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Cicely Tyson on the ‘Power’ of Her 1973 Oscar Nom: ‘That Was My Dream’

The day I learned I’d been nominated for an Oscar, I was filming a small role for a new Black director. Just as I was delivering an important line, I heard laughter on the sidelines of the set. “Don’t they know we’re shooting in here?” I snapped. “What’s the matter with them?” A moment later, a producer walked in. “We’ve just gotten some good news,” he said. I held up my hand. “I don’t want to hear anything,” I told him. “Whatever it is can wait.” When I am working, I show up to do exactly that. All else is a distraction, a disruption to an unfolding moment. The gentleman smiled, shook his head, and left.

The director, who must’ve heard the news that awaited, gave me a strange look before we resumed. We completed the scene, and even on my way out, I wouldn’t let anyone tell me anything. It was upon arriving home, at my agent Haber’s place, that he gave me the exhilarating announcement: I’d been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. “Really?” I said, the living room suddenly swirling out of focus. “Yes!” he yelped. As tears flooded my face, all I could think about were my friend Arthur Mitchell’s words to me: “You’re going to be nominated for an Oscar.” My friend’s what-if had come true.

I don’t care what any actor says, that golden statue matters. It is what we’re all vying for—the ultimate validation from our peers. You empty yourself into a character, you labor hour upon hour to get every single gesture and sentence precise, and you mean to tell me that such an affirmation means nothing to you? It holds tremendous power. When I was just getting into the business, I’d looked on in awe as Sidney Poitier earned that affirmation for his marvelous work in Lilies of the Field, becoming the first Black man to win an Academy Award for Best Actor. That evening, as I watched the ceremony on my old black-and-white RCA set, I said to myself, I’m going to sit in the front at the Oscars one day. That was my dream. But as my career carried me mostly toward stage and television, that hope seemed unlikely. That is why, long before I did Sounder, I’d quietly accepted that the Academy Awards would probably not be part of my path. And yet, lo and behold, here I was, on the verge of taking a seat in that front row I’d envisioned for myself.

Cicely Tyson as Rebecca in Sounder.

Stanley Bielecki Movie CollectionGetty Images

My good news was just the beginning. Sounder received a slew of nominations, for Best Picture, Best Writing (Lonne Elder), and Best Actor (I was as delighted for Paul Winfield as I was for myself). The film’s message also reverberated beyond our shores, earning a BAFTA nomination for its score, created by Taj Mahal, who also earned a Grammy for his work. Kevin Hooks, who played my son (and who, in real life, is the son of director and actor Robert Hooks), received a Golden Globe nomination. That awards season also became a landmark recognition of Black talent: Diana Ross was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Lady Sings the Blues, as was screenplay writer Suzanne de Passe. The 1973 nominations for Diana Ross and myself were the first time Black women had been nominated in the Best Actress category since trailblazer Dorothy Dandridge received the honor in 1954 for her role in Carmen Jones.

The morning after the official nomination announcement in Los Angeles, I called my mother in New York. On television, she’d seen how all those white folks had stood and applauded me. “Well?” I said to her. “Well, what?” she said chuckling. “You’d better tell me something,” I said. The line went silent. “I am so proud of you, Sister,” she finally said. I could feel tears brimming and I let them fall, unable to speak because I was so overcome by what I’d longed to hear. If I had not heard those words from my mother, none of this would have made any difference. If she had not been able to participate in the acclaim I was receiving, all of it would’ve felt empty to me.

I, of course, already knew she and my father recognized my work. “Why do you do such sad movies?” my dad once joked after he’d seen me in Brown Girl, Brownstones. Likewise, Mom would often tell me what her friends were always asking her: “Why is she always wearing rags in her movies? Doesn’t she ever dress up?” Though their teasing was an indirect acknowledgment of their pride, I needed my mother, in particular, to voice her validation. She’d been my greatest source of energy, the reason I’d devoted myself so wholly to my work. She had believed I’d go out and become a slut of some kind, had no idea this Hollywood journey could lead me to play a character as honorable as Rebecca. My nomination did more than just prove my mother wrong. After a childhood during which my mother’s opinions drowned out all others, it gave me the last say.

“If I had not heard those words from my mother, none of this would have made any difference.”

I flew my mother to Los Angeles to attend the screening of Sounder. We were seated in the mezzanine, and she was one row behind me. In the dark, just as the curtains parted, she tapped me on the shoulder. “Ed Sullivan is sitting behind me,” she said, pronouncing his last name Sulli-wan, because for whatever reason, West Indians can’t say v’s. For years, she’d never missed The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights. I turned around and whispered to her, “And I am sitting here.” We both snickered, her loudly enough to prompt Ed Sulli-wan to smile in my mother’s direction.

To celebrate Sounder’s cascade of nominations, the studio hosted a splashy New York premiere. I called upon acclaimed fashion designer Bill Whitten to design my dress (years later, Bill would design Michael Jackson’s rhinestone glove to cover the singer’s early signs of vitiligo). “I want to create the kind of gown that Rebecca might have worn if she’d had money,” I told Bill. That sent him in search of the prints and cottons poor colored women would’ve worn in 1933. Using the fabric remnants he found, he pieced together a treasure. The dress, antebellum in style, came with a fancy apron that served as a flower sack. He filled it with cotton balls he’d sent for from down South. It was the most glorious creation. The same woman who braided my hair for the movie created a crown of beautiful cornrows to complement my look. When I strode into the theater that evening, chin lifted, pride on my brow, I showed up in the name of the ancestors whose sweat and sorrow had carried me there.

In the months leading up to the ceremony, the devil got to work doing what he does best: attempting to pit Black women against each other. In the lead-up to the Oscars, one of Diana Ross’s designers tried to keep my dress from being finished by hiring my designer to make suits for the Jackson Five. I don’t know whether Diana knew anything about it, but I heard the whispers. The media, for months, had been playing up the narrative that there was some big competition between the two of us. I refused to feed into that storyline, which was false. I have never been in competition with anybody but myself, and I wanted no part in such unpleasantness. Just Breathing While Black is trouble enough.

A month before the ceremony, the studio sent me overseas on a promotional tour in Europe, my first time in Paris and London. Months before I left town, I’d rubbed elbows with British royalty. Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones, First Earl of Snowdon, was then husband to Princess Margaret and an avid photographer and filmmaker. Lord Snowdon had taken quite an interest in Arthur’s work at Dance Theatre of Harlem. The two began a partnership, with Lord Snowdon investing in the school. Arthur connected me with him, and during one of Lord Snowdon’s trips to New York, he and I met for appetizers and a brief conversation. As we awaited our order, he kept glancing over his left shoulder. How strange, I thought. I wonder if he’s expecting someone. As it turned out, he was on the lookout for the paparazzi, who of course had followed him to the restaurant. Later, on another one of his trips to New York, Lord Snowdon photographed me wearing that Bill Whitten masterpiece of a dress. What a memory.

Cicely Tyson at England’s Heathrow Airport in February 1973, a month before the Oscars.

George StroudGetty Images

In London, the marveling began with my ride from Heathrow in an enormous black taxi, a Hackney carriage so gargantuan that I could stand up inside of it! In a penthouse suite in the Dorchester Hotel, I spent a half-hour just wandering around the space, gawking at the grandeur of the accommodations, thinking back on those days when my siblings, Emily and Melrose, and I had all been squished together on a rollaway bed in our parents’ living room.

And to think that I now had this sprawling space to myself, in a world where my name was plastered on billboards all over America and Europe. It was nothing short of spectacular. The same was true of my time in the City of Light, where, from my balcony, I gazed in awe at the Eiffel Tower, head held high and preening in the distance.

“When I strode into the theater that evening, chin lifted, pride on my brow, I showed up in the name of the ancestors whose sweat and sorrow had carried me there.”

Back in New York before the ceremony, the surrealism continued. In another head nod to Rebecca, I wanted my hair done in a croquignole, the deep-wave style that would’ve been popular for well-to- do women during the 1930s. “Do you know how to do that style?” I asked my hairstylist Omar. “No,” she said, “but my mother can.” Can you believe that child’s mom came out of retirement just to create my waves? The words thank you fell short of expressing the gratitude I felt. Designer Bill Whitten turned up the luxury by creating a white silk-wool fitted dress, with a touch of grey in it, complete with a heart cut-out, lace-trimmed detail across the décolletage. Gracing each sleeve was a glistening row of tiny gold buttons, with the same buttons stretching down the back. It was absolutely stunning.

When Arthur arrived, dashing in his tuxedo, he escorted me by the arm to the awaiting limo. The evening, for us, marked two celebrations: the Forty-Fifth Academy Awards, and my dear Arthur’s thirty-ninth birthday. The quintet of hosts—Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Charlton Heston, and Rock Hudson—took the stage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. My dream was to be in the front row, and there I sat, delighted that my fantasy had come to pass.

But as for the possibility of garnering the gold statue, I had done my back-of-the-napkin math. I’m logical that way, a pragmatist who is always weighing the odds, and in Hollywood politics, those odds were decidedly not in my favor. That same year, Liza Minnelli had been nominated for her role in Cabaret. Her father, Vincente, was a big-time director, which gave her one advantage. Check. Her mother was Judy Garland. Double check. Neither of them had ever earned an Oscar. Triple check. And at the time, Liza was dating Desi Arnaz Jr., son of Desi and Lucille Ball, Hollywood royalty. Quadruple check. Common sense told me that I had no chance amid the schmoozing and vote-securing that goes on in back rooms.

