introduction
shameless in my game
Like so many young girls, I grew up wanting to be famous. i used to watch tv and dream about the beverly hills lifestyle seen in all my favorite movies. I wanted to live under the Hollywood sign and drive down Sunset Boulevard and Mull-Holland Drive in a Mercedes-Benz wearing a designer scarf and oversized black sunglasses. I wanted to be known by the rich and famous and be seen having lunch with the crowd. I wanted to live where they lived and do what they do. I wanted to belong
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I reached most of my goals, but I didn’t do it the conventional way. I did it using the oldest trick in the book. sex. I’m not always proud of what I’ve done, and there are things I’d do over again if I could. but I made the best of what I started: an abusive mother and an absent father. I did not write this book to excuse my past. I sat down to write this book because I think my story can serve as a warning to anyone who aspires to the kind of life I’ve led, and there are plenty of young people trying to do just that. Where young girls once aspired to be models and dancers, they now aspire to be hip hop video girls, the next hot girl in the video of the hottest artists. Having lived that life, I can say that it is not all that it seems.
my hips swayed and bounced on mtv as i danced on tables and by the pool in some of your favorite videos. I have had sex with some of the most delicious and insatiable men in the world. record label bosses, NBA stars and Hollywood’s A-list, not to mention the emperors of hip hop. but there is a hidden side: if sex and drugs went hand in hand with rock and roll, they also proliferate in hip hop. I would not call this book a complete account, as there are many details that I have withheld so as not to embarrass some of the people who are still associated with me. Details like which of my music industry suitors I caught in bed with his male lover and which of my NBA exes often tracked me using the onstar device attached to the Mercedes-Benz he bought me, many times. sending his associates to recover me from vacations and nights on the town.
However, in the midst of this wild ride that I call my life, I was met with challenges that could have ruined me, had it not been for the power of change. I am writing my story because I have seen too many fourteen year old girls dressed as their favorite pop icons and young women dying to be skinny or saving up for the new pair of breast implants that they are sure will make them stars. young women who look up to me and women like me and ask to be connected to the very circles I tried desperately to escape from. I have a lot of first-hand information to offer and I need to let these young women know that there are other directions to go. There are always better options than most women are offered today, better options than I’ve ever made.
The main reason a woman finds herself in a rap video, lying naked on top of a luxury car while a rapper says lewd things about her, is lack of self-esteem. I know it sounds cliché, but no one who values, loves, or knows themselves would allow themselves to be placed in such a demeaning position. finding myself and learning to value who I am was one of the biggest obstacles I had to overcome.
Before my career as a video girl, I was known in some circles as a stripper. others knew me as superhead, the insatiable lover of many hollywood stars, sports figures and some of the most influential artists and executives in music. None of that is who I really am, nor does it tell the whole story.
Throughout my journey, there are things I’ve seen and heard that could tarnish and even demolish the reputations of some of these artists. then I realized that I had a power that had nothing to do with my body, my appearance or my sexuality. he had information generally limited to members of the industry’s good-guy clubs. I had been allowed behind those doors, like a modern Mata Hari.
The days of mc lyte, yo-yo, sister souljah and salt-n-pepa are long gone. our queen, latifah, has broken new ground in another field, but has left her place on the throne of hip hop empty, waiting to be filled. We live in a world where the only goals at the end of the day are profits and top ten spots on the charts. industry insiders are being rewarded for selling the most records, in the process destroying the most beautiful thing about us as a culture: our girls and young women. it was so easy to be attracted and dominated by everything.
Music videos took up only a short year and a half of my life, but the image and purpose is so much bigger than that. magazines, music videos, movies, and television continually fill young girls’ heads with visions of perfect bodies, sex, and money. parents are often absent or uneducated or both, making them largely unaware of what goes on in their own living rooms. that girl whose head was full of those deluded visions of wealth and fame is me, all grown up and ready to speak what I know.
chapter one
death and life
October 2001. he was lying on the cold hard floor in the bathroom of the famous chinese restaurant mr. food in beverly hills. It is one of the most exclusive and renowned restaurants in the world, but I was at the lowest point of my life. with his head by the toilet, he was alone, in debt, friendless and hopeless.
