God Must Have Forgotten About Me

by Jason Lee

  The day I finally met Cardi, I was at a party at Diddy’s house in Los Angeles. She was in town doing a bunch of press interviews because she had just released “Bodak Yellow” the day before. Everyone was excited about it, and it was gaining momentum like crazy. Cardi’s publicist built a connection to me through Hollywood Unlocked and had asked us to post about the song, and we did. I liked her Patientce, her publicist’s, vibe, so we remained in contact. While I was at Diddy’s, I reached out to Cardi’s publicist and told her that they should come by. Diddy had just posted “Bodak Yellow,” but I don't think he and Cardi had ever met. There were so many people at the party that when Cardi and her publicist finally arrived, security wouldn’t let anybody else in. I immediately went into problem-solving mode, so I found Diddy’s son, Justin, so that he could help me get them in. I didn’t want to leave a bad first impression by inviting her to a party that she couldn’t even access. Justin went outside, and we got her in the party. When I finally got a chance to talk to her when she got inside, I was met with a very different Cardi. She was more relaxed and low-key.

  “Hello, Queen,” I did a humorous bow when I greeted her.

  “No, I’m not the queen,” she corrected me. I appreciated how humble she was, and while she was on top of the world with her song’s release, she still knew that she hadn’t “arrived yet.”

  Justin and I escorted her over to Diddy and introduced them. We had made previous arrangements for Cardi to be featured on Hollywood Unlocked, and then she yelled, “Yo, I'm coming on your show tomorrow! I can't wait.”

  The next day, when Cardi arrived at the studio, she was wearing a saucy black leather bustier and ripped glittery jeans. Her hair was an intense red-orange color, and her nails were elaborately decorated with jewels. Her ensemble was a perfect reflection of her personally: bold and daring.

  One of the first questions I asked her was what she was good at, and she immediately shot out, “I’m good at sucking dick!” The shock-factor was refreshing. She continued, “All the guys tell me that, and I ain’t gone teach nobody my secrets.”

  Her energy was electric, and we couldn’t help but be enthralled by her. She was completely candid and hilarious—she wasn’t shy about answering questions and was transparent about some of the struggles she encountered while working in the entertainment industry. It was a great interview, and I fell in love with her personality and her spirit. Afterward, she followed Hollywood Unlocked and we remained in contact through social media. Then out of the blue, she DM'd me and said, “Call me.”

  I told her, “Well, I don't have your number.”

  Then she said, “Oh, I thought I gave it to you.” She gave me her number and then we talked every day after that. Our friendship budded because she is a genuine person. I admire the light she brings into everybody's life, and I admire how connected she is to the people who matter to her. Sometimes I don't really understand my impact, value, or influence on people, and she reminds me of that. She asks my advice and opinion about personal matters, and she runs a lot of ideas and plans by me. And those times when I have an opportunity to mentor or help her in any type of way reminds me of those days when I would look after Tamica. The fact that Cardi trusts me with the most vulnerable parts of herself shows me that I’m valuable to her, and all my life, that’s all I’ve ever wanted from the people who claimed to love me.

  15 Breaking Barriers in my Own Lane

  My career was on the rise, and I was enjoying the fruits of Hollywood Unlocked, but I still felt like there was more that I wanted to do. I wanted a new challenge, and I wanted to do something that was out-the-box. During my time of searching, I had watched an interview with Oprah Winfrey where she talked about getting the part of Miss Sophia in Color Purple. She said that she wanted the part and did everything she could to be cast, but she initially was denied. Then she said that she started working out, and as she was running on the treadmill, she began to sing, “I surrender All.” Then she asked, “Lord, what do you want from me?” That resonated with me. That was a question I had for myself. Then she said, “Just please guide me. Tell me what you'd like me to do," and so on. She said as soon as she was done saying the prayer, she got a call from Steven Spielberg who said she got the part. I was inspired.

