Deni Todorovič // On style, sexuality, and striving for self-acceptance

This episode is brought to you by the Body Shops youth activist series.

All those moments are just really the want of a better term, seizing that opportunity. If there is someone in front of you, introduce yourself, the worst they can do is look at you and like say no for me. The magic source of success in any field actually is to be the smartest person in the room, but also the kindest person in the room. You know, unless I have a boundary, unless I can feel my tank first, I'm not going to be able to feel anyone's tank.

Welcome to the Sees the Yay Podcast. Busy and happy are not the same thing. We too rarely question what makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than one way. So this is a platform to hear and explore the stories of those who found lives. They adore the good, bad and ugly. The best and worst day

Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here.

I am so excited. I was literally just saying before we started recording that we have been at Pufftuff together before. We didn't meet properly, but we're best internet friends to the point where I've even turned up today in gold Sparkles in your honor, yes, but in all seriousness, I'm such a big admirer and it's a real honor to have you on the show today.

Right back at you.

I think it's so we're in such a unique time at the moment because of Lockdown, that our digital admirations and friendships they feel so visceral because it's all we have at the moment. So I've made some of my best friends over the last two years in Lockdown that I've not even had a chance to actually hang out with properly.

Irl. So yeah, the love is very mutual, my Dalin.

Oh, you are the sweetest and I love that you use the word viseral. I feel like I just want to give you a hug, but I don't know what that actually feels like. But I feel like I miss it anyway. Well, before we jump into your path ya as I call it, I love to start by asking everyone what the most down to earth thing is about them, to break through what is really often a quite glossy kind of service level identity is perceived through the media or social media. And you have such an incredible story,

I think that's firstly, thank you, that's incredibly flattering. I think it's really interesting that you bring this up because we were just talking about this at dinner last night, my parents and I was talking about Kim Kardashian and her SNL performance or hosting her hosting gig, and I said, the thing that I love most about Kim is that, you know, she's the most famous woman in the world, yet the girls just a down to earth, sweet valley girl from Calabasas like still is to this day, and

Of thrust into the public arena.

First and foremost, I do not consider myself in that vein whatsoever. Like someone messaged me on Instagram the other day and said, you should be on I'm a celebrity, Get me out of here, and I was like, why would I be on that show. I'm not a celebrity. I'm certainely aware of like people's perceptions maybe of where I sit in that arena of you know, digital creators. But I'm just Denny from Geelong, and I really mean that,

I think that's another reason why people are so drawn to you, as you're such an amazing role model for so many important messages of identity and self love and acceptance. But also you've got and such a huge audience, but stayed just Danny from Gtown, and you know, you spend so much time with your beautiful family and even watching your incredible dancing videos. They just make my life. And I'm like a big keypop dancer, so I just get so excited. But I also love that your bins are

Well, I mean, you know, like that's so funny that you should notice that because the bins and the green plastic chair are the they're the MVPs of those videos, and I remember when I first started making them, someone said to me, why don't you tidy up the background a bit more?

And I was like, but why would.

I Like, I'm not j Lo, this is not a you know, this is not a VMA performance. I'm just dancing my backyard. So yeah, I said, we keep it real here. I don't take the bins out. My dad does, and he always gets cranky at me because of my acrylic nows. I'm like, sorry, Dad, I can't take the bins out, but you know, we keep it real here, very.

Really this house.

And that's why I like. It's such a weird question. People find it quite jarring at the beginning, like how you even describe what's down to earth about you? But I also love starting with it because then, like everything else that comes afterwards, people walk into your life at this chapter. Often it's on the cover of a magazine or as the face of a campaign, and it's so easy to detach from like you're just a normal person.

I'm so glad to feel that way. You feel that way.

I mean, you know, it's one of the most overused words on the internet, but I can't stress enough how important it is just to live authentically, and then that should really resonate into everything that you do, whether you're a cleaner like my parents work for a decade, or whether you're Kim Kardashian. Authenticity will get you everywhere. And I just don't believe in existing in any other way.

And this is why we all adore you so much, Denny Balan, So you're way to you take us back to very young Denny, growing up in Gtown. What were you like as a kid. I think it's so important to trace through all the chapters of people's lives before the one that we meet them in, particularly because I don't think we give enough airtime to how much we

Yeah, I mean, look, I think first and foremost the words you were looking for there is trauma. And whilst my childhood and I mean my whole life really has been filled with many layers of trauma, My childhood was pretty idyllic, Like mom and Dad are legends. They had me when they were twenty one, so we've always been very close.

We have like a very.

Yeah that were babies having babies, but that was very normal in that decade.

And also it's very normal in ethnic communities.

I'm not sure what it's like in the Asian community, but in the ethnic community, like if you're a wog mate, you're having babies as soon as you can, as soon as you're virtile. Okay them outsis. So Mom had me at twenty one, and she was just you know, I was her little best friend and she was mine and

To our house.

Yeah, we were the house that like hosted weekend parties and Monopoly. I remember my uncles and artist used to play Monopoly till like four in the morning, and you know, just be like drinking and like smoking SIGs and just sitting there like proper ethnic humans.

