Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers

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First published in Australia by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited 2018

First published in the UK by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

FIRST EDITION

Text © Celeste Barber 2018

Cover design by Mark Campbell © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Cover photograph © Corrie Bond, Vivien’s Creative

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Celeste Barber asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Source ISBN: 9780008327255

Ebook Edition © March 2020 ISBN: 9780008327262

Version 2020-01-28

Dedication

For JoJo, Mark and Nic.

Come back now, please, I’ve got so much to tell you.

YASS, CONTENTS!

@ritaora

The One With All the Content

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Pilot

The One Where I Thought I Would Flip Inside Out

The One Where I Discovered Ritalin, My Childhood (Not So) Imaginary Friend

The One About My Dad

The One Where I Danced a Lot

The One With the Gross Man

The One About My Fake Brother, Michael

The One Where I Was Bullied at School, I Think

Dear Wine

The One About Falling in Love With Comedy

The One About Surviving Drama School

The One With the Other Gross Man

The One About Sparky

The One About Thomas

The One With #hothusband

Dear LGBTQI Community

The One Where My Heart Was Cut Open

The One About My Breasts

The One About My Mum

The One About Jo and How I Got in Trouble at Yoga

The One Where I Discovered Being Famous on Instagram is Like Being Rich in Monopoly

The One Where I Went to America

Dear Hangover

The One When Harry Met Celeste

The One Where I Became an #accidental(role)model

The One About Loving Our Bodies #bopo

The One With the Totally Authentic 100% Genuine 28-Day Guide to Being Hangry

The One Where I Explain Why I Don’t Hate Hot People

The One No One Cares About

The One Where I Became an Anti-influencer

The Last One Part 1

The Last One Part 2

Dear Parents

Endnotes

About the Publisher

Pilot

WELL HELLO, YOU CHEEKY LITTLE SAUCEPOTS. Thank you for buying my book (or thank you for acting excited when it was given to you by your sister-in-law, who probably bought it last minute while running through the airport trying not to miss family Christmas).

I bet you’re thinking, ‘She’s just like me!’ – except when you saw the cover and probably realised that I’ve completely got my head up my own arse. And I know for sure that my primary school tutor – let’s just call her Mrs Fleet – is thinking, ‘Oh my God, if this chick can get a book deal, then anything is possible.’ And you’re right, Mrs Fleet, anything is possible, even though you treated me like I was illiterate when we all knew I was dyslexic with ADD.

This book is a massive deal for me, not only because the profits will help keep my grey hair under control, but because y’all have been super-kind and supportive of me and my stuff, and buying this book is a part of that. (No, you shut up; you’re getting emotional in the intro.)

The closest I ever got to writing a book was at primary school, when most recesses and lunchtimes were spent writing lines: ‘I will not talk back to the teacher. I will not talk back to the teacher.’ And I filled up those pages pretty quickly. So I’m hoping this will be pretty similar.

I love writing. Even though I’m no wordsmith – I spell and read words phonetically, and autocorrect can’t fix or find replacements for 98 per cent of what I write – I’ve always enjoyed expressing myself with a pen and paper. That was until I started writing this book, and now I’m so fucking stressed that I want to go and scream into a pillow. But how good is the cover, right?!

Now, for those of you thinking, ‘Oh God, I just spent actual money on a book by a girl who is only good at taking inappropriate unflattering photos of herself’ – never fear! I’m going to tackle a lot of big issues in this book, from how rich Bill Gates really is to why laser hair removal is more effective on dark hair than on fair hair.*

Here are five reasons why buying this book was a good idea:

1. You went into a bookshop to get it, yay! Everyone wants to fuck someone who pretends to be smart. Or if you got it online, you can just click straight back over to Pornhub* after purchasing it and get your fix there – whatever blows your hair back.

2. If you hate it, you can totally regift it to a middle-aged woman named Beverly – they seem to think I’m pretty cool.

3. By purchasing this book, you have helped me buy school shoes for my kids. They say thank you for that.

4. People will think you’re a feminist, and everyone loves a feminist. Just ask Germaine Greer.

5. If Brandi Glanville (google her, she’ll love it) can write a New York Times bestseller, then so can I.

What a magical experience.

@ciara

@bondsaus

The One Where I Thought I Would Flip Inside Out

I’ve never really known how people start books, especially memoirs. And especially not one by someone who is 36, which is kind of weird considering I haven’t even started my second and chosen career as the new and slightly less busty Michelle Visage. So I thought I’d just jump straight in with one of my favourite stories. Here it is, the story about the day I met my first son and how my once-neat vagina became one big hole.

* * *

DOES ANYONE REALLY PLAN PREGNANCIES? I mean seriously? In my experience, they have been a bloody big surprise, and not the delivery-guy-turned-up-with-something-you-forgot-you-bought-online-weeks-earlier kind of surprise, but more of a ‘sorry we are out of bacon today’ kind of surprise at your local café. It’s unnerving at the beginning, but you know it’s the best thing for you in the long run.

I have four kids. I have two boys of my very own who came tearing out of me, and I inherited two girls as a package deal with my husband, Api. Sahra was two and Kyah was four when I first met them. I have been a stepmother since the age of 21.

I had my first boy, Lou, in a small town on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. Api had bought a house there after his first daughter was born and, when I found out I was pregnant, I moved up there with him. For those of you playing at home, who have no idea where the hell I’m talking about, the Mid North Coast is an area on the east coast of Australia about 45 minutes south of hygiene and approximately 1 hour 20 minutes north of where all forms of inspiration go to die! Imagine Paris, take away the culture, the art, the amazing food, the bustling metropolis and the traffic, and then add trees, a beach, teen mums, two pre-teen stepdaughters, narrow-mindedness and a Woollies and you’re there!

There was nothing to do on the Mid North Coast. Nothing. This is the appeal for a lot of people but I ain’t one of those people. I had to do something to stay occupied. I was living in the middle of nowhere, pregnant and raising two girls, my hormones were on a rollercoaster and I needed to focus on something to avoid the temptation to pack my shit up and waddle as far as possible away from my situation. So, I decided to not only be pregnant, I was going to throw myself so far into this pregnancy that I would be too busy to do anything other than create life, goddamm it!

I enrolled us into a Calmbirth course and we quickly became one of those couples who acted as though we had invented childbirth. Calmbirth is similar to Hypnobirthing and Active Birth and it is fantastic. It’s a childbirth education programme that prepares future parents mentally, emotionally and physically.

Calmbirth is all about focusing in on yourself and your partner during the birth, and experiencing the labour for what it is – as opposed to being scared and thinking you need someone else or any intervention. It liberates you to trust and back yourself. I think Beyoncé created it.

I knew my body could do what was needed in birthing a baby, but it was my over-active mind that I feared would sabotage me. I wanted as natural a birth as possible, but I wasn’t as free-spirited as I needed to be to facilitate this. When my midwife asked me what sort of birth I wanted, I said: ‘Ideally, I’d like to have a baby in a rainforest, and by “rainforest” I mean “a place where no drugs are needed and everything is done naturally and in harmony with the surrounding trees and possums”, but the rainforest will need to be heated, with the quite hum of traffic outside and the smell of culture. Along with this, I’ll need an express door to an operating theatre full of drugs and all the numbing cream in the world if I change my mind, ’K?’

The closest hospital, where I had all of my appointments, was a tiny place in a nearby town that had no drugs, no heated floors, very few possums, and definitely no doors leading to operating theatres. It was just a birthing ‘rainforest’: a cold birthing rainforest. And no one wants a cold rainforest. No one. But because of my heart history – now, if that isn’t a reason to keep reading, I don’t know what is! – the doctors were worried that with all the strain on my heart during the labour it could totally explode (this is the official medical speak). So I was classified as high risk and wasn’t allowed to birth at Rainforest Hospital. I had to go to the bigger hospital, Drugs Hospital, where they had A-grade morphine and some street-level shit on standby.

Drugs Hospital was an hour away, so our plan was that we would do all the appointments leading up to the birth at Rainforest Hospital and I would do all the tearing and screaming at Drugs Hospital.

* * *

I woke up on the morning that my son was due and I was in labour. We did all the walking around, pregnancy yoga, eating chilli, Api wanting sex (and me looking at him with murder in my eyes) that is suggested when trying to speed up the process. Api went for a much-needed ceremonial surf and my mum rubbed my back. All standard ‘I think I’m in labour’ activities.

