welcome my daughter,
Fortune Feimster to Charlotte.
[audience cheering and applauding]
[cheering continues]
Thank you!
Aw, man, thank you guys so much.
This is such a treat for me to be filming my stand-up special
in Charlotte, North Carolina.
[crowd cheers]
Yes!
I actually just grew up 30 minutes from here in Belmont.
[crowd cheers in approval]
Growing up in the South, we love two things,
and that was church and Chili's.
Everybody in the South goes to church.
There's one on every corner.
They even try to fool you with churches.
Like right now, you think you're in a theater.
[crowd laughs]
But the reward for going to church is that then you get to go to Chili's.
And Chili's in my hometown was the fanciest restaurant.
It was so fancy,
I referred to it as Chilés.
Now I grew up Methodist, which is considered "Christian light."
Yeah, just a little dab'll do you.
Just a little bit of Jesus. That's all you need.
And all that we cared about
was that the preacher was done with his sermon by noon,
so that we could beat the Baptists to the Chili's.
-[audience laughs] -Right?
It'd be 11:55 and if the preacher was still yammering on,
you get to hear the choir slowly start singing,
♪ Baby back ribs ♪
[audience laughs]
♪ How sweet ♪
♪ The sauce ♪
We're like, "Preacher wrap it up!"
I've always been a fan of food my whole life.
And you know some people, if they were a fat kid,
they will look back on it and be very bitter about it.
Not me. I loved being a fat kid.
You know why? No one ever tried to snatch me.
[audience laughs]
And this was the eighties when snatching was all the rage.
I would have been a perfect candidate too.
I loved candy.
Loved it. I would have done anything for a Snickers bar.
[crowd laughs]
I loved rides in white vans.
-Ooh! -[crowd laughing]
Who needs windows?
It turns out
snatchers have a type.
I didn't know this.
They have a type
and it's not little girls that look like the fat kid
from the movie The Sandlot.
[crowd laughs]
That...
That kid's face is on a vintage T-shirt
and people are wearing it again.
And I am running into them and they freak out.
[audience laughs]
They're like, "Aaaah!"
"Aaaah!"
Then I have to be like, "You're killing me, Smalls."
[audience laughs and applauds]
Because I don't want to let people down.
When I was in elementary school I joined the Girl Scouts of America.
Any former Girl Scouts?
-[crowd cheers in approval] -Oh, there we go.
Honestly, I joined to get in on that cookie game they were running.
That was a very sophisticated operation.
I also wanted to be around little girls that liked campfires
and shoulder massages.
[crowd laughs]
I kept trying to get them to make shoulder massages a badge.
[crowd laughs]
They were like, "No, you creepo."
Now, my brothers,
they were in the Boy Scouts, which was really intense.
They would get dropped off on the top of a mountain
with just an egg and a match. That's it.
Their troop leader would be like, "We'll see you in three days.
Bring back an elk."
They'd come home all exhausted and dirty.
I'd be laying on the couch like, "Ugh!
Samesies."
[audience laughs]
I get it. Girl Scouts is hard too.
Do you know how hard it is to sell something everybody wants?
People keep knocking on my door.
And I don't know if you guys were following the news a while ago,
but the Boy Scouts got in a lot of trouble
because some people wanted girls to be able to join the Boy Scouts.
Some even wanted to combine the two groups.
Now, you would assume that a progressive lady such as myself
would be into that, but I was not.
I was against it and I'll tell you why.
That was the only time in my entire childhood
I had a room full of girls to myself.
[audience laughs and applauds]
You know?
You think I wanted Timmy walking in and being like,
"Hey, guys! I can build a fire!"
"We get it, Timmy!
I can build a fire too!
Angela, I can build a fire too!
Get the fuck out of here, Timmy!
[crowd laughing]
And stop talking to Angela or I'll burn this place down."
Oh.
I was so angsty.
Now, I was considered to be a tomboy back then,
which was a more appropriate term for "future lesbian."
[audience laughs]
As my mom would say, "It's a phase.
It is a phase.
She is going to grow out of those Umbros.
I just know it.
[audience laughing]
It is a phase."
Ginger.
My mom was a girly-girl and she wanted me to dress more feminine.
So she started shopping for me
and for whatever reason she started putting me in these power suits.
Yeah.
Like a pantsuit which is just an older version of gay.
I looked like a 50-year-old woman lawyer
just going to court in my power suit.
Like, "Who's ready to litigate, ladies?"
Even my teachers would ask,
"Did you win your case?"
