Sorry Not Sorry

by Naya Rivera

  For roping Madison into helping me trash Mark’s car (though I know she secretly enjoyed it).

  NOT SORRY:

  Holding on to my virginity until after high school, and then losing it on my terms.

  The whore years. Now I know what’s out there—and, trust me, it’s not much.

  That I could share good and bad experiences with my mom, and knowing she has my back through it all.

  Sharing my story. I know I’ll be judged for it, but if I’m able to help even one girl in a similar situation feel less alone—then bring it on.

  Finally falling in love. With the right guy.

  Getting a second chance at parenthood with the person I was always meant to be a parent with.

  7

  THE BEST WORST YEAR EVER

  Learning to Weather the Storms

  HAVE YOU EVER heard of Saturn’s return? I first learned about it on set, from Jenna Ushkowitz, who talked about it a lot during the year she turned twenty-eight. Saturn’s return is an astrological concept that basically says that in your late twenties, when the planet Saturn completes an orbit around the sun, it bitch-slaps you and turns your life into a total shit show. It’s not fun, but if you can ride it out and not lose your mind, then there is a light at the end of the tunnel—clarity. At least that’s how it worked for me, thank God.

  To rewind a bit.

  I met my ex-fiancé, a.k.a. Big Sean, on Twitter. I know, I know—so 2013 of us, right? While filming Glee, I was bored on set one day and tweeted something about a song of his. I didn’t even really know anything about him; I just liked his music, so I didn’t think much about it.

  Then later that day, he DM’d me—“Thanks, lady. I’m a big fan of yours too, keep up the good work.” Whoa, I thought, he watches Glee? I was sitting with Lea between takes, and I read her the message.

  “Oh my God,” I said, “am I going to date this rapper?”

  She shrugged—“Maybe?” And then sure enough, that was exactly what happened.

  Sean was on an international tour at the time, so we started talking on Twitter, and after I gave him my number, texting. Soon, we progressed to real-live phone calls. I was living in Beverly Hills at the time, and my house was this weird black hole with no cell reception. Lucy, my dog, got a lot of walks in those days, because the park was the only place where my phone seemed to work.

  He’d call me whenever he had downtime, and we cycled through all the normal getting-to-know-you topics: music, work, family, friends. Every once in a while, he’d try to be slutty, but I always shut him down real fast.

  “Oh, you’re going to spin class? You must know how to ride.”

  “This is going nowhere if you keep talking like that,” I’d threaten.

  Even before we’d met in person, I was really excited about it. It was fun to tell people who I was talking to—they’d always freak out: “The rapper? No way!!”

  The day he finally got back into town, he called me and asked me to go to dinner. A real date—I liked that. We went to Dominick’s on Beverly, and he pulled up in a white Mercedes.

  Sean was a few years younger than me, but he seemed mature from the beginning. I remember thinking it was really classy that he had a Goyard wallet. I had a Goyard suitcase, and I thought, “That’s a different kind of rapper. Most rappers just know about Louis Vuitton.” I liked how he wasn’t super flashy, and the conversation flowed well through dinner. His mom was an English teacher, and he was smart and articulate, and it felt like we had a lot in common—we were even born in the same hospital in Santa Monica. When he talked about getting signed, it was cool to see that he was as passionate as I was about making it. He also didn’t seem like one of those guys who’s just into hearing himself talk—he actually asked me questions too, and really listened when I told stories.

  At the end of the night, as we stood outside waiting for the valet to bring our cars around, he asked me if I wanted to come over—tomorrow. Whoa! One, he wasn’t trying to sleep with me on the first date, and two, we already had a second date scheduled. Cheers to that. The next day, I took him up on his offer and went over to his house. We watched Netflix, made out, and I spent the night.

