Ep 44: How My Sexual Freedom & a GoFundMe TRIGGERED a Hater

A stranger’s 5 a.m. DM tried to make me small—attacking my sexuality, my finances, and my motherhood in one breath. What they didn’t expect was how quickly I would choose boundaries, body wisdom, and community over shame. This conversation starts with the gut punch of anonymous cruelty and opens into something larger: why sexually autonomous Black women who ask for help in public unsettle people who rely on control.

I unpack how purity culture once trained me to police myself and how perimenopause, therapy, and hard-won healing led me to claim my desire without apology. We talk through nervous system flares, the difference between constructive critique and projection, and the discipline of not feeding the spiral—block, delete, breathe, phone a friend, and return to self. I share the much-speculated Detroit story as a case study in assumptions, and then we get to the heart of it: support without moral tests. My GoFundMe was fully funded, not because I performed respectability, but because people chose care over punishment. That truth breaks a brittle system built on withholding.

We also zoom out to a fresh look at America’s Next Top Model: Reality Check on Netflix, asking where accountability lives when power shapes and harms young women on camera. Tyra’s role as mentor and face of the franchise comes into focus, along with what responsibility looks like when the receipts are public and the wounds are real. Across the episode you’ll hear practical tools for stopping rumination, language for rejecting shame, and a reminder that asking for help is not a moral failure. It’s community in action.

If you’ve ever been told your sexuality disqualifies you from dignity, motherhood, or support, take this as your permission slip to live ungoverned. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help more people find these conversations.