[crowd laughs]
And this was a time in fashion history when shoulder pads were all the rage.
Giant shoulder pads.
Which is still something I don't understand to this day.
Where people are just like, "Oh, your shoulders hadn't come in yet.
Let's get you some pads."
Like, was this the ideal shoulder height?
[audience laughing and applauding]
Oh, yes, now you are a woman
in your power suit.
And if I wasn't in these power suits, my mom would shop at Lane Bryant.
She put me in these really long dresses
with doily bibs and floral prints.
I looked like a sister wife.
I looked like a 13-year-old sister wife
just going to the Chili's to find my husband, Jebediah.
That was me, a corporate attorney by day,
child bride by night.
[crowd cheers]
Now...
you think I would've watched my eating habits
so I could fit in cooler clothes.
But that did not happen. I love food.
And I never exercised.
All I did was ride my bicycle from my house to my neighbor's house.
It was about that far apart.
On a steel horse, I rode.
And then one day, my 12-year-old body
bent that steel bicycle seat in half.
Oh, I thought it was awesome. I was like, "I defied physics!"
And my parents were like, "You're about to get diabetes."
You've got to reel it in.
So my brother was this really amazing swimmer
and my parents hoped that it ran in the family.
[Fortune chuckles]
They wanted me to join the swim team in my hometown
and so I was like, "I don't know."
They said, "Just go check out a meet, see what you think."
I went to a swim meet and I noticed
that all of the swimmers were eating Fun Dip before the races.
You guys remember Fun Dip?
[audience cheers]
It's just a packet of sugar
and a piece of chalk.
[audience laughs]
So they would eat this Fun Dip before they raced
because they thought that the sugar would help spike their energy up
and help them swim faster.
I'm like, I'm not here to question the science.
But I would like to join the swim team.
So I joined the team for the Fun Dip.
And at my very first swim meet they hand me my team uniform.
I pull it out. It's this bright green one-piece Speedo.
I'm like, "Uh, I don't... I don't wear...
I don't wear Speedos or...
one-piece or two-piece.
I'm good."
They were like, "Well, you've got to wear it.
What do you normally wear?"
I said, "Normally, a triple XL T-shirt
with the sleeves cut off
and a pair of sweatpants."
[audience laughs]
I still swim in that to this day.
I call it my...
♪ lesbian swimsuit ♪
They said, "If you want to be on the team, you've got to wear the Speedo."
I was like, "Fine."
So I'm pulling this Speedo up on my 12-year-old body
that has never seen the light of day, and I finally get it on.
And we happen to have a team picture on this very first swim meet of mine.
So I line up with the rest of the team, ready for my picture.
And you know when you're 12, life hasn't gotten you down yet,
so you stand a little taller.
[crowd laughs]
So...
I'm standing there smiling for my team picture,
and it's just Speedo,
bush.
[audience laughing]
Speedo.
Bush.
At one point I even give a thumbs up.
[crowd laughing]
Bush.
And no one can tell you that this is an issue.
You're 12, that's creepy.
So I'm just walking around the swim meet all excited.
[crowd laughing]
Let's do this!
I find the concession stand.
I sidle up to it, bush out.
I'm acting like I'm Norm on Cheers, like, "Hit me."
And they proceed to feed me Fun Dip and nachos the entire swim meet.
They just kept going back and forth.
I just kept eating it back and forth.
Sweet and salty, sweet and salty.
And I was so consumed with the Fun Dip and nachos
that I ended up missing every single heat.
And nobody realized it until the very last heat,
which was the hardest stroke.
It was the butterfly.
And this...
This mom volunteer comes running up in a panic.
She goes, "Fortune, you hadn't swam."
[crowd laughs]
And I go, "Ugh!"
Because I was in a diabetic coma.
She goes, "Fortune, you got to go swim.
If you don't swim the whole team gets disqualified.
And if we get disqualified,
we don't get a free pizza party at the end of the summer."
I'm all like, "Pizza party?
Why didn't you lead with that?"
So I, like, run over to the starting block.
[crowd laughing]
I'm so nervous and excited
because the entire pizza party is riding on my back.
And I climb up on the starting block and I'm watching everybody warm up
and they're shaking their arms.
So I'm all, shaking my arms, you know, hopped-up on kids' cocaine.
So I'm shaking my arms, all tweaking out.
Shaking.
I'm shaking my legs.
I'm adjusting my goggles, I'm putting my hair in. I'm ready.
I'm ready!
Let's go!
[crowd laughs]
And right as they are about to shoot the gun to start the race,
I realized, I don't actually know how to swim.
