Sorry Not Sorry

by Naya Rivera

  With the straightening, the parting, the clipping, and everything else that went along with my new straight-hair lifestyle, plus my extensive journaling and list making, my nights were booked solid. It’s amazing I found the time to not eat.

  Now that I’m pushing thirty, I don’t have to do anything to my hair anymore. And, no, this is not a good thing—it’s just that after three decades of fighting with your hair, it gives up. My hair may blow out easily now, but it’s also thin, and I wish I could get back the amount of hair I used to have, even if that hair was super curly.

  I felt the same way about my hair as a lot of mixed and black women do. A lot of us have complicated feelings about what grows out of our head, and I think that’s because, deep down, most of us have been conditioned to try to blend, pass, or fit in. White people are always trying to tell ethnic women what they should and shouldn’t do with their hair—here’s how you “tame” those “unmanageable” curls; or here are “professional” hairstyles, a.k.a. styles that look the most white.

  Even if there were a couple of ethnic Cabbage Patch Kids, most “other” little girls grow up being constantly exposed to blond-haired, blue-eyed women as the ideal of beauty. We know we can never look like that, so eventually we start to interpret that to mean that we can never be beautiful either. It’s an identity issue passed off as a bad hair day.

  It cracks me up that having a weave used to be something that only “ghetto” black women did, as if it was some kind of shameful shortcut. Now every white girl I know is running around with hair glued to her head.

  And my hair may be straight now, but I am never without extensions. They’re how I get my powers and where I keep my secrets.

  My extensions will never tell.

  BLACK-AND-WHITE ISSUES

  My family has never been very PC. When we’re together, we represent blacks, whites, and Latinos, and that makes us feel like we could say whatever we want. However, when I’m not with my family, it’s hard to take a lighthearted approach to talking about race. I learned this firsthand when I cohosted The View and made a comment about how showering daily is such a white-people thing. I said this because my husband showers a lot.

  The words were barely out of my mouth before people were up in arms about it. Some people thought it was racist against white people; some people thought it was racist against minorities because it implied that they were dirty. I apologized, and was truly sorry to have offended anyone, because that wasn’t my intention. The backlash from my offhand comment drove home just how hard it is to talk about race, especially when you’re biracial. I love a good “white people be like” joke, but I guess people think I’m too white, or maybe not white enough, to make them. Never mind that I’ve been called the N-word to my face more than once. Sigh. You can’t win.

  That’s also the case with a lot of castings—a lot of the entertainment industry sees race as such a black-and-white issue, which can be pretty limiting when you don’t fit entirely into either category.

  I think of the nineties, when I was a kid, as the golden era of black sitcoms—when a lot of shows like Family Matters or The Fresh Prince were family comedies with black casts. They weren’t necessarily about being black. There also weren’t a ton of Latino roles in those days, so it was very natural for me to be cast as a black girl.

  Now it seems like there’s a lot less leeway in the roles that are written for nonwhite characters, in that race will inevitably play a big part in how they act and what they say. During a recent pilot season, it seemed like there were a bunch of new black shows in development. I had the opportunity to audition for one of them, playing the wife of a well-known black comedian. As soon as I got the script, though, I knew this wasn’t the part for me, as every other line was something about being a sista. Coming out of my mouth, it would not have worked.

  I called and explained this to my agent. He agreed, and called the casting director to see if there was any leeway. He called me back a few minutes later. “They said, ‘We don’t care how much black she has in her. She just has to have some.’” That, right there, was enough for me, and I didn’t go to the audition.

  At this point in my career, I’ve been acting for more than twenty years. You would think that, over the course of two decades, I’d have witnessed industry stereotypes and racial prejudice evaporate, but unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. My race is just as big a deal in 2016 as it was in 1996, and I recently had a white executive tell me that the size of my lips was “too distracting” for the role I wanted to play.

  That kind of comment is so stupid that it should just make me laugh—and it does, in a small way—but it’s still hurtful. It’s hard to think that I did a better job than some white girl, but that she’s probably still going to get the part for reasons that are entirely outside of my control. Shouldn’t we have moved past that by now?

  The sad truth is that a lot of the roles that are available for black or Latino actors are stereotypes. They’re not nuanced, three-dimensional characters; they’re black guys who have only white friends but still call everyone “my brotha.” Whenever I see a role like this, I’m reminded that somewhere there’s a white executive who shoehorned a few nonwhite characters in last minute, because they didn’t want to get fired for not having any diversity on the network that quarter. And that sucks.

  Granted, there is more diversity on TV now than ever before, but I still look forward to the day when black and Latino and Asian and all us “others” actors can just be, you know, actors.

  Wouldn’t that be swell.

  SORRY:

  Being so mean to my hair that it decided to leave me. Come back, come back!

  That I wore a wet T-shirt to school basically every day of junior high. It sounds sexy, but, yeah, it wasn’t.

  Offending anyone with my comments on The View. I know it’s hard enough out there for people of color, and I don’t want to make anything worse.