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It had been a long and hard journey leading up to this crash. It was a wild roller coaster ride that included some of the hottest names in hip hop and Hollywood. for two years I rode it. I was in the middle of it all: having dinner with Fr. diddy, partying with vin diesel, face to face with shaquille o’neal.
I had money, three cars, a condo in a prestigious neighborhood, a babysitter for my son. She had starred in some of the most popular music videos with Jay-Z, LL Cool J, Ja Rule, and Ludacris. He had even co-starred in the hit movie A Man Apart, alongside Vin Diesel. but here I am lying on the cold bathroom floor, hugging the icy porcelain of the toilet, completely desperate. I was broke, homeless and probably dying.
The last thing I remembered was my body shaking violently as I sat on the toilet with my head in my hands and my friend eva hovering over me asking if I was okay. but now I was on the ground and she was gone. can i move? was the only thought swirling in my head.
I tried to say something to make sure he was alive. I couldn’t. I tried to move my leg and it worked. I cautiously got up and went to the sink. I looked around the small, single-cubicle bathroom. it was dimly lit and small, but elegant. I clung to the sink, looking at myself in the mirror. my pupils were fully dilated and I could feel my knees trembling under me. I splashed cold water on my face, hoping to get out of the trouble I was obviously in.
I looked at my jewelry and my clothes. I was still wearing the diamond heart pendant and canary yellow diamond earrings that my ex-husband had given me years before. my ring and bracelet were gifts bought at tiffany. my long nails were perfectly manicured and my hair was long and black. my skin had been tanned by the miami sun and my eyes were gray thanks to my colored contacts. my face was made up to perfection, courtesy of mac and chanel. my jeans were a two hundred dollar pair from fashion icon marc jacobs, and the rest of the outfit followed suit. everything was made by a designer, from my jewelry to my makeup to the clothes I wore, even the drugs I used.
Next thing I knew I was on the ground again. when I came to from another seizure, my tongue was swollen and bleeding. I crawled off the floor and back to the sink to splash more water on my face. I desperately wanted someone to come in and help me, but no one came. I started to panic, thoughts of the late actor river phoenix running through my head. thoughts of him convulsing outside the viper room not far from where I stood, on sunset boulevard, just before he died.
i thought how horrible it would be if i died in mr. Chinese dog. i thought of the irony of it all: the paparazzi waiting outside for nicolas cage and ll cool j, who were in the dining room eating with friends. I thought how pretty and rich I looked, but my life had become ugly and poor. but the most prominent thought was of my son, naiim. my nanny hadn’t heard from me in months and she had no idea how to find me. nobody knew my real name or where I lived or who my family was or where I came from. To them, my name was Yizette, a name I made up for myself when I was sixteen, during my years as a stripper.
I thought of naiim and wanted to live. I thought that if I screamed her name as loud as I could, God would hear me and give me another chance to be a mother. God had to know that despite everything I had done up to this point, I loved my son and wanted to do what was right for him.
I bumped into the bathroom door, opened it and started yelling his name in the stairwell that led to the restaurant’s main dining room. I yelled her name over and over until my voice was gone. No one heard me. I stumbled back to the bathroom to splash more water on my face, hoping the water alone would be enough to reverse what I’d done. my heart was racing, and her beating was all I could hear in my head. there were beads of sweat on my face. my mouth was dry and my vision blurred. my body went into convulsions three, four more times, each time landing me on the cold, hard tile. nobody was there for me. I was going to die alone.
A year before, nobody could have told me that my life would be like this. i was invited to a function on a friday night in october 2000 at the sky bar, located on the sunset strip. I reluctantly met an acquaintance there and quickly began to mingle, to make the most of what promised to be a dull night. the crowd was very charged, and I found myself yawning between conversations with a concert pianist and a sheet music composer. after about an hour of walking around, sampling the wide variety of mediocre hors d’oeuvres and oversized apple martinis, I was ready to go. while looking for the acquaintance who had taken me to the event, he came up behind me, grabbed my arm and dragged me towards the pool.
I want you to meet someone, he said. Gary, this is yizette. yizette, this is gary.