After a day of ‘Holy shit, can I really do this?’ we made our way to Rainforest Hospital. I needed to get checked to see if I was actually in labour or just experiencing gas (wouldn’t be the first time I thought I was in labour but it was just a bad bean burrito repeating on me).

Like I said, Rainforest Hospital was cold and quiet. I hate cold and quiet. Cold and quiet doesn’t calm me down, it freaks me out. Warm and vibrant is what I am looking for when planning a 30th birthday or wanting to birth a human. I feel comfortable knowing there are things going on around me. I like busy places; I find it easier to relax and ‘go into myself’. No number of lavender candles can relax me like fluorescent lighting and powder-blue gowns, and the screams of ‘IT’S TIME TO PUSH!’ coming from the adjoining birthing suites.

Brenda, the midwife at Rainforest Hospital, sucked. I was in pain, scared and fucking cold, and she wasn’t having any of it. I know I’m not the first person to birth a child and I didn’t invent labour – this is something that we all know was created by Tina Knowles, Beyoncé’s mum – but I was scared and was hoping for some comfort and understanding and a possible cup of tea with milk and honey on the side. #labourdiva. Brenda couldn’t have cared less.

As soon as I arrived she asked if I had had ‘a show’. I went straight into my default setting when I’m uncomfortable and started with some basic gags. Api knew what I was up to straightaway.

Me: Well, depends on what kind of show you’re referring to.

Nurse: What?

Api: Oh, God.

Me: Well, I’ve had a number of shows.

Nurse: Pardon?

Api: Please stop.

Me: I’ve had sold-out shows and critically acclaimed shows, so I’ll need you to be a little more specific.

Api: I hate you.

Nurse: Has a big chunk of mucus come out in your undies? A mucus plug? A SHOW?

Me: Oh … no.

Nurse: OK, well I need to examine you, to see if you really are in labour.

Me: I’m pretty sure I’m—

And with that she jammed two gloved fingers deep inside me. She retracted them, presented her fingers to me covered in my dignity, self-esteem and what looked like an oyster and declared, ‘There’s your show.’ With that she walked out and closed the door behind her.

I looked at Api and before I could even tell him to ‘Get me the fuck out of here’, he was already packing up my stuff. He helped me off the bed and begged me never to do gags in a hospital ever again, to which I declared, ‘I can’t make those kinds of promises, mate, I was just fisted by a woman named Brenda.’

We went home, where my mum was pacing, picked up our bags and made our way to Drugs Hospital. It was a 353,837-hour drive to Drugs Hospital and everything was Api’s fault. The back seat wasn’t big enough, Api’s fault. My contractions hurt, Api’s fault. I was pregnant, Api’s fault. The crisis in Syria? Api’s. Fault.

Once we got to Drugs Hospital it was cold and quiet. Jesus, what’s with all these cold and quiet hospitals?! We had to ring some sort of bell to get through a few doors, and as soon as we had passed through all of them and got to the birthing suite, it was like a fucking circus and I was so relieved. There were midwives rushing from room to room, men wandering around looking tired and confused, phones ringing and people talking really loudly. BAM! I was safe, I could totally do this. It still wasn’t as warm as I had hoped but I had to pick my battles – I was about to be ripped from arsehole to breakfast.

We met our midwife, Wendy, and handed her our birth plan and she was totally on board with Calmbirth and was super-supportive of us wanting a water birth. I know this because she told us, ‘I’m totally on board with Calmbirth and am super-supportive of you wanting a water birth.’ I was not missing fisty Brenda, that’s for sure. Wendy was such an advocate that she started giving Api notes on what was required of him before we even got into the birthing suite.

Wendy: OK, Dad, what Mum will need from you during this amazing process is your support, so during contractions there is to be no touching or talking to Mum, OK?

Api: OK.

Wendy: OK. And Mum, what I’ll need from you is—

I could feel another contraction coming on, I was cold and was in no mood for Wendy’s anecdotes.

Me: I’ll just stop you right there, Wendy, I know what is needed from me, and that’s a goddamned human to be vag-shat out of me, so please GIVE ME SOME SPACE!

Contraction over. Possible lifelong friendship with Wendy in jeopardy.

After another couple of contractions in the same vein, Wendy had to leave us for a while and tend a ward full of 15-year-olds who were also crowning. This was good. It gave Api and me a chance to be together and do what we needed to do, i.e. him sleep and me walk around the room like an elephant with something to prove.

Over the next five hours I was walking, I was yelling, I was screaming, I was bouncing on the birthing ball, I was kicking the ball, I was in the shower, I was out of the shower, I broke the shower, I was back on the ball, and Api slept. Wendy had come back in a few times to check on me with the phone jammed between her ear and shoulder fielding calls from expectant teenage mothers. Turns out the Mid North Coast is a busy place for damaged hymens and ripening cervixes.

After seven hours of contracting, Wendy came back in and I. Was. DONE.

Me: Wendy, I can’t do this.

Wendy: It sounds like you’re transitioning, love?

Me: What are you talking about?

Wendy: When it’s getting closer to the time to push, most woman say they can’t do it, but you can, you can, love.

Me: Look, I understand that, I know that people say that they can’t do it but they can and they are just scared, but you need to understand that I can’t do it! So you need to pack your shit up, Wendy, we are going home. API, WAKE UP, WE’RE OUT!

Turns out Wendy was right, funny that. I was actually in transition and about to meet my baby. Shit! This gave me no comfort at all. I knew that I was too far along to make the most of the hospital’s drug stash and I quickly realised that the only way I was going to get this baby from the inside to the outside was by way of vaginal exorcism.

I wish I could say that the thought of holding my baby in my arms cancelled out any fear I was feeling and instead gave me strength to soldier on, confident and empowered, but it didn’t. I was petrified of the pain, the imminent burning ring of fire and the possibility that I might push so hard that my arse would explode!

Wendy asked me to get on the bed so she could see how dilated I was. I quietly and considerately kicked Api to wake him the fuck up so I might be able to have a woman fist me for the second time that day. And yep, she was right, I was eight centimetres and ready to get into that lukewarm bath and start tearing.

Wendy ran the bath, Api walked around a little dazed – but to be fair no one wakes up well from an afternoon sleep – and I tried to run out the door.

I got into the bath and nothing changed. I thought that all my troubles would wash away when I got into that water, because that’s what the women in the birthing videos tell you. Then there’s the women who manage to orgasm during labour. Fuck those women. The water did nothing. I was still in pain, just as uncomfortable, and now I was wet, and not in the way that the orgasm ladies were wet.

My water hadn’t broken yet and I was starting to freak out. The bath was in the corner of the bathroom and it had a red cord that hung above the centre of it in case there was an emergency. It was there to pull on to alert the authorities, then the cast of Grey’s Anatomy would come running.

Wendy had yet again run out to tend to other cervixes, and I got a crazy amount of pressure in the areas where one would expect to experience crazy amounts of pressure during the transitioning stages of labour.

Holy shit, he’s coming, my baby is about to tear out of me without me needing to push! Jesus, were those rumours that the school bitches made up about me being ‘loose’ right?!?!

Then came this almighty surge. ‘Holy shit!’ I screamed at Api. ‘Get her, get Wendy, he’s coming, the baby is coming!’

With that Api jumped up and yanked on the red cord above the bath so hard he pulled the goddamned thing out of the roof. While he was trying to untangle the cord from around his perfect face, I realised that it wasn’t in fact my baby coming out, it was my water breaking. YES! I’m not loose – suck a fart, Year 8 bitches.

After my water broke, Wendy came back in to check on Api and I made it my mission to get as comfortable as possible. Trusty Wendy was there to suggest some positions.

Wendy: Try crouching.

Me: No.

Wendy: Sitting back with your legs rested up on the sides of the bath?

Me: No.

Wendy: Some women like to lie on their side, propping themselves up with their elbow, and their partner holds their top leg in the air, like a scissor kick.

Me: No. Please don’t say ‘scissor kick’.

Wendy: OK, let’s get you on all fours.

Api: Hehe, that’s what got us into this.

Me: ARE YOU SERIOUS?

Api: Sorry, I was just trying to lighten the mood.

Me: Come here and let me cut your dick off, that will lighten my mood!

So I got on all fours and bit the metal on the side of the bath and the pushing began. They say that you should push into your bum when having a baby and it makes you feel like you are pooing.

