It was a version of the truth I desperately wanted to believe.
When the Uber rolled in front of my house forty-five minutes later, I was carsick from looking down at my phone while riding in the back seat and worse than carsick from what I’d been reading.
Dominic Diamond’s article was gossipy and salacious, but at least predictably so. The more reputable outlets were thankfully somewhat restrained, but the social media storm was... It was bad.
Stills, clips, and GIFs from Bee’s scenes were everywhere, splashed all over with commentary about her body, about her career, abouther, even though no one knew her at all. She was called a slut, a performative bi catering to the male gaze, a pervert, a profiteer complicit in the fetishization of her own body. They had a lot to say about her trying a different kind of movie—most of it awful. And they had a lot to say about her being plus-size—allof it awful.
Between her and Teddy, theDuke the Hallsshoot was being framed as some kind of Christmas orgy, all on the Hope Channel’s dime, and sure enough, my reputation as a former orgy enthusiast was being brought into it.
Not that the stripper selfie helped with thatat all.
DiamondDom@domincdiamond · Dec24
Breaking: Former bad boy Nolan Shaw’s plus-size costar hiding secret identity as hard-core porn star Bianca von Honey!
josiegrosie@comejosephine · Dec24
there’s no way NOLAN SHAW wasn’t all over a porn star while he was filming (albeit a fat one). am i the only one who hasn’t forgotten the sex train in germany???
Olive is on hiatus ?@travelwitholive · Dec24
so much for the bad boy phase being a “phase.” i bet the whole emily albright story was a lie too. i mean, it wasn’t like *she* was coming forward to talk, so why wouldn’t he tell a version of events that made him out to be a hero?
Thanos is my daddy@darlingspence · Dec24
FINALLY A HOPE CHANNEL MOVIE I WANT TO WATCH
Moms for Clean Media@momswhocare9 · Dec24
We will not stand for this from the Hope Channel!!! We are boycotting anything with the Hope Channel or anything with so-called Nolan Shaw from INK. What happened to sanity and DECENCY???
silver bells ?????@bellabellabella · Dec24
I think it’s funny that *anyone* thought Nolan Shaw had changed. Bianca von Honey is the proof that you can’t take the dirty out of the dirty, dirty boy.
Josiegrosie@comejosephine · Dec24
no joke. bet hope channel is rethinking a lot of things right now, esp. with the clean image they have to maintain. this nolan shaw comeback is dead on arrival.
Moms for Clean Media@momswhocare9 · Dec24
@thehopechannel, I hope you are ready for this BOYCOTT. We have relied on your network for family-safe, wholesome content for years, but now we know better!!! @NBCnews @ABCnews @frontline @twitter @facebook
I turned off my phone and tried to choke down a few deep breaths. This was bad.This was really fucking bad.It wasn’t just that Bee and Teddy were exposed as Bianca and Uncle Ray-Ray. Now everything about the movie, about me and my attempted rebranding, was in jeopardy. And I’d known that could be a possibility, that this was something that could happen, but shit.
It felt so much worse than I ever could’ve imagined.
But even with all the oh-shit chemicals dosing my blood, I knew with absolute clarity that Bee had the worst of it right now. I was a gleeful sex-train reference. She was performative or fetishizing herself or just plain perverted. I was getting called a dirty, dirty boy. She was getting called a slut.
The stuff you got away with when we were younger . . . do you think I would have gotten away with it?Gretchen had asked me that day in the office. The answer for my younger self had beenno—and now, six years later, it was the same. Maybe my career was over, but Bee’slifewas actually going to be worse for this.
I tried calling her again as I exited the Uber, thanked the driver, and rolled my suitcase up the salted path to the door. Despite everything, the sight of our house with fake candles perched in every window and strung with lights and garland sent a ripple of warmth right through me. Not the hot, twisty sear of Twitter-induced panic, but the slow, sweet glow of coming home.
Bee’s phone went to voicemail again, and just as I was about to leave another message, the wreath-hung front door swung open, and there was my mom. Short and soft and wearing cozy jammies. The cold hit her fair skin immediately, making her nose and cheeks rosy, but she rushed out onto the porch anyway and flung herself into my arms.
“Hey,” I said, hugging her tightly back.
She pulled away enough to smile up at me. Tears glimmered in her blue eyes. “You’re home early,” she whispered.
