October 24, 2024 • 60 mins
Singer, songwriter, and actress Joanna "JoJo" Levesque was only 13 years old when she broke onto the music scene with her smash hit song, 'Leave (Get Out).' Her career was skyrocketing straight to the top, but then she disappeared from the spotlight. JoJo is finally telling her side of the story.
JoJo opens up to Sophia about her decision to write down her experiences in her new memoir, the power of owning your story, growing up with parents who struggled with addiction, misconceptions people have regarding fame and success, and the nearly decade-long battle with her record label.
Plus, JoJo talks about feeling stronger than ever, advice Cyndi Lauper gave her, being on Broadway, and her new music! JoJo's new memoir, "Over the Influence,” is available now.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Hi friends,
welcome back to work in Progress. I need you all
to know that teenage me is absolutely losing her mind
(00:23):
right now, because today we are joined by one of
my then and now heroes, Jojo Jo Anna Jojo Lovasque,
chart topping and award winning singer, songwriter, actress, and now
first time author. You probably know Jojo, who burst onto
the scene with her self titled album at just thirteen
(00:43):
years old. Her breakout, Smash and Leave get Out, was
an anthem for me and probably all of you. It
led to platinum records and a string of accomplishments and
a high profile wild life that then seemed to just up.
Jojo seemed to evaporate from the charts and none of
(01:04):
us knew where she'd gone, And it turned out she'd
been embroiled in a legal battle to win back her
music and her own voice from her label where she
was trapped for years. And in her new memoir Over
the Influence, Jojo holds nothing back, she brings her against
the odd story of adversity and triumph to center stage,
(01:25):
talking about being raised in a household with parents who
both battled addiction and depression, to emerging victorious in this
seemingly never ending lawsuit with her record label, to finally
figuring out how to put these fragmented pieces of herself
back together after a period of rebellion and betrayal of
self that made her just feel mad. She takes all
(01:48):
of us through these turbulent years that led her to
where she is now, releasing new music under her own imprint,
performing in shows and festivals around the world, headlining a
Broadway show, and were this behind the scenes look at
her life is so personal and so beautiful and so raw.
Jojo really broke my heart open in the most beautiful
(02:11):
ways as I read this, and also made me understand
things about myself and my own journey that blew my mind.
And I imagine that her story will do the same
for you. So let's get into this incredible tale of
success and heartbreak and redemption and reclamation and a landing
in resilience that I think is just so unique and
(02:33):
so special. Let's talk to Jojo Jojo. I'm so excited
that you're here, and especially because normally when I get
(02:54):
to sit down with people, you know I'm meeting them.
Where we are folks know so much about you know,
people's careers or filmographies or discographies or whatever it is.
And I normally like to open interviews asking people to
go back to childhood and like examine the through lines
(03:16):
and see if they feel like there's connections between themselves
at eight or nine to the person they are today.
And what made me so geeked about doing this with
you today is that in your memoir, the new book,
Over the Influence, which is so beautiful, you really start
us as an audience at the beginning, and I was like,
(03:39):
oh my god, she does what I like to do
on the podcast in the book. How how did you
decide to just like blow the lid off and let
everybody into your world?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Thank you for having me? And I too, am curious,
so curious about patterns lines, How did we get here?
And what is the reason and you know, the relationship
between things? And I feel like our history and even
(04:12):
the history of our families of Oregon. I think it's
such good information in understanding ourselves and our world views.
And Over the Influence is an examination of my experience
so far. And I spent so much of my teens
(04:35):
in twenties being and I honest say, I'm over it completely,
but so much confusion and chaos inside myself and my experience.
So I think in like putting it in black and white,
I wanted to start making sense of it for myself
because as human beings, we're designed to share and to
(04:57):
connect and to like be storytellers. I just put it
out there, and I was scared, and I was like,
who am I to do this? Like is this the
ultimate self indulgence? Am I just being like? What's the point?
But it was just a good exercise. And I think
that everybody, everybody has a story to tell. I believe
(05:20):
that so wholeheartedly. And we can choose to look at
things negatively, we can choose to look at things as
pivot points and opportunities and things that made us grittier
or you know, resilient or whatever. And it's it was
just a really interesting experience. I know I've said that
words so many times, but like, that's what I think about.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
No, I get it, And I think something really profound
also about deciding to own your story, not just as
a human, but particularly as a woman in the world,
because when you gain whatever relative level of success, especially
as a woman as an independent woman. The world then
(06:03):
sort of says, well, who do you think you are?
And men who write memoirs are never accused of being
self indulgent, but women are like, oh does my story matter?
Is this self indulgent? Is anybody gonna care? You know?
And then people will say like, nobody asked, why do.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
You think anyone?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
And it's like, y'all don't do that to men. But
at the end of the day, as humans from the
time were born, we only learn by mirroring each other.
We learn by observing each other. And I think when
we can stop performing and actually say the hard thing,
do the hard thing, be honest about the toughest things,
(06:45):
we give permission to other people to do that as well.
And so when you're able to do that as a woman,
especially as a young woman, a successful woman, a young, beautiful,
successful woman, all the things that the world wants to
take you down the minute you achieve and you do
it anyway, it's like it takes compounding courage. So I'm
(07:05):
here for it. I'm like, yeah, girl, like put it
on the page, do the thing.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
But it's exactly what you said. And it's like people
who have written their stories, particularly well people of all ages.
But I think of someone like Jeanett mccurty by her
being courageous, it unlocks something within me to say, you
know what, let me have the audacity to think about
myself as a storyteller as a's someone who's actually going
to write it as well. She's you know, she didn't
(07:32):
have a ghostwriter. And that gave me the the balls
I think to be like, Okay, we're the same age. Like,
I know, I don't have experience in this, but I
have so much heart and desire to get it right
for myself and also to stop counting myself out of
being an authority in my own life, you know, being
(07:53):
the one who can you know, guide my own course
as opposed to looking for somebody else who know better
or whatever. Like my voice is just as important as
someone else's, and that's I believe that for everybody, you know.
But it takes us owning that and stacking our claim
(08:13):
in that. And I will say that that's what I'm
grateful to be on the other to be like on
the other side of thirty now, because in my twenties
I wouldn't have had the balls to take up space
I did. Yeah, I felt so ashamed.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
You know, I fully agree. I felt that way all
through my twenties. I felt like my life was just
starting at thirty. And what I realized is I was
terrified through my twenties. The entire decade of my thirties,
I was growing a lot, but I think I was
trying to figure out how not to be afraid. And
(08:49):
then I finally, I finally stopped trying to do it
everybody else's way at forty. So like the way I
thought things started for me at thirty, where I was
like I can't wait to be thirty, I turned forty
and I was like, thank god, we made it through that. Oh. So, like,
let me just tell you, it only gets better from
(09:10):
this vantage point and having having taken the reins for
yourself and put all of this down. And I think,
especially when you're an artist, there's something about getting it
out and on paper that allows you to process in
ways you don't even know you're not processing before you
do that, Cause like you've been trained your whole life
(09:32):
to perform and be good and be professional and be
on top of it, and you don't even know when
you're just performing and not living. And when you get
your life out on paper and you get to read
it and you get to experience it, like from this
point with it all down and bound in a book,
do you feel like you can kind of see that
(09:53):
through line in your journey back to your childhood now
in ways you couldn't before you wrote it all down.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Absolutely? And the Big Sister, I mean, I'm an only
child and like me, big you are, so we're a
specific breed. You know where it's it's it makes you
into a certain type of person, And I think cool.
But I'm just saying the Big Sister within me to
(10:22):
my inner child, I want to just wrap her up
because she was seeds of confusion were planted very very early,
and shaky ground instability and fight flight freeze. My nervous
system was really conditioned around getting validation from outside sources
(10:47):
and influences and also looking for that adulation, that stimulation,
that sense of everything's going to be okay, because I
didn't feel things were going to be okay growing up
parents who both really identified with their addictions. And I'm
saying it like that because I don't like to like
(11:09):
in the program, which is where I kind of grew
up in alcoholics Anonymous because both my parents were either
into narcotics or alcohol, and a lot of my family too,
And you know, I just it was weird to me that.
I mean, like, I have an aunt who has like
fifty sixty years of sobriety now and she still calls
herself an addict. And I'm like, that's a lot of humbleness.
But I don't know, it's also kind of wild, you
(11:31):
know what I mean. I'm like, you're not just that,
but I respect that, like whatever works for you for real,
who knows. But I saw a lot of struggle and
difficulty as a kid. I felt like this gift that
I had been given my voice and the reaction that
(11:51):
I would get from people when I would use it,
I was like, oh, this could take us out of
like this could be the thing that changes our lives.
I think thing on Diva's Live, but I could have
a video on pop up video, you know, like yeah,
And I was like, maybe this could be our ticket
out of this thing, our little artmit And.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
And how wild that that voice. If you performed, if
it was positive, if it was art, if it was pop,
if it was sexy, if everything was happy, you could
get out it doubles down on the if you're good enough,
little girl, you can save everyone around you. And if
(12:33):
you save people by being good, you can never be sad,
you can never be bad, you can never be heartbroken,
you can never be afraid, and like, oh the pressure
of that, Like I relate to you in that so hard.
