Speaker 1: When I was a little girl, I asked my parents
Speaker 1: to go to a Blockbuster to rent me Oz. That's
Speaker 1: the graphic HBO series about a group of men in prison.
Speaker 1: What I meant to ask for was The Whiz. That's
Speaker 1: the black musical adventure film starring Diana Ross. But sometimes
Speaker 1: things get lost in translation.
Speaker 2: That's comedian Chanelle Allie at our Last Boys Over Live Show.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, I was a weird kid. To
Speaker 1: be even more fair, they weren't my parents. They were
Speaker 1: just my foster parents, one group out of many. I
Speaker 1: don't even remember their names in particular. But still I
Speaker 1: wonder what it was like with them driving a Blockbuster
Speaker 1: that day. Did they ride in silence thinking about what
Speaker 1: they were gonna do, then get back in the car
Speaker 1: and start to ponder, Well, maybe Chanelle just loves a
Speaker 1: good HBO series. Well, you know, honey, I bet you
Speaker 1: Chanelle cares about prison reform regardless. I watched three episodes
Speaker 1: before I was convinced Michael Jackson is not in this
Speaker 1: and this soundtrack is gloomy as hill.
Speaker 2: The Whiz isn't the only thing Chanelle had to find
Speaker 2: on her own. Her story takes us through her quest
Speaker 2: to find her biological family and break generational patterns, and
Speaker 2: before we go further be warned. When she told this
Speaker 2: story at the live show, there was not a dry
Speaker 2: eye in the house. I'm hopewondered and welcome to boys
Speaker 2: Over a space where we're learning and unlearning. All the
Speaker 2: myths were taught about love and relationships.
Speaker 1: I live in a lot of different homes growing up.
Speaker 1: I got taken away from my mom when I was two.
Speaker 1: She had experimented with drugs in the eighties because she
Speaker 1: was really pretty. Even though she got clean prior to
Speaker 1: being pregnant with me, some of those experiences left her
Speaker 1: a little dilapidated. I always described my mom as a
Speaker 1: shell of a person. She would just disappear in the
Speaker 1: middle of conversation, and by the time I was five,
Speaker 1: I had some questions about it. I'd be like, I
Speaker 1: don't understand this. Why can't you come get me? People
Speaker 1: keep saying you're sick. You look fine. That outfit is lit.
Speaker 2: Chanelle, Welcome to boy Sover.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Of course, you grew up in foster care, in a
Speaker 2: foster family.
Speaker 1: With a lot of foster families, but also with like
Speaker 1: some extended family, like some aunts and some uncles. I
Speaker 1: was around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, okay, and your mom was in your life,
Speaker 2: you were just not living with her.
Speaker 1: Well, I got taken away from her when I was two.
Speaker 1: She was diagnosed with bipolar and paraheid schizophrenia. And then
Speaker 1: I got taken over my grandmother when I was like six,
Speaker 1: and then I was in the system. So she was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I always describe her as like a shell
Speaker 1: of a person. Yeah, just I was never really able
Speaker 1: to communicate with her for very long. She would just
Speaker 1: drift off in the middle of a sentence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally I understand watching someone interact with somebody
Speaker 2: who you love and care about and seeing them do
Speaker 2: it in a way where you're like, that's not really working.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: How old were you when you were like having those
Speaker 2: realization five?
Speaker 1: Really young? Yeah. I think also that relationship taught me
Speaker 1: a lot about love, you know, because here was this
Speaker 1: family dynamic where was like, she's supposed to be taking
Speaker 1: care of me. But as soon as I had my wherewithal,
Speaker 1: I felt like I am in control and I'm kind
Speaker 1: of handling a lot of these conversations. And even when,
Speaker 1: like a social worker would say to me, well, you
Speaker 1: can't live with your mom because she's sick. They would
Speaker 1: never say it's because she's bipolar parents, that's right. They
Speaker 1: would just say sick. But even though I didn't have
Speaker 1: the words, I was like, she's not sick. And I
Speaker 1: have this memory that I talk about in my One
Speaker 1: Woman show where I kind of break down this relationship
Speaker 1: with my mom. I remember having visitation with her a
Speaker 1: lot while I was out austral care and one time
Speaker 1: I had visitation and we were just laughing, just hysterically
Speaker 1: giggling for what seemed like an eternity. I remember asking
Speaker 1: her in the middle of it, like what are we
Speaker 1: laughing at? And she, without missing a beat, was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, and then we just started laughing again.
Speaker 1: And it was like moments like that where I always
Speaker 1: felt like if someone else saw that interaction, they'd be like,
Speaker 1: something's wrong with her. But to me, I was like,
Speaker 1: this lady's chilling, Like I never saw TV mom's act
Speaker 1: like that. You know, I knew she was different, but
Speaker 1: I appreciated it about her. I just also wish she
Speaker 1: would like make dinner, you know what I'm saying totally,
Speaker 1: So it was like I understood that she couldn't take
Speaker 1: care of us. But yeah, she had visitation for a
Speaker 1: couple of years, but then after a while not really Okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so by the time I was like eight, I really
Speaker 1: wasn't seeing her.
Speaker 2: And when you were eight, you were with your grandmother. No,
Speaker 2: what's your grandmother's vibe?
Speaker 1: She's Italian, a Jewish Italian lady. You know, hung out
Speaker 1: with only black people. A lot of people used to
Speaker 1: think she was black, including me, until I'm wasten out
Speaker 1: in junior high and you were like, wait. You know,
Speaker 1: I went to Target and then the next day I
Speaker 1: went to school and this girl was like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing with that, oh white lady? And I was like,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Totally I was like, well she looks white.
