What’s the solution to a problem like this? I don’t think there is a solution. There’s hardly a problem. Not everyone in the world shares my sense of humor. That’s how the world works. People are different. If we were all the same, we’d all be making out with one another all the time and we’d never get anything done. I understand that some people don’t get the joke, so whenever I want to tweet something risky, I make a note of it instead in the notepad of my phone and I keep it. I don’t tweet it.
Here’s a list of some of my thoughts that were too funny to tweet:
Gabby SidiBae
@GabbySidibe
My New Year’s resolution is to start asking Uber drivers to not talk to me without sounding like a bitch . . . fuck it. It’s impossible.
(Listen. I wear big-ass headphones over my ears for a reason! I can’t hear Beyoncé over your talking about how you got way into gardening and driving around strangers after your youngest left for college in the spring. I mean that’s cool and everything, but I’m on my way to the gyno, and I just want to sit here, think my thoughts, and get in formation to receive a stranger’s hand in my lady parts. There’s no nice way to say this!)
Gabby SidiBae
@GabbySidibe
I wish that money equaled love so that instead of seeing my family I could just give them ten dollars.
(Yo . . . it’s becoming harder and harder to actively love people. You have to pay attention to them when they speak and ask follow-up questions. Wouldn’t it be nice to just slip your dad twenty bucks instead of discussing the widow he met on eHarmony?)
Gabby SidiBae
@GabbySidibe
I love scenes with Andrea and her grandma cuz they’re both the same age. #BeverlyHills90210
(I didn’t watch Beverly Hills 90210 when it was on because I was in elementary school and that’s what all the cool girls in my class watched and I was against everything they were into. Turns out, it is a pretty entertaining show, but I’m still glad I waited. Andrea was clearly older than all the other students at that school, but to be fair, they all looked like they were in their early forties. I say that as someone who played a teenager until I was thirty. Also, I never want to tweet something that might hurt someone’s feelings and Gabrielle Carteris has always been hella nice to me.)
Gabby SidiBae
@GabbySidibe
It’s 6 p.m. and I just remembered that it’s Christmas. It’s called being a sad lonely adult!
(Christmas is not a time for family when you’re a single adult with no kids in your family. What are we doing? Just eating a baked chicken and staring at one another? Fuck outta here. I gotta go be lonely somewhere else. Bye, Mom.)
Gabby SidiBae
@GabbySidibe
I know that babies stare at me cuz they’re curious or whatever, but I still kinda want to fight them. #RudeAssBaby
(Your baby is the worst and you know it.)
Gabby SidiBae
@GabbySidibe
I have yet to confirm or deny any love for Adele.
(The weird part about having fans who feel like they could be friends with me is that they want me to like all the same things and people they like. I’m not saying I don’t love Adele. I just don’t want to confirm it for you so that you can feel close to me. When you sit in your bathtub, crying, eating an entire Entenmann’s cake while listening to “Hello,” don’t call on your image of me to get you through that, baby girl. Take that time for yourself. I’ll be waiting for you to talk about happy things when you’re done.)
Gabby SidiBae
@GabbySidibe
Seriously! What the fuck is James Franco’s deal?! I’m sick of it, James! SICK OF IT!
(I don’t think I need to explain this to you. Fucking James Franco thinks he can do anything!)
Gabby SidiBae
@GabbySidibe
Oprah is being completely unrealistic about Weight Watchers. Counting points is not a game. THIS IS MY LIFE, OPRAH!!!
(There’s nothing I find funnier than Oprah. Oprah is the greatest gift God has given to this world. By “God” I mean “Oprah,” of course. Oprah has given us the gift of Oprah. Praise Oprah. May Oprah be with you.)
Gabby SidiBae
@GabbySidibe
I say the phrase “You Bitch! I’ll kill you! I’ll murder your whole family!” entirely too much even though I’m laughing when I’m saying it. I just know it’s gonna bite me in the ass one day.
(Truly, I should stop threatening to kill people when I don’t really mean it. That’s what got O. J. Simpson caught up. Of course I’m kidding again; O. J. did it . . . allegedly . . . obviously . . . I mean allegedly.)
Gabby SidiBae
@GabbySidibe
Look. I don’t care for dinosaurs. If I can’t ride one, what do I care what lived billions of years ago? You didn’t even know it had feathers until like three years ago! Mind ya business, stupid!
(Look, I know I’m in the minority here, but I really hate dinosaurs. I hate them. Maybe hating them is how I process my fear that one day they’ll come back somehow. I couldn’t sit through Jurassic Park. I’m so grateful that we don’t have to live beside those giant monsters. But how can we be sure that some evil scientist with plans to rule the world won’t bring dinosaurs back into existence? What will we do then, society?!)
Gabby SidiBae
@GabbySidibe
I’m starting to think that the only way I can lose weight is by running over an old Gypsy woman with my car so that her dad can put a curse on me. I’ll gladly take that curse even if I didn’t get to hit someone with my car for it!
(I was watching that Stephen King movie Thinner, including its questionable Gypsy-woman scene, and thought, Shit . . . this lawyer’s starting to look really good, but then it went too far.)