  That interview with Oprah never escaped my mind. Shortly after, I was getting ready to interview Jenifer Lewis on Hollywood Unlocked, so I started reading her book, The Mother of Black Hollywood. I was reading a selection where she shares about having bipolar disorder, and I was going through a depression because of social media. Because of the content of Jenifer’s book, I was excited about the interview.

  While preparing for the interview, I spent a weekend in Hawaii. I was going to read Jenifer Lewis's book while I was there, and it was a much-needed vacation. I had also gone there to relax with someone I was dating. While reading the book, I zeroed in on the part where she says she was on a cruise by herself and went out on the deck and said, “God, please send me a sign or something that this is meant for me—that I shouldn't walk away from the business.”

  Basically, she was ready to give up, and when she got back from vacation, her agent called and said, "You got ‘Blackish.’” I was sitting there trying to explain to my date how much I was inspired, and he ended up taking a nap. I frowned and said, “Okay, I'm going to go out there and try it myself.”

  I went out onto the balcony, and I mustered up the courage to kick it with God.

  I said, "Nigga (this is literally how I was talking to God), this is corny, but I'm going to try it. I know ‘Love & Hip Hop’ didn't work out for me. People didn't see me for who I am. Please, I want to get back on television because I want to show people that I'm more than the narrative that's been created by the show. Send me a sign, please. Alright.”

  I really did it as a joke, but, I swear to God, I came back, I landed after five and a half hours of flying over the water with no WiFi, and the only text message I had was from Nick Cannon saying, “Are you ready?”

  When I called him, he said, “I'm going to hire you for ‘Wild 'N Out.’ Get ready." I agreed and he sent me a contract. It was a green light from that point on. The show really helped me reveal a different side of me: the fans were able to see me in a comedic sense, and whereas I never shared my sexuality on Love & Hip Hop, I was able to actually make all of my jokes about being gay. It was the different out-the-box experience I was longing for, and I was grateful to share in that space.

  For my first episode, I booked Matt Barnes. I called him like, “Yo, you're in New York, and I know they been trying to book you for a couple of seasons. It would really make me look good to Nick and to the network if you can come and do the show. You’ll be on the opposite team, so I'm going to prepare to come after you.”

  He agreed, so we booked him. I knew the games we were going to play with him, so I knew what I was going to do. I had an idea of the angles I was going to come from; I was going to be wild and do whatever.

  Right before the taping, somebody close to Nick Cannon came to me and said, “Hey, I want to give you a heads-up: one of the producers doesn't believe that you should be here. They don't believe that you're comedic, and they just feel like you shouldn't be on the show. They switched Matt to be on your team."

  I was completely thrown off because I didn't plan for Matt to be on my team. I was going to cheat because I knew Matt personally. I knew a lot of his business, and based on the games we would be playing, I knew there was shit I could do.

  I went to the producer and said, “Hey, why did you guys switch Matt? I just booked him.”

  The producer said, “This is TV. It is what it is. You can figure it out.”

  I went over to Timothy DeLaGhetto, one of the other cast members, and said, “Hey, give me that bottle of Hennessy.” I took the bottle to the face, and thought, Fuck it. I'm going to get drunk, and I'm going to go out there and just talk shit.

  The first game we played was called “Plead the Fifth.” When it was my turn,
I went out there and said, “Hey, Nick, you brought me on the show. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. You know I don't rap, sing, or dance. I'm not a comedian. I mean, I'm funny and I talk shit, but more importantly, you showed me that, because I asked for the opportunity, you gave it to me. I'm really thankful for that."

  Everybody started clapping, and I continued with the punchline, "But I forgot to ask you one more thing when you were on my show.”

  He said, “What's that?”

  Me: “Can I suck your dick?”

  The place went crazy. All the cast ran off stage, the whole audience was out of their seats, and people were on the ground. Nick couldn't even bring the show back together because everyone kept laughing and carrying on. Everyone on the stage was in complete shock.