  Then I woke up in a panic at 6:00 a.m. It was like one of those cartoon wake-ups where your eyes pop open, and you gasp and bolt upright in bed. Had I really just spent the night with a rapper? Rap ho was not the look I was going for, so with my shoes in my hand, I snuck out of his house while he was still asleep. There was a marathon in Los Angeles that day—streets were closed and traffic was rerouted in all kinds of directions—and I remember thinking that I was never going to get home. Not only had I made a terrible mistake, but I was also going to die in my car on Sunset Boulevard, barefoot and gasping for water. As I always did in those kinds of situations, I called my mom to talk me off the ledge.

  I honestly thought I was never going to hear from him again, but I’d barely gotten home when he called me and asked me to come to his birthday party. It was the next night, and I had nothing to wear. I bought a brand-new Maison Martin Margiela jumpsuit, and they had to fly my size in from New York. The party was at Wolfgang’s Steakhouse in Beverly Hills, and Sean’s whole family had come in from Detroit for the occasion. I went alone, and took a deep breath as I walked in the door. There were all kinds of people there whom I recognized, like Wiz Khalifa and Jhené Aiko.

  I found Sean, wished him a happy birthday, and asked where I was sitting. As I scanned the room, I wondered how many of these other girls he was hooking up with and how much work it had taken to make sure we were all seated at different tables.

  “Oh,” he said, “you’re next to me.” I choked on my champagne. Next to him meant the inner-circle table. What’s more, I was right across from his mom. I imagined her asking me how I knew her son.

  “Well,” I’d say, “we met on Twitter and hooked up two nights ago.” I downed the rest of my glass.

  I didn’t need to worry, though, as dinner wasn’t awkward at all. His mom turned out to be really into alternative medicine, and we talked about colonics the whole night. Neither one of us was the kind of person who finds talking about colonics awkward, and I even promised to hook her up with my girl the next time she was in town.

  It was only a day or two later that Sean had to do a radio interview with Power 106 in Los Angeles. The DJ was teasing him, asking him who was the hottest girl he’d ever been with. I was driving down the freeway at the time, listening because he’d told me about it, and when he didn’t miss a beat and immediately said, “Naya,” I almost wrecked my car. I remember looking at the lady in the car next to me and wondering, “Does she know what just happened?”

  Well, if Sean and I weren’t official, we were at least public. And then it became official not too long after that. One night we were at his house, sitting on the couch, when he turned to me and said, “Naya, will you be my girlfriend?” No one had asked me that since elementary school, and I was thrilled. Great, I thought, got a boyfriend now! Check that box off.

  I think Sean fell in love very quickly, and it was genuine, even if in retrospect, it seemed like a child falling in love with a new toy. But I was equally swept up in it. He was fancy! He had a big personality and always liked to be at the center of attention wherever he went, so when his attention was on me, it made me feel like, well, at least three million bucks. He sang to me, and when he rapped about me in a Drake song (“My new girl is on Glee and shit / Probably makin’ more money than me and shit”), it made me so proud, because I felt like he was proud of me. Dudes (if there are any of you reading this book), piece of advice here: being supportive of a woman’s career and aspirations is a guaranteed way to knock her off her feet.

  After six months of dating, we were engaged.

  We were in Detroit when he decided to pop the question. I don’t think he’d given it much thought. I’d flown out for one of his shows, which
was a big deal to him because this was his hometown, so he knew tons of people there, and it was a crowd that had always supported his career. He wanted to blow their minds, but, instead, a whole bunch of technical problems turned the show into a complete disaster.

  He was really upset about the whole thing, and I felt bad for him. Back at the hotel, we had a long heart-to-heart, just sitting on the balcony and talking for hours. I tried to be the epitome of a supportive girlfriend that night, as I talked him up and tried to lift his spirits. “Who cares?” I said, and reminded him that it was just one bad show in a string of awesome ones. Overall, he was still doing great.

  My pep talk must have worked a little too well. Because later that night, when we were in bed and about to fall asleep, he rolled over and nudged me awake. “Hey,” he said, “do you want to get married?”

