 Ashley C. Ford. Shan Booty. You said like you're my nemesis. Shan Booty. Let's dive into the most U2B of U2B topics. You found out that the love of your then life at the time was gay. And this was while you were in a relationship with this person. Ah, ah, stop right there. We gotta give a shout out to the sponsor, this video, Audible. Audible is the leading provider, a spoken word, entertainment, everything from celebrity memoirs, business, language, also motivation, pretty much anything that you want, Audible got it in so much more. Look, anyone who has an Audible membership gets one credit to any audiobook of their choosing. Literally anything that you wanted to listen to, I promise you they probably have it on Audible and you get one credit to use to listen to that audiobook for free. Plus, you get access to the Audible Plus catalog which has thousands and thousands of things to listen to. They got original entertainment, guided fitness, meditation, sleep tracks for better rest, and they got a lot of podcasts, including ad-free versions of your favorite shows and exclusive series. You can always find the perfect audio entertainment for whatever you got going on in your life. This is the place to go if you love audio entertainment. And here is the best part I have a special offer for you guys, especially during the holidays. In the midst of all the holiday excitement, think about giving yourself the gift of an Audible membership. Now is the absolute best time to do so with a special offer of 60% off your first three months. Yes, 60% off. So no matter what you're doing, or where you're going this holiday season, Audible has the audio entertainment at your fingertips. And if I can make a recommendation, if you do decide to jump over and get an Audible membership, I would recommend downloading the audiobook Will by Will Smith. It is incredible. I love listening to this man talk. He has such an interesting perspective. And if you like interesting perspectives on life, this audiobook you don't wanna miss. So yes, again, right now this holiday season for a limited time, save 60% off your first three months of Audible. That's only $5.95 a month. So to claim this offer, go to audible.com slash shambudy and start listening today. Again, to claim this 60% off for three months, right now, limited time offer, go to audible.com slash shambudy and start listening for free today. And this was while you were in a relationship with this person and you wrote about this in your book, Somebody's Daughter, an incredible book that the reviews and everything speak for itself, but I just wanna add my kudos and my just prayer hands up to you for that piece of beautiful literature that just said so many things, especially in the realm of intimacy in ways that I didn't know that I personally needed and I learned so much from it. I know that it wasn't meant to be an educational book, but just your wisdom and your grace is abundant. And that are the two words that I would definitely use for how you dealt with this scenario that for many people would shatter them. It's the kind of story that you hear about in soap operas and that you read about in the tabloids, but it's your lived experience and I just wanted to really just dive into it because again, like I said, it was a beautiful story, it was a love story. That's how I would describe it that way. Would you describe it that way? I would describe it that way, Shan. And just to give you a little bit of background on the relationship, Brett and I met when I was 11. We were very fast best friends even though I did not like him before I'd even met him because I heard his name with a loud speaker, a lot being announced for awards and perfect attendance and honor society. And I was like, corn ball, hope I never meet that kid. And then I did and realized that while he was very, very good at having that sort of very mature, very respectful way about him at school, that was not necessarily who he was at all. And he was a lot of fun. And we started dating when we were 14. Well, I was 14 and he was 15. And we did not break up until I was 20. My sophomore year of college when he told me he was gay. And you know, through all of that, I loved him. I still love him. And that relationship was probably the basis of my self-esteem in relationships. My grandma used to tell me, he's spoiling you. And when you get out into the real world and start dating real men, nobody is gonna treat you like that. Nobody is gonna be that kind to you. And I'm really glad she was wrong. The way that you tell your story in that completely, it's still human and it's raw and it's imperfect, but at the same time, like you're almost there reprising yourself, right? Like you're almost giving the other side the other perspective to it. So I wanna walk through the stages of that because that's a long time to be in love with somebody and to have a beautiful connection with them and then to find out something that for many people could be devastating. Were you blindsided by him coming out to you? Not at all, no. I suspected for a long time, but when he told me that he wasn't, I just believed him. He showed up in my life. He showed up for me. He was a beautiful partner. He was a wonderful friend. So I was like, I'm just gonna believe him. I'm just gonna be on his side. I'm not gonna hold him to certain standards of masculinity or anything like that because those things just aren't really conflated. I knew even then as a young person that someone who might be a little more feminine, a little more sensitive, a little more whatever was not necessarily gay. So even though something inside me was telling me like, something's not exactly right, I just continued to believe that if he was, he would tell me. And eventually we had a conversation where he said, I think I'm bisexual and thought that was fine. I thought that was totally okay. I didn't really have a problem with that. I didn't find that devastating. And when he told me he was gay, I didn't feel devastated, but I did feel a grief in a mourning because it was very clear that the way our relationship had existed up until that point was not an option. And that is, to me, the coolest thing about the way that you described your reaction because a lot of people can immediately turn to, you've been lying to me this entire time. You've, I've asked