Well, Wendy had this covered. I was 45 minutes into pushing into my bum and Wendy, my Wendy, leant over and said how important it was for me to really focus on pushing like I was pooing.

Wendy: We’re nearly there, we really are.

Me: FUCKING ARSE TIT PRICK POO AND MUTHA FUCKING BALLS!!

Wendy: You’re doing so well, Mum.

ME: AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!

Wendy: Now, just keep focusing on pushing into your bum. I don’t want you to worry if you do a little poo, as I have a poop scoop.

With this she presented a poop scoop shaped like a ladle and showed it off proudly, much as Mufasa did with Simba in The Lion King. She put it next to my face, she showed it to Api and then just for added value showed it to me one more time.

This was all going on while I was mid-contraction. I turned around – well, my head turned 180 degrees and the rest of my body didn’t move. I glared at her with bloodshot eyes and snarled through gritted teeth: ‘I’m not interested in the poop scoop, Wendy. I don’t care if I shit on your face. Just. Get. Him. Out.’

Api was scared, the trainee midwife standing in the corner staring at my shirtless #hothusband in the bath was scared, I even scared myself. But Wendy didn’t flinch. She didn’t take her eyes off me as she slowly put the poop scoop down. I think if she could have she would have told me to shut the fuck up and know my place, but as she was a professional she let it slide. Wendy and Celeste BFF status was back on track.

An hour into pushing, Wendy said they needed to monitor my heart, as they didn’t want it to be straining for too long. Turns out that being in active labour for eight hours is fine but once you hit that eight hours and five minutes mark then people start to panic.

It was around this time that the burning ring of fire was really in full flight and Wendy could feel the top of my baby’s head. GROSS! She asked if I wanted to reach down between my legs and feel his head so I could be a part of this moment.

A PART OF THIS MOMENT? I am this moment. Without me there’s no baby head, there’s no #hothusband flexing in the bath and there’s no poop scoop. THERE IS NO FUCKING MOMENT! But I get FOMO real bad and I didn’t want to feel like I was being left out of my son’s birth, so I reached down and it was as gross as I had expected. It was gooey and hairy and fucking weird.

I gave myself a ‘hands where I can see them’ rule and continued grunting.

With another massive push, his head tore out. I was on all fours so I couldn’t see him, but Api could, and he said our son looked exactly like him and immediately started to cry. I was like a cat trying to get comfortable on a leather couch in an attempt to bend around and see my baby, but as the rest of his body was still inside my body I wasn’t as agile as I would have hoped. So I just had to trust Api.

A little birthing-in-the-water trivia: babies can stay underwater for ages before they need to draw their first breath, and it’s the atmosphere around them that pushes oxygen into their lungs. So when my son stayed immersed in water for a full minute between me pushing his head out (gross) and the next contraction when his body came flying out, and I was screaming, thinking he was drowning, it turns out he was fine.

When the rest of him came shooting out, I caught him, held him on my chest, rearranged the umbilical cord that was conveniently wrapped around my thigh, and never let him go.

We named him Lou.

I now have two beautiful boys, Lou and Buddy. They are by far the best thing that has ever happened to me, second to that time I met Sporty Spice.

The only five minutes Buddy (18 months here) slept in the first two years of his life.

Lou (age two) constantly reinventing the use of props.

If it all gets too hard, just hang your head out the window and scream!

@jessicasimpson

The One Where I Discovered Ritalin, My Childhood (Not So) Imaginary Friend

I COME FROM A SMALL FAMILY; it’s just the four of us – Mum Kath, Dad Nev, my older sister Olivia and me.

My parents are such a great team. Mum has a short fuse and Dad loves nothing more than ticking her off, in a loving way of course. Mum is really creative: she has run three successful interior design businesses, and at the ripe old age of 62 decided to start up her own soy candle brand, Flame Candles, supplying wholesale candles to shops across the country. My dad is the handiest and cleverest man in the world. He is funny and patient and can fix anything. Between them they have built two houses – Mum designed them and Dad built them – had two daughters, and put a lot of effort into naming their pets as though they were a barren couple and their pets were all they had. When I was born we had a silky terrier, Phoebe Josephine, then we got a schnauzer, Lucinda May, followed by another silky terrier, Bronte Isabella, and Mum is currently treating her second schnauzer, Clover Lee, like a misunderstood genius child.

Liv and I were lucky kids; we never went without. We had our own rooms, we could eat cheese whenever we wanted and, when we were annoying – and our parents sent us outside because we were being too loud – we had enough outdoor area to whip sticks at each other without doing any real damage.

I wasn’t really great at school, it just wasn’t my thing. Every now and then I’d pretend I had slipped into a deep coma, so when my dad came in at exactly 6.55am EVERY. SINGLE. MORNING to get me up for school, I would squeeze my eyes shut and go as stiff as a board, behaviour commonly associated with coma patients, so I wouldn’t have to go to school.

I just kind of hated the idea of it. I struggled academically, I couldn’t concentrate, I was bored easily and I just wanted to do anything other than having to stay still. Turns out I had ADD, and the small private Catholic school on the Far North Coast of New South Wales didn’t have that on their syllabus.

I love making people laugh – at me, with me, whatever. As long as people are laughing because of me, I’m happy. At school, I was the perfect scapegoat for my mates, who liked to stuff around, and also a good victim for teachers to unleash on.

English, PE, Science – basically any subject that didn’t require a microphone – were my least favourite. I remember Science was the most painful.

We had to line up outside before each Science class. All our bags had to be left outside, so we would get our books out and walk in single file past our teacher, who was standing at the door to see if she was happy with how we were standing. If she was satisfied with our posture, we were allowed into the classroom.

I was usually at the back of the line with my two unsuspecting partners in crime, Sean and Doug. They would have their stuff all ready to go, especially Sean – he was a really smart dude who Doug and I would playfully tease to make ourselves feel better.

On this one day, as I’ve always been a clusterfuck, I was probably asking to borrow a pencil from a girl who was already annoyed at me, and not listening to anything being said to me. As we were filing in, Mrs Science put her arm up in front of me. I thought she was looking for a high five, or at very least a fist bump, but I soon realised this wasn’t the case. She was ‘dealing with me’.

‘I’ll just get you to wait outside, Celeste,’ she said, without making eye contact.

‘What for?’ I protested.

‘We could do without the distraction today.’ And with that she closed the door.

The rest of the class had already filed in, including Sean and Doug, and I watched them longingly, much like the way Rose looked at Jack when he slipped off the door in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean at the end of Titanic.

I was so embarrassed, but because this soon became her standard practice, I learnt how to channel the shame.

But really. Distraction? You think not allowing me into the classroom, and leaving me outside with everyone’s bags and a wall of windows in which EVERYONE can see me, would stop me from being distracting? I guess not all scientists are smart.

For a comedian, being sent out of class before it even started due to the risk of being distracting is like Bill Cosby being given free Rohypnol and a private suite at The Plaza. If I had an unobstructed view of Sean and Doug, then shit got really real.

For these kinds of impromptu performances, I had a few standard gags that were my staples. The elevator travelling down and pretending to be pulled offstage were my go-to gags; they always got a laugh. Pretending to be attacked by a bee was another crowd-pleaser. Or, if I could get someone’s attention while Mrs Science had her back turned, then I’d mime asking them a question though the window, and when they responded I’d mime, ‘I can’t hear you.’ It brought the house down.

The main attraction was my disappearing act. When Mrs Science turned around to see what everyone was laughing at, I’d jump on the ground out of sight, buried in everyone’s bags. Eating people’s unattended food was the payoff.

I wasn’t a naughty kid; I was too scared to be naughty. I was just loud – loud and funny – and most of my teachers didn’t dig it. But I was OK with it. If anything it helped me. It helped me work on being a funnier lady, a stronger lady and a more resilient lady.

Being diagnosed with ADD (or maybe it’s ADHD, I can’t really remember, I wasn’t paying attention) was the greatest thing that could have ever happened to me – well, that and getting tickets to Janet Jackson’s ’98 Velvet Rope world tour. (People say Rhythm Nation was her greatest album, but I’m telling you The Velvet Rope had everything: badarse beats, haunting ballads and enough Auto-Tune to turn any of the straightest ladies gay.)

