EP. 57 — Nikki Glaser

Jameela: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil. I hope you’re well, I’m fine. I danced live on Instagram live, so that’s terrifying. I hate being on Instagram live. I hate doing anything live because I don’t trust my brain to not absolutely destroy my life. But also I hate dancing in public and very inelegant. I’m a bit like a sort of drunk walrus or a also a drunk sloth, maybe the love child of a drunk walrus sloth. Or if you live in America and that you see those inflatable men outside car sales. That’s what I look like when I’m dancing to any kind of fast music. It’s sad. But as it is Mental Health Awareness Month, I wanted to do something practical and helpful for my community, considering all we talk about is mental health. And one of the things that helped me and I can’t believe I’m saying this and I feel really smug, is exercise, even if it’s walking or dancing around my house or doing a little bit of boxing, low impact, chilled, fun exercise in baggy clothes. None of this fuckin bra and leggings shit because it triggers me about my old eating disorder. No mirrors, no guilt. I have snacks during my any kind of exercise that I do. So if I’m walking up a hill, I’ll buy myself a little ice cream at the bottom to get me up that hill. Just everything as the antithesis of what I associate with exercise because I had an eating disorder for such a long time. I naturally associated eating disorders and exercise. I associated exercise only with weight loss, only with vanity, because that’s what’s happened in the world. That’s what we look at exercise as a means to an end of thinness and societal acceptance. And that’s so fucking frustrating because all of us deserve to exercise. All of us need to exercise for our mental health, for our heart health, for whatever reasons we need it. It’s a basic function. We’re not supposed to be this sedentary. This is, you know, cars and trains and planes and technology that and, you know, just desk work and sitting inside in a pandemic all the time. This isn’t how we’re supposed to necessarily be. We’re definitely not supposed to be forced into that because we’ve been forced out of the right to exercise. We’re not supposed to turn up at a gym already looking like we’ve been going to a gym for ten years. But that’s how most of us feel. We’re not supposed to feel like shit about ourselves when we’re moving our bodies, but if you have mirrors everywhere and everyone in basically bathing suits, whether or not they actually want that because they think that’s what they’re supposed to wear when they’re exercising, it’s going to trigger people. Exercise isn’t this exclusive club, we need to take exercise back, and so I guess because within ten minutes of moving my body, I start to feel better and more in control of my life. And and, you know, I have endorphins kind of coursing through my brain. I wanted everyone else to have that. And I wanted everyone else to find a shame-free way of exercising with me. So if you are someone who hasn’t exercised for a really long time because you’re put off by the culture, or maybe you have different reasons for not having exercise. Maybe you feel detached from your body because you’ve been in an abusive relationship, maybe you’ve had an eating disorder, or maybe you felt embarrassed to exercise because you think it’s just for people who look a certain way. You can come join me on Saturdays on IG live. My mate, who I used to work in a video shop with when I was a teenager, is now a personal trainer. He doesn’t succumb to diet culture at all. He doesn’t preach it whatsoever. No vanity. It’s all about baggy clothes, snacks, while we exercise delicious snacks, light snack so that you don’t throw up while you’re doing star jumps or jumping jacks or whatever you call them in whatever country or in. And we listen to disco and it’s very silly and I’m very inelegant. And so if you’re watching me, you won’t think about how stupid you might look because you’ll be focusing on how unbelievably stupid I look. Um, I’m proud of myself for doing it because I was so afraid of ever doing something like this. And it’s nice to continue to confront my shames. I actually talk about this a little bit with today’s guest because we recorded this just before I did my first IG live. And I can report back now that it went quite well. I had a lovely time. It’s a bit embarrassing that people have screen grabs and videos of what happened and they will continue to do that every Saturday which is a bit rude, but that’s fine because it god it was the best. I felt amazing all day just for having moved my body in such a joyous way. And also the messages I got was just so unbelievable and so honest and personal and positive. 700000 people watch the video. It was just it was incredible. So I’ll be doing that on Saturdays. You can find all that on my Instagram, and I hope you do come join me and message me and let me know. Today’s guest is Nikki Glaser. She is an excellent stand up comedian. She’s fucking hysterical and she’s also a great TV host and many other things in the world. I wanted her on this podcast because she’s an extraordinary social commentator. She’s also a real girls girl. She’s incredibly introspective and and honest and authentic. And she’s super smart, super funny. And she talks about a lot of the same things that I talk about and that we talk about as a community in particular, mental health and eating disorders. And she really went there with me into talking about her experience with hers and when it started, how it started, how she’s dealing with it. You know, I think only in the last year she started to really enter a proper recovery. So it’s a very vulnerable time to be able to talk to her. And she just really wanted to say it all. So I’m extremely grateful to her. We talked about love. We talked about sex, we talked about relationships. We talked about low self-esteem, about shame, about being a woman. We even talked about shaming other women because we were fucked up when we were younger. God, I mean, you’re going to hear about an altercation between her and Taylor Swift that happened in front of the entire world. And it was really gutting for her because she’s a massive fan of Taylor Swift. But we all had to watch her kind of have to. Well, she’d made her bed and we had to watch her lie in it. She said something rude about Taylor Swift many years ago on television. And this is the kind of thing or you wouldn’t expect someone like Taylor Swift to ever see it but she did. And she put that clip in her documentary. And it was a whole thing. And we’re going to talk about it in detail in this episode. And if you are a Swiftie listening to this, sharpening your knife, please know that from what I understand, Nikki Glaser is also a die, die hard Swiftie. And she has definitely repented for what she’s done. And she talks about it really beautifully in this episode. So please enjoy this girly chat with two women who don’t know each other very well, kind of falling in love and and saying all the things and join me in adoring the lovely Nikki Glaser. Oh, also a trigger warning because there are mentions of all kinds of things, in particular eating disorder stuff, body image stuff. If you’re feeling vulnerable, maybe right now isn’t the time to listen to such an explicit episode about eating disorders. And there is a minor but not at all explicit or violent discussion where we mention the word rape. So I’m just letting you know about that. But it’s not said in a way that it’s describing an actual encounter that either of us had. So I I love you lots. I hope that you enjoy this episode. And I’ll hear from you in the DMs. As usual. Here’s Nikki Glaser. [00:07:18][438.9]

Jameela: [00:07:36] Oh. Later, how are you? [00:07:38][1.5]

Nikki: [00:07:38] Hello, Jameela, I’m good. I am so excited to talk to you again. [00:07:43][4.8]

Jameela: [00:07:44] Same so we’ve only spoken for the first time ever properly. I mean, we’ve exchanged the minor DM’s years ago but we spoke on the phone for the first time ever this week, and it was just an instant feeling of, oh, we’re best friends, we’re immediate the best I mean not to go all Cable Guy on you, but I’m feeling this. Are you feeling this as well? [00:08:01][17.6]

Nikki: [00:08:02] I’m glad you felt it too. Well, I don’t want to be one of those people, but we did meet before. But you’re more famous than me. So I kind of realized that you meet a lot of people and I’ve done this to people countless times. So I just knew of you because I know of you. And so we did. But it was. But you’re not lying. It was the first time we talked on the phone and it was like an, you know, an intimate friend to friend not on set conversation, but we both did that. Right. [00:08:28][26.2]

Jameela: [00:08:28] What did we do? [00:08:28][0.2]

Nikki: [00:08:29] The um oh my god I can’t even remember. [00:08:31][1.8]

Jameela: [00:08:32] Why am I what is my memory? [00:08:32][0.0]

Nikki: [00:08:33] The Netflix thing that was like in homage to this 70s show. [00:08:36][3.3]

Jameela: [00:08:37] OK, so OK, so just just [00:08:39][2.1]

Nikki: [00:08:40] Remember that night? Yeah the dance party we were dancing next to each other on that set. [00:08:42][1.9]

Jameela: [00:08:42] It was the Netflix Just For Laughs or something. [00:08:45][3.2]

Nikki: [00:08:46] It’s not Just For Laughs, but it’s the show that Goldie Hawn used to be on back in something room. The boom boom roo- I can’t believe we can’t remember. [00:08:52][6.2]

Jameela: [00:08:52] I don’t know. OK, so so I was sort of like out of my body because I got there not knowing anything about it. I hadn’t seen the original show. And we get there and it’s like it’s the whole of the comedy world is there like it was even Billy Billy fucking Crystal was there. [00:09:09][17.1]

Nikki: [00:09:10] Billy Crystal was there. [00:09:11][1.0]