  Nick had a sucker in his mouth, and I wasn’t done. I said, “Nick!” When he turned around, I took the sucker out his mouth, and I put it in my mouth. They fell out again.

  That antic solidified my part on the show. The executives came out, and when I saw the white people come out the booth, I thought I was in trouble. They were amazed at how bold I was, and they expressed how they had never seen anything like it on the show. They said they appreciated how fearless and funny I was.

  Despite putting all my effort into the episode, it never aired. I think my jokes were a little too risqué considering that “Wild ‘N Out” is a family show. It didn’t discourage me though. A few episodes later, I kissed Bobby Lytes, and it was the first time two guys had ever kissed on “Wild ‘N Out” and on MTV. We even won a VMA for it. I appreciated my role on the show because I was afforded the opportunity to use that platform to break barriers and to have purpose. I came onto the show as an openly gay man and my goal was to normalize what America really looked like to the cast. When I first got there, I was told that there were some cast members who were homophobic and weren't comfortable with the gay jokes; I was able to come in and normalize making jokes with and about me, and it was okay for me to make jokes to, with, and about them, too. I believe that my presence made the audience look at the show in a very different way. They didn't have that dynamic on any other comedy show, so I’d like to take credit for the fact that we helped transform the show into becoming more aligned with America today.

  My “Wild ‘N Out” experience is also surreal to me because I remember wanting to be on MTV and wanting to go to the MTV Awards but being denied access. Now I am regularly on the network and have been on other major networks as well. It just reminded me that my hustle never stops. It never gets easier no matter where I am, and I have to keep going. My drive and determination put me in a position to create my own awards show where I have the final say in who's honored who's invited. “Wild ‘N Out” pushed me to be really creative and continue to fight for bigger dreams.

  iHeart

  One of those bigger dreams was to partner with iHeart Radio to make Hollywood Unlocked a nationally syndicated show. I had been pitching my show to iHeart for a couple of years with no luck. Then I did an interview on The Breakfast Club and afterward Charlamagne said, “You need to come over to iHeart.”

  I said, “I know! I've been trying to for the last couple of years. I have a dinner tonight with Marissa Morris, the senior vice president.” I had met Marissa in Cardi B's dressing room at one of the iHeart events in LA. At first I didn't know her or what she did; we just sparked up a conversation and she was super cool. We exchanged information, and she texted me her vCard; I saw that she was the senior vice president at iHeart. Okay, great, I thought. I'm going to keep in touch with her.

  “Okay,” Charlamagne went on, “but I'm going to text Doc Wynter. He's the senior vice president over urban programming. I'm going to tell him, too.” He texted Doc Wynter just like he said.

  I had dinner already scheduled that night after The Breakfast Club, and when I got there Marissa and I were talking. Then Tom Poleman, the chief programming officer and president of iHeart, walked in. Marissa introduced him to me, I followed up and sent some information about my show.

  A couple of days later, I was on a phone call with Doc Wynter and Jennifer Leimgruber from Premiere Networks. We were discussing my brand, my vision, and what I wanted to do. I had always envisioned my brand existing in every vertical it could; I just didn't see iHeart as being the home for it. They started talking to me about syndicated radio and asking me if I would be open to it. Then a couple of months later, we had a deal. The first week I launched in 52 markets.

  I had reached a career milestone for sure, and I felt like I was blazing a new trail in my industry. When Steve Harvey first syndicated, he was in three markets. The Breakfast Club was in eight markets. Big Boy is syndicated in about 13 or so markets. To launch in 52 markets right out the gate was huge. Also, even though I have a great opportunity with iHeart, I don’t work for them. Some of what I gleaned from Floyd through his mentorship is that ownership is important. I have a partnership with them where I own the IP, the name, the podcast and the digital output. They own what airs on their network. It's a partnership where we split revenue and we work collaboratively.

