August 18, 2025 • 62 mins
This week, Ashlyn connects with dancer, actor, and mental health practitioner Alyson Stoner. Listeners may know Alyson from their childhood roles in Cheaper By the Dozen, Camp Rock, and much more, but these days they’re exposing the “toddler to train-wreck pipeline” that child actors are up against. Alyson’s new memoir, Well Adjusted Despite Literally Everything, details their personal journey in this system and how they have begun to heal from it. Alyson and Ashlyn connect over a passion for mental health advocacy, discovering who they are beyond what they do, and protecting kids in entertainment, sports, and beyond.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Lonesome Love.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Wide Open. I
am your host, Ashlyn Harris, and I am so excited
to be joined this week by our guest, Alison Stoner.
Welcome to the show, my love. You are an all
around entertainer, dancer, actor, singer, you name it. Much of
your audience should know you by camp Rock, Cheaper by
(00:33):
the dozen, and nowadays, most importantly, you advocate so much
for mental health, which is near and dear to my heart.
So thank you. And you have a podcast or did
dear Hollywood, and now your new memoir, your book launch
just came out semi well adjusted despite literally everything. Allison,
(00:57):
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Thanks for having me, Yes, horrors, how are you? I
am hanging in there? How about yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well? Every day I wake up and I'm alive. It's
a gift, especially in this political climate. I'm like, how
are we getting through?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
You know?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
How we're getting through by showing up and doing exactly
what we're doing now and sharing space with each other.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I was gonna say that anytime I get to go
on a queer podcast, I'm like, great, it's gonna be
a good day, my fucking people.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, it's like the best. It's gonna be a highlight.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I always that's what I always say. I'm like, just
give me more of my people so I feel safe.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Okay, thank you. It's real. It really is real.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, tell me what's going on. You have this new
book coming out that's really peeling back all the layers.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Let's just say that.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yes, So I wanted to play on the concept of
being the quote unquote well adjusted one, because, first of all,
what does it mean to be well adjusted in a
disc functional society? Does that mean that you are adhering
to the dysfunction and thriving in it, or you know, like.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
That's something we will unpack.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
But it follows my some would call it an unconventional
life path of being a former kid actor, kid performer
turned mental health practitioner. And not only am I spilling yes,
all of the details from sets like Camp Rock and
Cheaper by the Dozen and unpacking the hidden impact of
(02:31):
working so much at such a young age, but I
also wanted to explore these cultural myths that a lot
of us, I mean, that are embedded in society. Yes,
and so I'm unpacking a lot. I think if people
are showing up thinking it's just a child star memoir,
you better buckle up and read with care because it
(02:52):
goes to a lot of intense pleas with.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
That, and I think this is important, and I think
you have to be in such a good place in
your life to really unpack the trauma and the journey
you walked as a very very young kid. And you know,
I've I've known about you for so long and mostly
(03:15):
from the Missy Elliott music videos. I mean, you are
an incredible performer. Thank you, And I mean I know
when we all started watching that and seeing that it
probably changed your life.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I mean, how old were you.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I must have been around eight or nine, and it
was an overnight shift and you won't ever be able
to quantify every detail, but I do. I do actually
talk about not only the audition process, but what it
was like after the video was released and how I
had this psychological shift and suddenly my even my just
(03:53):
biological development was very disrupted. My identity formation went from
You're an anonymous kid on a playground to you need
to be on at all times, including at the grocery store,
including at school, including you know, at the doctor's office,
because even though you're here sick in coughing, someone needs
to just you know, have you sign an autograph on
(04:13):
the diabetes pamphlet over in the corner, you know. And
also different things like the unchecked access that people have
not only into your personal space and your private life
via media, but also your literal physical body. Being touched
(04:34):
by strangers became commonplace, right, so like bye bye stranger danger,
which you're maybe taught as a kid, Like, you know,
I learned instead to study human behavior in a way
where I could tell before you even got to me,
I would already know. Have your hands been in your pocket,
which may indicate that you're either carrying a weapon that
(04:54):
you might maybe try to use on me, Are your
hands shaking.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Out of nerves?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Are you in a certain you know, demographic, like an
age demographic. Typically teens are a little bit more vocal.
And so if you're in a public place and you
don't want to start having like a mob circling you,
you learn how to like do all of these, you know,
the mental gymnastics of it all.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
But you're a gig But I'm a.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Baby, Yeah so much. And this is the thing, and
we talk about this all the time. The difference between
like fame and fortune, you know, and most people move
here for that dream, that dream that happened to you
so early. But what they don't understand is at what costs?
(05:40):
Because everything was stripped from you at an early age.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Right, I also personally didn't desire fame or fortune. I
was three years old when I started performing. I didn't
have a map of reality yet, so whatever was presented
to me. However, we're conditioned whatever the norms are around
us become our reference point. And so it's I think
(06:05):
very common for folks who started as performers to stay
in that kind of persona for you know, a long
period of their lives unless you have some kind of
event that you know, catalyzes a shift. And I've had
a few, and I'm so grateful for them, because maybe
(06:27):
I wouldn't have started deconstructing all of these influences, and
maybe I wouldn't be able to have this kind of honest,
easygoing conversation.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Well, what I love about what you have done is
you didn't let your journey in terms of your pain,
take you. You've turned it into your superpower. And I
think that is taking back the strength of what happened
at such an early age that was so in a
(06:59):
stripped from you. I don't think people know the toll
it takes on a young child's development, and you're right,
they just don't know. Like you didn't know what you
didn't know, you trusted the people around you. So I
really want to dive into that, because when did this start,
(07:22):
How did it start? What was this like, uh huh,
We're going to pick this family up, We're going to
move to Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Wild It gets wilder and wilder as I get older,
especially when my nephews become the age that I was
when I was performing excuse me, globally around the world.
I'm like, oh, no, we have to revisit this, and
we need to reprocess.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Because we normalize it.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yes, you normalize a lot of things that could stand
to be reimagined. So I'm originally from Ohio. I was
in dance at three years old. By six, I went
to a convention in New York and I didn't realize
that it was a talent recruitment center. I thought it
(08:09):
was similar to our other dance conventions.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
You go, you.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Compete, maybe you won an award, but you meet other
kids your age, You go home, you go back to
school instead. I received I think it was sixteen or
seventeen callbacks from talent scouts who insisted that we fly
to Los Angeles. I had again no idea that this
is all a part of an ecosystem which I now
(08:33):
call the toddler to train wreck pipeline, where that is
spot on, but it is very cleverly manufactured from start
to finish. So you've got children who don't know that
they're being placed on this conveyor belt of sorts, and
you've got parents who maybe mean well, they just want
(08:55):
to support their children, they want to help nurture their talent,
or maybe they have stars in their eyes, can be
a lot of different things. But had you have this
ecosystem of agents, managers, acting schools, so then you're on set,
and of course we can get into what that's really like.
But I want to skip forward because I think a
(09:16):
lot of the general public or audiences at home, become
aware of the child star's journey at the point of
their breakdown, and it usually is accompanied by some kind
of rebellion, reckless behavior, mental health challenge, and it's or
maybe they're going against their brand, and that is actually
(09:40):
a manufactured narrative sometimes real behaviors, real struggles, yes, but
the way it's framed to the public leads us as
an audience to have very little empathy for these young people. Instead,
we're often like, Okay, go take your million, multi million
dollar car and mansion somewhere else. And in the book,
(10:06):
I'm hoping to actually unpack what it really looks like
from the inside out when you're living, you know, a
life that has eighty hour work weeks, when you're on
a set and you didn't realize that all of these
adults shouldn't be touching your body when they're doing a
lot of things that you can read about in the book,
And like you said, a lot of these things are normalized,
(10:31):
but people never see that part of it. They see
a veneer, they see the glamour that's not that's so
that's such a small percentage of what the experience actually is.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And I relate that. I relate to that so much. Yeah,
it's like, you know, you see the championships and the
gold medals and you have no idea what the journey
was like and what it costs and the sacrifice and
the mental toll and choosing every day to get up
and do it all over again, and it's madness. And
(11:04):
you're really taught to be a machine. You're taught like
I'm providing this talent for the people, and like this,
this is my gift to the world, and like I
have to do it.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
It's your mission, it's your purpose, it's your significance, it's your.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Servant chosen one, right, right.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Which is such an interesting thing if you pull back
and study the cultural significance of the child prodigy or
the child star, there are a lot of projections, you know,
on the child, like American exceptionalism, individualism in terms of
like genius, you know, you are special, you are unique.
(11:44):
And again if we're I'm not saying that I actually
believed that because I think I'm better than anyone. No, no, no,
I'm saying I was terrified if I didn't live up
to that that I would be done, you know.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
And so it's it's.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
A lot of different psychological plays that a child is,
you know, experiencing. And then when something goes wrong, maybe
you get injured on the field, and you're like, wait
a second, that's my livelihood, not only my livelihood, but
that's my you know.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Ticket to everything.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Revolves around this, your social network, your family dynamic, your
professional opportunities in future, your sense of identity and purpose.
And so for me, you know, my my health took
a toll. And it wasn't just like oh I'm burned
out and I'm fatigued. It was like, oh, I'm dropping
loads of weight, my skin is sallow, my eyes are
(12:41):
sunken in.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
You know, I'm I have these.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Jitters, I have these stress seizures.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
What am I going to do?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Do?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I do?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I keep do, I keep.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Going, pushing through, which is what we tell each other, right,
We're only the strongest survive. And it makes you push
all that down and you keep performing until like at
what costs? And you did hit that breaking point I did,
and the bravery it took reading your story and I
(13:12):
would love for you to elaborate because I don't know
if our audience knows exactly, but you literally were like
I have I need to get help, Like you had
to be whole and you had to be human, and
in doing so you had to be honest and brave.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Well, when you say had to be whole and had
to be human, I didn't know that I was going
into treatment for those reasons, yet I thought I was
going in solely to get my health on track so
that I.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Could keep performing. Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
So yeah, those realizations would come later. But I was thinking, oh,
if I need longevity with my career, and you know,
there's this thing that happens when kid stars get to
seventeen and eighteen and we go, uh, oh, we're either
going to expire or we're going to break through and
we'll have a career as adults. And so I hadn't
(14:01):
yet had my quote unquote you know, breakthrough role, and
so I was trying to strategically think about the fact
that I was seventeen, my body was shutting down by eighteen,
I need to have some kind of what people would
call a comeback, as if all of us aren't working
the whole time exactly like we're just booking jobs that
you don't see it.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Because we were working and doesn't stop.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
But I, you know, decided, Okay, I'll go into treatment,
I'll get better, then i'll return. My team will see
that I'm I'm ready to go, and we can find
the breakthrough role and I can keep bulldozing my way forward.