Jameela: [00:09:11] When Harry met fucking Sally, Harry was there. [00:09:13][2.7]

Nikki: [00:09:14] I mean, that’s my favorite movie of all time. And that his his presence there was not lost on me. I got to meet him at backstage at that event because you’re right, everyone’s there. But I also got to meet you, which I was really nervous to meet you because I was a fan and I just I hadn’t watched the good place yet, but I saw you on clips of it. Always funny, always just a great actress. But then I had seen you on Instagram, and been such a fan of everything you say on there and and then meeting you. You were I just have to report you were so nice and real and you gave me your number like you don’t remember but. [00:09:45][30.9]

Jameela: [00:09:46] Oh my God. [00:09:46][0.3]

Nikki: [00:09:46] You gave me your personal number and I didn’t have to like ask for it. [00:09:49][3.3]

Jameela: [00:09:50] How much weed have I smoked. Oh my God. [00:09:52][2.0]

Nikki: [00:09:53] That was the weirdest shoot. I remember it because you were special to me. Like, you were just I was truly special to you because you gave me your number [00:09:59][6.8]

Jameela: [00:10:00] Well you had no impact on me clearly [00:10:02][1.6]

Nikki: [00:10:04] I believe that I did it just like it was a you just like forget and I would never take offense to that. [00:10:07][4.0]

Jameela: [00:10:07] It’s not that. So what I was trying to say is that the reason my my my sort of like, soul had left my body is that I got there not knowing that there’s a thing where you have to dance in the middle. So, after every single punch line, everyone has to do this sort of 60s type of like Bob Fosse esque dance. And I am not a dancer. I’m not a mover. I’m built for comfort, not for speed. And I find the idea of dancing publicly absolutely fucking mortifying. And I find I’ve a very low bar of shame, very low. And so it’s very hard for me to feel embarrassed. And and I remember that someone had to come up to me and halfway through the show and just asked me if I could please unclench my fists while I’m dancing in each of the dancing segment. So as soon as I got there, I was just sort of I was I was not really. [00:10:59][51.7]

Nikki: [00:11:00] That’s so fascinating. [00:11:00][0.4]

Jameela: [00:11:01] I was not, I was not home, but I was just so I felt so shy like I’m standing in between, like Jay Leno and Billy Crystal with my fist clenched, looking like I’m ready to fight someone. Just shaking in my imaginary balls around. [00:11:16][15.1]

Nikki: [00:11:17] Oh my God, but that’s how you felt, that fist was exactly what you were feeling in that moment, which is so fascinating, because to me, you’re like the most confident person. Like, it just it doesn’t seem like you can you’re shameless is not the right word because there’s like a negative connotation to that. But it seems like you’re just like as authentic as, you know, you you at least try to live authentically from what I’ve like seen of you. And and to think about you being insecure that moment because you’re not a good dancer, let me just tell you that I relate to that more than you could ever understand, because I that was that my biggest fear in life is ever having to publicly dance like truly you, me and Kim Kardashian. Kim Kardashian has the same public dancing fear. That’s why when Prince brought her out on stage one time and tried to dance with her. She ran off stage because she was like, can you imagine if Prince brought you out? I mean, you can’t imagine it now, but in the past, it would have brought you out on stage how nervous you’d be dancing in front of all those people. And he tried to get you to dance and you’re just on your own trying to dance like it’s humiliating. So we us three have that fear and I’m sure many other people. But let me tell you, I did not feel that way that night. And I actually had fun with the dancing, even though that would be my normal fear, because I forced myself to do Dancing with the Stars, having never, ever learned to dance in my life. Been terrified, would not audition for plays in high school, even though I had a good voice because I would have to dance as part of the audition would ask for private ones where I wouldn’t have to dance and just had a speaking role, I was like Snow White and into the woods. And you literally walk out on stage at the very end and you yawn and say, excuse me, and then you leave. Like, that’s all I could be open for, for many parts of the year that I wanted to act because I didn’t want to dance. So do Dancing with the Stars, because that will that was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. And I love any opportunity to talk about it because the worst thing happen to me. I was voted off first [00:13:02][104.9]

Jameela: [00:13:03] and it was just so painful. [00:13:04][1.0]

Nikki: [00:13:05] Humiliating. It was so it was as bad as you think, like you go to possibly be that embarrassing to get voted off first when you’re really trying and liked and really loved it. Like I ended up loving dancing, even though I was terrible from the get go. My dancers face dropped so suddenly when I so when I walked in the studio to meet him, he had no idea who I was. But basically like body type is like she might have a like there’s a little bit of a dancer’s body look going on. And then we did a little quickstep. He taught me just for the cameras, for our meeting, like literally just two steps and his face I saw the look in his eyes like we’re not going to last on the show. And it was from then on that it was like it became it was just wild. It was a wild ride. And I would do anything to do it again, even though it was so scary. [00:13:53][47.6]

Jameela: [00:13:54] I can’t bear the fact that you spent your whole life afraid of dancing only to get voted off. That’s the exact fear. That’s the that’s just I find it so cruel when life confirms your childhood fears. [00:14:05][11.3]

Nikki: [00:14:06] I mean, when Tom Bergeron said my name as the first I mean, there were there it was and live on TV. My parents were there. The cameras were already circling them, setting up the shot for when their daughter lost. So I knew what was going on [00:14:18][12.4]

Jameela: [00:14:19] What were their faces? [00:14:19][0.0]

Nikki: [00:14:20] There fa- they were so sad because they know I was injured at the time. And when they arrived the day two days before the where we go live on TV, they were terrified. I’ve never seen them as scared as they were that night as it was the same as when I was anorexic. I was like eighteen and kind of dying before their eyes. They showed up and I was injured two nights before I was dancing live on TV. I couldn’t stop crying. My partner and I weren’t getting along. I felt like very confused about whether I should tell people I have an injury or I should try to hide it. I also asked for the injury days before because I was so frustrated with my partner and my dance and not being able to be sexy enough and just doubting myself that I begged to god in the middle after I had my best friend with me and I had finished a dance rehearsal and I was like, please injure me, because at least then I’ll have an excuse for why I’m bad. Prayer works, you know, like I just got into praying this year, which is a weird thing to say, but over Covid I like found that spiritual connection where I was like getting on my knees and praying. And I did. I am I was raised an atheist. Like I don’t believe in a guy in the sky. I really don’t like organized religion. But I started just like pay whoever, like knows I talk to dead friends. I’m like, can you just help me be OK with however that shakes out? I don’t ask for things, but I go. If I don’t get that thing, I want that you know I want can you just make me OK that I don’t get it. And accepting of it like that’s what I asked for. And I feel like if you just do that it helps and it makes you open to the response or the sign. [00:15:53][92.6]

Jameela: [00:15:54] Lovely. This is lovely. [00:15:55][1.0]

Nikki: [00:15:55] Do you pray do you do anything like that? Like, do you , how do you process your feelings? [00:15:57][1.8]

Jameela: [00:15:58] No I’m I’m really just this stone with nipples. I, I’m English. We don’t process our feelings actually. [00:16:03][4.8]

Nikki: [00:16:04] I know what do you do though? [00:16:05][0.2]

Jameela: [00:16:05] Well what I do is I invite, I invite. I’m not actually very emotional but I’m emotionally. No I’m not, I’m not an emotional person. We’ve, we’ve, we’ve occasionally touched on this. In fact, um, not to brag, but Jane Fonda did come on this podcast. And I told Jane and I think that might have been one of the first times I spoke about it on this podcast, but I was telling her that I’m actually quite closed off, detached person because I have a fucking crazy childhood. But but what I am. [00:16:32][26.6]

Nikki: [00:16:32] But it doesn’t mean you’re not emotional it just means you’re not tuned into them. [00:16:33][1.2]

Jameela: [00:16:35] In touch with them. Sure. But I’m. [00:16:37][1.5]

Nikki: [00:16:37] Do you want to be. [00:16:38][0.7]

Jameela: [00:16:38] Yeah. Yes, very much so. And I do. [00:16:40][1.8]

Nikki: [00:16:41] Do you cry? [00:16:41][0.0]

Jameela: [00:16:41] Very rarely. Very rarely. Normally it would take a red onion or Terms of Endearment the the one of the end scenes of Terms of Endearment, Sally Field in Terms of Endearment, that can get me going when I need to, but I’m really not, you know, I am uh Tin Man is a thing I was called by three separate boyfriends, so it’s just. [00:17:01][20.8]