And I would just sit there like watching.

Them in all being like, oh my gosh, I'm so lucky to live in this community that I'm never alone, but then that side saddled with always feeling tremendously alone in my feelings and my identity. So I had this really like, you know, robust community around me, but I had no one to talk to about how I really felt. So it was my whole life actually is very has

You know, talk like adults.

So yeah, it was real dichotomy growing up. But I have nothing but fond memories of my childhood. The good will always outweigh the bad with my childhood.

Oh that's really beautiful, And I think something that's really I think probably resonating with so many people about your whole journey is knowing certain aspects of your identity before you could even Like you were four, I think when you first started to really think about sexuality and gender and well before you even had the words to articulate what that meant. And for you it's been in sexuality, but for other people it might be in Korea or

Out, you know, done your research.

It's the ex lawyer in me.

Yes.

And in the meantime, I mean you were also trying to figure out what you were going to do in life and what your purpose was, so fashion studies at the Paris Fashion Institute, then starting at Maya, Like, how did that coming of age teenage to sort of starting your career time work out for you? As it was starting to become more like you knew how to articulate what you were feeling, and then to a religious immigrant family breaking the news.

Yeah, So.

I mean hypervigilants and a sense of self awareness is I think something that's very innate to people because you're constantly analyzing how you feel because it's so different to what you see around you. So as a teenager, I said, oh, sorry, like you said, I knew I was gay from as early as four. I knew I wasn't as a boy from as early as three. I just didn't have the language for that one. Yeah, from as early as three.

Just that will never be an option.

And I would crumble because we've got to church three times a week, we would drawknock twice a week and generally, if not once a week, and at least so being Jehovah's Witness is a lifestyle.

It's the same as being.

You know, a scientologist, a Muslim, any of those religions that are your life.

That's what being a j Dub was like.

So that's why I you just called it a Jada. Yeah, day's amazing, Yeah, so much.

I really resonate with stories when I hear these stories like I just recently watched My Unorthodox Life, you know, and when I hear these stories of people coming out of these very lifestyle based religions, you know, being a Jehovah's witness has been referred to by some of my friends as like a little bit cult adjacent. And whilst I will never jump on Mike and like bash that religion,

Foremost, you're putting God's will first.

And if you're a little gay kid at church like fantasizing about I don't know your science teacher, that doesn't fly down so well with old made upstairs. So it was really tricky for me to naviget that. But when I got to nineteen, I was like, I can't do it anymore. I will either come out or end my life. And it was one or the other, and you know, life is too precious, so it was difficult. But then I will say that as soon as I came out, all the other little parts of the puzzle started to align.

Been in my blood.

I've always been obsessed with it, and you know, fashion is driven by the queer community. There's so many beautiful queer people in that industry. So I'm really glad I came out when I did, because as soon as I got that first job at Maya, I could just exist really freely, as you know, I'll say then, like a gay man working in fashion.

It felt really glamorous.

It was my little kind of devil wes prit A moment and it was fabulous and I loved it. But I think that had I gone into that job still in the closet, still a Jehovah's witness like, it would have been torture.

Absolutely. I think that hiding or suppressing really fundamental parts of your identity in any area, but especially sexuality exhausting. I mean, how can you even function life and identity is unraveling so fast anyway, let alone with deep fundamental layers of yourself and kidden all the time I love also that you describe your devil wast pride a moment as being like you were taking Pantone colors as seriously as life or death.

Literally, I'm like.

Yes, so important in the scheme of life.

I said to someone yesterday, I said, what we do is pr it's not eer And that's a common thread. Yeah, that's like a common phrase in my industry, because you know, it can be so easy to get consumed by the things that you love. If anything, it's kind of fabulous that you should love something so much that a color keeps you up at night, or you know, a dress that you're dying to get for your client for the logis would keep you up at night, Like what a

But now you just kind of go, oh, well, what are you going to do? The babes, where's the AA valves?

But I also love that you mentioned the jigsaw puzzle pieces, and I think like the Wayta or the path Hea concept. Why I spend so much time on it is to show that there isn't a single guest we have ever had, no matter how far along they are, and no matter how successful or or not yet at the stage that they want to be at, no matter where they are, there's always identity as puzzle pieces. No one wakes up

Sure, So I always say that I don't think I'm a tremendously like academic person.

My brain is the creative side.

So when I left school, I did contemplate going to university and kind of getting a bachelor degree in fashion, but that was just never going to be in my path.

And also, I think culturally it was ingrained to me that only rich white people go to UNI. Wegstone go to UNI.

It's not like there's one person in my family that in my extended family that's gone to UNI. And also, just disclaiming for your listeners, I use that term incredibly endearingly, So I hope that people are aware of that.

I wouldn't expect anything late, So you know, I was like, no, no, no, You're not going to go to UNI.

But I really always had a really strong work ethic, and I said to Mom and Dad, well, I'm going to go do this course in Paris. It goes for a summer and then I'll come back. And I was hit the ground running because I firmly believe that you can learn best on the job. You can never learn like the way you learn in a classroom is not how you learn.