So as I sat near the stage that evening, I relaxed into the joy of just being there, with Arthur to my left and with Rebecca’s spirit dancing on my shoulder. So certain was I that this was Liza’s year, when Gene Hackman said, “And the winner is…,” I turned to Arthur and said, “Liza Minnelli.” Liza made her way up to the stage, tearful and jubilant, and I sat there, palm over my heart, relishing my presence in the arena. This journey of mine, this path so unpredictable, had somehow carried me from 219 East 102nd Street in the slums to the front row of movie magic at Hollywood’s most grand affair. As Liza accepted her award, I’d already received the only prize I have ever truly wanted—the affirmation of the dear woman who gave me birth.

Cicely Tyson Cicely Tyson has been nominated for 40 television and film awards and has won 42, most notably an Oscar, a Tony Award, 3 Emmys, 8 NAACP Image Awards, the African American Film Critics Special Achievement Award, the BAFTA Film Award, the Black Film Critics Circle Award, 4 Black Reel Awards, the Elle Women in Hollywood Award, 3 Lifetime Achievement Awards, and many more. Ms.

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Cicely Tyson on the ‘Power’ of Her 1973 Oscar Nom: ‘That Was My Dream’

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easyhairstylesbest · 3 years

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SkinStore's Presidents' Day Sale Wins Best Beauty Sale On The Internet Right Now

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Between peak dry skin season being upon us and “maskne” causing millions of people (yours included) to breakout, it’s safe to assume we could all use some self-care and pampering right about now. Here to swoop in and SOS is SkinStore’s Presidents’ Day Sale, which I’d argue wins best beauty sale on the internet right now.

Now through February 17, the e-tailer is taking up to 50 percent off hundreds of items with prom code PRESIDENT. Think: Dr. Hauschka, Wander Beauty, Kevin Aucoin, BeautyStat and so many more. It’s worth noting while a handful of brands like First Aid Beauty and Dr. Dennis Gross aren’t included in the sale, SkinStore is currently offering generous gifts on brands that aren’t marked down.

In case you too find navigating beauty sales for the best deals to feel like investigative FBI work, fear not. To make narrowing down the best splurges an easier endeavor, I’ve gone rounded up the best can’t-miss deals on everything from skincare to makeup to scalp treatments and beyond. Ahead, the best finds from SkinStore’s sale to treat yourself to now.

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EYE TREATMENT

BeautyStat Universal C Eye Perfector 0.5 oz

BeautyStat skinstore.com

$65 $49 (25% off)

One of ELLE.com’s 2020 Future of Beauty Winners, BeautyStat’s Universal C Eye Perfecter is an industry first for combining CBD with Vitamin C. Together, this makes for a powerful brightening-but-calming treatment that’s safe to use day or night.

SCALP TREATMENT

PhytoPolleine Botanical Scalp Treatment 0.8 fl oz

Phyto skinstore.com

$40 $30 (25% off)

If Phyto’s legendary botanical scalp treatment could talk it would say “au revoir, build up” in the most beautiful, badass French accent. Inside this unassuming bottle are eucalyptus and lemon oils that work to restore balance in the scalp and stimulate microcirculation. Editor’s note: I swear by this stuff’s ability to get rid of product build up. It also rarely, if ever, can be scooped up on sale.

HAND SANITIZER

Bergamot Pocket Hand Sanitizer 0.6 fl. oz

Noshinku skinstore.com

$10 $7.50 (25% off)

You already know how important hand sanitizer is these days. For one that can fit into the tiniest of bags, peep this option from Noshinku which sprays on and smells surprisingly lovely for hand sanitizer. It measures slightly larger than an AirPods case.

CANDLE

Ocean Mist and Sea Salt Classic Candle

NEST Fragrances skinstore.com

$44 $33 (25% off)

There’s no such thing as too many good candles, especially while we’re working from home and need all the zen we can find. Here, a crowd-pleasing scent with notes of sea salt, white tea, and coconut.

FACE MASK

Fab Pharma Arnica Relief and Rescue Mask – 3.4 oz

First Aid Beauty skinstore.com

$32.00

First Aid Beauty’s popular Fab Pharma Arnica Relief and Rescue mask isn’t on sale; however, it’s worth noting that this comes with $17 worth of free First Aid Beauty gifts during SkinStore’s Presidents’ Day weekend sale. Aside from the free swag, this hydrating mask is worth it as it gently remedies the root of what’s causing maskne for many: Dehydration.

Wanderess Off Duty Palette 0.46 oz

Wander Beauty skinstore.com

$25 $19 (25% off)

Aptly named the Wanderess Off Duty Palette, the warm nude tones in this palette can be blended together to create a variety of looks ranging from natural to smokey and bold. The nourishing ingredients in Wander’s eyeshadows allow for a buttery application that lasts all day too.

MOISTURIZER

Rose Day Cream

Dr. Hauschka skinstore.com

$45 $34 (25% off)

For skin that’s feeling dehydrated, weather-damaged or stressed, this rich moisturizer goes to work in protecting against dryness and irritation. It’s suitable for all skin types and sensitive skin-friendly.

MOISTURIZER

Lait Crème Concentré 2.54 fl. oz

Embryolisse skinstore.com

$28 $21 (25% off)

One of ELLE.com‘s favorite face moisturizers, market editor Justine Carreon praises Embryolisse’s Lait Crème Concentré for really working. As Justine puts it: “This is one of those stereotypical products you see on those ‘French Girl’ lists, but it really does work. I wear it during the day with an SPF oil layered on top, then glob it on at night like a mask for an extra dose of moisture.”

CONCEALER

The Sensual Skin Enhancer

Kevyn Aucoin skinstore.com

$48 $36 (25% off)

Dewey skin lovers will likely already know that Kevyn Aucion’s Sensual Fluid Foundation has a cult-following. But because very few of us are putting on a full face these days, turn to the brand’s concealer to cover up blemishes and zits for your Zooms and socially distanced escapades. Infused with jojoba oil, honey and minerals, the versatile formula is long-lasting and waterproof.

MASCARA

Mile High Club Volume and Length Mascara 0.35 oz

Wander Beauty skinstore.com

$26 $20 (25% off)

Another Wander Beauty find worthy of being added to your cart is the brand’s best-selling Mile High mascara. This delivers volume and length in a single swoop. No clumping drama guaranteed.

NECK TREATMENT

Cold Plasma Plus+ Sub-D/Neck

Perricone MD skinstore.com

$135 $102 (25% off)

Getting tech neck from craning down a laptop all day is a real thing, even if you’re in your mid 20s. This neck treatment from Perricone MD works to tighten and firm the neck and jawline while also smoothing skin and helping to reduce the appearance of fine lines.

BODY LOTION

Atoderm Intensive Balm 500ml

Bioderma skinstore.com

$25 $19 (25% off)

If your skin is feeling super, super dry these days to the point where it’s sometimes itchy, generously lather on Bioderma’s Atoderm Intensive Balm. This has a soothing effect and and will help preventing the urge to itch too.

SILK PILLOWCASE

Silk Caramel Pillowcase Duo and Delicates Bag

skinstore.com

$193 $160 (17% off)

Anti-aging and crease minimizing benefits aside, a silk pillowcase simply just looks and feels luxurious. This set from industry-loved brand Slip includes two queen-sized pillowcases and a delicates bag.

HAND CARE

Made with Love Hand Cream Duo

ESPA skinstore.com

$45 $27 (50% off)

This useful set contains ESPA’s bergamot and jasmine-scented hand lotion and hand wash. Both contain nourishing properties that help retain moisture in the hands, nails and cuticles.

LIPSTICK

Beautiful Color Moisturizing Lipstick

Elizabeth Arden skinstore.com

$27 $20 (26% off)

Elizabeth Arden’s hard-working Beautiful Color Moisturizing Lipstick earns its moniker for delivering long-lasting color while simultaneously locking in moisture to create a plumped and fuller appearance. This comes in a few shades, but Neoclassic Coral is a failsafe choice.

BODY WASH

Gingerlily Body Wash, 300ml

Molton Brown skinstore.com

$24.00

$32 $24 (25% off)

To evoke the experience of taking a shower in a fancy London hotel room brimming with luxe toiletries, treat yourself or a loved one to Molton Brown’s Gingerlily body wash. The warm ginger and spicy cedarwood scent is heavenly indeed.

FACIAL DEVICE

NuFACE Trinity + Trinity ELE Attachment Set

NuFACE skinstore.com

$429 $343 (20% off)

The NuFace device uses microcurrent technology to stimulate and perk up facial muscles. Just one treatment is like getting a mini facelift from the comfort of your bathroom.

Jaimie Potters Commerce Content Manager Jaimie Potters is the Commerce Content Manager at Hearst Magazines Digital Media, where she covers fashion, beauty, tech and more.

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SkinStore's Presidents' Day Sale Wins Best Beauty Sale On The Internet Right Now

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Saudi Women's Rights Activist Loujain al-Hathloul Has Been Released From Prison

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Prominent Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul has been released from prison after 1,001 days.