Nikki: [00:17:02] OK I get that. [00:17:02][0.4]

Jameela: [00:17:03] But my point is, is that, you know, I think because I can’t access it a bit like like E.T., I guess I want to be around it all the time. And that’s why I invite emotionally open people like you onto my show. And I pick your brain about your emotions. [00:17:19][15.6]

Nikki: [00:17:19] But that’s interesting because it’s like I you are an amazing listener and you are amazing at pulling things out of people. Like when we spoke on the phone before this, I told you something that I’ll be honest, I’m telling a lot of people. But like you or someone you. You are someone that I wouldn’t have said that to because you’re famous and I look up to you and I don’t want to come on too strong like I literally burdened by this crazy love life story going on right now that I can’t really speak about because I’m in the middle of it. But I burdened some girl the other night at dinner that was like a friend of a friend of a friend she was 20. And I go, You don’t know me. Can I just tell you about what’s going on with this guy? And so I was dying to talk about it. But to you, I did not plan on sharing all that. But you just you made me feel so at ease about having those feelings and you’re so logical. It’s fascinating, though, that you’re shut off emotionally. I really I’m very [00:18:10][51.5]

Jameela: [00:18:11] Maybe that’s why I’m so logical. [00:18:11][0.5]

Nikki: [00:18:12] I, I know but I’m very logical, too, but I want to feel my feelings so that I think that is why you’re so logical is because you’re focusing on the I guess, left brain. I don’t really know the brains, but you have more space on the other end to look at things like, well, you know, this is like I didn’t even know how I did. If I wanted to share this in a relationship recently, I had just given something to a man that I thought was like that was really good like nice of me to do. And that was like a next step or it was just like an intimate moment that I had provided a service. [00:18:45][33.0]

Jameela: [00:18:46] You gave him a tooth. [00:18:46][0.2]

Nikki: [00:18:47] Yes I gave him one of my teeth that actually would have made the thing that I did better if I had removed teeth for previous men as gifts. But so I just done that. And then and I hadn’t really received that much in like I think maybe a little bit before, like he had given me a little bit of a gift, but like more gift, the gift was going to get better. But they stopped because I had to get the gift. So I finish it. And then we’re laying there like huddling. And he starts talking about how hot some celebrity is that he worked with, like, you know, just some woman. He’s like, oh, my God, she’s the most stunning woman ever, which I have no problem with that. I’m not like a jealous person until it’s someone that like that. It just feels like I have you your DNA inside my stomach. Right. Like it’s in my low, like, upper intestine right now. And you’re talking about how hot J Lo is, like, I don’t want to hear that. And I literally said that. I go. I just like ingested you and we’re laying here and I go, I don’t want to hear while your seed is in me that someone else is hot, like that’s not the time for this conversation. And he goes, I’m sorry, she is. And she came up and that it does. The fact that J Lo is hot, doesn’t the fact that you have me in you right now does not change the fact that J Lo is hot. And I was like, actually, that’s logical. You’re right. Like, why can’t she be hot now when I go back that I don’t like it, I go I don’t like to hear about girls being hot when I have just done something like this to you. And then he kind of got it. But I really didn’t like it felt like a lot of disrespect. [00:20:20][93.2]

Jameela: [00:20:21] I would like to advocate for logical people here and say that it’s not logical. He’s a prick. That’s right. That’s it. That’s that’s there’s logic. I’m logical. He’s a bit of a bell end. [00:20:30][8.9]

Nikki: [00:20:30] I can’t with these guys that need to insult me constantly. And it’s like I can’t it’s like, I’m so over it. [00:20:37][6.7]

Jameela: [00:20:37] I once was sleeping with someone who I don’t even want to say dating cos it was sort of miserable, awful experience. But he had and I can’t believe my self-esteem was so low that I allowed this to happen. Or that I’m talking about this now, but he would have pictures of Victoria’s Secret models all over his wall and would make a point of showing me that he was looking at them while having sex with me. And I tolerated that because my self-esteem did not exist. So I don’t think that it’s irrational for me to have a problem with that, because at the very least, one would like someone’s maximum attention rather than for them to you you have a meltdown. [00:21:22][44.6]

Nikki: [00:21:22] Never been speechless before. I don’t like I don’t think I’ve ever this isn’t a thing for me where I don’t have something to say. I am so sorry that you had to put up with that prick and that you went through that, because that is, you know. And how fucking relatable is that like that is that is just on a spectrum of things that men and women do to each other to [00:21:47][25.0]

Jameela: [00:21:48] microaggressions [00:21:48][0.0]

Nikki: [00:21:49] to make the person they’re with feel like shit because they feel like they don’t deserve you. And they have to remind you that your shit and try to make you feel like shit so that you stay with them, because if they don’t, they’re going to lose you. So they have to continually remind you that you’re not as hot as something else so that you stay with them because they’re awful and they know it and they wouldn’t have ever even admit to these things. But I mean, that is so egregious. And if you saw that in a movie, you’d go, that’s too I don’t believe that they went too far there because I’ve had a guy say it’s like this guy. And this was recently Jameela, like I have put up with so much disrespect from men because I’ve already given them something that I’m like, oh, my God, no, please don’t be disrespectful to me now. I’ve already done this. Oh, it’s too late. Now I have to just change this in my head to rationalize the fact that I slept with this person who is willing to treat me this way and try to make me feel this way. That’s why I don’t sleep with guys anymore, because I’m so scared that I’m going to have, like, already given them my heart and my body and like, they are able to be so unloving one guy that I liked so much. I was FaceTiming with him all the time. He would never say that I was attractive, never say I was cute like nothing ever about how I was hot, even though we were like we had hooked up before, like multiple times. And then we were FaceTiming because it was long distance and I was just trying to squeeze him like just a damp towel, trying to get like fill a glass with any kind of compliment. [00:23:14][84.4]

Jameela: [00:23:14] How were you doing this? Wait what was your approach to try and get that? [00:23:17][2.7]

Nikki: [00:23:17] Oh, just looking hot. Like trying to like and complimenting him, giving him what I wanted back, beating him in terms of like, you know, instead of saying like, you never compliment me or he’d be like, you’re the funniest person I know. Like I was telling so-and-so, you’re the funniest person I know. That’s hilarious that you said, like, honestly, that’s funny you say that because you’ve literally never laughed at anything I say literally. I’ve never heard you laugh. I know when I make guys laugh and you try not to laugh. So how can I what are what are you it just or he it was just he wanted to be me, he didn’t want to be with me and I wasn’t I know I was attractive to him because we hooked up like I understand that he just couldn’t express it. But one time I was getting ready to go for a run and I was like, I got to go. You know, I’m like on FaceTime. And I was like, I got to go for a run. And he’s like, Oh, yeah, you should go pretty soon. I go, Why? And he’s like, because it’s going to get dark. And I mean, you’re pretty you’re pretty rapable. And I’m not kidding. I logit blushed because I was like that was the nicest thing he had said about me and made me even think that I was such like I was like, oh my God. He thinks that like someone would want to rape me. And I’m like, oh, I literally. And it was I realized instantly how disgusting it was that I was swooning over the fact that this guy just said I’m rapable, but it was the only admission he would ever give me that I was something that men would desire or maybe him. And I’m like,. [00:24:35][77.8]

Jameela: [00:24:35] Jesus Christ. [00:24:35][0.0]

Nikki: [00:24:36] That was those are the things that the crumbs that you accept as a woman. And as a woman that, like many people, we are both women, and I’m guessing when this guy was looking at Victoria’s Secret models on his wall, you were as stunning as you are now and alarmingly beautiful. [00:24:50][14.6]

Jameela: [00:24:51] Who gives a shit? But the point is, is that it’s the disrespect, it’s the disrespect and also the evil of them making it’s not even like [00:24:58][6.8]

Nikki: [00:24:58] But I’m just saying, it doesn’t matter what you look like or what other people think you might look like or like someone could treat Nikki Glaser because people say that all the time, like Nikki I worship you. Why would you ever let guys do this? It’s my issue. Like I’m choosing these people. I don’t I, I didn’t respect myself enough to go fuck you at the very sign of that because a guy doesn’t just start looking at Victoria’s Secret models as you’re having sex. That’s not the first sign of that. You know, you’ve got to be a little intuitive in the beginning and you start to see the signs of it. You go ew I wouldn’t want to be with someone who would ever even when a guy’s not into me now, I’m just like, you suck like you’re. You’re like available and you aren’t interested in the fact that I’m available. You are like you don’t have good taste, but it’s like I don’t know what to even do with you. [00:25:41][42.5]