Because the generational trauma and the things that my family
came from, it was like I have to be the
(12:56):
perfect one. They did all of this for me. Yeah,
you know, the classic immigration story, all of it. I've
got to be good, good, good good, and being good
actually made me incapable of being fully myself for a
really long time because I ignored everything that wasn't good,
and I just leaned in to like be a camp
(13:18):
counselor be a set leader, be a good teammate, be
a good and it's like you're only half of yourself.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I mean Sofia, I still find myself doing that very
very much so, and it's like a but I do
have more awareness than I did years ago. I think
my awareness is sharpening and I find myself I'm checking
in with my heart. I'm like, is it open, is
it closed? Is it? Am I being robo Joe. That's
(13:46):
like people around me will be like, oh, I mean
sometimes you know, or I can clock it in myself,
like I'm acting like a robot. I don't even know
how to not be performative, And it really is experiment
right now.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Well, and I think there's something really unique too for
women in our industries, like when we analyze the world. Look,
we know the world's not working very well for us,
right for women, But we also know the world's not
working well, at least in our country for men, like
depression and suicidality and all these things. Yeah, and in
a way, I think when you are a woman who
(14:24):
who is the head of your industry, household, it's a
lot of the pressure that men feel in the patriarchy,
like the dads and the breadwinners and the whatever. And
so we get the double feature of like the pressure
of a patriarch and all the shit that happens to
us as women in patriarchy. And it is very hard
when you know, like if I eat, everybody eats. If
(14:45):
I do well, everyone on my team can pay their bills,
and so if I don't, they can't. It's a lot
of pressure.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
You're so right to highlight that it's really interesting and
I think that I don't know if you relate to this,
but it it certainly has been. It's been a challenge
for me in relationships in you know, in relationships with
men where I don't want to be the man and
(15:15):
the woman or I don't want to emasculate someone. But
I have certainly done that. I have certainly, you know,
been like I literally don't need you for anything because
I've done all this and I do do all this,
and that is so not the energy that I I
don't I don't believe that, but I think I left
(15:36):
people feeling that way, you know what I mean, because
of just being in go mode and when you we
all contain many different sides. We all have masculine and feminine,
and you have to really be in touch with that
masculine side to produce and perform and show up. And
(15:59):
especially when you're like in cycle, if you're like on
a project, or you're like right now, I'm performing on
Broadway and I'm promoting a book and I'm putting out
new music, and I really have to check in with
myself in the morning and night to actually just like
put a hand on my heart and you know what
(16:20):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah, to ground yourself. Yeah, to make sure that you're
being and not just doing. It's big and now for
our sponsors. It's interesting because you talk in the book
like we're talking about patterns, right, and you talk about
how you thought for a time that being surrounded by
(16:45):
addiction and having it be over and discussed in your
home would prevent you from experiencing that, but that actually
you found yourself struggling with it, with the alcoholism and
the substance addiction. Like do you do you feel like
it was a gradual shift to those patterns coming up
(17:05):
in you or was there a time like you're saying,
where maybe you didn't have the practice of checking in
and then the numbing got easy.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
It was definitely about numbing. I didn't practice for a
long time. I didn't have tools, and I was just
so afraid, so afraid of I didn't want to become
like my parents. I felt self righteous, like I was
(17:34):
already better than them and like stronger, and like they
don't have careers and they can't get it together, and
my dad lives off the government and he just gets
high all day and blah blah blah. I'm like you know,
I'm never I could never be me, and I think
it made me feel, you know, have this grandiose sense
of self that I I'm just being honest about it.
I'm not proud of that. But and I remember, you know,
(17:58):
him coming to like pick me up one day because
he lived in New Hampshire and when I was living
in Massachusetts, I was like eighteen, and I was like,
you know, I can't get in the car with you,
like you're high, and he's like, you know, don't throw
stones in a glasshouse, Joanna. Your addiction is like Arnold
Swarzenegger in your backyard, pumping iron, just waiting for you
to have a weak moment and just you know it's
(18:20):
coming for you. You got it on both sides. And I'm like,
don't speak that over my life. Yeah, And I was like,
I'll never be me. And the way I think about
addiction is kind of how doctor Gabor Matte speaks about it,
which is that it's this hungry ghost inside of us,
that is this insatiable monster really that needs more things,
(18:43):
you know, to make it feel okay, to get outside
of reality, to get outside of the truth. And I
just didn't want to. I could not sit with myself
for extendederiods of time for you know, until my mid
twenties probably, And so for me, it wasn't like, oh
(19:07):
I was addicted to cocaine or I was addicted to alcohol.
Like I just didn't discriminate with getting out of my mind,
you know what I mean. I could get out of
my mind with diving into a relationship and enmeshing with
you know, just sex and love and with substances and
you know, a binge or you know whatever. Like I
(19:28):
was just or work. I would be in the studio
NonStop and nothing was coming from it, and I was like, oh,
I just got to keep going because it's obviously. And
then I was like, all of it is my fault.
Not only have I saken up in this area, but
you know, my work isn't good enough because you know,
and then I'm in this lawsuit and I don't legally
(19:49):
own my voice, and it was just it was a
perfect storm for me to really hurt myself. And because
I was so hurt, I was so in pain, I
was so confused and have a support system or tools around,
you know, we just in the twenty tens, it was different.
It just felt like the same conversation help weren't being at.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
No, and especially the way that young women were treated
in the industry, it was so dark, and I.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Mean I felt like my job was to stay just
to be skinny and wait, do you know what I mean?
Like be skinny and just look good and whenever we're
ready for you, Like, yeah, I know that sounds horrible,
but this is literally what I was told.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah, well, and it's a really it's so hard because
you achieve this thing that you've always wanted to do,
and then because you're rare and talented and you've made
it in some way, then they tell you don't really
deserve it. It's like a very weird push and pull. It's
(21:02):
like they want you and they know you're special, but
if you know you're special, then it risks their ability
to use you. So it's a constant churn. And you know,
it took me a long time to understand how women
would be used as pawns for everyone, for the tabloids,
for the TV, for the music, for the thing. And
(21:26):
for a long time I remember feeling like there's so
much brilliance and service and intellect in me, Why is
this what you want to write about why is this
what you want to ask me about? And eventually I
had to go, oh, because an intellectual woman with opinions
is not as valuable to you as a tabloid scandal.
(21:47):
So you'll make a scandal where there isn't any, or
you'll blame a woman for a man's indiscretion, or you'll like, oh,
I see, it's a churn and burn. And it's part
of why I've been so like, I've felt so deeply
for you, even though this is our first day connecting.
(22:08):
Like reading the book, I was like, oh my god,
this woman. I just want to like protect her at
all costs. It's so much the way I feel watching
like Demi's documentary, you know, and everybody from her, you know,
it's Alison and all these women that I've known sort of,
you know, in acquaintance ways in the industry. Everybody talking
about what this has been like. And I think about,
(22:32):
you know, for you signing to a label at twelve,
it's like it's such a mark of your talent. And
also you had no ability to advocate for yourself inside
of this world because you were a kid.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
How have you as.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
You've aged made sense of that because you mentioned like
you knew that singing could be the way out, you
knew you could save yourself and your family. You knew
of the pressure at a young age. But looking back
at it now, like how do you, big sister that
little girl.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
So we've spoken to the pressure for sure. But Yo,
it was a pleasure. Like I loved and still loved
singing more than anything. Love it. It is my joy.
It is such a beautiful, such a wonderful experience when
I'm really connected to that gift and not trying to
(23:30):
achieve a certain thing. Which is what was? Which is?
I want to be so clear because I feel like
there can be a misconception when you start to share
these things, like if me or Demi or Allison or
sharing things and it's like are you are you looking
for people to feel bad for you? Like I'm like,
that's so not the case. My life is. I love
(23:53):
my life and I'm very very grateful and I've had
a lot of really weird experiences, really tough one really
great ones, but it shaped me into the person I
am and I'm really cool with her today. But what
I want to highlight about starting so young is exactly
what you said that, like, it doesn't allow you to
shape an authentic sense of self when you are not
(24:15):
a person but you're a product and you have so
many cooks in the kitchen and you don't go through
those normal developmental stages. People aren't really honest with you.
People are treating you weird, You're getting all yes, is
when people like Wou would normally say, no, you're not
having to go through things like that. So how do I?
(24:38):
And as somebody who was bullied a lot in elementary school,
in middle school and then became famous still in middle school,
I know still kind of deal with sometimes when I
walk into a room feeling like I'm weird, and I'm
okay with that, but I'm like, oh, people don't really
(24:58):
like me. I shouldn't really be I don't really fit
in anywhere.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
I have that too big?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Isn't that crazy? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
And I do think it's what you said. It almost
makes me sad that you feel like you have to
do the thing and get ahead of it and be like,
don't get me wrong, I don't want you to feel bad.
I'm very grateful. It's like, it's not that you're not
too but it is this weird thing where it's like
you have to clarify always that there was good even
though there was bad. It's like it's okay to say
(25:28):
some things have been really amazing and some things have
been really dumb, Like it just is and it's hard,
and yeah, it's hard when you're a kid. It didn't
happen to me as early, like I went through a
lot of bullying, a lot of like even in high school,
being sort of like brought into the like cool click
but held at the bottom of it, like I was
(25:50):
the bottom layer of it. And and so it was
like you're in, but we're going to make fun of
you relentlessly, like it's weird.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
I totally relate to that, right, and.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
I felt like I could never figure it out. And
then it was college, and then I went and started
working on One Tree Hill, and then all my college
friends were like, you know, it was the era of
like the clubs in LA and they'd be like, we
want to go here and get us a table here
and do this. And I'd be like, Okay, I'm coming
home for the weekend. Let's all go out. And then
it was like what you think you're important? You think
we're supposed to kiss your ass, and I was like, well, no,
(26:21):
but you you asked me to get the because you
said that, wait, I don't, and I I didn't have
the language and the understanding that I have now then.
So I spent, you know, the first ten years of
my career when it looked great from the outside, like
on this big TV show, feeling constantly paranoid that I
(26:41):
was doing something wrong, that I was too much or
not enough, or things were too available or not available
enough because I wasn't on like a serious show on HBO,
or like everything was always something was wrong. Yep. And
I feel really grateful that for a lot of us,
(27:04):
this period of our life has happened in the normalization
of therapy and the common conversations around like trauma and
the spectrum of experience from good to bad. Like I
asked my mom, I was like, how did you guys
do this with no therapy?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
You know, I can't even imagine.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
But it's like, it is weird that you always feel like,
because you're quote famous, you have to couch. What was
hard for you?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
In gratitude, Yeah, I hear you. I think that people
are so curious about what it's like to be in
positions of power and access and relative like, right, I
don't have that much well exactly, you know what I'm saying.
But my life is like I have a lot to
(27:54):
be grateful for. I can move in comfort and ease,
you know what I'm saying. And I think people are
curious about that, and some people are jealous about that.
So I don't know. For me, I just feel like
because I think there are a lot of misconceptions about
what it actually feels like and what it actually does,
and the isolation that it can create, the confusion that
(28:15):
it can create, particularly from a young age. I just
I like to speak to the I think people just
think about it, not in a holistic way of like Okay, yeah,
all this is true and then what about this?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
I think that's some of the things that I wanted
to explore in the book too, Not because I'm looking
for a badge of honor, because like you're not.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Trying to have a pity party, You're actually trying to
be more real.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, I'm interested in I'm a curious person, and like
we talked about from the beginning, like yeah, what was
it like, how what made you this type of person?