[audience laughs]
No one bothered to teach me.
And my parents knew this and signed me up for the swim team anyway,
those monsters.
I certainly didn't know how to dive.
So they shot the gun
and all these kids just beautifully dove into the pool.
I just threw myself.
I landed in a jazz hand.
But I'm flailing about.
I am publicly drowning.
[crowd laughs]
And nobody is trying to help me at all.
They just keep yelling at me.
"Butterfly! Butterfly! Butterfly!"
I'm like, "Guys, no, this is more of a caterpillar body.
I haven't transformed."
And it was in that moment
that I realized I could stand in the pool.
[crowd laughs]
It wasn't that deep.
And that's when I noticed the disappointment on my parents' faces
and it killed me.
I was like, all right, I got to do something.
I decided right then and there I was going to run
the entire length of the pool.
I was going to swim up top, run down bottom.
Like the mullet of swimming.
I was like, no one will know the wiser. I am an actress.
So I legit ran the entire way just like this.
[crowd laughs]
But I did it. I got there first.
I beat everybody.
I was ready to sign a three-year deal with Speedo.
Get my own Fun Dip flavor.
I'm like, "Suck it, swim nerds!"
Then they immediately informed me that I had been disqualified.
Apparently, you cannot run,
or touch the bottom of the pool when you swim,
which is some bullshit created by men.
[audience laughs]
Somebody came up to me and just said, "Get out of the pool, sir."
Yeah.
[crowd cheers and claps]
A lot of people don't know this about me,
but I come from a family that had a lot of money.
"Had" being the operative word.
My mom grew up in a very big house, very fancy.
It had a spiral staircase
and all these French antiques.
My family just happened to lose all of their money
right before I was born.
And no one would tell me how.
Gambling!
[crowd laughs]
So, now my family was totally broke,
but apparently my mom did not get the memo.
She still shopped like she had an unlimited budget,
but it wasn't for anything important like electricity.
She loves stuff with puns on it,
like dish towels that said, "Bless this mess."
Or we had a wooden sign that said, "It's wine o'clock."
One time she came home with another bag of trinkets
and the lights had been cut off, and she goes,
"Oh, no! Somebody forgot to pay the utility bill."
I'm like, "That somebody is you!
You forgot to pay the utility bill.
And do know why?
Because it's wine o'clock."
And she wanted me to carry on the family tradition of being rich,
but without actually having any money.
She wanted me to do typical rich kid things,
so she had me try horseback riding.
I couldn't even get up on the horse.
It was a mutual decision...
between me and the horse.
[crowd laughs]
The one time I did get up on this horse, we were on a beach.
Very romantic setting.
And this horse made a beeline into the ocean.
It was trying to kill itself.
And I'm pretty sure it was a murder-suicide
because everybody knew I couldn't swim.
It was a very small town.
My mom then made me become a debutante.
She had been one so she wanted me to become one.
Now, do you guys know what a debutante is?
[crowd cheers in approval]
Well, it's defined as an upper-class young woman
making her first appearance in fashionable society.
[audience laughs]
Now, I don't know what describes me better
than that.
I spent the entire summer after my senior year of high school
having to learn how to become a lady.
At the time, I was working at the recreation department
as a maintenance worker.
[Fortune sighs]
I was lining softball fields
and picking up trash in parks, you know.
Like a lady.
Then I would leave my job, all sweaty and gross,
and I had to go to etiquette classes,
where they taught me how to use forks or how to use a napkin.
I know you're all just assuming you pick up a napkin and wipe your face.
No! You're all savages!
You have to daintily
grab your napkin...
and then you just dab the corners of your mouth.
I just spent my summer just dabbing the corners of my mouth like this,
and just envisioning the rest of my life as a handmaid.
I had to then learn how to talk like a lady.
Apparently, you cannot just go up to potential suitors and go,
"What's up, Mark?"
[audience laughs]
They don't like that.
I had to dress like a lady
because at the end of this was a debutante ball,
where all of us had to wear a giant, white wedding gown.
Yes, I had to wear a giant, white wedding gown
while my brother in a tuxedo
walked me down the aisle, and then I had to curtsy to him.
It looked and felt like I was marrying my brother.
Which is just a little too on the nose for North Carolina.
[crowd laughs]
You know what I mean?
[audience clapping]
Oh, but I did it.
I became a debutante for my mom.
And then I was presented to society
in what they call a...
coming out party.
[audience laughs]
It just happened to be the wrong coming out party.