Jameela: [00:25:43] I love that. I love that. [00:25:43][0.4]

Nikki: [00:25:50] I love the shift that I’ve made around my body that I saw you on, like I saw you riding those waves already years ago of like body acceptance and weight acceptance. And I remember thinking I would like to surf someday with her, but I don’t. I’ve bodysurfed before, but I cannot get up. I’ve never skateboarded. I don’t have I can’t do that. Convince myself that it was a thing that some people could get to. And I believe it in a mindset, but it’s not for me. And now I’m like really interested in I’m riding the big waves. Like, I truly feel an acceptance that I never thought was possible. And I want to talk to you about that in terms of like, when did that happen for you? And I’m sure you shared this before, but did you have like an aha moment or what was like a big reason that you shifted to that? [00:26:41][50.9]

Jameela: [00:26:42] So, I mean, I had a little mini series of AHA moments. My first one was being 19, coming out of having damaged my back so severely being hit by a car. So I suddenly had this new relationship with my body and then I shifted from that into what I thought was recovery, but actually was just a better covered up eating disorder and more of a kind of orthorexia and body dysmorphia, where I was eating just enough that no one would, you know, raise the alarm the way they did when I was a teenager. But I was really eating nothing and I was just picking one food a month to eat. It was just really a really troubling, obsessive, antisocial, unsexual, sad, lonely, secretive odd time in my life full of bingeing and starving and binging and starving. [00:27:26][43.9]

Nikki: [00:27:26] Yes, yes. Yes. And and you were 19. Oh, this was I was 19. [00:27:30][3.8]

Jameela: [00:27:30] I was 19 when I decided that that’s when I kind of like entered into what I thought was recovery and wasn’t. And then twenty six, I gained a lot of weight on medication and was very ashamed nationally, first for months and months and months. So when you have, you know, you were talking about your childhood fear of dancing and then being kicked off your biggest dance show in the world first. So this was my biggest fear as a child is that like, if I am big, people will ridicule me and now I’m being openly ridiculed. [00:27:57][27.1]

Nikki: [00:27:58] Oh, my God Jameela. [00:27:58][0.4]

Jameela: [00:27:58] On the front cover of a magazine that my bottom bending over in front of my door of my house, on the front cover of tabloid magazines. And so I was so I think that was a moment I was forced to reckon with. [00:28:09][10.9]

Nikki: [00:28:11] But you asked for it. I’m just kidding. [00:28:11][0.4]

Jameela: [00:28:11] Well, I was I was I was forced to reckon with. OK, so do I. Now, do the workout DVDs. Do I go and hire a trainer? Do I succumb? And then I thought, no, I’m I’m done. I’m done with fucking dieting. [00:28:25][13.6]

Nikki: [00:28:25] You were done at what age? [00:28:26][0.7]

Jameela: [00:28:27] No so I was twenty six when I just was, when this was my kind of turning point of I am not going to succumb to this so I’m not going to succumb to the shaming, I’m not going to confirm the fear of my 12 year old self. I’m going to continue to thrive. I’m going to continue to have the best sex of my life up until that point, because I finally had food in my body so I could enjoy being a sexual person. I was having a great time. My career was thriving and I decided to stay fat as long as my body would allow me to on the medication. And then over the last nine years, I slowly started to come off and that’s fine as well. Whatever it’s going to do what it’s going to do. And so two years after that, I discovered that I was still even if I wasn’t having even if I wasn’t starving myself, I was still obsessed with food. I was still guilty when I would eat. I was still sad. I would still plan how much I would have to walk the next day because I needed something. The night before, I was still secretive. I still wouldn’t go out and eat in front of other people I didn’t have. I felt like I was always walking a tightrope before I could trip and fall into my eating disorder. So at twenty eight I got EMDR therapy and that was it for me because I knew I was going to America. I didn’t want to deal with this fucking thing anymore. It had been twenty years of my life almost had taken. I was like, that’s it. I’m getting EMDR therapy for this. [00:29:46][79.0]

Nikki: [00:29:47] How long did it take? [00:29:47][0.7]

Jameela: [00:29:50] Three one hour sessions to break my [00:29:51][0.9]

Nikki: [00:29:53] Listen to that for everyone listening. Three sessions this doesn’t have to be ten years of talk therapy. [00:29:58][4.6]

Jameela: [00:29:59] And it really doesn’t. What it did is that changed my relationship with food. It changed the way that I that I looked at food I didn’t like add feelings to food or or characters to food. Food just became fuel. And from there we started to work on body image. Now, do I have a good body image? No. Do I still have body dysmorphia? Yes. Well, I probably always have body dysmorphia. Very likely, maybe. But what I was able to do, not just by EMDR, but through the I Weigh movement that has now birthed this podcast, is I have gotten to a place of neutrality where I have trained myself partially with the help of EMDR, but also partially just through self determination to just every time I hear that inner bully tell it to shut the fuck up, which I know that you’ve also experienced yourself saying, oh, I reserved the right to just say fuck off to this voice that’s telling me that I have to be a certain size to achieve respect and worthiness in this world, and I I just don’t have any expectations of my body. I don’t have a full length mirror in my house. I don’t I don’t measure calories. I don’t measure anything. I just exist. And I wear comfortable clothes and and I’m very, very open with any job that I have about my eating disorder history. And tell them, like, if you’re going to want me to lose weight, it’s just better to find someone else. So it’s just been a long process of just like 15 years of kind of slow. But sure, having revelations. But the EMDR therapy spy God, I wish I had found that at like 12 or 13 and would have just saved my life. [00:31:26][87.9]

Nikki: [00:31:27] I literally I was telling you the other day on the phone because we talked a little bit about the stuff of like what was because I always want to know people’s road to recovery from eating disorder, because that’s my story. I mean, that’s like who I am. I was always [00:31:38][11.5]

Jameela: [00:31:40] How old were you when your your starting because you know, I remember yeah. I was reading about you when you were younger and you were talking about the fact that you had a, you know, a very beautiful sister. And felt as though that meant that people [00:31:51][11.7]

Nikki: [00:31:52] Yes that’s why I related to your character in the Good Place which by the way, I mean, you’re just so fantastic in that show. And I’m not even done with it. And I got into it over covid. And so it was just so nice to get to know you that way, like which most people met you on that show. And then got to know, like I was a fan of your stuff on Instagram and all your writing and stuff. And then to see that was like, oh my God, my friend, my friend who doesn’t know she met me. But I do have her number that I can use at any time. She’s so talented and she’ll be like who is this. I was living with my parents over covid and we started watching the good place and I was like, I have her number. Like, my mom’s always very impressed by, like, celebrity stuff. That’s probably what TV is, because I’m seeking my mom’s love, because she likes celebrities more than, you know, the people around her. But it’s just nice to brag about. But you are so you are so fantastic, such a good actress and just light up the screen and. Yes. So I just want to say that. [00:32:45][53.4]

Jameela: [00:32:45] You’re the absolute nicest. Thank you very much. I think you are hysterical. [00:32:47][2.1]

Nikki: [00:32:51] No it’s just it needs to be said. Thank you. [00:32:51][0.4]

Jameela: [00:32:51] So that that definitely means a lot to me coming from someone I think it’s as funny as I find you, but [00:32:56][5.0]

Nikki: [00:32:57] I just try to be like now I’m not even trying to be funny anymore, and I’m just trying to be like I like to say things in the funniest way possible. But if you just say the truth, it’s funny. Like that’s like kind of a hack to do with standup if you literally say what you’re thinking, because what standup is is like saying you want the audience to go, oh my God, I do that too. I didn’t even realize I did that. And so if you just always say what you’re thinking, then you say things that shock people and go, oh my God, I think the same thing. But I mean, sometimes it bombs, but that’s it’s tapping into that the things that people aren’t noticing about themselves. Yeah. And honest and just being honest. So in terms of being honest, I got honest. That’s why I am recovered from an eating disorder. I eventually got honest with myself and stopped hiding it. And I was. [00:33:42][45.2]

Jameela: [00:33:42] How long and how long had you had the eating disorder. [00:33:44][2.0]

Nikki: [00:33:45] Yeah, I mean I got it my history and I’ll go like super, super fast. So you might need to do half the speed for your listeners because I can talk really fast. But here’s my whole trick. It’s pretty epic. I got I was a very sensitive child. I lost. I was scared of everything, terrified of public speaking again, like dancing, terrified of public speaking, used to have to in seventh grade. I couldn’t give presentations. I would have to do them at recess. My parents had to call. So I never speak in front of classes because I would shake so violently and I couldn’t talk. [00:34:14][29.0]