And why why are you so understanding or why are
you so you know, wanting to see all sides, because
I've had a lot of different experiences. I've been at
the I've seen highs lows, I've been heartbroken, I've broken hearts.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And now a word from our sponsors that I really
enjoy and I think you will too. I think it's
really important to embrace the full experience. And I think
I don't know if you experienced this. Sometimes when I
get asked to speak to students, I'm like, listen, I
(29:30):
don't want to ruin your dream, but what I want
you to have is a realistic dream.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
I don't want to acting students, yeah, any.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Any kind of artists. I'm like, I don't want you
to think that you're going to get on set and
that life is going to be rosy, right it really
I try to think about it in terms of physics,
like the pendulum swings in both directions, So the more
incredible things that happen to you, the harder your life
is going to get. Also, like, that's just science. It's
not a personal failing. It's not it's just about equal
(30:01):
and opposite, you know, reactions to every action, and that
has really helped me, and I think it's part of
why I caught myself reading your memoir being like, yes, exactly,
I haven't had the exact experiences you have, but I
understand what it is to try to navigate through these things.
You talk about not feeling like you fit in, feeling
(30:22):
like you're too much, you know, having these experiences that
are normal for a teenager, but they get magnified in
this way, and you know, it took me back in
certain ways to my own you know, teen in college
years and my first years on my first show, because
so much of your music was a landscape to those
times in my own life, and I was like, this
(30:43):
is such a trip. And I remember even then thinking like, well,
where did she go? Like where'd our favorite where'd our
favorite gal go? Like You're on so many of our
nostalgia mixes that my best friends and I trade around
all the time. And it was so interesting to read
(31:05):
about what was happening to you behind the scenes and
how you got trapped in this label deal because now
people know more about it, We know about what Taylor
went through, and she re recorded all her albums and
we're having these conversations about who owns music as we should,
and you were struggling with all this in a time
(31:26):
where nobody was talking about it, yet you you couldn't
talk about it. So what what was it like to
feel silenced but also to keep fighting?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Hmm? I mean it was so maddening, and I was
going to go. So I put out my first album,
my first two albums thirteen fifteen, had you know, both
went platinum and sold millions of records around the world,
and I had, you know, a couple really really massive songs,
(31:59):
and and then we're going to wait till I was eighteen,
so I wouldn't have to, like because I just wanted
to work. I was like, I don't want to be
I don't want to have to think about school.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
I just want to like, yeah, the set teacher and
the thing.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, So we're going to wait till I was eighteen.
But then my label lost their distribution and I was beholden,
as you would be in a contract, beholden to whatever
they were going through with their bad business feelings. So
then I was kind of a just attached to their
wagon basically wherever they went, and they weren't a functioning
(32:34):
label anymore. So because I didn't own my voice because
in the contract and anything that I did in a
commercial way with my voice needed to be approved by them,
and they just no longer were doing that. Like if
I got an opportunity to be in a movie and
I was going to sing in the movie, they would
just say no because I don't even know why, you
(32:54):
know what I mean. It started to feel like they
wanted to set taj me. I don't know, I don't
feel that way today. I just don't choose to look
at it that At the time, I'm sure it was
like it was very confusing too, because these were my
father figures, my uncle figures, my brothers, like these men,
you know, really took me and shaped me, and they
(33:16):
felt like family. I mean, the production company I'm assigned
to it was called the Family. We were the family,
and it was just heart breaking, heart breaking. And then
to be in I was going to go to college
at Northeastern University for cultural anthropology and I was working
with the sociology department. They were like, you can do
this kind of a private like a distance learning program,
(33:39):
like you can do some virtual you can come to
the school. They were going to work with me, and
then the label was like, well, why don't you come
to LA and try to like and we can work
on music. And I was so like, oh my god,
they're ready, They're ready to work on music. I'm like,
I don't care about college anymore. I'm going to go
do that. So that was kind of heartbreaking too, and
then it it never panned out, and I was just
(34:00):
amster wheel of making music and of seeing fans on
MySpace at the time being like you know what happened,
like why aren't you releasing music?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah? Where'd you go?
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Girl? Where'd you go? And not being able to give
them a concrete answer because I also felt like I
needed to play the game like whenever my label was ready,
that I needed to not burn the bridge completely with
them because they still I was still under contract with them.
It was it was so frustrating. My family was worried
about me, you know. They were like, just just go
to college, Joe, You're smart, you know, why don't you
just do that? And I'm like, no. I felt like
(34:30):
I had to prove something to them, like I didn't
want to worry about me. I put the weight of
the world on myself and nobody, nobody asked, and nobody
asked me to do that, but I that's the position
I assumed, and then to cope with it. You know,
I had seen how my family coped, and it seemed
(34:50):
like drinking to access was the way to do it.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
You know.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I Irish, Catholic, south of Boston and working class family,
and that's I've seen that a lot. So that's kind
of where it began, with being in that lawsuit and
feeling frustrated and also being very embarrassed and ashamed that
I wasn't on the trajectory that people kept telling me
in the industry. People were like, oh my god, you're
(35:16):
this You deserve the world and you're supposed to be
the biggest star. And I'm like, yeah, I am are
I you know what I mean. And it was just
a lot of.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
I'm having this like mind blowing kind of moment because
this idea of your label being literally named a family.
People do that a lot on sets. They're like, oh,
we're a family. We're a family. But families can be
super toxic and the sort of rude awakening and like trauma.
(35:49):
I know, I went through on realizing that, like our
family on my show also had like really toxic men
and power in it, and that the minute that you
don't serve the power structure, you become the enemy of
the family. Like it's it's such whiplash because you think like, well,
these are my people, and it's like, no, they want
(36:12):
you to feel like you're they're your people because that
makes money for everyone, and that can be so painful,
and like it gives me this, oh, because when everything
in your life feels really out of control, sometimes the
thing you you think of is, well, if I'm in
(36:32):
the right relationship, if I have real love in my life,
like that can be healing at least. If work is toxic,
home can be good.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yeah, And I can.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Look back at my history and see when work has
been its most toxic that I have made a home
out of people that had no business feeling like home
to me.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Whooa.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I so relate Sothia, And it's I'm having like I
literally am like we're doing a podcast, but I feel
like I'm in therapy. Oh my god, because you just
you clicked something for me in my own brain that
I've been ruminating on for a long time. But like
it just it just clicked, like a level deeper as
I've thought about your book. I'm like, wait, yes, yes,
(37:15):
this this whoa mind blown.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
It's so helpful to be mirrors for each other and
to you know, to just workshop this stuff. I love,
I love that.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
How do you think you started to identify that? Because you,
you know, you've talked a lot about how even love
love addiction, sex addiction, like these things aren't as talked
about as substance based addiction. And for you to talk
about this again so openly, I'm just so in awe
of you, Like, how do you think you started to
(37:50):
identify like, oh, I recognize the pattern of a substance
as a numbing agent from my family. How do you
begin to see relationships as a numbing agent for you?
When does that light bulb come on?
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Starting therapy, starting journey definitely helped me to have more
frameworks and more tools and just like more self awareness.
I think I've always been introspective, but having a professional
to bounce things off of and to you know, have
her post questions to me and all that, and to
(38:25):
be someone I really trusted with helping to guide me
and influence me in a good way. I think that
that she and she didn't she wasn't like you're a
love addict or you're a sex addict. But it's like
you don't discriminate with these things that you were using
(38:45):
to make you numb out to. You know, you like
to dissolve into somebody. You've chosen partners that are available
to just serve your need for feeling good, like sex
will be a big part of the relationship. They won't
really have a lot. I mean when I was younger,
like some of my partners didn't have a lot, a
(39:07):
whole lot going on in their life, and I was like,
I was the one in the position of power, and
I felt like they, you know, wouldn't hurt me because
I was so hurt within my family or so hurt
you know, my mom or my dad, and so hurt
with my career and I was just looking for security
and safety and pleasure and all those things. And I
(39:35):
stayed in an on again, off again relationship for a really,
really long time because it was just so hard to
step away from somebody who had no boundaries, had no conditions.
I could mistreat them, I could step up, be with
(39:56):
other people. I could you know, be unco I could
be inconsistent, and I was you know that I don't
want that, and I didn't want that for them, but
they were going to continue to let me do that,
and so something had to had to give, and I
(40:18):
would say after that, I want to get off again dynamic.
For a long time, I had to be like, I
am so toxic. And it's not that I it's not
that I can't have compassion for my younger self and
understand where that came from, but I was really moving
in very selfish, toxic ways and that's not how I
(40:44):
want to live this one life that I have.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
And that's hard. To get to a point where you
can see that is really hard. And I imagine when
you look at that version of yourself and then you
look at where the young version of yourself was sort
of you know, made the different sorts of toxicity in
those dynamics, Like how do you say to yourself, Okay,
(41:12):
I want to shift that, Like instead of leaning into
this behavior that's destructive, I want to lean into this
behavior that's constructive. Like how do you begin to rebuild
up instead of to continue to spiral down.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I think that starting a process of rebuilding self trust
because it had been eroded in so many different ways.
So even just checking in with how does it feel
when I do this, or how does it feel when
someone says this, or when I'm in this particular environment,
(41:52):
or just like being more present as opposed to being
under the influence of something, constantly being on xanax or
constantly being high on weed or drinking something, or you know,
being digmatized or whatever. You know what I mean, Like
howbout you, I will say. I think after my dad
(42:15):
passed away, he he lost his struggle with addiction and
just with overall unhealthiness mind, body, spirit. That changed everything
for me. And I was like, I'm no better than him.
I'm no better or worse. Like I was judgmental, but
(42:36):
I always held out hope that he would change and
that we would have this amazing relationship. It would it
would heal us both and you know, all this these things.
And then I was like, oh, no one's like I
I could die, like any time anybody can. No one's
(42:57):
coming to save you. We I had I had adopted
a perspective of like learned helplessness, that I was in
this you know, that I was a victim of the industry,
or I was like in you know, the people looked
at people felt bad for me, and I like wore
that scarlet letter and then I just you know, started
(43:20):
acting bad in my I made poor choices as a
result of the shame and the embarrassment and the and
the difficulty some difficulties that I experienced, the deck of
cards I had been dealt. But I was like, Okay,
so what m hm and now what now what?
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:41):
I don't want to die. I don't want to hurt
others I had. It never got so bad for me.