On the job.

So when I moved to London, yeah, I just started interning. My little took us off. So I worked in PR for a year. Had no idea what PI even meant. I had to google what it stood for, and then.

Did that for a year and actually did quite well. I was like, okay, this is cool. I can talk a lot. I even had to market things.

And then I jumped to the magazine sector because I've been obsessed with mag since I was eleven. So when you're like interning at British Fogue, which talk about CZA. That happened because I introduced myself to the editor at a fashion show and basically like cornered her.

And was like, can I email you please? I really want to email you in my TV.

She was like sure, you know, and then and for six weeks later, I'm sitting in the cupverd at British organ I was like, wow, how am I here? So all those moments I just really you know, the want of a better term, seizing that opportunity. If there is someone in front of you introduce yourself, the worst they can do is look at.

You and like say no. So I did that a lot.

So when I came home from London, I started the blog Style by Denny, which doesn't exist anymore. But I really wanted that that magazine job. There was something about it for me that I just needed to tick off the list. So when I moved to Sydney at twenty six, I started interning at twenty seven and my.

Dad was like, how can you do this again? You're not getting paid again.

You're working, you know, a retail job to supplement this internship, Like is it actually worth it? And I said, Dad, I have a feeling it's all gonna work out, dad. And I was there for six months and then got a job, you know, And that was the best five years of my life. Cosmo are some of the most cherished memories I will ever have. The things I learned

Wow, that's so fascinating, and I think it's so valuable that reminder of like, if you don't ask, it's a no. And there are some pathways that are really clear, like you can't be a doctor unless you do X amount of years of study, and you.

Have to do you want to.

But there are also areas where if you don't just sort of suggest an opportunity to almost create one where there isn't one, Like if you hadn't been bold enough to walk up and have a conversation with that editor, you would never have gotten that job, which would then probably have not led to the internship, which then wouldn't have led to climbing the ladder. And I think that people really want to walk into a job at the

So my advice I would say to anyone is you need to be two things, or if you're not one of the two, then you need to figure out how to be the other one. Because for me, the magic source of success in any field actually is to be the smartest person in the room, but also the kindest person in the room. So for me, it's all about if you love insects, throw yourself into research and education until you know the back of insects, like I know

Do you need this, do you need that?

Is it getting a coffee? Is it photocopying stuff? It doesn't matter what it is. When you were there to assist, you just do it. I used to pick up, you know, the laundry of a style of that I was assisting in London. You know, when I started working with her, she was going through a breakup. I was her therapist more than I was her assistant.

But you know, you just do it.

I think also we've kind of learned over the last few years, especially that there can be a great amount of, you know, an abusive power.

That occurs in those sorts of environments. So don't let people take the piss.

But in the best environment, you will learn every single day on the job, and when you come with eagerness and kindness and empathy, and you just like you go ham, there's no.

Way you will fail none.

And I knew that you have to have a lot of self assurance in a weird way. And for me, there was no plan B. Everyone used to always say to me, what's going to happen if you don't work in fashion? And I was like, well, that's never gonna happen, so catch you on the book. So maybe that's stupid, maybe that's really like idealistic and you know, quite romantic in my mind, but that was the only option.

Oh my gosh. I love that you really bring to the forefront of their attention and how kindness is such an important currency that it gets overlooked so often, and that's I think that's the thing that people remember more than that you, you know, sold X amount of magazines and that these metrics happened and you weren't this amount of money. It's kindness in your legacy and.

I can you know, when I became a fashion editor, I then suddenly became someone who was managing interns and I would see them come through the doors, and I would always see the sort of rich human with the Gucci belt, and you know, they got an uber to intern that day, and then I would see the working class person you know in their came up jeans doing the best that they can. And I will tell you now, I could care less what brand the shirt is on your back. If you don't enter a space with kindness,

Telling them, you just do you.

Oh my gosh, so true. And I think that's something else that I like looking back at your time at cosmeon the way you've spoken about it as well, is the idea that, like to get to where you want to go, you do have to sometimes do things you don't want to do and go through chapters that you don't love. You don't seizing the A isn't having ya all the time. It means doing all the things that

Now we're here, literally, and you know how much cried are used to taking that.

I would come to those picture meetings with every example under the sun, because you know, you get a brief and it's like, oh, we're doing a story about.

You know, blowjobs.

Okay, well you can't you know, sort of putting a dick in the magazine, which we didn't do. You know that stopped in the nineties. You have to think, you know, outside the box and think of how am I going to make this exciting but also interesting and visually a feeling. And I really took a lot of pride in those jobs, and I knew that they were not what I wanted to do, they were not the end goal, but I knew that they would get me there.

And you know, Beyonce wasn't built in a day.

Do you really think she wanted to be on all of those like competitions when she was nine years old getting rejected and you know, seeing men win over her.

Absolutely not, But look at her.