Transcript

Subscribe, Review, And Share

Grace Introduces The Mission

Reading The Attack And First Reactions

Motherhood Shamed And Body Response

Choosing Boundaries And Blocking

Therapy, Projections, And Detroit Story

Sexual Autonomy Versus Respectability

Ungovernable Women And Public Support

From Abuse To Nervous System Reset

Refusing Shame And Owning Worth

America’s Next Top Model Reckoning

Closing Thanks And Announcements

SPEAKER_00 0:05

What if I told you that the thing that angered someone the most about me wasn't my sexuality, me being a body positive, sex positive, fully embodied sexual woman out here talking about it, but the fact that I am sexually free and financially supported at the same time. Or maybe just that I actually dared to ask for help publicly. For some reason, that combination broke something in somebody and made me live rent-free in their head. And we're gonna talk about why. So if you've ever been shamed for your sexuality or your independence or your survival, or just for being a person that speaks openly and out loud about things that other people would choose to keep private, then stay with me. But before we talk about all of that, if you're on YouTube, are you subscribed? Have you liked this episode yet? Go ahead right now and like it and hype me up, y'all. Hype me up and give me some hype points, please, and thank you. And if you're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you might be listening, please go ahead and give me a like, leave me some stars, give me a review. Podcasts are notoriously hard to share, so and get out there. So please go ahead and share this episode, share it on Facebook, share it on your Instagram stories, TikTok, or wherever. I'd really appreciate it. And if you're new here, my name is Grace Sandra. I'm a writer, author, advocate, activist, mom, and someone who loves to talk about issues that face black women. And the Out Here Trying to Survive podcast is a space where I talk about the stories that black women survive, heal from, and I love to reimagine life in a world that doesn't consistently try to break us. Welcome to season two, episode 44. But first, let me tell y'all a story. So about three weeks ago, someone tried to really silence me, y'all, like really just get me to shut the F up and feel real bad about myself. What surprised me wasn't so much what they said. It was a little bit, but it was more about like how my body reacted and responded instantly. It was early in the morning, I was getting my daughter ready for school, and I saw that I had a new Instagram message, and I was like, oh let me just check it real quick because I was like waiting for her to get her shoes and socks on and grab her coat and grab her stuff. Nothing very exciting ever happens on Instagram DMs, so I was not expecting anything. And when I opened it, I saw like just paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs of hatred, just hateful shit. Now this message was from someone who doesn't follow me, so it had initially gone into like a spam folder and then like a hidden folder within the spam folder where like bad words are blocked. I didn't even know I had had that set up. But the night before, I saw that someone's message was blocked and it was like four or five different paragraphs. So I was like, oh, that's interesting. I wonder what that is. So I just went through and unblocked them. I had to unblock what them one by one. And it just said mark as safe, but I couldn't see what it said, so I just marked it as safe. So what happened was it went into my general folder, but it was organized by when someone sent the message. So when I looked in my general folder, I didn't see it because it was like below the six or seven messages I had gotten since the person sent that those hateful messages, and I don't know when it was. So I just didn't even think about it. In the morning, when I came back, they had sent me another message, so it went right to the top of my Instagram messaging. At like five in the morning, they sent it when I was looking at this. It was like 8 30 in the morning or something like that. So I see all of this bitch whore C word. Oh, I just see like all of these words, and I'm looking at it, and I just see like this is a long amount of words. Like, who who is this and what are they saying? So I quickly went to their profile and see that someone who doesn't follow me, someone who I don't follow. They had followed like a small number of people, but nobody followed them back, and there was only one post. Of course, it was private, and it was a picture of a black woman's face, but under a pseudoname, like Tinkerbell or some shit like that. So I didn't know who it was, I didn't recognize the face, and I'm assuming that was a fake picture anyway. So I see these words, immediately I'm like, What? What what are you talking about? So I go through and I read it, and I can see it's a bunch of hateful stuff. So I just decided, let me just take my daughter to school and I'll deal with this when I get back. Because it I saw it was enough text that I'm like, maybe they say who they are within the text, but decide to deal with it later. So I'm driving my daughter to school and I'm thinking about some of the stuff I read, and I'm like, damn, who's got this much smoke for me, right? Because I'm not a person who creates a lot of enemies or has a lot of enemies, period. And I could just feel like my heart drop when I saw some of the horrible things that were said. One of the first things that I saw was you should lose custody of your kids. And so when I was in the car, I was just thinking about that. I'm like, who who hates me enough to say that to me? I don't really know. Maybe there's people out there that really do hate me that much, but that's wild. And so my brain started really thinking about like, wait, who is this? Who said this? Who knows these things? Because some of the things they said was really ridiculous and and a lie, and some of