  That actors are still typecast based on their races. Twenty-first century, people—let’s get with it!

  Racist Twitter trolls. I’d tell you to fuck off, but you’re not worth my time.

  NOT SORRY:

  About being an other.

  For sticking up for every part of myself, even if it was just the one-quarter that was black.

  For rocking the shit out of my scrunched hair.

  For never fitting into one particular group of friends, and therefore getting a taste of different cultures.

  9

  BFFS, BAD GIRLS, BITCHES, AND MY MOM

  Learning to Love the Ladies

  I DON’T HAVE A ton of friends, and I never have. I don’t have a gaggle of girlfriends that I go everywhere with, I don’t wake up to forty-seven new messages in a group text every morning, and I don’t have standing girls’ nights where we drink wine and talk shit on everyone we know.

  And you know why? Because I like it that way.

  When it comes to friends, I’ll take quality over quantity any day.

  I met Madison, one of my best friends and partner in crime, in second grade. I honestly don’t remember how we met, because positive classroom memories from that year are completely overshadowed by our creep of a teacher, Mr. Bonterra, who once plucked an eyelash off my cheek and then held it out in front of me on his finger and said, “Blow.” So, so not appropriate.

  Madison is white—and blond-haired gorgeous white at that—and her family had more money than mine, but at that age those differences paled in comparison to bigger secondgrade issues, like our aversion to people who ate gross food for lunch or who picked their nose.

  However, I do remember going over to Madison’s house after school. She lived in a suburb with a man-made lake and paddleboats, and she had all the American Girl dolls, accessories included! Still, I wasn’t jealous; I was just stoked to get to play with that kind of doll at all.

  E
ven though Madison and I didn’t always go to the same school, we were always close, and by high school we were inseparable. We called each other Scoobs—we still do to this day actually—and I’d talk to her several times a day on my pink Motorola Razr (I liked the sound it made when it snapped shut) or on my Swarovski-crystal-studded Sidekick phone that she customized for me during her bejewel-everything phase.

  We kept a notebook—our version of a Mean Girls slam book, though we were never that mean. We passed it back and forth all through high school. We’d write each other letters during class or at home in the middle of the night when we couldn’t sleep. She’d write notes to hype me up when I was applying for a job at Red Robin, and then write another note consoling me when I didn’t get it. (C’mon, Red Robin! Your restaurant is not that hot!)

  The notebook Madison and I shared in high school—she’s been my partner in crime since day one.

  We filled the notebook with drawings and doodles of our summer plans (laying out on beach towels) or where we saw ourselves in ten years. We drew stick figures of ourselves with word bubbles coming out of our mouths. Hers said, “The name is M. Hees, interior decorator to the stars!” and mine said, “I’ll take two Bentleys, please!”

  In that notebook, we spent a lot, and I mean a lot, of time writing and drawing pictures about how much we loved Jamba Juice.

  The one time in my life that I snuck out of my parents’ house was with Madison. We were living in that shitty apartment by the railroad tracks, but Madison had come over to spend the night. We were doing what we always did in those days, which was watching and rewatching The Notebook.

  That was when there was that weird trend where everyone was painting their house keys—why?—and I had painstakingly coated mine with pink nail polish with green polka dots. Madison was flipping through magazines and wouldn’t stop talking about how she wanted bangs.

  Finally, after an hour of this, I was like, “Fine, I’ll cut your bangs!” but then I couldn’t find any scissors. Madison was so excited that she suggested we just go to CVS and get some, even though it was eleven thirty at night and my parents were already asleep. I was nervous, but Madison had a car and insisted everything would be fine.

  I shut my bedroom door and left The Notebook playing, so if either of my parents did get up, they’d assume we were still in there. Then we crept out of the house, and I shut and locked the door behind me as quietly as I could.

  We went to CVS, got the scissors, and made it home without incident. Then, when I went to use my brand-new pink-with-green-dots key to unlock the door, it was so thick from being coated with nail polish that it wouldn’t fit in the hole. We spent the next half hour trying to scrape the paint off it on the side of the door, and by the time we finally whittled it down and got back in it was already after one.

  Madison still wanted bangs though, so in my bedroom I made up a makeshift beauty salon, complete with lamps and a towel over her shoulders. Then I proceeded to give her the worst haircut she’s ever had in her entire life.

  The next morning, we came out of my room to my mom yelling, “Naya, do you know anything about that pink shit scraped all over the door . . . ?” She trailed off as we walked into the kitchen and she caught sight of Madison’s horrible bangs, which hadn’t been there the night before. They looked like they’d been cut with pinking shears, and the right side was distinctly shorter than the left. She spent the next six months growing them out, but as proof of how good a friend Madison is, she wasn’t even mad about it.

  When I was in elementary school, the other kids all thought it was cool that I was an actor, but in high school it just made me even more of an outcast. Without even talking to me, people just assumed that I was stuck up, so they’d ignore me or even go out of their way to make sure I knew they weren’t impressed.

