TBT: Melissa Etheridge - I'm Not Broken

Throwback Thursday Bunnie sits down with rock icon Melissa Etheridge for one of the most powerful conversations of the season. Melissa opens up about her Midwest beginnings, her rise from family “black sheep” to certified GOAT, and the journey from Berklee College of Music to landing her first deal with Island Records. She gets candid about coming out in a world that wasn’t ready, choosing authenticity over expectations, and breaking generational patterns with grit and grace. Melissa also reflects on the devastating loss of her son Beckett to opioid addiction, her 20-year fight as a breast cancer survivor, and the beautiful love story that led her to her wife, Linda. Plus, she gives Bunnie a behind-the-scenes look at her new Paramount docuseries I’m Not Broken, where she brings hope, healing, and music to the women of Topeka Correctional Facility. Raw, inspiring, and unforgettable — this is Melissa Etheridge like you’ve never heard her. Melissa Etheridge: Website https://melissaetheridge.com/ | I'm Not Broken https://www.paramountplus.com/shows/melissa-etheridge-im-not-broken/ Watch Full Episodes & More: YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@Dumbblondepod

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Bunnie XO?

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• 0:42Bunnie XO?

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• 1:18Bunnie XO?

  Is this thing on? What's up, babies? Today, we have a rock and roll angel in the house. And I am so honored to have Ms. Melissa Etheridge in the house, baby.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Yay.

• 1:33Bunnie XO?

  How are you doing?

• 1:33Speaker 01

  I'm fantastic.

• 1:35Bunnie XO?

  Dude, I never thought, this is like a dream come true. I just have to tell you, I don't think you realize how many nights I took my clothes off to your music. I'm telling you, man.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Yes!

• 1:46Bunnie XO?

  Woo! When I was in the strip club, you were my jam on the stage, baby.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  My crew used to go, they, we'd do a show if we had, you know, a night off, they would go to the strip clubs and it would bum them out so much. Every time my songs came on, they'd be like, "The boss is watching us."

• 2:04Bunnie XO?

  No, I love that. We just went to a strip club, literally two weeks ago, and we went to go see Male Weenie Boys, that's what we call them.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11Bunnie XO?

  Some guy comes out to a Jelly Roll song. I was like, son of a bitch.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Totally kills everything.

• 2:18Bunnie XO?

  I was like, my lady boner is gone. Lady boner is gone, dude. No, but for real, like my, I, cause I stripped in the early two thousands. So, I mean, that's, you were on fire and.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  I've had fun in some strip clubs, hearing my songs.

• 2:32Bunnie XO?

  I bet. Oh, my gosh. I could only imagine the type of attention you got. I had, there's so much I want to talk to you about and I, it's like, I don't even know where to start. So let's kind of start with your childhood. I know that you wrote a book, um, you know, regarding, it's like an autobiography regarding your childhood and growing up and stuff like that. But, um, for the, the listeners at home who haven't gotten to read that book yet, let's kind of deep dive a little bit into where you came from and what made you who you are.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Oh. Okay.

• 3:04Bunnie XO?

  I feel like everybody's childhood kind of.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:07Bunnie XO?

  Puts them on a trajectory of where they're gonna go in life.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely. That's the, and that's where you get like acceptance and, and appreciation. No matter what happened in your childhood, that it really made who you are today. And that's, uh, myself, I grew up in the Midwest. I grew up in Kansas. I grew up in Leavenworth, Kansas, which, uh, was a larger town in Leavenworth, but a very small town anywhere in the, in the world. And, um, it had a prison there and that's what we're kind of famous for. It actually had five prisons there. So, um, I always loved music. I don't remember not ever loving music. My sister was older than me. She played records. My parents played a lot of records. I had the, I grew up in the sixties and seventies, so I had the great radio

• 3:54Speaker 01

  and the great rock and roll. And I, and we had a station in Kansas City. It was, uh, we could hear it in Leavenworth. That used to play everything. It would play country music. I could hear Tammy Wynette, then I could hear Marvin Gaye, then I can hear Led Zeppelin. Then I could hear some pop song and it, it was truly top forty radio from everywhere. So I just had all this influx of great music, loved it. My father brought a guitar home when I was twelve. No, I was eight. My sister was twelve, he brought it home for her. And I was like, but, you know, I loved the Archies, I used to pretend I was Reggie and,

• 4:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  You know, and, and, um, and he, they finally let me play even though they said I was too young and my fingers would bleed and they did bleed, but I kept playing at eight years old. And then when I was eleven, I went to a talent show in the Plaza, sang actually a song that I had written, a very folksy kinda song.