Hathloul was arrested in 2018 after openly calling for an end on the ban against female drivers in the deeply conservative Kingdom. She also spoke out against its controversial male guardianship system, which gives men considerable power over women. Hathloul was one of at least a dozen other female activists taken into custody in 2018 after Saudi media branded them as traitors.

In December 2020, she was reportedly sentenced to five years and eight months in prison, with a suspension of two years and minus time already served. She was “accused of pushing a foreign agenda and using the Internet to harm public order,” according to The Guardian.

Following a persistent push by her family, friends, and a number of prominent global rights groups, Hathloul was finally granted probation by a Riyadh judge. On Wednesday, she was was able to return home to her family. According to a statement released to ELLE.com by CODEPINK, a grassroots organization focusing on global anti-war and social justice issues, Hathloul’s release comes with conditions that include a travel ban of five years, during which she will not be able to leave Saudi Arabia. Hathloul will also, according to CODEPINK, not be allowed to engage in any kind of activism.

Saudi Arabian officials have not yet officially announced her release, but Hathloul’s family seemed to confirm the news on Wednesday in a series of social media posts. One Tweet from her sister Lina reads, “Loujain is at home!!!!!!”

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Another Tweet, also from Lina, says: “The @LoujainHathloul at home after 1001 days in prison.”

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Her other sister, Alia, said in a separate post that Hathloul is currently at their parents’ home in Saudi Arabia. Her Tweet translates to: “best day of my life.”

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Hathloul’s family told NBC News that she was sexually harassed and tortured while in detention—including being caned, electrocuted and waterboarded. Saudi Arabia has denied those allegations. Her case became a cause célèbre in the 2020 election, with Joe Biden championing her during his campaign.

Activists and politicians and journalists across the world are celebrating her release—but many caution there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.

“Loujain’s years-long imprisonment has ended, but she is not free,” said Adam Google, the deputy director for the Middle East at Human Rights Watch said in a statemetn. “Banned from travel and coerced into silence by a suspended sentence hanging over her, Loujain’s ordeal remains a flagrant miscarriage of justice.”

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Rose Minutaglio Staff Writer Rose is a Staff Writer at ELLE.com covering culture, news, and women’s issues.

Saudi Women's Rights Activist Loujain al-Hathloul Has Been Released From Prison

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It Took Doctors Nearly 17 Years To Figure Out The Cause Of My Chronic Pain

When I was a kid, I always had pain in my life. I remember having to sit cross-legged in Girl Scouts and having intense pain around my knees and hips from it. I couldn’t understand why, but I knew I was uncomfortable much more than other people my age.

In middle school, I played volleyball and I always had pain around my knees and hips afterward. But things really changed for me in seventh grade. I developed chickenpox, strep throat, and pneumonia all at once. I woke one day and about 80% of my skin was covered from head to toe in itchy, dry patches. I’d never experienced that before. I was diagnosed with psoriasis soon after, a skin disease that causes those red, itchy scaly patches I had developed. I later learned that viruses such as chickenpox can “trigger” autoimmune conditions like psoriasis.

These were some of the darkest days of my life. I attempted suicide because I didn’t understand why I had to go through this.

The years stretched on and I continued to experience pain in my joints. Early on in high school, I played oboe and my hands would get really swollen after practicing for a few hours. I also developed pain in my sternum and collarbone—and my spine hurt all the time. When I saw my general physician about it, he chalked it up to growing pains. I grew up in the ‘80s, so the Internet wasn’t widely used at the time. So I just accepted what he said. I had no good way to research what might else be going on.

Then, in 11th grade, my right knee started swelling really badly. At one point, it was almost the size of a basketball. It was so swollen that I couldn’t walk. I saw an orthopedist who tested me for rheumatoid arthritis, but it came back negative. We talked about my pain, but he said something to the effect of, “I don’t know what’s causing it, and there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.” I was just 15. At that age, you trust your doctor and, if they don’t know what to do, you assume there is nothing you can do.

This was taken after I provided a patient testimony before the House of Representatives. I was there to help pass the Step Therapy Reform Bill. Step therapy is a practice where insurance companies require members to try less costly medications before the one a doctor prescribed.

Katie Roberts

These were some of the darkest days of my life. I attempted suicide when I was in high school because I didn’t understand why I had to go through this. Social acceptance is so important to teenagers and I couldn’t do the things that other people could do. No one understood what was happening to me—even my own doctors didn’t understand why I was in pain. It was emotionally very difficult.

I was also picked on because of my skin. Kids were mean, and parents were meaner. I had friends whose parents would not let me over to their house because they didn’t know if my skin condition was contagious or not. Frustration, sadness, physical pain, and mental anguish were very much part of my day-to-day. I don’t know if there was a day that I didn’t cry.

Finally, I got some answers

It wasn’t until I was 17 that I got real answers. My orthopedist just happened to meet up with his college roommate, who was a dermatologist. He mentioned my case, and his friend suggested that I might have psoriatic arthritis (PsA). I was living just outside Baltimore at the time, so my doctor sent me to a hospital center in Washington, D.C., and I was officially diagnosed with the disease.

I wasn’t familiar with psoriatic arthritis at the time, but I learned that it’s a chronic inflammatory disease of the joints and the areas where the tendons and ligaments connect to bone. About 30% of people with psoriasis develop psoriatic arthritis and it has no cure. The condition can cause a range of symptoms, including fatigue, tenderness, pain, and swelling over tendons, swelling, stiffness, and a reduced range of motion.

I was advised to do what I could with the rest of my life because I only had four to five years to live.

The experience of being diagnosed was overwhelming, to put it mildly. I had blood work done, and the doctor asked me to go to his office. He pulled a book off of a shelf, went to page 386 of the book, turned it to me, and said, “This is going to be you before your 21st birthday.” It was a picture of a cadaver in a casket.

He said, “Your disease will spread throughout your body. You’re on the verge of liver and kidney failure.” I was literally on my deathbed, and the doctor told me that there was nothing that could be done for me. I was advised to do what I could with the rest of my life because I only had four to five years to live.

Regaining my health

I’m incredibly lucky, though. I’ve made it past my 21st birthday and well beyond that. I grew up in the Washington, D.C. area and have had access to some of the best hospitals in the world. I had numerous surgeries on my liver and kidneys and was put on medication to manage the progression of my disease. That was important: Psoriatic arthritis is a progressive disease and people can develop what’s called comorbidities, meaning other health issues, because of the disease. Because my disease had progressed unchecked for so long, I was in incredibly poor health.

Psoriasis causes dry, raised, red skin patches covered with silvery scales. At it’s worst, nearly all of my body was covered in psoriasis lesions.

petekarici

I started a treatment regimen and, a month or two later, an experimental drug protocol opened up at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). I got into the trial, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. When I was 24, I got into another experimental drug protocol, and the results were amazing. I was using a wheelchair at the time, and the drug helped me get out of it in eight weeks. I eventually no longer needed to use a walker. It gave me my life back.

My body is forever damaged from the years of unchecked disease progression. For all the years that I went undiagnosed and misdiagnosed, the disease was setting in. The damage to my joints is irreversible. I’m still very susceptible to any type of virus or cold, and I have to be very regimented during cold and flu season because PsA is an autoimmune condition. Any infection can make my symptoms worse.

I’ve gone on to live a very healthy life, all things considered. I’m a standup paddleboard racer, and a powerlifter.

But I’ve gone on to live a very healthy life, all things considered. My lungs are only at 75% capacity—they never will be any stronger than that—but I’m a standup paddleboard racer, a kettlebell instructor, and a powerlifter. I still have arthritis and swelling, days where I can’t leave the couch, and days where I need to walk with a cane. But I’ve learned to listen to my body and make sure I take the appropriate self-care.

My skin has also cleared up. I went from having nearly all of my body covered in psoriasis to less than 20% coverage within six months after I started my most recent medication. I only have a few spots now.

Paying it forward

Currently, I’m working as an advocacy ambassador for the Arthritis Foundation. I’m very involved with the community and help people understand resources that are available to them. I also work with elected officials at the state and federal levels to make sure legislators are making informed decisions about healthcare policy decisions and how they impact those with psoriatic arthritis.

I was once only given a few years to live due to my psoriatic arthritis. But I’ve gotten my life back, and I’m working hard to make sure other people have more information and options available to them than I once had.

It Took Doctors Nearly 17 Years To Figure Out The Cause Of My Chronic Pain

#Partnerships

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Rihanna Is Shutting Down Fenty

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It’s the end of an era. Nearly two years after debuting her clothing brand Fenty, housed under luxury conglomerate LVMH, Rihanna and LVMH are officially shutting down operations.

Fenty marked the first luxury brand LVMH launched from the ground up since launching Christian Lacroix in 1987. But according to WWD, Fenty’s demise is due largely to the ongoing pandemic and the challenges that arise operating a brand remotely, a luxury one that’s produced in Paris and Italy at that. “Rihanna and LVMH have jointly made the decision to put on hold the RTW activity, based in Europe, pending better conditions,” LVMH shared in a statement to WWD. Travel bans kept the singer stateside, which allowed her to prioritize Fenty Beauty and Fenty Skin as they’re both based in Los Angeles. WWD reports that LVMH views Fenty Skin as a “home run”—which sources predicted pulled in $30 million in e-commerce sales in just four months—and will shift its focus to strengthening Rihanna’s other ventures. The Fenty site will likely go ghost in the next few weeks.