Jameela: [00:34:14] And you also up until then found felt invisible because because of having the sister that you thought was more beautiful than you? [00:34:21][6.7]

Nikki: [00:34:22] Yeah my sister got prettier a little bit later, like she got really pretty when I was in eighth grade, I think. And that’s when she’s and then by high school it was like just and then college, it just got worse and worse. And now she’s back down because she’s like a mom and she doesn’t wear as much makeup. But she really could be like she’s just a natural stunner. It’s just she’s one of those people. Every day in my adolescence, my friends, she would walk in the room and talk to us and she was not aware of her beauty and didn’t care, even though everyone noticed it all the time. And I was very aware. But my friends would just fall on the ground to be like your sister’s so pretty. What the fuck? It’s not fair. And I’d be like like it was just it was like, [00:34:56][34.4]

Jameela: [00:34:56] I’m right here. [00:34:57][0.7]

Nikki: [00:34:57] Yeah. All I wanted to do was be beautiful and I know that I am and all, but yeah, blah, blah, blah. But I just don’t feel it on the inside sometimes. Now I actually do. But so I knew that I wanted to be like Jennifer Aniston. I was obsessed with celebrities in sixth grade. I was like, how do I become that, whatever that is? And so I was like, I got to act. But I’m also scared of public speaking. So I like, forced myself to get auditioned for a play and like just signed up and got a role in so that I, I did the Dancing with the Stars trick to that just threw myself into my biggest fear because I knew I wanted to be famous. But like, I just I have to act. Wasn’t that good at acting all through high school. Acted but like never got the good roles. Finally got a comedic role. My senior year that people were like that was really good. I played a drunk woman. They were like, how did you know how to do that? I was like, I watch my mom and I just like did a little caricature of my mom and not really that good of an actress. I can be if I’m comfortable, but I don’t like auditioning like it’s not my jam. But I thought I wanted to do that because I was like, I want to be famous. It’s the only thing I know to do. I’m not good at music, I’m not a good enough singer or I can’t play an instrument, so I tried, I auditioned for theater school, didn’t get into any of them, was just like, what the hell am I going to do? That’s when. But then my senior year, September 11th, happened, which I was in St. Louis, but I was profoundly affected by it. And then right on the heels of that, my one of my best friends, not my best friend, my best friend’s best guy friend, killed himself because she didn’t love him. And I witnessed him telling her or like that he loved her and then her being like, no, I just like you as a friend. And then the next day he shot himself and left a note on her door. And this was my best friend since 4th grade, still my best friend. And so that really was like just that happened in November of 2001, my senior year moving into 2002, graduating. And I wasn’t allowed to feel those feelings because my parents didn’t know this guy. I my relationship with him was always at school or like with when my parents weren’t around. So no one in my family really understood how upset I was by it, even though I was with him the night before I saw the gun, like all the things the parents couldn’t handle me being that sad. So they told me, like, what are you so sad about? So that I just go, OK, yeah, you’re right. I’ll shut this down. that turned into an eating disorder within a month, you know, that was in also the eating disorder took place because I never had a boyfriend. I was really scared of boys. All my friends were like very promiscuous guys liked me, but I was just scared to be alone with one. I had one kiss my junior year. That was my first kiss that ended up being like very rape-y from a friend of mine who I did like, who we confessed our liking of each other one awkward night watching David Letterman show after the football game, like sitting in chairs being like, I like you, I like you too. And then he just attacked me and like I was like, get off, like, too much. It was my first kiss tongue all over my face. And he was my friend so I was like, get off, you know? And he, like, got drunk, was very violently driving on the way home, almost ran me over when I got out of the car and he dropped me off and I didn’t know it was wasted. He was like chugging alcohol in the next room while I was like Andy like, it’s not a big deal. Like, you kissed me and I didn’t like it. Calm down. But that really cemented me of, like, be scared of guys. They’ll try to attack you. And when you don’t give them what they want, they’ll they’ll stop being your friend. So that said, some things that I’m going to EMDR out of my fucking head with men. But then after that. I one day this guy that I liked, I heard liked me or I was going to spend some time with him after school. It was March of 2002 and I had rigged to this thing at my school. We did a remember that show that Chris Hardwick hosted with Jenny McCarthy on MTV. I want to say it’s not Blind Date, but it was like Singled Out. So where you you probably don’t maybe don’t know of it, but we know at my high school. OK, you do. So we did that for my high school and I was one of the girls that was winning a date. And I, I made my friend sit in the audience and tell me which questions to answer yes or no to so that I would end up on this guy Mike, that I liked. And I won a date with him. Like from this thing. He was like this guy I liked. He actually did like me asked me out on a date. I was so nervous about the date and like, oh my God, I might cause this boy that I couldn’t eat all day just because of nerves. That’s happens to me with before I give performances or I always lose weight before a big thing because I’m nervous, not because I’m trying to. But then sometimes I also am trying or in the past have been trying to. And then the next day someone was just like, you look amazing. And I was like, what do I do? Oh, I didn’t eat yesterday. Listen, I feel amazing now that you just complimented me. I’m going to ride this, like, feeling good. I’m just not going to eat. And then I was very scared of foods immediately. Like, I was like, I’m never going to eat fat again. I started making all these rules and then I told my mom a couple of times, like, Mom, I’m never going to eat fat again. Like I can’t. And I don’t think I ever will be able to. And I remember her being like, I don’t see how you’re going to do that Nik. And then just like back to cooking. So I had cries for help and I got all the attention in the world. Guys that liked me never would look at me before, liked me. I was like, and this is my couple last month, my senior year. So it’s like finally my friends don’t want to talk to me anymore because I’m not eating. And they all call the school and the school’s calling my parents. My parents are saying I’m just on a diet and that I can do what I want. I get I get approached to be a model at at the mall, which is like my dream. And I was but I was deathly ill. This woman just saw an anorexic woman and was like, what? My sister was with me and I go, You don’t want to give your card to me? My sister’s right over there. She was like, No, I want you. And it was embarrassing because my mom took me to this place afterwards. Let the cattle call that this woman gave me your card and she was because my friends had all dumped me and were so worried about me being anorexic. And my mom was like, you deserve this, you are beautiful. And we’re going to this. And we went to this really terrifying place downtown to this cattle call. And it was all the most like not models. Like I got like it was just like you sign up for classes. It was just a sham. And my mom in the car, I was crying because I was probably I know I was starving and I was just so embarrassed. My mom was like, we never have to tell anyone about this. I’ll tell your dad we got lost. And so it’s funny to me that I’m able to talk about on a podcast because it was humiliating, because that was my dream, to be a model and be like, you’re beautiful here, have this. And so pretty much I kept starving until I went to the doctor over the summer to get ready for my freshman year of college and to get a physical get you know, she can go to school and they wouldn’t let me leave because my pulse was so low that I was going to die. And they were like told my mom, like, she can’t leave. She’s probably anorexic. And my mom is like, she’s going to leave. And they’re like, we can’t legally let her like we’re taking her in because it’s on us if she dies because we know she’s going to die. So that I was like golf carted to another section of this hospital and put it in a psych ward that was the elderly psych ward because the teen ward was filled up in the summer of 02. And so I went to this. I was with all these old people and I was just like, oh, I’ll eat. I’ll do whatever you want to get out. I was there for like a week. I was very drugged and I couldn’t get out. And then I realized I was eighteen. I could sign myself out and I just did. And then I pretended to eat so I could be OK to leave school. I went to other counseling. They were like, Nikki’s going to die if she goes to school. My parents were like, that’s fine. I went to school, still very sick, very sick, looked like a skeleton, had was had no friends at the school. University of Colorado, Boulder. And the only way to make friends was to be like I was always funny, but I was like quiet and always said things but I was scared that anyone would go, You’re ugly, shut up. Like I always felt ugly so I never tried to bring attention myself, but I thought of funny things all the time. But suddenly I was like, the only way I can make friends is be funny like I have because I looked I looked like one of those girls you see that you go, everyone knows and you’re like, oh, honey, eat something like that was me constantly. People were whispering all the time about me. Everyone around me was like, why can’t you eat? And I didn’t know why. And I just knew that I couldn’t. And I knew that I didn’t want to and I just knew I just couldn’t. So that year I was just it was hell though, I was cold all the time. My ass hurt because I had no bones on my body. I didn’t want to ever hook up with a boy. I liked boys, but I couldn’t ever hook up with them because, like, I looked so sick when I was naked and I also didn’t have much of a sex drive. I was drinking a lot and not eating. And I was just bad in a bad place. And I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life because I wasn’t good at acting. And I was like, fuck, what am I going to do to be like famous or like whatever that is I want? And then someone was like, you should do comedy. A lot of people start saying you should do stand up comedy. And so then I finally signed up for a thing because I was like. I’ll try this or whatever, and then I did it and I was like, oh my God, OK, I have to live like I can’t fucking die because this is it, like I want to do this. So then that’s when I did the thing that you did of like having an eating disorder that was manageable, like just starve when you need to binge when you can. [00:43:20][502.5]