Like I think of how outspoken Demi's been with their
story and you know, literally o ding and like looking
at the edge of death and like peeking out. That
was not my experience. But losing my father was a
(44:06):
hinge point.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, And now a word from our wonderful sponsors, I
would imagine, you know, you're talking about Demi's experience, for example,
But but a loss like that is also something that
will bring you to the edge of an abyss, right,
(44:29):
and you just have to say where do I go
from here? And especially after you had so much of
your life dictated for you and so many things controlled
by people other than you, that's right to say, Like
I don't know what it looks like but I know
I have to take control back. That's a really profound
(44:53):
moment of change in a life. Do you think that
that knowing that there needed to be a shift is
also what enabled you to begin to separate this persona
of Jojo that's been out in the world from you,
(45:14):
whole human Joanna.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
I think that when my dad passed, I mean, I've
been I am a spiritual person. I grew up with
the framework of Christianity, specifically Catholicism. I'm very and I
grew up in the choir loft. And I think that
in music for me and relating to my gift, feels
(45:39):
very spiritual. Me and my dad had a spiritual connection
through music, you know, harmonizing together and feeling empathic with
each other and like just being really connected, feeling each other.
And I think that when he passed, like since he passed,
I continue to feel to feel him, I continue to
(46:01):
feel connected to him, I continue to have conversations with him.
I continued to see him, like sometimes physically, not like
not like really really, but like sometimes a flash of
him in the audience. Sometimes I look back, you know,
in an airport, and I'm like, you know, just moments
of moments of delight that take my breath away that
(46:23):
I don't need to explain to anybody else because they
need something to me. So I'm saying that to say that,
I think that with connecting to my spiritual self more
and with taking solo trips, I started to take solo trips.
I realized how like stimulated I had been, and I
was interested in silence. Like my dad this quote right here,
the Disiderata, and it's a go placidly amidst the noise
(46:46):
and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
That he always had that in his bathroom, whatever apartment
he'd be in, he had this deep ass quote, you know,
the whole desiderata. And I'm like, man, he was so deep.
I'm like, you know what he told me. You loved
the desert. I want to go to the desert. So
I went to Sedona, which is another one of my
you know, big meetingful dud and I just started to
(47:13):
actually take the time to be alone and to be
in silence, to listen more than I spoke, and to
take myself off the hamster wheel of like well sort of,
because I still haven't met many years of doing this
and I'm still extricating myself from it in a sense,
but I'm saying I became really aware that, like I
(47:35):
was on other people's timelines and I was like, you
have to do this, you have to put out this album.
Blah blah blah blah blah. I'm like, whoa.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
I was.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I was about to put out my third album that
I've been waiting ten years to be able to put
out a third album, and then my dad passed and
that changed my life. And I'm like, okay, so life
does not ever go the way you think it's going
to go. I thought this was supposed to be, you know,
the big thing. And I'm like, I'm I'm not ready
to act like a bad bitch now, Yeah, life is
(48:04):
not about that. Joanna like, I'm not okay. Well just
talking about myself and the third person, that's gross, but
you know what I mean. I was not okay and
I couldn't pretend and I needed to sit with that
part of myself as opposed to be performative, and I didn't.
I didn't get that right all the time.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
But nobody gets everything right all the time. Though. But
I think even that instinct for you to name yourself
is like when you zoom out and look at your life,
you got to say, no, I can't go be that
performance version of myself right now.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
I have to be here sleep in these in moments.
I had to carve out. I had to have more balance.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
I had been focused on work since I was like
six years old, and at twenty twenty four, I was like, oh,
I I think my priorities are not right.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Yeah, or that you get so used to the speed,
Like I'm still trying to figure out how not to
feel guilty or sad if I take a day off
and it's like I don't always have to be on
every call and every zoom and every schedule everything like
(49:24):
like a day, you know, Like but I'll take I'll
have a day, I'll have an afternoon, And I panic
because I'm like, well, it's I haven't had a free
afternoon in three weeks. What should I do with this time?
I should do? I should do something meaningful with this time?
And it's like or not I could just stare.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
At the wall or like go for a walk.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
I'm trying to re parent that like overachiever in me,
and it sounds like in a way that that period
of loss made you like big sister, that kid perform
in you.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Yeah that either of us had that. Yeah, like we
are that for ourselves.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
It's beautiful to learn that you can do that? Is
that part of what you hope readers take away from
the book, Like when you really think about you've put
your heart in this hardcover, Like when you hand it
to someone, what do you want them to take away
from it?
Speaker 2 (50:28):
It's really I've tried to be like it's none of
my business, but people take away from it, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
But that's so hard when you were like an EmPATH.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
And you're right, it is so hard. I do have
hopes for this book, you know. My hopes are that
people think about their own life in maybe a different way,
or that they're able to see the through lines, like
you said from the beginning, and maybe have compassion for
(50:57):
ways that they've been. Yes, maybe I have compassion for
other people too. You know, the way I think about
my parents is so different than the way I thought
about them ten years ago. I think about them now
is as whole human beings who were people before they
were my parents, and who you know, everybody does the
best they can with what they have to a certain
(51:19):
extent and their mind and I love them. Yeah, and
you know, and a bunch of other stuff too, And
so I hope that people feel inspired also to keep going,
because your story doesn't end when people say, you know
(51:40):
you're done. I recently had the opportunity to work with
Cyndi Lauper on a project. She you know, it's crazy
when people are telling me, like with twenty years as
a recording artist that like, oh my god, your longevity
and that is something I'm proud of to be able
to say, you know, I'm here and I'm stronger than
I've ever been and I've got there. But in talking
(52:02):
with Cindy and I was like, you know, can you
because she's seventy one years old and she is going
on her final world tour who knows if it'll really
be the final because she's still killing it. And I
was like, you know, not what's your secret because I
know it's not a secret, But I was like, could
(52:23):
you give me any advice for like, you know, how
you've just continued to be authentic and reinvent yourself and
stay creative and in tune and a lot you know,
like she's so alivened believable to me, and she was like,
just keep going. She was like, just keep going. I
(52:44):
know it sounds so simple, but she was like, just
do things. Just keep doing things basically, you know what
I mean. And then she's like and then you look
back and be like I did a lot of cool things,
doing things that feel true and always look for the
truth and for the connection and for and I'm just like, oh,
(53:10):
you know, she has like fifty years or you know,
forty or fifty years in the game. I'm like, that's
that's aspirational and that's inspiring.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
That's so cool with Broadway and with the new single, Like,
how does it feel to be sharing your voice again
on your own terms?
Speaker 2 (53:30):
It feels very liberating. I feel empowered. It also feels
like a lot like I definitely have to check in
with myself and be like, yeah, okay, bitch your own
Broad's like seven shows a week. You know, you promoted
this book. That's awesome. You just put out a new single,
Like that's a lot of simulation. Take a nap, take
(53:53):
a nap. Yeah, and so I But but the truth
is I feel energized by all these by office, I
feel really fortunate I feel like it's not draining my soul,
because I've done many things I felt like it's sucking
the soul out of me and that I'm doing it
(54:13):
and I feel stupid or I feel not connected, or
I feel I really do feel actually connected to this.
I think that this is in resonance with who I
am and who I want to be and how I
want to show up in the world. And I think
that it will continue to if I continue to do
(54:35):
things that feel like that, and maybe I can create.
Then maybe I'll be seventy one one day looking back
and be like, oh, you know, I really started trusting
myself around that time doing things that scared me. Being
on Broadway scared me scares me. You know, it's and
it's challenging, and but I've lived a lot in my
(54:57):
life as an only child, as a solo artist, with
things being about me, and with sharing this book this
is about me, and you know, but being a part
of a community a company on Broadway, it's such a
team sport, and that has been one of the greatest
joys that I've got to have in the past couple
(55:19):
of years, is all of us being just as important
as the next and having the relationships with the people
behind the scenes and you know, just every single department.
It's been really it's been awesome. But I'm so curious
now as to what's going to come next and how
(55:40):
I can take these things that I've learned and the
opportunities that I have and support other people on their journeys.
I have to not just be about me, because it's
not enough. And I want to celebrate you for the
work that you do and the way that you have
I really mean that I've always admired you from Afar
(56:02):
and I've seen you peripherally, maybe at protest, maybe at
an event something like that, and I just you are
such a light and you seem so connected and so
purpose driven. And it is people like you that that
really inspire me to be more and to seek to
seek ways to help and to have conversations that are
(56:26):
more that move things forward as opposed to just be
like look it at blush or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
I know, I always joke, I'm like, I'm not the
good I'm not good at small talk, but like I'll
wind up having a version of a therapy session in
the kitchen corner at the paw You always girl, so
now we know, now we have each other. It's so
good as you sit here and you and you think
about all of this, Like, because what it looks like
(56:55):
to me from the outside as a person who has
been a fan for a long time and who feels
like I got all the things from the book, Like
it looks to me like everything is coming back to you,
all these pieces, like you're collecting all of it to
be you know, your your whole self. But I know
(57:17):
this is just in a way, the beginning. It's a
new beginning. It's a reclamation of so many things. And
now you sit looking at the next phase. So like
when you look out at life from today, what feels
like your work in progress right now?
Speaker 2 (57:33):
Ooh, it feels like my work in progress. Definitely to
be as authentic as possible to question when my like
default programming comes up and I'm like I need to
do this, or like I need to it needs to
(57:54):
sound like this or look like this or whatever, or
get more people's opinions that I really need. I'm working
on that because I do feel that for me to
be able to be of service in the world, that
I have to be authentic. I have to be not
performing and I think even to be the type of
(58:19):
actress that I eventually want to be and to do
the work that I want to do in musical theater
and beyond. It's not about performance. Actually, it's about embodiment
and really dropping in and believing and being authentic even
in that, you know. Anyway, I'm working on that, and
I'm working on being more vulnerable even any type of relationship. Yeah,
(58:47):
dropping my defense, hm hmm. Yeah, I have so many
things I'm working on. And what you said about this
reclamation of these different pieces coming together, that's what inspired
this new song that I would I would be crazy
not to mention, because it's you gave it the perfect setup.
(59:10):
It's I was inspired by this art of consugi, this
Japanese art of consugi, where like ceramics are broken and
then they're together with like gold and cold, so beautiful,
and I'm looking at this and I was like, I
was just really inspired by it, and so me and
(59:31):
some friends wrote the song and it's called Porcelain and
it's it feels like Catharsis to me, and it feels like,
you know, I've run I've run so many miles listening
to this song because It just makes me want to go,
It makes me want to let go, It makes me
want to sweat and cry, and so I wanted to
(59:51):
share it with people because it makes me feel those
things well.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
And what an amazing you know idea the metal for that.
The cracks are the most precious parts.
Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Ever, you know, and we're we're all just world is
human Kinsuhi Really.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
I love it. Thank you for today. This has been
so great.
Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Oh my god, you are so amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
You're such a gem. I'm like, I want to come
see your show. We have to hang out.
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
I would love that. Sophia, thank you so much for
your time and your presence. You're awesome.
Hi everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Hi friends,
welcome back to work in Progress. I need you all
to know that teenage me is absolutely losing her mind
(00:23):
right now, because today we are joined by one of
my then and now heroes, Jojo Jo Anna Jojo Lovasque,
chart topping and award winning singer, songwriter, actress, and now
first time author. You probably know Jojo, who burst onto
the scene with her self titled album at just thirteen
(00:43):
years old. Her breakout, Smash and Leave get Out, was
an anthem for me and probably all of you. It
led to platinum records and a string of accomplishments and
a high profile wild life that then seemed to just up.
Jojo seemed to evaporate from the charts and none of
(01:04):
us knew where she'd gone, And it turned out she'd
been embroiled in a legal battle to win back her
music and her own voice from her label where she
was trapped for years. And in her new memoir Over
the Influence, Jojo holds nothing back, she brings her against
the odd story of adversity and triumph to center stage,
(01:25):
talking about being raised in a household with parents who
both battled addiction and depression, to emerging victorious in this
seemingly never ending lawsuit with her record label, to finally
figuring out how to put these fragmented pieces of herself
back together after a period of rebellion and betrayal of
self that made her just feel mad. She takes all
(01:48):
of us through these turbulent years that led her to
where she is now, releasing new music under her own imprint,
performing in shows and festivals around the world, headlining a
Broadway show, and were this behind the scenes look at
her life is so personal and so beautiful and so raw.
Jojo really broke my heart open in the most beautiful
(02:11):
ways as I read this, and also made me understand
things about myself and my own journey that blew my mind.
And I imagine that her story will do the same
for you. So let's get into this incredible tale of
success and heartbreak and redemption and reclamation and a landing
in resilience that I think is just so unique and
(02:33):
so special. Let's talk to Jojo Jojo. I'm so excited
that you're here, and especially because normally when I get
(02:54):
to sit down with people, you know I'm meeting them.
Where we are folks know so much about you know,
people's careers or filmographies or discographies or whatever it is.
And I normally like to open interviews asking people to
go back to childhood and like examine the through lines
(03:16):
and see if they feel like there's connections between themselves
at eight or nine to the person they are today.
And what made me so geeked about doing this with
you today is that in your memoir, the new book,
Over the Influence, which is so beautiful, you really start
us as an audience at the beginning, and I was like,
(03:39):
oh my god, she does what I like to do
on the podcast in the book. How how did you
decide to just like blow the lid off and let
everybody into your world?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Thank you for having me? And I too, am curious,
so curious about patterns lines, How did we get here?
And what is the reason and you know, the relationship
between things? And I feel like our history and even
(04:12):
the history of our families of Oregon. I think it's
such good information in understanding ourselves and our world views.
And Over the Influence is an examination of my experience
so far. And I spent so much of my teens
(04:35):
in twenties being and I honest say, I'm over it completely,
but so much confusion and chaos inside myself and my experience.
So I think in like putting it in black and white,
I wanted to start making sense of it for myself
because as human beings, we're designed to share and to
(04:57):
connect and to like be storytellers. I just put it
out there, and I was scared, and I was like,
who am I to do this? Like is this the
ultimate self indulgence? Am I just being like? What's the point?
But it was just a good exercise. And I think
that everybody, everybody has a story to tell. I believe
(05:20):
that so wholeheartedly. And we can choose to look at
things negatively, we can choose to look at things as
pivot points and opportunities and things that made us grittier
or you know, resilient or whatever. And it's it was
just a really interesting experience. I know I've said that
words so many times, but like, that's what I think about.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
No, I get it, And I think something really profound
also about deciding to own your story, not just as
a human, but particularly as a woman in the world,
because when you gain whatever relative level of success, especially
as a woman as an independent woman. The world then
(06:03):
sort of says, well, who do you think you are?
And men who write memoirs are never accused of being
self indulgent, but women are like, oh does my story matter?
Is this self indulgent? Is anybody gonna care? You know?
And then people will say like, nobody asked, why do.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
You think anyone?
Speaker 1 (06:23):
And it's like, y'all don't do that to men. But
at the end of the day, as humans from the
time were born, we only learn by mirroring each other.
We learn by observing each other. And I think when
we can stop performing and actually say the hard thing,
do the hard thing, be honest about the toughest things,
(06:45):
we give permission to other people to do that as well.
And so when you're able to do that as a woman,
especially as a young woman, a successful woman, a young, beautiful,
successful woman, all the things that the world wants to
take you down the minute you achieve and you do
it anyway, it's like it takes compounding courage. So I'm
(07:05):
here for it. I'm like, yeah, girl, like put it
on the page, do the thing.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
But it's exactly what you said. And it's like people
who have written their stories, particularly well people of all ages.
But I think of someone like Jeanett mccurty by her
being courageous, it unlocks something within me to say, you
know what, let me have the audacity to think about
myself as a storyteller as a's someone who's actually going
to write it as well. She's you know, she didn't
(07:32):
have a ghostwriter. And that gave me the the balls
I think to be like, Okay, we're the same age. Like,
I know, I don't have experience in this, but I
have so much heart and desire to get it right
for myself and also to stop counting myself out of
being an authority in my own life, you know, being
(07:53):
the one who can you know, guide my own course
as opposed to looking for somebody else who know better
or whatever. Like my voice is just as important as
someone else's, and that's I believe that for everybody, you know.
But it takes us owning that and stacking our claim
(08:13):
in that. And I will say that that's what I'm
grateful to be on the other to be like on
the other side of thirty now, because in my twenties
I wouldn't have had the balls to take up space
I did. Yeah, I felt so ashamed.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
You know, I fully agree. I felt that way all
through my twenties. I felt like my life was just
starting at thirty. And what I realized is I was
terrified through my twenties. The entire decade of my thirties,
I was growing a lot, but I think I was
trying to figure out how not to be afraid. And
(08:49):
then I finally, I finally stopped trying to do it
everybody else's way at forty. So like the way I
thought things started for me at thirty, where I was
like I can't wait to be thirty, I turned forty
and I was like, thank god, we made it through that. Oh. So, like,
let me just tell you, it only gets better from
(09:10):
this vantage point and having having taken the reins for
yourself and put all of this down. And I think,
especially when you're an artist, there's something about getting it
out and on paper that allows you to process in
ways you don't even know you're not processing before you
do that, Cause like you've been trained your whole life
(09:32):
to perform and be good and be professional and be
on top of it, and you don't even know when
you're just performing and not living. And when you get
your life out on paper and you get to read
it and you get to experience it, like from this
point with it all down and bound in a book,
do you feel like you can kind of see that
(09:53):
through line in your journey back to your childhood now
in ways you couldn't before you wrote it all down.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Absolutely? And the Big Sister, I mean, I'm an only
child and like me, big you are, so we're a
specific breed. You know where it's it's it makes you
into a certain type of person, And I think cool.
But I'm just saying the Big Sister within me to
(10:22):
my inner child, I want to just wrap her up
because she was seeds of confusion were planted very very early,
and shaky ground instability and fight flight freeze. My nervous
system was really conditioned around getting validation from outside sources
(10:47):
and influences and also looking for that adulation, that stimulation,
that sense of everything's going to be okay, because I
didn't feel things were going to be okay growing up
parents who both really identified with their addictions. And I'm
saying it like that because I don't like to like
(11:09):
in the program, which is where I kind of grew
up in alcoholics Anonymous because both my parents were either
into narcotics or alcohol, and a lot of my family too,
And you know, I just it was weird to me that.
I mean, like, I have an aunt who has like
fifty sixty years of sobriety now and she still calls
herself an addict. And I'm like, that's a lot of humbleness.
But I don't know, it's also kind of wild, you
(11:31):
know what I mean. I'm like, you're not just that,
but I respect that, like whatever works for you for real,
who knows. But I saw a lot of struggle and
difficulty as a kid. I felt like this gift that
I had been given my voice and the reaction that
(11:51):
I would get from people when I would use it,
I was like, oh, this could take us out of
like this could be the thing that changes our lives.
I think thing on Diva's Live, but I could have
a video on pop up video, you know, like yeah,
And I was like, maybe this could be our ticket
out of this thing, our little artmit And.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
And how wild that that voice. If you performed, if
it was positive, if it was art, if it was pop,
if it was sexy, if everything was happy, you could
get out it doubles down on the if you're good enough,
little girl, you can save everyone around you. And if
(12:33):
you save people by being good, you can never be sad,
you can never be bad, you can never be heartbroken,
you can never be afraid, and like, oh the pressure
of that, Like I relate to you in that so hard.