I always had the best intentions. I would organise to study like a boss. My parents had set up a study area for my sister and me, and I’d get my pens out and put them alongside my school books. My calculator was in prime calculator position, and I’d even write up a study timetable, using every colourful pen at my disposal. Red for Maths, pink for Drama, and then I didn’t care about the rest. The timetable would be stuck on the wall directly in front of me.

I’d have a lovely glass of room-temperature water ready to go, and I’d pick up my pen, keen to get my study on, then … that would be the end of it. I’d be distracted by something, anything. The dog walking past, an unfolded towel in the corner of the room, my mum sneezing from the neighbours’ living room, anything would catch my attention and I’d be out of there. This, my friends, is what they call in The Biz ‘classic ADD behaviour’. I had all the best of intentions of sitting and doing work, I was even excited about buying all the stationery and desk accessories, but I just. Couldn’t. Do. It.

Mum and Dad took me to see a specialist when I was 16, in the hope of getting answers. Even though I totally had boobs and had been bleeding monthly for approximately two years, I still had to go to a children’s doctor. The waiting room was full of toys and copies of Spot the Dog. There were posters on the wall featuring the letters of the alphabet, with pictures next to them: A for Apple, B for Butterfly etc.

As I went through the letters, enjoying the distraction from the doctor smell of the waiting room, they all seemed to make sense – yep, K is for Kite and L is for Lion – until I got to Y. Next to the letter there was an unassuming photo of a boat. A blue boat with white bits. The word under it started with Y, but I couldn’t figure out what boat starting with Y was spelt like that. I turned to my dad and asked, ‘What’s a Yak-a-Hat?’

The receptionist looked over her desk with an ‘oh, bless her, this must be a hard struggle for you, Dad, having to deal with such a challenging daughter’ look on her face. Dad looked at me, and through tears of laughter said, ‘It says “Yacht”.’

‘Well, why the hell isn’t it spelt properly?’

‘Good question, Princess, I don’t know.’ My dad’s my biggest fan – well, just behind my mum, who is a close runner-up to my sister.

If the doctor had overheard this conversation it could have saved my parents a lot of money in doctor’s fees, as he would have given me the tablets right there on the spot and I would have been on my merry way, feasting on Ritalin sandwiches.

When I went into the appointment, Mum, Dad and I sat in three chairs that were all in a line. My chair was closest to the doctor, as I was the main event. Here is where I learnt that ADD is hereditary and is commonly passed down to the child by the dad.

Holy shit, didn’t this make sense?! My dad and I are exactly the same! I wondered if this information would upset him. I looked over to him and saw that he was focusing on a fly that was wedged between the glass window and flyscreen, and realised he’d probably be cool with me being the heir to that particular throne.

Mum did most of the talking during the appointment, and I was asked a lot of questions. Even as an outgoing 16-year-old, I still looked to my mum for the answers.

Q: Do you find it hard to concentrate?

A: Can you please ask me again, I wasn’t concentrating.

Q: Do you find it hard to read, write and spell?

A: Know, not raly.

Q: Do you think you have a short attention span and are easily distracted?

A: Sometimes, but— Hey, did you just see that bit of lint fall off your jumper onto the floor?!

Q: Are you constantly in trouble at school for being slow to start work, and for never finishing anything?

A: Not telling.

After the appointment, the doctor asked me to wait outside while he talked to my parents about what steps to take to ‘move forward’. I think he just needed to see what sort of drugs he had on hand, as I needed that shit in my system stat!

So, I sat back out in the waiting room, chilling with five-year-olds who called me ‘lady’, and not really thinking too much about what had just happened. The doctor’s office door was left open; I think he wanted to come off as a cool doctor who appeared approachable while prescribing drugs that keep overweight truck drivers awake for 48 hours. I could hear the entire conversation.

Mum: We don’t want her to change.

Doctor: These drugs won’t change her, they will help her.

Mum: Good. We know she is full on and loud but we like that. Her personality isn’t a problem, it’s her struggling to concentrate that is making things hard for her.

Dad: How long do you think that fly has been trapped in there?

Doctor: Ritalin doesn’t alter personalities, it will just help her focus.

Mum: OK, great, I just want school to be easier for her.

Dad: Do you think the fly has family who are worried about its whereabouts?

Mum: Neville!

Dad: Sorry.

Mum: We will commit to this medication only if it helps her to feel better about being herself.

Doctor: I really think this is the best option for Celeste, it will only have a positive effect.

Mum: OK, great.

Dad: I’m hungry.

I’ll never forget that conversation. As a loud, full-on, average-looking girl, the fact that from a young age my mother was so passionate about me being me was the world.

I also think about that fly.

When we got home I was straight into the drugs, and they were good, they were so good. They kicked in straightaway, which is what you’re looking for in top-shelf gear. I sat on the couch, opened a manual on ‘Living with ADD’ and read a paragraph out loud to my parents. It went a little something like this:

Childhood symptoms of ADHD include poor impulse control, hyperactivity (i.e. cannot sit still), difficulty focusing on immediate tasks, and inability to pay attention to instruction. Children with hyperactivity-impulsivity often have difficulty forming and maintaining friendships and receive poor conduct evaluations due to their inability to behave appropriately in school. These children seem to disregard common social courtesies by repeatedly interrupting conversations and speaking out of turn.*

I looked over and Mum and Dad were crying. It must have been such a validating moment for them as parents, knowing that they had made the right decision, and the results had been immediate.

‘I can’t believe you just read that, you have never sat still long enough to read anything, ever,’ said Mum through tears. Turns out reading the first page of The Baby-Sitters Club then skipping to the very back page and skimming the last paragraph doesn’t clarify as reading a book. Pft, technicalities.

* * *

We went camping every year with a group of family friends. There were six families in total, all of us knowing each other to varying degrees. In one of the families both parents were teachers. They were strict, and I don’t think they really liked kids, which is fair enough. Kids can be shit, especially when they are all together in a classroom and they hate you.

On the camping trip before the diagnosis (sounds like a blockbuster movie: ‘Coming this summer, The Diagnosis, starring Celeste Barber and Winona Ryder’), I was being an arsehole and my poor parents were at their wits’ end.

My mum confided in one of the teacher parents: ‘We are going to get Celeste tested for ADD, I think it will help if we can possibly get her onto some medication.’

To which the teacher parent responded out of the side of her mouth while looking around to see if anyone could hear her: ‘Leave her with me for six months and I’ll get it out of her.’

This broke my mum’s heart. Turns out not only kids can be arseholes, but some teacher parents on camping holidays can fit pretty comfortably into that category too.

After the sweet, sweet Ritalin started flowing through my hungry veins, life got SO much easier. I could actually sit still and concentrate. I had one and a half tablets three times a day and it was a routine that I fucking loved. At 7.30am with breakfast the pill-popping began. When the bell went for recess at 11.30am, round two was under way, and when it was home time, I would walk past the bubbler, throw down the final hit for the day on the way to the bus and, Bob’s your uncle, I’m a fucking scholar.

Ritalin suppresses your appetite like nothing else, so I was never hungry and, as a result, I lost a shit tonne of weight, which as a 16-year-old girl gains you a shit tonne of respect (sad face emoji).

Breakfast would consist of a chocolate milk and a Cheesymite scroll. (Anyone outside of Australia needs to get onto these, they are a bread roll baked with cheese and Vegemite, and coupled with a warm Milo they have the power to make all the bad feelings stop.) Did I mention I have the palate of a seven-year-old?

Lunch was a Zooper Dooper, and then I was done until dinner, when I would pick at whatever my mum had made.

* * *

Ritalin was a life-saver for me; however, I didn’t tell any of my friends, and I only told one teacher when I started taking it. He wasn’t even a teacher of mine; he was the year coordinator and I was happy telling him, because I didn’t ever see him. I didn’t want to be looked at as sick. Different, sure, I like people thinking I’m different; but not less than. I was petrified of anyone knowing I had ADD, let alone having to be on a drug for it. I remember one time thinking the cat was out of the bag when a weird-looking guy who I was friends with said he liked me, so I told him a dick joke to get out of awkwardly telling him I wasn’t interested, and he was so pissed off that he started scream-singing the Jackson Five’s classic ‘ABC, Celeste has got ADD!’ at my face, in front of the surfer boys at school, who all thought it was hilarious. But they also laughed at my dick joke so, you know, swings and roundabouts. Turns out he didn’t know I had ADD, he was just a prick. I didn’t mind been called names but I was sure that everyone knew I had a ‘learning difficulty’. It was exhausting being so secretive about it, so I turned it into my secret superpower. By day (unmedicated) I was just loud, disruptive, quick-witted, sassy and opinionated, but by night (medicated) I was loud, disruptive, quick-witted, sassy, opinionated and could concentrate for longer than 0.05 seconds. Now, if that isn’t a storyline for a new Netflix show, I don’t know what is.

