I thought I’d left all these scandals behind me. That I’d finally turned the page after Rita Watson’s team issued a statement about her entering a treatment facility on Saturday. But no sooner had that news broken when this story dropped and blew up in my face.
What’s worse is that I don’t even know how bad everything is. Paul took my phone from me, telling me it was to protect me from reading everything that’s being posted online. But I think it’s just to stop me from contacting Christopher.
To continue to punish me for breaking out of the hotel on Thursday.
I lift my head back up from the sink, turn off the tap, and grab one of the white towels on the side. I dab at my face and take in several deep breaths before dropping it and looking at myself in the mirror.
Guilt comes out through every pore of my face.
I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. It all happened so quickly. One minute I was asleep, the next I was being woken up by Rob. He’d covered my mouth to stop me from speaking. Then I was moved out into the office on the other side of the suite while Lucy packed up all my stuff, tiptoeing around in the dark so as not to wake Christopher.
Neither one told me what was going on, other than saying it was an emergency. Lucy threw me some clothes to change into—Christopher’s hoodie, a vest, gray sweatpants, socks, and my black vans.
I tried to go back to the room to get my phone, to saygoodbye to Christopher, but Rob refused, not even letting me leave a note. That’s when I knew something bad had gone down.
It was a military-style operation getting me out of the hotel. There were decoy cars at the front and back while we slipped out of the side entrance. It was the same one Rob had let me in when I fell off the wagon a week ago. Lucy gave me her Bose headphones to slip over my head just before we left. As Coldplay’sSpeed of Soundplayed out, Rob used the local security guards to shield me as I got in the car.
My legs were twitching, my fingers tapping on the arm rest, as we made the drive to the airport. The swirling fear inside my chest churned and turned into anger by the time we got to the terminal. The last thread of my patience snapped at Paul and Lucy’s deflections when I tried to find out what was going on.
We just need to get through to departures.
We’ll tell you everything once you’re on the plane.
Don’t worry.
I finally blew, refusing to leave the car until someone told me what was going on, and I even threatened to fire them all on the spot, which seemed to do the trick. But what I heard, what they showed me, sent me spiraling.
Someone had leaked a video of Christopher and me making out in the ballroom. It had already spread like wildfire all over the internet and to the press. Rumors were flying that I was gay and many were wondering who the mystery guy is.
I demanded to have my phone back right there and then, to call Christopher, but Paul flat-out refused. He said they hadn’t ruled out whether Chis had been involved with leaking it.
That’s when the panic set in.
Had this all been a setup?
Had he pulled the wool over my eyes?
When we hit the ground in LA, it was like a circus. The terminal was swarming with more paparazzi than I’d ever seenin my life. They were snapping away at me like vultures. Thank God I’m not epileptic.
The team decided it was better to put me up at a hotel than have me go home.
At the hotel, they could keep an eye on me.
And, as it turns out, lay out their plan.
They wanted to claim that I was rehearsing for an upcoming film with a movement coach, and that the whole thing was being filmed for preproduction. If I did a sit-down interview, I could use it to explain away the rumors and announce my first feature film at the same time.
When Connie joined us at the hotel that evening, Paul didn’t miss the opportunity to let me know that he and Connie had been working nonstop since the scandal broke. Connie had caught a later flight to “clean up the mess,” as she put it. She’d been fielding calls from all over the world. Demands for a quote, a response to the scandal. All the big-name interviewers, from Oprah to Piers Morgan, were requesting interviews, expecting a coming-out story.
Connie focused on finding easy hosts whom she and Paul could control. They finally settled on Roberto Gonzales fromBehind the Scenesto do the interview.
Meanwhile, Paul was busy green lighting the whole movie, without so much as a consultation with me. He fast-tracked the conversations with Jackal Entertainment, officially getting them on board as the production company and hiring Alfonso as the director and producer.
Things escalated quickly from there. Like a runaway train with no brakes.
I pushed back, saying I hadn’t even read the script yet.
Paul berated me for not making the time for it. For being “too busy.”
