July 18, 2023 • 30 mins
DISCLAIMER: This podcast was recorded prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike
Actor, author, and Brooke's #1 fan Selma Blair (Legally Blonde, Cruel Intentions, Hellboy) opens up about her lifelong struggles with multiple sclerosis and sobriety, and shares how a public humiliation years ago led her to the diagnosis that would change her life. Plus, why Selma started saying yes to the things that scared her most, and what she’s manifesting for the years to come.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
What do you do when life doesn't go according to
plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
with a guest to talk about the times they were
knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
(00:27):
Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
answers one question. Now, what what title do you wear now?
(00:51):
With pride?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I think it's I think it is.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Kind and only a truly deeply kind person would adopt
dog with one eye AM name him Wink.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Oh my god, thank you. I loved Wink. Wink is
still my soul dog.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I remember seeing you with Wink and thinking how cool
that somebody is like that.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
It was my first lesson in like disability and turning
it us ahead to be like kind of a strange.
I just seriously, I know that sounds so silly, but
it was like people at the time were really freaked
out by this one. I dog like I'd see reactions.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
We were outside at a restaurant and I was like, oh,
Someunma was just so happy. And then you were like,
I see the dog you go this is Wink And
I was like, oh my god, I couldn't love you more.
I was like, of course his name is Wank.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Thank you. You know.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Gammero del Toro even named a character Wink and hell
Boy two, so it inspired the greats.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Guamo Brooke liked it.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
My guest today is Selma Blair. She's a brilliant actor,
a mom, an advocate, and an author. She's also remarkably
kind and self reflective, traits that are rare in life
and even more so in Hollywood. Selma's had a long
career on both stage and screen, which has been marked
by blockbuster success in films like Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde,
(02:19):
and a Hellboy. In twenty eighteen, she announced that she
was diagnosed with MS, which was a disease that she
had unknowingly struggled with for many years, and since then
she's chronicled her experience in her documentary Introducing Selma Blair.
She's participated in Dancing with the Stars and She's penned
(02:40):
her book Mean Baby, which is one of the best
memoirs I've ever read. I'm really thrilled that she agreed
to do this show. Here is Selma Blair.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Hi, Oh god, dear Brookshoes.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Is that my book? How long have you had the
Brook Book? That's crazy?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Oh my god, but yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
You that Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
No, it had like a library card saying it's mine.
And I wrote Selma Blair because I knew one day
I would be Selma Blair, not Blair Blow. It's the
Brook Book and it was put out in nineteen seventy eight,
and I got it, you know, at about that age.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I was born in seventy two, and.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
It was it has photographs of you and they're all
obviously unbelievably beautiful, and it's like, you know, a little
documentary book. And it was so precious to me. And
I didn't have many things, truly. I only had a
couple of things. Had a book, Grease, the movie this,
you know, there were a couple of things that I had.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Did your mom buy you that book?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yes, she bought me this book, and she encouraged me
to be okay with your You're going to love this book,
to be okay with you know my face that you know,
my straight brown hair, I want to blonde, and you know,
beautiful eyebrows like yours.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And flat chest.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
There was a picture of you in the Scuola book
and you're a child, and so of course you have
a flat chest. So but I was encouraged because my
flat chest stayed a really long time, in fact to
this day. But anyhow, while for you later on, you know,
it has all these different things, for me, it was
such a pure way to look at the body and
be proud of you, just as you are, flat chested,
(04:23):
a child whatever, with broad shoulders. So to me, your whole,
your whole picture brought about the only self love, honestly,
I could feel about my body because I was so
detached from it too, because I was so busy living
up to a mean baby that could be cleverly mean.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
But you know, it's interesting because when you talk about
labels being sticky, and you say labels are sticky, and
you know, we start with our mothers. Oh that's my
athletic one, Oh that's my arty one, and we don't
think that they have an affect, but they actually can
really have an enduring kind of affect on a person
(04:59):
on the way they go forwar forward in the world.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Right, it seems unavoidable almost, you know. It is just
a thing that parents probably do all the time. But yes,
my mom had a vision for me to be you
or Gwyneth Peltrow type of thing. Your mom had a
big it really was. She was like, just get tall
and beautiful. But anyhow, you had you having this documentary
come out, and I did watch it because of course
I'm still a brook you know, like fandom queen.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
But it was amazing this.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I mean, you already born pretty, so it was a
self fulfilling prophecy no matter what.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Like that you were pretty baby, and that stuck with you.
Did it bother you when you were little? Like did
you notice it?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
What it did was it detached me entirely from my body.
It detached me from my face. Wow, And it just
meant I was nothing but that, And so I became
vigilant in nurturing everything else that wasn't connected to looking
a certain way.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
But I'm really curious about you. What was your personal
relationship with beauty as a child?
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I didn't think about it as a really little one.
I remember not thinking about it when I was like
two and a half or three, when I started having
memories and I was kind of looked like a boy
and people call me Blair, and I kind of didn't.
I just didn't have that sense of femininity or looking
in the mirror. Maybe I didn't reach the mirror, so
I don't remember thinking anything. And then I remember in
(06:27):
kindergarten I really wanted to wear dresses, but people made
fun of me.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I was still a boy.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
And it wasn't until honestly that I saw your book
because I had really thick eyebrows and people would make
fun of me a little, nothing horrible, but definitely a little.
And my mom got me your book, and that, really,
funnily enough, introduced me to beauty and what I thought
would be amazing to look like and act like your grace.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Really, I don't say this to be a sycophant to you.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I say this because it is amazing that your experien
sperience for you is so different than your experience for me.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
That's so touching for me to hear, because to me
there was arrogance and everything you know, why would I be.
Who's to say? It's so layered too, your mom buying
you that book, and you the person in your book,
and I loved your book and I both read it
and listened to it. And we grew up with very
(07:25):
powerful maternal figures in our lives. And when you write
about your mom, I'm so interested in it because you
say your mom was your first great love.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I can't quite shake it either.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
You know it's still there, which is good, thank God,
because she's my mother and you want to have that feeling.