Speaker 1: You know. But yeah, she was hilarious and honestly, like
Speaker 1: my grandmother was, like I would say, my greatest champion
Speaker 1: throughout my whole life. She really was the core of,
Speaker 1: like I would say, some of my sense of humor,
Speaker 1: but also like my self confidence. You know. She did
Speaker 1: not take shit from nobody. I mean, if she gave
Speaker 1: you a coupon for two cents off and she didn't
Speaker 1: get it, we're going to drive back to the store.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna figure that out.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna make sense financially, but it's the principle
Speaker 1: of money on gas. Yeah. And I think she really,
Speaker 1: you know, appreciated having a black grandchild, and she really
Speaker 1: like relished in that. She was like, I want to
Speaker 1: teach you about all of the things that the world
Speaker 1: is going to assume about you and how some of
Speaker 1: these interactions are going to play out. And I want
Speaker 1: you to understand what you know once you start school,
Speaker 1: why they're doing this or why this is happening. And
Speaker 1: I just think she was like always on my team,
Speaker 1: even though she wasn't my guardian. She always had visitation
Speaker 1: no matter where I moved, Like I wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: able to afford a prom dress, I wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: able to do a lot of the things as a
Speaker 1: kid if my grandmother wasn't constantly checking in, sending me
Speaker 1: something and just like being my champion. And then you know,
Speaker 1: when I was seventeen, I met my dad.
Speaker 2: Right and see me about wanting to meet him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: where did those thoughts kind of begin? Like at where
Speaker 2: were you in life when you were like I think.
Speaker 1: I should I mean pretty much. As soon as I
Speaker 1: went into foster care, I was like, where's my father?
Speaker 1: Like I'm having visitation with my mom, and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: real quick, yeah, yeah, yeah, who's my dad? Can you write?
Speaker 1: Do you just real quick? Can you write the same?
Speaker 1: Why have you? Why have you? You know? She just
Speaker 1: goes she just goes off, you know, she's just off
Speaker 1: floating in the room. And so I was like obsessed
Speaker 1: with trying to find him. She would tell me his
Speaker 1: name and she would say, I know he's your dad,
Speaker 1: I just can't find him. So, like, as soon as
Speaker 1: the internet became a thing totally, I was on it.
Speaker 1: I went to the bank to get my first debit
Speaker 1: card just so I could pay for some online services
Speaker 1: that it was going to find his address. Whoa, because
Speaker 1: I can't like ask anybody, Nobody's gonna help me with this.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I got my first debit card, I
Speaker 1: paid for the service that gave me his address. My
Speaker 1: grandmother took me there. She knew what you were up to.
Speaker 1: I was keeping a secret. I was terrified to tell
Speaker 1: anybody because I don't know. I don't know that this
Speaker 1: guy's my dad and I'm about to go to his
Speaker 1: house and I'm a kid.
Speaker 2: You're a kid, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: You're fourteen. So I was like, if I do have
Speaker 1: a dad, it would be lit if he like showed up.
Speaker 1: So she I'm terrified to tell her, like, hey, I
Speaker 1: paid for this service and I found this address and
Speaker 1: I think it's my dad. And I tell her and
Speaker 1: I'm like so terrified that she's gonna be like, you
Speaker 1: went to the bank, and she was like, let's find him.
Speaker 1: Heck yeah, she took me there. It was raining because
Speaker 1: we like to be dramatic. Oh, and I knock on
Speaker 1: this door, and I'm just feeling this energy, like this
Speaker 1: man is about to open the door, and he's probably
Speaker 1: gonna be like a tall version of me. I don't know,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna he's he'll know as soon as he
Speaker 1: sees me, he'll know. And he never answers the door.
Speaker 1: Nobody ever comes, and I just wait in the rain.
Speaker 1: I wait, I wait, and then his neighbor comes home
Speaker 1: and he sees this little girl crying in the rain
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh that guy, yeah, he did used
Speaker 1: to live there, but he moved like a year ago
Speaker 1: and he didn't leave like affording address. I never heard
Speaker 1: from him again, and I just felt like I was
Speaker 1: so close. It destroyed me for a little bit because
Speaker 1: I was like, he's real and I almost had him,
Speaker 1: and I'm a genius, but my grandmother drives slow, and
Speaker 1: there's all these yellows like you should ye, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: It just felt like you to deal with. I kept
Speaker 1: telling myself that, like, I'm getting older, Like two years
Speaker 1: after that, I was like sixteen. Now I'm preparing for
Speaker 1: college and I'm about to start, you know, focusing on
Speaker 1: my future. So I was like, Shanelle, you can't just
Speaker 1: keep trying to find him. You know, hopefully he will.
Speaker 1: But I do think that I manifested it a little
Speaker 1: bit because I was still very focused on him, like
Speaker 1: I wish my dad would show up? Where's my dad?
Speaker 1: Who is my dad? Really could use a dad in here.
Speaker 2: Can I ask you how you were imagining him like
Speaker 2: his qualities.
Speaker 1: I think I assumed that he probably looked a lot
Speaker 1: like me because my mom is half Italian obviously and
Speaker 1: half Indian, so she's not much black at all, Like
Speaker 1: she has a little bit of a mix, but we
Speaker 1: have a lot of the similar features, but we don't
Speaker 1: really look alike. So I've always known like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: my dad must be black and he probably looks like me.
Speaker 1: So I think I envisioned like just a really handsome man,
Speaker 1: which he is, which he is, so it was right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think I envisioned like this warm energy
Speaker 1: and like a big Papa bear type guy.
Speaker 2: I like an embrace, like a warm embrace.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't even know why. Maybe I think
Speaker 1: I was influenced by a lot of movies.
