Wake that ass up in the morning.
Breakfast Club morning, everybody is Steve j n V. Charlamagne the Guy, just hilarious. We are the Breakfast Club and we got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed we have Rodriguez.
Think I think I am the Latin person what we call now Latin a Latin X next right, I think I think I think I'm the Latin person that's been on the show the most, like my seventh time Dominican.
I know here on the weekend Weekend Dominican.
I think you're fat.
Joe, and I mean fat Joe is Joey crack.
You're never not working new book? Legitimate kid, you know what?
I was laughing because she said that books are the new this record. Yes, yeah, and it is because I'm just in my mama.
And daddy in this Jesus right, Jesus.
I'm holding them accountable, but I'm not never this my mam, mom as my queen.
Why do you call it legitimate kid?
Because kids in the in the hood are evil. And when I was little, a kid told me I was a bastard because I didn't have my father's last name. Jesus, and I found out what it meant, and then I was I felt less than and so I went on a journey to find my legitimacy. And I want all the little kids that grow up in the hood that hear this. Your daddy didn't sign your birth certificate. That doesn't make you legitimate. That that term comes from prostitution.
It has nothing to do with legitimacy, I mean with with parental presence in your life. It yeah, that came being a legitimate came from them saying children that were
born to prostitutes were not legitimate. But then they weaponized that against people of color, poor people, And so I wanted to find out more about myself because that affected the way I dealt with men, you know, my life as a mom and all that stuff, And so I wanted to I want everybody who reads that book to know that they are legitimate.
Now we said something back to the boy or what was what was the joke? Back to the boy? You had something for nah?
You know you know my joke. I was when I was a kid. I was meek when I was little. This didn't happen til like this was in elementary. I didn't get gully till middle school started. You know, peeping the pro wings. You're too young to know what that is. Okay, nikkers from pay less that the poor people used to.
It was cool.
Yeah, that was cool when you now when we was kids, that was food stamps.
You probably had them swagged out there.
Yeah, I did the flailix. Somebody could see that they was play less year just a tip. You can see the tips sticking out.
But now talk about the journey of finding your dad and finding your history.
So you know what my I went to the Dominican Republic. I did the documentary that's on HBO and my father. You know, when I met my father, my father asked me for money, and it was the first question. It was not the first question, but it was probably like the fourth. And it was very painful because I was I just met him and and you know, I was
really upset with him. I dissed them on stage. It was really you know, he was he was d l I was Monique, and it was I went in and then I decided to uh to really explore what that meant. And my father lives in the Dominican Republic. He's been poor his whole life, and you know, I was looking at it from my perspective. I wanted I don't want to hate him. I just didn't want to. I wanted to find love in my heart for him. So I sat down and started exploring all of this stuff, and
I was like, yo, he is poor. His child came from America.
The first, you know, fourth question you want to know about your daughter?
The first three questions? First, what was the first thing? Questions?
You know. The first thing he asked me, he asked me about my mom. He asked me how my mom was doing. He cried, you know, he asked me about how, you know, how things were going for me. You know, he asked me about me. But it was just I was getting ready to leave because I was only there for two days, and he gave me a hug and then he whispered in my ear, I'm gonna need you to give me some money. And I was devastated. I left.
I didn't talk to him for a minute. And you know, they had they had mics on me because we were recording a documentary. We were in production, and so all those people heard it and they were like, oh, they felt bad for me.
Did you give money? I did?
Why did I know I'm.
Not going to say that, but you know, I just I was paying him to go away at that moment. I was like, I'm just because I know he's struggling. But I was like, this is it. This is the cheapest amount of money that I'm gonna give away. And then I had to go through some work, some in work.
Did you learn any because did you learn to give grace to your parents or just realizing they were just human?
Yes, my mom absolutely. You know who knows what my daughter and my son are gonna say about me when they get you know what I mean, like we all think we got it right. You think that because you're not your parents and you're you're not struggling like your parents were, that they had the best shoes. You never know what the kids are going to say, and so I just I learned to My mom had her first kid when she was fourteen, and I didn't know that.
I found out when I was writing the book, and that baby died and the father of the baby died playing Russian roulette. So that was all before I was even born. She was a kid. So I was like, how I'm gonna sit here and judge my mother, Like, I mean, you know.
The traumas and stuff she was dealing with. You know, I was.