Jameela: [00:43:20] And it’s fucking normalized in our entire industry because everyone was doing it. [00:43:22][2.1]

Nikki: [00:43:23] Yeah intermittent fast call it a diet, do cleanses. But now I got to a point. So that was 18 years ago. Like I would say, 15 years I’ve been doing this. No one’s worried about me eating disorder, but it’s the darkest times of my eating disorder history are not the ones where I was dying in front of everyone. It’s been the nights that I eat disgusting amounts of food in bed, the times that I cancel plans because I’m hungry and I want to eat the things that I want to eat. And I don’t want to go to that dinner or the the ways the things I’ve canceled because I’ve already ate too much and I feel disgusting. So I don’t want to go out tonight and I can’t function. It’s the starving [00:43:57][34.1]

Jameela: [00:43:58] You’re describing my twenties [00:43:58][0.1]

Nikki: [00:43:59] and not and being mean to people because I’m in a bad mood because I’m hungry and they don’t have the one thing that I want to eat. The only thing I’m allowing myself to eat it was that for so long and then the last three years of my life, four years of my life, were protein bars and vegetables like being vegan, made it easy, I could go, oh, I went vegan for animals. I really am. It’s it wasn’t like a part of my disease, but it made it so I can be restrictive, of course. And then it would just I would eat. So when cut to covid I move home with my parents because I have nowhere to go. I don’t have apartment New York. I was changing apartments. I had no furniture I was just like I’ll just live with my parents until this thing blows over. I’m in April of 2020 and I am doing the same thing that I could work my way through before I was always working. So I never it made sense that I pinched up to twelve protein bars at night in my bed and would get up and eat on the toilet and then fall back to sleep and have chocolate all over my pillow and then not eat all day and just do lattes till I can have my special bedtime protein bars and then maybe a salad for dinner or whatever. Like that was my life and it was I never had to look at it and I talked about it openly and I made fun of it. But I didn’t talk about the number twelve. I said the number three, you know, like I wasn’t actually being honest about my eating disorder. And then when I was living with my parents and I was like, I don’t want to go through the next pandemic without a partner. I don’t want to live with them again. What how can I have a partner if I have protein bars on my bed and an eating disorder that I would have to hide from someone? I don’t want to hide this from someone I love. So I just did what I had to do to be like, you got to stop this, you got to stop it. And what I did was I made a promise to myself for at least as long as I can. Just you don’t ever get to skip meals. Those meals can look like whatever you want them to and you can mess around with them, but you ain’t skipping them like you got to eat something and it’s got to be substantial. And that is that kind of like black and white thinking for me, that rule has kept me on pace and I got my period back for the first time in two years. I, I don’t know when you’re not I’m not starving all the time. But the obsession is still there. It doesn’t go away. But I am I’m so much more like happy and your body just does find where it needs to be and some days my thighs are not what I want them to look like or my ass is not what I want to look like. And I just now, instead of being like, you’re such a piece of shit, you didn’t work out, but you ate like this da da da da da you’re so lazy. You sat all day. I go. I what do I say to myself now, because I really want to go there, because it really does help, I go, oh my God, like, that’s that’s not your fault. Everything’s not your fault. Like, even my eating disorder like taking this ownership of like you ate last night. You piece of shit you did that. No, you did. If you if you could make a choice in the past, like should I eat tomorrow night and binge all night and then throw up, you would say no. But something happened that couldn’t stop you from doing that. Be gentle with like I just let those things slide. It was really hard for me because I felt so responsible for my for my anorexia all along. And the only way I was able to beat it and not have it kill me was when the therapist told me to think of it as a disease like you’re possessed, like The Exorcist, and that you have a demon inside you that’s being like, don’t eat that. You’re such a weak person. And that was years ago that I was given that advice. But I didn’t put it into action for my self hatred of my body, of being like, it’s not your fault that your you know, your pits smell. I’m so sorry. It’s like, OK, if I could snap my fingers, then they wouldn’t smell they wouldn’t I’m not like a bad person. I don’t want to have stinky tits because I want to, like, make people uncomfortable, like I’m just trying my best. [00:47:32][213.4]

Jameela: [00:47:33] Yes. We we had we had Scarlet Curtis on this podcast and you know, she I don’t think she talked about it on the podcast, but it’s a conversation that she and I have had frequently where we you know, we’ve both openly struggled with our mental health and supported each other through the worst of those struggles. When we weren’t open about it publicly, we were each other’s kind of touchstone. And we both kind of came to the conclusion together that anything that you do to cope, however unhealthy it may be, if this is a drug addiction, if it is a sex addiction, if it is an eating disorder or a, you know, be that a binge or starve one, whatever you’re doing, as fucked up as it might be, it may just be the reason that you’re still here now. It was your coping mechanism. That doesn’t mean you should keep doing it, but you definitely shouldn’t beat yourself up for the thing that you did just to be able to make it through the fucking day. I and I think that that genuinely gave me so much freedom from the judging myself around my my mental health. You know, you you briefly sort of flirted with the idea that I might be a shameless person, and then you retracted that. But I think I, I think I even if I’m not fully there yet, I’m definitely on my way towards I, I, I’m in pursuit of shamelessness and I don’t care about the stigma around that word. Like, I think shamelessness is the ultimate end goal to me success. [00:48:58][84.4]

Nikki: [00:48:59] Yes because shame sucks why anyone want shame, let’s let’s get have less of it. Shamelessness is like is a great quote. I mean that is that is on point like. [00:49:07][7.9]

Jameela: [00:49:08] That to me is full success is just shamelessness. It doesn’t mean you should be a bad person or bigot or anything like that. But I think shame around the things that are really you just existing as a human being. [00:49:18][9.7]

Nikki: [00:49:18] Shame is what causes bigotry, like self shame, like hating yourself and hating other people is hating yourself. And that’s you hate yourself because of shame. And like that feeling guilty. I don’t understand what people are like. I feel so guilty. I’m like that don’t feel I don’t want you to feel guilty for something that I don’t care about. Like, I don’t know how to free you from that. But that’s not me. I’m not making you feel anything no one makes when people go, you made me feel or sometimes I say and then he makes me feel like and I’m like, no, he didn’t. You’re interpreting it that way. [00:49:50][31.7]

Jameela: [00:49:50] It’s such a. It’s such a hateful thing, you know, it makes you not just hate yourself. It makes you hate other people. Something that you and I spoke about in the phone earlier this week was the moment you had with your idol, Taylor Swift. Where you a little bit. Maybe your own words projected your own eating disorder feelings onto her thin body and her style, [00:50:13][22.9]

Nikki: [00:50:15] I projected everything on her. It’s one of the most ironic things that could maybe ever happen is that I am the villain in the Taylor Swift docu I’m in the villain montage of the Taylor Swift documentary because my feelings for her are really not a lot of people at this age care about someone they don’t know as much as I do taylor Swift and how have been profoundly changed by an artist like I have always heard people be like, I don’t know what I would have done without your music to certain people. And I’ve always gone like I get it, like I love music. But Taylor Swift, [00:50:50][35.2]

Jameela: [00:50:51] That’s how I feel about DJ Khaled. [00:50:51][0.0]

Nikki: [00:50:57] He is he they are the best music, is what I’ve heard him say, [00:51:01][4.1]

Jameela: [00:51:03] but he says we are the best music. He means him and me specifically. Just so you know, he’s not talking about anyone. It’s just him and me. [00:51:09][6.2]

Nikki: [00:51:10] Oh you collab [00:51:10][0.0]

Jameela: [00:51:11] We have the best we’ve the best music about him and me together. [00:51:13][2.3]

Nikki: [00:51:13] That’s how much you love him is that you feel he’s talking to you like that. [00:51:16][2.3]