But she touched and or contaminated every part of my
being just by the sake of being a mother and
being the one I looked to. We're very much only
at each other.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
She's obviously so oppressive, and I think, and she was
a lawyer.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
She was a judge, right, She never even graduated like
Bassa or or high school, and then went on to
Bassa after not graduating high school, and then isn't that amazing?
And then went to law school without having graduated Vassar.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It was like the last and she was one of
the only women in her law school.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
And it was only because she got married, thought she'd
be a doctor's wife. He left and she had a
little baby, and so she sat in her room, played solitaire,
smoked cigarettes for one week, grieved, got up, applied to
law school and said, fucking I'm not going to ever
let anyone boss me around again. So she became a
lawyer and then a judge for forty years. And she
was home by dinner every night at seven.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Took cook for her family. I mean, she sort of
lived her life like a single mother, yea, even though
she was remarried.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
She did, and I viewed her as that, And that's
why my father was rather inconsequential for me. But I
was actually thinking as day of all the things he did.
You know, he put me in good schools, He did
pay for schools and stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
My mom kind of.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Paid for herself and our clothes, and dad paid for
education in camps.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
And all that.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
But the mother is your lifeline, you know, It's the
umbilical cord.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
It was shocking when my mother died. Did you feel
that too?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I watched it and I thought, if I watch it,
I will believe it's true.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Right, I will absorb everything I should of this and
it will go through me and it will be natural.
Nothing about it and I and had nothing prepared me
for the I felt.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I still do. I felt a drift.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Were you with her?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
No, it was COVID. It was in the beginning of COVID.
I had no idea. It was just a shock. It
was the beginning of COVID. So even though my mother
and I was writing the book and it just on
the bone marrow transplant, and I couldn't get to her
or my family or any of it, there was no closure.
It's still painful to think about what we all went
(09:53):
through and what.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
We all go through in life.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
What we all go through, it's amazing we get up
the next day sometimes when I think of it, because
it was the thing that would break my heart. Of
course people go through much worse, but on the scale
of things that break your heart and leave you with
a sense of things you can't resolve, it's not being there.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Where was it with your mom when she died?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
It was well, she started having some you know, forgetful
like things were happening to her. So it got quite
detached and I had to just think, she's gone already.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Did she recognize you?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
She did?
Speaker 3 (10:30):
She The last time I saw her, I said, can
you give me a kiss and she was like, ah no,
and I was like, oh, it's her because she hated
giving kisses and hugging and all I wanted was that.
So she did, and she kissed me on my forehead gently, gently,
and I had my sister take a picture, even though
she looked awful, and she would kill me if she
knew I took that picture. But it meant everything to
have my mother gently kissing my hand because she never really,
(10:52):
it'll never be enough, you know, I still turn into
my mother would say, Maudelin. You know, she'd make fun
of me. Oh, it's almost dot acting up that beautiful.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Brilliant woman.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Brookshields and audience don't want to hear you sniveling about
your dead mother, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I mean, she was just tough.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
My mother would be like, keep talking about me, Just
keep talking about me. Forget who you're interview got.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
She was worthy of it. She made a good one.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
But it is amazing how in perspective I've let go
of the things that upset me and I only want
to think of love, like I really am turning to
that to not consciously pivoting in my life. And I
did that with my sobriety and then even more when
I felt I can trust myself with the diagnosis and
all those things, and so the things like mother or
(11:40):
the pain of mother dying in COVID or all those things,
I just I just look at classrooms now, you know things.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I guess I need it, or I needed so I
could help someone else.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Looking back, I was really shocked when I read your book,
because I had just no idea that you were struggling
in your personal life. You were a household name, but
you were never tabloid fodder.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
No. I was always a loner.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
You know, I'm a loner that talks a lot when
I'm out in public. But also because I was a drinker,
I knew I couldn't control it because I had done
it very young and knew I would get myself in
bad situation.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
So by the time I was.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Grown enough to have moved here, I really didn't go
out and drink much.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
That happened like once.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
To drink alone, I drank. That's a very good alcoholic.
You were a very good alcoholic.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
I was a purist. I was a purist was.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
A true meaning of functioning alcoholic because it never interfered
with right.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I'm sure I could have chosen like better made better choices,
and I could have had maybe a less complicated life
if I didn't have drinking. But then I also think
would I have survived it because I was also I
thought so depressive. I have no idea if it was
m as fatigue or depression. It's hard to have a
vocabulary for what you don't know you are. It's just
like a low, so I don't know. I never really
(13:11):
knew what I was feeling. The drinking definitely masked physical
and emotional just so I.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Could bear life.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So it was a crutch.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
It was a crutch, It was a life raft.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
It was saving me until I not stop and I
was not engaging normally and going through things in real time.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
But you said you started at seven years old. What
crutch do you think you needed at seven to start
sipping all the drinks?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I remember feeling shame at age three about what shame
because I didn't had to do with In preschool, I
was spanked by the teacher because I was didn't clean
something up that wasn't mine, blah blah blah, and I
was and I stood up for myself and she put
me over her lap, and she repeatedly hit me as
(13:57):
I cried, I'm sad, I'm sad, because I had an
that said what I said, what do I say if
I feel like I don't want to go on?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
And she said, you have to tell people.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
If you're sad, you tell people, And so I took
her advice, and in that moment of panic, I you know,
as she was slapping me and through my tears at
the other kids, I said, I'm.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Sad, I'm sad, and she didn't stop. And it puts
such a distrust in the world.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
And then when I started getting sick or losing my
eyesight and they couldn't see it because it was a
brain thing, and that was also distrust in myself because
they were saying, it's it's she's I don't know why
she's so sensitive. So those two things made me very
afraid of the world at a very young age. I
was sensitive person, I guess, and I was terrified. So
that drink at age seven of not feeling I told
(14:43):
trust myself, not believed what I said, or it wouldn't
be heard, or you know, life moved fast. I was
one of four kids. I was sensitive. Maybe I had
an asshole of a teacher. It was a different time.
I didn't know how to say things in the right
tone of voice. I have no idea, but I have.