And instead what happened was, I, you know, after being
on practical bed rest for multiple months, and then going
(14:46):
through these really intense therapeutic sessions and the programming that
happens at different in patient facilities, This one, in particulars
for treating eating disorders. I had these wonderful profession andoals
who provided the first stable environment I had ever had
(15:06):
for one because we had a routine, and also it
was the first time I wasn't working every day, so
that was both terrifying and necessary for healing because everything
that had been bottled up for how many years, or
what I had compartmentalized through dissociation was now back in
(15:26):
full view. But these wonderful humans prompted questions, prompted reflection
about things far beyond just my health and well being,
and it catalyzed a much deeper shift. So when I
came back to the industry, I went, uh oh.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
So that's when you clocked it was unsafe.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
I yeah, I can't do I've become aware.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
My eyes have been opened.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So you didn't feel that like as you were, you
know this childhood phenom and you're doing all these things
in entertainment and dance. There was never a part of
you being like all these this is just really unsafe
for me. And I'm like, having an out of body
like you weren't able because you were so young. I'm
(16:16):
interested like, were you clocking that? Did you feel safe?
Did you feel unsafe?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
The concept of safety was not even a conversation that similarly,
bodily autonomy, consent, those aren't even words I had heard
until my early twenties.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
So, and then there's something about, you know, how compliance
is rewarded, and it doesn't just happen with child performers,
of course, it happens with children everywhere where. The more
you obey the authority of figure, the authority figure, the
more you you know, earn their approval, please them, the
more you're sometimes basic survive needs will be met. And
(17:02):
so it's it's like that, but at an exponentially more
intense level when you are not only perhaps a breadwinner
in your family, but you also are employing in some
ways employing multiple people, and people's you know, livelihoods depend
on you continuing to book work. So safety was not
(17:27):
a thought. I think also at that time, we weren't
talking about things like psychological safety. We were thinking about
maybe physical safety, and even that was you know, muddy
because you know, you know, as an athlete, when we
were doing different training sessions, I'm like, Okay, these ten
to twelve hour days where we're just breaking our bodies down,
(17:50):
and then we're going to go on tour. We're going
to do this every night, three hour concert da da da.
Then you know, in between the concerts, we have to
do other jobs. Most of this, of course unpaid labor,
which we loves.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
But these are things I was not thinking about. So
I was.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I was compliant, you know, and obedient.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I was so so, so so grateful.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Everything was such a you know, framed as such a
gift and such a special opportunity, which it it is
in so many ways, But there were no resources available
that spoke to what the impact would be on every
area of my life.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And we're not just saying psychologically, well, that's a.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
That's a good point that you hit, because I think
that happens so much in both of our industries. Is
you're told to be grateful, and you're told very quickly
that you're replaceable, right yes, if anyone else would love
to be in your shoes, absolutely, And it makes you
go into dark, deep places where it's survival of the
(18:53):
fittest did the air. I always say this, the air
is then at the top, and you can't complain, you
can't hear humanize anything because you have to be a machine.
Stay tuned. I'll be back in just a moment after
this brief message from our sponsors.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Can I ask you a question please? I love this? Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
So I've been thinking a lot about how young athletes now,
on the one hand, can experience, you know, the special
privilege of endorsements and brand deals. But there's an What
comes with that is this pressure to be somewhat of
an influencer, somewhat of a role model, a public figure,
(19:43):
where I think more attention sometimes is placed on that
aspect of who you are than just being able to
play the game. And I'm wondering what are your thoughts on, like, wow,
protecting the well being of the young athletes.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
That's a great question, And there's two parts to this.
I think just now the landscape is changing in real
time due to new nil deals, which is as we know,
name and image and likeness for the audience. That's like
a big topic right now because we used to not
(20:20):
get paid or it would jeopardize your college eligibility. This
whole new landscape is just existing in our country. And
you know, I interviewed and it still sticks with me
to this day. I interviewed Flage Johnson, who's a basketball
player at LSU. Very very successful go on sister makes
(20:44):
a fuck ton of money, and she should because she
is lovely, has a great head on her shoulders, gives
back to her community, is always wanting to do more
for other people than just like me, me, me, Which
what I will say is she said something to me.
She's like, I can't even go to a college party
(21:06):
without security. And I'm like, I went to the University
of North Carolina, and I just knew for every beer
I drank at a bar, I had to drink two water,
so I was good the next day for training. Like
I loved the social aspect of college. You know, I
was the first of my family to go. I was
(21:27):
the first to graduate, and the whole experience made me
who I am today. It built character, it built resilience.
I had to be good at my academics, I had
to be good at my I was so well rounded,
and that has been taken from these kids because they're
(21:47):
pros now right, Like brands are paying them millions of
dollars to walk and act a certain way because they
are now brand ambassadors and they are the face of
mass Mutual and all of these campaigns she's doing, Power
Aid blah blah blah. They have to walk such a
(22:10):
tight line at all times. What I'll say is these
women are smart because they have to be. They are
business women who now have been in boardrooms both beyond
the locker room. They're creating very very good lives for
themselves moving forward. And she said this, I'm not planning
for the next four years. I'm planning for the next forty.
(22:33):
If I had that thought process at twenty one years old, right,
I probably wouldn't be sitting here doing Wide Open. But truthfully,
and there's no so real.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
It's a weird obviously, the pay gaps and also the
lack of training and preparation for transitions when you know
you're in a field where there is inevitably going to
be a time when you're no longer playing, and the
lack of resources for young athletes on what to do next.
I mean, I have some loved ones who are in
the WNBA and they're figuring it out too. It's on
(23:08):
their own dime that they have to make these moves
because if you're not also the chosen one on the team,
then those deals don't come in. And you're trying to
navigate like, Okay, how many side jobs am I going
to need the second that my contract is and that's all,
which is similar for actors, and that's.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
All of us. I mean, when that career is over,
no matter how well you did until probably the last
few years, like you have to have a job right
when you finish and you retire, like you have to
have what's next, And you know, there's this whole identity
process of refining yourself at thirty nine years old, it's like,
(23:46):
who am I outside of what I do?
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Something you said a moment ago sparked a thought I've
been It's probably been the last ten to thirteen years
that I've been trying to reposition myself, you know, one
step of time, one micro decision, every day at a
time where by now, if I choose to walk away
from the industry, I have figured out other job opportunities.
(24:12):
I've you know, garnered certifications in different spaces so I
can teach here and I can you know, earn an
income here and I can serve this community over here.
But it's been thirty ten to thirteen years of all
of these daily decisions. But something that I'm thinking about
(24:32):
right now is there are truths that I want to
share about the entertainment industry. And I vividly remember the
moment where I thought, if I say these things out loud,
this could risk everything everything. So before I do that,
(24:54):
just like you know, business coaches will be like, hey,
before you just up and quit your job, like, how
are you going to make sure your base?
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Your bases are covered?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I started thinking, Okay, I'm going to I need new
skills because I'm not prepared for the world outside of
this bubble, and I'm gonna need a new view of myself.
I'm gonna have to believe that I'm able to offer
the world something else. I'm gonna have to go back
to school. I'm gonna have to, you know, figure out
what my set of logistics looks like. But how empowering
(25:29):
that now? The worst that could happen, I mean, and
it could get bad.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Listen this book. There's a lot of information in there.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
I am curious to see what conversations it sparks. But
I feel so grateful that I am not dependent on
the industry for my source of identity, for my source
of income, for my source of personal worth and contribution
to the world. So that if and when I'm no
(25:57):
longer invited to the party because I spoke a little
bit too much truth to power, I'm like, cool.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
What's that means? You're in a good place. It's so
has to be liberating.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
It's so liberating.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
It's so liberating, and I wish it for everyone who feels,
you know, stuck in a particular position. And now I
know that there are a lot of other factors that
go into us feeling like we've got limited options or
truly having limited options. So you know, I'm not saying
it's not a Pollyanna mentality. It's actually quite a methodical,
(26:31):
painstaking journey to say. This is going to take a
long time. No one's going to do it for me.
I'm going to need to figure out how to make sure,
like I can pay rent if this all crumbles.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, and literally that's the thing. It's like, you can't
guarantee your next job in this industry. Oh it's yeah,
there's no such thing as like stability.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
It's like you get done with the.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Job, and before that's even done, you're already trying to
find the next. It's like so hard to stay present,
it's so hard to actually feel. And I know a
part of this process, like you came into your own
skin and your own identity of queerness. And it's interesting
because like I came out really really late in life,
(27:25):
and I just laugh. I'm like laughing because everyone knew
I was fucking gay, same except for me.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Yeah, same, But did you know you were queer? I
didn't know. I did not have time to know that.
That's I'm like the part.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I've been playing for you know, us soccer since I
was thirteen. It was never fucking about me, right, it
was about this mission of success and greatness, and Western
culture tells me.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
This at all.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Come, Oh my god, I didn't know who the fuck
I was. And I'm just now, in real time, having
to unpack it because I never allowed myself to come
up for air.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
And if I can add some compassion in there, the
forces and systems and folks around you perhaps contributed to
you not having that space either. So it wasn't just
this like self inflicted. You know, we're we're born into
a space that's got a lot of rules, you know,
that are governing all of our lives all the time.
(28:26):
But it's interesting when you talk about coming back into
your body. So after rehab, a part of healing and recovery,
especially with you know, a body related eating disorder and
mental illness, was sematic psychotherapy. And for those who aren't
(28:47):
aren't familiar with the term sematics, simply put, think about
it as body centered interventions or frameworks approaches for healing.