it was true. So it was like truth mixed in with the lies. Some like, say they know a little bit, but they don't know everything because obviously they've got a lot of details wrong. Either way, my brain was just spinning the whole time I was taking my daughter to school. It was not random, it was an attack on my sexuality, my motherhood, what else? My worth, my finances, and particularly the part about motherhood that really just felt like a kick in the gut. Like, why would someone wish that I become homeless and wish that I lose my kids? Like, what would lead someone to think that? I I literally still don't understand. I later processed it in therapy and realized that they want me to feel ashamed that I'm a body positive, sex positive person out here living my best sexual life, even though I don't have a partner. They want me to feel ashamed that I'm struggling financially so much to the point that I had to ask for help publicly. That was hard to do. I didn't want to do that. They want me to feel ashamed that I'm struggling to the point that I'm like, I don't want to, I definitely don't want to lose custody of my kids because let's just say I were to become homeless, I would lose custody of my kids. I mean, I would want to lose custody of my kids at that point because I wouldn't want them to be homeless along with me. You know what I'm saying? But it wasn't really about so much those things. I think what got my body so activated and what made me feel sad about receiving a message like that was that the point of it was to make me feel shame. And for those brief moments, that's what I felt. And that's what I want to talk about today is specifically what happens when you become a woman who is ungovernable. People don't like that shit, and they feel like you should pay, you should pay for that. And this person, whoever they are, was like, Oh yeah, you think you're gonna be out here doing whatever the hell you want and still ask for help, like you should pay. I'm gonna make you feel ashamed of yourself. And I want to get into that a little bit. So when I got home, I realized that I should probably just send them a message back and let them know, like, you're a coward, you're an idiot. Some of this stuff is true, but a lot of it isn't. The only thing they said that was really true, there was two things they said that was really true. The rest was just like I could tell what they could kind of piece together. But one was that I love sex. I'm like, yeah, that's true. I do. You got me. And the other one was that my house is messy, and I'm like, yeah, I am kind of messy and unorganized, y'all. Like, I've I've said that in a lot of places just because I don't feel a lot of shame about it, and I try really hard to get my shit together, but I'm just kind of a messy, unorganized person. You know what? And I think if that's one of the worst things about me, I'm not doing too bad in life. Okay, it's not a crime, it's really not a crime to be messy and unorganized. But I realized that all the other stuff they said was just like a lot of hyperbole, and so I'm like, let me just delete this after I respond and then block them because I know me and I know I can get very hyper-fixated on things like that, and I can obsess. And because I was married before to someone who was verbally abusive, I remember how I used to be with him. I would ruminate on the stuff he would say, and it would like loop in my head forever and ever and ever. And I just knew if I screenshot these messages so I can show them to my girlfriends and everybody else will be like, Look what this bitch said to me, that just having access to it constantly would make me ruminate and loop. So I messaged them back and was just like, You're a coward, you're idiot, basically, and blocked them because I did I was not interested in any sort of exchange, and then I deleted. And then I told my therapist and a couple of my girlfriends just because I was like, I think if I process this quickly, the quicker it will be for me to come back to nervous system reset because I did feel very activated in my body. And what I realized I felt activated about wasn't that they called me a whore and a C-word and a terrible person for being out here gasp, loving sex, and having different partners or whatever else they said, because I can't can't remember all of it fully now, and that's for the best. It was partly about them saying that I should lose custody of my children and that they hope I lose custody of my children, that they hope I become homeless, that they connected my sexuality to my financial struggles, which was weird. That they said none of these men want me like that, didn't bother me like girl or man or whoever it was, like that's just not true. Even if it was true, it really wouldn't bother me, but that's not true at all. And just somebody being like their second line. I just I do remember one line of what they said when they messaged me that morning, and that was And what really bothers me is, and then I don't even remember what exactly that was, but it was something about me having a GoFundMe. So if you want the story about that, actually go back to episode 42 and I talk about how I got into the financial predicament I got in. But part of it is actually literally just graduating and getting my master's degree and looking for work and not having anything full-time yet, and then kind of taking a risk with the sales job and end up being really oppressive and abusive and having to leave, not getting paid, and then being in a position where I felt like, oh my God, I need to do a GoFundMe or something because I'm in such a crunch in between figuring out work situation post-graduation. When I processed it with my therapist, my therapist was because I was actually willing to be like, well, you know, what are some of the things that they said that I should like really think about? Like, because maybe if I parsed out what was true about what they said, you know, it might help me to