Now, right, Danny was also not built in a day. I love that, even though you know, people could have turned up in a paper bag and won you'r hard with their kindness. I'm sure there were some moments that were just so fucking glam being a fashion editor at Cosmo.

So let's start with the lows.

The lows of working in magazines is that they pay jack shit. So and I don't say that lightly. You know, my first salary at Cosmo I think was forty one thousand dollars or thirty nine thousand dollars. It was pretty menual. And to live in Sydney and to be paying rent.

Like you know, I remember, do the math, do the math.

And you know, my friends were working in accountancy jobs and stuff, and I would call them and you know, they're on eighty ninety k year and here I am earning, like, you know, forty grand a year and trying to put two coins together and then looking the part as well, because it does come with the pressure. So that was really hard. Often it felt like, you know, you were there because you should be so honored to be there. You know, it would have been nice to have been

So let me tell you a funny story. On my first week of Cosmo, I.

Went to the kitchen and I opened the drawer and there was a jar of macona in the kitchen, and I was like, I called my mom and I was like, Mom, this is great. They've got like a Macona in the drawers. I was making myself a cup of macona every morning. A week later, there's a sign on the thing that says, whoever is stealing my Macona, please stop, written by Lee Campbell, who's now one of my best friends.

And I I walked into the office and I said, Lee, I thought Baoer provided that macona. And everyone just looked at me and said, oh, Jenny Darling, you have so much to learn, like what you know.

So I think that was probably yeah, probably they're not so fun part because when you're producing a magazine as well, you want big budgets.

You have all these grand dreams.

But I will say to flip that to a positive, it teaches you how to be really resourceful. It teaches you how to make the best product possible with very little budgets.

So, you know, we learned something.

It taught me how to live in a city like Sydney that was so expensive and just make it work with buying stuff at H and M instead of like rolling up in you know, po Taga Venetta.

So that's the low side.

The highlight and perhaps the most incredible surreal moments of that job were the people that we had access to. So I'll never forget my first year at Cosmo. We used to have this event called Woman of the Year, and for the first one, you know, we had Julia Gillard being inaugurated into our Women of the Year Hall of Fame.

She was brought up onto stage by Lisa Wilkinson.

You know. The following year, Julia Gillard inaugurated Delta Gudram into our Hall of Fame. And when you get to be in the presence of these people like Julia Gillard, blew me away. And I would never have those opportunities had I not worked at Cosmo. In terms of the glamorous stuff, absolutely, there's packagers arriving every day, gifts arriving every day. That's just journalism or perhaps lifestyle media one

You know, at Cosmo, the Bachelor.

Would be, you know, debuting on Channel ten and we'd get some shirtless model that would come in with like, you know, a tray of roses to like hand out to everyone in the office. I mean it's pretty great, you know.

So, I mean that's what I would say. It was buber glamorous. You know.

I didn't get I didn't work at like a Voger or harp As though, so it wasn't like I was getting in like Chanel handbags that would have been nice. But I will say here some TFU. When I interned at in Style in the UK, I'll never forget. I interned there over the Christmas period and the gifts that these editors were getting. I'm talking Chaneale bags, Christian Luberton shoes, Prada for Christmas, and I was like, Wow, these people

So this week is actually the two year anniversary of my episode with Laura Brown My Love Time. She's the greatest ever. But we were on Necker Island, of all places, and she had to drive a buggy. Couldn't drive a buggy. I was like, Laura Brown trying to drive a buggy. This is hilarious.

I mean, there is an example of an incredible woman who is at the top of her game, and she's the most down to earth woman ever. I've met her once and I literally was just like in awe of.

How kind she was. You know, it goes back to that she knows so shit, but she's fucking kind mate. You know.

I also love this, like you dishing the tea of how on the one hand, you're like shooting Taylor Swift for the cover. On the other hand, the coffee you were excited about was instant Macona. It was something like n Espresso. It's like, we get free instant Macona. This is so exciting.

Yeah, that was.

It was good, lovely. Yeah.

You may have seen Denny as one of the faces of the Body Shop's self love campaign, just one of the many ways that they support equality and one of the many reasons I love working with them. Another Body Shop initiative I Loved Learning About is their Youth Activist series. Since twenty nineteen, the Body Shop has proudly supported Charity for Girls Equality, Plan International Australia through this leadership program,

Now.

One of the things I find the most interesting about this is how much you seem to just love that role and so up and experience in four years like a lifetime worth of development. But unlike many people, the chapters change when they grow out of a role or some big disaster happens, like they get sick or they burn out. But for you, it was Cosmo closing in twenty eighteen, and that wasn't something that was on the

How did you right? You? Yes?

How did that feel to have that dream kind of almost ripped away from you? But then have that chance to now be doing what you're doing, be geelong based again, be freelancing, and then you know, becoming the face of huge campaigns yourself, like the Body Shop, which I really want to talk about. But yeah, first let's go through just the transition.

I mean when I tell you the demise or the closure of Cosmo, because it wasn't a demise. It was literally closed in a space of four days.

Four days.

Yeah, Tuesday we got the announcement. Friday was our last day in the office.

