WEBVTT - There's a Way Out 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:04.440 School of Humans. 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:09.840 This episode contains graphic descriptions of child sexual abuse and 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:17.520 drug addiction. Please use discretion when listening. To understand Damon 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.319 today his ideas about sex and money and status and 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:25.160 drugs and parenthood. It takes looking back at his history. 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:28.760 Damon's success with Sanctum and his ability to create this 0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:32.479 world of excess and status and wealth didn't come out 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:36.120 of nowhere. So let's go back for a minute to 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:41.040 the nineteen seventies to Marin County, California. If you drive 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:44.320 over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, that's Marin. 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.440 One might call it the heart of the self obsessed seventies. 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.239 Out of the hangover of the sixties counterculture and protest 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:56.560 movements came the human Potential movement, and Marin was at 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:01.480 the center of that. Fads of the time included transcendental meditation, 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:08.560 zen jogging, organic food, cocaine, wife swapping, and just generally 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:12.120 getting in touch with your true self, whatever that means 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:16.119 to you. This is where Damon Launer grew up among 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:20.319 the hot tubs and redwood forests. On today's episode, we're 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.760 going to take a look back at Damon's life before 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:26.319 Sanctum to piece together exactly how he ended up where 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:30.560 he did, and it's a pretty wild story, at times 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:37.039 dark and harrowing and other times truly spectacular. Welcome to 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:44.120 Sanctum Unmasked. I'm your host, Carl Schortino. Damon wrote a 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.679 memoir a few years back. It was never published, but 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.280 still he's done some digging into his past, which we 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:52.560 used as a reference for some of what we talk 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:57.280 about in this episode. Now, when Damon describes nineteen seventies Marin, 0:01:57.520 --> 0:01:59.240 he really lights up. 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.560 It was a really amazing time, you know, hippies in 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:07.880 the park and music. The Grateful Dead and bands like 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.680 that when they were first getting started, would come into 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:13.360 the town where I lived, which is called Fairfax, and 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.840 play music. My dad was a classically trained violinist, so 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.040 he played in the Grateful Dad. 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:22.400 At times in the band might be a stretch, but 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:24.400 this is how Damon explains it. 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.120 They would do these really long sets and then would 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.000 break for like an hour in between sets, and he'd 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.800 go up on stage in this red flowing robe and 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:34.600 play electric violin and he would probably be on LSD 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:38.200 and just make all these noises and everything. And I mean, 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.040 he was a really trippy guy, and he was someone 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:42.640 who was really kind of anti society if he was 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:44.120 just a very freethinking guy. 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.760 But Damon's life at home was far less zen than 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:52.800 the one outside. That same care free, trippy dad also 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:54.320 had a darker side. 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.480 I mean, my dad certainly would do cocaine and get high. 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:00.160 I think he was doing heroin at one point too't 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.400 realize it at the time, but he was fucked up 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:04.240 around me a lot. I didn't understand this when I 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:06.440 was a kid, but I do now. When he'd come down, 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.440 he'd be very angry, and he'd be violent. This is 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:11.919 like five years old to seven, eight, nine, ten years old, 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:14.359 you know, pick me up, slamming against doors, tell me 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.040 I'm a fucking piece of shit, like just you know, 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.000 just be this really evil person. 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:23.000 Most of the time, Damon and his younger sister Hadria 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.720 lived with their mom, who wrote poetry, and their stepdad, 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:30.639 a clothing designer with a Jim Morrison vibe. But life 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:32.360 with mom wasn't easy either. 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:35.880 My mom was very much the same. We all knew 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.960 something was off. She was an alcoholic, she was in 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:43.560 abusive relationships. She was an absolutely beautiful woman who over 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:47.400 time just really deteriorated. There were nice when there was 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.320 no dinner. There were mornings where there was no breakfast. 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:51.640 There's no food in the house. I'm going across the 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:52.640 street to get toast. 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:53.240 In Cereal. 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.240 When I was seven eight years old going to school, 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:58.880 there were no clean clothes to wear, there were no haircuts. 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:00.520 It was very chaotic. 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.200 In his memoir, Damon writes that he and Hadria became 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.560 inseparable in the midst of the chaos. We verified as 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.760 much of the story as we could, but obviously childhood 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:14.960 memories are difficult to fact check, so we asked Hadria 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.360 to fill in some of the gaps. She's a year 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:19.560 and a half younger than Damon, and the two of 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:21.480 them are still really close to this day. 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:23.880 Well, as they call it today, trauma bonding. 