When my article about Gates and his enablers went live three days ago, early Monday morning, my phone lit up like crazy, and my father told me the reaction in our hometown community was like an atomic bomb had gone off. But I was already in Philadelphia by then for my radio interview withNPRthat same day,so I ignored my phone and social media, choosing instead to focus on not sounding like a clown on live national radio.
Luckily, myNPRinterview went fabulously well. Better than expected. But, right after that, Reed took me, CeeCee, and CeeCee’s PR woman, Jane, to lunch to celebrate, followed by whisking us off to Manhattan. So, again, I didn’t have a chance to focus too much on whatever the world was saying about Gates and my article and me.
But once Reed and I got settled into our penthouse suite overlooking Central Park, and CeeCee and Jane came over, we finally looked, as a group, at the world’s reaction to the story. And that’s when we realized the story of Gates, the high school football coach who was secretly a sexual predator, was rapidly becoming high-profile national news.
One major news outlet called the story “a sexual assault scandal” and summarized it this way: “Three female former students at a California high school allege the school’s football coach sexually assaultedthem, and also that the school’s principal, and a wealthy parent, actively covered for him.” I thought that summed it up nicely.
Luckily, according to the vast majority of online commentary, it seemed most people believed Katrina, Penny, and me, and wanted swift justice for Gates and anyone who’d covered for him. On social media, people were sharing the story like crazy, as part of several lines of discussion. One of them about the intersection between sexual assault and sports-hero worship. Another one focused on women often being scared to speak truth to power, for fear of being called a liar or slut. I felt heartened to read all of those discussions. Frankly, I felt immensely proud.
But it wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. In one line of general discussion, people lamented the ability, in the age of social media, for any “disgruntled” or “unhinged” woman to say “anything she wants” about any “innocent man,” thereby unjustifiably ruining his life, without due process. Fair enough. I think, generally speaking, we can all agree that’s a true statement, in concept. But, when people went so far as tospecificallycall Katrina, Penny, and me “fame-seekers,” “opportunists,” and “liars,” that pissed me off.
A former player of Gates’, a guy who went on to play in the NFL, posted his support for Gates on Instagram with the hashtags #innocentuntilprovenguilty and #myhero. Again, fair enough. I totally understood his point, in concept. Gatesisinnocent until proven guilty, in terms of the legal system. But to me, he’s not a hero. He’s the man who shoved his tongue down my throat and his fingers up my vagina, forcibly. The man who literally ripped my shirt as I tore myself away from his terrifying grasp. He’s the man who made me hide, trembling, in bathrooms whenever I saw him across campus. The man who, to this day, occasionally visits me in nightmares that always cause me to break out in a cold sweat.
But that whirlwind is what happened onMonday. Dayone. On day two, I opened a can of whoop-ass on not only Gates, and his two enablers, but also on the online trolls and detractors who said Katrina, Penny, and I are liars. That morning, I did my interview onGood Morning America,with one of my all-time idols, by the way, so, that was a personal thrill. And, thankfully, the TV interview went even better than the radio interview. So much so, by the time Reed, CeeCee, Jane, and I walked out of the studio and into the sunshine on 44th Street,the “high school football coach scandal” had indisputably become a viral story.
Within an hour of my TV interview, both my name and Gates’ were trending on Twitter. Gates’ name, mostly, because people wanted his head. My name, mostly, because people were supporting me for all the right reasons. But, also, because a popular dude on Twitter had posted a screen shot of me, taken during my TV interview, that captured me looking like a goddamned fire-breathing dragon. Apparently, the Twitter guy decided that particular angry shot of me was incredibly hot. His actual hashtag was #hotwhenangry. And, apparently, a massive amount of his followers wholeheartedly agreed with him.
After that first Twitter guy did his thing, asecondTwitter guy, someone with the handle @AngelinaFan, picked up on the thread and expanded upon it. Even though @AngelinaFan agreed I was, indeed, “hot when angry,” he also felt it vitally important to note I looked uncannily like a young Angelina Jolie—which then, bizarrely, inspired him to start tweeting out all sorts of photoshopped images of me soundly kicking Gates’ ass, using screen grabs from the movieTomb Raidersas his starting point.
Along with my actual name in his hashtags, and the other guy’s hashtag #hotwhenangry, as well as #TombRaiderRebootPlease, @AngelinaFanalsotransformed me into some sort of Georgina action hero with his additional, numerous hashtags. Stuff like #DoNotFuckWithGeorgina and #GeorginaSaysNotTodayGates and #BadassHotChickGeorgina. So stupid. Did he not understand the point of my article was to push back against exactly that kind of objectification?
But, whatever. In truth, I liked all those images of me kicking Gates’ ass, as well as that first screen shot of me looking like a fire-breathing dragon. Because, truth be told, those two Twitter dudes, every bit as much as the radio and TV interviews, are what pushed my article into The Viral Stratosphere.