  Ummmmmmm, whhhhhhhhhattttt? I was suddenly no longer sleepy but wide awake and totally incredulous. Was he seriously asking me that, right now? Where was my ring? Where was my anything? I thought he was just joking, which I also thought was a totally assholish thing to do, and so we got into a huge fight. I even grabbed my pillow and tried to sleep in the other room. Eventually he sweet-talked me back into bed, and also into agreeing to marry him. Okay, so we were going to get married.

  Or whatever.

  He could be quite the charmer when he wanted to be, but since I still wasn’t 100 percent convinced that he was serious, I didn’t want to let myself get too excited. The next morning we were having breakfast with all his people and his mom, who I hadn’t seen since the steak house colonic discussion. Without consulting me, and in between bites of waffles, he announced to the entire table that we were engaged. “Well, that’s not a surprise!” his mom squealed as I spilled my coffee. Just like that, I had a fiancé.

  Once we got back to LA, he officially proposed—complete with a private dinner at his house and a drive that ended back at the site of our first date. But the ring was barely sparkling on my finger for a minute before the problems became too big to ignore. For starters, it seemed like he spent more time out of state than in it. I hadn’t minded his constant travel or the physical distance all that much before, but now that we were planning a wedding—a wedding that was his idea in the first place—not being able to get a hold of him was more than just an annoyance; it was a serious issue.

  Once the wedding became something real, it seemed like he wanted no part of it. I couldn’t even get a guest list from him, which was a double pain in the ass because all these rappers had aliases! Like I knew what Wiz’s real name was! So there I was, trying to be a grown-up about a grown-up thing and navigate all the practicalities like, Where are we going to live? Are you moving into this house or should I sell this house? Let’s get this prenup signed. But I was doing it all on my own, and I might as well have been blasting my texts straight into outer space for all the response I was getting.

  I was starting to see that the realities of a relationship just weren’t sexy to a rapper who wanted to have his cake and not just eat it too but spread frosting all over the place. (Too much? Sorry not sorry!)

  Naturally, we started to fight. The more disinterested he acted, the more I’d pull back and try to freeze him out, or just get pissed off, though neither tactic ever seemed to lead to any kind of resolution. Once, we’d been fighting for five straight days while he was traveling, and then on the one day that he was back in LA, he said he didn’t want to see me. I was like, “Well, asshole, I’ve got a key to your house, so I’m just going to come see you.”

  I walk in, go downstairs, and guess what little girl is sitting cross-legged on the couch listening to music? C’mon, people, I’m not going to tell you, but you can guess because it’s not that hard! (It rhymes with “Smariana Schmande,” if you’re really having a hard time.)

  Finally, he suggested we go to couples therapy. I wasn’t entirely enthusiastic about the idea, because I felt like he’d messed things up and was now trying to get me to help him fix it, but against my better judgment (yes, I know, again) I agreed.

  For our first therapy session, he was late. I was sitting there like a truant kid in the principal’s office as the therapist kept asking, “Is he lost? Should I call him?” After twenty-five minutes of being alone at couples therapy, he showed up—wearing an all-over weed-print sweatshirt with a giant picture of four asses in thongs on the front. That was the shirt he’d chosen to wear to try and work out our issues? It was so ridiculous that I might have even laughed, had I not been so mad and embarrassed. Also, it wasn’t like we could even begin to work out our issues because the session was half over by the time he got there.

  The next time, he was prompt, but when I brought up a major issue we’d had, he went ballistic. Listening to his reaction to what I thought was a very valid concern, I almost blacked out; like, I’m supposed to marry this person sitting next to me? Who is this person? The panic rising in my throat, I blurted out: “This isn’t going to work! We don’t belong together!”

  “Wow,” he said. “Do you really feel that way?”

  “Yeah,” I answered. “Right now I do.”

  Finally, he was being serious and hearing me out, and after a conversation we decided—together—to postpone the wedding.