Yeah.

So when I tell you that, that was equivalent to like my biggest breakup, if not more. I mean, it was gut wrenching. It was, and it wasn't an instant like, it wasn't an instant gut wrenching. You know, when someone dies. He's a perfect example when everyone's different, Everyone praises grief different but for me, generally, when someone dies, you know,

Right, That's what Cosmo was like. That first day was so surreal.

We went to the pub at like eleven o'clock and just drank our sorrows, and we were inundated with love and messages of support from the entire industry and all of our readers. But then it wasn't until like day three that I woke up and I was like, wait, I don't have a job to go to, Like.

What is this?

And then it became even more insidious because for five years I was Denny from Cosmo. It was my practically on my license, you know, no, but truly it was you know, that's how I would introduce myself. You know, now I introduced myself with Hi, my name is Danny. My pronouns a day them. Back then it was like, hi, I'm Jenny from Cosmo. Always and that suddenly it's like this big thing that hangs above you. And then suddenly that thing is taken away from you, and you're like,

I just can't.

And also this coincided with one of the biggest, the darkest chapters in my life in terms of a relationship that.

I was in.

So I remember saying to my mom in New York, I think I need to come home. I don't know for how long, but I just need to come home. And the second I got to Geelong, I remember just feeling an instant wave of peace. When I landed at Avalon Airport.

I was like Avalon, Yeah, I was like, now you can excit and.

You know, getting in the car and driving down the highway and seeing the familiar little spots and Geelong saved my life. And I don't say that lightly. Yeah, I can't believe the opportunities that I've come my way, Like

Oh my gosh, it gives me goosebumps, and it makes me also feel so privileged to be able to share this story at this chapter where it's reassuring to anyone who's going through a shit time, because like it's the it's those low lows where you actually get off the productivity hamster wheel of busy and productive and noise and come back to like shit without anything that I thought was important. You actually get to realize what really was important all along, which is often not the things that

I mean, look, firstly, thank you. That's so tremendously kind of you to say. I think that for me, I always present as this very positive person like I always have since I was little. My dad and I are very similar in that way, but I've always had this little cloud that hangs over me, and I.

Never knew what that was called.

It wasn't until recently that I really started to look into that trauma. You know, the anxiety, a few little episodes of depression that have come along, and this real type a overachieving thing which I've realized in therapy is that it's completely related to my queenness. Because when you grow up and you have this feeling of other ring, particularly when that's linked to masculinity and feeling not masculine enough according to the world's.

Stereotypes, you feel like you have something to prove.

It's like, no, you're not going to be that kid that everyone made fun of that was called a faggot every day at high school. You're going to make something of yourself and that which is great. I love that, but that type a kind of mentality can be quite detrimental often, so during that dark period, I just had to like peel off the layers and go, Okay, why do you have a habit of falling into abusive relationships?

Why does that keep happening?

What's the commed name of denominator here because as much as it might be the boyfriends, it's also you, Denny.

So what's your role within this? You know?

Why don't you back yourself enough? Why are you too nervous to go and ask your boss for a pay rise? Why are you too nervous to speak up in relationships of all kinds?

So when I came home, the first thing I did was find a therapist. It changed my life.

And I've been in therapy before, but finding a therapist is like finding a soul mate. That therapist whilst I don't see him anymore, honestly, it's it was just lighte bold moment after life bold moment. Then I met a spiritual healer who I work with an have worked with for the last two years.

Her name's Elise. She lives in a long shadow. Elise at least.

Changed my life because when I sat down in my first reiki healing session with her, she taught me about shadow work and the inner child and how you kind of look at all these things. So going through the darkness is a constant thing, Mate, and then you and then you throw on the pandemic, like who thought that little thing would happen.

It's like, you know, if coming to.

Terms with being made redundant wasn't hard enough, and then trying to find your feet as a freelancer, then you add onto it gender dysphoria and a pandemic.

Beautiful, like melting pot of joy for you.

Love that for you, But diamonds are made in the rough, honey. You know you have to kind of like, if you don't.

Do the work, you can't really vibrate.

On the frequency in which you deserve. So I hope I've answered your question. But essentially for me, it's like when you have those moments of darkness, and I've had them since I was little. The quicker you sit with yourself and the quicker you do that shadow work, the better you'll be in the long run, because life's too short. Absolutely, waist sitting in that darkness too long.

Absolutely. And I always come back to that quote that sometimes good things fall apart, so better things can fall together. But it does involve the things falling apart first. It usually involves some kind of very painful, uncomfortable shit storm, but it's always for a reason, and you emerge out the other end like that's why that had to happen. It's also so interesting that you mentioned how that inner child constantly feeling like you had to prove something because

Therapy is the best, the best, and you know, it's really interesting.

I don't know how much you know about this, but I've been learning a lot through a lease about like

Yes, oh my god on a podium.

Yea, that makes me so much because I never realized how much intergenerational trauma and sort of internalized racism I had towards myself until I was sitting in a therapist's chair and he said to me, Denny, the reason why you only date white men is because you think that they're better than you.

