OMG EVERYONE!!!!!

I’m going to be interviewed on Oprah’s OWN Network tonight:

Tune in at 3PM PT / 6PM ET

Here’s the link to find out which channel I will be on: http://bit.ly/TDJWhereToWatch

And if you don’t have TV, you can still probably stream it somewhere…

(like from your parents’ Comcast XFINITY account, lol)

So here’s some crazy news…

Last week I was approached by the T.D. Jakes Show to be a guest on their upcoming show about “Beauty.”

They wanted to fly me out to California on Thursday night, record the show on Friday morning, then fly me home. Unfortunately I just wasn’t able to make the trip work. I actually cried after I told them I couldn’t do it, because it felt like I had just turned down the opportunity of a lifetime!

For those of you who don’t know, T.D. Jakes is a Bishop, a best-selling author, and a talk show host on Oprah’s OWN Network.

He’s kind of a big deal…which is why I totally cried when I turned it down.

WELL, the next day the show called me and said that since I couldn’t fly to California, they were going to Skype me into the show! Apparently they liked me and my message so much that they were willing to put my face on a giant TV screen to accommodate!

HOW COOL IS THAT??? They could have found hundreds of women in LA to talk to about beauty and body image, but they liked ME! It was definitely very flattering and made me feel awesome! :)

But holy crap you guys….Skyping into this show was one of the most surreal things I’ve ever done.

Seriously.

Here’s a screenshot of a video I took with my face on the screen:

Yes, that’s actually how crazy I looked.

That’s me.

On my tiny little laptop.

In a terribly lit conference room.

With wifi that kept cutting in and out.

In fact, my Skype FROZE after the show when they took pictures. Here I am looking like I want to eat everyone, when in actuality my screen is just stuck at “pre-smile.”

I can NOT stop laughing at this photo!

Oh and do you recognize some of the people in this photo?

Yeah that’s Denise Bidot on the right, the first plus size model to walk Fashion Week, and to the left of T.D. Jakes is Khoudia Diop, also known as Melanin Goddess. Both women are huge inspirations of mine.

Did I know I’d be on a panel with these freaking INSPIRATIONS??? NO!!!!!

Would I have flown out there if I had known they’d be on the show with me????? PROBABLY!!!! ;)

So yeah, I had no freaking idea they were going to be on the show. IN FACT, I had no freaking idea about ANY aspect of the show. I got my interview questions 30 mins before I went on, and I was surprised during every segment because I was flying by the seat of my pants.

But basically the show was structured into 6 parts:

The first four sections were individual interviews with TD Jakes and each of the four “inspirational” women.

I was the fourth woman to go on. And I barely remember what I said…It was all a blur!!! All I remember is that the segment flew by and I think I annoyed him because he didn’t ask me as many questions as he asked the other women. Or maybe he did and it just went by so quickly? OR MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE MY SKYPE KEPT CUTTING OUT!

Either way, I hope I didn’t make an ass of myself. Fingers crossed!

Section 5 is where the show went completely downhill and section 6 is where it went into chaos.

For section 5, they brought on a panel of men to discuss their thoughts on women’s beauty. I know. IT’S ALREADY SEXIST!!!!!!!! The men immediately started talking about how they have it harder than women, and how they don’t like women who wear makeup because they want to “know what they’re getting in the morning.”

I made this quote right afterwards:

But basically the panel of men were just really sexist and kept reiterating what society tells women every day:

That we are never good enough.

We’re too fat, too thin, wear too much makeup, don’t wear enough makeup, dress too well, don’t dress well enough, are too bitchy, are too quiet, are too sexy, are too prude…

And the list goes on and on and on.

This image kept coming to mind during the segment.

For the sixth and final segment, the stage was just chaos. And not just because all the women and men were arguing about women’s beauty. But because I couldn’t fucking hear anything on my computer, so I just kept shouting whenever I heard silence!

I have no idea what I said for this segment. All I know is that I was really angry because instead of talking about how inspirational the women on the panel are, we were talking about how women are viewed through the male gaze. The segment was focused on women’s beauty through the eyes of men.

It was very similar to having a bunch of white people on FOX talk about how racism makes them feel.

But instead it was us women listening to men talk at us about how society’s female beauty standards makes them feel.

What was supposed to be an empowering piece on beauty, spiraled into a very sexist discussion.

It was exhausting, and I’m really worried about what I said. I yelled and I rolled my eyes a lot. I’m just PRAYING I didn’t say anything stupid, but I’ll probably be watching the segment tonight with my hands over my eyes, like how I watched Stranger Things, lol.

Anyways, please watch it tonight and let me know what you think!

It was a crazy experience, and I hope I made some good points from my little laptop in NYC!

xx-Hotpants