So instead of just neck up solutions like talk therapy,
now you're incorporating the nervous system. You're learning to identify
where the emotion is stored in your body. Is it
(29:10):
contributing to tension, is it you know, is there a
certain location, a certain memory associated with this injury in
your hip, whatever it is. So it's you know, making
sure that the mind body connection is strengthened for a
more holistic approach to recovery. Well that said, I get
(29:32):
back to Los Angeles and I start going on auditions
and then now my body is online. I'm not dissociated
in the same way and disconnected. Therefore my body is
going who wha, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
This is not good.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
We don't like this, things like this isn't safe, things
like I actually don't want to be here at all,
things like this is completely incongruent with your values.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
And now I'm.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Wanting to listen to the cues, honor them. But how
do I do that in a system that's like Nope,
it would be much better off if you would just
stay disconnected. So I think what's interesting is eventually it
was around the pandemic, you know, if everything is shut down,
and I knew I at least wouldn't be going on auditions.
At the time, I thought, Okay, should I start applying
(30:19):
this philosophy to potential career pathways maybe shifts? And so
I started studying the mind body connection further, got some certifications,
ended up starting a company called Movement Genius, and it
has the somatic approach to stress relief and you know,
(30:40):
overall well being. And so now when I think about
making decisions, they're full body yeses or full body knows.
There's clarity there, right, But for a lot of us
due to so many very real factors, like you got
kids and your body says I'm tired, okay too, damn
(31:00):
back right exactly so you know, it's not about saying
like I'm going to stop everything in play kate to
whatever the body.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Begs for in that moment.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
It's more so going, oh, I now at least understand
first of all, my own operating system, and second of
all tools that can help me manage all of these
experiences and know when I've hit my limit, or know
when I'm in a room that I really I don't
think I belong here anymore. I don't think I want
to be here anymore. I think it would be better
(31:31):
for me to go somewhere else. Like right, you just
start having a more holistic orientation to the world. But
it's a privilege to have the space, time resources to
be able to do that kind of deep healing. So
you know, I acknowledge that, And that's part of the
premise for Movement Genius was how can we make these
(31:52):
kinds of tools easy to use, you know, accessible, which
means you can just pull them up straight on your phone.
And they're also ultra affordable because you're like not about
to be another wellness company, especially you know, a white
person slender like there are enough, There are enough of
us in the wellness space, so you know, the majority
(32:16):
of our therapist network and practitioner network are experts of color,
experts with disabilities, experts who are chronically ill, so speaking
to just all of the real experiences that don't often
get centered in wellness spaces. But how can we make
(32:36):
sure these tools can be easy to use? And that
has been so transformative in my personal life. But also
seeing now like you know, thousands and thousands of people
being able to say, like, hey, this has actually changed
the quality of my health and well being and I'm
(32:58):
making different decisions because of it, and I'm seeing real
improvements because of it.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And that's the thing is like, especially a lot of women,
we neglect ourselves so much. Yeah, because we are conditioned
to serve other people, right, We're givers at our core.
That's what we're told at a very very early age
and or accessories, Yes, exactly. And it's interesting when I was,
you know, reading a few different things about your coming
(33:27):
out process and you losing jobs and someone saying you're
unsafe was the exact word that, like, I'm going to
be honest, kind of fucked me up.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
It's just heartbreaking, it is.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
You know, And it's like living your truth is the
best gift you can give yourself and this world.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Also, I know it's maybe the unpopular take, but I
still want to offer the people who release me from
the job some compassion in a sense that we're all
swimming in this ocean of cultural myths and what I
believe some of them to be harmful ideologies. And you know,
(34:13):
they didn't. They weren't born hating me or people like me.
It was learned. And yes, everyone's accountable for their decisions.
So it's it's both and right. Yeah, so you know,
I'm I'm holding multiple experiences at once, but I do
recall thinking, I know that we have an honest and
(34:34):
genuine connection because we've been colleagues for.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Many months now.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
So it was it's just that something got activated and
and it you know, that the aspect of queerness for
them sent their body into a state of fear, into
a state of discomfort where they felt unsafe because of
belief that they had inherited from somewhere someone at some point.
(35:03):
And so my hope, of course, I don't know where
they're at now, but I really hope that they've had
more proximity to queerness, not at the expense of the
queer person near them, but just as a way to
humanize the hum well we have to be because you know,
I was I was them eight years ago when I
(35:27):
was in a particular congregation in a church where I
thought I was loving someone by condemning them for their queerness.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
I don't know that I ever outwardly.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Send that to someone, so much as internally thought, okay,
I'm being obedient to the divine principle.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Of yeah straightness, you know. Lol.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
So many layers, so many things to unpack there. But
and also like this case, this can also there are
parallels in my journey of unpacking my internalized racism, internalized sexism,
internalized homophobia.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Like I so, I I don't find that it's worth
judging someone.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I just believe that's not the totality of who they are.
It is a plot point they're located here right now.
But I have to believe that there's room for a
shift because I myself have undergone so many.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
That's a beautiful lens to think that, Like I mean,
it's a beautiful lens to live your life through, because
I would be it's right, it's hard, right because like
I think a lot of us in our community are angry,
understandable and totally unders We have every right to be angry.
(36:55):
I mean every single day our community is targeted. Every
day you have laws that are coming out to strip
us from our you know.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Basic dignity and right.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, and it's like it's constantly this uphill battle that
we fight, but we're told to not be angry because
it's this fear based and the opposite of this fear
base is this compassion and love that we need to
bring into the world that we're not fucking met with,
right And it's hard. Yes, So I'm glad you said that.
(37:33):
It's like this is just where they're at right now.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
And also.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Make room for that anger. Please do not hear me incorrectly.
Do not skip that. Do not skip over the necessary
and important emotional experience and processing, the psychological impact, and
also the real factors of maybe your safety being at
risk because of wherever you're located. Honor all of those,
(38:00):
and whenever your process leads you into another space where
there's capacity to see where perhaps the person you know
opposite you is also hurting or or or maybe if
they had more information and more time or a different
(38:20):
upbringing would have landed in a different place and would
have been able to interact with you differently, Like it's
this is it's touchy because I I'm not saying everyone
needs to do this or that this is the right
thing to do in my personal position. I've just found
(38:42):
that I have to be able to humanize the person
in front of me, especially if I want them someday
to humanize me. Yeah, it's complicated.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
It is.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
It reuper complicated, It really is.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
But it's I like the lens of the way you
view it.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Because it's it is a Safety.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Is a weird term in our community, right right, it
is a and and I have boundaries because I need safety.
And I want to ask you, you know, being this
childhood star who didn't have safety, is that why it
was so important for you to create movement Genius, to
(39:24):
have these guard rails that protect childhood actors and performers, Like,
because you first hand experienced what an unsafe environment looked
like and you wanted to create create that. Now on
the back.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
End, yes, I intentionally wanted to look at this toddler
to train wreck pipeline, this industry ecosystem and figure out
solutions that could improve working conditions, living conditions, and the
overall experience of working in the industry for children at
every station. So I thought, okay, on set, it would
(40:04):
be great, of course if we had mental health coordinators,
especially if the kid is portraying traumatic material. That's a
conversation for you know, another time. But definitely need some
support there and resources. But then we also need federal legislation.
So I'm working with the Cohort. We're advocating for policy
to protect not only children in the industry, but also
(40:25):
child influencers, which is this whole new demographic of kids.
And it's actually a much wider range of kids who
are affected because nowadays a parent, a guardian, an adult, anyone,
maybe the kid themselves sometimes can just press record post
and then sometimes that content is monetized and you know, yes,
(40:47):
and deep fakes, I have so many.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
And women, yes, children and women nine children and women AI. Yes,
is not you know it's going to be. There's so
much about technology is great, but that part is not.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
The intimate deep fakes.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Thirteen percent of teenagers have now had some kind of
experience with a nude deep fake. There's on telegram app alone.
I know this isn't aside. But it's interesting because there's
legislation that we can actually help push forward. Telegram alone,
there are at least fifty bots that create explicit photos
(41:31):
and videos with just a few clicks, and they have
four million monthly users. That's on Telegram alone. And there
are many states where this is actually not even illegal
yet to post intimate deep fakes. So there's a whole
new world of risk for everyone, and in my area
(41:54):
of specialization children, So I, yes, have created resources that
kids can use on set. Yes, I'm working with policymakers. Yes,
I'm hopefully helping reshape public perception of what it means
to be a child entertainer or a high performing child
(42:15):
through the memoir, I just wanted to make sure that
we're able to, yes, provide safer conditions, but also increase
the overall awareness for parents, guardians, young people who think
they're getting into something very fun, and there's an innocence
(42:37):
and a naivete and ignorance, and I'm.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
Like, whoha, wha, wha, whoa.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
If you at least have more information, then you can
make a decision more consciously about how you participate.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
I would hope that it.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Would change the way people participate, but even if it doesn't,
at least then I'm like, Okay, you all are accountable
for still moving forward and putting your child in to
the situation.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Absolutely, this is wide open, and I'm your host, Ashlyn Harris.
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Now that you are in this like really great space,
you know, and you've really walked through the storm to
get on this side and unpacked it because I imagine
you have to to write a memoir about it.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Bully, I wish it on no one, and yet I
wish it on everyone.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
So I actually.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Started working on this book many years ago in a
lot of different forms. It wasn't always a book. It
was a show, and it was a this, it was
a that. But I had my outline, I had the narrative.
I had what I thought was clarity until I had
to write ninety five to one hundred and ten thousand words,
(43:56):
not just the proposal, not just the sample chapters, but
actually get everyvery single detail down. I brought in a
wonderful writing supervisor because I knew I wouldn't be able
to tackle this project alone. But when she prompted me
to go a little bit deeper, on some of these issues.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
What happened was.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
I ended up discovering documents and information about my past
in professional and personal spaces that I had never seen
before that fundamentally shifted my understanding.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Of my entire life.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Wow, I had already written most of the book, and
now suddenly I'm thinking, I need to go back and
connect these dots differently, and do I even believe this anymore?
And it was such a visceral experience because some of
the information was really hard to digest. And so this memoir,
(44:57):
you know, readers are going to get a very potent
and charged explanation account of, you know, the first twenty
five ish years of my life. But I, from doing
this project now feel actually like.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
I'm entering my wide open era because I feel like.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
I feel like I actually got the the missing details
and the truth and now I feel freed, freer.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
But also.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
The lie that I had about my whole life, it's
now the bubble was popped. So now it's for forced
me to be wide open and I don't know what's ahead.