And I was like, wow, whoa, oh my god, I know I cannot wait for ound next count up in

Sure?

So, in a nutshell, I'm a firm believer that if the universe is holding something right in front of you, right in front of your nose, you can no longer ignore it. So, as I said to you earlier, I've known that I wasn't a boy, but I didn't want to be a girl necessarily. I've known that since I was three, so, but I never had the language. And then over the last five years, the term non binary has.

Never been more you know, trending.

Let's say, everyone's bloody talking about it, you know, the pronoun thing YadA, YadA, YadA. I started hearing these little things. I started being exposed to things. And it wasn't until Sam Smith came out.

As binary that I read an article that they were.

Interviewed for and everything that they said in that article it brought me close to tears because I was like, wow, that's exactly how I feel.

Interesting.

But when I'm presented with something that really scares me, I ignore it. I did the same thing with the gay with the gay thing, so I was like, ignore, ignore, control or delete. Then then I could no longer control a delete. When six months later I met a non binary person for the first time in real life, and this was about two months before the pandemic began, and I mean as soon as they opened their mouth and started telling me about their experience, I.

Internally broke down.

I kept myself very composed, and then after that event, I said, Hey, would you mind if we exchange numbers because I just want to ask you a few things this week, and they said, yeah, call me, And as soon as I picked up the phone and called them that week, I burst into tears and I was like, I think I am you know what you are, And then we went into a lot down and the gift of lockdown. Yeah, But the gift of lockdown for me

I was going to say, Mama Macker, like, by the.

Way, Mama really had some issues with it, So that was very confronting. And then the gift of time was that I suddenly had all the time in the world to watch all the documentaries, listen to all the podcasts, do my research. And once you really have all of the puzzle pieces and they come together, you can no longer hide them. And I found myself feeling the same way as I felt just before I came out as gay in that Literally I felt like it was going to explode and vomit out of my mouth.

I had to get it off my chest.

And the second I got off my chest, as hard as it was, everything changed, not only personally but also professionally, Like coming out of non binary just changed my life in every way, shape and form.

Oh my gosh, it has been one of the most heartwarming, beautiful things to watch, Like you had already had quite a profile and following before you came out, so for everyone to have gone through it with you and kind of be taken along for the ride rather than just meeting you, and you'd already come out and you already

Yeah, So for me when I first came out as non binary, it's funny, so funny that you mentioned that, because one of the first questions that the people around me started asking was are you bisexual now?

Or are you pan sexual now?

And I was like, honeys, I think you're getting confused yet that's fine, and that's totally normal. By the way, my you know, my sexuality is still the same, like I have a dick, like other people who have dicks, whether those people are cis men or non binary trans people, as long as there's a penis involved.

It's going to be good. Basically, Yeah, nice, That's.

Kind of how I'm sexually identify. But I will say I've always been a little bit like we'll try anything once, like be a little bit fluid.

You know.

I had my first experience with a vagina like two years ago, and I never thought I would do that, and it was bloody beautiful.

So you know, I heard about that. I heard that your dad was like, he was so proud.

Of you, so bad.

So never say never, But I will say that I am, you know, ninety nine point nine percent a raging homosexual and I love it.

I love it.

Oh, my gosh, and I think this is why. I mean the fact that our sexuality is so much more fluid. There are terms now, like there are actual labels to describe things that didn't have a name before, which would have made it even more confusing. But I think for the you know, cis heterosexual person, it's overwhelming to have pant sexual, bisexual, non binary, trance, Like there's so many different terms now, and you don't want to offend anyone either,

Okay, so first st up, listen, I get confused all the time. I fuck up my own pronouns all the time.

Really yeah, all the time.

I've got a handful of non binary friends and I often fuck up their pronouns as well.

We are all human.

My Dalen, And it's really a rewiring of our brains in many ways, even though you know, one of my go to answers to this question is we've actually been using they them, for example, in the singular our whole lives, We've just never been aware of it. So but it's just rewiring the context of this language in terms of the questions that I get asked. I mean, I'm just so happy to be able to teach people, as in

Like?

Is there a criteria?

Do I give them a sale? Yeah? Totally so. And I remember they just said to me, Denny, babe, like, you can make up the rules as you go. There are no rules.

You know, being gay is a huge part of your identity. And also even the term gay, you know, it refers to so many people. So yeah, the questions are just as daunting often as they are for me to you. However, my whole principle is that it's all about intention, and I can you can hear in someone's tone if the intention is pure and they genuinely want to know, or if they've genuinely made a mistake, we're good. Okay, We're absolutely fine. However, if you're going to be a bit

I don't care what you call me at the end of the day, you know, and honestly, if I'm honestly offended, I'll let you know.

You'll tell it. Yeah. Yeah, have you found you? As you mentioned, there are some people who have who don't receive coming out as well. And yeah, I mean usually people who fundamentally in your life aren't the people who matter to you. But being as a kind of public figure,

Of course, I think what's so beautiful about that campaign was that it was completely about self love. It was an opportunity for the Body Shop to educate their audiences on probably I would say, the most important.