Speaker 2: I wonder what stories, Yeah, like influencing your.
Speaker 1: Probably mostly like Blair Underwood the actor.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's like, probably what my dad is like,
Speaker 1: probably you know, yeah, little Eddie Murphy probably in there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably little my dad.
Speaker 2: Uh So when you met him, Yeah, talk to me
Speaker 2: about that moment.
Speaker 1: So I tracked him down after we took a court
Speaker 1: ordered paternity test, but the government didn't give me his
Speaker 1: address or his phone number.
Speaker 2: A court ordered paternity test, Like, how does that process work?
Speaker 2: And how did you feel through that process?
Speaker 1: It's like when you're a foster kid or you're living
Speaker 1: with someone else. If it's gone through the government, then
Speaker 1: that person gets money every month to take care of you,
Speaker 1: and that means that those kids technically become a bill.
Speaker 1: M they become a bill in the system that needs
Speaker 1: to be rectified. And so as I was nearing eighteen,
Speaker 1: whatever caseworker was trying to get that case off of
Speaker 1: her desk. I'm sure, and she was like, well, we
Speaker 1: have this one piece of paper because he wasn't on
Speaker 1: my birth certificate, but this say is this guy's name,
Speaker 1: Let's look him up. When I was seventeen, I got
Speaker 1: a letter from the government. They were on that piece
Speaker 1: of paper. They asked for my DNA. They said they
Speaker 1: had found a guy that I thought was my father,
Speaker 1: and there was the same name that I had been searching,
Speaker 1: the same name that my mother had brought up, the
Speaker 1: same name that I was never sure if it was
Speaker 1: even real. They swabbed my cheek, tested my DNA. I
Speaker 1: got a letter in the mail a couple weeks later.
Speaker 1: It said, hey, that's the one. It told me that
Speaker 1: my father was a cop. That's why I hadn't been
Speaker 1: able to find him all of these years, because you
Speaker 1: can't look up a cop. You could get a ticket
Speaker 1: tonight from a cop. All you have is their name.
Speaker 1: You can't find their address with their phone number. And
Speaker 1: this is pre Facebook before cops were online talking about
Speaker 1: the blacks are always resisting. My father was super unlisted,
Speaker 1: but still, what's the notion that he was a cop
Speaker 1: in a certain state. I knew that I could find him.
Speaker 1: I got out a phone book, I got out a map.
Speaker 1: I started in the city my mom was born, and
Speaker 1: I started calling police stations day after day after day
Speaker 1: after day, saying, do you have an officer by this name?
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of an officer by this name?
Speaker 1: Day after day after day, until one day a guy answered.
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, we got an officer by that name
Speaker 1: in this precinct. I was shocked. I hadn't thought of
Speaker 1: what I would say next. I hadn't gone that far
Speaker 1: in my plan. I said, can I leave a message? Yeah, lady,
Speaker 1: what do you want to say? Just my name and
Speaker 1: my number? And then I waited beyond just having a
Speaker 1: relationship with him. I was seeking closure, like I was
Speaker 1: prepared to call him and him say, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: I know about you, and I don't want this. And
Speaker 1: I've known this whole time. I've been running. Why do
Speaker 1: you keep finding me? Why are you looking for me
Speaker 1: so hard?
Speaker 2: Behind me this whole time? And said that you were
Speaker 2: over there I heard a little girl was looking for me,
Speaker 2: and I got scared.
Speaker 1: I was just like so convinced that whether it was
Speaker 1: good or bad, if he would just tell me, I
Speaker 1: could let it go and maybe I could focus. So yeah,
Speaker 1: eventually he called, and he sounded very well meaning, and
Speaker 1: so then we scheduled to meet.
Speaker 2: What did he say on that phone call?
Speaker 1: He left a voicemail, actually, and I have it like
Speaker 1: pretty burned into my memory, and it was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is so and so I can't believe you found me.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for calling me. I want to
Speaker 1: start out by saying I never denied you. I never
Speaker 1: was sure if you were my daughter. You know, I
Speaker 1: know that you're about to graduate high school, but like,
Speaker 1: I'm here, please call me. I want to have a
Speaker 1: relationship with you. Like all of the things he said,
Speaker 1: the right thing. Yes, I remember listening to the voicemail.
Speaker 1: I'm at a track of me and I'm just crying, crying, crying,
Speaker 1: just pouring us, pouring, pouring, pouring out of me. And
Speaker 1: I was just like, Okay, so let's go. And so
Speaker 1: we meet in the parking lot of a Chili's restaurant
Speaker 1: because I like dramatics, baby.
Speaker 2: I mean that's just like an American family and family
Speaker 2: American store, like you know what I.
Speaker 1: Mean, Chili, No, I'm in the chili. We met in
Speaker 1: the park life and then we went in and I'll.
Speaker 2: Tell you there's nothing like a conversation with your distant
Speaker 2: father at a chain.
Speaker 1: Restaurant, like you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: For me and my father, like we were always having
Speaker 2: these like emotional talks about his ability and capability as
Speaker 2: a time at a Ruby Tuesday.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're familiar, yes, but like that
Speaker 2: is where fathers are. Some something happened really able to
Speaker 2: Like it's the TV, the terms with something.
Speaker 1: Maybe they should start doing family therapy.
Speaker 2: And like, honestly, I think it would be nice.