come to more peace about it or whatever. I'm not sure what exactly I was thinking. I was just thinking, like, I'm clearly the bigger person here because this person came to me anonymously. They could have came to me who they were in an email or through Facebook Messenger, but they chose to be to remain anonymous to talk a whole lot of bullshit about me anonymously because they know that I have this here podcast and other platforms and I would share their name. So being too much of a pussy to share who they were came to me anonymously. But I was just like, you know, so I wonder if I should try to be the bigger person and try to figure out, like, oh, what are they saying that might be meaningful and da-da-da-da-da. And my therapist was like, bitch, no. I mean, he didn't call me a bitch, but like, I'm just, you know, I'm rehearsing it the way I heard it. Like, bitch, no, we're not doing that. He was like, No one who comes to you anonymously. First of all, this is not constructive criticism. This is this is somebody just ranting. This is somebody who you live in their head rent-free, and they're just literally ranting about who they think you are and they're not even correct. So he was like, Don't give this person the time of day. We're not gonna parse out what you think is true or not. And he was like, if you'd like, we can go through and address some of the things they said, but we're not gonna figure out what some anonymous asshole on the internet who just wants to talk shit about you thinks when they clearly don't know all of even the right details. And one of the things that they said was that I it's actually kind of funny now in hindsight, but one of the things they said was that I should not be, if I have financial struggles, I should not be driving to Detroit to go on a date with some nigga so I can fuck some nigga in Detroit. I forgot even how they wrapped that story up. But basically, last month, somebody who is a friend of mine asked me, Hey, do you want to go to this concert? I know you love classical music and love seeing classical music like played live. Do you want to go to the concert? I'll buy you a ticket, I'll take you to dinner and we can go to the concert. And I was just like, Yeah, but I'm in a crazy financial position, so I can't really afford it, and I don't have anywhere to stay. And my friend, he was like, Yeah, I'll send you some money for gas and I'll pay for your hotel. It's all good, it's on me. And I was just like, just so you know, like I want this to be just a friend thing. I don't even want this to be a date because I'm just not in a place where I'm dating right now. I'm really just enjoying my my singleness and my time. And he was like, It's all good, it's all good. So I literally drove to Detroit, somewhat, which by the way, for those of you who don't know the the geography, that's about a two, two and a half hour drive for me from Kalamzoo. Okay. So drove to Detroit. We had a nice dinner, had a nice time at the concert. I went to the hotel by myself, slept in a room by myself, left in the morning by myself, went home by myself, and I shared all this on my Instagram stories, which also pushes to my Facebook stories. So someone who saw this clearly made a deduction like she's out on a date, she's out on a date with another nigga, she went to the hotel and fucked this nigga, and then da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Not knowing any of those details, just putting together whatever they think happened, which was completely wrong. And then as a result of that, went into this whole paragraph about how I'm such a slut and a hoe and all these people that I sleep with. And it was all just random deductions they've made from like when I've shared when I hang out with various people. And yes, sometimes I do hang out with men because gasp, I have guy friends that are just platonic. If you see me in a story, Instagram story with a man, that does not mean I'm fucking him. But whoever this was really took that to that's the that's what that means and ran with it. But it made me think like, what if that was true? What if I was dating that guy, which I'm not? And what if I did drive to Detroit? And what if he did stay at the hotel room that night? And what if we did fuck that night? Like, and I'm a grown woman. And I mean, they got it wrong, but what if it was true? So when I talked about this with my therapist, I just really came to the conclusion I think people do not want to face the fact that it's still very radical for a middle-aged single woman, a black woman, a mother to be out here enjoying her best sex life, enjoying sex, talking about sex, talking about enjoying sex, embodying my sexuality, being body positive and sex fathers. It's still too radical. And for those of you who know me before, part of I think what is a shift is that I used to be in evangelical ministry. I used to actually teach purity culture. I used to actually teach that it is a sin for sure to have sex outside of marriage. And I taught sexual repression, and I'm really sad about that. I really regret that I taught that. I regret that I had anything to do with any of that, period. And I have left that identity and decided to become a sexually embodied woman that owns my sexuality and has really fully enjoyed stepping into a higher libido via pyramenopause. Now I know that's not the case for everybody, but a lot of women start having a higher libido around 30, between 30 and 40 and 50, because our body is like, listen, we're about to wrap up these childbearing years, so we need to get it in as much as possible. And I am much like a lot of other women who have said their libido skyrocketed around 30 and then 40. For me, it was 31st and then 35 again, and then 40 was like this next level, and 45 was like, get it now and get it as often as possible. Man, these childbearing years wrapping up has brought a lot of good things. Let's just say that. But I just realized like whoever this is is clearly so