Thing have in life, which is the relationship that we have with ourselves.

Now, that's all well and good until someone is telling you to kill yourself on Instagram, you know. Or what's worse perhaps is when people are within your family your extended family, are disrespecting you and invalidating you to a point that you're like, how are we even related? So those moments can be really, really difficult. But then I instantly go back to the message of that campaign. You know,

If you don't genuinely love yourself, until you truly love yourself, I don't believe that you can love someone else. And Rippul says that at the end of every episode of diag Race. Yeah for a reason, and it's so cliche, but I love that quote because I do believe that. So yeah, look, navigating the trolling and the hate.

It hurt the first few times. It still hurts occasionally. It hurts mostly when it comes from women, because it often does come from women. When it comes from guys, I'm like, take a hike, mate, like you're just being a dickhead. But when it comes from women, that does really upset me. Because women, to me are the best gender in the world. They're the most elite species. I just adore them so much, so that does hurt sometimes,

So oh my gosh, this person is hurt and.

They're hurting me because they own hurt. So let's try unpack that hurt and how can we kind of reframe this and take this as a lesson. That's kind of how I know I get it now because I don't have the energy or the desire to be curled up into the fetal position because some wanker thinks that they control me on the internet, like I don't have time.

Yeah, oh my god, I love it so much. Such a good attitude and the only way you can survive as well, because they're I think social is such a blessing and a burden. But if you take the good and learn how to cope with the bad, it can be such a powerful platform because that's how you're changing people's lives.

Yeah, I mean, it's the new media. It's the new you know.

Growing up, I had Oprah Winfrey who I was obsessed with, and I would watch her on the Telly every day. Instagram is the new form of that, It's like, and now we have so many Oprahs who are constantly inspiring us on the daily, you know. So yeah, it's it's a tremendous tool when it's used with love, empathy, and kindness.

Then do you find, because you have become such an important role model in this area, that you're getting pulled in so many different directions, and your career is going so well that like the constant connection to your platforms and like burnout is such a real thing, and also continuing with those like inner child feelings of having to still prove yourself. How do you manage burnout and like turning off your devices and having some time to yourself if you ever do that?

No, no, I'm getting better at it. So look, I'm in aries, So I'm all or nothing?

Are you as well? Yeah? When's your birthday?

Twenty fourth of March?

I was April first?

Oh oh my god. But still that's my my husband's dad's birthday is April first, amazing?

So okay, well then you're very well aware.

I am, you know, all or nothing. Am either all in or I'm not in. There's no gray area with me. So when it comes to my work and socials and kind of keeping on top of it, you know, the first probably twelve months of it, like I was on top of it, responding to every comment every day and giving every single thing I could, and I found that it left my tank very empty in times of like wait, who am I?

Where am I? Like? What's going on? What day is it today. Oh did I just miss my best friend's birthday? Shit, I better call it.

You know, at the start of the year, I was really fortunate in that I was traveling a lot, like I was in Sydney every other week for work, and life just became like getting on a plane, checking into a hotel, being on set do it again the next day, which God wouldn't mind that now after fucking four months lockdown, you know again first world problems, but it can become very draining emotionally and energetically. And I'm an EmPATH, so

Really love that it's been such a big part of your identity. But also think that air is in particular need boundaries. So even having like they can be very different and you can still work much longer hours than the average person, but having some kind of boundary is important because you are sparking. Yeah, you can't be sparkly all the time, which leads really nicely to the last section, which is playta, and that's where we let the inner

So in lockdown world, it's yet nothing, no, no, no, no no. That have my things?

In lockdown world, it's spending a night or you know, multiple nights a week on the couch with my mum, tub of ice cream, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, or the Keeping Up with the Kadashians when it was a crazy Yeah, REALITTV is my favorite form of escape. And doing that in the company of my mother and ice cream heaven in a post Lockdown world. In a pre Lockdown world, it's you know, jumping in the car and going to the beach. Most comfortable when I'm in water,

Bloody good for the soul, Like bring on the puffed off nights.

I'm so excited to go together when when it.

Finally wait for that.

And travel, I mean, it's probably the thing I miss the most. Travel and music are the things that generally fill my cup. So if I can sit in a car and like go somewhere, even if it's down the road, whilst listening to my favorite music, like music is free therapy. I dance every morning while I make coffee or while I'm in the shower, and it's just the best.

My god, me too. I sign up for Steazy. I don't know if you've tried Steeze yet. So good, so so good good, Oh my god, the corry is amazing.

Yeah, I know I need to spend some more time on that.

It's so good. But I'll put like because my husband like usually trying to work or whatever. I'll listen to it in my headphone, so all he can hear is just like my footsteps and me going. It's like I got near the music, but it's like you're absolutely losing the plot by yourself. I have the greatest time.

I'm seizing my ya exactly right.

Second last question, Three interesting things about you that don't normally come up in conversation.

Okay, cool. So One, I have a photographic memory.

Oh yeah, and I have had ever since I was little, so it's really coming handy, which is great.