Speaker 1: Thursday, you know market get bad. Yeah, we met. The
Speaker 1: first time I walked up to him. It's like walking
Speaker 1: up to a mirror, a mirror that only shows you
Speaker 1: certain parts of yourself. I looked in his eyes and
Speaker 1: I saw my own eyes looking back at me. It
Speaker 1: was weird. It was like he got him from me,
Speaker 1: like maybe I was his dad. He was kind of
Speaker 1: like what I imagined. He was very like very buff,
Speaker 1: like bodybuilder buff, and he told me he had won
Speaker 1: the title of like bodybuilding competitions a few years like
Speaker 1: has awards and medals. He was like, oh, I'm an
Speaker 1: award winning cop, you know. He just he was like
Speaker 1: longer than yeah. He was like, I'll be saving people.
Speaker 1: I was like, we're not taking care of him.
Speaker 2: Weird, so weird.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of duties, right, But no, he
Speaker 1: was like we had such similar mannerisms. He was so charismatic.
Speaker 1: We're sitting in this Chili's and he's talking to me
Speaker 1: like he's know life. I'm going to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I was your mom was Wallen, and I just,
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't sure and I heard that you
Speaker 1: were moving around and I couldn't like really track you down,
Speaker 1: and like I didn't even care about that. I was
Speaker 1: like so so over that it was. I was so
Speaker 1: excited to ask my dad where are our people from?
Speaker 1: Because I obviously like we're from Africa, but like, you know,
Speaker 1: because I had been trying to find out who I
Speaker 1: was my whole life, and he was like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, we're from like Mississippi or something.
Speaker 2: Can I ask you kind of a question that might
Speaker 2: find that I don't know if.
Speaker 1: It's going to go for it to the line, get it.
Speaker 2: Well, just how did you feel like in your blackness
Speaker 2: in a way hanging out with people? Did you have
Speaker 2: black friends? Did you have? But really where were you at?
Speaker 2: Like how did you fit?
Speaker 1: It was? But I also on my mom's side of
Speaker 1: the family was the only black person. I remember not
Speaker 1: being able to talk to my mom's sister about like
Speaker 1: my hair. I wasn't able to because her hair is
Speaker 1: wildly different, or my grandmother having to always pay somebody
Speaker 1: to braid my hair because she was like, I just
Speaker 1: I literally can't.
Speaker 2: Keep trying to do it, and I want you to
Speaker 2: look good, and I want you.
Speaker 1: To let's pay somebody to come and do it. And
Speaker 1: so to then jump into my dad's family and be
Speaker 1: the I would say, the lightest skin black person. There
Speaker 1: was this dynamic where I was like, what's our culture
Speaker 1: over here? Tell me what we have? And he was
Speaker 1: like culture, I'm a cop, right, Like you're a CoP's daughter.
Speaker 2: Now, No, totally, that's like a whole nother thing, you know,
Speaker 2: like being a bit cut off from some kind of connection,
Speaker 2: some sort of something.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, you could tell. When I asked him
Speaker 1: that he had never ever considered that before. Damn, like
Speaker 1: where our people are from?
Speaker 2: Damn.
Speaker 1: And I think I don't judge too many Black Americans
Speaker 1: for feeling that way, but as somebody who had like
Speaker 1: just searched my whole life to try to figure out
Speaker 1: who I was, it was shocking to me that he
Speaker 1: was like not even a little curious.
Speaker 2: Well, also, your grandmother is Italian and Jewish exactly, which
Speaker 2: is like deep in the identity, do you know what
Speaker 2: I mean? So there's probably a piece of that too
Speaker 2: that you're kind of like carry over to your other side.
Speaker 1: Yes, I even you know, you know, I like some
Speaker 1: of the Jewish traditions. I washed my ants so as
Speaker 1: I wake up, you know what I mean. And I
Speaker 1: also like to celebrate Dwale. It's an Indian holiday. I
Speaker 1: love it. I think it feels like the new Year
Speaker 1: to me. So to kind of have this mix of
Speaker 1: things that are important to me, and then for my
Speaker 1: dad to be like, I don't know, like just try
Speaker 1: to make money and like just like I don't know,
Speaker 1: don't get arrested. I was like, what are we? What's
Speaker 1: our mantra? What flag is on the wall? I'm sad
Speaker 1: and now that I've like taken you know, DNA tests
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and I know that I'm a
Speaker 1: little Nigerian and I have people from like early old
Speaker 1: I'm like, I love that. Yeah, And I was just like,
Speaker 1: this is fun. Don't you just want to your identity celebrate?
Speaker 2: You want to wonder because well we know where.
Speaker 1: We came from with it makes your storyteller.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you gotta have the contacts.
Speaker 1: It mattered to me. I was like, let's what are we.
Speaker 2: Doing thinking back on it now, like do you think about, like, oh,
Speaker 2: what was he feeling? How do you see him?
Speaker 1: I remember him saying to me, like because he had
Speaker 1: to travel to come see me. Once we decided to
Speaker 1: meet up, and he was saying that he felt really
Speaker 1: lonely on the plane ride and like in the hotel
Speaker 1: I guess that he had stayed in, and I think
Speaker 1: it was like almost like this pilgrimage. I think he
Speaker 1: felt like he was making to me, but I had
Speaker 1: no sympathy for that, right, I didn't show it, but
Speaker 1: I definitely felt that in the moment. I still feel
Speaker 1: that way now, and I felt this way with a
Speaker 1: lot of people in my life. I feel like when
Speaker 1: I started to talk to him about things that I
Speaker 1: had been through. It was wildly uncomfortable for him, like
Speaker 1: to the point where I stopped. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I won't tell you about any of the other foster homes.
Speaker 2: You could sense it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, you're really uncomfortable with that.
Speaker 2: Life is too heavy for you to hold.