angry about me having sex. If nothing else, they were mad that I am out here having sex and with multiple partners. Girl. You doing the you are a hoe of all hoes, basically, is what it said. I know that what's true is that we are not as women socialized for this in any way. Black women, we are not socialized for this. None of us. Black women, black men, everybody, the country, no one is socialized to let women be ungovernable with our sex life. No one is socialized to be like, yes, women, go out there and do what you want, get as much dick as you want, enjoy sex as much as you want, get it as much or as often as your body wants it, have it with as many partners as you want. There's nothing in our society at all that celebrates that the way that we do with men. And even the way we do with violent men who are taking it from people they shouldn't be, people who are way too young to consent to them like living their best sex life. So, I mean, this is not rocket science. We all know that women have been socialized, and I feel like black women even more potentially, I mean, I don't know, but I think I feel like black women are taught even more that we have to be even more respectable, you know, for sure married. If you haven't sex outside of marriage, then you're just a hoe. Anyway, you're a skank. It's crazy. And that's addition to being quiet and modest. And if you're struggling in any way with your sexuality, struggle privately and definitely don't be anything other than straight. All of this socialization for everything that is honestly the opposite of what I'm choosing to live right now. I'm choosing to show my body online, not a lot, but a little bit here and there. I'm choosing to talk about my sexuality, not a lot, but a little bit here and there. I'm choosing to be open and very outwardly body positive, sex positive, and open and outwardly saying, Yeah, this has been great in Paramenopause. It's been really good. It's been good. I talked in episode 41 or 40, I forget which one, about having an amazing sexual experience that was a random one-night stand hookup that I was not expecting on a trip. And I can see why somebody would be like, Oh my god, this is not the grace that I knew. This is not the grace on Houston. Oh. And I feel like I don't care. You deal with that. That's really not something that I need to concern myself with. It's my life and my body. I'm sorry that you've been socialized in such a way to think that that means something about me personally, but it doesn't. The more my counselor and I discussed this, I realized that being sexually autonomous and then also financially vulnerable in public was like what made whoever this was short circuit. Because the entire message was about you needed help financially, you had to go find me, and you be out here having sex. And what bothers me is you asked for help and you're out here sexually. I saw like an Instagram meme the other day, and it basically said something like, Back in the day, they didn't burn witches because they were evil. They burned witches because they were ungovernable women. And whether that's historically correct or not, I don't know. But the symbolism really resonates and it resonates with me in general, even if I hadn't got this message. And that is basically that if you dare to be a woman who has sex without shame, who doesn't desire partnership, which I really don't, I don't desire to ever be a girlfriend again. And I know I will never get married again. If I did, it would have to be a gunpoint. If you ask for help without groveling and just let people know, yeah, I do need help, reject men calmly and without being a quote unquote bitch, even though if you need to be or want to be, go ahead, girl, and just live publicly, then you're gonna scare people. And I realize that some of what I'm doing and some of what I'm saying is maybe scaring people, and I'm okay with that. I am fully okay with being a woman who disrupts the hierarchy, the patriarchy, the misogyny. Because this person losing their whole goddamn Eva loving mind because I've said that I enjoy sex and have had different partners here and there, and who has received community support financially. I think why it broke them is because they want me to be a woman who experiences punishment for what I've done and not be supported. I think that what broke them the most that made them send such an unhinged message was the fact that I was supported. Because by the time they sent me that second message at five in the morning the next morning or whenever it was, was because my GoFundMe had already been fully funded and even overfunded. And instead of being punished and getting 10 lashes, I was actually getting a lot of support and a lot of private messages from people saying, Yeah, I hear you, and I'm sorry you're in the pos this position, and thank you for sharing your need. And I'm glad to help. I'm happy to help. And a lot of different people helped. I think I ended up having like 62 or like 65 donors or something like that. But some people sent me money on the side too, because I didn't want the fees from GoFundMe. And I got a lot of some a lot of community support. And what I told people in my Instagram stories when I was thanking people is that in lieu of me not having family, like family support, and I haven't really had any family support for years, even when my mom was alive, she was really deeply troubled with mental illness, with schizophrenia and dementia. And I don't have family support on either side. And I have said, like, I feel like because I've been sharing my life online for so many years, my support really is the internet, like a lot of community, the wider support base. I do have an inner circle, but like my wider support base really is my internet community, and that's a lot of y'all too. So thank you. And like my therapist said, if someone can't attach their name and their identity to their criticism of you, it's actually not criticism, it's not constructive, and