I had an emotionally hard time for whatever reason, and
(15:04):
I didn't trust myself, and the drinking was a huge self.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Well, nobody was allowing you. They weren't validating any of
your emotions.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Do you remember when you like, when you first started
what you now know is juvenile MS.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
It was probably when I was like six or seven,
and it was an optical the writis issue, but that
was never looked into.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
It's just called a lazy eye.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
But then once we did other tesla and then I
had optical the writis again at twenty three, and it
was always my symptoms of MS, whether it was pre
dromal or whatever is called.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Whatever it was, it was very similar and optical the writis.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
And I just I was not believed, and I lost
bladder function and things were happening, and alosh dan los
and so a kidney kind of fell and things were
happening that just were showing I was having a struggle,
you know, with my nervous system and stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
What's striking to me how long you had it?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I know, and if I were a boy, I do
believe there was one doctor, and it was after I
had It was actually my eye doctor, of all things,
but it was he after I had overdosed from extreme
grief about something. I was put in my first rehab
at twenty on my twenty third birthday, and I got
sober for the first time. But the my father, Elliott,
(16:22):
took me to go get like, while you're in town
from New York, let's get your appointments.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
And I went to the eye doctor.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I was twitching and having all these ticks, which I'd
never had this long, and these things from this episode
of this overdose caused a little bit of brain trauma,
and the eye doctor, after looking in my eye, just said,
do you have MS?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
You know?
Speaker 3 (16:44):
It was like I thought it would be something you'd know,
you know, like I didn't know what MS really was,
but I knew that it was maybe movement or breathing.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
I didn't really know, but it was like more.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Extreme than anything I, you know, any doctor ever told
me I had.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
And I was searching for a long time.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I had all these you know, autoimmune issues that kind
of racked up. So he said it, and then I
did I went to a neurologist, but by that time
that the optical the writis had faded and so he
didn't see it, which happens with MS. But he never
did give me an MRI, even though I also had
the tics and everything. He said, oh, those are just
my chronic seizures from you know, the little bit of
brain damage. It'll go away as that goes away, And
(17:22):
it's like, oh my god, they were such clear signs
of MSS.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
I mean, how do you think things would have been
different if you had gotten the diagnose earlier.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I think my emotional state would have been a lot
stronger because I would have had some realization that I
could trust myself, that I could get back into my body,
that there'd be a way to sort through this kind
of distance I had for myself because I was scared
and didn't trust myself. I thought, well, I'm just hyper sensitive,
So that would have done something for me. It would
(17:49):
have probably saved a couple of years of grief in
my life.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
But I don't know if I was ready.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
I wasn't ready, I guess, because I think they would
have considered a very harsh diagnosis. Then I might not
have gone on this same way and I was still drinking.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
How many times did it take you? I say this
because my mother was in rehab three or four times,
arrested a couple of times, and never got sober. But
whenever I hear and see a story of sobriety and
the work that it takes every day, I know that
and it's forever. But when I look at the years
(18:21):
of sobriety, I'm in such awe of what place you
had to get to to get there? How many times
did it take?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
I am too.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I'm so grateful that I'm not, you know, gone, because
I have a son and there's things now that I
have a different perspective on life, and I'm very grateful
I'm here.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
But it took me.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
God, I started with attempted, like real ways to hurt myself,
like very young too, So I got in that mode
and I didn't build the other stuff, you know, positive affirmations.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
And kept going down.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
So I'd say that my first real sobriety was at
that twenty three and it was only like a few years.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Oh God, I must have had to get sober. I'm
not joking twenty times.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Did you have a good therapist?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I do.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I actually have a therapist. Now, that's a huge comfort
and like a lightning rod for me. But I didn't
find you know, I really do for me though, I
really had to go through it and no therapy was
gonna help me until I understood that I actually also
had something neurologically wrong with me, because I just keep
beating myself up.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
But how did you You hit it?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Though?
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I mean like, I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
But getting sober it took until I prayed.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
I'm not joking, but I prayed every night since I
was twenty three.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Please God make a miracle that I stay sober.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Please God give me the dignity of my humanity to
have me not die drunk.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
I don't know why that counted to me.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
I'm not saying someone's undignified if they die a drunk,
but to me, I wanted to say I died in
this body.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I pray that remains the case, and every day I
will be on that.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
But I do feel the miracle kind of has happened
of a different perspective also, where I do feel stronger
in that I absolutely feel I need and want to
be sober. I didn't want to before.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Part of the reason I asked you to be on
this show is that I think you are such an inspiration.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I mean dancing with the Stars, I can't even.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
It was terrifying to me.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I never wanted to do it, never, never, never, except
when you were young.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
You did Circus of the Stars.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
I did the Stars. I first trained the dogs. I
trained the dogs.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
And do you know I was most I remember that,
And I was most likely in my high school yearbook
at Cranbrooke, Me and Todd Kessler, who's now a brilliant writer, director,
truly brilliant damages all these things. He and I were
voted most likely to be an circumcars And then it's like,
oh my god, it I kind of manifested because that
doesn't exist anymore. But dancing with the Start is something
(21:05):
I never wanted to do. I am not someone that
has rhythm in the sweetest thing. I needed to be trained,
like ten years. It felt like to just do like
the electric slide.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So what made you say yes?
Speaker 3 (21:16):
What made me say yes is something really horrible to
me happened in my life for a moment that I'm
now recovered from. But and I was really going back
into old patterns not harming, but like the will my
life force went so down with this hit, you know,
this emotional hit I had. And then when Sasha, my
(21:36):
neighbor and now friend, came to me, and he had
asked a couple times through the years, come on, you
want to do that, and I'm like, I never, never,
don't ever ask me. And so when he did this time,
and he kind of convinced me, like, just come with
me for an hour and like, let's see how you move,
Let's see if you can be taught. And I went
and dancing with him, just doing like a simple like
(21:57):
rumba or something.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
I don't know. I realized if he holding my hand
and if I repeat.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
The step enough, I could get my step where it
wasn't like dystonic if it were slow enough. And I thought,
oh wow, this hour with him felt better than the
last fifty hours of my life where I was sitting
in fear. So let me get out and at least
have these hours then with this person showing me something.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
And it turned out to be so rewarding and beautiful.