Because the generational trauma and the things that my family
came from, it was like I have to be the
(12:56):
perfect one. They did all of this for me. Yeah,
you know, the classic immigration story, all of it. I've
got to be good, good, good good, and being good
actually made me incapable of being fully myself for a
really long time because I ignored everything that wasn't good,
and I just leaned in to like be a camp
(13:18):
counselor be a set leader, be a good teammate, be
a good and it's like you're only half of yourself.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I mean Sofia, I still find myself doing that very
very much so, and it's like a but I do
have more awareness than I did years ago. I think
my awareness is sharpening and I find myself I'm checking
in with my heart. I'm like, is it open, is
it closed? Is it? Am I being robo Joe. That's
(13:46):
like people around me will be like, oh, I mean
sometimes you know, or I can clock it in myself,
like I'm acting like a robot. I don't even know
how to not be performative, And it really is experiment
right now.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Well, and I think there's something really unique too for
women in our industries, like when we analyze the world. Look,
we know the world's not working very well for us,
right for women, But we also know the world's not
working well, at least in our country for men, like
depression and suicidality and all these things. Yeah, and in
a way, I think when you are a woman who
(14:24):
who is the head of your industry, household, it's a
lot of the pressure that men feel in the patriarchy,
like the dads and the breadwinners and the whatever. And
so we get the double feature of like the pressure
of a patriarch and all the shit that happens to
us as women in patriarchy. And it is very hard
when you know, like if I eat, everybody eats. If
(14:45):
I do well, everyone on my team can pay their bills,
and so if I don't, they can't. It's a lot
of pressure.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
You're so right to highlight that it's really interesting and
I think that I don't know if you relate to this,
but it it certainly has been. It's been a challenge
for me in relationships in you know, in relationships with
men where I don't want to be the man and
(15:15):
the woman or I don't want to emasculate someone. But
I have certainly done that. I have certainly, you know,
been like I literally don't need you for anything because
I've done all this and I do do all this,
and that is so not the energy that I I
don't I don't believe that, but I think I left
(15:36):
people feeling that way, you know what I mean, because
of just being in go mode and when you we
all contain many different sides. We all have masculine and feminine,
and you have to really be in touch with that
masculine side to produce and perform and show up. And
(15:59):
especially when you're like in cycle, if you're like on
a project, or you're like right now, I'm performing on
Broadway and I'm promoting a book and I'm putting out
new music, and I really have to check in with
myself in the morning and night to actually just like
put a hand on my heart and you know what
(16:20):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Yeah, to ground yourself. Yeah, to make sure that you're
being and not just doing. It's big and now for
our sponsors. It's interesting because you talk in the book
like we're talking about patterns, right, and you talk about
how you thought for a time that being surrounded by
(16:45):
addiction and having it be over and discussed in your
home would prevent you from experiencing that, but that actually
you found yourself struggling with it, with the alcoholism and
the substance addiction. Like do you do you feel like
it was a gradual shift to those patterns coming up
(17:05):
in you or was there a time like you're saying,
where maybe you didn't have the practice of checking in
and then the numbing got easy.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
It was definitely about numbing. I didn't practice for a
long time. I didn't have tools, and I was just
so afraid, so afraid of I didn't want to become
like my parents. I felt self righteous, like I was
(17:34):
already better than them and like stronger, and like they
don't have careers and they can't get it together, and
my dad lives off the government and he just gets
high all day and blah blah blah. I'm like you know,
I'm never I could never be me, and I think
it made me feel, you know, have this grandiose sense
of self that I I'm just being honest about it.
I'm not proud of that. But and I remember, you know,
(17:58):
him coming to like pick me up one day because
he lived in New Hampshire and when I was living
in Massachusetts, I was like eighteen, and I was like,
you know, I can't get in the car with you,
like you're high, and he's like, you know, don't throw
stones in a glasshouse, Joanna. Your addiction is like Arnold
Swarzenegger in your backyard, pumping iron, just waiting for you
to have a weak moment and just you know it's
(18:20):
coming for you. You got it on both sides. And I'm like,
don't speak that over my life. Yeah, And I was like,
I'll never be me. And the way I think about
addiction is kind of how doctor Gabor Matte speaks about it,
which is that it's this hungry ghost inside of us,
that is this insatiable monster really that needs more things,
(18:43):
you know, to make it feel okay, to get outside
of reality, to get outside of the truth. And I
just didn't want to. I could not sit with myself
for extendederiods of time for you know, until my mid
twenties probably, And so for me, it wasn't like, oh
(19:07):
I was addicted to cocaine or I was addicted to alcohol.
Like I just didn't discriminate with getting out of my mind,
you know what I mean. I could get out of
my mind with diving into a relationship and enmeshing with
you know, just sex and love and with substances and
you know, a binge or you know whatever. Like I
(19:28):
was just or work. I would be in the studio
NonStop and nothing was coming from it, and I was like, oh,
I just got to keep going because it's obviously. And
then I was like, all of it is my fault.
Not only have I saken up in this area, but
you know, my work isn't good enough because you know,
and then I'm in this lawsuit and I don't legally
(19:49):
own my voice, and it was just it was a
perfect storm for me to really hurt myself. And because
I was so hurt, I was so in pain, I
was so confused and have a support system or tools around,
you know, we just in the twenty tens, it was different.
It just felt like the same conversation help weren't being at.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
No, and especially the way that young women were treated
in the industry, it was so dark, and I.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Mean I felt like my job was to stay just
to be skinny and wait, do you know what I mean?
Like be skinny and just look good and whenever we're
ready for you, Like, yeah, I know that sounds horrible,
but this is literally what I was told.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah, well, and it's a really it's so hard because
you achieve this thing that you've always wanted to do,
and then because you're rare and talented and you've made
it in some way, then they tell you don't really
deserve it. It's like a very weird push and pull. It's
(21:02):
like they want you and they know you're special, but
if you know you're special, then it risks their ability
to use you. So it's a constant churn. And you know,
it took me a long time to understand how women
would be used as pawns for everyone, for the tabloids,
for the TV, for the music, for the thing. And
(21:26):
for a long time I remember feeling like there's so
much brilliance and service and intellect in me, Why is
this what you want to write about why is this
what you want to ask me about? And eventually I
had to go, oh, because an intellectual woman with opinions
is not as valuable to you as a tabloid scandal.
(21:47):
So you'll make a scandal where there isn't any, or
you'll blame a woman for a man's indiscretion, or you'll like, oh,
I see, it's a churn and burn. And it's part
of why I've been so like, I've felt so deeply
for you, even though this is our first day connecting.
(22:08):
Like reading the book, I was like, oh my god,
this woman. I just want to like protect her at
all costs. It's so much the way I feel watching
like Demi's documentary, you know, and everybody from her, you know,
it's Alison and all these women that I've known sort of,
you know, in acquaintance ways in the industry. Everybody talking
about what this has been like. And I think about,
(22:32):
you know, for you signing to a label at twelve,
it's like it's such a mark of your talent. And
also you had no ability to advocate for yourself inside
of this world because you were a kid.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
How have you as.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
You've aged made sense of that because you mentioned like
you knew that singing could be the way out, you
knew you could save yourself and your family. You knew
of the pressure at a young age. But looking back
at it now, like how do you, big sister that
little girl.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
So we've spoken to the pressure for sure. But Yo,
it was a pleasure. Like I loved and still loved
singing more than anything. Love it. It is my joy.
It is such a beautiful, such a wonderful experience when
I'm really connected to that gift and not trying to
(23:30):
achieve a certain thing. Which is what was? Which is?
I want to be so clear because I feel like
there can be a misconception when you start to share
these things, like if me or Demi or Allison or
sharing things and it's like are you are you looking
for people to feel bad for you? Like I'm like,
that's so not the case. My life is. I love
(23:53):
my life and I'm very very grateful and I've had
a lot of really weird experiences, really tough one really
great ones, but it shaped me into the person I
am and I'm really cool with her today. But what
I want to highlight about starting so young is exactly
what you said that, like, it doesn't allow you to
shape an authentic sense of self when you are not
(24:15):
a person but you're a product and you have so
many cooks in the kitchen and you don't go through
those normal developmental stages. People aren't really honest with you.
People are treating you weird, You're getting all yes, is
when people like Wou would normally say, no, you're not
having to go through things like that. So how do I?
(24:38):
And as somebody who was bullied a lot in elementary school,
in middle school and then became famous still in middle school,
I know still kind of deal with sometimes when I
walk into a room feeling like I'm weird, and I'm
okay with that, but I'm like, oh, people don't really
(24:58):
like me. I shouldn't really be I don't really fit
in anywhere.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
I have that too big?
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Isn't that crazy? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:05):
And I do think it's what you said. It almost
makes me sad that you feel like you have to
do the thing and get ahead of it and be like,
don't get me wrong, I don't want you to feel bad.
I'm very grateful. It's like, it's not that you're not
too but it is this weird thing where it's like
you have to clarify always that there was good even
though there was bad. It's like it's okay to say
(25:28):
some things have been really amazing and some things have
been really dumb, Like it just is and it's hard,
and yeah, it's hard when you're a kid. It didn't
happen to me as early, like I went through a
lot of bullying, a lot of like even in high school,
being sort of like brought into the like cool click
but held at the bottom of it, like I was
(25:50):
the bottom layer of it. And and so it was
like you're in, but we're going to make fun of
you relentlessly, like it's weird.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
I totally relate to that, right, and.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
I felt like I could never figure it out. And
then it was college, and then I went and started
working on One Tree Hill, and then all my college
friends were like, you know, it was the era of
like the clubs in LA and they'd be like, we
want to go here and get us a table here
and do this. And I'd be like, Okay, I'm coming
home for the weekend. Let's all go out. And then
it was like what you think you're important? You think
we're supposed to kiss your ass, and I was like, well, no,
(26:21):
but you you asked me to get the because you
said that, wait, I don't, and I I didn't have
the language and the understanding that I have now then.
So I spent, you know, the first ten years of
my career when it looked great from the outside, like
on this big TV show, feeling constantly paranoid that I
(26:41):
was doing something wrong, that I was too much or
not enough, or things were too available or not available
enough because I wasn't on like a serious show on HBO,
or like everything was always something was wrong. Yep. And
I feel really grateful that for a lot of us,
(27:04):
this period of our life has happened in the normalization
of therapy and the common conversations around like trauma and
the spectrum of experience from good to bad. Like I
asked my mom, I was like, how did you guys
do this with no therapy?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
You know, I can't even imagine.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
But it's like, it is weird that you always feel like,
because you're quote famous, you have to couch. What was
hard for you?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
In gratitude, Yeah, I hear you. I think that people
are so curious about what it's like to be in
positions of power and access and relative like, right, I
don't have that much well exactly, you know what I'm saying.
But my life is like I have a lot to
(27:54):
be grateful for. I can move in comfort and ease,
you know what I'm saying. And I think people are
curious about that, and some people are jealous about that.
So I don't know. For me, I just feel like
because I think there are a lot of misconceptions about
what it actually feels like and what it actually does,
and the isolation that it can create, the confusion that
(28:15):
it can create, particularly from a young age. I just
I like to speak to the I think people just
think about it, not in a holistic way of like Okay, yeah,
all this is true and then what about this?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
I think that's some of the things that I wanted
to explore in the book too, Not because I'm looking
for a badge of honor, because like you're not.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Trying to have a pity party, You're actually trying to
be more real.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, I'm interested in I'm a curious person, and like
we talked about from the beginning, like yeah, what was
it like, how what made you this type of person?
And why why are you so understanding or why are
you so you know, wanting to see all sides, because
I've had a lot of different experiences. I've been at
the I've seen highs lows, I've been heartbroken, I've broken hearts.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And now a word from our sponsors that I really
enjoy and I think you will too. I think it's
really important to embrace the full experience. And I think
I don't know if you experienced this. Sometimes when I
get asked to speak to students, I'm like, listen, I
(29:30):
don't want to ruin your dream, but what I want
you to have is a realistic dream.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
I don't want to acting students, yeah, any.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Any kind of artists. I'm like, I don't want you
to think that you're going to get on set and
that life is going to be rosy, right it really
I try to think about it in terms of physics,
like the pendulum swings in both directions, So the more
incredible things that happen to you, the harder your life
is going to get. Also, like, that's just science. It's
not a personal failing. It's not it's just about equal
(30:01):
and opposite, you know, reactions to every action, and that
has really helped me, and I think it's part of
why I caught myself reading your memoir being like, yes, exactly,
I haven't had the exact experiences you have, but I
understand what it is to try to navigate through these things.