it's just cowardice. It's just them being basically a troll. And he was like, Are you gonna take that seriously? Now, I had already, before I met with him, I had already responded and I said something in there. Basically, it seems like maybe this projection is a confession. Because one thing I know about malicious people, people who would like to be trolls, people who want to make you feel bad about yourself, people who talk shit about you. Anyone who wants to make you feel bad, a lot of times the stuff they say is just a projection of stuff they've already done or are doing. It's kind of wild, but it's true a lot of the time. And so when I realized I think this person is probably just projecting their own fears about who I am and maybe their own feelings that maybe they're wrong because they're living a sexually free life. Well, it made me feel better. I'll I guess I'll just say that. I still don't know if it was a woman or a man, and if it was a woman, she's just participating in mean girl shit, basically, just literally doing the bidding of the patron. Patriarchy. And if it was a man, he's probably just mad I won't fuck him. I mean, I don't know. I literally have no idea who it was. I've tried to figure it out. I don't know who it was. I don't know if it was a man, woman, they, them. I have no idea. But all I know is I'm ungovernable to them. I'm a sexually embodied, sexually autonomous, unpartnered black mother who dared to ask for help and received it publicly without shame. And that makes me ungovernable and maybe in some way scary. And I'm here to tell you, I don't give a fuck. By way of healing, I love that I, after a day, like later that day, I felt really beat up. Like I said, you know, one thing about going through abuse, enduring lots of verbal abuse in my previous marriage. And then later I was assaulted. So I've experienced some level of physical abuse, although that was just a one-time thing. But one thing I have learned is your brain does not know the difference between a verbal assault and a physical assault. And it was easier for me to process and get over being physically assaulted by a man than it was for me to get through the years of verbal abuse from my ex-husband and the narcissistic abuse. Because, like I said before, I in the past have really struggled with in healing from those things, ruminating, looping, internalizing, trying to fix myself, trying to figure out, like, you know, how do I heal from this by thinking about it over and over again? It doesn't work like that. So if you're doing that, stop it. It does not work like that. And it took me years in therapy to get to the point where I did stop that. But this time I was like, oh no, no, no, no. I know my triggers. I know what I can and can't handle. So I didn't ruminate. I did delete them. I did block them. I was very much uninterested in going back and forth with someone who's anonymous. Like that, that's crazy. Like, you want me to go back and forth with you and I don't even know who you are? Like, you got to be out your damn mind. I also didn't spiral publicly and I didn't screenshot it for revenge. Now, if if they had showed who they were, I would for sure. And if I do find out who this person is, I will for sure show the world who they are. But for now, I guess I'll say I realize like the ways I've survived in the past has in some ways prepared me for the kind of growth that I showed in this situation. And for me, someone trying to shame me, it just didn't stick. They got me for a day. I definitely was down for a day. And I was really sad and felt um really hurt about, especially the part about my kids. But I was just like, girl, stop. Like, you are not gonna lose your kids. And just knowing I am a good mother, you know, deep down, like, ugh, I could go on on all day. I think like most mothers listing off what we wish we were doing better, but knowing that when you know you love your kids and you're actually trying your best to make your kids feel loved and seen in the world, like it only goes so far for someone to say, like, you should lose your kids. But you know, I'll definitely be honest with y'all, it definitely hit a nerve if it hit a nerve. So if that person, if you watching this, congrats. Your stupidity hit a nerve and really messed up an entire day of mine, but that's okay because I know I'm a better person than you. I realized too, I said in my Instagram stories to my girlfriend stories, I was like, you know, even if everything this person said was true about me, one thing I know about me is I am never ever ever going to go in a woman's DMs and talk shit about her, say mean shit to her. I'm never gonna message anyone anonymously because that's so ridiculous. Even if everything this person said about me is true, what I'm not is them. I'm not a mean girl, and I'm never gonna tear down a woman. I'm never gonna try to make a woman feel shitty who's just out here trying to survive and heal from so much shit and so much abuse. Never. Shame is a control tactic, y'all. People will try to shame you to control you, and we just don't have to allow it. It's very rich for someone who doesn't know you or who knows you but won't even talk to you as themselves to dare to call you a not respectable woman, right? Especially because what I know about myself is who I am, and that is someone who has worked very, very hard to be free. Someone who's worked very, very, very hard to come out of like a helplessness kind of like a victim mindset kind of thing to like, no, I'm an empowered person. I've taken what I've been through and not only learned to heal myself, but empower other people and try to help people kind of break away from some of these chains, especially this religious psychosis bullshit. I feel very empowered on most days, and anyone who wants me to feel disempowered for that doesn't actually know me. So if someone's trying to hand you shame, I would highly suggest that you don't pick it up. Just don't pick it