It would be quite a few years before I realized that I was gay,
which is bonkers
because I've had this haircut since I was five years old.
[crowd laughs]
My hair knew I was gay. I didn't.
But after the ball, I couldn't wait to get out of my white wedding gown
and go to my other favorite restaurant, Hooters.
Freaking love Hooters.
My dad usually was the one that suggested we go there.
I don't know how he and my mom ended up divorced.
It's a mystery.
But my entire family loved eating at Hooters.
Even my mom liked eating at Hooters,
because you could buy a wheelbarrow of wings for four dollars.
She's like, "Everybody's rich at Hooters."
[crowd laughs]
However, she wasn't always willing to admit that she liked Hooters.
After my parents divorced,
my mom started dating a very conservative, very religious man.
The kind of man who stayed through an entire sermon
and didn't leave to go to Chili's.
Let alone Hooters.
To him everything was a sin.
So one night we were trying to figure out where to go eat.
And out of habit, I just go, "Oh, well,
let's just go to Hooters."
And my mom stiffens up.
Because her man friend is right there.
[audience chuckles]
And she says,
"I...
have...
never...
[crowd laughs]
...eaten at Hooters."
[audience laughs]
I go, "What are you talking about?
I have been to Hooters my entire life."
"Not with me. I have never
been to Hooters."
I'm like, "You recruited my babysitter at a Hooters."
[audience laughs]
[audience cheers]
"No."
I'm like, "You hired two Hooters waitresses
to hula-hoop at my brother's high school graduation party."
"No, those were just two girls who love to hula-hoop."
It was just a year earlier, when my mom was single,
that my entire family took me to Hooters to celebrate my eighteenth birthday.
Now, this was a time in our chain restaurant history,
when, if it was your birthday,
the entire waitstaff came out just singing,
♪ Happy Birthday to... ♪
They're banging drums.
They're throwing plates.
They've got T-shirt cannons. There's confetti.
Everybody knows it's your birthday.
And I didn't want that kind of attention at a Hooters
because I didn't know how I felt about boobs,
especially not other people's boobs.
So, in the car ride there, I say to everyone in my family, I'm like,
"You better not tell them it's my birthday or I'll kill you."
So we get to Hooters and my brother's girlfriend comes up to me and she goes,
"Guess what!
I told them it was your birthday!"
So I shanked her.
[audience laughs]
[Fortune grunts]
I was pissed.
I'm all sweating from the Hooters and hot sauce.
I'm eating my chicken wings all angry.
Because I know what's happening at the end of this meal.
And sure enough, here comes the boob parade.
It's just titties, titties, titties.
There's eight Hooters waitresses and they grab me by the hand
and they start parading me around the restaurant.
It feels like the gay Salem witch trials.
[audience laughs]
They're just like, "We got one!
We got one!
Gather around! We got one!"
Then they take a bar stool just like this.
They put it in the middle of the restaurant
and they make me stand on top of this bar stool.
Then all eight Hooters waitresses circle around me
like some sort of satanic ritual.
I'm like, "Am I about to get hanged in a Hooters?
Surrounded by the thing I think I love and cannot touch?
This is cruel!"
[audience laughs]
So I'm just standing there awaiting my fate.
And all of a sudden I hear this noise.
And I look down
and all the Hooters waitresses are jumping up and down like this.
Because it turned out back then, when it was your birthday,
you got to stand on a bar stool
and look down while titties flopped
all around you.
This was before the #MeToo movement.
[audience laughs]
So I'm sitting there with titties flopping all around me.
I look up. My entire family is eating chicken wings
and cheering me on.
So I'm now reminding my mother of that night.
And she doubles down.
"I...
have...
never...
eaten at Hooters."
[audience laughs]
So now I feel crazy.
I had to get the heck out of there.
After high school, I took my fancy straight-lady skills,
and I went to a women's college in Raleigh, North Carolina.
-Yeah! -[crowd cheers]
Peace College!
I played number one singles and doubles on the tennis team.
Nobody would let me anywhere near the pool though.
College was very interesting for me.
I did not date very much.
My form of intimacy was I would put lotion on my friend's arms.
[Fortune chuckles]
I know.
I was very concerned with all these girls' hydration.
I'd be like,
"Your arms look dry."
[audience laughs]
"You want some lotion?"
Oh...
So creepy.
And if they started dating any sort of guy I would get very intense about him.
I'd be like, "I don't like him!"
They were like, "You met him for like a minute." I'm like,
"He was wearing a watch. What a jerk!
[audience laughing]
Do you want some more lotion?"