So this book is kind of like a Okay, well
it's a vulnerable place here.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Yeah, here we are.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
And like I said, I'm you know, set myself up
to have options, but this is the first time in
my life where I do not have on purpose a
clear five year plan. Also, with everything going on in
the world, I'm like, I think I need to observe,
pay attention, see what's going on, and see where it
would be best for me to plug in and serve
(46:23):
and contribute. Like it's not just obviously, it's not just
about me and what I want to do. It's like
we're in a particular time. Oh, so many needs, so
many crises, So what's ahead.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
I have no fucking idea with that. Though, in this
space you're in now, where do you find safety at
this point in your life doesn't have to be a place,
could be a person.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
I'm just curious.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
I would say, now, I am so grateful that I
have an actual community.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
I was so isolated.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
I didn't even know what isolated meant, because I would
just use the word solitude and be like, yeah, I
love being alone, and I do. But also, wow, what
a difference when you've got even just a few people
where your entire body feels relaxed enough to open up
to be seen heard. Oh my gosh, imagine, like I
(47:21):
avoided that my whole life cause I didn't know if
that was going to be shared with some reporter later.
So now I've got this like mutual, beautiful relationship with
several friends, and that I think is a beautiful source
of safety. And I finally left Los Angeles and found
(47:46):
a physical home that was kind of the last piece, which, wow,
makes all the difference when you're able to as someone
who grew up in a very volatile home and then
lived in utter chaos for twenty plus years straight. What
(48:06):
a difference it makes when you can walk into a room,
your bedroom or a living room, sit down and exhale
and not have immediate conflict or threats of violence. I
hope everyone can experience that. I know many don't.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
That's very well put, and it's probably taking you a
long time to get to this mat We still all
of us are a work in progress, right. It's like
we don't have all the answers. We're like building the
plane and flying it at the same time, and it's
just this is life, and we're constant, constantly evolving and
(48:50):
learning and trying to be better. And what is your
relationship now with your body?
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Well, thankfully I no longer view my body as a
project to complete, as if there's like some destination or
or an object to fix, ridicule, criticize.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
It is now.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
It is now a source of intelligence that I trust.
When it signals to me, I try to listen. And
now I'm just so grateful that of all the things
my body can do and experience, maybe you'll relate as
(49:45):
a as an athlete, as a performer.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
Our bodies are our tools.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
It's the instrument, it's the you know, it's your income,
it's it's all of it.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
So there can be a bit of it is the word.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
I know how to spell it and read it, but
do I know how to say it out loud?
Speaker 3 (50:03):
Mechanization.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
We view our bodies as a piece of machinery, and
so I was obsessed about what performance metrics I could
hit and how many peer what's can you do? How
fast can you run that sprint?
Speaker 3 (50:19):
Da da da da?
Speaker 1 (50:21):
But now I'm grateful for all of the non performance
related things that I can do, like just open a
cabinet and you know, write someone a letter. And so
I try to think about the privilege of experiencing life
in a physical vessel that has this range of sensation,
(50:42):
feeling experiences that we can have and it's suddenly not
something I have to fear or discipline and control. It's
now like, oh, this is you know, there are infinite
possibilities for what my body can do. You can be
can feel some of them. I would prefer not to.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
I'm like waking up.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
I know every day it really is. It's so us
hard and don't you wonder sometimes You're like how much
of this is?
Speaker 1 (51:13):
Because I've just been an athlete my whole life and
I probably like, you know.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Well, I know it for myself. Yeah, I never we
don't know that.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
We don't even checked in I know with myself ever never,
What is it like for you now?
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Kind of are you feeling like you have a different
relationship to your body now that you're not in I do.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
I'm that kind of performance space.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
You know, it's an interesting place as you grow old
and now I'm only you know, I'm in my thirties,
but I'm about to be forty this year. I have
a different I don't know if it ever leads, like
I still see myself as a professional athlete. Yes, yeah,
I'm still very disciplined on you know, what I eat
and what how much sleep I get? So I I
(51:59):
think it's a really complex thing. I never had time
to look around and be like, look at the beauty
and the small things, because if I did that, someone
else was passing me by. Like I didn't sleep, I
wanted to work. I didn't cut corners. I always thought
someone was chasing me and someone was working harder. And
(52:21):
now you know what, I crave fucking peace. Yes, I
don't have to chase it. It's not something I have
to wrap my head around the complexity of it. It's
just the state of being. I want to be at
fucking peace.
Speaker 3 (52:35):
I would love to meet you there. So wherever you
go and find it, I got you text me.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
But that's my journey now, Yeah, that's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (52:44):
It's finding peace.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Just like okay, Like I'm good, We're good, we're connecting,
we're sharing oxygen. We're trying to change the world. We're
trying to unpack the traumas we've had to experience. To
chase lateness, I'm a peace who It's.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Heavy, it's heavy and also lighty light it is I'm
like and realizing that's the first deep breath I've taken
in a long time. Also though, you know, life, I
think it's easy to narrativize, right, Like humans are always
meaning making and and we can see the world as
(53:26):
if it's against us, or like the whole world is
against us, or you know, we can we just internalize
these narratives. And I think I've lately been reflecting on
what residue is still needing to be maybe like wiped
off the windows where I'm trying to get a clear
(53:47):
look at things, but it's still catching on to these
like younger parts of myself that carry certain narratives. So
that's always something I'm thinking about, and I do unpack
it quite a bit in the book actually, like you know,
deconstructing things in the Church, Like that's a whole worldview.
It's a whole paradigm of thought and an orientation to
(54:08):
the world.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
And that's not a chapter, that's a whole damn book.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
Right, But I think, what's I think that's why in
my Acknowledge It Acknowledgments Section I, in addition to thinking
human beings, I also give a shout out to neuroplasticity,
because if our brains were truly fixed and absolutely stuck,
(54:34):
that would be a sad condition. The fact that there
is some source of hope in knowing our brains can
learn to adapt or do something differently or try something new,
is is kind of what keeps me going.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
It's how I know.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
Okay, yeah, we were who we were ten years ago,
we are who we are today. Hopefully ten years from now,
we're having a whole different in conversation. Yeah, because we've
given ourselves permission to, you know, allow neuroplasticity to help
us enable growth. So that's something that yeah, I think
(55:13):
about is just like, what are the narratives currently driving
you in your life? And what can you do to
at least create some distance from the narrative. I'm not
saying the narrative's bad, wrong, or that you need to
get rid of it per se, but just create some
distance so that that's not your only option to see
the circumstance, you know, through that lens, Like give yourself
(55:34):
some you know, some alternative narratives, just as a creative exercise.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
The last question I really want to ask, what do
you want your audience to take? If there's like one
thing you want people to take from this book, what
would it be? Because it's going to strike a nerve
with so many different people based on their own journey,
But just from from you, what is that one thing
(56:01):
you want everyone to take out of reading this book?
Speaker 1 (56:05):
I think I want to offer one thing for the
reader listener and one thing for myself or the impact
I'm hoping to have for the reader or listener. To
be honest, I'm hoping that.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
This memoir.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
Is the last of its kind because I'm not only
connecting dots across the Hollywood ecosystem and child development and
media culture, but I'm presenting existing solutions that can meaningfully
(56:50):
improve not only the industry but also digital landscape and
just hopefully how we conceive of child stardom in our culture. Sure,
so my hope is that it will fundamentally alter how
people experience consuming content with children, how they'll think about
(57:13):
their own childhood, and maybe the pressures they felt to
emulate the person who was on camera, Now that they
know what was really going on, like, what will that
bring up for them? So I wanted to be the
last of its kind because I'm tired of documentaries and
memoirs about the child star's rebellion, the child star's reinvention,
(57:38):
the child stars break down, the child stars brilliant like
these are all manufactured and they just keep the toddler
to train wreck pipeline in place.
Speaker 3 (57:48):
We got to get beyond that. We're ready as a society.
Speaker 1 (57:51):
I believe that we're ready to reckon with a lot
of things right now, so might as well add this
to the list. And then for myself, my.
Speaker 3 (57:59):
Hope is that.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
It's a bit of a it's a bit of an oxymoron.
I know that I'm releasing something to the public, so
it will feed into being a quote unquote public figure,
at least for a period of time. But my hope
is that if someone approaches me and says, hey, I
(58:24):
read the book, that we can have a conversation as mutuals,
and that we can completely eliminate the pedestal, the halo
effect of you know, the person in the public eye
versus the person who is quote unquote normal. I just
want to can we please humanize each other?
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (58:42):
And I want to. I want to have a real conversation.
I'm hoping that I'm not feeding the very beast, you know,
by like giving my book book the publicity, like it's
you know, I'm like good, We're kind of playing the
game while trying to call out the game. So if
you see me on the street and you know you
(59:04):
happen to have read the book, and you listened to
the book, like please just let's let's be as average
and ordinary as possible.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
I think everyone is craving that, right, yeah, right, And
I think I hope that it really opens people people's
eyes to your experience and realize we have to make
a change, and we have seen far too many child
stars end up in a hard place. And I think
(59:43):
you know your bravery and telling your story and being
so open about what you've had to go through will
help other people, I hope. So I'm really excited for
people to get the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (59:55):
And I would just say there are a lot of
detail in these chapters, so please read it with care.
Take your time with this. I've had some loved ones
and some strangers read through the manuscript and it can
be activating. You'll see there's a lengthy author's note at
(01:00:17):
the beginning, so just take your time with it, and
if a section is too activating, you can skip or
come back to it when you feel more resourced. So
you know, buckle up, take care, and go slowly.
Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Allison stoner. Everyone, thank you so much for being on
Wide Open. You really are I cannot believe it's the
first time we've met your energy like I've known you
in another lifetime.
Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
Right, I know.
Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Well there's a lot of overlap, yes, a lot. Well,
thank you so much for being so vulnerable and really
like pushing for change like that is purpose and that
is power and your bravery gives me a lot of strengths.
So thank you for being here. Everyone order this book
(01:01:06):
because it's going to be it's gonna be important, it's
going to be life changing for a lot of people
who have experienced.
Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Might be the end of me in my professional career,
we don't know yet.
Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
Well, thank you again for coming, Thanks everyone for tuning in,
and we'll see you next week on another episode of
Wide Open with Ashland Harris. Wide Open with Ashlin Harris
is an iHeart women's sports production. You can find us
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(01:01:37):
your podcasts. Our producers are Carmen Borca Correo, Emily Maronov,
and Lucy Jones. Production assistants from Malia Aguidello. Our executive
producers are Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Our
editors are Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder and I'm your
(01:01:58):
host Ashlyn Harris.
Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
I never walking
Lonesome Love.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Wide Open. I
am your host, Ashlyn Harris, and I am so excited
to be joined this week by our guest, Alison Stoner.
Welcome to the show, my love. You are an all
around entertainer, dancer, actor, singer, you name it. Much of
your audience should know you by camp Rock, Cheaper by
(00:33):
the dozen, and nowadays, most importantly, you advocate so much
for mental health, which is near and dear to my heart.
So thank you. And you have a podcast or did
dear Hollywood, and now your new memoir, your book launch
just came out semi well adjusted despite literally everything. Allison,
(00:57):
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Thanks for having me, Yes, horrors, how are you? I
am hanging in there? How about yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well? Every day I wake up and I'm alive. It's
a gift, especially in this political climate. I'm like, how
are we getting through?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
You know?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
How we're getting through by showing up and doing exactly
what we're doing now and sharing space with each other.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I was gonna say that anytime I get to go
on a queer podcast, I'm like, great, it's gonna be
a good day, my fucking people.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, it's like the best. It's gonna be a highlight.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I always that's what I always say. I'm like, just
give me more of my people so I feel safe.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Okay, thank you. It's real. It really is real.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, tell me what's going on. You have this new
book coming out that's really peeling back all the layers.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Let's just say that.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yes, So I wanted to play on the concept of
being the quote unquote well adjusted one, because, first of all,
what does it mean to be well adjusted in a
disc functional society? Does that mean that you are adhering
to the dysfunction and thriving in it, or you know, like.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
That's something we will unpack.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
But it follows my some would call it an unconventional
life path of being a former kid actor, kid performer
turned mental health practitioner. And not only am I spilling yes,
all of the details from sets like Camp Rock and
Cheaper by the Dozen and unpacking the hidden impact of
(02:31):
working so much at such a young age, but I
also wanted to explore these cultural myths that a lot
of us, I mean, that are embedded in society. Yes,
and so I'm unpacking a lot. I think if people
are showing up thinking it's just a child star memoir,
you better buckle up and read with care because it
(02:52):
goes to a lot of intense pleas with.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
That, and I think this is important, and I think
you have to be in such a good place in
your life to really unpack the trauma and the journey
you walked as a very very young kid. And you know,
I've I've known about you for so long and mostly
(03:15):
from the Missy Elliott music videos. I mean, you are
an incredible performer. Thank you, And I mean I know
when we all started watching that and seeing that it
probably changed your life.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I mean, how old were you.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I must have been around eight or nine, and it
was an overnight shift and you won't ever be able
to quantify every detail, but I do. I do actually
talk about not only the audition process, but what it
was like after the video was released and how I
had this psychological shift and suddenly my even my just
(03:53):
biological development was very disrupted. My identity formation went from
You're an anonymous kid on a playground to you need
to be on at all times, including at the grocery store,
including at school, including you know, at the doctor's office,
because even though you're here sick in coughing, someone needs
to just you know, have you sign an autograph on
(04:13):
the diabetes pamphlet over in the corner, you know. And
also different things like the unchecked access that people have
not only into your personal space and your private life
via media, but also your literal physical body. Being touched
(04:34):
by strangers became commonplace, right, so like bye bye stranger danger,
which you're maybe taught as a kid, Like, you know,
I learned instead to study human behavior in a way
where I could tell before you even got to me,
I would already know. Have your hands been in your pocket,
which may indicate that you're either carrying a weapon that
(04:54):
you might maybe try to use on me, Are your
hands shaking.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Out of nerves?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Are you in a certain you know, demographic, like an
age demographic. Typically teens are a little bit more vocal.
And so if you're in a public place and you
don't want to start having like a mob circling you,
you learn how to like do all of these, you know,
the mental gymnastics of it all.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
But you're a gig But I'm a.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Baby, Yeah so much. And this is the thing, and
we talk about this all the time. The difference between
like fame and fortune, you know, and most people move
here for that dream, that dream that happened to you
so early. But what they don't understand is at what costs?
(05:40):
Because everything was stripped from you at an early age.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Right, I also personally didn't desire fame or fortune. I
was three years old when I started performing. I didn't
have a map of reality yet, so whatever was presented
to me. However, we're conditioned whatever the norms are around
us become our reference point. And so it's I think
(06:05):
very common for folks who started as performers to stay
in that kind of persona for you know, a long
period of their lives unless you have some kind of
event that you know, catalyzes a shift. And I've had
a few, and I'm so grateful for them, because maybe
(06:27):
I wouldn't have started deconstructing all of these influences, and
maybe I wouldn't be able to have this kind of honest,
easygoing conversation.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Well, what I love about what you have done is
you didn't let your journey in terms of your pain,
take you. You've turned it into your superpower. And I
think that is taking back the strength of what happened
at such an early age that was so in a
(06:59):
stripped from you. I don't think people know the toll
it takes on a young child's development, and you're right,
they just don't know. Like you didn't know what you
didn't know, you trusted the people around you. So I
really want to dive into that, because when did this start,
(07:22):
How did it start? What was this like, uh huh,
We're going to pick this family up, We're going to
move to Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Wild It gets wilder and wilder as I get older,
especially when my nephews become the age that I was
when I was performing excuse me, globally around the world.
I'm like, oh, no, we have to revisit this, and
we need to reprocess.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Because we normalize it.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yes, you normalize a lot of things that could stand
to be reimagined. So I'm originally from Ohio. I was
in dance at three years old. By six, I went
to a convention in New York and I didn't realize
that it was a talent recruitment center. I thought it
(08:09):
was similar to our other dance conventions.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
You go, you.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Compete, maybe you won an award, but you meet other
kids your age, You go home, you go back to
school instead. I received I think it was sixteen or
seventeen callbacks from talent scouts who insisted that we fly
to Los Angeles. I had again no idea that this
is all a part of an ecosystem which I now
(08:33):
call the toddler to train wreck pipeline, where that is
spot on, but it is very cleverly manufactured from start
to finish. So you've got children who don't know that
they're being placed on this conveyor belt of sorts, and
you've got parents who maybe mean well, they just want
(08:55):
to support their children, they want to help nurture their talent,
or maybe they have stars in their eyes, can be
a lot of different things. But had you have this
ecosystem of agents, managers, acting schools, so then you're on set,
and of course we can get into what that's really like.
But I want to skip forward because I think a
(09:16):
lot of the general public or audiences at home, become
aware of the child star's journey at the point of
their breakdown, and it usually is accompanied by some kind
of rebellion, reckless behavior, mental health challenge, and it's or
maybe they're going against their brand, and that is actually
(09:40):
a manufactured narrative sometimes real behaviors, real struggles, yes, but
the way it's framed to the public leads us as
an audience to have very little empathy for these young people. Instead,
we're often like, Okay, go take your million, multi million
dollar car and mansion somewhere else. And in the book,
(10:06):
I'm hoping to actually unpack what it really looks like
from the inside out when you're living, you know, a
life that has eighty hour work weeks, when you're on
a set and you didn't realize that all of these
adults shouldn't be touching your body when they're doing a
lot of things that you can read about in the book,
And like you said, a lot of these things are normalized,
(10:31):
but people never see that part of it. They see
a veneer, they see the glamour that's not that's so
that's such a small percentage of what the experience actually is.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
And I relate that. I relate to that so much. Yeah,
it's like, you know, you see the championships and the
gold medals and you have no idea what the journey
was like and what it costs and the sacrifice and
the mental toll and choosing every day to get up
and do it all over again, and it's madness. And
(11:04):
you're really taught to be a machine. You're taught like
I'm providing this talent for the people, and like this,
this is my gift to the world, and like I
have to do it.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
It's your mission, it's your purpose, it's your significance, it's your.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Servant chosen one, right, right.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Which is such an interesting thing if you pull back
and study the cultural significance of the child prodigy or
the child star, there are a lot of projections, you know,
on the child, like American exceptionalism, individualism in terms of
like genius, you know, you are special, you are unique.
(11:44):
And again if we're I'm not saying that I actually
believed that because I think I'm better than anyone. No, no, no,
I'm saying I was terrified if I didn't live up
to that that I would be done, you know.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
And so it's it's.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
A lot of different psychological plays that a child is,
you know, experiencing. And then when something goes wrong, maybe
you get injured on the field, and you're like, wait
a second, that's my livelihood, not only my livelihood, but
that's my you know.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Ticket to everything.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Revolves around this, your social network, your family dynamic, your
professional opportunities in future, your sense of identity and purpose.
And so for me, you know, my my health took
a toll. And it wasn't just like oh I'm burned
out and I'm fatigued. It was like, oh, I'm dropping
loads of weight, my skin is sallow, my eyes are
(12:41):
sunken in.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
You know, I'm I have these.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Jitters, I have these stress seizures.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
What am I going to do?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Do?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I do?
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I keep do, I keep.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Going, pushing through, which is what we tell each other, right,
We're only the strongest survive. And it makes you push
all that down and you keep performing until like at
what costs? And you did hit that breaking point I did,
and the bravery it took reading your story and I
(13:12):
would love for you to elaborate because I don't know
if our audience knows exactly, but you literally were like
I have I need to get help, Like you had
to be whole and you had to be human, and
in doing so you had to be honest and brave.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Well, when you say had to be whole and had
to be human, I didn't know that I was going
into treatment for those reasons, yet I thought I was
going in solely to get my health on track so
that I.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Could keep performing. Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
So yeah, those realizations would come later. But I was thinking, oh,
if I need longevity with my career, and you know,
there's this thing that happens when kid stars get to
seventeen and eighteen and we go, uh, oh, we're either
going to expire or we're going to break through and
we'll have a career as adults. And so I hadn't
(14:01):
yet had my quote unquote you know, breakthrough role, and
so I was trying to strategically think about the fact
that I was seventeen, my body was shutting down by eighteen,
I need to have some kind of what people would
call a comeback, as if all of us aren't working
the whole time exactly like we're just booking jobs that
you don't see it.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Because we were working and doesn't stop.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
But I, you know, decided, Okay, I'll go into treatment,
I'll get better, then i'll return. My team will see
that I'm I'm ready to go, and we can find
the breakthrough role and I can keep bulldozing my way forward.