Speaker 1: This lifetime story. You'd rather you'd rather not yea. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't that I wanted to like make him feel bad,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to help him understand how I had
Speaker 1: been built up. I felt like that was important because
Speaker 1: I have these ideas of what a father daughter relationship
Speaker 1: is supposed to look like, but none of those relationships
Speaker 1: that I saw depicted had a person like me. So
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I need you to understand that,
Speaker 1: Like I don't even know how to have a dad,
Speaker 1: So let's let me tell you, like some of what
Speaker 1: the things I've been through.
Speaker 2: Did you all? So after you met, did you maintain
Speaker 2: a relationship?
Speaker 1: Yeah? But it was rocky because again I went from
Speaker 1: being a foster kid who moved around a ton and
Speaker 1: really never had much of an authority figure totally to
Speaker 1: being a CoP's daughter. Yeah, and now I'm ingratiated into
Speaker 1: Cop Barbecue's COPI basements. So he pulls you in, yes,
Speaker 1: and he's like, it's this weird thing among the other
Speaker 1: cops where they're like, Wow, you found a daughter that
Speaker 1: was in foster care this whole time.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you're such a good man for taking
Speaker 2: her and you're reunited.
Speaker 1: It's this whole thing. And I felt a lot of
Speaker 1: disconnection with him, and I often felt like, well, if
Speaker 1: I didn't call him, we didn't talk.
Speaker 2: Sure, And so.
Speaker 1: By the time I graduated college, I was like, I
Speaker 1: know what it's like to not have a dad, right,
Speaker 1: and now I've had a dad, and it's been kind
Speaker 1: of shitty. Can it's you always have a gun. It's
Speaker 1: just not relaxing. It's not relaxing as I thought it
Speaker 1: was gonna be first boyfriend home to me. You you're
Speaker 1: cleaning your gun again. Why is your gun always so dirty?
Speaker 2: God?
Speaker 1: Like, this is insane, so dirty.
Speaker 2: I know you don't have to clean it all the time.
Speaker 1: You said you have used a locked cleaning it, and
Speaker 1: I said, I was ringing rell over tonight. Right. You
Speaker 1: knew he was good. My father made one promise to
Speaker 1: me when he met he met me at eighteen, he
Speaker 1: said he would pay for my college education, a very
Speaker 1: reasonable promise. Four years later I graduated, I afforded him
Speaker 1: the first student loan bill. He wrote me back, he said,
Speaker 1: what's this? I said, what's this? It's that thing. It's
Speaker 1: that thing that I've been working on, you know, the
Speaker 1: last four years, A thing that foster kids rarely get
Speaker 1: to do, the thing that I had been focused on
Speaker 1: before you ever came into my life. It's the thing,
Speaker 1: he said, I don't really have the money for it.
Speaker 1: You gonna have to figure it out. But my dad
Speaker 1: had taken out private bank loans for me. There was
Speaker 1: no deferring, there was no consolidating. They went into my
Speaker 1: account and they took the money. Whether I had it
Speaker 1: or not. They would overdraw me. Sixty days from getting
Speaker 1: that first student loan bill, I had no viction notice
Speaker 1: on my front door. For all of my efforts to
Speaker 1: be self sufficient, my new dad showed up and shot me.
Speaker 1: At the starting line.
Speaker 2: In your story, you talk about like a big promise
Speaker 2: he makes you. He promises to pay for your school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he promises to pay for my student loans, which
Speaker 1: I think is like the right thing to do when
Speaker 1: you meet a girl, she's about to turn eighteen, and
Speaker 1: she's she got into college herself.
Speaker 2: I love that you say when you meet a girl,
Speaker 2: When you meet a girl and it's like his daughter.
Speaker 1: You met a girl and she's yours, and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to college. I benefuse her. Kid. I've
Speaker 1: been I've you know, like I've overcome incredible things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to accomplish this goal way before you even got here.
Speaker 2: It wasn't unsolicited, though, it was unsolicited because I'm assuming
Speaker 2: I would never ask for it.
Speaker 1: Of course no, and I, without him, had already gotten
Speaker 1: a few scholarships, so I was like already, like I
Speaker 1: wouldn't know he was going to show up, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't know he's the answer to the phone. So
Speaker 1: I had already been like, you know, getting it done,
Speaker 1: but still definitely needed help. And also it was kind
Speaker 1: of this like do you that like, well, I'll go
Speaker 1: to Temple in Philly because it's close to Jersey and
Speaker 1: then I'll be able to continue, you know, this relationship.
Speaker 2: You know, so you were making a choice sort of
Speaker 2: somewhat based on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could win anywhere. I had good grades. I
Speaker 1: was getting scholarships, but yeah, So he promised to pay.
Speaker 1: And then throughout college we're really only talking here and there.
Speaker 1: We're just not talking that much, like you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, a couple times a year we're talking. But
Speaker 1: I forward him the first bill and he's like, what's
Speaker 1: this m And he's like, why just don't have the money,
Speaker 1: like tell them to defer it, tell them to you
Speaker 1: know whatever. But he had taken out like private bank loans,
Speaker 1: like a like a bank called Wakovia, which I don't
Speaker 1: even think it exists anymore. And so you can't like
Speaker 1: consolidate those, you can't defer those. They're just kind of
Speaker 1: take it. And so once he broke that promise to me,
Speaker 1: it was like the icing on the cake where I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I've literally forgiven you for not
Speaker 1: being here. I survived without you this long. If you
Speaker 1: can't keep this promise to me, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: look in your face every day and lie and be
Speaker 1: like this is my Daddy's amazing m hm. He's ruining
Speaker 1: my life and my credit. You. I wrote him a
Speaker 1: letter because I felt like you wouldn't really talk to
Speaker 1: me about it. So I wrote him a letter, like
Speaker 1: put it in the mail and was just like, here's
Speaker 1: the numbers you said you would pay for this, because
Speaker 1: I'm still like living on my own, I'm working, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to survive. And I was like, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: continue a relationship with you if you're not gonna keep
Speaker 1: this promise. And he's like, well, you're gonna have to.