Gabby SidiBae
@GabbySidibe
Keep tweeting me to ask if I’m alive and I’ll prove that I’m alive by blocking people dumb enough to tweet me to see if I’m alive. #TestMe
(I might actually tweet this before this day is over.)
There! You read them and you’re still alive! It wasn’t that bad! What’s great is that I have plenty of followers who do get my jokes and think I’m funny. Clearly, those people are my favorites. Plenty of people hate me, though. Plenty of people tweet me to hurt my feelings, and I used to get really upset about it. I would start angrily typing out a response to them and then I’d think, No! That’s what they want you to do! That person wants my attention. My attention will tell them that they exist and that they matter to me. If I say nothing, they’ll stay a ghost and have to float on to find someone else to verify their existence. But most times I still really want to respond. So I block the mean commenters. I disable myself from answering them. Sure, a lot of people take pride in being blocked. They see that I have noticed them, but that’s okay. I don’t have to see them rejoicing in whatever they get from having me block them. Honestly, I block people all the time. And I’ll admit, I do it for small, petty reasons. I block people who are mean to me, to my friends, or to my other followers. I block people who nastily tell me to lose weight. I block people who tell me that they love me but that they want to see me lose weight and live a healthier life. Those people have no idea how hard I’m fighting for my life every day of it. I block people who say they don’t like my outfits. I block people who don’t like my hair. I block people who tweet that they don’t like my blonde hair on Empire. Hi! Empire is a TV show! I didn’t get to choose my character’s hair color, but it’s my job to wear it. I can’t do anything about it. You can do even less about it cuz ya blocked! Oh! You think I shouldn’t wear red? I LOVE wearing red! Don’t worry. You won’t see me wear red cuz YA BLOCKED! Okay, honestly, I could probably chill and take a step back to keep my blocking finger from being so itchy. I’m aware that I run my social-media pages like Stalin. But I’m very sensitive, and at the same time (like Stalin), I’ve ended up with a job and a life that means I have followers. It’s weird, but I do. I don
’t control much, but I control what I can. I prefer for my world to smell like strawberries and look like rainbows, and at least on Twitter I can block negative comments, fighting, and opinions about what I should be doing in my life. I am compulsive about keeping those dark clouds out of my world. Choose your tweets wisely.
P.S.: When I do die, don’t let Lifetime do a movie about my life.
10
Gabourey, But You Can Call Me Gabby
The world’s gonna know your name.
What’s your name, man?
—Aaron Burr (Hamilton)
BACK WHEN I WAS WAITING for my real life as an actress and all-around dope celebrity to start, I would wake up every day to do nothing but wait for Lee Daniels to call me. He called to tell me huge news like when Push (as Precious was still called then) was submitted to the Sundance Film Festival for its debut. Sometimes he’d call to give practical advice like what I should wear to the premiere and for interviews. He’d tell me that I should start watching Halle Berry in her interviews so I could emulate her. She was ladylike and I, apparently, was not. I promised I would watch her, but I knew I was lying when I said it. Again, I’m not polite enough to pretend to be someone else for long. Other times he’d just call to fantasize with me about what life would be like after the movie was released officially.
“Gabbala! Are you ready? Are you ready!? Your life is going to be completely different! What are you going to do?”
“What am I going to do about what?” I’d ask.
“What are you going to do when people come up to you in the street, and say, ‘Precious, you changed my life.’”
“What? No one’s gonna do that!” I was sure of it.
“Yes, they will! They will come right up to you and tell you about all of the pain and abuse they’ve suffered the way Precious has. A lot of people will identify with her and will identify with you. What are you going to say to people who see themselves in Precious and in you?”
“That’s crazy!” I was beginning to feel nauseated. Maybe I should figure out how Halle Berry deals with that.
“Get ready, Gabby. You’re going to be more than just a regular person now. You’re going to be Precious.”
“Well . . . shit . . . I hadn’t thought of it. I guess I’ll start by saying, ‘My name is Gabby.’”
“You can’t say that! Your name is Precious now!” he exclaimed.
“What? Is that rude? Cuz . . . I really love my name.”
“Well, get ready, bitch!” Lee said, laughing.
My relationship with my name is a serious one. I love my name. “Gabourey,” with its pretty little three-syllable melody and its French accent, has always sounded like a song to me. A flower. A perfume. A bridge. A chemical element found in the ground, in a cave, in Africa, at the birth of civilization. My name is special. It is my first gift from my father. Something he gave me.