• 4:51Bunnie XO?

  Did you always write music, like start, was that?

• 4:54Speaker 01

  I did.

• 4:54Bunnie XO?

  Just from the start?

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Just as a kid.

• 4:56Bunnie XO?

  You picked up a guitar and started writing music?

• 4:58Speaker 01

  I understood, it, to me, the, from the music I'd heard, from the Bob Dillons to the Paul Simons, to, to Joni Mitchells, these artists that I was getting in my childhood, that if you wanted to reach people with your, your music, you became the whole thing. You wrote songs about your life. That's just how I understood it.

• 5:22Bunnie XO?

  I feel like that's a real musician, though. You know, like, the people that you grew up on, that I grew up on also, they were real musicians. Like, they poured their heart out through their pens.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's how I understood it. And when I was hearing a song, I was like, yes, that's, that's where I wanted to go. And so I always started writing. And my first songs were very childish and very, you know, copying what I had heard and, you know, what was out there. But I loved it. And through this, uh, talent show, I was in a variety show, and it, um, we performed in prisons and no folks homes and stuff like that. But through that, I got with a band. There was just a country band in town called Chuck Hammersmith and the Wranglers, you know, and I sang Tammy Wynette songs.

• 6:11Bunnie XO?

  How old were you?

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Twelve.

• 6:12Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Twelve, thirteen. And then from twelve to seventeen, I played in real bands. I went from that to a band in Kansas City where I fronted it with like, four guys. They taught me how to play the organ, the keyboards, they taught me how to play drums.

• 6:30Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Just 'cause I was just, you know, hey, how do you do that? And I was that age, you know, I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. And I sang all, you know, the pop songs and I made money every weekend. I, I had my first car that I bought at fourteen.

• 6:44Bunnie XO?

  That's insane.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  I mean, I wasn't wealthy, but I, you know, I was, I had my own money as a child.

• 6:49Bunnie XO?

  But you had that drive to just...

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Well, I loved it.

• 6:52Bunnie XO?

  Where do you think that drive came from? Because I, I have heard you be very vocal about your relationship with your mother.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:58Bunnie XO?

  Can we dive into that a little bit?

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:59Bunnie XO?

  Where did Dad stand in that situation? And then also, we have some uncomfortable stuff with the sister, too.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So...

• 7:08Bunnie XO?

  Sorry.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Please let everyone know that's the dog. I, uh, I, I grew up in the Midwest in the sixties and seventies. And I was a child in the sixties.

• 7:20Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  And it's, it's so hard to explain now what it was like back then. And especially in the Midwest. My, my parents, they grew up in, my father grew up in poverty. He grew up as a migrant farmer. His father was an alcoholic and, you know, he, he, pictures of him as a child with, you know, it looks like the dirt, you know, the dust bowl. That was my father's life. And he, uh, had someone help him in his high school. He was very athletic. And so they got him a scholarship to a college. And that was the only reason he got out of that. And he became a teacher and a high school coach.

• 7:57Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he was a, he was that guy. He was supremely nice. He cared about people. He was fun. He taught me how to, you know, hit a ball and run around and, and, um, my mother, she grew, grew up in, uh, well, her father was an insurance salesman kind of guy. So she, she wasn't poverty, but she was lower income, trying to be more. And she went to college because that's where you find husbands.

• 8:24Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Met my father.

• 8:26Bunnie XO?

  Ladies and gentlemen, that's where you find husbands.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Exactly. Back in, you know, the fifties.

• 8:30Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  That's what you did.

• 8:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  But she was extremely intelligent and, you know, loved books, loved, was sort of trapped in, in this, this life and at, uh, she, she didn't know how to raise children. But when I was three, she got a job as a secretary and in the sixties, quickly... Became like, you remember the movie Hidden Figures, the, the women that No, it they, uh, it's these women that actually did all the work in early computing.

• 9:03Bunnie XO?

  Oh, wow.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  And how, and they would run the computers. And she did it for the army. There was an army base right there in Leavenworth. And then the generals would take all the credit and pay her half what anybody else's. It was just, and she, she became very bitter.

• 9:18Bunnie XO?

  That's amazing. I'm so sorry.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  She, no, she became very bitter. She, she would drink at night.

• 9:24Bunnie XO?

  She became bitter?

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:25Bunnie XO?

  For, just for?