Jameela: [00:51:17] Oh I know he is. Please don’t gaslight me about my relationship with DJ Khaled. Sorry what were you going to say. [00:51:24][6.6]

Nikki: [00:51:24] Yeah, Taylor Swift. Like I remember one time. I mean, I’ve been very depressed before, but I remember one time she was like maybe flirting with coming out with an album and I like almost got hit by a car or something. My first thought was like, oh, good, I won’t be dead for the album. Like I want to be around for her album like that. I’m not kidding you. Like, that’s how much she means to me is like I can’t wait for the next music she releases. That’s going to help me process my feelings because that’s my feelings are shut off until Taylor Swift came around, like she really opened me up. So huge fan. I’m watching the trailer for Miss Americana on Netflix the like. As soon as I get home, I’m in bed with my protein bars cuddled up watching her thing. And I dropped my phone because I heard my voice and there was a picture of me, but it was my voice going, She’s too skinny and all of her model friends. It’s just like enough or something like that. And I was like, Oh my God, it’s me. I sent it to all my friends in there, like, that’s not you. And I go, I know my voice. And they go, Nikki, you would never say that about her. I’m like, Yes, I would, because I love her. Like, the hate and love are so similar. And I was just doing some, you know, interview years before years before when I had loved her even then as much. And was it was during her nineteen eighty nine around then when she was more her version of her era and and she was friends with all those models and, and Lena Dunham and I wanted to be in that crew. I was jealous that like I didn’t really fit in it. I didn’t seem like oh I couldn’t trade clothes with, I couldn’t like trade sisterhood of the traveling pants with. She probably wouldn’t let me in her crew. She’s trying to be a model. She surrounding herself with models because she wants us to think she’s a model. She’s she looks like a model. Now she’s just going to be a model like it was like my best friend in high school when she gave a blowjob and I was like, I’ve lost you. Like, you’re cool now and you’re going to be popular like and not that Taylor Swift would ever do something like that, but it was just like she’s different than me now. And I felt like I can’t be that. But the truth is, I don’t want to be a model. I want to be friends with models. I want to be that skinny and that talented. I want to be Taylor Swift. So when she started deviating from the things that I’ve been able to achieve and I know that I can’t, I was just like threatened. And so when someone asked me my opinion of her, I was just like, she’s too skinny. Meanwhile, she’s battling an eating disorder. It comes out in the documentary, which is so ironic because been there and I and her part of that documentary that was about her weight and her struggle with, you know, starving herself and overexercising was profound for me right before I got my shit together, because she was someone that I go, oh, she’s on that Jameela wave like I saw her in the backseat of the car going, you know, if you starve yourself, you don’t have a big enough ass. And if you and if you have an ass, you they say you have a tummy, you can never win. It’s fucking impossible. And I remember that quote being like, oh, my God, that it is fucking impossible. And she just doesn’t. She’s also had this moment of not letting herself look at pictures, which is where she was in her process, you know, like of just I’m just gonna protect myself from images that might trigger me to then go to a place where I don’t want to skip dinner tonight. And she just seemed like she was in a good place. So I I didn’t watch the documentary until much later. But when I saw the trailer, I alerted my team and I was like, I’m in this documentary. And as a swiftie, I know that Swifties will find me and they will. It’s not going to be good. And I just want to know how much of me is in this documentary. And they’re like, we can’t find out, but we don’t want to like. We don’t even want to ask, and I was like, OK. And so then I watched like I didn’t even watch it. I just waited for the DMs to roll in and they did. And people are like, you’re in the new Taylor Swift documentary. I know. Please tell me what I do, what do I say? And it’s the same clip, but it’s a video of me and it doesn’t say my name, but I was just so sad. [00:55:07][222.9]

Jameela: [00:55:09] And a swiftie found you and told you to die. [00:55:10][1.1]

Nikki: [00:55:10] They didn’t really there was a couple maybe, but this is the thing. I waited that whole day and I was so sad. I was walking around Manhattan. I had to go get my hair done. And I was just the reason I was sad was because I couldn’t listen to her music because I was I knew I had hurt someone that I care about. And it was like, you know, it was like when you break up with a guy and your songs like you can’t listen, they’re just like they’re too sad. And I was like, oh, my God, I will never be able to listen to Taylor Swift again. Like, if I don’t fix this feeling and like, you know, amend this. So I just, like, drafted an Instagram apology. And because I thought I was the only way that you’ll see it, I guess maybe my agents to send or something. I didn’t even think I asked because it was like it’s not going to get to her. They’re going to say, yeah Nikki we sent it. We don’t know if she got it and then it never will. So I just was like, maybe Instagram. She’ll see it. And it didn’t matter if she saw it, though, after I was able to say this was me mouthing off like an idiot. And the reason I did it was because A, B and C, I am so sorry to have contributed to your pain. I’m so grateful that you are someone talking about this issue. And, you know, I just [00:56:16][65.8]

Jameela: [00:56:17] You apology was hilarious and very heartfelt and she responded and was so gracious [00:56:18][1.5]

Nikki: [00:56:20] She responded back and it was the best. I was on a terrible date when she responded. I checked my phone and I look, it wasn’t a terrible date, but it wasn’t going the way I wanted to. And she had written back and I was just I told the guy I was like Taylor Swift commented on my thing that I didn’t even think she would ever see. And because I did, I released as soon as I sent it, I didn’t even think she would see it. But I did need her to because I was like, it’s out in the universe. I can listen to her music again. And I pulled up London boy, and I skipped down the street listening to it and it was back. I could enjoy it again, but it was just it was a great moment. And I have continued to just, like, love her so much. And I’m so it’s the best fan to be to because she puts out so much stuff. There’s all you can go back and get old stuff again, like it’s the best being a swiftie. [00:57:06][46.3]

Jameela: [00:57:07] It is is the fucking worst when you’ve ever been when you are someone who hates misogyny and then you yourself kind of participate in the culture of it. And, you know, you and I touched on this briefly, but I was such a big asshole when I was younger. I just. One thing when I’m when I’m talking about the Kardashians and the things that they do that I find problematic, I don’t consider that me just taking cheap shots at someone. I’m always trying to be contextual, empathetic, educational, and also just willing for them to do better. I really don’t want them to be canceled or, you know, to disappear. I really just want them to to just use all of their ridiculous amounts of money and influence they have to to do great things like the prison reform stuff. More of that less of the diet culture shit, please. And then I will happily step off your dick. But [00:57:56][49.3]

Nikki: [00:57:56] just keep your maintain that [00:57:59][2.5]

Jameela: [00:57:59] dwelling residence on that dick until it stops because it’s very dangerous and it’s reaching like billions of people. So I but but but I used to be a just such a needless ignorant prick about women and their sexuality in particular. I remember 2012, 2013, and everyone became very sexual and we really don’t many musicians nowadays. It’s not like the kind of Alanis Morissette, Fiona Apple days where everyone was like, I don’t bathe and I wear grungy trousers and like vest tops and whatever. Now it’s everyone’s in bikinis and the thigh boots. And you know what? Fuck it. Fine. Do you if that’s what makes you feel powerful and sexy and cool on stage, go ahead. I’m all for it. But back then I wasn’t I felt like this wave of sexuality was happening and I felt very, very threatened by it. I was a sexual assault survivor and I was just like, this is why men look at us all as just pieces of meat, because prominent women making themselves pieces of meat. And I was just pointing at the wrong target. I at no point was directing this towards men. I didn’t know the word patriarchy, even though I was in my twenties. I just was vomit I was projecting similarly to you my own pain onto the wrong fucking target. And one of the people that I was rude about was Miley Cyrus. And I was taught quite a lesson. And I think one of her fans sent me four beheaded rats to my radio job. And I feel so bad for those rats. I am responsible for their murder. Four beheaded rats. [00:59:33][94.1]

Nikki: [00:59:35] Well, that person’s clearly like like a level headed person. Level rat-headed person. [00:59:38][3.5]

Jameela: [00:59:41] they’re not they weren’t having a bad day but [00:59:42][1.7]

Nikki: [00:59:44] that is. No you’re absolutely right. These people get. But they weren’t wrong. [00:59:48][4.0]