And I loved everyone on.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
That show, and they loved you, and the people loved you,
and you looked so beautiful. Oh god, it was.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I'm so touched that you say it. But we all
like want to have that moment. Maybe not all of.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Us, but we all want to have some type of moment,
some type of moment that we feel we overcame something
that was maybe simple to other people.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
So pat on the back to me. Yeah, you know
for MS, because my MS is.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Very emotionally activated, the ticks and the motion and stuff.
So that was a fear like, oh God, I'm gonna
and I wouldn't have been able to do it without
the goodwill of the people that had been behind me
in general, like rooting me on through all that I showed.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
But that's a testament to you as a survivor. And
I used to ping the title, but when I think
of endurance, longevity, fortitude, or forward moving like I think
of you. And I called this show now What because
it really boils down to the now what moments in
(23:22):
our lives where we must pivot or where we are
not off balance. I think we've all had many what
is a now what moment for you that stands out?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
It was huge mine, now what it was?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
It was one of my biggest fears other than a
real tragedy was my public humiliation.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Is this on the plane?
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yeah, on the plane where you know someone had you know,
where I had obviously been in huge emotional distress and
a kind of blackout or pass out whatever.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You know. It's just one of those ugly moments.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Google me is what I say when, like someone offers
me a drink and I'm like, no, no, I don't
I don't want one, thank you so much, and they're like.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
No, not really, just try it, and I'm like google me.
So it was like I had it.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
It was like I had to immediately make that decision
once I had been in that predicament where I had
been locked in the room in Mexico with you know,
kind of not a great relationship with with dad, yet
with custody, like trying to make the best of it.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Didn't know I was totally in an MS.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Flare, So I was way more off kilter and emotionally,
you know, and I just gave up my sobriety. I
had had a few years, so to know that happened
on its own. Thank god we didn't have to make
an emergency landing at work. Thank God I didn't, you know,
there was a nurse there. I was oxygen and things
and being taken I don't remember any of it. I
woke up in a taken off a stretcher, woke up
(24:50):
in the hospital with an IV the doctor saying, you know,
you might add a silent heart attack, and I was like, whoa,
where's my son? This is ever happened to? Like where
is my son? What happened? And it was my first
ever blackout with him, of course, well maybe not, of course,
but it was and knowing it was a public humiliation,
(25:11):
knowing that I had really really done a horrendous thing
that was going to be life changing, and I made
in that decision, I mean in that second, I said,
your life has changed, You're done.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
And I felt true apologies for disturbing.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Like a lot of things hit me in that moment,
and it was like, I can't be this person. I'm
going to be sober, and you did, and I want
to I'm interested in how you were, how you recovered.
You could have also been handled with more care and
not taken advantage of by some asshole making it public.
Absolutely not taking into any consideration your son, your dignity.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
No.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
It is interesting though that you that something subconscious chose
something so because you you were very good at doing
it silently. You're very good at doing it quietly.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
And it was a totally It was I think my
angels or whatever it is, that guy just just knows
the my low could only handle a public humiliation. I
could not handle if I killed someone. I could not
handle if I did something. Just so you know that,
I couldn't forgive myself. I'm not saying people shouldn't if
things happened, but it was. This was my first time
(26:27):
being discovered. Maybe in the past boyfriends would experience me
like swearing and being like, you're a like having tantrums,
like as the drunk lady that doesn't realize what they're doing.
That happened in my youth and things, and they'd write
down me like swearing, but that was I never done anything. This,
This was off brand even for me. Cover was blown
because I only drank.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
My cover was fucking blown. This was my only real cover.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
The other ones were always suicide attempts that didn't necessarily
seem alcoholic, but they always were.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
What do you think you learned about yourself since that time?
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Oh gosh that if I am not wasted I'm a
great person, Like I'm great enough. You know, I'm great enough,
you know. But I realize, like, oh, I can get
through like almost anything if I just say, next logical
step in how excel next logical step, I can't get
(27:24):
in too much trouble.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Well, Also, it's physical, it's emotional, it's mental. It's a
mental next step, it's a physical next step. It's a
connection between.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I know I have a long way to go to
feel comfortable in my skin in the heartache way. You know,
I carry around grief. I think a lot of people do,
and I wonder if there's a way to move forward
with really like learning to let that go if it
doesn't serve me anymore.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I don't know how to be that person. I want
to find joy.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I want to believe that like anything can still happen,
not just good enough.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
What are you looking forward to right now?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Long summer nights because I can stay up longer in
the daylight, like because I get out usually once the
sun's setting, you know, in my life, like out of
the house, because then I can like walk more clearly,
I get more relaxed, you know. My nervous system all
that without the inflammatory properties of the sun. So to me,
this is like a whole like more productive and these
(28:25):
are always core memories, these summertimes, at the longer nights
when weather's kind of temperate almost everywhere. But I'm looking
forward to manifesting things. Okay, like what manifesting? Gosh, this
is something I never I don't even know how to do.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And this is a big thing to admit.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
But like love, like I've never worked on a relationship
like truly, truly thinking I deserve something, and I've always,
like my mother's always said, you'll never be with someone
you're not meant to be or I'm too complicated, or
I didn't know not a compromis, or I was always
trying to please the boyfriend that always would make lists
of how to be a better per or that is ridiculous.
Just choosing people that were gonna knock me down like
(29:05):
that was obviously something you know that I was playing into.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
But do you see how a list like that from
a boyfriend is about them? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Of course, I mean, and I think I always did,
but I'd still want to please them even though it's
about them, because I didn't know where i'd get my
next bit of attention paid to me, maybe like genuine attention,
believing it could be loved, Believing somewhere this person could
be a big part of my life. I just had
to work through this, and now I do have a
sense of what I would actually like.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
But not much.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
I've never thought to just manifest, like what would be
great to like?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Who? What kind of person do you want in your life?
I've never made that list. I never thought. I was like,
what's the point? That's gross.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I don't want to chase something. You know what, I
could chase an idea, that's okay. I can chase an
idea like I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
That was Selma Blair And if you want to hear
more from her, check out her new book, Mean Baby.