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Business of Fashion reports that another disconnect Fenty faced was securing loyal customers. The luxury line launched as an extension of Rihanna’s own personal style but the brand’s higher-priced items ($300 sunglasses or $800 heels, for example) didn’t pique the interest of fans who are regular shoppers at Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty, Fenty Skin, and Savage X.

That’s not to say LVMH and Rihanna won’t try their hand at another luxury brand in the future. If they did it once, they can do it again.

Nerisha Penrose Assistant Editor Nerisha is the assistant editor at ELLE.com, covering all things beauty and fashion.

Rihanna Is Shutting Down Fenty

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Megan Thee Stallion Wants to Give Your Hair Some Body-ody-ody

Megan Thee Stallion is bringing her Hot Girl Magic to another major beauty brand. After inking a deal with Revlon last year, the rapper joined Mielle Organics as its first global ambassador.

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In recent weeks, Megan has shared her natural hair growth journey on Instagram, where she’s shared tips and asked for recommendations. Simply put, the Hot Girl Coach can’t wait to give your hair some body-ody-ody. “I’m excited to represent a global haircare brand that is Black-owned and women-led,” Megan said in a press release. “It’s an incredible feeling to become an ambassador for a beauty brand that uplifts women to stand in their natural beauty.”

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Founded in 2014 by CEO Monique Rodriguez and COO Melvin Rodriguez, the Black-owned hair care company is pushing for worldwide expansion in 2021 to further its philanthropic efforts and impact in the industry. Led by a force like Megan, Rodriguez believes anything is possible.

“Mielle has seen phenomenal growth in many key categories, and the addition of Megan Thee Stallion as our global ambassador will further fuel our continued expansion and reshape the beauty industry,” Rodriguez added. “We are excited to partner with the leading female rapper to realize our global trajectory and to pursue new avenues of engagement that will bring new customers to our products.”

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Ariana Yaptangco Social Media & Beauty Editor Ariana Yaptangco oversees all #content across ELLE’s social media platforms and covers beauty news.

Megan Thee Stallion Wants to Give Your Hair Some Body-ody-ody

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Elizabeth Hurley's Abs Are On Full Display In Bikini Pics From Her 'Pretend Vacation'

You’re not the only one who’s sick of being stuck at home: Elizabeth Hurley is, too. And she just came up with a hilariously creative way to get out of the #pandemiclife mindset.

The model and actress, 55, shared on Instagram earlier this week that she’s on a “pretend vacation,: because WTH not? And she’s got puh-lenty of bikini pics to prove it.

“Pretend vacation! I’m so fed up with being at home, I’m pretending I’m away and am living vicariously through my camera roll for the next 10 days #pretendvacation 😘,” The Royals alum wrote alongside a pic of herself goofing off on the beach in a gorgeous tan bikini.

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Of course, that was just the beginning of her pretend vacation. The Austin Powers actress then shared this snap of herself lounging in the sand:

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She followed that up with this video twirling on a beach in the Maldives:

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Then, she posted this pic of herself poolside in India:

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And her most recent Instagram features her rocking a yellow bikini like it’s NBD:

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Basically, Liz is really leaning into this whole pretend vacation thing. The Runaways star always looks so fit and glowy that it can take a sec to realize these are #TBT photos. I mean, hello—this was posted pre-“vacation” and she looks exactly the same:

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Elizabeth doesn’t look that fit by accident—she eats really, really well. She previously told The Cut that you won’t find processed foods on her plate. “I like simple, natural, easy food. I don’t really like food with a lot of chemicals or additives,” she said. “When I’m at home in the country, I always try and eat food that’s grown locally. That goes for meats and vegetables.”

She’s also huge on found fitness. She previously told Women’s Health that she likes to do squats while she brushes her teeth and takes 30-minute walks with her dogs that are “fast enough to get my heart rate up.” She also does yoga and Pilates sometimes.

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The actress also told Extra that she’s really not into working out in the traditional sense, but she’s “very active. I do a lot of exercise, but it’s really the gardening… cutting down a hedge, using my chainsaw to cut down a tree, logging, all of that stuff I do.”

Hmmm, I wonder if she presses pause on those activities during her “pretend vacation” or chalks them up as at-home excursions?

Korin Miller Korin Miller is a freelance writer specializing in general wellness, sexual health and relationships, and lifestyle trends, with work appearing in Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Self, Glamour, and more.

Elizabeth Hurley's Abs Are On Full Display In Bikini Pics From Her 'Pretend Vacation'

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Paul Hollywood Weighed In on Blake Lively's Unicorn Cake

It looks like Blake Lively is just as anxious for Paul Hollywood’s approval as the contestants on everyone’s favorite cooking competition, The Great British Baking Show—and, to my delight, Hollywood took notice. In an Instagram post, the Gossip Girl star shared a video of a glittering pink cake in celebration of her sister Robyn’s birthday. Topped with sugar flowers, a set of ears, and a horn, Lively’s unicorn creation drew praise from fans, but it was Hollywood’s attention that she sought.

“If I don’t get a handshake from @paul.hollywood after decorating this one, I quit,” Lively said in her post.

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Soon after, Hollywood reposted Lively’s video on Instagram, although it remains unclear if she earned the handshake. Let’s hope this interaction leads to a Blake Lively x Baking Show crossover episode.

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And, side note: give her the Hollywood Handshake, you coward! She deserves it!

Zoe Guy Zoe Guy is the digital fellow at Marie Claire, where she covers pop culture, hot celebrity gossip, movies and TV.

Paul Hollywood Weighed In on Blake Lively's Unicorn Cake

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Selena Gomez Went Out in a Dreamy Cream Coat and Sweater for NYC Snow Day

New York City remains covered in snow, following two storms in the last week that left the city blanketed in over 20 inches. But that didn’t stopped Selena Gomez from dressing up yesterday as she was shot on set of her upcoming Hulu comedy Only Murders in the Building.

Last week, Gomez was photographed boldly wearing heels in the snowstorm. This week, as snow slush remains on some of the city’s sidewalks, Gomez didn’t take any chances with her footwear: She wore snow boots. But she paired them with a chic cream coat, a white sweater, tan pants, and a gray mask. It was a cozy but polished ensemble.

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Gomez’s Only Murders in the Building co-star Martin Short spoke to The Daily Beast this August about the show’s premise. “It’s about three people who live in one of those upscale apartment buildings in New York,” he said. “They see each on the elevator, they kind of nod, but they never really speak. They don’t even know each other’s names. And then you find out that each one of them goes to their individual apartments and just turns on true crime and obsesses. And then one time they’re in the elevator with this fourth person. And they find out that fourth person is killed and they’re determined to solve it. But they make a pact: only murders in the building will they solve. Because they can’t be bothered to go outside.”

Alyssa Bailey News and Strategy Editor Alyssa Bailey is the news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton).

Selena Gomez Went Out in a Dreamy Cream Coat and Sweater for NYC Snow Day

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'Dear Evan Hansen' Movie to Hit Theaters in September

Like so many beloved Broadway shows before it, Dear Evan Hansen is becoming a movie. The hit musical, which won six Tony Awards, will be adapted for film, with Ben Platt reprising his titular role. Ahead, everything we know about the film, including the two Oscar favorite actresses who’ve just joined the cast.

The movie will be based on the hit stage musical.

In November 2018, it was confirmed that Universal Pictures had acquired the film rights to the smash-hit musical from Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul. Dear Evan Hansen tells the story of a high school student who suffers from anxiety and other mental health issues after a classmate’s suicide.

The original Broadway production opened in December 2016 at the Music Box Theatre and has been playing to regularly sold-out crowds ever since. (The production is currently paused, as Broadway is shut down through May 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.) DEH was nominated for nine Tony Awards, winning six including Best Musical, Best Original Score, and acting trophies for Platt as Lead Actor and Rachel Bay Jones as Featured Actress.

The release date has finally been announced.

Universal Pictures officially revealed the movie will debut in theaters on September 24, 2021. There’s no word yet about when the film will be available to stream.

Ben Platt will reprise his Broadway role as Evan Hansen.

Platt gave his final performance in the role of Evan Hansen on Broadway in November 2017, but he’ll play the character again in the film adaptation, Universal Pictures confirmed.

Last September, while promoting his Netflix series The Politician, Platt was vague about returning to the role. “It’s unclear at this point,” he told The New York Times. “It’s being developed and certainly if it comes together in the next year or so, when everyone can forgive me for still playing a teenager, then yeah, I would love to do it.” In March, Platt more definitively told People, “I’d love to go back to it.”

As of September 2020, Platt hadn’t formally committed to returning, nor ruled out his involvement. “Yes and no,” Platt told Deadline when pressed for updates in July. “If COVID allows it, it’s on the docket for everyone and something that I think everyone is really looking to make. We think this is obviously a story that would be really effective to tell on film. But it’s a matter of can we make it happen in time for me to be conceivably young [enough for the role]. If the [COVID] guidelines prove that it’s possible over the next few months, I think it’s definitely a possibility.”

We’re thrilled to hear that possibility is now a reality.

Julianne Moore will play Heidi Hansen.

Oscar winner Moore will play Hansen’s mother Heidi, Deadline reports. This will be one of her first musical roles onscreen, playing the role for which Rachel Bay Jones won a Tony in 2017.

