I dedicate this book to all the men Ive loved before and to all of the single people looking for love in this world: keep hope alive, learn from my mistakes, and by all means #KeepItSexy.
Contents
F uck me.
Since I announced this follow-up book to Drinking and Tweeting , Ive been asked countless times to describe what my second book will be about. Im sure people have wondered what I could possibly have left to discuss after I freely aired all of the dirty laundry in my first book, from my husbands torrid affairs with cocktail waitresses, well-known actresses (#MyLipsAreSealed), and one cunt -ry music singer to my undergoing vaginal reconstructive surgery to make my kitty seventeen again. The answer was simple: drinking, dating, and occasionally medicating... and other ways Ive gotten fucked.
There are a million ways to get screwed in this townand Ive experienced most of them.
Learning that some douche bag, wannabe talk-show host that I went on one pity date with was selling completely false stories about me because not only was his career in the shitter, but I also refused to have sex with him, is one way. Getting pinned to the hood of a professional athletes Porsche on a dark side street in Beverly Hills because neither of us could wait the fifteen-minute drive to his house is another.
Ive never seemed to have a problem getting fuckedgood or bad.
Now, dont go all reality-TV crazy on me and pretend to be offended. Whether youre actually saying it or just thinking it, weve all been there, and its not just a Hollywood problem. In todays world, you dont have to be in the spotlight to get screwed. Perhaps one night you have a few too many drinks at dinner and your friend posts a drunk-eyed photo of you on Twitter or Instagram, and all of a sudden all of your followersincluding work colleagues and familyknow youre a total lightweight. Some might even say that theyre really worried about youwhich happens to be one of the most judgmental, condescending phrases ever, in my opinion. Or youre recently single and need to feel wanted and sexy again, so you call your ex-boyfriend in hopes that hell drive out to wherever to help Stella get her groove back only to realize that hes been constantly following you on social media for a month and demands answers to every single post youve written since you broke up with himall the while pretending his friends sent him the posts and he doesnt actually care.
Its been five years now since my life was forever changed. Its been five years since I discovered my ex-husband was sleeping with half of the women in Hollywood and that everything I wanted to believe with absolute certainty about my life was so very wrong. Ive been separated and then divorced for almost as long as I was married, which is a strange thing to even write. Sometimes it feels like just yesterday that my ex and my baby boys were snuggling on the couch with me in our gorgeous Calabasas home. Other times it feels like it was all a crazy dream I had one night a very long time ago. But I have three permanent reminders of my marriage that I live with every day: Mason, Jake, and HPV. My boys are the light of my life. Even if on my wedding day someone had a crystal ball revealing my future heartbreak and devastating divorce, I still would have walked down that aisle. These little fuckers were and always will be worth it.
My HPV, on the other hand, was not. Statistics dont lie. Half of all sexually active Americans have HPV, although most dont even know it. #SeeYourDoctor. By age fifty, 80 percent of all American women have contracted the virus, according to various reports. Its nice to know Im not alone, but it still doesnt make getting my cervix scraped every three months any more fun. Reading stories online where people bash you for openly talking about having contracted the virus because you were foolish enough to believe your husband was faithful also isnt my idea of a good time.
I went through hell and back, but Im here, Im breathing, and Im still using wildly inappropriate language at the worst possible moments. #BrandiBlunders. Ive embraced being a single mom and created a very happy life for my boys and me. I continue to make embarrassing mistakes all the time and I still have a really poor knowledge of historical political figures, but Ive always owned it. #Duh. No more ex-husband to blame, no more horrible friends to make me feel bad, and no more seventeen-year-old vagina. (See where I discuss one of the gorgeously well-endowed men I dated. My kittys probably more like twenty-three now, which isnt horrible. #CouldBeWorse.)
And even when I am having the worst of dayslike discovering that there were photos splashed everywhere of my black thong hanging out of my cream-colored dress because I had a few too many glasses of wine while out with friends and didnt anticipate a sea of paparazziI still wouldnt trade my life for anything. (Side note: That also happens to be the dress I wore on the cover of my first book. Thanks, Alice + Olivia, for helping me with both the best and worst photo ops of my life.)
Five years ago, I was a blindly happy Calabasas housewife who didnt know how to google, tweet, or text. #IgnoranceIsBliss. I was just like any normal mom who read celebrity tabloid magazines at the grocery store checkout merely for entertainment (and not to see if I was in any of them running my big mouth). Other than being the best mom and wife I could be and raising my children to become proper gentlemen one day, I had no real career or identity of my own. At that time, I had already achieved every goal I thought I wanted.
Guess what: Life goes on after reaching MILF statusone of the few labels I actually welcome. Today, Im no longer that gullible housewife; I just play one on TV. (Thanks, Andy Cohen!)
Life has a funny way of working itself out.
Ive been in the public eye now for a few years, and while Ive definitely learned my fair share of lessons (like overly cross your legs yoga style when you get out of a car, never go outside without makeup, and always be nice to the paparazzi), there are some things I just wont get used to.
For instance, Ill never enjoy learning incredibly private things about my personal life from the cover of a magazine. #UsWeekly. Of course, I might end up running my mouth about it later, but call me crazy, Id just like to be the first to know. Last year, I discovered, much to my surprise, that I was an unfaithful wife.
According to the report, I had sex with some guy in my family home six weeks after my second son was born. Really ? Six weeks ?
Now, as all of you ladies who have children know, doctors order at least that long before your kitty is even ready for sex (not to get all National Geographic , but I think its more like twelve). And seriously, who feels hot enough or confident enough about her body to sleep with a new partner a month and a half after shes had a child? At that point, youre probably too embarrassed to even have sex with your own husband, let alone some hot stranger. Oh, not to mention that for the first two months I had a house filled with family, a round-the-clock baby nurse, and a full-time nanny, all the while dealing with postpartum depression. I mean, who comes up with this shit? Seriously, lets think about it. Who on earth would have anything to gain by leaking false information about an alleged affair seven days before the tell-all book about my philandering ex and his mistress hit bookstores? Hmm. You tell me.
To top that, my affairs were apparently with former NBA player Rick Fox, who I dont believe Ive actually ever met, and restaurateur Harry Morton. Knowing what I do now about what a sham my marriage was, I may have welcomed dating either one of these eligible bachelors, but it just wasnt true.