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Because her intelligence, that she was trying to get out there, she would work for the, the army in war games and scenarios.

• 9:33Bunnie XO?

  And they would kind of probably put her down and?

• 9:36Speaker 01

  And, yes, and they would take.

• 9:37Bunnie XO?

  It's not a very healthy environment.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, just back then, women didn't work and they weren't the smart ones. So the men had to take all the credit.

• 9:43Bunnie XO?

  I also feel that people who have higher intellect like that, for some reason, they always try to mask in other ways. Like, I, it's almost like their intelligence is just too much for them to carry.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:55Bunnie XO?

  My husband's sister is like that.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  And they don't have any fun in life.

• 9:58Bunnie XO?

  Mm-mm.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  And she just didn't. And, um, you know, now as a, as a grown up and a mother myself, I'm like, oh, she did the best she could.

• 10:06Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  You know, but at the time, you, as a child, you take it personally. You think, oh, she doesn't love me because I'm not lovable.

• 10:12Bunnie XO?

  You internalize that.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so I internalize that, as did my older sister. And she did it in a different way. She lashed out. She was the bad child. She was. And just was always in trouble and angry at the world and did take it out on me and took it out in, in different ways. Uh, physically, sexually, just all, for a couple of years, when I was looking for, you know, like acceptance and love of some kind and, you know.

• 10:42Bunnie XO?

  Were those things happening to her?

• 10:45Speaker 01

  This I don't know. You know, I asked her once, I did, after I grew up. I said, um, you know, is this something that

• 10:53Speaker 01

  happened to you? And she said that.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  She did, she said when she was five years old.

• 10:58Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  That the boy crossed the street. But, she said, but I don't think of it as abuse because I liked it.

• 11:06Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  And I think she took that on for the rest of her life, sort of, and became very.

• 11:13Bunnie XO?

  Hmm, that's powerful.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:15Bunnie XO?

  In a, in a weird way, you know, because it was kinda like she turned her pain.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:20Bunnie XO?

  Into something, you know, that helped her deal with it.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Very different lives and.

• 11:26Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  And she's.

• 11:27Bunnie XO?

  How do you, how is your relationship with your sister now? Because going through physical and sexual abuse with a, you know, a sister, it's like, how is that bond? Were you guys able to be able to look past that, or has it always just been?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  No, I was, um, I enabled for a while. I mean, I love my family and, and you might know, I, when you make a lot of money all of a sudden, it becomes very weird with your family.

• 11:57Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  And.

• 11:59Bunnie XO?

  I've had to cut motherfuckers off left and right.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 12:01Bunnie XO?

  Okay?

• 12:02Speaker 01

  I'm just telling you, because you want to make people happy. And back then, I thought, oh, well, if I provide this, then they'll, they'll do this and, and they never do. It doesn't, it just doesn't, you can't.

• 12:14Bunnie XO?

  It never works.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Do it for anyone else. It, it takes away their desire anyway, but, uh, my sister tried that and, and I had to cut everything off.

• 12:21Bunnie XO?

  Cut ties.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  And I did. And nowadays, I think I saw, I hadn't seen her like seventeen years.

• 12:27Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  And I saw her, I, I, her daughter and I are very close. I, I helped her daughter out and, um, and I'll just see her and, hey, she's just a cranky old lady now, as far as I know, you know.

• 12:41Bunnie XO?

  Embodied your mom, kind of, a little bit, oh.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  That's exactly what happens.

• 12:44Bunnie XO?

  You might have taken on your dad and she took on your mom.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's crazy.

• 12:48Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. No, I get it. I have two sisters that I don't communicate with. I actually just started taking care of my older sister again. Just paid for like surgery for her. She's done me so wrong. And it's like, I'm just waiting for the shoe to drop. Like, you're being sweet now, but I can only imagine what you're gonna try to sell to the tabloids next, you know?

• 13:03Speaker 01

  It's crazy, isn't it?

• 13:04Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, no, it's, it's. Wild that we even have to to deal with stuff like that. Moving on from that situation. You started playing in bars when you were 12 years old. What in the hell? Like, I know it was a different era back then. I feel like the era of like the, I wasn't around the seventies, but the eighties, the nineties, and even the two thousands was such a fucking cool time. Like, right? Compared to now, I feel like everybody's offended about everything. Like, you can't fucking say anything. Like, I just feel like back then was just like such a more lax era, I guess you could say. It was more magical, it almost felt like, you know?