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Amy Adams will play Cynthia Murphy.

Adams and her six Academy Award nominations are headed to the set of Dear Evan Hansen. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she’s signed on to play Cynthia Murphy, mother of Zoe and Connor. Adams is no stranger to a musical role—she sang onscreen in Disney’s Enchanted and The Muppets. Plus, she performed live during the 2008 Oscars to sing Enchanted‘s “Happy Working Song.”

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Her character’s husband will be played by Danny Pino of FX’s Mayans M.C., according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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Booksmart‘s Kaitlyn Dever will play Zoe.

Deadline reported that Kaitlyn Dever, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for Netflix’s Unbelievable, is in talks to play Evan’s love interest Zoe Murphy. That’s the female lead in the film and will be Dever’s first major musical role onscreen. The outlet notes that she has previously written and performed songs for the soundtrack of 2018’s Tully, starring Charlize Theron. Dever also co-starred with Platt’s real-life best friend and Merrily co-star Feldstein in last year’s Booksmart. Onstage, Laura Dreyfuss (The Politician) originally played Zoe, who dates Evan over the course of the musical.

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One of the actors playing Zoe’s friends in the film will be DeMarius Copes, Deadline reports. He’s an actor best known for starring in Broadway’s Mean Girls and will assume the role of Oliver.

The Hate U Give‘s Amandla Stenberg will play Alana.

Variety reported that Stenberg will play an “expanded” version of Alana in Dear Evan Hansen. Originally played by Broadway newcomer Kristolyn Lloyd, Alana is a high school senior whose inner struggles are hidden by her optimism and social media finesse. The outlet also reports that Stenberg will perform an original song in the movie, which they’ll pen with Paskek and Paul.

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The roles of Jared and Connor have been cast.

According to Deadline, Nik Dodani (Atypical) will play Jared, an “enterprising family friend” of the titular Hansen. He’ll be joined by Colton Ryan (Little Voice) as Connor, the “catalyst” for the musical’s plot and a high school senior struggling with inner turmoil. Ryan is familiar with the world of DEH, as he was an understudy for the roles of Connor, Jared, and Evan Hansen in the original Broadway production.

Dodani will play Jared in DEH.

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Ryan will play Connor in DEH.

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Stephen Chbosky will direct with the creative team from Broadway’s Dear Evan Hansen returning.

Most of the creative team involved in the Tony-winning production of DEH is returning for the film adaptation. Music and lyrics will come from Pasek and Paul, inspired by their stage work. Since Dear Evan Hansen‘s success, the musical duo went on to win an Oscar for La La Land‘s “City of Stars” and were nominated for The Greatest Showman‘s “This Is Me.” Pasek and Paul will also executive produce the film, alongside Marc Platt (Ben’s father) and Adam Siegel.

The script will come from Steven Levenson, who wrote the stage musical’s book. Levenson is also penning the scripts for upcoming big-screen musicals including Lin Manuel Miranda’s Tick, Tick…Boom! and a Fiddler on the Roof remake. Filmmaker Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Wonder) will direct the movie. Director Michael Greif (original Broadway productions of Rent and Next to Normal) helmed the stage version.

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Savannah Walsh Editorial Fellow Savannah Walsh is an Editorial Fellow at ELLE.com.

'Dear Evan Hansen' Movie to Hit Theaters in September

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Aaron Rodgers' Friends Were 'Surprised' by 'Super Fast' Engagement to Shailene Woodley

Actress Shailene Woodley and Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ surprise romance and sudden engagement didn’t just shock the public. It also surprised their inner circle, People reports. Rodgers’ friends were under the impression that the couple, who got engaged just months into dating, were casual. Rodgers had been in a two-year relationship with Danica Patrick that ended in July 2020. Woodley said she was single in April 2020.

“It was a surprise that they got so close so quickly,” a source close to Rodgers said. “I mean, it really felt like one day he was with Danica Patrick, and then suddenly he was with Shailene. It happened super fast.”

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The source said that those close to Rodgers initially saw him dating Woodley as a temporary fling. “It was so fast that at first, we thought she was just a rebound,” the source said. “There was no way this could be so serious. Everyone thought it was a casual thing because that’s what he was telling everyone, even when it was clearly not a casual thing.”

“Now we realize that it was clearly a lot more serious than they told anyone,” the source continued. “All this goes to show that this must be a very special relationship for him and for her. So everyone wishes them happiness.”

People‘s reporting comes after E! spoke to a source who gave more detail about how their romance began and progressed.

“They can’t wait to get married and they want it to happen soon,” E!’s source said, adding that there was a great spark between them, from the very start: “They had a very intense connection from the beginning,” the source said. “They both knew early on that it was something special and different from what they had experienced in other relationships. It’s a quick engagement, but for those that know them, it didn’t come as a surprise.”

“They have spent the entire fall together and lived together throughout,” the source said, noting that all their time together wasn’t long distance. “She is very supportive of his career and embraced his life in Green Bay. Even though she has her own career and life, she wanted to be there with him. Over the next year, they plan to spend some time traveling and enjoying a warmer climate.”

Aaron Rodgers' Friends Were 'Surprised' by 'Super Fast' Engagement to Shailene Woodley

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Kim Kardashian Mounted an All-Out Defense of North After Skeptics Questioned Her Painting

Kim Kardashian shocked the internet when she posted an Instagram story of an extravagant painting created by her seven-year-old daughter North West. Some praised North’s artistic talent; others doubted she really created it, because the internet is the internet and the Kardashian family is the Kardashian family.

But Kardashian wasn’t having it. She went all out on her Instagram Stories, sharing receipts that yes, North created it, and North’s friend attended the same art class and made a similar piece. North’s father Kanye West was also a gifted artist as a kid, so the talent is in North’s genes. North has been painting since she was a baby, and the very first Mother’s Day gift she gave Kardashian was a painted Hermès purse. Then Kardashian spotlighted some of the critical tweets and articles, adding her own commentary like “FOH” (fuck out of here). She did hide the name of the users who posted them, as a courtesy.

In her first post, Kardashian made the very valid point that scrutinizing the work of a minor child and doing analysis over whether it’s really theirs or not is cruel to the child and not a good look for the person posting about it. She wrote:

DON’T PLAY WITH ME WHEN IT COMES TO MY CHILDREN!!!

My daughter and her best friend have been taking a serious oil painting class where their talents and creativity are being encouraged and nurtured. North worked incredibly hard on her painting, which took several weeks to complete. AS a proud mom, I want to share her work with everyone. I’m seeing op-ed pieces in the media and social media from grown adults breaking down whether or not my child actually painted this! How dare you see children doing awesome things and then try to accuse them of NOT being awesome!?!?! Please stop embarrassing yourselves with the negativity and allow every child to be GREAT!!! NORTH WEST PAINTED THAT PERDIOTDDDDDABCDEFGZFDT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

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Then she shared more Instagram Stories proving North’s art was made by North. Here are the most noteworthy (Kardashian posted more than 10):

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Kim showing the Hermès bag North painted as a baby.

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She ultimately ended her posts by writing, “Shoutout to all the proud moms out there who love to show their baby’s masterpieces.”

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Imagine if Kardashian was this passionate about the coronavirus pandemic and encouraging others not to party or go on private island vacations with family and friends during a global health crisis…

Kim Kardashian Mounted an All-Out Defense of North After Skeptics Questioned Her Painting

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Dylan Farrow Would Like to Reintroduce Herself

Coat, Max Mara.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY VALERIE CHIANG

Scouring the fantasy section of her favorite bookstore near the Connecticut farm where she grew up, Dylan Farrow would pick out anything that “promised me dragons,” she says. She loved the fire and destruction of mythical beasts; conspiracy theories involving families plotting against their own kin; and the way women, children, and other small creatures wielded magical powers that made them stronger in those make-believe worlds than they were in our own. “I think it started out as an escape route,” she says. “For any fans of fantasy, whether they’re in my position or not, it’s fun escapism, a way to step outside of yourself and your problems, and, I don’t know, think about dragons for a while.” She pauses to clarify: “I’m not trying to escape who I am—I’m fine with who I am. I mean, it’s taken me a while to get here, but I can say with [some] degree of certainty that I’m okay.”

Still, the first time we talked, late last year, it hadn’t quite sunk in for her that she had her own debut young adult fantasy fiction novel, Hush, on bookshelves like the ones she’d perused as a teenager. In a lot of ways, the release of Hush has served as a debut for the 35-year-old author as well, in her new life as a full-time writer and working mother, defined by no one but herself. After all, for most of her life, Dylan has been known mostly in relation to the salacious scandals that have swirled around her famous family. She became a public figure not by choice, but rather because she was Mia Farrow’s daughter, or Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Ronan Farrow’s sister. “I don’t feel like I have a father,” she says, but at one point her father was Woody Allen, Mia’s boyfriend of about a decade, who’d adopted Dylan as a child. Later, of course, Allen would go on to have an affair with, and then marry, her sister, Soon-Yi Previn. “There’s no support group for people whose sisters marry their fathers,” she says. “Or is he my brother-in-law? And is she my stepmom? I’ve got to joke about it!”

Dylan playing dress-up with Mia in the early 1990s.