up. But also, I really truly mean this from the bottom of my heart. If you're a woman that has ever been told that your sexuality disqualifies you from support, from motherhood, from dignity, that's a lie. And we see that part of the religious psychosis bullshit that happens is that people want to do the same thing to people who are part of the LGBTQIA plus community. They want to say that someone being part of the LGBTQIA plus community should be disqualified from whatever motherhood, from dignity, from even living. That is a lie from the pit of hell. If I even believed in hell anymore, but I don't. But it's a lie. And if anyone's ever tried to shame you from asking for help, that too is a lie, and that's shame we should not carry. And I hope and pray that none of my listeners that y'all will ever make somebody feel guilty or feel bad for asking for help. Because if you have never been in a position where you've been down so low that you feel like you need to ask for help, if you have, you would never shame someone else for doing it. I know that I'm not a broken person. I'm someone who's been broken by life but has been resurrected like a goddamn phoenix from the ashes, okay? And I'm ungovernable, and maybe that's why they're scared. Thank y'all so much for watching. I don't know if you can hear my cat. He's literally purring straight into the microphone. Let's do a little purr ASMR. Anyway, y'all. Oh, but you know what I did want to talk about, y'all, for a minute was the America's Next Top Model Reality Check thing on Netflix. So this is this is my little two cents. This is my two cents on this. Everybody talking about everybody, everybody was shirking accountability. Jay, Miss J, you know, Ken Mock, Tyra, da da da da da. Why are we blaming her? Because she's a black woman. That's why. Y'all, y'all know I will stand for black women every day, 10 toes down for my whole life. I've been doing that. Okay. The thing is, is Tyra is the face of this shit. Yes, they were shirking responsibility. I agree. Nigel, J, Miss J, Ken, all of them. The other, the other white lady who was the CEO, I think, of UPN at the time. But Tyra is the face of it. And the thing is, is Tyra could have been different. She could have set herself out as someone who did take accountability in those interviews, even though everybody else took very light accountability. She could have, but the way that she shirked it was really telling. And Tyra was also the one who had the most impact on those girls. That's what makes it truly sad to see. She was the one who had a relationship with them that was like no other. She was the supermodel that they looked up to. She had more of a responsibility to those girls than everybody else. But when it came to filming this documentary, I think she, even more than anyone else, had a responsibility to say, I was the face of this. This was my show. This was my idea. I was a supermodel. I was the example. I was the mentor. I was the coach to these women. And she did really evil things to them that really showed herself to be the monster that she was trying to protect them from by even creating the show. And it was really disappointing for all of them. But I do think Tyra had a more of a kind of special responsibility to say, this was my circus. And as the ringleader, I should have done better. As the ringleader, it doesn't matter what the country was asking for. It doesn't matter what the times were. I should not have put Shandy in that situation. I should not have the next day sat them down for a talk the night after Shandy got essayed and talked about how one time I cheated on my boyfriend and exposed her like that. I should not have allowed the episode to be named the girl who cheated. I should not have later, years later, brought her on my talk show and aired this, even though she specifically said, I've never seen the footage and I don't want to see it. I should not have looked her dirty in her eyeballs and been like, Shandy, I noticed you weren't watching. Why weren't you watching? Like, seriously, Tyra. Like this is crazy behavior. Like, you have really harmed these women. Like, this is you want to talk about a mean girl. Like, this is some mean girl behavior. So yeah, Tyra, I was just like, yeah, I lost all, all of the respect for Tyra that I ever had in my life. Watching her tap, dance, shuck and jive around taking any sort of accountability. It would have meant so much if she just said flat out, all of that stuff was wrong. It was dead ass wrong. I'm so sorry. I'm really sorry to these people. I'm sorry to the women I hurt. I'm sorry to Jay or Miss Jay or whoever. I'm sorry. But she just was like, I wasn't a part of production, even though I was the executive producer. Just with this weird ass look on her face. I I don't know, y'all. I don't know. It was disappointing. It was very disappointing. Thank you so much for being here. If you are listening, I know you could be anywhere out here on these internet streets. So I'm thankful for take for you taking the time to listen to me and or watch me. If you haven't yet, please sign up for my Substack, which is basically Substack.com backslash Out Here Trying to Survive. Same name as the podcast. And you'll be the first to know when I come out with my Out Here Trying to Survive journal, which is about going on a healing journey, using the power of journaling and reflection to facilitate the healing that you're looking for. I also have a book called Grace Actually: Memoirs of Life, Faith Loss in Black Womanhood. This is what it looks like. And it is available on Amazon in Kindle copy, and you can get a hard copy. And get it now, y'all, because I might be pulling that book really soon. It does not, I feel like, accurately reflect me. And either I need to write a foreword and re release it or just start working on my next project. But I'm probably gonna pull it soon. So get your copy quickly. Thank you for being here, and I'll see y'all on the next episode. Bye.