A friend of mine has been advised by teachers that she look into getting her seven-year-old son put on Ritalin. She’s freaking out. The first question I asked was, do these teachers go on camping holidays and generally hate kids? After she assured me they didn’t, I told her that I think seven is way too young to be going on any sort of behavioural medication. Kids are flat out trying to sit still for an entire five-minute episode of Peppa Pig (aren’t we all!) let alone six hours a day listening to the same teacher talk about numbers and letters. Of course they are going to get bored, child! (spoken in RuPaul’s most sassy voice). I’m a little torn with the timeline of my diagnosis – part of me thinks if I were diagnosed earlier, school may have been easier. But then I think if I was on the drug from as young as seven I wouldn’t be as resilient as I am. And that resilience has been needed so much through my life (ohhh, yes, that’s another little nugget to keep you sexy bookworms reading). If I had been medicated from a young age, I would have thought that I was just normal and that everyone was on drugs, or some sort of ‘help me learn’ stimulant. But because I started later than what is considered ‘normal’, I knew I wasn’t normal, I knew that I was a little different and different is interesting. Different is the tits!* It didn’t stop me from getting into trouble. My mum’s concerns that the drug would change me were unfounded, as I was still a loudmouth and smartarse, but I could also concentrate long enough to let someone finish what they were saying to come back with a kickarse comment, instead of interrupting them.

I thought once I left school I would never get into trouble again, except from my nana, who always had a problem with my posture. But I was wrong: getting into trouble still happens to me in my adult life. I seem to attract it – not the getting-bashed-up or having-drug-dealers-feel-me-up kind of trouble, just if there’s naughty shit going down, or someone is going to make an arse out of themselves in public, I’m usually at the epicentre of it. I noticed from a young age that I have the type of personality that people either love or loathe. I don’t look for it, it just happens.

* * *

In my early twenties I started taking an antidepressant, Zoloft. I can’t remember why I went on it; I think as I had just graduated from drama school and a lot of emoting was involved I thought I was broken and needed to be medicated. I remember feeling a little bit weird mixing Ritalin and Zoloft. I wasn’t just feeling weird about it emotionally and metaphysically but I was literally feeling fucking weird. I was having anxiety attacks and struggling to string thoughts together that didn’t involve negative self-talk coupled with a lot of hysteria.

Api and I had been dating for about six months and we were having a fancy breakfast at a fancy café in Sydney when I had a major panic attack. I felt like the poached eggs were out to get me and the overpriced coffee was sitting on my chest like a pregnant pig. I couldn’t breathe or talk. Api didn’t miss a beat; he took me home, fed me lollies (not a euphemism), and avoided direct eye contact. This was when I realised that Ritalin and Zoloft weren’t the cocktail that I had hoped for. I went to the local shrink located next to an animal rescue – so I trusted him with my life – as my usual shrink had an appointment with her shrink, in Mexico. I told him about my weird feelings, asked him what ‘metaphysical’ meant and he said that I was ‘the least depressed person he had met’ and suggested I come off the drugs and see how I go. I started this process, which is very similar to pushing shit up a hill with a sharp stick. It’s horrible and, at times, hard. Turns out if you try something 20 years later and expect the same outcome then you’re an idiot. I continued on for a few years drug free. Then, when a close friend died, my world fell apart. I decided that I needed to go back on Zoloft and I have been on it ever since. Leading up to my US tour this year I wanted to try to go back on Ritalin because I felt as though my workload was getting on top of me, and I was a grade-A clusterfuck and wanted to get my shit together. I spoke to my doctor about the effect Ritalin has on adults and if it’s OK for adults to take Zoloft as well, or if the drugs still aren’t friends. I was advised that mixing the two still wasn’t an awesome idea. So I tried again to come off Zoloft in preparation for Ritalin, in the hope of falling back into the awesome routine I had established as a teenager.

Turns out that wasn’t to be the case – I know, I’m as shocked as you. Trying to come off antidepressants while planning a US tour, looking after two young boys, moving one teenage stepdaughter out of the house and another one in, writing a book and dealing with dying friends and parent–teacher interviews is dumb dumb dumbity dumb. I thought I was onto it and the bottle of wine I was consuming nightly wasn’t self-medicating; rather, an easy alternative. When I talked to a friend about my new hopes for Ritalin coming back into my life and kicking Zoloft to the kerb, he politely and smartly reminded me that I’m fine as I am, and that I should just continue being a clusterfuck because everyone who knows and loves me has accepted it. That I should just get on the acceptance band wagon and keep on keeping on and stop trying to shake things up.

So that’s what I’m doing. I’m just accepting what I’ve got and getting on with it.

Scholar Celeste Barber mid-Ritalin as a Senior. St Joseph’s College, Banora Point, 1998. No big deal!

Working the room.

@kyliejenner

The One About My Dad

I’VE NEVER REALLY ASKED MY DAD if he wishes he got an official diagnosis and subsequent medication, because I think I know the answer. ‘I’m fine as I am, Princess. If I can last this long without it, then why would I start now?’ Well played, Neville, well played.

My dad is everybody’s mate; everyone loves a bit of Neville Barber. ‘Nifty’, as he’s affectionately called. If he’s not making you laugh, he’s laughing at you not laughing.

There are three certainties about my dad.

1. He Doesn’t Share Food

Dad: If you want some I’ll buy one for you.

Me: No, Dad, I just want a bite.

Dad: Well, I’ll buy you one and you can bite that.

Me: But I don’t want a whole lasagne, I just want to try some.

Dad: Well, I do want a whole lasagne, that’s why I bought it.

Me: Are you serious – you’re not sharing with me?

Dad: Deadly.

And with that he will set up a barrier around his food, made up of salt and pepper shakers, sauce bottles and glasses, while firmly holding a knife in his hand as a weapon.

2. He’s the Originator of Dad Jokes

Neville Barber’s go-to joke:

A grasshopper walked into a bar and the barman said, ‘Hey we have a drink named after you.’ And the grasshopper said, ‘Really? An Eric?’

And that’s it, that’s the fucking joke. But it’s not about the joke, it’s about the joy he gets in telling it. He doesn’t usually tell jokes to make you laugh, he tells jokes – well, to me and my sister anyway – to annoy you. If he knows he’s onto a winner he will repeat it over and over, breaking the main rule of comedy: ‘Don’t treat your audience like idiots.’

Dad: Get it? The grasshopper’s name is Eric?

Us: Yes, Dad, we get it.

Dad: But the bartender meant he has a drink called a grasshopper.

Us: Yes, Dad.

Dad: But what the bartender didn’t realise is the grasshopper had his own unique name.

Us: DAD! FUCK.

Jackpot!

Neville 1, the Barber daughters 0.

3. He’s Always Ready First – ALWAYS

When we were kids, if Mum said we were leaving the house at 6pm, at 5.45pm Dad would be sitting on the couch with the car reversed out of the driveway, air conditioning running, cooler bag of lemon, lime and bitters* and a nice bottle of white wine for Mum. He would wait patiently for her as she figured out what perfume to wear from the collection he had bought her over the years, and for Olivia and me, who were fighting over whose acid-wash drop-waisted skirt was whose.

When we paraded down the stairs at 6.05pm Dad would always greet us with a compliment. ‘You look lovely, dear,’ he would say to Mum. ‘You look lovely, girls,’ he would say, continuing the compliment. Then we were in the perfect-temperature car and off!

My dad is solid like a rock, always there for anyone and always happy to tell you a dumb joke that you will roll your eyes at then excuse yourself from the conversation to go to the toilet and record in your phone so you can recite it to your friends later at the pub.

He was an only child, and lived in the same house from the day he was born to the day when he and Mum moved in together. Dad lived on a dairy farm near Tweed Heads and when the local milk carrier would come by at 7am to pick up the milk, he would also pick up Dad and take him to school. The school was so small that on a number of occasions the principal would call Nana Rita to make sure Dad was going to school that day, as no one had turned up and they needed him there to keep the school open. He was four.