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:25.520 I'm going to get emotional. 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.159 We were very close because of it, Like we would 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.320 hide under the bed and cry or be afraid, but 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.000 we were like, you know, we'd watch what was going 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:37.560 on and just we had each other. 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.200 You know, Damon and Hadria have that kind of sibling 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.920 relationship that I love where they obviously adore each other, 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:47.719 but they also love to troll each other or at 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.200 least she does. She describes Damon as a kid who 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.960 had a really crazy imagination, which, if you've been listening 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.400 to this podcast tracks. 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:59.040 I feel like when we were really young, he definitely 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:03.520 had a lot of big idea. Yes, Like he would say, oh, yeah, 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.520 we drive around in like Ferraris and live in a mansion, 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:11.000 and I'd be like, yeah, it's true. Now that I 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:13.080 say that, I wonder if that was kind of like 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.840 in a skate because our life was so shitty and 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.360 so the opposite of that that, you know, it was 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:20.200 like a fantasy. 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.120 Looking back, the seventies was a time famous for its 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:29.640 lax and arguably neglectful parenting styles, a time before people 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.560 cared about car seats or sunscreen or just like supervision 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.120 in general. But Damon's parents took this to a whole 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.920 other level. He recalls having this eerie feeling of being 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:42.960 invisible for much of his childhood. 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:45.600 We were like the ghosts in the room, you know, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.440 like we didn't exist. They just did what they wanted 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:51.480 to do, and that included drugs, alcohol, sex. 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:53.240 We were exposed to all of that. 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.679 That's where we grew up witnessing a lot of things 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:00.240 that were super inappropriate. So there's certain experience is that 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.960 I remember, like, Okay, my mom was giving my step 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.360 daud a blowjob, Like he was standing up against the 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.240 wall in the living room giving him a blowjob, and 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.839 I'm like, what are you doing? Like I didn't know, 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.800 but I remember it being uncomfortable, and I remember like 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:18.480 seeing his penis hard and wet, and I remember being like, 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:21.680 something's wrong. I felt uncomfortable and I'm like, Mom, what 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:23.520 are you doing? Because I didn't know what it was. 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.120 She's like, I'm getting my child support. Like I remember 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:29.599 her saying that, like she was, you know, trying to 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.080 get money from him, and that was how she got it. 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.880 My mom was just like a very overly sexualized person. 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.720 So like my stepdad had this van that he would 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.080 drive around in with this bed in the back, one 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.320 of those like old seventies, you know, vans with the 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:48.359 carpeting and velvet seats. I remember specifically this one time, 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.440 I'm six or seven, my sister's five years old or something. 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.599 My mom's friend starts sucking my stepdad's father in the 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.280 front seat of the van. They're drunk. My sister and 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:00.279 I are in the back of the van. The curs 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:02.919 are not closed all the way. And then my mom 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.360 and my mom's friend getting this fight, you know, like 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:08.320 I don't want you sucking his cop you know whatever 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:11.360 it was, This stuff is filtering through me. 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.720 What Damon and Hadria experienced was clearly something no children 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:22.240 should have been exposed to. In our conversations, Damon was 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.240 also very candid about a period of his childhood where 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:28.160 he was molested by a female relative who was a 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:31.680 teenager at the time, and the deeply complicated reality of 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.160 this experience. Now, we want to be careful when talking 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:38.800 about sexual abuse. Our hope is that by sharing, other 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.120 survivors will feel less alone. With that in mind, the 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.240 next two minute section includes a description that listeners may 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.440 find disturbing. Here's Damon. 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:50.160 When she would be over at the house. She would 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.520 come into my bedroom late at night and she would 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.240 experiment with me. I'm five six years old, so my 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.080 dick is like the size of my pinky now, right, 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:00.600 But she would give me head and we would have sex. 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.880 So I was, you know, having some form of sex 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.080 or being molested. I mean, that's really what was going 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:10.280 on at five six years old. The thing though, at 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:12.720 that age for people out there that have or haven't 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:15.320 experienced that is, there's pleasure in it. You know, it 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:19.760 feels good. So it's very fucking confusing because you feel 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:23.160 this feeling that feels really good, and you don't know 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.360 when you're that age that it's like really fucking wrong, 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.480 you know, like, that's not okay. It really wasn't until 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:31.200 I had my own kids and I saw them at 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:34.080 five six years old, and I was like, my god, like, 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:41.080 how the fuck did that happen? Why wasn't anyone watching 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.160 or there to protect me or there to stop that 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:45.920 kind of stuff. But I mean because they were all 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:46.720 fucked up, you know. 