Speaker 2: Figure it out.
Speaker 1: He has no sympathy. You're gonna have to figure it out.
Speaker 1: You could have nobody told you to go to Temple,
Speaker 1: you know, you could have went somewhere it was cheap,
Speaker 1: or just anything he can say to shirk the responsibility.
Speaker 1: He's not, so then our relationship becomes like now we're
Speaker 1: just only talking about the student loans. I was sitting
Speaker 1: in my apartment and I found myself obsessed with the
Speaker 1: YouTube series Finding Your Roots. That's where they have a
Speaker 1: celebrity on they test their DNA and they tell him
Speaker 1: something cool like your aunt is Pocahontas. That sounded write
Speaker 1: up my alley to find my Roots? Hey who books this? Hey?
Speaker 1: How do I get on this? Somebody find my roots?
Speaker 1: Can you all find my roots? I was going crazy
Speaker 1: that day. I watched ten hours of this YouTube series. Finally,
Speaker 1: I slammed the laptop shut. I pried myself away from it,
Speaker 1: only at that exact moment to get an email notification
Speaker 1: on my phone. It was from Kevin Hart's production team.
Speaker 1: They were asking me for a sample of my DNA
Speaker 1: so that I could be in a commercial for twenty
Speaker 1: three and meters. How could this be? I was just
Speaker 1: thinking about this. Could the FBI really be that efficient?
Speaker 1: They've bugged my tiny queen's apartment. They're watching my YouTube.
Speaker 1: I had spit on a lot of things for free.
Speaker 1: I said, send the tube. They test my DNA. We
Speaker 1: fly to California to shoot the commercial, and the commercial
Speaker 1: was about my genetic predisposition. They told me I was
Speaker 1: most likely afraid of heights and good at public speaking.
Speaker 1: They were right about both. I get back to New
Speaker 1: York City. I'm in an uber. It feels like a
Speaker 1: regular day. Then the twenty three and Me app buzzes.
Speaker 1: It says, your family tree is ready? Would you like
Speaker 1: to load it up? I said, load it up, baby,
Speaker 1: I'm in an uber. I'm in New York City. I'm
Speaker 1: in a uber. The app says, you know, here's you
Speaker 1: at the bottom of your family tree, and here's your
Speaker 1: half brother named Anthony from Philadelphia, and I never heard Anthony,
Speaker 1: but I had dated quite a few Anthony's from Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: Which is an amazing piece.
Speaker 1: Of Then I felt like, oh, Kevin Hart set this up.
Speaker 1: This is I'm being like punked. But it's like shameful
Speaker 1: because they're trying to expose me for unknowingly fucking my
Speaker 1: brother Hart. That's hilarious. I'm like, this uber has cameras
Speaker 1: and if they're recording right now, they're trying.
Speaker 2: To get a take. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I tracked this guy down. I just like
Speaker 1: find a photo of him, and then I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I didn't fuck this guy. We're so good, thank goodness, goodness.
Speaker 1: But then I really like and at first I didn't
Speaker 1: know if he was my mother's son or my father's son,
Speaker 1: because my mom, you know, I haven't had a relationship.
Speaker 1: She's been out here band crazy. I was like, she
Speaker 1: could add too the kid maybe you know. So then
Speaker 1: I message him on twenty three meters. I say hey
Speaker 1: with a bunch of whys totally because I was like,
Speaker 1: how do you even start this? I got a lot
Speaker 1: to tell you, And I was like, yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: like you know, I'm your sister, like, you're my parents
Speaker 1: have ever heard of them? And he writes me back
Speaker 1: and he's like, no, this is shocking. I've never heard
Speaker 1: those people. But my mom is white. I know I'm
Speaker 1: half black. I never met my dad. I said, guess what, Io,
Speaker 1: we got the same dad. Get in here. That sounds
Speaker 1: like something you would do. And so he writes me
Speaker 1: and he says that he's currently in Bahrain. He's in
Speaker 1: the Navy. He's been stationed there, which somewhat.
Speaker 2: Of an interesting thing that, you know, sort of the
Speaker 2: nature versus nurture question of like your dad being a
Speaker 2: cop and now he's in the navy. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: they're a little bit built for what a gun?
Speaker 1: A gun? And he's like, oh, I'm I've told everybody
Speaker 1: on the base about my brand new sister and we're
Speaker 1: watching your Comedy Central specials and like if like we're
Speaker 1: celebrating a birth. Like it's just wow, it's something I
Speaker 1: couldn't write. And I'm a great writer.
Speaker 2: I've written some pretty good ya.
Speaker 1: And so he's like, I'm gonna take leave and I'll
Speaker 1: come to Philly. I'll come see you. And so he
Speaker 1: comes and he comes with me to a bunch of shows,
Speaker 1: and luckily they were great shows, so it was really fancy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, miss Ali, would you I use
Speaker 1: your green room? And he's like, wow, you're my sister,
Speaker 1: you know, and it just was so healing. And he
Speaker 1: reminded me a lot of my dad when I first
Speaker 1: met him. Obviously a little different in how they look,
Speaker 1: but the same eyes, the same vibe, but more kind,
Speaker 1: you know, like more empathetic. And so I asked him, like,
Speaker 1: do you want to meet her dad? Like, I'll give
Speaker 1: you his phone number. I found it, I have it,
Speaker 1: and so he's like, uh, yeah, I don't know, because
Speaker 1: like the guy sounds like an asshole. And I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: my little brother's smarter than me. He already can tell
Speaker 1: because this guy has two children running around that he
Speaker 1: and take care that maybe he's probably not gonna be
Speaker 1: because I was like, I don't know, maybe is gonna
Speaker 1: be okay, you know, but yeah, I still, you know,
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to my dad about it. And so
Speaker 1: I messaged him and like we had probably gotten to
Speaker 1: that point of talking maybe twice a year, only ever
Speaker 1: about my student loans, nothing else. And I message him
Speaker 1: and I'm like Hey, I booked a commercial, took this test.