• 13:42Speaker 01

  There was a lot of magic, yes. I, sometimes I look back and my wife will laugh. At when I say, well, you know, I was playing in prison and I showed her a picture of the, the whole act that went into, in, in there with me. It was, you know, I sang, but we had dancers and, and, you know, comedians and, and, and, you know, acrobat people, you know? And they were all in completely inappropriate outfits in the sixties, right? Going into a prison, right? So that was that. Now, the bars. My father would go with me every single time. Every, I was never without my father.

• 14:21Bunnie XO?

  So dad was like a constant figure in your life?

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Constant.

• 14:24Bunnie XO?

  That's amazing.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  He didn't drink. He would go, he would sit there with a coke and just, and he would listen and then he would help me carry my equipment out. And he was,

• 14:35Speaker 01

  I, I think he liked it because we, we would go every Friday and Saturday night, every weekend. And I think the marriage was maybe a little, because she was having, you know, a hard time and it was a very peaceful time for him and I. We would really enjoy each other's company and just, and he would go sit and listen. And he, he, he wasn't one that like critiqued me. And he didn't also, wow, you're really good or anything like that. He just, he did, he just,

• 15:01Bunnie XO?

  He just knew it was something that made you happy.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 15:04Bunnie XO?

  And he just supported it.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did.

• 15:05Bunnie XO?

  That's amazing. That's really cool. Um, with that situation that was going on with your mom too, just circling back to that, how did you not internalize your mom's anger and pain? Like, how did you avoid that? Do you think your relationship with your father helped you to not internalize it?

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 15:23Bunnie XO?

  Cause I know how it is to be around people with depression and sometimes it's very easy to soak up their energy too.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I got out of there as fast as I could.

• 15:32Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  You know, when I was eighteen.

• 15:33Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Like, I graduated high school and I went to college for a minute.

• 15:38Bunnie XO?

  Berkeley College, right? Not, not just anybody can get into Berkeley College, by the way.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Well, it's true. That's true back then, but I didn't go for very long. I only went for a few months because I wanted to sing and play. And I'd already been playing and making music, so I just found a, a restaurant that had a lounge in it that I could go play and I could make money.

• 15:57Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  And work on my dream. I really was not a kind of girl that would sit there.

• 16:02Bunnie XO?

  A studious.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  It was not a studious musician, no.

• 16:05Bunnie XO?

  Studious musician.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:06Bunnie XO?

  I feel like musicians, you have to be creative. You can't just be put, there are some who can do that, but the majority, you're creative.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:13Bunnie XO?

  You can't be stifled by a classroom.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  No, it was cra- the minute they would tell me, you have to do the, this note has to come after that. I'm like, it does not. It's music. What are you saying?

• 16:22Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  There has to do this. But that was a, it was more of a jazz-based thing and that's a whole different mindset.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Attention all new and existing members of the W D N C. I'm Melanie Sanders and this is the We Do Not Care Club Podcast. We got to midlife and realized we just simply do not care much anymore. Now, we gotta help each other make sense of hot flashes, dry coochie, chin hair, trifling families, brain fog, and bat wings. We are not alone and we will be heard. So come join the W D N C. Follow and listen to the We Do Not Care Club Podcast with Melanie Sanders wherever you get your podcasts.

• 16:57Bunnie XO?

  But even to get accepted into Berkeley, like, that's a huge feat. That just goes to show what kind of musician you are, though, because, like, I think they said that it's like a fifty-four percent acceptance rate to even get into there now.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Wow, that's amazing. That's great.

• 17:10Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Back then, it wasn't like that. It was brand new, but.

• 17:12Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  But, you know, it's, it's all good and it is a very good school and they've, I actually got an honorary doctorate from them, so.

• 17:19Bunnie XO?

  Yay.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  It really pisses the rest of my family off, but.

• 17:22Bunnie XO?

  I love it. The wild child gets, gets the doctorate. I love that. The black sheep turns into the goat.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  There you go. There you go. I've never heard that. Yeah.

• 17:32Bunnie XO?

  That's why I love it. I stole it. It was a meme.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  It was.

• 17:35Bunnie XO?

  It was a meme and I was like, I relate, so I just stole it. How did you define your sound? Because you have such a raspy, just bluesy, just, mm, your voice is just so amazing.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Well, I sang from the, from the time I was 13.