Courtesy of Dylan Farrow

Then there’s the other scandal that she’ll likely never fully escape, now the subject of an HBO investigative documentary series, Allen v. Farrow. In 1992, when Dylan was seven—the same year the Soon-Yi affair blew up—she told her mother that Allen had taken her into an attic crawl space and sexually molested her, as Mia would testify in the ensuing custody battle. It was part of a pattern that Dylan later said went on for as long as she could remember, of Allen getting into bed with her wearing only his underwear, or putting his head in her naked lap. The custody fight was vicious and tore their family apart, estranged Allen from most of his children permanently, and became such a public tabloid spectacle that Dylan remembers having to be sneaked out of the back of her New York City apartment building with a blanket over her head so she could get to school without being snapped by the paparazzi. She still has PTSD from the ordeal.

A report by the Yale-New Haven Hospital Child Sexual Abuse Clinic, whose methods the judge in the custody case questioned as unreliable, concluded that Dylan was not sexually abused and that Dylan was either disturbed and made it up or had been manipulated by her mother. The judge gave Mia full custody, finding that the testimony proved “that Mr. Allen’s behavior toward Dylan was grossly inappropriate and that measures must be taken to protect her.” Allen appealed, but the appellate court agreed with the trial judge’s custody ruling. Although it gave more weight to the Yale-New Haven report, the appeals court found that the overall evidence, while “inconclusive,” “suggest[ed] that the abuse did occur.” New York State child welfare investigators later announced that they’d found no credible evidence of abuse. Several months after the custody decision was announced, a Connecticut state’s attorney announced that he had probable cause to criminally charge Allen but was declining to file charges to spare Dylan the trauma of a court appearance. Criminal charges have never been filed against Allen in the matter, and he continues to maintain his innocence. (Allen declined a request to comment for this article, but he has vociferously and repeatedly denied having molested her, and has pointed to investigations that cleared him of wrongdoing.)

“Believe it or not, the stuff that I wrote about in that essay does not encompass the entirety of my existence.”

If you know Dylan’s name now, though, it’s probably because in 2014, well before the #MeToo movement, she wrote a New York Times essay about that abuse, calling out Hollywood actors and asking whether they’d be so quick to celebrate Allen’s work had their own daughter been “led into an attic” by him. It wasn’t until her brother Ronan helped expose the misdeeds of Harvey Weinstein that Dylan’s accusations were given much credence. Dylan had emerged from obscurity to become a staunch advocate for survivors of sexual assault. But now she’s ready to emerge from that as simply a writer. “Believe it or not, the stuff that I wrote about in that essay does not encompass the entirety of my existence,” she says. “It’s a small part of 35 years of living.”

In fact, Dylan isn’t even Dylan Farrow’s name anymore. When she was eight, she changed it to a name she prefers to keep private, in order to psychologically distance herself from the events of those tumultuous years. But she’s been using Dylan as a sort of pen name, starting with the 2014 essay, to avoid confusion given that Dylan is the name in all the court documents. Among close friends and family, though, she says, “No one’s called me Dylan since I was 10.”

“I’m not trying to escape who I am. I’m fine with who I am”, says Dylan. “I mean, it’s taken me a while to get here, but I can say with some degree of certainty that I’m okay.”

VALERIE CHIANG

Reading Hush, it’s impossible not to see Dylan’s story in its themes. The book centers on Shae, a girl who is dealing with a lot and doesn’t really have time for boys. She’s “short but strong,” Dylan says, and she’s also doggedly determined to ferret out the truth—even as adults tell her it’s all in her head. The world she’s living in is falling apart, stricken by drought and a pandemic that Dylan swears she dreamed up well before 2020. A despotic leadership class wields magic to spread fake news, earn tithes, and control the populace. The written word, the people are told, will kill them; the pandemic spreads through ink. And it is only in trying to solve the murder of someone she loves that Shae finds out that she, too, can wield magic. But can she learn how to use it fast enough, when the truth is slipping away and she’s being gaslighted by powerful forces, causing her to question what she knows? Dylan says that of course the themes are partially based on her life, but readers shouldn’t try to draw too many direct parallels. “As I keep having to assert,” she says, “I do know the difference between fiction and reality.”

Fantasy writers like “Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeleine L’Engle, and Susan Cooper were all a big deal in our house,” Ronan says, adding that his older sister also “had an abiding love of anime.”

COURTESY OF DYLAN FARROW

After being awarded custody in 1993, Mia moved her large family, filled with biological and adopted children, many of them with disabilities, from Manhattan to their country house in Connecticut. Mia was determined to give the kids “the real farm experience,” Dylan says. They had horses, chickens, goats, and a cow who got lonely and tried having sex with everything, including one of the Farrow siblings’ wheelchairs. “It was a busy, noisy life full of children and animals,” Mia says.

Dylan now maintains a happy pandemic pod with her own family on that same farm, 88 acres with hiking and horse trails and a lake. She’s calling via Zoom from a home office with nothing but greenery and sunlight outside her window. Dylan, her husband (she asked that his name not be published), her four-year-old daughter Evangeline (whose name is already all over Mia’s Instagram), their pug Luna, and their English bulldog Nova stay in one house. Her brother Fletcher, who works in tech, and his wife and two daughters live in another. Their mother has a third. When we talked, Ronan and his fiancé, Jon Lovett of Pod Save America, had recently joined them from the West Coast and were staying with Mia.

Dylan’s earliest exposure to fantasy, she says, was a bedtime ritual of her mom reading The Hobbit to the kids. “My mom, I sometimes forget, is actually a really talented actress,” she says. “So she would read the bejesus out of this book, and it was the most epic thing I had ever heard. My mom would narrate and do all the voices. To this day, her rendition of Gollum is like canon tome.” At around age 11, Dylan wrote stories to read aloud to her younger siblings. “She kept them so enthralled,” Mia says. Ronan, two years her junior, says they both read a lot growing up. “Great women writers of fantasy loomed large for both of us—Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeleine L’Engle, and Susan Cooper were all a big deal in our house,” he says. “Dylan had an abiding love of anime, which I only dabbled in.” (Dylan says she also had an abiding love of Lance Bass of *NSync.)

Dylan casts a spell on her brother Ronan, whom she calls “one of the most important people in my life.”

Courtesy of Dylan Farrow

“I loved to play make-believe with Ronan,”Dylan says. “We’d play dress-up, and I’d sometimes let him play Barbies with me, if I was feeling charitable.” They collected pewter Dungeons & Dragons figurines and created a civilization for them. “We developed some pretty elaborate lore,” Ronan says. In her teenage years, Dylan wrote and illustrated a Game of Thrones–style novel, clocking in at “530-something” pages, that she says “was not fit for human consumption.” Its audience of one was her little sister, Quincy. There were dragons. The main character was an elf. There was a war. Some of it took place in space. “Every concept and every crazy notion I needed to express got chucked into the pot, and it went in a million directions and it was garbage,” she says. “I mean, my sister loves it to this day. She still talks about it.” Back then, as an author, Dylan felt supremely confident. “If I thought it was bad, I wouldn’t have written 500 pages,” she says, laughing.

The court hearings of Dylan’s childhood were, in many ways, a prosecution of her so-called “overactive” imagination. She’d described being in the attic with the “dead heads”—“which was literally because I didn’t know the word for mannequin,” she says. “I knew that people thought that I was using my imagination to tell lies,” she continues, but somehow that never affected her desire to write. Nor did Allen being a famous writer influence her in any way, “although it’s probably the reason I never wrote about New York and jazz and May–December romances,” she says.

In her senior year at Bard College, where she was majoring in art and Asian studies, Dylan decided to sign up for an online dating site associated with The Onion. This was in 2007, well before Tinder, “when dinosaurs roamed the Earth,” she says. At first, she wasn’t having much luck. “I signed up and there was, like, an influx of fifty-somethings being like, ‘Age ain’t nothing but a number, right?’ ” she says. “I’m like, ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree.’ ” Then she came across this “adorable” recent graduate living in New York City who described himself as a geek. “So I did the thing I’ve never done before or since, and I sent him a message and flirted with the guy,” she says. “I said, ‘You didn’t mention you were a cute geek.’ Winky-face emoji. I’m turning bright red telling you this.”

They met up at Grand Central Terminal and got pie and coffee, and the conversation never stopped flowing. After graduation, she moved in with him in New York. “He tried to kick me out,”she says. “He told me, ‘You’re finally independent. You should have the experience of having your own place, paying your own rent.’ I’m like,‘That’s really responsible of you, but that sounds like a lot of work.’ ” Dylan got a job as a production assistant at CNN, working the phones and the copy machine at the Nancy Grace show, mainly so she could continue to crash with her boyfriend. She was eventually laid off. “Journalism, it turns out, wasn’t for me. Wrong member of my family,” she says. When her boyfriend got a job offer he couldn’t turn down in South Florida and asked her to join him, she agreed. “In the back of my head, I’m thinking, ‘Well, I’d better get an engagement ring out of this,’ ” she says. And she did. They’ve been together for 14 years, married for 10.

Dylan has been writing stories to entertain her younger siblings since age 11. “She kept them so enthralled,” Mia says.