That's it for us today. Tune in next week now.
What with Brooke Shields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our
lead producer and wonderful showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional research
(30:17):
and editing by Darby Masters and Abu Zafar. Our executive
producer is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Vahid Fraser.
What do you do when life doesn't go according to
plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
with a guest to talk about the times they were
knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
(00:27):
Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
answers one question. Now, what what title do you wear now?
(00:51):
With pride?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I think it's I think it is.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Kind and only a truly deeply kind person would adopt
dog with one eye AM name him Wink.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Oh my god, thank you. I loved Wink. Wink is
still my soul dog.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I remember seeing you with Wink and thinking how cool
that somebody is like that.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
It was my first lesson in like disability and turning
it us ahead to be like kind of a strange.
I just seriously, I know that sounds so silly, but
it was like people at the time were really freaked
out by this one. I dog like I'd see reactions.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
We were outside at a restaurant and I was like, oh,
Someunma was just so happy. And then you were like,
I see the dog you go this is Wink And
I was like, oh my god, I couldn't love you more.
I was like, of course his name is Wank.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Thank you. You know.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Gammero del Toro even named a character Wink and hell
Boy two, so it inspired the greats.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Guamo Brooke liked it.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
My guest today is Selma Blair. She's a brilliant actor,
a mom, an advocate, and an author. She's also remarkably
kind and self reflective, traits that are rare in life
and even more so in Hollywood. Selma's had a long
career on both stage and screen, which has been marked
by blockbuster success in films like Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde,
(02:19):
and a Hellboy. In twenty eighteen, she announced that she
was diagnosed with MS, which was a disease that she
had unknowingly struggled with for many years, and since then
she's chronicled her experience in her documentary Introducing Selma Blair.
She's participated in Dancing with the Stars and She's penned
(02:40):
her book Mean Baby, which is one of the best
memoirs I've ever read. I'm really thrilled that she agreed
to do this show. Here is Selma Blair.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Hi, Oh god, dear Brookshoes.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Is that my book? How long have you had the
Brook Book? That's crazy?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Oh my god, but yeah, that's wild.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
You that Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
No, it had like a library card saying it's mine.
And I wrote Selma Blair because I knew one day
I would be Selma Blair, not Blair Blow. It's the
Brook Book and it was put out in nineteen seventy eight,
and I got it, you know, at about that age.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I was born in seventy two, and.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
It was it has photographs of you and they're all
obviously unbelievably beautiful, and it's like, you know, a little
documentary book. And it was so precious to me. And
I didn't have many things, truly. I only had a
couple of things. Had a book, Grease, the movie this,
you know, there were a couple of things that I had.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Did your mom buy you that book?
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yes, she bought me this book, and she encouraged me
to be okay with your You're going to love this book,
to be okay with you know my face that you know,
my straight brown hair, I want to blonde, and you know,
beautiful eyebrows like yours.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And flat chest.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
There was a picture of you in the Scuola book
and you're a child, and so of course you have
a flat chest. So but I was encouraged because my
flat chest stayed a really long time, in fact to
this day. But anyhow, while for you later on, you know,
it has all these different things, for me, it was
such a pure way to look at the body and
be proud of you, just as you are, flat chested,
(04:23):
a child whatever, with broad shoulders. So to me, your whole,
your whole picture brought about the only self love, honestly,
I could feel about my body because I was so
detached from it too, because I was so busy living
up to a mean baby that could be cleverly mean.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
But you know, it's interesting because when you talk about
labels being sticky, and you say labels are sticky, and
you know, we start with our mothers. Oh that's my
athletic one, Oh that's my arty one, and we don't
think that they have an affect, but they actually can
really have an enduring kind of affect on a person
(04:59):
on the way they go forwar forward in the world.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Right, it seems unavoidable almost, you know. It is just
a thing that parents probably do all the time. But yes,
my mom had a vision for me to be you
or Gwyneth Peltrow type of thing. Your mom had a
big it really was. She was like, just get tall
and beautiful. But anyhow, you had you having this documentary
come out, and I did watch it because of course
I'm still a brook you know, like fandom queen.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
But it was amazing this.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
I mean, you already born pretty, so it was a
self fulfilling prophecy no matter what.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Like that you were pretty baby, and that stuck with you.
Did it bother you when you were little? Like did
you notice it?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
What it did was it detached me entirely from my body.
It detached me from my face. Wow, And it just
meant I was nothing but that, And so I became
vigilant in nurturing everything else that wasn't connected to looking
a certain way.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
But I'm really curious about you. What was your personal
relationship with beauty as a child?
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I didn't think about it as a really little one.
I remember not thinking about it when I was like
two and a half or three, when I started having
memories and I was kind of looked like a boy
and people call me Blair, and I kind of didn't.
I just didn't have that sense of femininity or looking
in the mirror. Maybe I didn't reach the mirror, so
I don't remember thinking anything. And then I remember in
(06:27):
kindergarten I really wanted to wear dresses, but people made
fun of me.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I was still a boy.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
And it wasn't until honestly that I saw your book
because I had really thick eyebrows and people would make
fun of me a little, nothing horrible, but definitely a little.
And my mom got me your book, and that, really,
funnily enough, introduced me to beauty and what I thought
would be amazing to look like and act like your grace.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Really, I don't say this to be a sycophant to you.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I say this because it is amazing that your experien
sperience for you is so different than your experience for me.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
That's so touching for me to hear, because to me
there was arrogance and everything you know, why would I be.
Who's to say? It's so layered too, your mom buying
you that book, and you the person in your book,
and I loved your book and I both read it
and listened to it. And we grew up with very
(07:25):
powerful maternal figures in our lives. And when you write
about your mom, I'm so interested in it because you
say your mom was your first great love.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I can't quite shake it either.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
You know it's still there, which is good, thank God,
because she's my mother and you want to have that feeling.
But she touched and or contaminated every part of my
being just by the sake of being a mother and
being the one I looked to. We're very much only
at each other.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
She's obviously so oppressive, and I think, and she was
a lawyer.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
She was a judge, right, She never even graduated like
Bassa or or high school, and then went on to
Bassa after not graduating high school, and then isn't that amazing?