[audience laughing]
[Fortune laughs]
Needless to say, I was a college virgin.
[crowd cheers]
Where my college virgins at?
Okay, it got real quiet.
[crowd laughs]
Yeah, I was a college virgin.
But not the fun kind of virgin that gave, like, hand jobs
or blow jobs.
I did no jobs.
I was very much unemployed.
And I was just glad I didn't have that pressure, you know?
Because this was before YouTube.
Like...
nowadays if you want to learn how to give a hand job
you just go on YouTube, you type, "How to give a hand job."
Some 16-year-old girl named Jessica pops up
with her homemade tutorial.
She's like,
"Hey guys,
my name's Jessica.
I'm going to teach you how to give the best goddamn hand job
of your whole goddamn life.
Mom! Get out of my room!
In just ten easy steps,
I'm going to make you the most popular girl
at your whole goddamn school.
Seriously, Mom I'm filming a video!
Follow me on social media!
Tune in next week when we talk about blow jobs.
Bye, bitches!"
[audience laughs]
We didn't have that.
It turns out I would have been amazing at hand jobs
because I always had lotion.
[crowd laughing]
It was a real missed opportunity.
I eventually tried to meet guys.
This was the late nineties and there was a big salsa boom happening in Raleigh.
[Fortune chuckles]
Yeah, these salsa nights were popping up in fancy places
like the lobby of a Holiday Inn Express.
And one of my best friends was half Guatemalan
and she would go all the time.
And one time she said, "Hey, do you want to go salsa?"
And I was like,
Yes.
I love queso.
[crowd laughs]
And where there's salsa,
there's queso.
So I got to the Holiday Inn Express
and that's where I found out that salsa was dancing.
I was so bummed out.
People could see I was disappointed
so someone ended up microwaving some Kraft singles for me.
So, I got my queso.
My friend was dancing all night
and I was knee-deep in processed cheese.
But it didn't matter because at the end of the night
I looked across the dance floor
and I noticed this dude checking me out and he seemed super into me.
And he walked across the dance floor very confidently.
He was like, "Hola! My name is José."
And I was startled but intrigued.
Which is how I like to start every relationship.
So I stood up
and José landed about right here.
And he and I were very different in appearance.
José was very short, and he was very round in shape.
I'm very tall. I have these broad shoulders.
My uncle used to be like, "Girl, you're stout."
And I was like, "That's not a compliment. Thank you."
[crowd laughs]
José was completely bald,
but he had a tiny little ponytail right here.
No, it was beautiful.
And all of his confidence clearly came straight from that ponytail.
He just grabbed me and started dancing with me.
Just throwing me around like a giant baby doll.
It was like this kind of move.
[audience laughs]
His gold chain was hitting me in the face.
But I was into it.
I was. I was into it.
He is the first man who ever made me feel like a lady.
Besides my brother.
[audience laughs and applauds]
José and I connected at the end of the night.
He looked up at me.
And he was like,
"You look just like a creature."
[audience laughing]
Like a...
Like a "creature"?
I think you meant to call me an "angel."
I'm pretty sure I am an angel.
He goes,"No, like a creature."
So it was a language barrier.
[crowd laughs]
That would not be the only thing that stood in the way of mine and José's love
but it was a beautiful love story.
It was like Beauty and the Beast.
Had Beauty and the Beast been about the teapot
falling in love with the dresser.
[crowd laughing]
[Fortune chuckles]
Just a tale as old as time.
[crowd laughs and cheers]
But you know, I look back at that time in college
and I couldn't believe that I wasn't out,
but honestly, it wasn't like I was in the closet and I was hiding.
I just didn't see myself represented in the world.
Back then, like I said, there was no YouTube.
There was no Will and Grace.
No Frozen.
Nothing that I could relate to.
Turns out representation matters.
It does.
[crowd cheering and clapping]
So if there is a little girl out there in Oklahoma right now
wearing sweatpants...
and running across the swimming pool.
I see you.
-I see you! -[crowd cheers]
It is not a phase.
After college, I moved to Los Angeles.
I didn't really know what my dreams were at the time.
I just liked warm weather and I grew up watching Baywatch, so...
Landed in LA and I immediately got hired to be an entertainment journalist,
which is a fancy word for "gossip columnist."
And if anyone's got the hot goss,
it's this girl.
Oh, yeah. I've got all that hot goss.
I was this 23-year-old country bumpkin and this woman was like,
"Do you want to go to red carpet events and interview celebrities?"
I'm like...
"I don't know.
Will there be snacks?"