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.720 He says, it's almost like a dream. But I remember 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.800 it perfectly because I was there. But I didn't realize 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.560 that anything was wrong. Neither did he. We just thought 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:00.240 this is normal, and in fact, I was like, oh, 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.760 what's going on? I want to do it too. And 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.400 now obviously that I'm older, I'm like, oh, my god, 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:09.440 that was not a good thing. But then at the 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:14.920 time she was molesting him, she was also being molested 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:19.480 by our stepfather, so it's kind of like she was 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:25.199 copying what was happening to her to my brother, and 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:27.199 I was just there witnessing it. 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.280 Clearly, Damon and Hadriat were not being protected by the 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:33.120 people who were supposed to be looking out for them, 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.199 and this is the environment where they spent their formative years. 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.839 But then every summer from the time he was six 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:45.000 years old into his early teens, Damon's paternal grandparents would 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:47.920 fly him and his sister out to their home in Woodmere, 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:52.200 a rich suburb on Long Island, New York. Damon's grandfather 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.520 was a wealthy businessman. He and Damon's grandmother lived in 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:59.440 a seven bedroom mansion. The experience was basically the photo 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:01.520 negative of their life in California. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:03.760 New York was heaven. 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:06.840 It was the best thing in the world. Like, we 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.720 went from this dark place and then we would go 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:15.160 see my grandparents, who were wealthy, had a big home, 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:17.559 tennis court, swimming pool. 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:21.240 I mean, it couldn't have been more polar opposite. We 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.520 had this idyllic experience. I mean, my grandma would wake 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.360 up every single morning and make French toast and pancakes. 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:28.520 The pantry was. 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.120 Filled with cereal and cookies and chips. 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.319 My mom didn't even make sure that we had food, 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.920 you know, I was like so fucking hungry all the time. 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:42.479 My grandparents just had food and we got to experience normalcy. 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:44.640 It saved our lives. 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:47.800 I think a lot of my father's family they're great people, 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:49.839 you know, and they would take care of us. We 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.640 go bowling, and I mean, maybe that's actually what you're 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.320 supposed to have, you know. I definitely had this early 0:10:56.360 --> 0:11:01.360 realization that you can be poor and drugs and you know, 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.560 be violent and be those kinds of people, or you 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.200 could be like really wealthy and have it together and 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:10.439 have a beautiful life. 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:14.040 At various points, Damon's grandparents fought to keep Damon and 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.360 his sister living with them full time, but Damon's mother 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.840 wasn't having it. As Demon remembers it, their mom would 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:24.520 accuse their grandparents of kidnapping, which would ultimately result in 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.319 the children being put on a plane back to chaos 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:32.280 in California. It was like whiplash. Deamon grew into a 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.719 pretty rebellious teen. This is the late eighties moving into 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:39.440 the nineties, the era of Ferris Bueller and Heathers and 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:45.080 just general bad boy fuck school delinquent energy. Fittingly, teenage, 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.839 Damon developed a real skill for lying, just like when 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.120 he was a kid. If he didn't like something about 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:55.040 his reality, he'd just tell a different story. He lived 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.839 his life in sort of truths. It was a way 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.360 to feel special in a world where we often felt 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.560 the exact opposite. He likes telling people that his dad 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.800 was in the Grateful Dead rather than the reality, which 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:09.400 is that a few times his dad got high and 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:13.200 made weird sounds on an electric violin between dead sets. 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.880 Damon was also a particularly talented thief. At one point, 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:20.360 when he was seventeen, he stole a duffel back with 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.280 over four hundred thousand dollars in it from a local 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.840 drug dealer's house. It was his friend's dad. Actually, it 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:29.240 was only after the guy came to Damon's school and 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.719 threatened to kill him that Damon gave it back. I mean, 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:34.880 most of us go through a shoplifting phase his kids, 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:38.880 but rarely does it go that far. Kind of impressive, honestly. 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.439 Damon was also notably very handsome. He wasn't so aware 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.480 of his looks back then, but in hindsight. 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:51.360 Looking back at pictures of myself, I can say this 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:53.640 very clearly. I mean, I'm like a specimen. I'm a 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.880 gorgeous kid. I really am, I mean, perfect body. I'm 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.320 totally into sports. I don't do any drugs or drink 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.160 because I've totally rebuilding as my parents. I'm like, I 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:04.960 never want to be like them. I never want to drink. 