And then went to law school without having graduated Vassar.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It was like the last and she was one of
the only women in her law school.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
And it was only because she got married, thought she'd
be a doctor's wife. He left and she had a
little baby, and so she sat in her room, played solitaire,
smoked cigarettes for one week, grieved, got up, applied to
law school and said, fucking I'm not going to ever
let anyone boss me around again. So she became a
lawyer and then a judge for forty years. And she
was home by dinner every night at seven.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Took cook for her family. I mean, she sort of
lived her life like a single mother, yea, even though
she was remarried.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
She did, and I viewed her as that, And that's
why my father was rather inconsequential for me. But I
was actually thinking as day of all the things he did.
You know, he put me in good schools, He did
pay for schools and stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
My mom kind of.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Paid for herself and our clothes, and dad paid for
education in camps.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
And all that.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
But the mother is your lifeline, you know, It's the
umbilical cord.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
It was shocking when my mother died. Did you feel
that too?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I watched it and I thought, if I watch it,
I will believe it's true.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Right, I will absorb everything I should of this and
it will go through me and it will be natural.
Nothing about it and I and had nothing prepared me
for the I felt.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
I still do. I felt a drift.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Were you with her?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
No, it was COVID. It was in the beginning of COVID.
I had no idea. It was just a shock. It
was the beginning of COVID. So even though my mother
and I was writing the book and it just on
the bone marrow transplant, and I couldn't get to her
or my family or any of it, there was no closure.
It's still painful to think about what we all went
(09:53):
through and what.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
We all go through in life.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
What we all go through, it's amazing we get up
the next day sometimes when I think of it, because
it was the thing that would break my heart. Of
course people go through much worse, but on the scale
of things that break your heart and leave you with
a sense of things you can't resolve, it's not being there.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Where was it with your mom when she died?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
It was well, she started having some you know, forgetful
like things were happening to her. So it got quite
detached and I had to just think, she's gone already.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Did she recognize you?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
She did?
Speaker 3 (10:30):
She The last time I saw her, I said, can
you give me a kiss and she was like, ah no,
and I was like, oh, it's her because she hated
giving kisses and hugging and all I wanted was that.
So she did, and she kissed me on my forehead gently, gently,
and I had my sister take a picture, even though
she looked awful, and she would kill me if she
knew I took that picture. But it meant everything to
have my mother gently kissing my hand because she never really,
(10:52):
it'll never be enough, you know, I still turn into
my mother would say, Maudelin. You know, she'd make fun
of me. Oh, it's almost dot acting up that beautiful.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Brilliant woman.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Brookshields and audience don't want to hear you sniveling about
your dead mother, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I mean, she was just tough.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
My mother would be like, keep talking about me, Just
keep talking about me. Forget who you're interview got.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
She was worthy of it. She made a good one.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
But it is amazing how in perspective I've let go
of the things that upset me and I only want
to think of love, like I really am turning to
that to not consciously pivoting in my life. And I
did that with my sobriety and then even more when
I felt I can trust myself with the diagnosis and
all those things, and so the things like mother or
(11:40):
the pain of mother dying in COVID or all those things,
I just I just look at classrooms now, you know things.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I guess I need it, or I needed so I
could help someone else.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Looking back, I was really shocked when I read your book,
because I had just no idea that you were struggling
in your personal life. You were a household name, but
you were never tabloid fodder.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
No. I was always a loner.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
You know, I'm a loner that talks a lot when
I'm out in public. But also because I was a drinker,
I knew I couldn't control it because I had done
it very young and knew I would get myself in
bad situation.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
So by the time I was.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Grown enough to have moved here, I really didn't go
out and drink much.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
That happened like once.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
To drink alone, I drank. That's a very good alcoholic.
You were a very good alcoholic.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
I was a purist. I was a purist was.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
A true meaning of functioning alcoholic because it never interfered
with right.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I'm sure I could have chosen like better made better choices,
and I could have had maybe a less complicated life
if I didn't have drinking. But then I also think
would I have survived it because I was also I
thought so depressive. I have no idea if it was
m as fatigue or depression. It's hard to have a
vocabulary for what you don't know you are. It's just
like a low, so I don't know. I never really
(13:11):
knew what I was feeling. The drinking definitely masked physical
and emotional just so I.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Could bear life.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So it was a crutch.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
It was a crutch, It was a life raft.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
It was saving me until I not stop and I
was not engaging normally and going through things in real time.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
But you said you started at seven years old. What
crutch do you think you needed at seven to start
sipping all the drinks?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I remember feeling shame at age three about what shame
because I didn't had to do with In preschool, I
was spanked by the teacher because I was didn't clean
something up that wasn't mine, blah blah blah, and I
was and I stood up for myself and she put
me over her lap, and she repeatedly hit me as
(13:57):
I cried, I'm sad, I'm sad, because I had an
that said what I said, what do I say if
I feel like I don't want to go on?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
And she said, you have to tell people.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
If you're sad, you tell people, And so I took
her advice, and in that moment of panic, I you know,
as she was slapping me and through my tears at
the other kids, I said, I'm.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Sad, I'm sad, and she didn't stop. And it puts
such a distrust in the world.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
And then when I started getting sick or losing my
eyesight and they couldn't see it because it was a
brain thing, and that was also distrust in myself because
they were saying, it's it's she's I don't know why
she's so sensitive. So those two things made me very
afraid of the world at a very young age. I
was sensitive person, I guess, and I was terrified. So
that drink at age seven of not feeling I told
(14:43):
trust myself, not believed what I said, or it wouldn't
be heard, or you know, life moved fast. I was
one of four kids. I was sensitive. Maybe I had
an asshole of a teacher. It was a different time.
I didn't know how to say things in the right
tone of voice. I have no idea, but I have.