[audience laughs]
She's like, "Yeah, but nobody eats them."
I"m like, "Perfect! More for me."
She goes, "Great. You're starting tomorrow.
Just don't wear what you're wearing."
"Okay, so no shoulder pads.
Got it."
So I had to find my Hollywood outfit.
I ended up going to Forever 21.
Yeah, I went to Forever 21 because I was poor.
And you can buy clothes there for 75 cents.
Even though, after two days, they dissolve in the sun.
And I ended up buying a light blue velour tracksuit.
Yes!
On the back it had a giant pink cupcake.
I just was like, "That's it.
That's my red carpet look."
Woo! Let's do this!
Hollywood!
So I get to this red carpet event.
They tell me, "You're going to interview whoever comes up next."
And the very next person to come up right in front of me
is Will Smith.
I am standing there in my light blue
velour tracksuit
with a pink cupcake on the back.
And I have to ask him,
"Who are you wearing?"
And I'm just so grateful that he didn't look at me and go,
"Who the fuck are you wearing?"
[audience laughs]
Oh, but I got all that hot goss y'all!
And then my outfit completely dissolved.
[audience laughs]
I clearly still did not have a good handle on who I was, you know?
There was just something missing.
I remember one day I got home from a red carpet event.
I walked into my house, I took off my light blue velour tracksuit.
I threw on my favorite WNBA women's basketball jersey.
And I sat down on the couch
and I started flipping through the TV channels,
and I came upon the Lifetime network.
Their slogan is "Lifetime, Television for Women."
Now, if you were to watch some of these Lifetime movies
that they're most famous for,
you would notice that they often involve a woman
being murdered,
hoodwinked, maimed, beaten, kidnapped, beheaded.
You know, girl stuff.
[crowd laughs]
And I love that Lifetime is like,
"This is for you, women. Yes!"
So I'm sitting there on the couch.
I got my work boots propped up on the coffee table.
I'd made it from repurposed wood from a shed out back
with my roommate Linda.
And on this particular day it was not one of those murder mysteries.
It was a movie called The Truth About Jane.
And I don't want to bore you straighties
with the plot of this movie, but...
basically, a young girl in high school
realizes that she is a lesbian and her mom,
she's like, "Boo."
And then
by the end of the movie, her mom is like, "Yay!"
And that's the movie.
So I'm sitting there and all of this hits me like a ton of bricks.
I'm like, "Oh, my God.
Oh, my God."
And I say out loud for the first time in my entire life, I go,
"Oh, my God. I'm gay."
[crowd laughs and cheers]
[claps from the audience]
And I came to that conclusion from watching
a Lifetime movie!
-What? -[crowd cheers]
It was like all these missing puzzle pieces were coming into frame.
Everything became more clear.
It's like I was watching the movie The Sixth Sense.
I had been gay all along.
[audience laughs]
And listen, there are conservative people out there who will argue,
they say, "You cannot let our youth watch gay content.
It is going to make them gay."
[audience laughs]
And now I'm like,
"They're right."
They're right. Listen, I don't want to go against my own people,
but they are right.
Because if I had not watched
a Lifetime movie,
who knows?
Who knows? I'd probably be some housewife
just yelling at my husband, Tim.
[crowd laughs]
You know?
He's out drinking with his friends.
I'm at home taking care of the kids,
cleaning up the house, doing laundry, but Tim is not around.
I swear to God, Tim.
[crowd laughs and claps]
But that's not my journey, y'all.
I'm gay. Thanks, Lifetime.
So after this huge self discovery,
I had to catch everyone else up in my life.
And it's a nerve-wracking conversation,
so I decided to start with my brothers.
So, I go home.
I'm so nervous. I'm like...
I'm like, "Guys,
I've got to tell you something.
Okay...
I'm gay.
And my brothers go,
"Duh."
[audience laughs]
Cool, cool, cool.
Well, thanks for telling me that.
[audience laughs]
You didn't want to tell me that
when I was walking in a white wedding gown?
And I said, "Well, just out of curiosity,
what made you think I was gay this whole time?"
And one of my brothers goes, "Well,
once when you were seven, you got hit with a soccer ball
and you yelled, 'Ow, my dick!'"
[audience laughs]
[audience laughing]
All right.
Clearly, I was very confused.
I was actually most nervous to tell my mom.
People are pretty surprised by this
because she's fairly liberal by nature, but she's also a debutante.
And at this point she was dating a different, very conservative,
very religious man.
She clearly developed a type.
So I decided I was going to take her to my favorite Chinese restaurant
to break the news because I thought, well,
even if she disowns me
I can at least eat some crab rangoons.