Born into it and so and it was generational. My grandmother had her first kid when she was thirteen. My mom was sexually abused at home, so she was trying to get out, you know what I mean, I can't do that to her. She's and even still with all of that, she raised four amazing kids, like none of us have ever been in trouble. We're all productive. Who does that, you know what I mean?
I'd have walked in here and was telling us about an interview she did with Gail King.
Yeah, she said, girl, you've been through some things, you know what. It's interesting though.
She read the book.
And I did an interview a couple of days ago with somebody who didn't read the book. And when I walked in, they were like, girl, your books so funny. And I was like, I disrespect people that were like, you know, I didn't read it, so tell me about it. But she was like you so, and I was like, it's not that tabe of book.
Who is that? Who is that?
Well?
You know what? Ess?
And I walked in, Jess and I walked in and Charlemagne was looking at the book. And he was very interested in the chapter that said pizza and penis.
Yeah, that was the one that I went straight.
To, straight to pizzas because.
I wanted to know about carlos I heard that was your uncle.
I wanted to know what was with him.
We definitely talked about Carlosza.
But he saw pizza and penis and he didn't even see pizza. He just saw m penis.
To ask about this, you need to get into.
You know what's funny, it's Gael Kinge was like that. She was like, I enjoyed this chapter. The chapter is about me getting sexually abused, and so it's not.
Ship ahead.
This is y'all got some good chemistry. It's you know it was it was I was just I want people to be free, like I want people who've been through the stuff I've been through to read this and say I'm gonna be all right. I didn't want, I don't want. I don't want to do trauma porn Like it's not just what is me and my life has been bad. It's every turn is me turning around and say I'm gonna turn this, I'm gonna flip this into this and this is how those things became jokes.
You think a comedian can even have material without trauma.
Yes, I think we have a spectrum of comedy and we need Simba was not trauma driven, and we love Simbat and undeniably one of the funniest. Shout clean, yeah he's healing. Yeah, clean comedy. I do think. So we need we need, especially people of color. We can't all be the color purple. We need some levity. We need to have comedians who are lighthearted and do jokes about things. Everybody doesn't have to be deep and you know that's that's pretentious. I think some of us need, we need
our We ain't have a Carrot Top. Like Carrot Top is a millionaire in Vegas. We've never had a comedian like that that can just be you know why. We always have to have the burden of walking around being the heaviness.
Yeah and brown, a certain privilege that comes with being a Yeah, but.
We need one. We need somebody walking around with props.
And ship just you know, Kevin is the closest thing we got the cat Ken show.
No prepare him to Kevin Hart, because Kevin Hart talks about his experiences as well.
I'm just talking about like man, you got mad.
He got kicked out of the Kevin Hart Show. You have to tell you that story.
Oh no, I didn't.
Never kicked the dumb ass out because he recorded.
Was not recorded?
Was?
But did you get kicked out?
I did get kicked out. I was trying to bootleg the show was not It's not true. It was actually Philly Kevin. Kevin was performing.
My phone started to ring, so they tell you in no shows do not pull your phone out. But you know, when you got kids, when your phone ring, you pick it up. So I went to try to pick it up, like kind of on the low. But you know what, the light is bright. Sure did kick my ass out?
Good?
Yeah, Kevin see me getting kicked out too.
It was like I MBC later. I have no problem with that whatsoever. Wow, Now talk to us about how junkies and prostitutes assisted jama.
My mom was the person she was dating at the time beat her. She was pregnant and he left her for dead in the park in Central Park. She was not muchs pregnant, and it was the junkies and the prostitutes that were around who took her to the hospital and saved her life. So she's she's my mother is not a respective of persons. She lives. She lives that Bible life, like she feeds anybody. She will, she's all, she's she's so wounded, but she will never forget. She
does not look down on anybody. And so we were never allowed to do that. We could never be make fun of somebody because you know, whatever it was, she'd be like, not do that. She will always say it was the prostitutes and the junkies, that's what they called them, not the people. She was like, those are the people who saved your brother's life. And so we were raised to just you know, that's how we all are.
Everybody, when this becomes a movie or mini series, it's gonna be a drama y or a horror movie. What the hell?
Non so dramedy, drama developing a TV show? Now, No, it's gonna be a drama. We gotta laugh at we gotta laugh at it.