I had an emotionally hard time for whatever reason, and
(15:04):
I didn't trust myself, and the drinking was a huge self.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Well, nobody was allowing you. They weren't validating any of
your emotions.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Do you remember when you like, when you first started
what you now know is juvenile MS.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
It was probably when I was like six or seven,
and it was an optical the writis issue, but that
was never looked into.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
It's just called a lazy eye.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
But then once we did other tesla and then I
had optical the writis again at twenty three, and it
was always my symptoms of MS, whether it was pre
dromal or whatever is called.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Whatever it was, it was very similar and optical the writis.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
And I just I was not believed, and I lost
bladder function and things were happening, and alosh dan los
and so a kidney kind of fell and things were
happening that just were showing I was having a struggle,
you know, with my nervous system and stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
What's striking to me how long you had it?
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I know, and if I were a boy, I do
believe there was one doctor, and it was after I
had It was actually my eye doctor, of all things,
but it was he after I had overdosed from extreme
grief about something. I was put in my first rehab
at twenty on my twenty third birthday, and I got
sober for the first time. But the my father, Elliott,
(16:22):
took me to go get like, while you're in town
from New York, let's get your appointments.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
And I went to the eye doctor.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I was twitching and having all these ticks, which I'd
never had this long, and these things from this episode
of this overdose caused a little bit of brain trauma,
and the eye doctor, after looking in my eye, just said,
do you have MS?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
You know?
Speaker 3 (16:44):
It was like I thought it would be something you'd know,
you know, like I didn't know what MS really was,
but I knew that it was maybe movement or breathing.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
I didn't really know, but it was like more.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Extreme than anything I, you know, any doctor ever told
me I had.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
And I was searching for a long time.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I had all these you know, autoimmune issues that kind
of racked up. So he said it, and then I
did I went to a neurologist, but by that time
that the optical the writis had faded and so he
didn't see it, which happens with MS. But he never
did give me an MRI, even though I also had
the tics and everything. He said, oh, those are just
my chronic seizures from you know, the little bit of
brain damage. It'll go away as that goes away, And
(17:22):
it's like, oh my god, they were such clear signs
of MSS.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
I mean, how do you think things would have been
different if you had gotten the diagnose earlier.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
I think my emotional state would have been a lot
stronger because I would have had some realization that I
could trust myself, that I could get back into my body,
that there'd be a way to sort through this kind
of distance I had for myself because I was scared
and didn't trust myself. I thought, well, I'm just hyper sensitive,
So that would have done something for me. It would
(17:49):
have probably saved a couple of years of grief in
my life.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
But I don't know if I was ready.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
I wasn't ready, I guess, because I think they would
have considered a very harsh diagnosis. Then I might not
have gone on this same way and I was still drinking.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
How many times did it take you? I say this
because my mother was in rehab three or four times,
arrested a couple of times, and never got sober. But
whenever I hear and see a story of sobriety and
the work that it takes every day, I know that
and it's forever. But when I look at the years
(18:21):
of sobriety, I'm in such awe of what place you
had to get to to get there? How many times
did it take?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
I am too.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I'm so grateful that I'm not, you know, gone, because
I have a son and there's things now that I
have a different perspective on life, and I'm very grateful
I'm here.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
But it took me.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
God, I started with attempted, like real ways to hurt myself,
like very young too, So I got in that mode
and I didn't build the other stuff, you know, positive affirmations.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
And kept going down.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
So I'd say that my first real sobriety was at
that twenty three and it was only like a few years.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Oh God, I must have had to get sober. I'm
not joking twenty times.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Did you have a good therapist?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I do.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
I actually have a therapist. Now, that's a huge comfort
and like a lightning rod for me. But I didn't
find you know, I really do for me though, I
really had to go through it and no therapy was
gonna help me until I understood that I actually also
had something neurologically wrong with me, because I just keep
beating myself up.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
But how did you You hit it?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Though?
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I mean like, I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
But getting sober it took until I prayed.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
I'm not joking, but I prayed every night since I
was twenty three.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Please God make a miracle that I stay sober.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Please God give me the dignity of my humanity to
have me not die drunk.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
I don't know why that counted to me.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
I'm not saying someone's undignified if they die a drunk,
but to me, I wanted to say I died in
this body.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I pray that remains the case, and every day I
will be on that.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
But I do feel the miracle kind of has happened
of a different perspective also, where I do feel stronger
in that I absolutely feel I need and want to
be sober. I didn't want to before.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Part of the reason I asked you to be on
this show is that I think you are such an inspiration.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I mean dancing with the Stars, I can't even.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
It was terrifying to me.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I never wanted to do it, never, never, never, except
when you were young.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
You did Circus of the Stars.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
I did the Stars. I first trained the dogs. I
trained the dogs.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
And do you know I was most I remember that,
And I was most likely in my high school yearbook
at Cranbrooke, Me and Todd Kessler, who's now a brilliant writer, director,
truly brilliant damages all these things. He and I were
voted most likely to be an circumcars And then it's like,
oh my god, it I kind of manifested because that
doesn't exist anymore. But dancing with the Start is something
(21:05):
I never wanted to do. I am not someone that
has rhythm in the sweetest thing. I needed to be trained,
like ten years. It felt like to just do like
the electric slide.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So what made you say yes?
Speaker 3 (21:16):
What made me say yes is something really horrible to
me happened in my life for a moment that I'm
now recovered from. But and I was really going back
into old patterns not harming, but like the will my
life force went so down with this hit, you know,
this emotional hit I had. And then when Sasha, my
(21:36):
neighbor and now friend, came to me, and he had
asked a couple times through the years, come on, you
want to do that, and I'm like, I never, never,
don't ever ask me. And so when he did this time,
and he kind of convinced me, like, just come with
me for an hour and like, let's see how you move,
Let's see if you can be taught. And I went
and dancing with him, just doing like a simple like
(21:57):
rumba or something.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
I don't know. I realized if he holding my hand
and if I repeat.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
The step enough, I could get my step where it
wasn't like dystonic if it were slow enough. And I thought,
oh wow, this hour with him felt better than the
last fifty hours of my life where I was sitting
in fear. So let me get out and at least
have these hours then with this person showing me something.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
And it turned out to be so rewarding and beautiful.