you, you didn't tell me back then. You know, why couldn't you trust me? And you didn't do that. Can you walk me through, when you are experiencing this, what are the various ways that your ego is showing up or that your insecurities are showing up? And then, and how did you not respond with those leading the way in the moment? Well, there was anger. I don't wanna pretend that I was just like, oh cool, that's fine. We'll just transition into a new kind of relationship and it doesn't matter, who cares? That was not reality. I was angry. I was very angry and I was very hurt and I did feel betrayed in a certain way and all of my insecurities started to come up. I mean, I'm literally a darker skin, black woman who is not and has never been particularly skinny. I've been thinner, but I've never been skinny. I have a deeper voice. When the first time I answered the phone and somebody thought that I was my brother, I started wearing earrings constantly so that people would know I was a woman and that they would know I was a girl. I thought people might be mistaken about it out in the world. So to have my partner who was validating my femininity, my sensuality, all of those things, my sexy say that like actually they weren't attracted to women made me wonder, okay then why were you attracted to me? What was it about me that peaked your interest when you're not attracted to women and that was really hard for me to reconcile. But in that moment when he told me, this is still my best friend and I'm looking at him. I'm looking at his face and I'm watching him be devastated by the fact that he has to tell me this and by the fact that he feels like he betrayed me because he couldn't change himself in order to be with me. And in that moment, even though I wanted maybe to yell or scream or cry or kick him out or whatever, the only thing that I could think to say was I'm so sorry that it was this hard for you to tell me this. And I'm so sorry about how confusing and complicated this reality makes your life now. What's interesting about that story too is because usually when people are, because I believe especially during that time, it is so incredibly difficult to be brave and to be who you are in the face of like you said, a world that makes it so difficult for you to love and like yourself if you weren't cisgender and heterosexual and on top of that too, he's a visible minority. So there's already a million different layers of the world telling you that like, we don't like you, we don't want you, then you have to add this other thing to the list. And so as a result, I believe that it takes a really long time to get the courage to even look at yourself and find that word for yourself. And usually through that process of figuring out who you are, it's easier to look outward and say who people are not. So what I mean by that, it would be easier for him to say, oh, my girlfriend is the problem. And or to make comments about your appearance or to make you feel like you're less desirable, to do that to you because it's so much more difficult to look at yourself. Was that your experience at all with Brett? No, thank goodness. No, I have friends who have had that experience. I've spoken to other women who have had that experience. That was not my experience with Brett. Brett was very clear. When we had some of those bigger conversations that the problem was never attraction that he loved me. And it's not like when we had sex or when we were intimate that he had to fake it. Like there was no faking, but it was confusing for him that his body reacted to me. And his heart and his brain thought of me a different way. And he didn't know how to deal with that. He didn't know what that was. And I definitely understand that now as somebody who is openly queer because I had had feelings and I had had sensations about other people. And I define them differently. I put them into a safer place because I thought being a lesbian or being gay or being whatever, that is so far. I love Brett and I love being intimate with him and I love all of those things. And I didn't know that a person is not a sexuality. We didn't get raised with that kind of knowledge that you could be physically attracted to a person or your body could respond to a person. And that didn't necessarily mean that that was where your sexuality lies. And so his coming out actually ended up helping me think of my body differently, think of my sexuality differently, to own it differently. At that point, he was my first and only sexual experience. So us breaking up was me getting really the chance to figure out what I even liked and who I was and not have my sexuality be based around the validity or the longevity of my relationship. You had intimate experience, you had sex with Brett one final time after you'd come out to you. Why was that symbolic or why was that important? You know, I think at the time it was sort of a desperate act for both of us. It was an act to attempt to figure out, like was this real? Because when things change very suddenly, when things change in a way that you realize they can't go back to before, I think a lot of people start to wonder, was the before even real? Did it really happen? Was there something I missed? And in this moment of returning to this intimate act with each other, it was almost like just checking, just making sure that this is the case, making sure that this is the way this is gonna work now and that I, because you're here gay and then you're like, wait, especially at that time in my life at 20, it was like, wait, wait. But we just had a whole thing. We just did a whole thing. Wasn't that real? Wasn't that something? We said so many things to each other. We wanted so many of the same things. Wasn't that real? And then you sleep together and you're like, yeah, it was real and it's over. It was real. It was here and it's not here anymore. So now what have you got to do? Thank you for listening to that beautiful video. Again, if you want to know more about Audible, go visit audible.com slash shambudy. Claim that limited time offer of 60% off your first three months. That's only $5.95 a month. So give yourself the gift of listening. Again, visit audible.com slash shambudy and start listening today. Don't I, don't I, don't I, don't I? I can't help but flex it all. I can't wait to break it all. I'm leaving.