How difficult was it to write this?
It was hard as hell.
How long did it take?
Because I wrote my own book, there's no ghostwriter. So the thing is it took me two and a half years, but I've been working on that book for seven years. But you don't you know, Like you say you're going to write a book, and you think because you got the ideas and you got the stories, but when you start writing them down in that publisher, that editor is like, I need eighty thousand words, it becomes a whole different You're like, damn, I could just tell you. When you
write the story down it's two pages. You're like, that's it, I got it. But now you got to go in and you gotta details. And it was. It was one of the hardest things I ever did, one of the greatest lessons for me not to take anything for granted, because you know, authors, these authors have been real snobby towards me, Like even people of color that I've been I've reached out to and I've been posting about their books and they all been kind of kind of like,
kind of greasy with me. And it's because I'm not I'm a comedian stepping into their world and they're like, here goes another one. They're going to do a book and then they're gonna bounce. And I was like, now I've been writing my whole life. My stand up is writing, my TV shows are writing, you know, this book is writing. The movies I've written. I'm a real writer, and I don't need y'all validation because y'all go for that. But
I understand that. You know, they do this all day long, and then celebrities will come in do books, they do the press, and then they out. They're like, that's just one more notch on their belt. They don't really assume the role of author where I could write. I could write books until I die, like I would like to.
It's a good therapy of bad therapy because you have to relive a lot of the stuff, I'm sure trauma that you have since a kid. So sometimes you like you push it out of your brain so you don't have to think about it. But when you're writing a book, you got to dive deep into it. It can't just be like two pages.
Like you said, it was traumatic to relive it, but I needed to do it so I can heal, Like I needed to forgive so I can move on, because you know what, that's the thing about forgiveness. It's for you, right, you think it's for the other person. I ain't forgiven them. It's what do they say? You know? Revenge is like
drinking poison and hoping the enemy dies. I needed to forgive these people, like all of them, my stepfather, the one who got his ass on the bus stop for being racist, Like I needed to just let it go. And I want somebody else to read it and also let it go, Like your life can be so great when you forgive somebody. That doesn't mean you got to hang out with them. You don't have to forget. I choose to forget, but it just it's freedom.
I'm realizing forgiveness isn't linear though. No, it's not because you got to. You gotta remind yourself of CAF forgave them, you know, Yeah.
You gotta and you gotta accept it. Acceptance is probably one of the hardest things we deal with, people always saying love yourself, love yourself, you can love yourself. Acceptance is where we thrive, right, being able to say I'm okay with the fact that I'm never gonna be a size to again, you know what I mean? Like that that is freedom for me instead of you know, love is beautiful, but love what Tina Turner said, what's love got to do with it? I think acceptance has been
the greatest journey for me. And yeah, I forgave them.
People, what are you writing the book teach you about illegitimacy?
You know that illegitimacy and feeling that those feelings of not feeling invalidated are crippling for most people. We all battle with it, whether it's because you dark, dark skin, or you don't speak English, you got you got an accent, you're in a wheelchair, like, we all struggle with it. And they can give it a term for every single sector of it, but the truth is that we all battle with it and we cannot give it to somebody
else to declare it for us. We cannot. That's my favorite scene that Jerry maguire was when Regina King looked Cuba Goodding in the eye and said, we validate our worth. And that was that was like the most powerful thing I had seen at that age because I was much younger. You gotta validate your own worth. In comedy, you know, people are always saying who they think is funny, who
is great? Who is you? Cannot anybody else tell you who you are because if you let if you give them the power to feed you, you give them the power to starve you. That validation has to come from with them.
I was gonna ask. You know, one of the producers after reading the book, was like, she has to hate all men, like, damn, they all men did her dirty in this book. So how do you feel about men after, you know, I'm going through the process of a lot of men that did you dirty, a lot of men that would file to you.
Well, if you read the book, then you would see that I adore my uncles. My uncle Carlos passed away and my uncle Raymond. My uncles raised me. My uncles together they were a transformer. They all got together and they became the father that I needed. And they used to be hustlers, they were on the streets, but they have always been my heroes. I love men so much.