And I loved everyone on.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
That show, and they loved you, and the people loved you,
and you looked so beautiful. Oh god, it was.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I'm so touched that you say it. But we all
like want to have that moment. Maybe not all of.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Us, but we all want to have some type of moment,
some type of moment that we feel we overcame something
that was maybe simple to other people.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
So pat on the back to me. Yeah, you know
for MS, because my MS is.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Very emotionally activated, the ticks and the motion and stuff.
So that was a fear like, oh God, I'm gonna
and I wouldn't have been able to do it without
the goodwill of the people that had been behind me
in general, like rooting me on through all that I showed.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
But that's a testament to you as a survivor. And
I used to ping the title, but when I think
of endurance, longevity, fortitude, or forward moving like I think
of you. And I called this show now What because
it really boils down to the now what moments in
(23:22):
our lives where we must pivot or where we are
not off balance. I think we've all had many what
is a now what moment for you that stands out?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
It was huge mine, now what it was?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
It was one of my biggest fears other than a
real tragedy was my public humiliation.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Is this on the plane?
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Yeah, on the plane where you know someone had you know,
where I had obviously been in huge emotional distress and
a kind of blackout or pass out whatever.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You know. It's just one of those ugly moments.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Google me is what I say when, like someone offers
me a drink and I'm like, no, no, I don't
I don't want one, thank you so much, and they're like.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
No, not really, just try it, and I'm like google me.
So it was like I had it.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
It was like I had to immediately make that decision
once I had been in that predicament where I had
been locked in the room in Mexico with you know,
kind of not a great relationship with with dad, yet
with custody, like trying to make the best of it.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Didn't know I was totally in an MS.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Flare, So I was way more off kilter and emotionally,
you know, and I just gave up my sobriety. I
had had a few years, so to know that happened
on its own. Thank god we didn't have to make
an emergency landing at work. Thank God I didn't, you know,
there was a nurse there. I was oxygen and things
and being taken I don't remember any of it. I
woke up in a taken off a stretcher, woke up
(24:50):
in the hospital with an IV the doctor saying, you know,
you might add a silent heart attack, and I was like, whoa,
where's my son? This is ever happened to? Like where
is my son? What happened? And it was my first
ever blackout with him, of course, well maybe not, of course,
but it was and knowing it was a public humiliation,
(25:11):
knowing that I had really really done a horrendous thing
that was going to be life changing, and I made
in that decision, I mean in that second, I said,
your life has changed, You're done.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
And I felt true apologies for disturbing.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Like a lot of things hit me in that moment,
and it was like, I can't be this person. I'm
going to be sober, and you did, and I want
to I'm interested in how you were, how you recovered.
You could have also been handled with more care and
not taken advantage of by some asshole making it public.
Absolutely not taking into any consideration your son, your dignity.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
No.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
It is interesting though that you that something subconscious chose
something so because you you were very good at doing
it silently. You're very good at doing it quietly.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
And it was a totally It was I think my
angels or whatever it is, that guy just just knows
the my low could only handle a public humiliation. I
could not handle if I killed someone. I could not
handle if I did something. Just so you know that,
I couldn't forgive myself. I'm not saying people shouldn't if
things happened, but it was. This was my first time
(26:27):
being discovered. Maybe in the past boyfriends would experience me
like swearing and being like, you're a like having tantrums,
like as the drunk lady that doesn't realize what they're doing.
That happened in my youth and things, and they'd write
down me like swearing, but that was I never done anything. This,
This was off brand even for me. Cover was blown
because I only drank.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
My cover was fucking blown. This was my only real cover.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
The other ones were always suicide attempts that didn't necessarily
seem alcoholic, but they always were.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
What do you think you learned about yourself since that time?
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Oh gosh that if I am not wasted I'm a
great person, Like I'm great enough. You know, I'm great enough,
you know. But I realize, like, oh, I can get
through like almost anything if I just say, next logical
step in how excel next logical step, I can't get
(27:24):
in too much trouble.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Well, Also, it's physical, it's emotional, it's mental. It's a
mental next step, it's a physical next step. It's a
connection between.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I know I have a long way to go to
feel comfortable in my skin in the heartache way. You know,
I carry around grief. I think a lot of people do,
and I wonder if there's a way to move forward
with really like learning to let that go if it
doesn't serve me anymore.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I don't know how to be that person. I want
to find joy.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
I want to believe that like anything can still happen,
not just good enough.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
What are you looking forward to right now?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Long summer nights because I can stay up longer in
the daylight, like because I get out usually once the
sun's setting, you know, in my life, like out of
the house, because then I can like walk more clearly,
I get more relaxed, you know. My nervous system all
that without the inflammatory properties of the sun. So to me,
this is like a whole like more productive and these
(28:25):
are always core memories, these summertimes, at the longer nights
when weather's kind of temperate almost everywhere. But I'm looking
forward to manifesting things. Okay, like what manifesting? Gosh, this
is something I never I don't even know how to do.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And this is a big thing to admit.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
But like love, like I've never worked on a relationship
like truly, truly thinking I deserve something, and I've always,
like my mother's always said, you'll never be with someone
you're not meant to be or I'm too complicated, or
I didn't know not a compromis, or I was always
trying to please the boyfriend that always would make lists
of how to be a better per or that is ridiculous.
Just choosing people that were gonna knock me down like
(29:05):
that was obviously something you know that I was playing into.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
But do you see how a list like that from
a boyfriend is about them? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Of course, I mean, and I think I always did,
but I'd still want to please them even though it's
about them, because I didn't know where i'd get my
next bit of attention paid to me, maybe like genuine attention,
believing it could be loved, Believing somewhere this person could
be a big part of my life. I just had
to work through this, and now I do have a
sense of what I would actually like.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
But not much.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
I've never thought to just manifest, like what would be
great to like?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Who? What kind of person do you want in your life?
I've never made that list. I never thought. I was like,
what's the point? That's gross.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I don't want to chase something. You know what, I
could chase an idea, that's okay. I can chase an
idea like I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
That was Selma Blair And if you want to hear
more from her, check out her new book, Mean Baby.
That's it for us today. Tune in next week now.
What with Brooke Shields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our
lead producer and wonderful showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional research
(30:17):
and editing by Darby Masters and Abu Zafar. Our executive
producer is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Vahid Fraser.
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