I grew up in a hoarder house with a mom who drove a car held together by duct tape, and grass waving six feet high on the lawn. Oh, and I was gay.
Well, I didn’t know the word for it then. I just knew I had a mad crush on Stephie Schwartz. In 7th grade, I saw her underwear lying on the locker room floor and desperately wanted to sniff it, study it, and wear it as a hat.
Stephie and I were friends, but I wanted to be her best friend; the one to wear the other half of her “Best Friends” necklace. Oh, to “Be Fri.”
Stephie was Jewish and cool in her crisp, white Keds. I was Jewish and (did I mention the duct tape?) rocked crisp, white Neds. They were $10 at the local Walgreens.
One day, Stephie and I were both home from school sick, so our parents let us be home sick together in her little apartment in Queens. We were playing cards on her bedroom floor, when she leaned over and shouted, “War!” The v-neck of her white tee fell just enough for me to catch sight of her boobs. They were MESMERIZING! She had the biggest tatas in our whole grade and I couldn’t take my eyes off of them! I finally looked away, hoping she didn’t notice, but she caught my gaze, and gave me this look like, “Get out.” A chill ran through my body.
I walked to the bathroom, and shut the door. Click. There was a little sailboat in the bevel of her mint green tiled wall. It had a mast made of wire, and I thought, “I could slit my wrists with this thing.” I saw it on Law & Order once. You run the warm water, and push down with the rope.
I didn’t do it. I didn’t even try, but as I stood there with the water running, I knew I had done something horribly wrong.
A few months later, Stephie switched schools. Something about getting into this fancy, private academy in the City, but I knew it was because of me, and the boobs! It had to be. I was a freak ogling her Warner’s bra. I’d run from me, too!
I kept the secret until 1995, the summer before college. Mom and I were in the car eating a sack of White Castle burgers, and I said, “Ma, I think I like girls.”
“Oh, no you don’t! You were just really close to Grandma Levy and have a bad relationship with Daddy,” she said.
Yeah, I was close to Grandma Levy, but I'd never wanted to wear her undies as a hat. That would have been a very big hat! But my mother was always right, so I figured I must be wrong. I just needed to fix myself, and I could make this all go away.
So, I tried to be different, which meant I tried to be the same...as the other girls. I watched the way they walked, the way they talked, even what they wore, and gave myself a pep talk: Nikki, you got this!
I dated nice Jewish boys (mostly named David), wore Wet ‘N Wild lipstick, and even convinced my mom to buy me real life Keds.
But no matter how many wonderful “Davids” I dated, there was always a Stephie or a Stacy or a Shauna (I love my “S” girls) pulling me back. Could it be that I had been right, and the only thing wrong was believing someone else’s opinion over my own?
At 31, over a Turkish buffet in Midtown, I declared, “Mom, I’m a lesbian. And it has nothing to do with you or dad or Grandma Levy, and everything to do with me. I know me better than you know me.” It wasn’t a question and it wasn’t up for discussion. It was fact, and it set me free.
My newest crush (besides my beautiful wife, Scarlett) is the iconic shame researcher Brené́ Brown, who says, “We can either walk into the stories of our lives and own them, or we can stand outside our stories and hustle for our worthiness.” The hustle was over.
I AM A NEDS-WEARING LESBIAN!
When I finally owned my sexuality, I noticed other things about myself that I had kept hidden for fear of seeming awkward or weird. I started talking to other people, and it turns out we all have strange habits, secrets, and stories that we keep locked up inside, which made me wonder, if we’re all closeted weirdos, maybe we’re all just...normal?
I had been a movie executive in Hollywood making comedies and the occasional drama (Frost/Nixon), but something about telling true stories seemed exciting and important.
So I started reaching out to actors and comedians I loved who were used to delivering brilliant lines by brilliant writers, and asked if they’d like to tell their own stories, on stage in front of a live audience. I’d guide them, but it would be their words, their experience, and their truth. Some people shied away - we have a terrible belief that our stories are unimportant or an even more powerful belief that being honest is dangerous - but others stepped into the challenge.
I started a live show called Don’t Tell My Mother! where celebrities tell true stories they’d NEVER want their moms to know. The focus is on amplifying marginalized voices - women, people of color, the LGBTQIA community - those of us who felt the most different because we rarely saw ourselves in movies or TV.
We’ve had true stories from Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives), Ali Wong (Baby Cobra), *NSYNC’s Lance Bass, Tracee Ellis Ross (*black-ish), Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon, iconic drag queen Shangela, and Hasan Minhaj, to name a few.
It’s scary and brave (some people have puked before going on), but the reward for telling your story in front of hundreds of strangers is witnessing them love you because of your vulnerability, and seeing them love themselves because they see their humanity in you.
I mean, if the iconic Tracee Ellis Ross can talk about accidentally taking a dump in a prop toilet, and the magnificent Teri Hatcher can regale us with an awkward sexual encounter, then surely we can see that we’re all part of the same dysfunctional family.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Pride, Don’t Tell My Mother! has teamed up with Audible Originals for a third time to bring you Coming Out Party, a collection of stories that explore, embrace, and celebrate the LGBTQIA+ experience. Hosted by me and RuPaul’s Drag Race star Shangela, we kiki with amazing performers whose stories need to be told. Some are hilarious, others are poignant, and most are a good mix of both.
Trans activist and actress Angelica Ross (Pose) tells the story of joining the Navy to “straighten out.” Jake Borelli (Grey’s Anatomy) had always thought he had to keep his sexuality a secret in order to be an actor, but then his character came out on TV, inspiring Jake to come out, too. The L Word: Generation Q star Rosanny Zayas spills the tea on her first kiss with the coolest girl in school. Plus, comic Daniel Rugg Webb comes out to President Barack Obama, Nicky Paris gets some help from Peter Pan, and author Lisa Dickey goes head to head with Mother Russia.
Pride looks different this year, but stories live forever, and they will always set us free.
Be Fri and Happy Pride!
Find Nikki Levy on instagram at @NikkiLevy and @DontTellMyMother.