Jameela: [00:59:56] Do you feel like you still have work to do in the kind of owning your own self-love so that you don’t rely on people liking the photo or this, that and the other like you don’t do you think there is still work for you to do in the kind of self validation phase? Because, I mean, we’re all fucking human and it is where and you and I are in a weird industry, in a weird position where we are scrutinized and we don’t know how to walk the line of what we have at age seven is much of what is and what is feminist, what isn’t feminist like. Am I being complicit in a culture or am I being able to be responsible within being complicit in that culture? It’s a it’s a and at the same time, I have to do certain things because they’re written into my contract. So I have to be able to promote certain things. And this is the way that it’s promoted. And there’s only so much I can rail against the system. Do you feel like there’s more work for you to still do when it comes to just your emotional peace within? [01:00:43][47.1]

Nikki: [01:00:44] I would be sad if I just stopped here, but I also know that I would be happy because I’m finally happy. Like I do feel like this year and I would never have said that until about six months ago when my eating disorder was able to get really where I was like, wow, this doesn’t look like it’s coming back. And it always could. And it does rear its head in little ways. But I don’t what I hope is that, like, for me, I would just love to age and be accepting of it and not get caught up on. What laser facials this person’s getting, or I really and I I did steal myself away from that, I used to have a thing before a pandemic when I was meeting up with my best girlfriends, who are all beautiful ones, the model ones and two the other two should be. And we would meet up and the first 10 minutes of our conversation would be how cute everyone looked and where’d you get that and what my skin sucks. Oh, my God, what are you doing with your skin? With your hair? Like it would just be a and Amy Schumer did a sketch that I’m in on her show, Inside Amy Schumer, where it’s called Compliments and all the women complement each other. And as soon as you get a compliment, they’re like, oh, my God, are you serious? I’m disgusting. My boobs are like, you know, spaghetti squashes like they just like to like just that was all it was. And one time I just go, OK, I don’t want you guys can do it to yourselves, but I don’t want anyone to comment on my looks anymore, good or bad ever again, like from specific friends, because I was beginning to get mad when they didn’t say the things I wanted or when they did comment on it like, oh God, how bad do I look normally? And I was just like, I want to take that away. And now they don’t say anything about my looks and it’s just so freeing. [01:02:31][106.8]

Jameela: [01:02:32] Nikki, I have to say, like, well done for what you’ve achieved in the last year regarding the the massive stride you made towards your overcoming your eating disorder. That’s huge and it was a really difficult year for many people where a lot of people, people like me devolved. And to know that you have evolved during that time and done something that’s going to save your life so that you’re here for another for another ten thousand Taylor Swift records, it took a little longer to be able to hear all of her and back catalog and new catalog. [01:03:04][31.9]

Nikki: [01:03:04] Even if I don’t the ability to be able to talk about this so openly and admit to the 13 protein bars, the in bed every night that the throw up in the toilet, the toilets, I’ve learned how to clean because I was bulimic for a while, that just all the things that anyone who might be listening, you know that thing you do that’s so shameful that the seven hour workouts, whatever it is like, you don’t have to keep doing it. You’re not special and thinking like. No, but I do because I used to think other girls don’t don’t have to starve, but I do because my body can’t be normal. If I, I want to be as skinny as Emily Rojansky. And it’s not fair that for me to do that I lose my period. So fuck it, she gets to have a baby and conceive when she’s that small. I don’t care then I’m going to be that small and my body can just fucking deal with it. Well, my body can’t be that small and it will shut down and I’ll stop being a working woman. And so you just be what you are. And if anyone is interested in what like cracked it open for me in a deeper way, I always want to extend the ability to message me on DMs and I will try to get back to you and just I can give you more of a direction to point you in on what has worked for me. And I just want to say that. [01:04:14][70.0]

Jameela: [01:04:15] That’s amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on to this podcast and being so fucking open and fun and engaging and just a joy. I look forward to meeting you again. In person. [01:04:27][11.6]

Nikki: [01:04:27] We’re friends now. [01:04:27][0.0]

Jameela: [01:04:30] For the second time. Well now we definitely have [01:04:30][0.0]

Nikki: [01:04:30] Can I plug my podcast? [01:04:31][1.0]

Jameela: [01:04:32] Oh, please plug your podcast. [01:04:32][0.4]

Nikki: [01:04:32] Oh, my God. Thank you. Because I think that if anyone enjoyed listen to me on this, like this is what I do on my podcast every day. Monday through Thursday, I have a daily podcast called the Nikki Glaser podcast that is on I Heart Radio, but you can get it wherever you you get your podcast. But it’s daily. It’s with my best friend, who is my roommate, who’s a forty one year old single dude who lives with me. It’s hilarious and it’s very introspective. And we talk about real stuff in it’s daily and you don’t have to like, go back to old episodes, just jump in. It’s like a morning show. Like it’s kind of like Stern every morning we’re just doing fun stuff or getting really real. And it’s so fun. The Nikki Glaser podcast and also I’m going on tour this summer. And when the world opens up again, a theater tour called One Night with Nikki. And so tickets are available at NikkiGlaser.com. And I hope you come out. [01:05:15][42.8]

Jameela: [01:05:16] I’m sure they will I have very loving and supportive fanbase. Before you go, I always ask my guests, what do you weigh? And by that I don’t mean in pounds and kilos. I always mean in the kind of I Weigh format of what makes up who you are. [01:05:28][12.3]

Nikki: [01:05:29] I weigh authenticity, kindness, insecurity at times that is just adorable and not something to be loathed about myself, but that sometimes makes me do things that I’m not proud of. But it’s also a loveable thing, a coping mechanism, I Weigh I’m I’m a I’m myself as a little girl, like I way like I have the same, like, wonder and like need to be loved and happiness as like a young girl. And I try to, like, nurture her and think about her a lot because something happened along the way that made me stick in a certain way in ages. So I I’m just I love animals. I’m vegan. I weigh, I weigh, I weigh empathy and I weigh being able to admit when I’m wrong and really loving to apologize and meaning it and when I’ve done wrong and being able to actually get there, it is hard. But boy, it feels good to be someone who is so wrong all the time and will continue to be wrong. And yeah, that’s, that’s what I weigh. [01:06:45][75.7]

Jameela: [01:06:45] That’s amazing. And we both weigh, uh, kind of just between the two of us keeping the protein bar industry going. For as long as we did. [01:06:54][8.5]

Nikki: [01:06:56] Oh I have more protein bars than Walgreens, Kroger, St. Louis and then the Walgreens Corporation. I’m not kidding you, I, I got more protein bars. I ate 13 of them a day, a box a day. I mean, it was nuts how much money I’ve given to them. So yeah, I, [01:07:10][13.7]

Jameela: [01:07:11] I’m so sorry that you didn’t get shares. I’m sorry that we all didn’t get shares. [01:07:14][3.4]

Nikki: [01:07:14] I was too they would have been like stop tagging us these bedroom scenes are really sad. [01:07:18][3.6]

Jameela: [01:07:19] I’m really glad that we’re not eating them. I’m really glad that we’re not eating them as much anymore because they are very constipating. I can say that. Because my friend told me my friend told me. [01:07:31][12.2]

Nikki: [01:07:31] Is your friend your asshole? [01:07:33][1.4]

Jameela: [01:07:34] Yeah, yeah my friend is my asshole. She’s my best friend. [01:07:34][0.3]

Nikki: [01:07:41] So is mine! [01:07:41][0.0]

Jameela: [01:07:42] Well, from my asshole to yours. [01:07:43][1.3]

Nikki: [01:07:44] Oh yeah. I can’t wait to get those two together. [01:07:46][2.3]

Jameela: [01:07:50] Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. I Weigh with Jameela Jamil is produced and research by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan and Kimmie Gregory. It is edited by Andrew Carson. And the beautiful music that you’re hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. If you haven’t already, please rate, review and subscribe to the show. It’s a great way to show your support. I really appreciate it and amps me up to bring on better and better guests. Lastly at I Weigh we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. You can leave us a voicemail at 1-818-660-5543 or email us what you weigh at IWeighpodcast@gmail.com. It’s not in pounds and kilos. Please don’t send that. It’s all about you just you know, you’ve been on the Instagram anyway and now we would love to pass the mic to one of our listeners. [01:08:38][48.2]

Listeners: [01:08:42] I weigh my mixed race heritage and multicultural upbringing that has enriched and continued to enrich my life in so many ways, I weigh the music that I write and produce as a woman of color still in a very white and male dominated music industry. I weigh my willingness to learn and to constantly challenge any internal biases that society forces upon us. I weigh my luck and my gratefulness to be alive, and I weigh my love for doggos. Thank you, Jameela, for creating this wonderful community. [01:08:42][0.0]

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