[audience laughs]
And that'll make me happy.
So we're sitting there and I finally get the courage to tell her.
I say, "Mom,
I'm gay."
And she just goes stone-faced and she's quiet.
She doesn't say a word and this goes on forever.
So I'm trying to stay in the moment and not break eye contact.
I don't know what she's thinking.
I'm like, "Is this the end of our relationship? Does she hate me?"
And I'm just sitting there and...
[Fortune sighs]
I really want that crab rangoon.
[audience laughs]
Why'd they put it all the way over there?
[audience laughing]
And finally, she got up.
She startled me. She grabbed her purse.
And she said, "Let's go.
We're going to Hooters and we're going to tell them it's your birthday."
Yeah!
[audience cheers and laughs]
Yes!
Oh, yeah.
Man.
It was the best feeling in the world.
And now my mom is a huge gay supporter.
She's the president of my hometown PFLAG.
[crowd cheers]
Yeah.
She goes to more gay events than I do.
People send me tweets all the time of her in rainbow cardigans.
It's not about me anymore.
She's like, "This is my thing."
Well, God bless her. She's doing the Lord's work, you know.
[audience laughing and cheering]
And you know, honestly,
no matter what your kid is going through...
No matter... It doesn't matter if they're straight, gay, whatever.
The best gift that you guys as parents
can give your kids is to accept them for who they are.
Honest, it is.
[audience laughing and cheering]
It is honestly the best gift.
That and cash.
Kids really love cash.
Anyways, I am currently engaged.
Yeah!
[crowd clapping and cheering]
Yes!
Her name is Jax and she is a kindergarten teacher.
It's a beautiful relationship.
And I'll tell you when I knew Jax was the one.
It was very early on in our relationship.
We were sitting on the couch.
We were watching one of our other favorite shows,
Dateline.
And it was a classic tale of "They met online," murder.
And you know, when you're in an early relationship
and you're watching something like that, you kind of start...
side-eyeing the person you're with.
Are you like that?
And we're both thinking it.
And at the same time we blurt out,
"Promise me you'll never murder me!"
And because it was a new relationship, I'm like,
"You were thinking that? I was thinking that.
Oh, my God, we have so much in common!"
And we made a pact
right then and there
that we would never murder each other.
We did.
[audience laughing and cheering]
So the day after we got back from our engagement trip,
we were so excited to go through our photos.
We break out our phone and we're looking at them.
And we were horrified.
Because when you're newly in love,
you're just eating and eating.
Every meal was ten courses.
We were so in love and it showed in those photos.
Honestly, you would have called an ambulance
had you seen these photos.
I've been big my whole life,
so It wasn't an issue for me.
Jax had always been skinny and she's like,
"You took me down with you!"
[crowd laughs]
As fate would have it,
I had to go to the doctor because I was going out of the country
and it required that I get a typhoid shot.
So I'm at the doctor and she walks in. She's very tall.
She's like six four, and I notice that she's wearing kitten heels,
which is another thing in fashion I don't understand.
I know there are levels of women's shoes.
You got flats which are just, you know,
I have to go outside and I need a shoe.
You got high heels which... "Oh, they're so sexy, but owie they hurt."
And no woman would wear these if she weren't trying to get some D.
Then you have these cute, little baby kitten heels that are just like,
[imitates cat meowing]
"I'm a kitten heel."
I just imagine ladies ordering them going, "I just want a kitten heel.
I just want to be three-fourths of an inch taller. That's it."
So she's towering over me.
She gives me my shot.
I'm ready to get a treat because that's how shots work.
You get a shot.
You get a treat.
Then she says to me, "I want you to lay down
and pull your shirt up and let's see what's going on around here.
I'm like, "Hmm. I'm pretty sure that is not part of a typhoid shot."
And she gets very stern. She's like, "Do it."
And I'm afraid she's going to scratch me with her kitten heel.
So I lay down and I pulled my shirt up.
I had my dirty bra on and everything.
If you don't know what a dirty bra is,
you're currently in a very new relationship.
[crowd laughs]
You are currently experiencing the pretty bra.
Those are so delightful.
They're fun and lacy and sexy.
They're not a lot of material.
They're colors like red or black.
And it's just one giant wire.
It's like a prison for your titties.
And you're going to push them in,
and pull them up.
[audience laughing]
And oh, they're so sexy.
But owie they hurt too!
Now once that person you're with decides you're going to be together forever,
you're going to start seeing the dirty bra.