As Dad got a bit older he would ride his bike to and from school along a dirt track every day. Once he got home from school on a Friday afternoon, he wouldn’t see anyone apart from his mum and dad until he was back at school on Monday morning. If a car went past, the family would go onto the balcony to watch the big display. He kept himself busy, no dramas, no complaints.

His dad, Harold, was a tough man, old school, he didn’t show any emotion. Nana Rita and Dad were a team. And when Dad met Mum, Nana took her in as the daughter she’d always wanted.

Dad was super-close to his mum. Rita had wanted more kids but Harold wasn’t into it, so in those days that was that. I reckon my dad would have LOVED a sibling or 10, but he will never tell you that, because that would be complaining, and that’s something Neville William Barber doesn’t do. He’s grateful for his life and is more than happy just to go with the flow. He’s a master at keeping busy and not imposing his time on anyone for any reason.

My dad works as the maintenance guy at a private hospital on the Gold Coast, a job that started as a one-week job in 1996, and because he’s so excellent to have around and good at what he does the hospital just keeps creating work for him.

He’s so loved that when he was in hospital for the second time in his life (the first was the time he was born), the staff put him up in the presidential suite and there were nurses who weren’t rostered on that day visiting him to make sure everything was OK. (He had tightness in his chest, which freaked everyone out. Turns out it was gas. Classic Neville.) My mum, who has been in and out of hospital her whole life due to dodgy lungs, is lucky to get a bunch of flowers on her hospital visits these days, whereas Dad gets a full-blown fanfare if he gets so much as a blood test.

When I moved out of home at 17, my dad wrote me notes of encouragement on the backs of business cards. Every time I would go backs home, or he and Mum would visit me, he would have a fresh business card with a fresh note of love and encouragement. The business cards have been replaced with official and professional texts.

Celeste

Just looked at e mail from the copy editor

Just another one of your talents

You never stop surprising us all

Just more acknowledgment for the great person you are

Love Dad xxxx

Neville William Barber and former child dancer Celeste Barber.

My wedding day, Bali, 2013.

5,6,7,8

@cynthiav_beauty

(Top photograph by Melika Dez)

The One Where I Danced a Lot

I DANCED WHEN I WAS A KID, and when I say ‘danced’ I mean danced (tilts head with an over-the-top click of the fingers). I danced at eisteddfods, at shopping centres, at school fairs, the Ekka (the Royal Queensland Show), conferences, football grand finals, in my nana’s shower, in my shower, and given the chance I’d dance in your shower too.

I was a self-proclaimed unique triple threat: I could Dance, Dance and DANCE. And I loved it.

My mum said that I could dance even before I could walk, but as I have said one billion times, my mum exaggerates a bit. This didn’t stop me from telling anyone who would listen, especially my fellow dance enthusiasts. You know those conversations you have with like-minded 12-year-olds about how you were born to do this and no one has the experience or dedication that you do?

‘I know all the dance moves to EVERY one of the Spice Girls’ songs, even “Viva Forever”,’ Julie would say over Macca’s while we sat in the splits.

Elissa would chip in, ‘Well, my big sister has taught me all the steps to all the senior dances, and she said that if any of the senior girls can’t do the end-of-year concert then I can totally step in because I’m so good at learning all the steps.’

I looked at these girls, knowing full well that what I was about to share with them would stop them dead in their flexible tracks. ‘Well, I could dance before I could even walk.’

Pause. Silence. Nothing.

‘Aaand my uncle’s a firefighter.’

They smiled. BAM! I knew it would floor them.

I danced at the Johnny Young Talent School (JYTS) on the Gold Coast. When I started there, it was the Colleen Fitzgerald Dance School. Then Miss Colleen married Mr Lance from JYTS and they merged the dance schools.

Look, I won’t lie, it was hard at first to accept the merger, but when the job opportunities came rolling in thick and fast to dance at Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast because we were now known as part of THE JOHNNY YOUNG TALENT SCHOOL DANCERS (this must be sung, never just spoken, using jazz hands), we got over our loyalty pretty quickly.

I was 15 when I went on my first interstate trip to Darwin for two weeks and performed in shopping centres. There was a group of us that went, some as dancers, some as show comperes and some as suit operators. (You know those larger-than-life characters that walk around shopping centres during school holidays, scaring the piss out of all the kids? Well, there’s an actual person inside them, not just fear and misery.) In Darwin, I was lucky enough to be the suit operator of Sonic the Hedgehog, a rabbit and one of The Simpsons – I want to say Marge but I think it was Maggie. Given it was the September school holidays in Darwin, and the average heat at 8am was 37 degrees Celsius, I managed to halve my body weight in a week while still eating two-minute noodles 45 times a day. We all stayed in hotel rooms with balconies and would sun ourselves first thing in the morning as ‘morning sun gives you the most even tan’. This was my first and last interstate tour as I think my mum was worried after I came back from two weeks of work with protruding neck bones and a dependency on MSG.

Six-year-old Celeste Barber. This is still my go to pose when people want to take my photo.

I grew up near a beach that has bred some of the best professional surfers in the world, but it was lost on me. I didn’t do weekend nippers like everyone else because Saturday was dancing day – DANCING DAY – a day to dance: DANCE DAY! Mum would drop me off at class by 9am and I would carpool home like James Corden, singing the Spice Girls’ greatest hits, and since James hadn’t reinvented karaoke yet, our neighbours Esther, Bianca and Ashleigh were my lift home instead.

Jazz for the babies (two to four) was first and Bianca and I, along with other Show Group and Senior dancers, were student teachers. I didn’t love teaching but I just loved being at dancing, and especially on Saturday because it was when everyone from all the different studios across the Gold Coast would come together. We would compare the choreography we had learnt that week, and share clear nail polish to cover up the holes we made in our shimmers (they are stockings with a high shimmer finish, you guys: shimmers). We weren’t one of those dance schools that had to wear a uniform; we could wear whatever we wanted, as long as it was awesome and outshone the other dancers. One of the male dancers, who wasn’t ‘out’ yet, was partial to a fluorescent yellow unitard – an outfit that he would reserve for a 34-degree day, knowing he would sweat and make all the other curious boys jealous.

Miss Colleen always wore black, black on black with a side of black and something black. She always had a full face of make-up that my sister would say looked as though she had laid it out on her bed, tied her hands behind her back and just fell face-first into it. Miss Colleen did a few tours of Vietnam entertaining the troops in the ’60s – something that she loved and romanticised about often. She was a born performer and gave us and the studio everything she had, including her bad temper and sass.

After Babies Jazz came Babies Tap and a whole lot of noise. Intermediate classes came next and this is where it got exciting, because all the older dancers would start arriving and stretching or trying on costumes for upcoming shows, then there would be a break where we would run down to the 7-Eleven to get a medium Slurpee and a Killer Python, which we shoved in the straw of the Slurpee so it would freeze. Miss Colleen would put in her order of a cheeseburger with no bun, a can of Coke and a chocolate, which the most responsible dancer (AKA her favourite) would get for her. I was never asked.

Then it was back to class and our turn, the Show Group and Senior dancers. This is when we would TURN IT ON. We performed like we were at Madison Square Garden and J.Lo was our backup dancer. Well, I did anyway – I didn’t really know what the others were doing as I had my eyes closed most of the time to get the full effect.

Dancing was a place full of super-weird people that I felt safe with. Mr Fluorescent-Yellow-Unitard was super-bendy and loved to tell me inappropriate stories about his sex life. He called everyone the C-word before the C-word was even a thing. At first, I thought he just called me that as a nickname – a term of endearment, if you will. But then I found out otherwise, and was equal parts flattered and confused.

If I wasn’t meeting my potential in any aspect of my life he would challenge me and ask why. He would laugh at my jokes and roll his eyes when I complained that the prettier blonde girls had been put in the front row again.

Him: Listen, C, you will never be in the front line. Miss Colleen has her favourites and you’re not one of them. I love you. Get over it.

Me : But I’ve worked really hard.

Him: No one cares. Now, let’s sit in the sun and bitch about absolutely everyone.

Dancing was the first place, outside my family, where I felt safe being loud, ambitious and different.

Miss Colleen died in 2018 at the age of 77, and I will always be grateful to her for teaching me how to count to eight, and for playing show tunes so loud that I think it has caused me permanent damage.

Seven-year-old Celeste with 84-year-old sister, Olivia. Liv and I didn’t love ballet. We were more hip hop girls. Obviously.