VALERIE CHIANG

Dylan spent the following six years in Broward County, living a relatively normal life. She worked for a weight-loss center, and later found a job as a graphic designer. Back at home, she’d write fantasy stories well into the early hours. “That was where I was finding my happy place,” she says. “I sat down with my husband at one point and I said, ‘Look, I spend every morning sitting in my car giving myself this pep talk, like, Today is going to be over at some point. And I can’t live like this.’ ” She did some soul-searching and realized she wanted to become a full-time writer. “My husband was like, ‘Okay, this is important to you. We’ll make it work.’ He’s a champ.”

So she sat down and wrote a novel. Not Hush, but a “casserole” of ideas. “It was about necromancers, set in a Spanish Inquisition–like setting,” she says. “It was maybe a little anti-religion; they were heretics.” Her protagonist was too old for YA, but the story didn’t exactly work for a broader fantasy audience either. “I wound up learning a lot about, you know, what sort of book gets picked up by publishers,” she says, laughing.

Around 2014, Dylan and her husband decided to move back northeast to Connecticut. Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine had come out to critical praise the previous year, garnering two Golden Globe and three Academy Award nominations, including Best Original Screenplay for Allen. The sexual assault allegation, the custody battle, and leaving Manhattan had all happened in 1992 and 1993. Dylan had started fourth grade in Connecticut, thinking she’d never have to worry about any of it again, except for the rare occasions when her mom went to court. “I sort of treated it as out of sight, out of mind, and I did that for about 20 years,” she says. “But then he was up for an Academy Award, and no one cared.

We were in the process of relocating, and I snapped and went crazy and the essay happened.” When she told someone close to her that she was thinking about speaking out, he said, “Well, why? Nobody cares.” When she told her therapist that “maybe this is something, someday, you know, nebulously, abstractly I’m considering,” he told her that it was a terrible idea and she’d undo all the progress she’d made.“Obviously, I didn’t listen to those people,” she says. “The thing is, in a lot of ways, they were wrong. But in a lot of [other] ways, they were right. In 2014, nobody really did give a crap. And I did undo all the progress I’d made.”

The essay caused a stir, but Allen kept his Academy Award nomination, and the star of Blue Jasmine, Cate Blanchett, won the Oscar for Best Actress. Meanwhile, Dylan had opened Pandora’s box. “I had to develop an entirely new skill set with different coping mechanisms based around having spoken out and the aftermath of that,” she says. “The difference was, I was doing this on my own terms.” She still struggles at times, “but on the whole, it does feel healthier to cope with it on that level rather than just ignore it. I think it’s also more helpful to the people in my life: my husband, my family, my friends. They know what’s going on now. I’m not just freaking out because I saw some random movie poster. There’s a method to the madness.”

Mia, Ronan, and Dylan in Connecticut, in 2016.

Courtesy of Dylan Farrow

Mia can see a huge difference. “She’s evolved from being a shy child to being much more assertive. And a lot of it has to do with coming out with her personal story and feeling less like a victim,” she says. “I do know that as a mother, my job, among other jobs, is and always has been to support her in whatever she needs. I’ve stood by her all these years, and I will continue to do so.”

Dylan has only seen three of Allen’s movies: 1973’s Sleeper (“As a kid, I think it was framed as, ‘Do you want to see Daddy eat a rubber glove?’ and I was like, ‘Oh yeah!’ ”) and two others, Alice and The Purple Rose of Cairo, neither of which Allen appears in onscreen. According to IMDb, Dylan appears in Alice, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and New York Stories, “which is really trippy,” she says, “because I don’t remember being in them.” For her Alice appearance, she visited her mom on set, ran up to hug her and say “hi,” and then ran off. She remembers the moment, but not being filmed. She also remembers being at the circus with two kids who kept putting their Cracker Jack in her popcorn. Years later, when she saw the movie, she realized she was watching herself. “It was weird, like seeing my memory, but with different people,” she says.

Triggers are all around her, and whether they’ll set her off depends on how she is doing emotionally that day. She’ll freeze up if she’s scrolling through a news feed and sees a face with thick glasses, or if she overhears jazz music. In the past, such things could leave her curled up in a fetal position. During a 2018 TV interview with Gayle King, Dylan burst out crying after being shown a recording of Allen denying the allegation. It hasn’t gotten better overnight—“It’s a process,” she says—but Dylan has been steadily improving since speaking out. “I try to take the mindset that I have a 100 percent success rate of getting through every single one of the panic attacks I’ve ever had; none of them have killed me.” In some ways, she says, it’s been a blessing to be Evangeline’s mother in this fraught time, to have to care for a small child and to know she has to hold it together for her. “My top priority is obviously making sure that my daughter is always safe, healthy, and loved,” she says. Asked what she says when others assert that Allen was just acting as a doting father, Dylan replies: “Let him watch your kid.”

It still baffles her when Allen’s fans come after her on Twitter, saying she’s lying. “This is something that I’m literally telling you happened to me. Who are you to say, ‘No, it didn’t’? I was there, you weren’t. Go away.” Still, it’s amazing to her that some people peddle the idea that her mother brainwashed her to believe she was molested and also to have PTSD from it—something she says Mia would have needed “military-grade torture equipment” to pull off. “It’s crazy that for some people, the idea that I was brainwashed is somehow easier to swallow than child sexual abuse,” she says.

“I guess I’m just way more vindictive than anybody gave me credit for,” Dylan says. “And I say that because it’s not entirely a bad thing. Vindictive women can get stuff done.”

VALERIE CHIANG

Dylan didn’t tell her mother and Ronan that she was going to write the essay until she already knew she was going to publish it. “I kind of wanted to wait until there were no take-backsies before I really discussed it with them, because I wasn’t sure how they were going to react,” she says. It was the first time she’d told Ronan what had happened in detail. “And he started crying, which I didn’t really expect,” she says. “He’s not super sentimental.” Even for Ronan, #MeToo warrior that he is now, there was a period of adjustment, of separating the family desire to put the past behind them with his sister’s need to expose her wounds in order to heal them. They talked often and at length, and in 2016, when Allen’s film Café Society was opening the Cannes Film Festival, Ronan wrote his own essay supporting his sister’s claims for The Hollywood Reporter. It was loud and splashy, and dominated all the press for Allen’s film. And in its own way, it led to Ronan chasing down the stories of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assaults. “Dylan was absolutely a voice of conscience on this issue,” Ronan said by email. “I learned a lot, watching her come forward with her story, and maintain it consistently, year after year—even when I and others around her weren’t sure it was worth the blowback.”

“Without Ronan’s support, I probably would’ve felt completely adrift,” Dylan says. “He’s one of the most important people in my life.” What she didn’t realize was just how important those conversations would be to her brother and others, through his work.

“I thought he was just, like, calling me. It wasn’t until I read his book that I realized I was actually having this huge impact on him.” It bothered her, though, that her essay from 2014 “was kind of brushed off and ignored or sidelined or outright stomped into the dust,” but when her brother said the exact same thing two years later, suddenly people’s ears perked up. “I got salty at Ronan, because I was like, ‘Do people really need a white man to say the exact same thing to get people to listen?’ ”

So in 2017, in the wake of #MeToo, she wrote a second incendiary essay, this time for the Los Angeles Times, which questioned how all these men could be taken to task, but Woody Allen was still making movies. “[At age seven,] I wasn’t, obviously, given a platform, and I was not in an emotional state to take advantage of a platform. I was literally a child,” she says. “And it’s easy when you are a white man with a considerable amount of clout, power, and wealth to silence a voice like that, pin the blame on my mom, and spin the story for 20-plus years.” The good thing, though, is that Dylan has begun to recognize her own power. “I guess I’m just way more vindictive than anybody gave me credit for,” she says. “And I say that because it’s not entirely a bad thing. Vindictive women can get stuff done.”

“I never thought I would be writing about a dystopia in a climate where that would feel relatable.”

In the end, Hush hasn’t been an escape route for Dylan, but rather a way forward out of the darkness that has clouded her existence for so long. After her first novel about the necromancers failed to find a publisher, she decided to start over, “drawing on the themes and ideas that I was seeing percolating in the world around me,” she says. In 2018, as now, fake news and propaganda were hot topics, as was a general distrust of the system. “I never thought I would be writing about a dystopia in a climate where that would feel relatable,” she says. When Mia read it, she saw her daughter in Shae. “I see Dylan’s courage against monstrous thoughts and monstrous people and powerful foes,” she says. “Being disbelieved is part of the assault.” While she says she can’t speak for her daughter, Mia thinks that in writing the book, Dylan was able to reckon with her past in a way that was “bearable,” by creating a story “which is and isn’t about her.”

Hush

Dylan Farrow bookshop.org

$17.47

As of mid-January, Dylan was nearly finished writing the sequel to Hush, with only half of the final chapter and the epilogue to go. She’s found that it’s progressing faster and is more enjoyable this time around, because she no longer has the terror of being a debut novelist who, before this, “was a known quantity for something very specific—and something with a lot of morbid curiosity around it.”

She knows that curiosity will always be there. “I can’t completely disentangle myself from it,” she says. And the publicity for this book has meant a lot of “talking about the thing that I like least in the world. It’s always going to be the elephant in the room.” But no amount of fear can take away the pleasure of holding her book in her hands, and knowing that someone else might happen across it at a bookstore and take it off the shelf. Her simple hope is that “somebody will read it and connect to it and enjoy it and maybe not take it so seriously.”