You talk about not feeling like you fit in, feeling
(30:22):
like you're too much, you know, having these experiences that
are normal for a teenager, but they get magnified in
this way, and you know, it took me back in
certain ways to my own you know, teen in college
years and my first years on my first show, because
so much of your music was a landscape to those
times in my own life, and I was like, this
(30:43):
is such a trip. And I remember even then thinking like, well,
where did she go? Like where'd our favorite where'd our
favorite gal go? Like You're on so many of our
nostalgia mixes that my best friends and I trade around
all the time. And it was so interesting to read
(31:05):
about what was happening to you behind the scenes and
how you got trapped in this label deal because now
people know more about it, We know about what Taylor
went through, and she re recorded all her albums and
we're having these conversations about who owns music as we should,
and you were struggling with all this in a time
(31:26):
where nobody was talking about it, yet you you couldn't
talk about it. So what what was it like to
feel silenced but also to keep fighting?
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Hmm? I mean it was so maddening, and I was
going to go. So I put out my first album,
my first two albums thirteen fifteen, had you know, both
went platinum and sold millions of records around the world,
and I had, you know, a couple really really massive songs,
(31:59):
and and then we're going to wait till I was eighteen,
so I wouldn't have to, like because I just wanted
to work. I was like, I don't want to be
I don't want to have to think about school.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
I just want to like, yeah, the set teacher and
the thing.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, So we're going to wait till I was eighteen.
But then my label lost their distribution and I was beholden,
as you would be in a contract, beholden to whatever
they were going through with their bad business feelings. So
then I was kind of a just attached to their
wagon basically wherever they went, and they weren't a functioning
(32:34):
label anymore. So because I didn't own my voice because
in the contract and anything that I did in a
commercial way with my voice needed to be approved by them,
and they just no longer were doing that. Like if
I got an opportunity to be in a movie and
I was going to sing in the movie, they would
just say no because I don't even know why, you
(32:54):
know what I mean. It started to feel like they
wanted to set taj me. I don't know, I don't
feel that way today. I just don't choose to look
at it that At the time, I'm sure it was
like it was very confusing too, because these were my
father figures, my uncle figures, my brothers, like these men,
you know, really took me and shaped me, and they
(33:16):
felt like family. I mean, the production company I'm assigned
to it was called the Family. We were the family,
and it was just heart breaking, heart breaking. And then
to be in I was going to go to college
at Northeastern University for cultural anthropology and I was working
with the sociology department. They were like, you can do
this kind of a private like a distance learning program,
(33:39):
like you can do some virtual you can come to
the school. They were going to work with me, and
then the label was like, well, why don't you come
to LA and try to like and we can work
on music. And I was so like, oh my god,
they're ready, They're ready to work on music. I'm like,
I don't care about college anymore. I'm going to go
do that. So that was kind of heartbreaking too, and
then it it never panned out, and I was just
(34:00):
amster wheel of making music and of seeing fans on
MySpace at the time being like you know what happened,
like why aren't you releasing music?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah? Where'd you go?
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Girl? Where'd you go? And not being able to give
them a concrete answer because I also felt like I
needed to play the game like whenever my label was ready,
that I needed to not burn the bridge completely with
them because they still I was still under contract with them.
It was it was so frustrating. My family was worried
about me, you know. They were like, just just go
to college, Joe, You're smart, you know, why don't you
just do that? And I'm like, no. I felt like
(34:30):
I had to prove something to them, like I didn't
want to worry about me. I put the weight of
the world on myself and nobody, nobody asked, and nobody
asked me to do that, but I that's the position
I assumed, and then to cope with it. You know,
I had seen how my family coped, and it seemed
(34:50):
like drinking to access was the way to do it.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
You know.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I Irish, Catholic, south of Boston and working class family,
and that's I've seen that a lot. So that's kind
of where it began, with being in that lawsuit and
feeling frustrated and also being very embarrassed and ashamed that
I wasn't on the trajectory that people kept telling me
in the industry. People were like, oh my god, you're
(35:16):
this You deserve the world and you're supposed to be
the biggest star. And I'm like, yeah, I am are
I you know what I mean. And it was just
a lot of.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
I'm having this like mind blowing kind of moment because
this idea of your label being literally named a family.
People do that a lot on sets. They're like, oh,
we're a family. We're a family. But families can be
super toxic and the sort of rude awakening and like trauma.
(35:49):
I know, I went through on realizing that, like our
family on my show also had like really toxic men
and power in it, and that the minute that you
don't serve the power structure, you become the enemy of
the family. Like it's it's such whiplash because you think like, well,
these are my people, and it's like, no, they want
(36:12):
you to feel like you're they're your people because that
makes money for everyone, and that can be so painful,
and like it gives me this, oh, because when everything
in your life feels really out of control, sometimes the
thing you you think of is, well, if I'm in
(36:32):
the right relationship, if I have real love in my life,
like that can be healing at least. If work is toxic,
home can be good.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yeah, And I can.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Look back at my history and see when work has
been its most toxic that I have made a home
out of people that had no business feeling like home
to me.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Whooa.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
I so relate Sothia, And it's I'm having like I
literally am like we're doing a podcast, but I feel
like I'm in therapy. Oh my god, because you just
you clicked something for me in my own brain that
I've been ruminating on for a long time. But like
it just it just clicked, like a level deeper as
I've thought about your book. I'm like, wait, yes, yes,
(37:15):
this this whoa mind blown.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
It's so helpful to be mirrors for each other and
to you know, to just workshop this stuff. I love,
I love that.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
How do you think you started to identify that? Because you,
you know, you've talked a lot about how even love
love addiction, sex addiction, like these things aren't as talked
about as substance based addiction. And for you to talk
about this again so openly, I'm just so in awe
of you, Like, how do you think you started to
(37:50):
identify like, oh, I recognize the pattern of a substance
as a numbing agent from my family. How do you
begin to see relationships as a numbing agent for you?
When does that light bulb come on?
Speaker 2 (38:03):
Starting therapy, starting journey definitely helped me to have more
frameworks and more tools and just like more self awareness.
I think I've always been introspective, but having a professional
to bounce things off of and to you know, have
her post questions to me and all that, and to
(38:25):
be someone I really trusted with helping to guide me
and influence me in a good way. I think that
that she and she didn't she wasn't like you're a
love addict or you're a sex addict. But it's like
you don't discriminate with these things that you were using
(38:45):
to make you numb out to. You know, you like
to dissolve into somebody. You've chosen partners that are available
to just serve your need for feeling good, like sex
will be a big part of the relationship. They won't
really have a lot. I mean when I was younger,
like some of my partners didn't have a lot, a
(39:07):
whole lot going on in their life, and I was like,
I was the one in the position of power, and
I felt like they, you know, wouldn't hurt me because
I was so hurt within my family or so hurt
you know, my mom or my dad, and so hurt
with my career and I was just looking for security
and safety and pleasure and all those things. And I
(39:35):
stayed in an on again, off again relationship for a really,
really long time because it was just so hard to
step away from somebody who had no boundaries, had no conditions.
I could mistreat them, I could step up, be with
(39:56):
other people. I could you know, be unco I could
be inconsistent, and I was you know that I don't
want that, and I didn't want that for them, but
they were going to continue to let me do that,
and so something had to had to give, and I
(40:18):
would say after that, I want to get off again dynamic.
For a long time, I had to be like, I
am so toxic. And it's not that I it's not
that I can't have compassion for my younger self and
understand where that came from, but I was really moving
in very selfish, toxic ways and that's not how I
(40:44):
want to live this one life that I have.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
And that's hard. To get to a point where you
can see that is really hard. And I imagine when
you look at that version of yourself and then you
look at where the young version of yourself was sort
of you know, made the different sorts of toxicity in
those dynamics, Like how do you say to yourself, Okay,
(41:12):
I want to shift that, Like instead of leaning into
this behavior that's destructive, I want to lean into this
behavior that's constructive. Like how do you begin to rebuild
up instead of to continue to spiral down.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
I think that starting a process of rebuilding self trust
because it had been eroded in so many different ways.
So even just checking in with how does it feel
when I do this, or how does it feel when
someone says this, or when I'm in this particular environment,
(41:52):
or just like being more present as opposed to being
under the influence of something, constantly being on xanax or
constantly being high on weed or drinking something, or you know,
being digmatized or whatever. You know what I mean, Like
howbout you, I will say. I think after my dad
(42:15):
passed away, he he lost his struggle with addiction and
just with overall unhealthiness mind, body, spirit. That changed everything
for me. And I was like, I'm no better than him.
I'm no better or worse. Like I was judgmental, but
(42:36):
I always held out hope that he would change and
that we would have this amazing relationship. It would it
would heal us both and you know, all this these things.
And then I was like, oh, no one's like I
I could die, like any time anybody can. No one's
(42:57):
coming to save you. We I had I had adopted
a perspective of like learned helplessness, that I was in
this you know, that I was a victim of the industry,
or I was like in you know, the people looked
at people felt bad for me, and I like wore
that scarlet letter and then I just you know, started
(43:20):
acting bad in my I made poor choices as a
result of the shame and the embarrassment and the and
the difficulty some difficulties that I experienced, the deck of
cards I had been dealt. But I was like, Okay,
so what m hm and now what now what?
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:41):
I don't want to die. I don't want to hurt
others I had. It never got so bad for me.
Like I think of how outspoken Demi's been with their
story and you know, literally o ding and like looking
at the edge of death and like peeking out. That
was not my experience. But losing my father was a
(44:06):
hinge point.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah, And now a word from our wonderful sponsors, I
would imagine, you know, you're talking about Demi's experience, for example,
But but a loss like that is also something that
will bring you to the edge of an abyss, right,
(44:29):
and you just have to say where do I go
from here? And especially after you had so much of
your life dictated for you and so many things controlled
by people other than you, that's right to say, Like
I don't know what it looks like but I know
I have to take control back. That's a really profound
(44:53):
moment of change in a life. Do you think that
that knowing that there needed to be a shift is
also what enabled you to begin to separate this persona
of Jojo that's been out in the world from you,
(45:14):
whole human Joanna.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
I think that when my dad passed, I mean, I've
been I am a spiritual person. I grew up with
the framework of Christianity, specifically Catholicism. I'm very and I
grew up in the choir loft. And I think that
in music for me and relating to my gift, feels
(45:39):
very spiritual. Me and my dad had a spiritual connection
through music, you know, harmonizing together and feeling empathic with
each other and like just being really connected, feeling each other.