Like I said before, yizette was a name and personality I made up when I was sixteen, after I ran away from my father and wanted a new identity and hopefully a new life. I landed in Los Angeles.
gary was handsome, dressed in all black, and was of medium build and height. he was soft-spoken and reserved. when we started talking, we realized that we shared the same feelings about the function we were attending. we laugh at each other’s silly anecdotes and soon find ourselves exchanging phone numbers. After the show, we all headed to a local club called Nora’s Cafe. there we continued drinking martinis, and at one point I’m sure I climbed on top of a table and started dancing. It was a night to remember. but by the next morning, he had forgotten most of it.
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the next afternoon, when i finally recovered from the night before, i checked my messages and found one from gary. Initially, he couldn’t remember who Gary was among the sea of people he had met at the Sky Bar and at Nora’s Cafe. after a brief moment of recollection, I began to connect the voice with the face. however, I was unable to return the call. That Sunday, while driving through West Los Angeles, my cell phone rang. the number was unfamiliar to me, so I answered cautiously.
hey, yizette… this is gary, from the other night, said the voice.
I rolled my eyes in silent response. i was used to men flirting with me and i thought gary was just another example. but i was wrong. what gary said next would not only amaze me, it would change my life.
He began to explain to me that he was a film director and that he was in the early stages of production on his new film. he wanted me to pick up a copy of the script and read it for him. he said there was a part that he thought would be perfect for me. he wasn’t sure what to think and actually doubted he was a director of any substance. After you’ve lived in LA for a while, you start to take what people say you do with a grain of salt, particularly in Hollywood. still, that monday, i went to the address he gave me on beverly boulevard. I got to the production office and picked up the script. Once in my car, I started reading it and was taken aback because the character I was going to read for, Candice Hicks, was nowhere in the script.
The next day I was called in to read on camera for Gary and the producers. I read another character’s lines while trying to hide my nervous stomach and dry mouth. As with many other things, I acted without thinking. I read the lines several times and that was it. I have already done it.
gary walked me out into the hall and thanked me for coming. he still wasn’t sure what he had just done, what he was really for and who he was dealing with. but i started to get a clue once he mentioned that she was up for the part of larenz tate’s character’s wife. larenz tate was a name i knew from previous movies of hers, so the project became a bit more legit and real. If I had known how big this opportunity really was, I might not have made it through the audition.
the thursday after we met, i got a call from gary’s production office telling me i had been cast to play candice hicks, the wife of demetrius hicks, played by larenz tate. they said the part would have to be written for me. I was excited. Although I had acted throughout my school years, and being in movies was something I had always dreamed of, it was never something that I felt was an attainable goal. but here it was.
after digesting everything gary’s team told me, it finally dawned on me: gary was the famous director f. Gary Gray, who had started it on Friday, and the negotiator, and would continue to lead the Italian work and be great. it was to be part of a big budget new line movie production. when i left my sad life and ran to los angeles i had no idea what i would be doing. I had no idea how I was going to survive. For me, being part of a movie was much more than surviving, it was a step towards success.
The following Monday, just a week and a half after meeting Gary, I showed up for my first table read with the entire cast. Gary sat at the head of the table and Larenz sat directly across from me. I didn’t recognize many of the actors there, but I was secretly drawn to a tall, muscular man sitting directly to my right. his voice was overwhelmingly powerful, but his demeanor was gentle. from time to time, his shoulder brushed against mine, and I was in a hurry. my attraction to this man was strong. his name was vin diesel.
Coincidentally, my first shoot would take place a few blocks from the house where I shot my first music video. we started shooting a man on zuma beach in malibu. I woke up at three in the morning and got in my car to drive to the set. I glided toward Malibu through the familiar picturesque calm of Pacific Coast Highway, my car windows rolled down so I could feel the air, brisk and dewy with dew. I was blasting my radio and singing along, loudly, to every song during the hour-long drive from my condo. I got to the set and headed straight to the catering truck for a breakfast burrito and then sat in the hair and makeup trailer. I was officially an actress. I felt like everything I had done up to that point, everything that had happened to me, from my abusive childhood, the rape, being a teenage runaway, the stripping, hadn’t stopped or beaten me. I had reinvented myself. he was advancing and, hopefully, ascending.
perhaps when one has a rough start in life, the universe has a way of balancing it all out. I believe that every cloud has a rainbow and a silver lining. I’ve had many, many clouds, more than most.
chapter two
the sins of the mother
I hate my mother. those are strong words that are forbidden and shunned by god, and i struggle with this emotion every day of my life. but it’s how i feel. as a child, while watching others
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