I made a great one. My son is an amazing human being, amazing and I don't hate men, and I hate that the rhetoric, like all of this stuff that goes on on social media with men and women, it is so toxic and unnecessary. It's just divide and conquer. It just keeps getting deeper and deeper in terms of what happens with our communities. I uphold man and I you know, I hold them accountable, but I hold women accountable too. You know, I'm not I'm not basic, so
I don't I don't delve in that man. You know, it's some men that are trash. It's a bunch of women that are trashed too. You know, it's some non binary people that are trash. Yeah, right, so everybody gets it, you know, So I don't hate men.
I think another thing people will learn from. Like, you know, growing up without your father's last name. How do you feel after your mom told you why?
I felt worse because she gave it to me so casually. She was so like cavalier about it, but it was because that was what she knew. She grew up, she didn't have her father's last name. You know, it was like that just means you don't have your dad's last name. Like it's all good for me. It was a stamp that it made me a victim to I thought in my head that means I'm gonna get mistreated. People know my father is not around because my idea of a
daddy was protection. You know it exactly? Yeah, you know, you're very good you you you I don't know if you are in real life, but on social media. You know, you know what I'm saying. You know, people do it all for the you know. But then because I put some people on I know, some some stories. But the thing was that I thought that because that's what I thought a father was. It made me feel vulnerable like I was like, now anybody can do anything to me,
you know whatever, And it wasn't true. My grandmother was walking around with that gun making sure that she protected us.
Man, your story is crazy, even even even having to your mom as a whole, like, because you.
Know what, that's what kids would do when they when you're not they see your mom and then you know, in the hood is everything is get fair game. You know, when you're playing them dozens, those kids will be like, that's why your patty got canceled, Like it's the kids are evil.
Crackhead son the job, your daddy was a crackhead, your mothery crackheads son, crackhead dogs.
Yeah, that's how we process the pain, that's how we deal with it. And when somebody said that mama, the creepiest thing about the whole thing was that the girl, the lady who said my mama was a whole was the biggest hole on the block, Like that's you, you know, and she was talking about my mom because we she thought that because her kids had the same father and we didn't that her, she was better than my mom.
And I was like, how sad. Now that I'm an adult, I'm like, what a saddy assistence that that's where you pop your collar, not something you did positive in the world. But my kids got the same daddy and they got their father's last name, So I'm better than you. And I was like, nah, I was. That's when I started snapping and I was like, no, she she is a whole.
Do you believe what do you believe in people being host Well, you.
Know, it depends on who you are allowed. I mean I always told my daughter, you determine your hole. Don't you let the streets do it. You know what your threshold is if we'll start allowing. I mean, that's very patriarchal. That's where it's rooted in and people men get to call women holes all day long and assess their value while they out there hoeing, spreading diseases, doing all kinds of stuff. Not all men, but y'all know yeah what
I'm talking about. So do I think do I believe in the concept of ho You know, I think it's nuanced. You know, do we perpetuate some of that stuff if we're telling little girls that if you have you don't let nobody take it goods if they're not giving you money, because we like to uphold that rhetoric. And then but that is why little girls volunteer for cartels on the border and say I want to I want to work because I want to have you know, Gucci or whatever.
So there's a fine line. We need to have honest conversations about that. The terminology of hoe is something I rebuke because it comes from toxic men when they are telling women that their hosts are you willing to turn the camera onto yourself? You call you yourself a hole because your your value doesn't drop in society like ours does.
But you know, I don't, I don't know. I mean, we all had our moments where we we we were a little more playful than and then our moments were were a little more dedicated and serious, and we should be able to do that, right.
Yeah, I believe in the concept, but whole and if it goes both ways, if you if you're gonna call the guy to hold for the nasty and we do it like we know some nasty. Yeah, some nasty day we do too.
Yeah.
You know, so if it goes both ways, I believe in the concept. But if you're only just saying that to a woman, I don't.
Oh man, I respect that, and that's all things have to be fair.
You know.
They love to count women's partners. You'll say, oh, she was with such a such, but then you see the dudes and you're like, but damn, like he's been with everybody, but he gets praised for that, you know what I mean, you had that, you had her, and then it's like you messed with him. Yeah, And I don't know, like, do you use condoms with everybody? You know, like it's it's it's we do. Yeah. So I think that if you're gonna use holes, let it be across the board.
But if you take that holes out too, because we use it.
I mean, I'm not going to come up here and act like I'm pious, like I'm some you know, we don't do that. We'll be calling people holes too. But we we talk about dudes like we talk about women.
