Being Kendra
Cribs, Cocktails & Getting My Sexy Back
KENDRA WILKINSON
WITH JARED SHAPIRO
I D LIKE TO DEDICATE THIS BOOK
TO THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT MEN IN MY LIFE:
M Y HUSBAND , H ANK III, AND SON , H ANK IV.
I LOVE YOU BOTH, AND THANK YOU FOR INSPIRING ME EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE .
Contents
H ank and I had sex on the staircase today. Right there, flat-out spontaneous sex with our clothes mostly still on. Steps digging into my back, the banister acting as a bedpost. It was quick and skillful. I dont buy into that whole belief that married couples dont have sex. Because today was proof that Hank and I still do!
Of course, it wasnt exactly a stairway to heaven...
See, as parents now we have to try to fit in sex whenever we can. This wasnt a passionate act of sex where we ripped off our clothes and couldnt wait until we got to the bedroom. I was not a rock star Playboy Bunny getting it on with a stud NFL player. There was no trail of clothesbra, shoes, socks, and pantieslittering the hallway and leading all the way up to our bed. On the contrary, we actually went to the staircase on purpose and hurried through sex. Why the staircase? Hank and I both wanted to have sex, but we werent alone in our house, as usual. My assistant, Eddie, was there working, so we sent him to the store to get a toilet plunger (we didnt really need one, we just wanted him out of the house). And the staircase just happens to give us a great view of the driveway so we could see Eddies car pull up. So we did our deed fast and quietly, of course, since baby Hank was upstairs napping. Sure enough, ten minutes later Eddie was back.
In a nutshell, thats my new sex life as a mom. But I wouldnt trade it for the world.
Being on a reality show, Ive got people coming in and out of my house at all hours of the day. Sometimes theyre holding a camera, a set of lights, a microphone, a rack of size zero (finally!) clothes, or even a toilet plunger, but its like a revolving door. My life is just one giant production schedule. I may be the boss, I may make a nice living, but I have zero control and have to bust my butt to get it all done by sundown. Ive learned how to multitask with the best of em. Sometimes when Im doing radio interviews on the phone from home, Ill press the mute button so I can pee. When you gotta go, you gotta go! There are sandwiches to be made, diapers to be changed, and pacifiers to be found (where the hell do they all go?).
My life has been a wild ride: from a stripper to a Playboy girlfriend to a pregnant bride to a mom with milk leaking through her tank top. And every day I wake up thankful to be where I am: in my new house. Of course, it wasnt always that way. I had hit bottom when I was younger and into drugs, but I clawed my way out. I took chances and found a path that worked for meand landed me in some pretty interesting territory. Since Ive already had my bottom-out experience, I knew it could only get better. And it dida whole lot better.
The truth is, if I wasnt on my reality show, theres a good chance Id probably be stripping. I had very little growing up and struggled for money when I was on my own, so now I work extra hard to build security so my son doesnt have to live that lifestyle. I left it all behind because I knew it wasnt where I was supposed to be.
My good friend, rapper Too $hort (he sings the Go Kendra title track on my show), has a song called Gettin It, and the lyrics are: You should be gettin it. Get it while the gettin is good. I live by these lyrics to this day. I live by the mantra of work, work, work and do whatever I can to take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way. In this industry, you are only good for so long. Im not just doing it for myself anymore; Im doing it for the family.
The whole getting it mentality has been with me since day one and stayed with me on my crazy journey to where I am today. I started stripping to make money and give myself a little financial freedom. Stripping got me discovered by Hugh Hefner. So I kept on stripping but took it to a bigger level: Playboy . Playboy got me recognition, on a reality show, and a guy like Hank Baskett to know who I was. We fell in love and we had a baby. I got it then, and Im getting it now.
I still try to live by that. Its just the way I go about it thats changed. Instead of stripping to get it, now Im a mom and thats what Im famous for. Ive let cameras capture my birth, my meltdowns, and my most private of family moments. But I did it all in the name of gettin it. Right now is my time, so Im getting it while the getting is good.
Luckily for me, Ive had more success post-stripping, and its likely Ill never have to go back to doing it (except for my husband). Where so many other reality stars party for a living, I have left the Hollywood party scene and struggled through the first few years of motherhood and marriage. I dealt with some crazy things as a new mom, including suffering through a dark depression and an uphill battle to lose weight after Hank Jr. was born. But I conquered it alland, for the most part, I did so under the bright lights of my reality show cameras.
A lot of my success is because of my husband. I try to keep my marriage exciting and make sure Hank is happy, because hes my support system. I wish I could say that I was his too, but Im not too sure about that! The first football game I went to after Hank and I started dating was when Hank was on the Philadelphia Eagles and playing the Pittsburgh Steelers. He had the most amazing game; he had a lot of good games early on in his career. In fact, in the three years before Hank got married, he had seventy-one catches and was on his way to a pretty promising future. Then we got married, and all of a sudden his statistics plummeted. In the two seasons since being married (and now having a son), Hank has caught only six passes. We are keeping our heads up, but I cant help but wonder if maybe being married and having a baby was the curse to his football career. Am I the curse?
Regardless of Hanks on-the-field struggles and my off-the-field struggles, weve somehow managed to get our act together. Being a first-time mom, balancing my work and personal life (which in my career have somehow merged together), and dodging divorce rumors (both false and occasionally slightly, possibly, just a smidge true), Hank and I still managed to find time for dates, sex, and quick cups of morning coffee. I dont know how we do it. But I danced my way out of all my struggles and to the center stage of Americas primetime TV sets. Being a mom and a wife has changed me in ways I never thought imaginable.
Ive got a car seat sitting behind my drivers seat, Ive got wipes in every bag I own, and just the sound of a kid screaming or crying sends my heart into a sprint. In my perfect world, I would put my son to sleep with a kiss on his forehead, share a bottle of wine with my husband, make love, and drift off into eight restful hours of deep sleep. But in my reality, usually the only thing on that list I do is kiss my son on his forehead. And thats just fine with me.
Im the person I never even knew I could be. And I love it. This is my new story.
Teaching baby Hank how to walk at a very early age!
Chapter 1
Motherhood 2.0:
The Plight of the Modern-Day Mom
I s this yours or the babys?
My husband, Hank, held up a tiny jersey for me to look at. He hunched over open boxes in our bedroom and, of course, a big pile of my clothes mixed in with some of the babys things. When I replied that it was mine, he winked and put it in a box labeled KENDRAS CLOTHES . We were finishing up a grueling few days of packing our Studio City apartmentthe most recent in a long string of apartments and houses in the last two years. But this move was the most exciting, and hopefully the last. We were moving into our first family houseour forever homein Calabasas, California.