• 17:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. Did you have that bluesiness and that rasp even at 13?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Well, I, I played in country bands first, even though I didn't, that wasn't my first choice of music. I listened a lot, lot to it. I, you know, your classic stuff.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  But I would sing all those songs and they're all very throaty, very full, you know, the Tammy, Wynette, and even Linda Ronstadt, that sort of singing like that. And I'd listen to Gladys Knight, I'd listen to Aretha, and I'm like, you gotta sing from, from here. And I, I guess I've always sort of had this voice because I do remember the choir teacher. I also went to, I'd go play in the bars and then I'd go to church on Sunday.

• 18:37Bunnie XO?

  I love that. Rock and roll angel, baby.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  There you go. And, but I would sing in the choir and she used to put me in the very back because she'd say I had the weirdest voice.

• 18:45Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  So, so it's kinda, it's a good thing now. It's good. I'm, I'm very grateful for my voice, but I think it's.

• 18:51Bunnie XO?

  I bet she fucking ate shit when she saw you winning Grammys.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  There's been a few though. There's been a whole, I've got many of those. I'm good there. But it's, it's just something that has developed. And I've worked on it and it's, it's sort of a weak, it sounds like I drink a lot of whiskey and smoke a bunch of cigarettes, you know.

• 19:08Bunnie XO?

  I love it.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  I, I write like that. I've written songs and I'm smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey, but I don't.

• 19:14Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  I never did.

• 19:15Bunnie XO?

  Did you maintain your sobriety even all through?

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Alcohol was never a problem with me. I, one, because I saw my mom.

• 19:22Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  And I saw my father who didn't drink and I said, I want to be like dad. I just, that's, I, I tend to think that children go where it's warm, you know, and, and that was warm and, and, and, and I'd play at 13, 40, 50, and I'd see these people get drunk and I'm like, well, that's stupid, you know.

• 19:40Bunnie XO?

  And nothing attractive about it.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Nothing attractive. I'd see people get all sloppy and stuff at the end of the night and fights. Oh my God, I'd, you know, beer bottles throwing and hiding behind the organs so the chairs don't get just, you know, I've, you know, I've saw a lot.

• 19:55Bunnie XO?

  I could only imagine at such a young age and the bars back then were just crazy.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:59Bunnie XO?

  They were not very politically correct.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Oh, no, there's nothing like that about there. But again, I always felt safe. My father was there every single night.

• 20:06Bunnie XO?

  I love that. We love dad. Is dad still alive?

• 20:08Speaker 01

  No, I lost dad at thirty. It was really, really difficult.

• 20:11Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my god. I just lost my dad in May, so I can only imagine how that goes. Yeah, it's brutal.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  But they're always here. He's been there thirty years. He's been there.

• 20:19Bunnie XO?

  For sure. I've never seen more fucking butterflies. I'm like, Bill, I get the damn point.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got it.

• 20:25Bunnie XO?

  I got it, dad. I know you're here. So, moving on from Berkeley.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:30Bunnie XO?

  Uh, how old are you then when you start like venturing out and you you got your first record deal when? Cause I know you dropped your first album in nineteen eighty-eight.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:40Bunnie XO?

  When was the space in between there that you

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:43Bunnie XO?

  got signed?

• 20:44Speaker 01

  So I I finally, I went back to Kansas after Boston. Made enough money, played at a restaurant, uh, Granada Royale, Hotel, played in the lounge. Uh, made enough money, buy a car, got a car, drove to Los Angeles in nineteen eighty-two, so I was twenty-one years old. And LA in the eighties was magnificent.

• 21:08Bunnie XO?

  It was crazy. Tell me about it.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  It was magnificent.

• 21:12Bunnie XO?

  Cause I got to grow up with the Hollywood too in the eighties and the nineties and it was like so, you know, as a child, seeing that.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  It was a a drama queen's heaven. It was theater. It was

• 21:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  we're gonna wear our hair so weird.

• 21:29Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  We're gonna try to do the everything weird and against until it became the style.

• 21:35Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  You know, until everyone's doing it, you know. I remember.

• 21:39Bunnie XO?

  That's where they got the nickname Holly Weird.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Yes. You know, we we we would shave the side of our heads and, you know, cause I went in with the lesbian crowd, you know, the gay crowd, the

• 21:48Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  deep, you know, and we're just, we're just the weirdest ones ever, you know, we're we were the first ones to go to the Salvation Army's and get the vintage clothing and stuff like that, you know, no. That was back when you could walk in and find amazing things that you'd think, why would someone throw this away? So we we were living that and I loved it and I got really deeply into the the whole lesbian world because I ended up playing lesbian bars.

• 22:15Bunnie XO?