Speaker 1: This kid is your kid. Here's his mom's name. You
Speaker 1: ever date her? And he's like, I worked with her
Speaker 1: an interance company, but we never dated. And like you
Speaker 1: need to just pay your student loans and stop smoking weed.
Speaker 1: That's what he says. It really was one of those
Speaker 1: days that like, I don't think I've ever been more
Speaker 1: angry in my life. The fact that he wasn't really
Speaker 1: able to discuss this with me, and he tried to
Speaker 1: make it seem like the most he would consent to
Speaker 1: was like, maybe he is my son, but if he is,
Speaker 1: then it's my business and I'm going to investigate. And
Speaker 1: I was like, you suck it, investigation. I found you,
Speaker 1: I found him, I've done all of this, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's the last thing that my father said to me,
Speaker 1: is that I'm going to reach out to him and
Speaker 1: I'll figure it out. And so to oh that that
Speaker 1: was a lie was like such confirmation for me, because
Speaker 1: I do think that like when you are in this
Speaker 1: dynamic with a parent and they tell you that something
Speaker 1: is right, you want to trust it, you want to
Speaker 1: believe it, you know. And so I told him that day,
Speaker 1: like if you're not gonna acknowledge this, at least that
Speaker 1: you have not taken care of two kids and you've
Speaker 1: been protected by it by your gun and badge that
Speaker 1: you love so much. Then like, don't hit me up anymore,
Speaker 1: Just don't hit me up. And I think he said
Speaker 1: something like I still want us to have a relationship,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I felt like as a big sister,
Speaker 1: I couldn't stomach that. I was like, I will not
Speaker 1: ask you how your day has been when I know
Speaker 1: you have a son that you have not researched, you
Speaker 1: have none investigator, you have not and I'm talking to
Speaker 1: him and he's a great person, and so to me
Speaker 1: it was like, my dad is such an idiot. You
Speaker 1: have two really successful kids who don't really need you,
Speaker 1: And that made me feel that much more powerful. Honestly
Speaker 1: that I was like, we are the legacy, me and him,
Speaker 1: we are we're not even holding your name, and we
Speaker 1: are the best parts of you, and we're very lucky
Speaker 1: and we weren't raised by you because who knows like
Speaker 1: the version of Chanelle that I would have been, she
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna like I'd be on stage, but probably like
Speaker 1: for a different reason, you know what I mean, We
Speaker 1: don't want to think about that. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. It would be a problem.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I just it gave me this power to
Speaker 1: like have peace and resolve with it because we are
Speaker 1: the legacy we are, and we are making it so
Speaker 1: much better by not continuing the things that our parents
Speaker 1: have done. I think also my brother has helped me
Speaker 1: heal even more because I was this comedian who was
Speaker 1: accomplishing incredible goals, but I didn't have this like nuclear family.
Speaker 1: I didn't like I have done so many comedy shows
Speaker 1: where I've met comedians and they're like, this is my
Speaker 1: mom and my dad. That's never been my experience. So
Speaker 1: then I meet my new brother and he starts coming
Speaker 1: to all my shows and he's constantly saying, I'm so
Speaker 1: proud of you. I can't believe my sister is a comedian.
Speaker 1: I'm telling everybody, he's championing me in a way that
Speaker 1: I've been searching the whole time. So to get that
Speaker 1: exact thing that you needed so bad you didn't even
Speaker 1: know you needed it until you got it. To get
Speaker 1: that from my brother really makes me feel so much
Speaker 1: more whole, Like, I'm so blessed that my dad is
Speaker 1: such a fuck up mm that me and my brother
Speaker 1: had to become exceptional human beings and then find each other. Wow,
Speaker 1: you know, Like, I'm really blessed. We could have been
Speaker 1: bums with a great dad. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And there's something about like men and masculinity and like
Speaker 2: the inability to know what to do with fatherhood that
Speaker 2: doesn't allow you to bring that into your familial relationships.
Speaker 1: I also always think that like daughters and sons, we
Speaker 1: are like the new and improved version of our parents
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. So some of the things
Speaker 1: that they're able to perpetrate on the world, they can't
Speaker 1: with us because we know it. We know it intrinsically.
Speaker 1: I know the parts of my dad that I can't
Speaker 1: reconcile with because I have reconciled with those things with myself.
Speaker 1: Like there was a time in my life when I
Speaker 1: wasn't able to accept criticism, whether it was constructive or not.
Speaker 1: There was a time in my life when you could
Speaker 1: not tell me nothing, And I had to learn from
Speaker 1: life that you will never become the best version of
Speaker 1: yourself if nobody can never tell you nothing. If nobody
Speaker 1: can ever call you out for what you've done. And
Speaker 1: so I understand that that part of him is so
Speaker 1: big and so strong, and it's been there for so
Speaker 1: long that I'm not going to play with him, you know.
Speaker 2: So how did you deal?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just move forward. I mean Shirley to goodness,
Speaker 2: not you wrote this show. I mean show making peace
Speaker 2: with it absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean that day when I had that big argument
Speaker 1: with him. I started writing the show that day totally.