By the time Tuesday afternoon rolled around, all hell broke loose, in the best possible way. Leonard called to tell us that a young woman had come forward to accuse Gates of kissing and groping her when she was sixteen. The following morning, another young woman said Gates had forced her to give him a blowjob when she was fifteen, andalso that she’d been paid off by none other than Steven Price to keep her mouth shut about it.
Well, that was when shit got real—when the story no longer lived in the world of Twitter or TV or radio—but, instead, started having real-world implications. Leonard called to tell me Gates and the principal had been put on leave by the school district, pending an internal investigation. Two hours after that, he called again to say authorities in Los Angeles had just announced—in a freaking press conference, attended by national media!—that they’d opened a criminal investigation into Gatesandthe principal. Andthen,shortly after that, Leonard called to report that Steven Price, the father of Brody, Brendan, and Benjamin, had lawyered up.
“I’m not sure what the charges against Price will be,” Leonard told Reed and me. “My guess is money laundering and/or tax evasion. Maybe obstruction of justice.”
“Oh, tax evasion, for sure,” Reed said. “No way Price didn’t cook his books to hide all those hush-money payments.”
“So, listen, Georgie,” Leonard said. “Some of Gates’ victims are talking about filing civil lawsuits. Do you have any interest in that?”
I looked at Reed in that moment. Into his chocolate brown eyes. And, instantly, I knew my answer was a resoundingno. Just that fast, I felt certain it was time for me to move forward. To build my career and a happy future with Reed, and not give another drop of my energy or time or soul to Mr. Gates. “No interest,” I replied to Leonard. “I’ll cooperate with any criminal investigations. But I’m done.Ciao, stronzo.”
Oh, the smile Reed flashed me then. If CeeCee and her PR woman hadn’t been in our hotel suite at the time, I would have ripped Reed’s clothes off and sunk to my knees to pleasure him, right then and there. Which is exactly what I did, only a few hours later, the minute CeeCee and Jane left.
And now, here I am, sitting in the back of a limo with Reed on Wednesday morning, scouring the curbside at JFK for Alessandra’s beautiful face. I’m ready to put the past behind me now. For good. And to have a fantastic time, during the rest of this trip, to celebrate. Playing tourist today and going to the concert tonight. Visiting Eleanor in Scarsdale on Friday. And then heading off to Sardinia on Friday night to start a weeklong vacation in paradise with my man.
“There!” I say, pointing excitedly when I spot Alessandra on the curb with her suitcase.
The driver maneuvers and finds a spot, and I pop out of the car and race to my stepsister. When I reach her, we hug and kiss and jump for joy. And a few minutes later, we’re heading off in the limo, excited to enjoy a carefree day of sightseeing in Manhattan, along with Reed’s sister, Violet, and nephew, who we’re going to pick up now, while Reed heads off, separately, to the venue for tonight’s charity concert. It’s going to be a huge show, featuring, among others, some of Reed’s biggest stars. 22 Goats, Laila Fitzgerald, Danger Doctor Jones, Aloha Carmichael, Watch Party, and Fugitive Summer. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the first day of the rest of my life.
Laughter rises up from the other side of the long dinner table. Apparently, Davey from Watch Party has just told a joke to all the other River Records artists seated near him, as Davey often does—although this restaurant is too noisy, and our table too long, for the group at this end of the table to hear whatever joke Davey’s told. But that’s okay. I’m thoroughly enjoying my conversation with Alessandra and Fish. Who, by the way, have been joined at the hip since the moment Fish spotted Alessandra backstage at the concert earlier tonight.
This place is a chic eatery in Midtown. We’re here to enjoy a post-concert dinner party, hosted by Reed. As I’ve been chatting with Alessandra and Fish to my left, Reed has been engrossed in an intense conversation with Maddy and Keane Morgan, to my right, about tomorrow’s video shoot.
Without warning, however, Reed abruptly turns away from his conversation to address Alessandra. “Hey, Ally. Change of plans for your video tomorrow. I didn’t know Maddy was bringing Keane to the shoot to help her. But now that I know he’ll be there, I think we’d be missing a golden opportunity not to give him a starring role in the video. Keane says he’s up for anything, so Maddy and I just now put our heads together and came up with an entire storyline for him.”
Alessandra expresses excitement and enthusiastically thanks Keane.
“Happy to do it,” Keane replies. “It sounds like a blast.”
Alessandra looks at me, as if to say,Can you believe this is my life? And I don’t blame her. Keane Morgan’s show on Netflix is doing extremely well, from what I’ve gathered. With each passing day, he’s becoming a bigger star. Having him star in her debut music video is huge.
“Now, don’t feel any stress about tomorrow,” Reed says soothingly to Alessandra, his little lamb. Over the past few weeks, as they’ve worked on Alessandra’s song together, and fine-tuned it, exactly according to Reed’s specifications, Alessandra has grown to trust him completely, and Reed has often told me he thinks Alessandra is “absolutely adorable.” He continues, “From your end of things, Ally, you’ll still mostly be doing what we talked about, okay? You’ll still mostly be performing onstage at the coffee house.”
“Mostly?” Alessandra says meekly.