  So you played like the gay circuit.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. There wasn't even a gay circuit back then.

• 22:19Bunnie XO?

  Oh, okay, because I know in Vegas they had one. There was like a whole little circuit that you could go and just, they called it the Fruit Loop.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:25Bunnie XO?

  But it was like, they said it in the most endearing way, you know?

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 22:29Bunnie XO?

  So I didn't know if Hollywood had one of those too.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  We didn't have a Fruit Loop. But we had a lot of fruits and nuts. But, um, no, these were just like the, the bars. That one was in Long Beach.

• 22:43Bunnie XO?

  Hmm, I love Long Beach.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it had just opened. Uh, but I ended up, I ended up playing a place in Pasadena and Long Beach. And hardly ever in LA because there wasn't a lot, a live music scene, but I, I had created these there. They weren't looking for work. I actually was there on a date and went and saw a piano in the corner and said, hey, do you have music? They said, no, that came with the steakhouse that used to be here, but you wanna, you know, play it? And I, so they let me. I, I created these jobs because there was nobody making money in Hollywood. Everyone was playing for free.

• 23:18Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  And so I played for four years in these bars and I thought, how am I ever gonna be signed in a lesbian bar? No one's ever gonna see me, but slowly, the wife, who, who was a soccer coach. Uh, the girls brought her in. You gotta hear this girl. And then the wife tells the husband, who's a manager, a music manager. Managed bread and whatever. He comes down, he's like, well, and this is nineteen eighty-three. And he sticks with me for, well, we ended up working together for thirty years. But he said, look, I don't know what is happening, but I believe you have a great talent. I think you can do this. And he's, he even said, he goes, stay in the lesbian bars. I will bring the people to you. You're making money, right? You're making a living. You can pay your rent.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  And every single record company over those four years came out to see me.

• 24:08Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 24:08Speaker 01

  And they would, they would go, like Warner Brothers brought out all the tables and there'd be, I don't know whether it was because they were surrounded by lesbians. Or what it was, but they would always, you know, then say, oh, we don't hear a hit and they never knew. And it wasn't until nineteen eighty. Six, nineteen eighty-six, I'm playing in Long Beach. And a producer guy who had tried to get me a deal with A and M, knew Chris Blackwell. Chris Blackwell owned Island Records. He, he discovered, uh, Bob Marley. He brought Bob Marley to the world. He was from Jamaica. He was this eccentric, rich, you know, son of the Blackwell soups or something and, uh,

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Jamaican and, and he brought U2, Robert Palmer. He was just a great music guy. And he walked into the bar, heard four songs and said, I don't know why you're not signed, and signed me right there. Just boom, just like literally on a napkin, you know?

• 25:06Bunnie XO?

  You literally paved your own way, though. Like you did it your way and you brought, your, your energy was so pure and so magnetic that you brought all of these straight people into lesbian bars to come and see you. That's amazing.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  It's fun, cause I've run into some of the people that came out and, you know, said no, and they were like, oh, well, we made a mistake.

• 25:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Really nice to see these old white, gray-haired guys saying, oh, well, we made a mistake.

• 25:33Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. When did you know that you were lesbian? Like that you just were not into men or was it something that you were?

• 25:41Speaker 01

  When you grow up, when you're gay and you're a kid, you know, you have crushes on your kindergarten teacher, but you know, who doesn't as a kid? I think sexuality is a, you know.

• 25:53Bunnie XO?

  Ms. Lanuti had a great ass.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Come on.

• 25:55Bunnie XO?

  I still remember her name.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Mine was Mrs. Rice. Anyway, so.

• 26:01Bunnie XO?

  There we go.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  You know, and you, as a child, but then when the hormone stuff starts kicking in and my friends are, you know, looking at Bobby and Jimmy and I'm looking at my friends and going, you know, and it's.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  I see it today where kids know that there's more and and they are just natural in themselves. And I, God, if if I'd have had that as a child, but as a child, you're like, okay, this is the way everyone's going. But I'm looking this way. Well, that's okay, you know, and you just kind of go along and it it. I would get crushes on girls and it would, you know, you just want to stand next to them. It's sure it's what guys go through, you know, it's just like, I just, I don't know what to do. I don't think of it as I'm gay. I just, and it wasn't until I was sixteen, you know, with that best friend and and that sleepover and.

• 26:59Bunnie XO?

  Yep, I know, I had one of those too.

• 27:03Bunnie XO?