Speaker 1: And when I wrote the first paragraph of it, I
Speaker 1: was like, this is amazing. It's gonna run away and
Speaker 1: we're going to be because and that's also something that
Speaker 1: thing has helped me reconcile with it. Right, he was
Speaker 1: protected by this badge so that the two kids that
Speaker 1: he had could never find him. We couldn't find him,
Speaker 1: right and now by his lack of responsibility. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell the story to everybody. I've already told the story worldwide.
Speaker 1: I've done the Melbourne Comedy Festival, I've taken it to London.
Speaker 1: It's around and it's gonna keep growing and it's gonna
Speaker 1: be part of my legacy forever. And the secret that
Speaker 1: you really thought you buried is now the cornerstone. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be totally and that's just ooh, that's delicious. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so good.
Speaker 2: What is one thing you've had to unlearn about love?
Speaker 1: I think it's something that I learned, like in the
Speaker 1: last few years, is that your body knows. And it's
Speaker 1: really having me to say that, because for years I
Speaker 1: used to think that whether it was romantic love or
Speaker 1: familial love, if I was nervous around somebody, I used
Speaker 1: to feel like that that I respected them a lot,
Speaker 1: or that I really liked him, you know, like I
Speaker 1: really respect him as a man, because when he comes around,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, better watch what I say. I'm scared.
Speaker 1: I don't know what he's gonna do, right, And like,
Speaker 1: through some work and through some therapy, I learned that, like, no,
Speaker 1: my body is reacting to certain parts of certain people
Speaker 1: that I know well and that I know is not stable.
Speaker 1: And so like, seek out people in your life that
Speaker 1: make you feel calm, creative and loved.
Speaker 2: Where did you like find this softness or something?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Because you are powerful of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: And the closing of your story, the end of your set,
Speaker 2: it is absolutely like get on your feet. People get
Speaker 2: out there, change your lives.
Speaker 1: It's around you.
Speaker 2: Everyone's like, oh my god, let me break this now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you do have this. There's like this vulnerability softness to
Speaker 2: it that's really like give yourself credit for what you
Speaker 2: have done.
Speaker 1: I also credit that to being a big sister. You know,
Speaker 1: when I was going through foster care. I have another
Speaker 1: little brother. We have different dads, so he has his
Speaker 1: own bad dad story. But being a big sister throughout that,
Speaker 1: it taught me about how to motivate somebody. And also
Speaker 1: I just think when you self parent, I had to
Speaker 1: one day decide what kind of parent I was going
Speaker 1: to be for myself, and I knew that I wanted
Speaker 1: to be the kind that was going to be really
Speaker 1: disappointed in Chanel if she didn't do what she was
Speaker 1: supposed to do, but also understanding if today it was
Speaker 1: too much and you had to be late because of
Speaker 1: you know, something else. And also therapy. Shout out to therapist.
Speaker 2: Do you have in your mind, like the biggest takeaway
Speaker 2: you want people to have from when you tell this story,
Speaker 2: are you like, yes.
Speaker 1: What is it? It's that we are not a con
Speaker 1: nation of our traumas a lot of conversations. I think
Speaker 1: can feel that way when people ask you about what
Speaker 1: you've been through and what your parents are like, what
Speaker 1: your life was like. But we are actually a combination
Speaker 1: of all of the days after and what we chose
Speaker 1: to do. And when you think about your life, if
Speaker 1: you have been through hard things like this and you
Speaker 1: think about how you stop that cycle in your family,
Speaker 1: how you are not the person that created a lifestyle
Speaker 1: similar to yours. That is something to be so proud of.
Speaker 1: It's really a badge of honor to say that in
Speaker 1: all of the legacy of my family, the toxicity stopped
Speaker 1: with me, right, So if you hear my voice, then
Speaker 1: you have people in your life who lie to you,
Speaker 1: manipulate you, gaslight you, and you're wondering when is it
Speaker 1: gonna end? When are they going to stop all the
Speaker 1: bullshit and own up to the hand that they played
Speaker 1: and the trauma that you felt. When is it gonna end?
Speaker 1: When is it gonna end? We are the end? We
Speaker 1: are the end. I am the end. My future kids
Speaker 1: will never know the depths of the things that I've seen.
Speaker 1: And you, you all are a combination of your parents'
Speaker 1: greatest abilities, a version of themselves. That they could never
Speaker 1: be more grand, more wild. We are the end. We
Speaker 1: are the generation that's not having kids when we're not
Speaker 1: ready for them. We are the generation that's not gonna
Speaker 1: stay in a toxic relationship for forty fucking years wondering
Speaker 1: what happened to our heart, what happened to our life.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna work a job for a lifetime to
Speaker 1: make someone else rich. We are not gonna witness atrocities
Speaker 1: near or far and feel nothing. We are the end.
Speaker 1: We are the end. I am the end. This is
Speaker 1: the end. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to Chanelle for being so open
Speaker 2: and sharing your story with us, one who has some
Speaker 2: generational healing to do. This story was so inspiring to me.
Speaker 2: Thanks everyone for listening, and I'll talk to y'all next week.
Speaker 2: Boy Sover is a production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host, Hopewordard.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Christina Everett and Julie Pinero. Our
Speaker 2: supervising producer is Emily Meronoff. Our assistant producer is Logan Palau.
Speaker 2: Engineering by Bahid Fraser and mixing and mastering by Abu Zafar.
Speaker 2: If you liked this episode, please tell a friend, and
Speaker 2: don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to boy Sober
Speaker 2: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, and wherever you get
Speaker 2: your favorite shows.