  But back to that whole him not-dealing-with-real-life thing—when you postpone a wedding, there’s money involved, and we’d already sent out our save-the-dates. We had to pick out a new time to get married, but before we could, he left town again. Then I was stuck with my mom and wedding planners calling me to ask when the new date was, and all I had to tell them was, “Um, I don’t know . . .”

  But even with all that, I was still in—amazingly enough. Then the straw that broke the camel’s back was a Rolex.

  On our third date, he’d given me a Rolex watch, a fancy gift that I’d initially resisted. It wasn’t my style, but he pressed it on me, as it was something he’d had for a minute and now wanted to pass on to me. Shortly before everything started to go down in flames, he’d asked me to start wearing it more often, so it was in my regular rotation and I always kept it in the same place. But this time, when I went to look for it, the Rolex was gone. Call it woman’s intuition, but I knew immediately what, or who, had happened to it.

  In my mind, taking something from someone’s house without telling them amounts to theft, even if it is something you gave them. If he’d wanted it back, all he had to do was ask. I was pissed, and it was another WTF moment in this rapidly deteriorating relationship. “Are you stealing things from me now?” I asked when I called him, and he stammered that the only reason he’d taken the watch was to get it rewound. Likely story—people had seen him wearing the watch, and he’d even had it on when he took my brother to a Dodgers game.

  In one of my weakest moments OF ALL TIME, I tweeted about it. And, alas, between our millions of combined followers, such a tweet did not go unnoticed—even when I realized what I had done and deleted it as fast as I could. That tweet shall henceforth be known as “The One Time I Showed My Ass on Twitter.”

  He responded in kind, but in a way, way bigger fashion: he had his publicist release a statement saying the wedding wasn’t just postponed, but that he’d decided to call it off. So I learned that I was no longer getting married from THE INTERNET, and at the same time as the rest of the world. And, not only were we no longer getting married, but apparently we weren’t even together anymore.

  You know that thing you do in sixth grade where you have your best friend break up with your boyfriend for you? This was like that times a million, and we were adults (well, at least one of us was). It wasn’t like your typical celebrity breakup, where a couple releases a joint statement yammering on about “irreconcilable differences.” Instead, he did it on his own, and basically said, “Yup, dumped that bitch.”

  It was sad and beyond hurtful, but at least the relationship had finally come to an end—I didn’t love him enough to be
come a better person, and it was clear that he didn’t love me enough to boss up either. As soon as I calmed down enough to take a step back, I could see exactly what had driven our relationship, and why it hadn’t worked: we liked the glitz and glam that came with being together more than we actually liked each other. When I heard the word “engagement,” I thought marriage, babies, picket fence (albeit a really, really fancy picket fence), but I guess he was just thinking PUBLICITY, PUBLICITY, PUBLICITY.

  At the time, I didn’t really pick up on this, though, because I was so caught up in it. I’d lose track of whose event was whose. When we were going to a party, or had a photo shoot, I didn’t know whether the invite had come from my publicist or his. Either way, he got his picture taken and I brushed off the fact that I no longer did anything on my own. I just thought, “Oh, we’re a dynamic power couple—of course we’re here together.”

  It became clear to me that a lot of things he did in the name of being “supportive” were really just attempts to share the spotlight. When I had a single drop and it was my turn to do an interview at Power 106, Sean showed up with a bottle of champagne. Just here to support you, babe! But then why are you on the mic? Why are you answering questions about my song?

  I guess that’s his MO—flash forward to him on the Grammys’ red carpet with “Smariana.” It was her first time being nominated and now, when she looks back at pictures of that night, he’s going to be in all of them. And they’re not even together anymore. Just stop. If you’re really a supportive man, then you know when to step aside and let your lady be the center of attention. You don’t need to literally stand in front of her to prove you were there. You can just as easily make your point from the sidelines.

  As soon as my relationship with Sean was over, I recognized that this was a good thing. I think deep down I had always had little twinges of doubt here and there, but, man, do I wish I would have paid attention to them. I would have saved myself a whole lot of trouble.