And that's a whole different ballgame. It's tons of material.
It's like a kite covering each boob.
And all the material has been tattered and torn.
It looks like it's been through a war.
It's got stains on it from, like, queso.
[crowd laughs]
Its color is like beige.
Or nude.
And the wires have completely disintegrated, but...
it feels so much better.
So I'm lying there in my dirty bra,
and the doctor has got her stethoscope.
She's checking my heart. She's making a lot of concerned noises.
Then she says to me, she goes, "You know what?
I want you to come back in two months
so that we can do a full checkup to get to the bottom of this."
And then she smacked
my bare belly.
[crowd laughs]
She smacked
my bare belly.
I don't know if you guys have ever had your belly smacked,
but for me, it was one of the most invasive things I'd ever experienced.
I would've rather her stuck a finger up my butthole
and told me to whistle,
rather than smack
my bare belly.
So this was rock bottom.
I go home. I go, "Jax!
We've got to go on a diet! I got my bare belly smacked!"
She's like, "I have so many questions."
I told her what happened. She's like, "Listen.
That sucks, for sure.
But like, we should try to pull it together."
So I began this health journey
and I became a person I didn't even recognize.
All of a sudden I was going to Whole Foods for like four hours.
And $500 later, I had meals for two days.
[audience laughs]
I was eating, like, the alternative, healthier versions of things,
like spaghetti squash.
Just eating it all resentful. Just like, "You ain't s'ghetti."
[audience laughs]
It took me forever to order at restaurants
because you have to know how everything's prepared.
Even my voice changed. I was like,
"How do you guys prepare your vegetables?
Do you guys use butter or olive oil?
Do you have any ghee? It's butter without dairy."
They're like, "Ma'am, this is Hooters."
[audience laughs]
But it worked.
I stuck to it and I'm now down 40 pounds.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
[audience clapping and cheering]
Can you guys believe it?
The belly slap works.
Doctors can just smack the fat out of you.
[audience laughs]
But I felt good. I'm like, "You know what?
I'm not that chubby little kid running through the pool anymore.
I finally pulled it together.
So I called my dad.
I'm like, "Dad.
You're never going to believe this.
I am currently gluten free."
And my dad goes, "Gluten free?
Pussy, I understood that. But gluten free?
[audience laughing and cheering]
Girl, you're from the South.
You better eat a goddamn biscuit."
[audience laughing and cheering]
But I was doing really good
and then a few weeks ago
I was going to Toronto for a show and everyone was like,
"You've got to go eat this fried chicken sandwich.
It's right beside the theater. It's going to blow your mind."
I'm like, "All right. All the locals said I got to do it."
So I go to this place.
It even says, "Canada's most famous fried chicken sandwich."
I'm like, "I'll be the judge of that."
I walk in there and this sandwich is huge.
It is dripping in gluten.
Everything I was not supposed to eat was on this sandwich.
You know, some people are like, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."
I'm like, "Fuck you. I'm eating this sandwich."
[audience laughs]
So I inhale this thing.
It was so good.
I'm like going to bed that night just like,
"I had fried chicken."
So happy!
I start sleeping like a baby.
I'm having the best sleep of my life.
And then at some point,
I start having the craziest dreams I've ever had.
It's like a movie is happening in my head.
There's car chases.
There's wars, there's...
I'm in the freaking Matrix.
And at some point in my dream
I start thinking, "You gotta wake Jax up."
And I don't realize that in real life while I'm asleep
I'm shaking my partner Jax, going "Wake up."
Now, what I think is one hand just gently nudging her
is actually both of my hands
and they are wrapped around her neck.
[audience laughs]
And she starts hitting me, trying to wake me up.
She's, like, hitting me like this.
I finally come to
and I turn and I see my hands and they are choking Jax.
And I go, "Oh my God,
I broke our pact."
[audience laughs]
Because it turns out
that the side effect of gluten
is murder.
[audience laughs and applauds]
Now...
But I just wanted to say thank you guys so much for coming out and supporting me.
It means a lot.
[audience clapping]
I remember I moved out to LA and it was so hard.
I was broke
and I would come home to Belmont
and people would be like, "We're so proud of you."
I would be like, "Thanks."
One day this woman said, "We're so proud of you."
And I was like, "I appreciate that. I feel like I'm failing."
And she's like, "But you're trying
and we're proud of you because you're out there
and you have a dream and you're trying to make it happen."
So,
God bless.
Thank you.
[audience cheering]
[indistinct gospel singing]
[audience, performers clapping to music]
[audience cheering]