And instead what happened was, I, you know, after being
on practical bed rest for multiple months, and then going
(14:46):
through these really intense therapeutic sessions and the programming that
happens at different in patient facilities, This one, in particulars
for treating eating disorders. I had these wonderful profession andoals
who provided the first stable environment I had ever had
(15:06):
for one because we had a routine, and also it
was the first time I wasn't working every day, so
that was both terrifying and necessary for healing because everything
that had been bottled up for how many years, or
what I had compartmentalized through dissociation was now back in
(15:26):
full view. But these wonderful humans prompted questions, prompted reflection
about things far beyond just my health and well being,
and it catalyzed a much deeper shift. So when I
came back to the industry, I went, uh oh.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
So that's when you clocked it was unsafe.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
I yeah, I can't do I've become aware.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
My eyes have been opened.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
So you didn't feel that like as you were, you
know this childhood phenom and you're doing all these things
in entertainment and dance. There was never a part of
you being like all these this is just really unsafe
for me. And I'm like, having an out of body
like you weren't able because you were so young. I'm
(16:16):
interested like, were you clocking that? Did you feel safe?
Did you feel unsafe?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
The concept of safety was not even a conversation that similarly,
bodily autonomy, consent, those aren't even words I had heard
until my early twenties.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
So, and then there's something about, you know, how compliance
is rewarded, and it doesn't just happen with child performers,
of course, it happens with children everywhere where. The more
you obey the authority of figure, the authority figure, the
more you you know, earn their approval, please them, the
more you're sometimes basic survive needs will be met. And
(17:02):
so it's it's like that, but at an exponentially more
intense level when you are not only perhaps a breadwinner
in your family, but you also are employing in some
ways employing multiple people, and people's you know, livelihoods depend
on you continuing to book work. So safety was not
(17:27):
a thought. I think also at that time, we weren't
talking about things like psychological safety. We were thinking about
maybe physical safety, and even that was you know, muddy
because you know, you know, as an athlete, when we
were doing different training sessions, I'm like, Okay, these ten
to twelve hour days where we're just breaking our bodies down,
(17:50):
and then we're going to go on tour. We're going
to do this every night, three hour concert da da da.
Then you know, in between the concerts, we have to
do other jobs. Most of this, of course unpaid labor,
which we loves.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
But these are things I was not thinking about. So
I was.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I was compliant, you know, and obedient.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
I was so so, so so grateful.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Everything was such a you know, framed as such a
gift and such a special opportunity, which it it is
in so many ways, But there were no resources available
that spoke to what the impact would be on every
area of my life.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And we're not just saying psychologically, well, that's a.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
That's a good point that you hit, because I think
that happens so much in both of our industries. Is
you're told to be grateful, and you're told very quickly
that you're replaceable, right yes, if anyone else would love
to be in your shoes, absolutely, And it makes you
go into dark, deep places where it's survival of the
(18:53):
fittest did the air. I always say this, the air
is then at the top, and you can't complain, you
can't hear humanize anything because you have to be a machine.
Stay tuned. I'll be back in just a moment after
this brief message from our sponsors.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Can I ask you a question please? I love this? Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
So I've been thinking a lot about how young athletes now,
on the one hand, can experience, you know, the special
privilege of endorsements and brand deals. But there's an What
comes with that is this pressure to be somewhat of
an influencer, somewhat of a role model, a public figure,
(19:43):
where I think more attention sometimes is placed on that
aspect of who you are than just being able to
play the game. And I'm wondering what are your thoughts on, like, wow,
protecting the well being of the young athletes.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
That's a great question, And there's two parts to this.
I think just now the landscape is changing in real
time due to new nil deals, which is as we know,
name and image and likeness for the audience. That's like
a big topic right now because we used to not
(20:20):
get paid or it would jeopardize your college eligibility. This
whole new landscape is just existing in our country. And
you know, I interviewed and it still sticks with me
to this day. I interviewed Flage Johnson, who's a basketball
player at LSU. Very very successful go on sister makes
(20:44):
a fuck ton of money, and she should because she
is lovely, has a great head on her shoulders, gives
back to her community, is always wanting to do more
for other people than just like me, me, me, Which
what I will say is she said something to me.
She's like, I can't even go to a college party
(21:06):
without security. And I'm like, I went to the University
of North Carolina, and I just knew for every beer
I drank at a bar, I had to drink two water,
so I was good the next day for training. Like
I loved the social aspect of college. You know, I
was the first of my family to go. I was
(21:27):
the first to graduate, and the whole experience made me
who I am today. It built character, it built resilience.
I had to be good at my academics, I had
to be good at my I was so well rounded,
and that has been taken from these kids because they're
(21:47):
pros now right, Like brands are paying them millions of
dollars to walk and act a certain way because they
are now brand ambassadors and they are the face of
mass Mutual and all of these campaigns she's doing, Power
Aid blah blah blah. They have to walk such a
(22:10):
tight line at all times. What I'll say is these
women are smart because they have to be. They are
business women who now have been in boardrooms both beyond
the locker room. They're creating very very good lives for
themselves moving forward. And she said this, I'm not planning
for the next four years. I'm planning for the next forty.
(22:33):
If I had that thought process at twenty one years old, right,
I probably wouldn't be sitting here doing Wide Open. But truthfully,
and there's no so real.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
It's a weird obviously, the pay gaps and also the
lack of training and preparation for transitions when you know
you're in a field where there is inevitably going to
be a time when you're no longer playing, and the
lack of resources for young athletes on what to do next.
I mean, I have some loved ones who are in
the WNBA and they're figuring it out too. It's on
(23:08):
their own dime that they have to make these moves
because if you're not also the chosen one on the team,
then those deals don't come in. And you're trying to
navigate like, Okay, how many side jobs am I going
to need the second that my contract is and that's all,
which is similar for actors, and that's.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
All of us. I mean, when that career is over,
no matter how well you did until probably the last
few years, like you have to have a job right
when you finish and you retire, like you have to
have what's next, And you know, there's this whole identity
process of refining yourself at thirty nine years old, it's like,
(23:46):
who am I outside of what I do?
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Something you said a moment ago sparked a thought I've
been It's probably been the last ten to thirteen years
that I've been trying to reposition myself, you know, one
step of time, one micro decision, every day at a
time where by now, if I choose to walk away
from the industry, I have figured out other job opportunities.
(24:12):
I've you know, garnered certifications in different spaces so I
can teach here and I can you know, earn an
income here and I can serve this community over here.
But it's been thirty ten to thirteen years of all
of these daily decisions. But something that I'm thinking about
(24:32):
right now is there are truths that I want to
share about the entertainment industry. And I vividly remember the
moment where I thought, if I say these things out loud,
this could risk everything everything. So before I do that,
(24:54):
just like you know, business coaches will be like, hey,
before you just up and quit your job, like, how
are you going to make sure your base?
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Your bases are covered?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I started thinking, Okay, I'm going to I need new
skills because I'm not prepared for the world outside of
this bubble, and I'm gonna need a new view of myself.
I'm gonna have to believe that I'm able to offer
the world something else. I'm gonna have to go back
to school. I'm gonna have to, you know, figure out
what my set of logistics looks like. But how empowering
(25:29):
that now? The worst that could happen, I mean, and
it could get bad.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Listen this book. There's a lot of information in there.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
I am curious to see what conversations it sparks. But
I feel so grateful that I am not dependent on
the industry for my source of identity, for my source
of income, for my source of personal worth and contribution
to the world. So that if and when I'm no
(25:57):
longer invited to the party because I spoke a little
bit too much truth to power, I'm like, cool.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
What's that means? You're in a good place. It's so
has to be liberating.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
It's so liberating.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
It's so liberating, and I wish it for everyone who feels,
you know, stuck in a particular position. And now I
know that there are a lot of other factors that
go into us feeling like we've got limited options or
truly having limited options. So you know, I'm not saying
it's not a Pollyanna mentality. It's actually quite a methodical,
(26:31):
painstaking journey to say. This is going to take a
long time. No one's going to do it for me.
I'm going to need to figure out how to make sure,
like I can pay rent if this all crumbles.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, and literally that's the thing. It's like, you can't
guarantee your next job in this industry. Oh it's yeah,
there's no such thing as like stability.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
It's like you get done with the.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Job, and before that's even done, you're already trying to
find the next. It's like so hard to stay present,
it's so hard to actually feel. And I know a
part of this process, like you came into your own
skin and your own identity of queerness. And it's interesting
because like I came out really really late in life,
(27:25):
and I just laugh. I'm like laughing because everyone knew
I was fucking gay, same except for me.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Yeah, same, But did you know you were queer? I
didn't know. I did not have time to know that.
That's I'm like the part.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I've been playing for you know, us soccer since I
was thirteen. It was never fucking about me, right, it
was about this mission of success and greatness, and Western
culture tells me.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
This at all.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Come, Oh my god, I didn't know who the fuck
I was. And I'm just now, in real time, having
to unpack it because I never allowed myself to come
up for air.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
And if I can add some compassion in there, the
forces and systems and folks around you perhaps contributed to
you not having that space either. So it wasn't just
this like self inflicted. You know, we're we're born into
a space that's got a lot of rules, you know,
that are governing all of our lives all the time.
(28:26):
But it's interesting when you talk about coming back into
your body. So after rehab, a part of healing and recovery,
especially with you know, a body related eating disorder and
mental illness, was sematic psychotherapy. And for those who aren't
(28:47):
aren't familiar with the term sematics, simply put, think about
it as body centered interventions or frameworks approaches for healing.
So instead of just neck up solutions like talk therapy,
now you're incorporating the nervous system. You're learning to identify
where the emotion is stored in your body. Is it
(29:10):
contributing to tension, is it you know, is there a
certain location, a certain memory associated with this injury in
your hip, whatever it is. So it's you know, making
sure that the mind body connection is strengthened for a
more holistic approach to recovery. Well that said, I get
(29:32):
back to Los Angeles and I start going on auditions
and then now my body is online. I'm not dissociated
in the same way and disconnected. Therefore my body is
going who wha, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
This is not good.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
We don't like this, things like this isn't safe, things
like I actually don't want to be here at all,
things like this is completely incongruent with your values.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
And now I'm.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Wanting to listen to the cues, honor them. But how
do I do that in a system that's like Nope,
it would be much better off if you would just
stay disconnected. So I think what's interesting is eventually it
was around the pandemic, you know, if everything is shut down,
and I knew I at least wouldn't be going on auditions.