Still not asking for it.

@leamichele

The One With the Gross Man

I’M A BIG SUPPORTER of the #metoo and #timesup movements. I’m pretty vocal about standing up for women’s equality, and that crazy idea that women shouldn’t feel as though we need to be subjected to sexist bullshit just because we’re women.

I have a story – two, in fact – and I’m going to share them in this book because I want to. I’m not going to name people, because I don’t want to. These are my stories about my experiences, and even though they have in no way shaped who I am as a person they are still my stories.

I’ve noticed that when people are named then they become the focus. Taking them down becomes the main objective, and the person who has told her story becomes just another victim and just another woman with a grudge. The perpetrator becomes the focus and is treated as a one-off event, whereas it’s a whole culture that needs to change.

I’m putting these stories in black and white in my book because I want other women and girls to start doing or not doing things because they do or don’t want to – not because they feel that they should, or that it’s their responsibility. The only people in these horrible situations who have any responsibility are the men. A responsibility not to sexually harass, assault, bully or intimidate women at any point, in any field, for the rest of time. In the name of the father, son and the holy goat, amen.

In 1996, my 14th year dancing and fourth at the Johnny Young Talent School, I was given a solo in the end-of-year concert. I was the only Senior and only one in the Show Group – the fancy dance group – who hadn’t been given a solo before, but this year was my year. You better believe it. I’d pinned that curly headpiece into my head year after year, but this year was different; I didn’t even cry when it drew blood. I was ready – I was fucking born ready for this solo, dammit!

Miss Colleen would put together a medley of different musicals each year. And by ‘put together a medley’, I mean she would pick her favourite songs from her favourite musicals, cram in some tried-and-tested choreo from previous concerts, and not give two shits about the narrative or how she was butchering classics. AND WE LOVED IT!

Only the Show Group was invited to take part in this section of the concert. One year it was a song from Grease. Julie, the pretty blonde girl, played Sandy; Remi – the only straight guy, whose mum and dad redefined the term ‘stage parents’ – played Danny; and I was a fun Pink Lady double up the back, miming the wrong lyrics to songs and trying to make my friend Bianca laugh. Another year saw us do a number from West Side Story. Julie played Maria; Remi was Tony; and I’m pretty sure that was the year I was lucky and talented enough to play a little bit of all the ethnic characters up the back.

Then in 1996, my final year, we did part of the 1969 classic Sweet Charity, and I was cast as – wait for it, you guys – THE LEAD. Yass, queens, I was cast as Charity Hope Valentine in Sweet Charity (hair flick emoji).

One of the exciting things that went with such a prestigious role as being a fancy Show Group dancer and performing in a bastardised medley was the exciting and nearly impossible quick-changes that needed to be performed side stage. They were almost as important as the concert itself. And they involved A LOT of planning and responsibility. The job of organising other people’s props if they were onstage was given to Show Group performers only because they knew the importance of it all. Most people who had solos didn’t have to organise anyone else’s props, because people who had solos in the concert were looked at as heroes, like doctors or Paula Abdul.

Miss Colleen: I need a dancer to run the umbrella from one side of the stage to the other during the final chorus of ‘Singing in the Rain’. Celeste, can you do it?

Me: Oh, I can’t, Miss Colleen I have a quick-change side stage and only just enough time to get back on for …

(Looks around, clears throat and waits for everyone’s attention.)

Me cont’d: MY SOLO!

*echo* solo solo solo.

If you had to do a quick-change side stage, you needed to get your shit together weeks before the concert was even in your visiting aunt’s and uncle’s diaries. You had to assess if the best time to ‘set’ your QCC (quick-change costume – keep up, you guys) was before the concert even started, or if it was better to leave it until you had a break between routines while the three-year-olds were doing their tap number to Swan Lake (my dad’s worst nightmare). Another vital step was to let people know where you were putting your things so no stage mum with an agenda would come along and sabotage your preparation.

My mum had made the costume for my solo this year. It was a simple black leotard that she had got a local swimwear designer to make, but it had a bit of a twist. Mum had designed the costume with a sheer diamond cut-out in the centre of my chest/belly, and she had alternated black and silver sequins around the perimeter of the diamond. For my solo, I would wear this fancy little number, paired with some tan chorus shoes and a red feather boa, naturally.

It was after I’d performed my solo, ‘If They Could See Me Now’ (HELLO! Art imitating life!), that my super-fast, super-important quick-change would take place. Miss Colleen had put the Show Group’s big number, ‘Big Spender’, right after my fancy dance solo, so I had to get moving. I mean, I couldn’t stay on stage for my solo AND a group number, because a 15-year-old performing ‘Big Spender’ alongside other 13- to 17-year-olds in front of dads, uncles and begrudging family friends in THE SAME high-cut costume as for her solo, well, that would be just weird and make everyone uncomfortable.

So, in stepped Kath Barber once again, with her handy sequinning skills. The device normally used for a QCC was a tearaway (a piece of clothing that is held together with a piece of Velcro – think The Chippendales but with more body hair). There was usually a skirt that was added or taken from a costume for a quick-change. Only, you guys, mine wasn’t a tearaway. My mum thought of it all! It was a Lycra skirt that I could just step into during the ever-important and over-emphasised quick-change. The skirt had a tiny slit on the front right side, which she had also sequinned in alternating black and silver, in keeping with the whole theme of the night: my night.

I was SO focused on my solo, and just as focused on the placement of the black Lycra-bedazzled skirt and split-sole jazz shoes I would wear in ‘Big Spender’. I had decided that I would place my skirt and jazz shoes on the ground just offstage.

Two years earlier, our end-of-year concert had been upgraded from the local services club down the road to Jupiters Casino on the sunny Gold Coast, and it was next level: a full-blown casino that tourists and rich old men looking for foreign wives would flock to. I’m not sure if it was because we were now the official Johnny Young Talent School that we were treated to end-of-year concerts at the casino, but I think the dance school’s namesake and the casino were as dodgy as each other, so it just makes sense.

Each year we would have a different compere for our concerts. One year it was Humphrey B. Bear (a fucking mute bear, go figure), another year it was Miss Colleen’s random son Brad, another year it was our singing teacher. I always dreamt of being that compere; I thought of this position as being much like when a Saturday Night Live cast member comes back to host, something I really wanted to do and aspired to.

This year we had some old, washed up local ‘entertainer’. I’m sure he was a great pimp back in the ’20s, and what seemed like the natural progression of his career was to then host nightly trivia on cruise ships and compere at kids’ dance concerts.

So, my costumes were set, I had just finished – sorry, SLAYED – my solo and I ran offstage, dodging my fellow not-so-professional teenage dancers as they made their way on with chairs and feather boas, and looked for my carefully placed gear.

It was exactly where I left it. YES, let’s get busy!

As I raced over to my things, adjusting my clipped-in wig, I noticed there was a stool placed over my stuff. No problem, I’ll just reach under said stool, grab my costume, throw it all on and be back onstage for the opening bars of ‘Big Spender’ – front and centre where I belonged, goddammit!

It was at this point that I realised the compere, a Big Fat Talentless Old Man, was sitting on this stool, preventing me from getting what I needed (oh, what a metaphor for life as a female). The Big Fat Talentless Old Man was talking to another Big Fat Talentless Old Man, and the two of them were having a jolly old time side stage at a kids’ dance concert. When they saw me approaching they smiled at each other, and the compere spoke to me.

Big Fat Talentless Old Man: What’s wrong, sweetheart?

Me: Um, I need to get my things.

BFTOM: Where are they?

Me: Um, they are under the stool.

BFTOM: Oh, I see.

And with that he looked at the other Big Fat Talentless Old Man and smiled.

I could hear the beginning of ‘Big Spender’; I needed to get my stuff and get the fuck out of there. When I realised what I needed to do to get my things and the smug looks on their faces, I froze.

The compere stared at me as he sat back in his stool – the fucking stool that was preventing me from getting to my things and my career! He crossed his arms, spread his legs open as wide as his creaking old hips would let him, and slid his crotch forward on the stool.

‘Well, you better get down there and get them, sweetheart.’

You’ve got to be kidding me. I walked slowly to the stool, feeling both their eyes on me, and instantly felt sick.

When I got to the stool I bent down to get my things as quickly as I could, and he spread his fat short legs further apart and slid his crotch further forward on the stool towards my face and groaned, and the other Big Fat Talentless Old Man laughed for a second time.