We're not.
We're not just sitting here.
You know.
Women love to do that too, because women, we they have socialized us to hate each other. So when we we love to call other women you know I'm not like that, Yes you are. You've had your moments. Stop it.
And also the other thing about the whole and nobody would know who's doing what if everybody would just shut the fuck up, Like, how do you even find out a person as a whole? Who's is every guy saying that they slept with this everybody? Yeah, and you've been there before. I'm probably in your youngest South Carolina. Most of these guys tho you got to be a guy. He's lying like like like, oh you hit No.
You know that my partner saying it's talked.
About the need to shut up.
The thing is like, do you really care? Like, honestly, the thing about social media that's really been my management is always like you're really terrible at social media. And but I'll say this, like I'm always watching people like the people who are like I'm letting the haters know nobody cares like people who are like I'll show them who you showing.
People look at.
It, they'll comment, they'll talk about it, and then they move on to the next thing because it's they're consuming it, like the ritos they don't care. You put so much effort into shutting your haters down. God blessed James Hannah, a brilliant comedian who passed away. He used to say people of colors haters are their imaginary friends, because it was like they don't exist. He was like, it's it's you know, we put so much, we put so much weight on that. Do you really care? It's something I
don't care. Who's a whole? Like they talk about j Lo all the time, and I'm like, what does it? How does that affect my food?
Like?
How does that affect my mama? Give a damn? Like it's it's far. It's for a minute and then you move on. So just remember when you are directing all that energy to the people who you really think you're shutting down, they don't care. Nobody cares.
That's right now, it's almost the holidays. These memoirs cause problems. Oh yeah, how does your family feel about you revealing so much in the book.
Yeah, I don't know. I think the only people who read the book so far my aunt and uncle, the normal ones that are in DC, because the half of my family is in Florida and the other half is in like the DC Virginia and the DMV and yeah, they're the normal ones, so they're cool. They all right, I'm gonna read them. I'm gonna sit with my mom and go through the book because I want to make sure that my mom is in Yeah. I can't, I don't. I don't ever want to demonize her. So I want
her to understand where that came from. And I'm gonna read the back first with her, because you know, I give her grace throughout the book, but I want her to know that she's still the queen.
Wow, are you dreading that conversation?
It needs to be had. She still has to be accountable. She was still my mom, you know, like I still did. I still went through a lot of stuff in life, you know, as a kid, and she should you know, she's she said to me, I'm so sorry for the things that I put you through. I was, I was a kid. But you know, I think it's it's a necessary conversation for us to heal. She needs to forgive her mother. She's still holding on to things about my grand and my grandmother is dead. I'm like, bro, you
gotta let it go. Like she's she's gone, you know, And you just you have to move on.
I don't think there's too many things that are more free and than apology from your parents.
I got it.
That's why I say I apologize now as a father to you my young kids, just because I know how I felt. They never hear that from a parent. You feel like mighty did you dirt? Yeah?
And amnesia. Like my mom used to beat my ass, and now when I talk about it, she's like, I never hit you, And I'm like, what this is revisionist history at its best. She used to beat I mean I she she fractured my ankle. I wrote an she did my mother was because my mom got hit with an extension chord too, so she felt like because she hit us with a belt that it wasn't and it wasn't.
But I was like, yo, and I switched my ground that my grandmother we used to and so that's a that's a people of color things, and Spanish is called la ladita and they be like and she'll go go get go, get your switch. And that was There was no winning in that. There was not a switch that didn't hurt, that didn't exist.
You know, Jesus, all right, The book is out right now make sure you get it.
Us.
Thank you for having me. I appreciate y'all.
You got coming up. You always working.
So I'm directing another special comedy special. I'm trying to direct as many women of color comedy special because I want to them to get out. Marcella's did really well on HBO. I'm doing one with Gina Brion. I'm shooting her special in December. And I'm developing two TV shows because I want to. I want to not just work, but I want to be surrounded by people who look like me, sound like me, you know, people of color, black people, and I want to I want to put
some people to work there. So I'm developing the shows right now, and I'm getting ready to direct this special. Dope, amazing congratulation.
Thank you Rodriguez, get legitimate kid right now. And it's the Breakfast Club, Good morning, and the book is not funny in the morning, Breakfast Club