Months after the premiere of Push at Sundance, and after Oprah and Tyler Perry joined our film, I finally got it: I was about to lose my name. At Sundance, people who saw the film really thought that Precious was my first name. Regular people, members of the media, and filmmakers alike were all surprised to find out that my name wasn’t actually Precious and that I was an actor. Really smart people! I was heartbroken when Lee called me to tell me that they had decided to change the name of the film from Push to Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire. First, could the title be any longer? Second, I was sure that anyone who heard the title without knowing what the movie was about would assume it was a chick flick and wouldn’t be interested. Precious? For lack of a better word, it sounded too . . . precious. Was it the story about a cartoon puppy on a quest to find its favorite chew toy? A girl who falls in love and cries a bunch? That’s not interesting! Third, I knew that while this days-long title might be the official one the unofficial and most used title for the film, my first, would be Precious. I would now be synonymous with this word and this name forever. I’d be her name, her story. I figured that some people would understand I had a self and a name aside from Precious, but I knew that once they heard my African-ass name with its six syllables and accents, they’d prefer to go back to calling me Precious. Why? Because Americans are lazy. They’re also kind. Also condescending. They can’t pronounce my name, Gabourey, but don’t want to try in case they get it wrong and hurt my feelings, so they decide that my name is Gabby, something their lazy tongues can pronounce. I, as a person with a hard-to-pronounce name, should be understanding and chill about it. I should allow people to be comfortable calling me something other than my name. It’s the polite thing to do. Unfortunately for lazy people, I am impolite. I am an asshole, and my name is Gabourey Sidibe.
Dad named me Gabourey MaLingair Sidibe. I just found out that Gabourey means “the one with the beautiful cheeks.” Like, duh. Have you even SEEN my cheeks? All plump and round. You just want to bite them! My face ain’t half bad, either. MaLingair is actually two words that in Wolof mean “my queen.” All of Dad’s children have Senegalese names because all of his children are Senegalese. I am his second child and his first daughter. My name is a turendo, a word that in Wolof means namesake. I was named decades before my birth. Before Dad’s marriage to Mom and before he was even a grown man. My name is and has been Gabourey since his childhood; it’s the delivery of a promise Dad made to a woman who loved and helped to raise him. Gabouré.
I knew that Dad had an older sister from his father’s previous marriage to a woman who died during childbirth. His father was often gone, busy with politics and his other families. Much like Dad, my grandfather had several wives and families to attend to, just like the average Senegalese man. Dad was left to help his mother and watch over his younger siblings. I remember my grandparents very well as they died when I was in my early twenties, but I realized I knew very little about Gabouré.
“She’s ninety years old now!” Dad told me. “She uses a cane now. She asked me about you. She always wants to see you.”
“She’s your aunt or something, right?”
“Ahh, no. Not my aunt, but she took care of me like I was her child.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well . . . Maybe I shouldn’t say.”
Already this call was better than I had anticipated. Most things about Dad’s early life in Senegal he’d never shared with me. Maybe it’s because I was young or a girl. Or I wasn’t smart enough to ask aloud instead of wondering in silence who this man was.
“I shouldn’t say, but I was an abused child,” he continued. I listened quietly, the idea of Dad being a child at all—not so much the part about the abuse—blowing my mind.
“My father didn’t talk to us. He only talked about politics and we were children. My mother was very cold to me. She was a mean lady, so Gabouré took me in and cared for me.” I was now clearing my throat so that I wouldn’t sound like I was crying.
“Did you live with her?”
“No. I didn’t live with her. She lived in the neighborhood and she had kids and I would go to her house and she would feed me and take care of me and love me. She loved me like my mother didn’t. She was so kind to me and I said to her, ‘If I have a daughter, I will name her after you.’ She was so happy to hear that. Her sons, her family, everyone was so happy to hear that I wanted to name you after her, and when I grew up, I kept my promise. So! You are my daughter, Gabourey, after that lady I loved and who loved me so much. She took care of me when my own mother didn’t like me. I see her when I go back and she always asks about you.”
Dad is the first man I fell in love with and the first man I fell out of love with. Before I was done with him, he was my hero. He knew a little bit about almost everything. He spoke French and he drank tea. Somehow, while hardly ever smiling or laughing, he introduced me to comedy. I would watch The Benny Hill Show with him and see what made him and other people like him laugh. People on the other side of the world in Africa and Europe. People who weren’t like Mom and Ahmed and me. We were new people, but A
fricans were the first people, according to Dad. The rest of the world was young by comparison. America especially. Everything Dad did seemed fancy and correct.
Dad would sit me on his chest and tell me the way my grown-up life would be, and I’d love his attention but hate every word of his marriage-to-a-nice-Muslim-man plans for me. I was too American! He’d also draw beautiful houses for me in pen and tell me that one day he’d build that house for me to live in. Huts on the beach with blue-ink palm trees in the front yard. Stately mansions with a Rolls-Royce parked in the garage, drawn in black ink. I’d ask if I could color it in, and he’d say, “Of course! It’s your house!” When I was upset, he’d take my chin in his hand, and say, “What’s wrong with my princess, huh? My queen! What happened to my baby? Who did it?” I would frown harder to make my face look as pitiful as possible and lodge whatever complaint I had, and he’d say, “Come on! You’re a big girl now. You’re so pretty, my queen. All the time sad, that’s no good! Why you don’t smile?” “I HATE smiling!” I would answer back, and he’d laugh, and say, “You trying to hurt your daddy?” Then I’d feel horrible and hug him and start crying.
This Is Just My Face Page 9