At the time, I thought, Okay, should I start applying
(30:19):
this philosophy to potential career pathways maybe shifts? And so
I started studying the mind body connection further, got some certifications,
ended up starting a company called Movement Genius, and it
has the somatic approach to stress relief and you know,
(30:40):
overall well being. And so now when I think about
making decisions, they're full body yeses or full body knows.
There's clarity there, right, But for a lot of us
due to so many very real factors, like you got
kids and your body says I'm tired, okay too, damn
(31:00):
back right exactly so you know, it's not about saying
like I'm going to stop everything in play kate to
whatever the body.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Begs for in that moment.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
It's more so going, oh, I now at least understand
first of all, my own operating system, and second of
all tools that can help me manage all of these
experiences and know when I've hit my limit, or know
when I'm in a room that I really I don't
think I belong here anymore. I don't think I want
to be here anymore. I think it would be better
(31:31):
for me to go somewhere else. Like right, you just
start having a more holistic orientation to the world. But
it's a privilege to have the space, time resources to
be able to do that kind of deep healing. So
you know, I acknowledge that, And that's part of the
premise for Movement Genius was how can we make these
(31:52):
kinds of tools easy to use, you know, accessible, which
means you can just pull them up straight on your phone.
And they're also ultra affordable because you're like not about
to be another wellness company, especially you know, a white
person slender like there are enough, There are enough of
us in the wellness space, so you know, the majority
(32:16):
of our therapist network and practitioner network are experts of color,
experts with disabilities, experts who are chronically ill, so speaking
to just all of the real experiences that don't often
get centered in wellness spaces. But how can we make
(32:36):
sure these tools can be easy to use? And that
has been so transformative in my personal life. But also
seeing now like you know, thousands and thousands of people
being able to say, like, hey, this has actually changed
the quality of my health and well being and I'm
(32:58):
making different decisions because of it, and I'm seeing real
improvements because of it.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And that's the thing is like, especially a lot of women,
we neglect ourselves so much. Yeah, because we are conditioned
to serve other people, right, We're givers at our core.
That's what we're told at a very very early age
and or accessories, Yes, exactly. And it's interesting when I was,
you know, reading a few different things about your coming
(33:27):
out process and you losing jobs and someone saying you're
unsafe was the exact word that, like, I'm going to
be honest, kind of fucked me up.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
It's just heartbreaking, it is.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
You know, And it's like living your truth is the
best gift you can give yourself and this world.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Also, I know it's maybe the unpopular take, but I
still want to offer the people who release me from
the job some compassion in a sense that we're all
swimming in this ocean of cultural myths and what I
believe some of them to be harmful ideologies. And you know,
(34:13):
they didn't. They weren't born hating me or people like me.
It was learned. And yes, everyone's accountable for their decisions.
So it's it's both and right. Yeah, so you know,
I'm I'm holding multiple experiences at once, but I do
recall thinking, I know that we have an honest and
(34:34):
genuine connection because we've been colleagues for.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Many months now.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
So it was it's just that something got activated and
and it you know, that the aspect of queerness for
them sent their body into a state of fear, into
a state of discomfort where they felt unsafe because of
belief that they had inherited from somewhere someone at some point.
(35:03):
And so my hope, of course, I don't know where
they're at now, but I really hope that they've had
more proximity to queerness, not at the expense of the
queer person near them, but just as a way to
humanize the hum well we have to be because you know,
I was I was them eight years ago when I
(35:27):
was in a particular congregation in a church where I
thought I was loving someone by condemning them for their queerness.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
I don't know that I ever outwardly.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Send that to someone, so much as internally thought, okay,
I'm being obedient to the divine principle.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Of yeah straightness, you know. Lol.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
So many layers, so many things to unpack there. But
and also like this case, this can also there are
parallels in my journey of unpacking my internalized racism, internalized sexism,
internalized homophobia.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Like I so, I I don't find that it's worth
judging someone.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I just believe that's not the totality of who they are.
It is a plot point they're located here right now.
But I have to believe that there's room for a
shift because I myself have undergone so many.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
That's a beautiful lens to think that, Like I mean,
it's a beautiful lens to live your life through, because
I would be it's right, it's hard, right because like
I think a lot of us in our community are angry,
understandable and totally unders We have every right to be angry.
(36:55):
I mean every single day our community is targeted. Every
day you have laws that are coming out to strip
us from our you know.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Basic dignity and right.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, and it's like it's constantly this uphill battle that
we fight, but we're told to not be angry because
it's this fear based and the opposite of this fear
base is this compassion and love that we need to
bring into the world that we're not fucking met with,
right And it's hard. Yes, So I'm glad you said that.
(37:33):
It's like this is just where they're at right now.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
And also.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Make room for that anger. Please do not hear me incorrectly.
Do not skip that. Do not skip over the necessary
and important emotional experience and processing, the psychological impact, and
also the real factors of maybe your safety being at
risk because of wherever you're located. Honor all of those,
(38:00):
and whenever your process leads you into another space where
there's capacity to see where perhaps the person you know
opposite you is also hurting or or or maybe if
they had more information and more time or a different
(38:20):
upbringing would have landed in a different place and would
have been able to interact with you differently, Like it's
this is it's touchy because I I'm not saying everyone
needs to do this or that this is the right
thing to do in my personal position. I've just found
(38:42):
that I have to be able to humanize the person
in front of me, especially if I want them someday
to humanize me. Yeah, it's complicated.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
It is.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
It reuper complicated, It really is.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
But it's I like the lens of the way you
view it.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Because it's it is a Safety.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Is a weird term in our community, right right, it
is a and and I have boundaries because I need safety.
And I want to ask you, you know, being this
childhood star who didn't have safety, is that why it
was so important for you to create movement Genius, to
(39:24):
have these guard rails that protect childhood actors and performers, Like,
because you first hand experienced what an unsafe environment looked
like and you wanted to create create that. Now on
the back.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
End, yes, I intentionally wanted to look at this toddler
to train wreck pipeline, this industry ecosystem and figure out
solutions that could improve working conditions, living conditions, and the
overall experience of working in the industry for children at
every station. So I thought, okay, on set, it would
(40:04):
be great, of course if we had mental health coordinators,
especially if the kid is portraying traumatic material. That's a
conversation for you know, another time. But definitely need some
support there and resources. But then we also need federal legislation.
So I'm working with the Cohort. We're advocating for policy
to protect not only children in the industry, but also
(40:25):
child influencers, which is this whole new demographic of kids.
And it's actually a much wider range of kids who
are affected because nowadays a parent, a guardian, an adult, anyone,
maybe the kid themselves sometimes can just press record post
and then sometimes that content is monetized and you know, yes,
(40:47):
and deep fakes, I have so many.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
And women, yes, children and women nine children and women AI. Yes,
is not you know it's going to be. There's so
much about technology is great, but that part is not.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
The intimate deep fakes.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Thirteen percent of teenagers have now had some kind of
experience with a nude deep fake. There's on telegram app alone.
I know this isn't aside. But it's interesting because there's
legislation that we can actually help push forward. Telegram alone,
there are at least fifty bots that create explicit photos
(41:31):
and videos with just a few clicks, and they have
four million monthly users. That's on Telegram alone. And there
are many states where this is actually not even illegal
yet to post intimate deep fakes. So there's a whole
new world of risk for everyone, and in my area
(41:54):
of specialization children, So I, yes, have created resources that
kids can use on set. Yes, I'm working with policymakers. Yes,
I'm hopefully helping reshape public perception of what it means
to be a child entertainer or a high performing child
(42:15):
through the memoir, I just wanted to make sure that
we're able to, yes, provide safer conditions, but also increase
the overall awareness for parents, guardians, young people who think
they're getting into something very fun, and there's an innocence
(42:37):
and a naivete and ignorance, and I'm.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
Like, whoha, wha, wha, whoa.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
If you at least have more information, then you can
make a decision more consciously about how you participate.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
I would hope that it.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Would change the way people participate, but even if it doesn't,
at least then I'm like, Okay, you all are accountable
for still moving forward and putting your child in to
the situation.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Absolutely, this is wide open, and I'm your host, Ashlyn Harris.
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Now that you are in this like really great space,
you know, and you've really walked through the storm to
get on this side and unpacked it because I imagine
you have to to write a memoir about it.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Bully, I wish it on no one, and yet I
wish it on everyone.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
So I actually.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Started working on this book many years ago in a
lot of different forms. It wasn't always a book. It
was a show, and it was a this, it was
a that. But I had my outline, I had the narrative.
I had what I thought was clarity until I had
to write ninety five to one hundred and ten thousand words,
(43:56):
not just the proposal, not just the sample chapters, but
actually get everyvery single detail down. I brought in a
wonderful writing supervisor because I knew I wouldn't be able
to tackle this project alone. But when she prompted me
to go a little bit deeper, on some of these issues.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
What happened was.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
I ended up discovering documents and information about my past
in professional and personal spaces that I had never seen
before that fundamentally shifted my understanding.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Of my entire life.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Wow, I had already written most of the book, and
now suddenly I'm thinking, I need to go back and
connect these dots differently, and do I even believe this anymore?
And it was such a visceral experience because some of
the information was really hard to digest. And so this memoir,
(44:57):
you know, readers are going to get a very potent
and charged explanation account of, you know, the first twenty
five ish years of my life. But I, from doing
this project now feel actually like.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
I'm entering my wide open era because I feel like.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
I feel like I actually got the the missing details
and the truth and now I feel freed, freer.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
But also.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
The lie that I had about my whole life, it's
now the bubble was popped. So now it's for forced
me to be wide open and I don't know what's ahead.
So this book is kind of like a Okay, well
it's a vulnerable place here.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Yeah, here we are.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
And like I said, I'm you know, set myself up
to have options, but this is the first time in
my life where I do not have on purpose a
clear five year plan. Also, with everything going on in
the world, I'm like, I think I need to observe,
pay attention, see what's going on, and see where it
would be best for me to plug in and serve
(46:23):
and contribute. Like it's not just obviously, it's not just
about me and what I want to do. It's like
we're in a particular time. Oh, so many needs, so
many crises, So what's ahead.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
I have no fucking idea with that. Though, in this
space you're in now, where do you find safety at
this point in your life doesn't have to be a place,
could be a person.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
I'm just curious.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
I would say, now, I am so grateful that I
have an actual community.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
I was so isolated.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
I didn't even know what isolated meant, because I would
just use the word solitude and be like, yeah, I
love being alone, and I do. But also, wow, what
a difference when you've got even just a few people
where your entire body feels relaxed enough to open up
to be seen heard. Oh my gosh, imagine, like I
(47:21):
avoided that my whole life cause I didn't know if
that was going to be shared with some reporter later.