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:07.839 I never want to do drugs. That shit is fucked up. 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.320 So I am like healthy. I just looked like this 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:12.640 gorgeous California surfer boy. 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.199 One day, when Damon was nineteen, he was out skateboarding 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:18.880 in San Francisco with some of his friends when this 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.520 guy walks up and he's like, hey, kid, can I 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:24.680 take some photos of you. I'm a model scout. Damon 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.160 didn't know what that meant, but the guy explained that 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:29.480 his job was basically to look for people to model 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:33.280 in fashion campaigns for big brands like Calvin Klein. 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:34.000 For example. 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:38.360 Remember Calvin Klein was the epitome of nineties school like 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:41.200 those minimalist black and white photos of Kate Moss and 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:45.160 Mark Wahlberg looking impossibly hot in their briefs iconic. 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.080 I knew about Calvin Klein because Marky Mark was like 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.440 this Calvin Klemont and we all saw those ads. You know, 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:52.680 him in his underwear, and so I remember when he 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:56.199 said that. I was like, oh, where You're like thinking 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.320 like I could be one of those models, And he 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:00.719 was like, yeah, I really do. I'm asked to come 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.680 into this audition and it was for a brand I'd 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.520 never heard of, Johnny VERSACEI. 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:10.080 In other words, one of the biggest fashion brands in 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:14.120 the world. So damon naive to the world of high fashion, 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.200 shows up to this Versace casting without a clue what 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:21.200 that means, and he's intimidated. He's up against all these 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.880 experienced models. Meanwhile, he's just rocked up from the skate park. 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:27.720 I'm sitting in this room with all these male models. 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:30.000 I'm like five foot ten. You know, I'm not gonna 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:32.960 get any taller. They're like six foot three. They're all 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.880 really handsome men. They've got these big books of all 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:37.720 their photographs, you know, and all this stuff. 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:39.440 And I was like, what the fuck. 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.200 Am I doing here? And I go in and I 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:44.040 meet this photographer named Bruce Weber. 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:47.480 Bruce Weber, if you're not familiar, he's one of the 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:51.680 most influential fashion photographers of all time. He shot campaigns 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.960 for everyone from Ralph Lauren to Calvin Klein to Abercamie 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.800 and Fitch covers of Vogue and Rolling Stone. 0:14:58.280 --> 0:14:59.000 You get the idea. 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.240 Anyway, Damian doesn't know who this guy is or how 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.960 important he is in the industry, but he does want 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.120 to make a good impression. So when Bruce Weber asked 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.160 him some questions about himself, Demon whips up some of 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.840 his classic white lies. For instance, he tells Bruce that 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:18.239 he's headed to an Ivy League university to study philosophy 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.360 after the summer, when in reality, he's going to the 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.680 College of Marin aka the community college in the town 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.840 where he grew up. Eventually, Bruce asked Damon to take 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:30.480 off his shirt and spin around and then sends him 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:33.360 on his way, and Damon leaves the casting and feeling 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.200 like what the hell was the point of that? A 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.880 week later, he gets a call he booked the job. 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:43.000 This photographer was. I know, he just made me feel 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:45.520 like really beautiful. I mean it was a different kind 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.000 of interaction than I ever had. It was this big 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.880 set with all of these people and all of these models, 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.880 and there was tons of money and fancy hotel rooms 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:57.520 and like they treated you so well, and it was like, wow, 0:15:57.560 --> 0:15:59.760 this is a cool world, Like what is this world? 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:03.520 The shoe became a major campaign in all the big 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:07.240 fashion magazines. Then a week after the ads started running, 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:10.480 he gets another call. Bruce Weber wants to shoot him 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:15.360 with supermodel Christy Turlington, this time for Calvin Klein Hot. 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:17.800 It just opened the door to this whole like Los 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:22.280 Angeles kind of scene. I had a billboard on Sunset Boulevard, 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:24.840 Like I could walk out of the nightclubs on Sunset 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:27.480 Boulevard in the late eighties early nineties and I'm on 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:28.840 the fucking billboard. You know. 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:31.200 It was like, how the fuck did this happen? 