  Our daughter, actually, um, she, you know, they have so many terminologies now and I don't want to get into that, but um, she actually uh is leans more towards being a lesbian also and we are so, I'm like, please, please do. I like, I am so accepting of it.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Engagement party tonight, marrying a lovely woman, we couldn't be happier.

• 27:22Bunnie XO?

  See, I want Bailey to do that.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's our Bailey, that's our daughter's name is Bailey, yeah.

• 27:26Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my God, that's amazing. Yes, I did know that.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  If you just let it go, just let it, because you know, they get their heart broke, blah. They get their heart broke, either way, you know, they're gonna have relationships and and you just hold their hands through it and and then they find, man, but you know, when they find that one, they just, bing, they just light up.

• 27:44Bunnie XO?

  It just, yeah, it just works. Yeah, I hope that happens for our Bailey too. So, moving forward, you get signed by Island, was it Island Records?

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Island Records, yeah.

• 27:53Bunnie XO?

  Yes, you get signed by Island Records. Take me on that journey. Like, so you got signed in eighty-six, you said?

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Eighty-six, okay. And then Chris Blackwell goes back into the universe of music and I don't see him and I'm like, okay, I'm supposed to make a record. I've never made a record, you know.

• 28:09Bunnie XO?

  You're like, well, okay, thanks for signing me, but what do I do?

• 28:11Speaker 01

  What do I do now?

• 28:12Bunnie XO?

  How were record deals back then? Because I know they're so different now. Like, what did they like, offer you? Like, am I allowed to ask that?

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, let me see if I can remember the first one.

• 28:20Bunnie XO?

  I'm fascinated with the inner workings of how that is, because I mean, you've seen the music industry change so much.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  I sold twenty-five million albums and Island Records still say I owe them money. Yeah.

• 28:33Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  That's how bad the record come. But they've forgiven it at this point.

• 28:37Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  It's like, oh, stop it.

• 28:39Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  You know, what do you mean?

• 28:40Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, but the record deals back then were crazy.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's you, you didn't, even your lawyers would just go, you know, because they didn't have to sign you. They did, there was so much music, they weren't like, they were doing you a favor and you knew that, you knew that you had to get through this door. Or you would, it, there was.

• 28:56Bunnie XO?

  And you're pretty much signing, not, I don't want to say signing your life away, but you're signing your, the rights to yourself. Just so that you can do.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  For a while, so that company will blow you up and take all the money from it, but you will get the fame.

• 29:11Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  And that's, I kind of realized that. And I had a good manager who told me, who said, look, you know, it's not about your records. Don't even think about that because that really doesn't exist. It's about your publishing because you write. Then I can make the money from the publishing. That's, when you see an artist who doesn't write their own stuff. Who, who is, who doesn't really like to perform. They're not gonna, they're not gonna be around for a while.

• 29:39Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Because performing is your bread and butter. And that, I started, you know, I'd already been playing these bars and clubs. Then I made a record and I went out and played more bars and clubs. And then it just grew from there. And I wouldn't, I would not trade that for the world, for the first. My first album came out in nineteen eighty-eight and I played everywhere. I played Europe and Australia and all these places. Cause the, the first album did well.

• 30:03Bunnie XO?

  So you traveled everywhere after you dropped your album. I'm gonna look at my notes real quick because there was something really cool that I realized with these albums that you dropped. So you dropped, you know, May second nineteen eighty-eight, you dropped, um, your first album. And then you had a hit, Bring Me Some Water, that was nominated for a Grammy. But then you go on to drop two more albums, another album gets nominated for Grammys, right? And then you win a Grammy award.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:30Bunnie XO?

  That's insane. And your first three albums, you, you get a Grammy award? Like, that's insane.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  That really surprised me because it wasn't, I didn't even get, a lot of people think I won for Best New Artist, but I didn't get that. I wasn't even nominated for that. It was back when they had a category called Best Female Rock Vocal. They don't have that anymore.

• 30:51Bunnie XO?

  They should, though.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  I know. But, um, first I, yeah, I was nominated, I was nominated each.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  I've been nominated seventeen times.

• 31:01Bunnie XO?

  That's crazy. But still, that's crazy.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  It's, um, it was great because my career really went from here to huge. I went from selling sixty thousand albums to like almost a million after, after the Grammys. And because the Grammys had that large of a reach. And it was because, not because I was nominated, but because I performed. And it was a very special year. It was nineteen eighty-nine. And Tracy Chapman performed, Sinead O'Connor performed. I performed. We, my manager actually strong-armed the producers into letting, they, they wanted to mash all our songs up. And he said, are you kidding? This is such a strong year for women. You've got to let them have their thing.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  And they, they let us each sing our songs by ourselves. And it was really powerful Grammys.