I love it so much. Two I have five taboos, which me too. Yeah, five tatoos. We love that. My gosh, we're really aries. Tweel we're the same, I know as well.

Where are yours?

So I've got wrists, that was my first one gorgeous.

Got one of my forearm, one of my bicep, one of my neck, and one of my shoulder. Way. And then the third thing is that I oh, so this is actually not a commonly known thing and I sort of have to explain this on my socials this week. So for the comfort of ease, I always introduced myself as serbian because my parents were both Well, my mum was born in Croatia actually, and back then it was

What me, Okay, this is fucked up. Okay, it's so what the Actually that's okay, So listen up.

That's so interesting that you just said that, because in my family and my community, so it's probably about two hundred and fifty of us now give or take a few deaths that we've had in our family in Geelong, right, and that's our Serb Romanian community. So the Romanian that we speak is a very specific dialect of Romanian, so that don't actually speak it in Romania. So we were always very yeah, and also we're very dark skin so my whole family a lot of my uncles look Indian.

We were like, why are we Romanian? Yet? You know we've met people who are.

Romanian that don't speak the same dialect as us. I underd exactly what you just said, but we would say that in a different dialect. So when I was very young, one of our great uncles said, our ancestrists from India.

I've done some research. I know this for a fact, and everyone kind of laughed at him.

They were like, no, we don't believe you, Like how do you get from India to Romania anyway? So I went to India for my thirtieth birthday, and when I tell you, I felt like I was coming home. I called my mum in tears because I was like, Mom, this is where we're from. Like everyone who looks like us, everyone he thinks I'm Indian. Every time I would go into a shop, no one thought I was a tourist.

Some people call them Romani travelers.

So I follow all these Instagram accounts now of the Romany people and I'm like, oh my god, they look like my family.

So we finally actually know where we're from.

So I'm fluent in Serbian, Romanian and Macedonian Ish, a little bit german Ish. So like, there's lots of multiculturalism in this in this household, and I don't think I talk about it enough, and I need to talk about it more because I love it so much.

That is so interesting. So I love languages, like I studied three languages at UNI. Everywhere I go, I try and learn the language. We went to Rwanda, I picked up Kina Orwanda, like I just they're my favorite. That's my ya is like learning the languages love because I think you when you understand the way that people think, like language describes a thought process, it helps you understand their culture. And so anyone that speaks another language and like,

I love it. I love that moment. I've done that many times in my life.

It's great.

Yeah, because sir was my first language. I read, write, speak, dance whatever. Romanian, I can understand it fluently and I can speak it back to say, like my grandma, she speaks at the most in our family, like good like fifty to sixty percent.

But I really need to flex my.

Romanian because when I have I want to make sure that they know how to speak Romanian.

Yeah, so what's your dialect? Is it similar?

So very similar, but it's more slangy.

It's more like villain, which makes sense because we've moved around from India. So basically from what we've gathered from that report was that from India we had a migration moment to Northern Africa and then so in Egypt. Then from Egypt we made our way up to the Middle East and through the Arabia, Lebanon, those sorts of places, and then we landed in Serbia.

Oh my gosh. So we have a bit of a real mixed bag kind of thing.

And I've got members of my family that can actually speak and we call it Gypsy, so they can actually speak Gypsy.

And we love like Remenie gypsy music.

And yes, I've got uncles in Serbia who like their musicians and they sing in Gypsy.

It's amazing, it's so cool.

Oh, you definitely need to talk about them. More's fascinating. Yeah, very last question, what's your favorite quote?

So this is the only question that I looked at on the questions that you sent me, because I generally don't like to just I just go off the cuff normally, but I wanted to give you a good one. So when I was working at Cosmo, my editor Bronwan Makhan was counseling me to my really really big breakup and she said to me, Denny, in the end, it will all be okay.

If it's not okay, it's not the end. I love that one and I'll never forget it.

And she's absolutely right, because sometimes life can be so cloudy, such a shit storm, and you just think, for fuck's sake, give me a break, give me a break, Hanny, and then you go, it's okay, it's not the end.

It's gonna be okay. In the end, it's not the end. Just keep going.

My gosh, that is so beautiful and what an amazing way to end, Denny, Thank you so much. This has been such a joy hours.

That has been the best conversation I've had, without a doubt, all months. Oh my gosh, You're a fucking delight and you just lose empathy, and you provide such a safe space to converse and it's like a pleasure to talk to you genuinely.

Yeah, you are so kind. I've loved this so much, and I when we believe that we need a reunion at point.

Your phone number will lop in calm, We'll make this ship.

Oh my god, can you imagine it'll be the biggest blowout of all time?

Thank you so much, love so much, have a beautiful week.

Oh my gosh. I absolutely love how Denny allows us all to explore new language and concepts without feeling judged or uncomfortable and create such a safe place for us to learn. They inspire me so much to continually honor who I really am and block out the noise or pressure that pulls us in all kinds of directions. What an incredible role model and wonderful human being who is such a joy to chat with. I highly recommend you