Jada Yuan Jada Yuan circumnavigated the globe in 2018 as the inaugural 52 Places Traveler for the New York Times. Before that, she spent over a decade at New York Magazine and its websites as a contributing editor and culture features writer, where she profiled Stevie Nicks, Ava Duvernay, and Bill Murray, among others.

Dylan Farrow Would Like to Reintroduce Herself

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easyhairstylesbest · 3 years

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When She Says Woman, She Doesn't Mean Me

When I was 19, I paid my way to San Francisco with pornography. I answered an ad for the cheapest room I could find, and when the girl who lived there asked me, I lied and said I was straight. I didn’t know anyone. Men or boys asked me to go places, and I went. At a party in the fall, I wore tight red pants and no bra. I drank what was handed to me. I fell asleep on a bed and woke up and this boy was fucking me. His smell and skin and my teeth grinding and I was drunk or high, I don’t know which, and I couldn’t move. I could not make him stop. I passed out again and woke up and his body was there on the bed and I inched away and it was so gray, San Francisco was always so gray, always so predawn, and I did not want to jostle anything, gathered my limbs, my fragile center, slipped out to the gray street and the shivering bus and stepped gently on the stairs up into my rented room and washed myself with hot water and drank hot coffee to burn the inside of me and began the work of pretending it had not happened.

That same year, my boss at the coffee shop left me five messages in three days:

“Hey, just wanted to see if you want to go to that show on Friday at Great American Music Hall.”

“Hey you haven’t called me back so just checking in again to see if you want to go, or maybe get a drink.”

“Hey you know it’s pretty rude of you to just smile at me like that and then not even call me back.”

“You can’t just be nice to people and then act like it doesn’t mean anything.”

“You think you’re so special but you’re not. You should be more careful.”

At work, he did not mention the phone calls. He watched me. He started scheduling me so that I only worked alone. As I wiped down counters, he stood close to me, holding a clipboard, not looking at me, just keeping his big body next to mine.

In Old Town and in Ocean Beach the cops were always watching us. Were always stopping us in the street. Were always making us empty our pockets and backpacks. We felt them coming and we stiffened, tried to duck around corners, tried to avert our faces. At night, they shone their flashlights into our eyes. Some nights they made us stand in a row. They held photos of missing children up beside our faces. We were not missing.

The boy who raped me had paid to see my naked pictures on the internet. He’d done this with his friends, the group of them together at the computer with someone’s brother’s credit card. I knew this because one of them told me. They told me he wanted to fuck me. This was intended as a compliment. I have tried to imagine what they said to each other in that room, hovered over the screen. I can’t hear them. I come up with nothing.

Sex workers, says Catharine MacKinnon, are “the property of men who buy and sell and rent them.” She says that to rape a sex worker means simply to not pay her.

When men ejaculated on me it did not feel like trauma, it felt like money. Like rent. It was not painful. It was not confusing. I did not hate them. I felt nothing about them. I knew what I was agreeing to. I knew what I would have when I walked away. I knew that I owned myself. That owning myself meant having a way to make my money and walk away. That the walking away, more than anything, was the thing that made this work different.

Sex work, tweeted Ashley Judd, is “body invasion.” It commodifies “girls and women’s orifices.” “Cash,” she says, “is the proof of coercion.”

On March 11, 2019, the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW-NYC) held a protest on the steps of City Hall, demanding the continued criminalization of sex work. Speakers at NOW’s protest called the decriminalization bill that a group of New York sex workers had been organizing toward the “Pimp Protection Act.”

NOW-NYC’s president said, “Yes, you’ve heard it right, the sex trade could be coming to a neighborhood near you.” New York City, she said, could become the “Las Vegas of the Northeast.” As though sex work were not also illegal in Las Vegas.

Owning myself meant having a way to make my money and walk away.

A small group of sex workers came to counterprotest. They held signs that said, “Sex Workers Against Sex Trafficking.”

The anti-decriminalization protestors stepped in front of them to cover their signs. Speakers said that the sex workers were “ignorant of their own oppression.”

I did not tell anyone that I had been raped. I did not tell anyone and still they said, “What is wrong with you that you allow men to pay to touch you.”

They said, “What happened to you that made you like this?”

I heard these things again and again.

I heard them so often that I feared that they were right, that I had only tricked myself into believing that there was a difference between the things I’d chosen and the things I hadn’t.

In my bed, not sleeping, Adam’s heavy arm over me, my body between him and the wall, I thought: I am broken.

I did not know what I was, and I did not know how to be anything else.

I knew that to become a person that men like Adam could love would mean making myself visibly weak. Would mean performing the kind of weakness that other people could find lovable. Would mean claiming ignorance so they could see me as worthy of being remade.

I knew that the weakness they wanted was nothing like the real weakness inside of me. The real weakness inside of me could only be healed if I trusted my own rules. If I did not give my pain away for other people’s stories.

It was in a porn studio that I first began to feel as though my body was a thing I could love. I did not take the job in order to feel this. I did not even understand it as it was happening. It happened slowly and also all at once. I showed up to shoot and the man that I would be working with asked me, “What are your limits?”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

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“What do you not want to do?” he asked. And on that day, I could not tell him. No one had ever asked me that question before.

“We’ll try some things,” he said, “and you just say ‘red’ if you want to stop.”

So I tried things. Some of them I liked and some of them I didn’t and some of them I didn’t care about one way or another. Every day when I came to shoot, they asked me the same question: “What do you want to do today? What don’t you want to do?”

Eventually, I could answer. I could make a list. This is what I want. This is what I don’t want.

There was a day when I was tied up, suspended in rope in the middle of a warehouse in downtown San Francisco, and a man was hitting me all over my body with a deerskin flogger. I was in midair, ropes pressed into my hips and thighs and chest with measured tension, leather thudding rhythmically against my back and breasts and I felt a kind of elation, a swelling in my center. I felt strong. I felt myself getting stronger. The scene ended, and they lowered me to the ground and they untied the ropes and blood rushed back into my knees and elbows and I felt suddenly clean. I felt whole. More than whole, I felt unbreakable.

They handed me a check, and it did not feel like coercion, it felt like safety. It felt like I had taken something from them.

“It is impossible,” says Andrea Dworkin, “to use a human body in the way women’s bodies are used in prostitution and to have a whole human being at the end of it, or in the middle of it, or close to the beginning of it. . . . And no woman gets whole again later, after.”

In Los Angeles, the days were all the same but also they were all different. I worked. All of us worked. We lived to work. We called it the “porn dorm” and we called it “porno boot camp” and we got up at 5 a.m. and worked until two the following morning. We worked two-a-days and we worked seven days a week and there was not a single day of the year when someone, somewhere, was not making pornography.

The good days and the bad days were overwhelmed by days when everything went as expected. Days when I showed up and laid out my clothes and we chose something and I put my makeup on and took the stills and waited for male talent or waited for the light or waited for the dialogue and did six positions and a pop and took my check and went home. I felt bored more often than I felt anything else. I felt bored and I felt as though the thing I was inside of was invisible to everyone who was not inside of it.

They handed me a check, and it did not feel like coercion, it felt like safety. It felt like I had taken something from them.

When I was not working, I was exhausted. I was more exhausted than I had ever been. Some mornings, when it was time to get up to go to work, I cried.

“You cry now, but you’ll cry when you have no money,” my agent said.

I cried and then I went to work.

The day would be good or it would be bad or it would be neither and I would collect my check and my agent would come and pick us up and take us to Jerry’s Deli and we would eat chicken soup and black and white cookies, and I loved him. I loved these women around me, each of them with their bodies like weapons. I felt as though I did not belong anywhere but there.

I’ve rarely talked about my rape and I’ve rarely talked about violence I’ve experienced while doing sex work. I have not talked about these things because I am afraid. Because I know how stories like mine get told. Because I know exactly how good anti–sex work “feminists” are at carving out the pieces of our stories to make them mean something else, something less complicated and more easily sold. I know how good they are at flattening us, at excavating our experiences to make stories that are only an imitation of the things we’ve lived. I know how good they are at making us no longer human but symbols of this thing they call womanhood. This thing they’ve made that I do not see myself in.

I’m afraid, but also I’m angry. I’m angry that I could not talk about violence without fueling descriptions of me as an object, written by women claiming to be my allies. I have survived violence in sex work and also I have chosen again and again to do this work. I have performed sex and femininity and also I am not a symbol of anyone else’s womanhood. I have been poor enough that sex work seemed like a gift, poor enough that sex work changed my power in the world by giving me the safety that money gives. To say that I needed the money is not the same as saying I could not choose, and to say that I chose is not the same as saying it was always good. I have been harmed in sex work and I have been healed in sex work and I should not have to explain either of those experiences in order to talk about my work as work.

“Women must be heard,” says Ashley Judd. And I know that when she says women, she does not mean me.

Excerpted from the book We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival, edited by Natalie West, with Tina Horn. The essay “When She Says Woman, She Does Not Mean Me” Copyright © 2021 by Lorelei Lee. The collection, published by the Feminist Press, is out now.

Lorelei Lee Lorelei Lee (they/she) is a writer, sex worker activist, organizer, juris doctor, Justice Catalyst Fellow, co-founder of the Disabled Sex Workers Coalition, researcher with Hacking//Hustling, and founding member of the Upstate New York Sex Worker Coalition.

When She Says Woman, She Doesn't Mean Me

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