  Madison never made a big deal about it, though. She never judged me for any of it, and cared in exactly the way I needed a friend to care as a teenager. She’d check in—“Hey, how’d that audition thing go? Did you get the job?”—and then when I’d tell her that I didn’t and I didn’t want to talk about it either, we’d move on and she wouldn’t bring it up again.

  Once I booked Glee and my acting career started to take off, she didn’t change. She never pressed me for industry gossip or asked me what celebrities were like in real life. Even when my ex started to very publicly date someone new, Madison acted like she couldn’t care less. And she didn’t just act like she didn’t care—she really didn’t. Every once in a while, she’ll see a photo shoot and text me, “Scoobs, you look so pretty!” but that’s about it. And always Scoobs, never Naya.

  Madison and I have definitely had our ups and downs, as is to be expected when you’ve been friends with someone for two decades. The people you love will always get on your nerves in little ways, or there will be things you don’t agree on, but one of the best things about getting older is that all of a sudden these kinds of things become easier to brush off. You’re not screaming, “Why are you trying to ruin my life?” at someone just because she was fifteen minutes late picking you up to go to Target.

  Madison and I are so ingrained in each other’s lives that I can’t imagine mine without her. When we go out now, I always offer to pick up the check. Not because that is what she expects—she would never do that—but because this is the girl who bought me makeup, gave me rides, visited me at Hooters, and even helped me put cat food on a dude’s car. I owe her big, and dinner is the least I can do.

  THE WORST BEST FRIEND

  Just because I had one great friend didn’t mean that I didn’t also make some super shitty ones here and there. My parents still remember my worst best friend, even though I’m almost thirty and it was more than ten years ago. Every once in a while, something will remind my mom of it, and she’ll say, “Well, nothing could be as bad as when you were hanging out with that Angie . . .”

  I met Angie at the ground zero of shitty decisions—Hooters. Angie was the aforementioned ex–pageant girl from Texas whose mom tried to teach me how to do my own extensions. (Maybe that was karma for what I did to Madison’s bangs?)

  I don’t think the nature of our friendship was all that unusual. A lot of girls have that one best friend for a while, who you bond with—not because you can trust each other or have a lot in common, but because you’re bored and want someone to go out with. Fortunately, these friendships don’t last long.

  I met Angie when I was probably at my lowest point ever. I’d all but given up on acting, given up on everything, and was falling back on the only asset I thought I had: my looks. When I met her, I thought we were just meant to be friends: she had fake tits (just like me!), her mom also lived in Valencia (just like mine!), and she had lip injections (I didn’t but thought it was so chic . . .).

  As soon as I got to Hooters, it skeeved me out that I was using my body to make money—even if it was just in the name of hot wings and fried pickles—and I think that was what attracted me to Angie in the first place. Unlike me, she had no problem with men looking at her like she was just a piece of ass. On the contrary, she even seemed proud of it, and her bravado was almost awe inspiring. (“Almost” being the key word here.)

  Angie was all about getting whatever she could out of whomever she could, and never felt guilty about it. After she got her lips done, she and her mom flew to New York to make an appearance on a talk show about teenagers with plastic surgery. “I think it’s totally fine!” her mom said, smiling into the camera.

  Angie also believed that if a guy offered you money, you took it. And if a guy didn’t offer you money, well, then that was when you asked for it. She seemed to have about a dozen sugar daddies, ranging in age from just a few years older to a few decades older. “Yeah, but do you do anything with these guys?” I’d always ask. She would answer in a way that made it impossible to tell if she’d just said yes or no.

  She lived in a decent apartment with her pare
nts and drove a decent car they paid for, so if I ever wondered what she needed all the money for, I had my question answered the first night we went out: all that sugar-daddy money went straight up her nose. Usually we went to Hollywood clubs where we could slide past the velvet (velour?) ropes with our fake hair and even faker IDs, but sometimes Angie would call me up to go “party” and it would turn out to be just four or five people sitting in a disheveled living room doing drugs.

  One such evening, Angie did line after line of cocaine off a coffee table until the sun was starting to come up. She was my ride, so I was basically as good as trapped and sat there sipping on vodka tonics until I drank myself sober again. Mind you, I was no angel, and had definitely tried drugs myself a few times, but it was never the main event. I was finally able to convince her to leave, and she drove me home, her teeth grinding the whole way.

  The next day was Angie’s birthday, and she’d planned a big party for herself at the pool in her apartment complex—she’d swindled one of her many male ATMs into giving her four hundred dollars to buy supplies. The next morning, even though it felt like I’d only been asleep for an hour, she came and dragged me out of bed to go shopping with her.

  She bought throw pillows at IKEA to furnish the pool house, tons of booze, decorations, and snacks. Her mom made a cupcake tree, and she sent out the invite to more than fifty people. As the party time rolled around, and then passed, it became more and more obvious that the only guests coming were me and the guy who wanted to check on the return on his investment.

  I was so hungover, I felt like scratching my eyes out, and finally the combined headache and awkwardness of the situation wore on me, and I bowed out early to go home and take a nap.