So now I've got this like mutual, beautiful relationship with
several friends, and that I think is a beautiful source
of safety. And I finally left Los Angeles and found
(47:46):
a physical home that was kind of the last piece, which, wow,
makes all the difference when you're able to as someone
who grew up in a very volatile home and then
lived in utter chaos for twenty plus years straight. What
(48:06):
a difference it makes when you can walk into a room,
your bedroom or a living room, sit down and exhale
and not have immediate conflict or threats of violence. I
hope everyone can experience that. I know many don't.
Speaker 2 (48:28):
That's very well put, and it's probably taking you a
long time to get to this mat We still all
of us are a work in progress, right. It's like
we don't have all the answers. We're like building the
plane and flying it at the same time, and it's
just this is life, and we're constant, constantly evolving and
(48:50):
learning and trying to be better. And what is your
relationship now with your body?
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Well, thankfully I no longer view my body as a
project to complete, as if there's like some destination or
or an object to fix, ridicule, criticize.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
It is now.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
It is now a source of intelligence that I trust.
When it signals to me, I try to listen. And
now I'm just so grateful that of all the things
my body can do and experience, maybe you'll relate as
(49:45):
a as an athlete, as a performer.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
Our bodies are our tools.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
It's the instrument, it's the you know, it's your income,
it's it's all of it.
Speaker 3 (49:54):
So there can be a bit of it is the word.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
I know how to spell it and read it, but
do I know how to say it out loud?
Speaker 3 (50:03):
Mechanization.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
We view our bodies as a piece of machinery, and
so I was obsessed about what performance metrics I could
hit and how many peer what's can you do? How
fast can you run that sprint?
Speaker 3 (50:19):
Da da da da?
Speaker 1 (50:21):
But now I'm grateful for all of the non performance
related things that I can do, like just open a
cabinet and you know, write someone a letter. And so
I try to think about the privilege of experiencing life
in a physical vessel that has this range of sensation,
(50:42):
feeling experiences that we can have and it's suddenly not
something I have to fear or discipline and control. It's
now like, oh, this is you know, there are infinite
possibilities for what my body can do. You can be
can feel some of them. I would prefer not to.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
I'm like waking up.
Speaker 3 (51:07):
I know every day it really is. It's so us
hard and don't you wonder sometimes You're like how much
of this is?
Speaker 1 (51:13):
Because I've just been an athlete my whole life and
I probably like, you know.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Well, I know it for myself. Yeah, I never we
don't know that.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
We don't even checked in I know with myself ever never,
What is it like for you now?
Speaker 1 (51:28):
Kind of are you feeling like you have a different
relationship to your body now that you're not in I do.
Speaker 3 (51:33):
I'm that kind of performance space.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
You know, it's an interesting place as you grow old
and now I'm only you know, I'm in my thirties,
but I'm about to be forty this year. I have
a different I don't know if it ever leads, like
I still see myself as a professional athlete. Yes, yeah,
I'm still very disciplined on you know, what I eat
and what how much sleep I get? So I I
(51:59):
think it's a really complex thing. I never had time
to look around and be like, look at the beauty
and the small things, because if I did that, someone
else was passing me by. Like I didn't sleep, I
wanted to work. I didn't cut corners. I always thought
someone was chasing me and someone was working harder. And
(52:21):
now you know what, I crave fucking peace. Yes, I
don't have to chase it. It's not something I have
to wrap my head around the complexity of it. It's
just the state of being. I want to be at
fucking peace.
Speaker 3 (52:35):
I would love to meet you there. So wherever you
go and find it, I got you text me.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
But that's my journey now, Yeah, that's beautiful.
Speaker 3 (52:44):
It's finding peace.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Just like okay, Like I'm good, We're good, we're connecting,
we're sharing oxygen. We're trying to change the world. We're
trying to unpack the traumas we've had to experience. To
chase lateness, I'm a peace who It's.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Heavy, it's heavy and also lighty light it is I'm
like and realizing that's the first deep breath I've taken
in a long time. Also though, you know, life, I
think it's easy to narrativize, right, Like humans are always
meaning making and and we can see the world as
(53:26):
if it's against us, or like the whole world is
against us, or you know, we can we just internalize
these narratives. And I think I've lately been reflecting on
what residue is still needing to be maybe like wiped
off the windows where I'm trying to get a clear
(53:47):
look at things, but it's still catching on to these
like younger parts of myself that carry certain narratives. So
that's always something I'm thinking about, and I do unpack
it quite a bit in the book actually, like you know,
deconstructing things in the Church, Like that's a whole worldview.
It's a whole paradigm of thought and an orientation to
(54:08):
the world.
Speaker 2 (54:09):
And that's not a chapter, that's a whole damn book.
Speaker 1 (54:12):
Right, But I think, what's I think that's why in
my Acknowledge It Acknowledgments Section I, in addition to thinking
human beings, I also give a shout out to neuroplasticity,
because if our brains were truly fixed and absolutely stuck,
(54:34):
that would be a sad condition. The fact that there
is some source of hope in knowing our brains can
learn to adapt or do something differently or try something new,
is is kind of what keeps me going.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
It's how I know.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
Okay, yeah, we were who we were ten years ago,
we are who we are today. Hopefully ten years from now,
we're having a whole different in conversation. Yeah, because we've
given ourselves permission to, you know, allow neuroplasticity to help
us enable growth. So that's something that yeah, I think
(55:13):
about is just like, what are the narratives currently driving
you in your life? And what can you do to
at least create some distance from the narrative. I'm not
saying the narrative's bad, wrong, or that you need to
get rid of it per se, but just create some
distance so that that's not your only option to see
the circumstance, you know, through that lens, Like give yourself
(55:34):
some you know, some alternative narratives, just as a creative exercise.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
The last question I really want to ask, what do
you want your audience to take? If there's like one
thing you want people to take from this book, what
would it be? Because it's going to strike a nerve
with so many different people based on their own journey,
But just from from you, what is that one thing
(56:01):
you want everyone to take out of reading this book?
Speaker 1 (56:05):
I think I want to offer one thing for the
reader listener and one thing for myself or the impact
I'm hoping to have for the reader or listener. To
be honest, I'm hoping that.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
This memoir.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
Is the last of its kind because I'm not only
connecting dots across the Hollywood ecosystem and child development and
media culture, but I'm presenting existing solutions that can meaningfully
(56:50):
improve not only the industry but also digital landscape and
just hopefully how we conceive of child stardom in our culture. Sure,
so my hope is that it will fundamentally alter how
people experience consuming content with children, how they'll think about
(57:13):
their own childhood, and maybe the pressures they felt to
emulate the person who was on camera, Now that they
know what was really going on, like, what will that
bring up for them? So I wanted to be the
last of its kind because I'm tired of documentaries and
memoirs about the child star's rebellion, the child star's reinvention,
(57:38):
the child stars break down, the child stars brilliant like
these are all manufactured and they just keep the toddler
to train wreck pipeline in place.
Speaker 3 (57:48):
We got to get beyond that. We're ready as a society.
Speaker 1 (57:51):
I believe that we're ready to reckon with a lot
of things right now, so might as well add this
to the list. And then for myself, my.
Speaker 3 (57:59):
Hope is that.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
It's a bit of a it's a bit of an oxymoron.
I know that I'm releasing something to the public, so
it will feed into being a quote unquote public figure,
at least for a period of time. But my hope
is that if someone approaches me and says, hey, I
(58:24):
read the book, that we can have a conversation as mutuals,
and that we can completely eliminate the pedestal, the halo
effect of you know, the person in the public eye
versus the person who is quote unquote normal. I just
want to can we please humanize each other?
Speaker 2 (58:41):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (58:42):
And I want to. I want to have a real conversation.
I'm hoping that I'm not feeding the very beast, you know,
by like giving my book book the publicity, like it's
you know, I'm like good, We're kind of playing the
game while trying to call out the game. So if
you see me on the street and you know you
(59:04):
happen to have read the book, and you listened to
the book, like please just let's let's be as average
and ordinary as possible.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
I think everyone is craving that, right, yeah, right, And
I think I hope that it really opens people people's
eyes to your experience and realize we have to make
a change, and we have seen far too many child
stars end up in a hard place. And I think
(59:43):
you know your bravery and telling your story and being
so open about what you've had to go through will
help other people, I hope. So I'm really excited for
people to get the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (59:55):
And I would just say there are a lot of
detail in these chapters, so please read it with care.
Take your time with this. I've had some loved ones
and some strangers read through the manuscript and it can
be activating. You'll see there's a lengthy author's note at
(01:00:17):
the beginning, so just take your time with it, and
if a section is too activating, you can skip or
come back to it when you feel more resourced. So
you know, buckle up, take care, and go slowly.
Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
Allison stoner. Everyone, thank you so much for being on
Wide Open. You really are I cannot believe it's the
first time we've met your energy like I've known you
in another lifetime.
Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
Right, I know.
Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Well there's a lot of overlap, yes, a lot. Well,
thank you so much for being so vulnerable and really
like pushing for change like that is purpose and that
is power and your bravery gives me a lot of strengths.
So thank you for being here. Everyone order this book
(01:01:06):
because it's going to be it's gonna be important, it's
going to be life changing for a lot of people
who have experienced.
Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Might be the end of me in my professional career,
we don't know yet.
Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
Well, thank you again for coming, Thanks everyone for tuning in,
and we'll see you next week on another episode of
Wide Open with Ashland Harris. Wide Open with Ashlin Harris
is an iHeart women's sports production. You can find us
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
(01:01:37):
your podcasts. Our producers are Carmen Borca Correo, Emily Maronov,
and Lucy Jones. Production assistants from Malia Aguidello. Our executive
producers are Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Our
editors are Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder and I'm your
(01:01:58):
host Ashlyn Harris.
Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
I never walking
Host
Ashlyn Harris
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