And I think that when he passed, like since he passed,
I continue to feel to feel him, I continue to
(46:01):
feel connected to him, I continue to have conversations with him.
I continued to see him, like sometimes physically, not like
not like really really, but like sometimes a flash of
him in the audience. Sometimes I look back, you know,
in an airport, and I'm like, you know, just moments
of moments of delight that take my breath away that
(46:23):
I don't need to explain to anybody else because they
need something to me. So I'm saying that to say that,
I think that with connecting to my spiritual self more
and with taking solo trips, I started to take solo trips.
I realized how like stimulated I had been, and I
was interested in silence. Like my dad this quote right here,
the Disiderata, and it's a go placidly amidst the noise
(46:46):
and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
That he always had that in his bathroom, whatever apartment
he'd be in, he had this deep ass quote, you know,
the whole desiderata. And I'm like, man, he was so deep.
I'm like, you know what he told me. You loved
the desert. I want to go to the desert. So
I went to Sedona, which is another one of my
you know, big meetingful dud and I just started to
(47:13):
actually take the time to be alone and to be
in silence, to listen more than I spoke, and to
take myself off the hamster wheel of like well sort of,
because I still haven't met many years of doing this
and I'm still extricating myself from it in a sense,
but I'm saying I became really aware that, like I
(47:35):
was on other people's timelines and I was like, you
have to do this, you have to put out this album.
Blah blah blah blah blah. I'm like, whoa.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
I was.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
I was about to put out my third album that
I've been waiting ten years to be able to put
out a third album, and then my dad passed and
that changed my life. And I'm like, okay, so life
does not ever go the way you think it's going
to go. I thought this was supposed to be, you know,
the big thing. And I'm like, I'm I'm not ready
to act like a bad bitch now, Yeah, life is
(48:04):
not about that. Joanna like, I'm not okay. Well just
talking about myself and the third person, that's gross, but
you know what I mean. I was not okay and
I couldn't pretend and I needed to sit with that
part of myself as opposed to be performative, and I didn't.
I didn't get that right all the time.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
But nobody gets everything right all the time. Though. But
I think even that instinct for you to name yourself
is like when you zoom out and look at your life,
you got to say, no, I can't go be that
performance version of myself right now.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
I have to be here sleep in these in moments.
I had to carve out. I had to have more balance.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
I had been focused on work since I was like
six years old, and at twenty twenty four, I was like, oh,
I I think my priorities are not right.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Yeah, or that you get so used to the speed,
Like I'm still trying to figure out how not to
feel guilty or sad if I take a day off
and it's like I don't always have to be on
every call and every zoom and every schedule everything like
(49:24):
like a day, you know, Like but I'll take I'll
have a day, I'll have an afternoon, And I panic
because I'm like, well, it's I haven't had a free
afternoon in three weeks. What should I do with this time?
I should do? I should do something meaningful with this time?
And it's like or not I could just stare.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
At the wall or like go for a walk.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
I'm trying to re parent that like overachiever in me,
and it sounds like in a way that that period
of loss made you like big sister, that kid perform
in you.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Yeah that either of us had that. Yeah, like we
are that for ourselves.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
It's beautiful to learn that you can do that? Is
that part of what you hope readers take away from
the book, Like when you really think about you've put
your heart in this hardcover, Like when you hand it
to someone, what do you want them to take away
from it?
Speaker 2 (50:28):
It's really I've tried to be like it's none of
my business, but people take away from it, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
But that's so hard when you were like an EmPATH.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
And you're right, it is so hard. I do have
hopes for this book, you know. My hopes are that
people think about their own life in maybe a different way,
or that they're able to see the through lines, like
you said from the beginning, and maybe have compassion for
(50:57):
ways that they've been. Yes, maybe I have compassion for
other people too. You know, the way I think about
my parents is so different than the way I thought
about them ten years ago. I think about them now
is as whole human beings who were people before they
were my parents, and who you know, everybody does the
best they can with what they have to a certain
(51:19):
extent and their mind and I love them. Yeah, and
you know, and a bunch of other stuff too, And
so I hope that people feel inspired also to keep going,
because your story doesn't end when people say, you know
(51:40):
you're done. I recently had the opportunity to work with
Cyndi Lauper on a project. She you know, it's crazy
when people are telling me, like with twenty years as
a recording artist that like, oh my god, your longevity
and that is something I'm proud of to be able
to say, you know, I'm here and I'm stronger than
I've ever been and I've got there. But in talking
(52:02):
with Cindy and I was like, you know, can you
because she's seventy one years old and she is going
on her final world tour who knows if it'll really
be the final because she's still killing it. And I
was like, you know, not what's your secret because I
know it's not a secret, But I was like, could
(52:23):
you give me any advice for like, you know, how
you've just continued to be authentic and reinvent yourself and
stay creative and in tune and a lot you know,
like she's so alivened believable to me, and she was like,
just keep going. She was like, just keep going. I
(52:44):
know it sounds so simple, but she was like, just
do things. Just keep doing things basically, you know what
I mean. And then she's like and then you look
back and be like I did a lot of cool things,
doing things that feel true and always look for the
truth and for the connection and for and I'm just like, oh,
(53:10):
you know, she has like fifty years or you know,
forty or fifty years in the game. I'm like, that's
that's aspirational and that's inspiring.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
That's so cool with Broadway and with the new single, Like,
how does it feel to be sharing your voice again
on your own terms?
Speaker 2 (53:30):
It feels very liberating. I feel empowered. It also feels
like a lot like I definitely have to check in
with myself and be like, yeah, okay, bitch your own
Broad's like seven shows a week. You know, you promoted
this book. That's awesome. You just put out a new single,
Like that's a lot of simulation. Take a nap, take
(53:53):
a nap. Yeah, and so I But but the truth
is I feel energized by all these by office, I
feel really fortunate I feel like it's not draining my soul,
because I've done many things I felt like it's sucking
the soul out of me and that I'm doing it
(54:13):
and I feel stupid or I feel not connected, or
I feel I really do feel actually connected to this.
I think that this is in resonance with who I
am and who I want to be and how I
want to show up in the world. And I think
that it will continue to if I continue to do
(54:35):
things that feel like that, and maybe I can create.
Then maybe I'll be seventy one one day looking back
and be like, oh, you know, I really started trusting
myself around that time doing things that scared me. Being
on Broadway scared me scares me. You know, it's and
it's challenging, and but I've lived a lot in my
(54:57):
life as an only child, as a solo artist, with
things being about me, and with sharing this book this
is about me, and you know, but being a part
of a community a company on Broadway, it's such a
team sport, and that has been one of the greatest
joys that I've got to have in the past couple
(55:19):
of years, is all of us being just as important
as the next and having the relationships with the people
behind the scenes and you know, just every single department.
It's been really it's been awesome. But I'm so curious
now as to what's going to come next and how
(55:40):
I can take these things that I've learned and the
opportunities that I have and support other people on their journeys.
I have to not just be about me, because it's
not enough. And I want to celebrate you for the
work that you do and the way that you have
I really mean that I've always admired you from Afar
(56:02):
and I've seen you peripherally, maybe at protest, maybe at
an event something like that, and I just you are
such a light and you seem so connected and so
purpose driven. And it is people like you that that
really inspire me to be more and to seek to
seek ways to help and to have conversations that are
(56:26):
more that move things forward as opposed to just be
like look it at blush or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
I know, I always joke, I'm like, I'm not the
good I'm not good at small talk, but like I'll
wind up having a version of a therapy session in
the kitchen corner at the paw You always girl, so
now we know, now we have each other. It's so
good as you sit here and you and you think
about all of this, Like, because what it looks like
(56:55):
to me from the outside as a person who has
been a fan for a long time and who feels
like I got all the things from the book, Like
it looks to me like everything is coming back to you,
all these pieces, like you're collecting all of it to
be you know, your your whole self. But I know
(57:17):
this is just in a way, the beginning. It's a
new beginning. It's a reclamation of so many things. And
now you sit looking at the next phase. So like
when you look out at life from today, what feels
like your work in progress right now?
Speaker 2 (57:33):
Ooh, it feels like my work in progress. Definitely to
be as authentic as possible to question when my like
default programming comes up and I'm like I need to
do this, or like I need to it needs to
(57:54):
sound like this or look like this or whatever, or
get more people's opinions that I really need. I'm working
on that because I do feel that for me to
be able to be of service in the world, that
I have to be authentic. I have to be not
performing and I think even to be the type of
(58:19):
actress that I eventually want to be and to do
the work that I want to do in musical theater
and beyond. It's not about performance. Actually, it's about embodiment
and really dropping in and believing and being authentic even
in that, you know. Anyway, I'm working on that, and
I'm working on being more vulnerable even any type of relationship. Yeah,
(58:47):
dropping my defense, hm hmm. Yeah, I have so many
things I'm working on. And what you said about this
reclamation of these different pieces coming together, that's what inspired
this new song that I would I would be crazy
not to mention, because it's you gave it the perfect setup.
(59:10):
It's I was inspired by this art of consugi, this
Japanese art of consugi, where like ceramics are broken and
then they're together with like gold and cold, so beautiful,
and I'm looking at this and I was like, I
was just really inspired by it, and so me and
(59:31):
some friends wrote the song and it's called Porcelain and
it's it feels like Catharsis to me, and it feels like,
you know, I've run I've run so many miles listening
to this song because It just makes me want to go,
It makes me want to let go, It makes me
want to sweat and cry, and so I wanted to
(59:51):
share it with people because it makes me feel those
things well.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
And what an amazing you know idea the metal for that.
The cracks are the most precious parts.
Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Ever, you know, and we're we're all just world is
human Kinsuhi Really.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
I love it. Thank you for today. This has been
so great.
Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Oh my god, you are so amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
You're such a gem. I'm like, I want to come
see your show. We have to hang out.
Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
I would love that. Sophia, thank you so much for
your time and your presence. You're awesome.
Hosts And Creators
Bethany Joy Lenz
Sophia Bush
Robert Buckley
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