  ***

  Even though things were working out great for me with my career, I felt like there was an aspect of myself that people didn’t understand. I still felt misjudged and it started to weigh on me. A defining moment for me was the day I met Rihanna at Fashion Week. A year and a half prior, Danyelle Crawley, who works with Nick Cannon on “Wild 'N Out,” was telling me how much Rihanna wanted to meet me. I didn't believe that; I didn’t think there was any way in hell that Rihanna even knew who I was. I don't assume that because I'm on TV, Instagram, or Hollywood Unlocked that somebody knows who I am. She didn’t even remember that she had already met me at the RocNation brunch some years back when I was just starting out.

  I went to Rihanna’s party, and when we saw each other, she was really excited to see me, much to my surprise. Then she told me that she'd been wanting to meet me for a while. I was so amazed by that, but I didn’t know why she wanted to meet me. I've done a really good job not allowing people to know who I am and allowing Hollywood Unlocked to be the façade, but Rihanna told me something that was so impactful, and I can’t fully express how much it means to me:

  “You know, I've been watching you for a while, and I feel bad when you get attacked. I can tell, deep down, you have a heart.”

  I wrinkled my forehead and said, “Really?”

  She went on. “Yeah. I can also say that I know it's hard for you, having the job you have, to make friends with people who do what I do. But as a businesswoman, I respect how you built your brand."

  That was significant, and I was blown away at the fact that she had paid that much attention to the trajectory of my career. Rihanna has over 74 million followers—I wouldn’t have ever expected her to be watching me or dialed in to what I was doing. I thought that was pretty amazing, so after that, I talked about my experience meeting her on my show. I said, “You never know if somebody's going to measure up to what you expect them to be when you meet them. Rihanna exceeded that. If I never meet her again, I'm good because I had a good moment with her."

  The next day, I got a call from someone who told me that Rihanna was having another party at Up & Down and that I should come by. When my friends and I arrived, some of Rihanna’s people took me downstairs and escorted me to her table. When she saw me, she got excited all over again.

  She yelled, “Oh, my God! Two days in a row! It’s so good to see you again!”

  In the midst of my hug and kiss, she said, “Another thing I forgot to tell you is that I was really sad when I heard you tell the story of how your brother got killed on ‘Love & Hip Hop.’”

  I wasn't even ready for her to say that. It wasn’t a comment about my business, it was sympathy about something that affected me on a personal level. It was validating that someone on her level knew and was affected by my brother’s story. One of the reasons why I went back to the show was to work through his death with my fami
ly and closest friends and to be open about the impact of Rodney’s death. She cared. I can't really describe the impact, but oftentimes, people see me as something, but it was like Rihanna was seeing me as someone. She didn’t see me as a “fill in the blank,” she simply saw me. Her validation meant so much to me because in my journey, I'm constantly figuring out how to find value in myself.

  16 Broken Family Ties

  The older I became, the less involved I was with my family. I'm very private and protective of my personal life, especially since I've become a notable person. I'm very isolated, but a lot of that came from being rejected by my father when I reached out to them after my brother, Rodney, died. I was trying to get all my brothers and sisters on the same page, but none of them really would do it. Everybody had their own shit, so I said, “Fuck them all.” I stopped hanging with all of them. I stopped talking with all of them. I stopped going to functions. I didn't go to family reunions. I didn't come around to any of that. I isolated myself and started giving less of myself to them.

  When my uncle passed away, I went home to attend the funeral, but I actually wondered if I would need to bring security. In a normal family, I don’t know if anyone would think they’d need security around their loved ones, but that’s how distant I am from my family. They're still trying to figure out what happened, but the truth is that for years I fought so hard for us to come together and be a family, and then I realized that I needed to just focus on me. That became the theme.

  Holidays lose their warmth and charm when you don’t have a connection with your family. When my dad turned 71 on the fifth of February, I didn't even call him. I don't feel what other people feel when it comes to Christmas and Thanksgiving with family. Those cheesy commercials with families in matching pajamas or sitting around the table exchanging smiles is not a part of my reality.