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:34.280 After that, Damon got an agent and moved down to 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.880 La He spent the next handful of years on the 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.080 model circuit, working everywhere from New York to Japan. He 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.800 started booking commercials. Then he met the actor Jared Leto, 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:45.680 who at the time was on a show called My 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.680 So Called Life, one of the seminal shows of My 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:52.640 youth if anyone cares inspired by Jared. James started thinking 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.560 about being an actor. He started taking lessons, and he 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.120 was taking it pretty seriously. He even did a mid 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:04.080 level production of Shakespeare's The Tempest Cliche Yet Cheek. But 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.800 this is when things started to fall apart, the attention, 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:12.720 hustling for fame, the endless, often dehumanizing cattle call of 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:17.000 castings and auditions. It was a lot of pressure. Eventually, 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.199 in order to deal with his anxiety, demon gave up 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.960 on sobriety and turned to booze. Now the demons of 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:26.960 his traumatic past are catching up with him. And then 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.040 at a certain point even alcohol wasn't enough. 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:32.359 I was one of those people that was just like 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:36.159 sabotaging myself all the time in so many ways. And 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.919 I ended up, actually around twenty five, addicted to heroin. 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.880 And from twenty five to twenty six, all I wanted 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:45.639 to do was just you know, be cooped up in 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.480 this little apartment. I was basically selling drugs to survive, 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:51.720 and I was doing heroin. I had so much pain 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:55.720 that I could not understand how to deal with. I mean, 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:59.680 my childhood fucked me up and that pain was unresolved. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:05.439 Heroine made me feel comfortable, It made me feel okay, 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.399 and it made the thoughts of everything that had happened 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:10.600 to me as a kid just like kind of like 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:14.240 float away. My parents, my friends, everyone was like, you 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.480 gotta stop, man, you know you're gonna die. 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:17.360 And I didn't care. 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:19.919 Having so much trauma inside and not knowing how to 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.359 deal with it, death sounded like a really good option. 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.680 The next year of Damon's life played like a nineties 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:43.480 Gus Van Samp movie, basically just being hot and on 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.520 drugs and that's about it. He bailed on la in 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:49.919 his dreams of being an actor and moved back to 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:54.160 Northern California, and if even death from an overdose wasn't 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.480 incentive enough to get clean, he figured this was probably 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.879 it for him. But then one day, Deamon gets a 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:05.160 call from his grandfather, and his grandfather basically tells him, look, dude, 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.520 if you don't go to rehab, I'm taking you out 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:11.000 of my will. And this was the kick that Damon needed. 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.359 For some reason. And maybe this goes to how fucked 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:15.880 up I really was at that time. The thought of 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:18.960 maybe one d getting some money when I didn't know 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:20.119 how I was going to make a living, and I 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:21.679 didn't know what I was doing, and I kind of 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:23.840 just liked doing drugs, and like fucking off, you know 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:25.880 that I was going to get some money at some point, 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:27.680 and that he was telling me, like go to rehab, 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:29.080 or that's never going to happen. 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:31.719 If I'm going to be honest, that was the spark. 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.320 In other words, if I don't die, I'm eventually going 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.040 to need that money to buy drugs. So he appeases 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:40.960 his grandfather and heads to rehab. 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.480 Within like two weeks of rehab, I was like, what 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.360 the fuck was I thinking? You know, the fog clears. 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:50.240 I got my soul back in rehab. I was getting 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.560 therapy in rehab. I was talking about what got me 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.399 there every single day. You know, that's all you're doing 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:58.600 is talking about your child, and you're talking about all 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.240 these issues I really hadn't done yet. And I was 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.680 hearing other people and hearing them share similar stories, and 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:05.320 I was like. 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:07.640 Oh, fuck, okay, there's a way out. 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:13.840 But one Stanton therapy doesn't reboot your entire personality. Believe me, 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:16.800 I've tried. And a week before Damon was supposed to 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:20.160 be released from rehab, he actually got kicked out because 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:24.680 while he was caught fucking a female patient, which isn't allowed, 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:29.240 very unbrand for him. But despite that, the important thing 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:32.280 was that he'd gotten clean, and so he leaves rehab 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:34.800 with a new lease on life, and just a month 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.720 later he's out at a club in San Francisco, sober 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.080 Now and he finds a new fix. 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.159 I'm off of Heroin for about a month and I 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:46.720 meet this girl and she's literally the most beautiful thing 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:47.879 I've ever seen in my life. 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:49.119 I couldn't believe it. 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.840 I see this girl and I'm like, where did she 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:58.639 come from? Absolutely as far as I'm concerented perfection, and 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:00.360 we ended up meaning up and we just I've had 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.640 this like unfucking believable connection. 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:08.639 This girl, you might have guessed, was Melissa. 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:12.920 Nineteen ninety six, San Francisco ten fifteen full Sums like 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:15.760 a nightclub and I was eighteen and I used to 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:19.720 sneak in there with my girlfriend, go dancing and smoke cigarettes, 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:22.520