‘Fuck you,’ I wanted to say. But he was a man, and I was a female child. But fuck you!

As soon as I grabbed my stuff I thought, ‘Brilliant, I’m done, I can quickly get changed and get the fuck out of here, and tell my dad all about it after the concert so he and my uncle Ray’ – who wasn’t even at that concert but would have made the seven-hour trip – ‘can beat up these two predators.’

However, as we weren’t performing at the O2 Arena like we acted as though we were, there wasn’t a lot of room side stage, and I quickly realised that this exploitation wasn’t over. It had, as I was about to learn, only just started.

I realised I had nowhere to change except directly in front of the fat, groaning, objectifying men. I felt a wave of fear come over me. I had to either miss my dance – a dance that I was so excited about, my fucking dance – or get dressed in front of these two pigs, who seemed to delight in making a 15-year-old girl feel uncomfortable, unsafe, scared and as though it was her job to entertain them.

I kept my head down and got changed as fast as I could. They were staring at me the whole time. The only time they broke their stare was to wink at each other. I focused on the music onstage, knowing the quicker I ended this involuntary performance behind the black curtain the quicker I could get out onstage and perform in the light.

I got my skirt on, changed my shoes and ran onto the stage four bars into the song with tears in my eyes.

Tears soon turned to sweat as I danced my heart out, completely forgetting about what had just happened, to the point of thinking I had made it up and it hadn’t really happened at all.

My Jupiters Casino costume with alternating black and silver sequins. To be paired with a red feather boa of course.

Siblings by blood. Best friends because we are paid to be.

@khloekardashian

@kyliejenner

with Olivia Barber-Hays

The One About My Fake Brother, Michael

IN THE FIRST HOUSE WE LIVED IN, Dad built Liv and me a Costume Room off the back of the garage to keep all the dancing costumes my mum had sewn for our not-so-lucrative yet overenthusiastic careers as entertainers. It was awesome.

For my sister and me, the Costume Room was a magical place. It was where our two worlds collided.

Growing up, Olivia and I were completely different. She was cool and independent and ate 37 apples a day. And even though she was clumsier than a newborn trying to ride a unicycle, she was fearless.

Walking home from school one day, she said, ‘If I ran fast enough I could totally jump over that four-foot barbed-wire fence,’ and with that she ran full-force into said fence, which resulted in a busted knee, a trip to the hospital and 12 stitches.

At 36, she recently tested out her agility by trying to ride a skateboard – an obvious choice for a fully grown adult who trips over uneven grass.

‘Can I borrow your deck and have a roll?’ she asked Api one summer’s day.

‘Sure, mate.’ He is her biggest fan.

She jumped on that board like she was a seasoned pro. As the skateboard took off down the hill with Olivia atop it, laughing her head off, my darling Api was running alongside her, experiencing fear that only Olivia should have been feeling.

When it was starting to get a bit crazy he said, ‘All right, Livvo,’ (that’s what he calls her) ‘when you’re ready just jump off, keeping your weight even.’

‘Sweet!’ she screamed with excitement.

Of course, being a Barber she did the exact opposite. She took more of a one-footed flying leap off the skateboard, and as she was mid-air, under his breath Api said, ‘Oh, fuck! Not like that.’

She hit the ground like a sack of shit.

Mum, Dad and I didn’t flinch, as this was a common occurrence.

But Api was worried, and strangers who saw and felt the thud were concerned too. People ran over to see if she was OK, and a lovely homeless man who was sitting nearby offered her his walking stick.

I’m pretty sure Olivia laughed so hard she farted.

I’m a lot more precious than my sister. I wouldn’t be caught dead on a skateboard; I’m flat out trying to swing myself on a swing set without freaking out. I’m scared of everything. I check the bath for sharks and even mentioning the word ‘snake’ has me lifting my feet off the ground and placing them higher than my head.

This is a red rag to a bull for my sister: pissing me off was her job description as a teenager, and she was bloody good at her job. She’s the funniest person I know; she can laugh at herself like no one I’ve ever met.

Whenever Olivia and I see each other she still wants to wrestle me. Partly because she knows she can beat 50 shades of piss out of me, but mainly because she knows I’m going to scream her name, ‘OOOLLLIIIVVVIIIAAA,’ like Oprah does when she introduces a celebrity, while I throw my arms around like a helicopter to keep her away from me.

We went to different schools most of our lives.

Olivia went to the local public school, and was cool and awkward and fitted right in. I was more challenging and needed a smaller school with more attention. So I was off to the local private Catholic school that had only been open for a year.

Not surprisingly, we weren’t the best of friends growing up, as I didn’t understand the Keanu obsession (I was more of a Jonathan Taylor Thomas kind of gal) and there were only so many times she could tolerate me screaming at her through tears: ‘You just don’t get it, Olivia! The Spice Girls ARE better than The Beatles!’ But I loved her the regular little sister amount.

Over the years we have become really close, super-close. We talk to each other at least five times a day, have been known to have Skype dinners with each other and our families (we live in different states) and have entire conversations only using dialogue from Bad Boys.

Even though we didn’t have much in common as kids, we would hang out in the Costume Room Dad built us and talk about everything from which Corey she would marry, Feldman or Haim, to how plausible it was for me to wear the wedding dress from the ‘November Rain’ film clip to my own wedding, ‘because I really want to play to my strengths and show off my legs’. I was eight.

I remember a specific day in the Costume Room that changed my life forever. Olivia was using a blunt pencil to carve the lyrics of ‘Riders on the Storm’ into the chipboard floor, and I was wrapping myself up in tulle, humming along to ‘Anything You Can Do’, when she dropped a bomb.

Olivia: Hey, I need to tell you something.

Me: OK, want to make up a dance first?

Olivia: No, this is important.

Taking the sequinned bowler hat off my head, I was all ears.

Me: What’s wrong?

Olivia: If I tell you this you have to promise not to tell Mum or Dad that I told you.

WARNING: If an older sibling says they have information they want you to know but you can’t let your parents know you know, run for the fucking hills with your fingers in your ears screaming: ‘NOT LISTENING, BITCH!!!!’

Me: OK.

Olivia: You have to pinky-promise not to tell ANYONE.

Me: Fine.

Olivia: And if you keep the promise I’ll let you sleep in my room for a whole week.

This was just getting better and better: a pinky promise, street cred from my big sister AND permission to sleep in her room for a whole week. Let’s do this!

We pinky-promised and I braced myself for the biggest moment of my life.

Olivia: Ready?

Me: You betcha!

Olivia: OK. We have a brother.

I froze. I slowly put the tulle wrap back on the rack, next to the sequinned bowler hat, and walked over to her without blinking.

Me: UM, WHAT?!

Olivia: Yep, we totally have a brother. His name is Michael.

Me: Where is he? Is he upstairs?

Olivia: He’s dead. He died of a terrible disease.

Me: Oh, my God! What?

Olivia: He died of leukaemia.

Me: I don’t know what that is.

Olivia: It’s blood AIDS.

I started crying, I was so sad. The thought of having a brother was awesome, and I was so invested in this idea, then hearing he had died, and of something as terrible as blood AIDS, I mean, you can’t make this stuff up.

Olivia: It gets worse.

Me: How?!

Olivia: When Dad built this Costume Room he knew we would love it and be here most of the time.

Me: Dad’s so nice.

Olivia: So they buried Michael under the Costume Room so we would feel connected to him.

And with that she smiled, walked out, and closed and locked the door behind her, leaving me in there on my own, with dead fake Michael’s ghost.

That was the last day I ever went into the Costume Room. Mum would be up all night beading our costumes, and I loved sitting and watching her, imagining myself dancing around wearing her intricate craftsmanship, but as soon as Mum asked me to quickly go down to the Costume Room to grab something for her, the dream ended. I would refuse, point-black. It broke both of our hearts.

I love my sister more than I thought possible – she is my most favourite person in the world (well, her and Prince Harry) – but whenever we meet someone named Michael or Michelle, I need to take a deep breath and a big step back, and remind myself that my sister is blood, and there’s no way I would survive jail.

Eight-year-old Celeste (left) with 176-year-old Olivia (right) in Sacramento, California. If you look close enough, you won’t see the ghost of our fake brother.

The basis of any good relationship – trust.

@maxxharley

@rebeccaeliasek

@hothusband_

(Top photograph by Mark Del Mar)

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