• 31:52Bunnie XO?

  That's amazing.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  I didn't win, but I performed.

• 31:54Bunnie XO?

  It's all right. You were there, baby. You had your foot in the door. We actually just got to see Tracy Chapman at the Grammys perform with Luke Combs. And I was like, I was, that was the, the highlight of my night was to get to see her perform. Because you know, it's such a rarity these days.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Beautiful soul.

• 32:09Bunnie XO?

  Oh, just so good. I was just like, I was so thankful to be there in that moment because it was just really magical. I loved it. Um, so take me on your first tour. Like what? I remember whenever I hopped on tour with Jay in twenty sixteen, you know, it was, he, he, he wasn't signed or anything like that. And we would work our asses off. I'm talking like we would go to like every little bar, there would be people with, there would be twenty people in a bar. And he would perform like it was, you know, his fucking, it was like an arena full of people. What was your first tour like? Because you said you got to go everywhere and like got to go out of the country and stuff like that. Was it wild?

• 32:48Speaker 01

  It was wild because it was all different. In America, I was getting played on rock and roll. So I was doing the rock and roll circuit. I was playing the, the bars and clubs. It was, you know, two hundred to five hundred people. If I had five hundred, that was a lot.

• 33:05Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  I remember in Colorado, in Boulder, Colorado, they had a great, they had a great, uh, radio station there called, um,

• 33:15Speaker 01

  KBCO, yeah. And, uh, so they were playing my songs a lot, so this was my biggest crowd, it was 500 people. And then I started opening for Bruce Hornsby, and that's a great thing for a brand-new artist to get on a larger thing, so I could, you know, open for them, and so all of a sudden I was playing to, you know, well, they were half-empty halls, you know, when I started, but I, I could play those last couple numbers, and people would be, you know, there'd be 3,000 people in that, so I'd learn that.

• 33:49Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Then I'd go over to Europe where my song was doing well, and I'd play a thousand-seat rock, have you gone to Europe?

• 33:57Bunnie XO?

  Not yet, we're going.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Wait, Europe is so much fun, because they all stand, it's all general admission, and, and they all clap on time.

• 34:06Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  It's not the, you know, Americas were all like, eh, eh, you know, one, two, man, these, they're, and they clap all four, and it's, and they all jump up and down, and it is so much fun, they love their music, they love rock and roll.

• 34:20Bunnie XO?

  I love that.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that was fun, so I just started, and I didn't stop for eight years, and it just grew to theaters, and, and then, before I knew it, my fourth album had come out, Yes I Am, all of a sudden,

• 34:32Bunnie XO?

  That's the one that put you in mainstream.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was mainstream, so now I'm playing arenas and stadiums.

• 34:37Bunnie XO?

  That was the one I stripped to.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Yes, it's a good one.

• 34:41Bunnie XO?

  That was my shit.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Believe me, when I start that song, they're, the audience is, they're all, they're all in it, I'm surprised, well, clothes do come off.

• 34:47Bunnie XO?

  I can only imagine how many titties you've seen.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, you.

• 34:50Bunnie XO?

  To that song, sorry, wifey.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  No, you have, no, she loves it, no, she loves it, she knows, she loves it, she's the most underst, she's, doesn't, it's good. I'm gonna stop talking.

• 35:02Bunnie XO?

  I can't wait, well, we're gonna get into how you guys met and everything too, so I wanna know all of that, but, um, so you're out here touring, you dropped this record, you're mainstream, I mean, you're at the height of your career, and just, it's, I mean, you got, you sang at Brad and Jen's wedding.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Well, they were friends, yes.

• 35:20Bunnie XO?

  I mean, who could just say that Brad Pitt's their friend, you know, like, that's just crazy.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  I met him before, what was crazy was Hollywood in the late 80s, early 90s.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Was, we didn't know. We didn't know when I'm sitting around with now, you know, Academy Award nominees and winners and A friend of mine, Catherine Keener, she, she was an actress and she said, "Oh, I have this friend that I just did this movie with. His name's Brad. It's his birthday. Will you call him? He's a big fan of yours." You know, I'm like, "Okay, this is before Thelma and Louise. This is before anything."

• 35:55Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  And

• 35:56Bunnie XO?

  Oh, back when he was really hot.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 35:58Bunnie XO?

  Nice.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, no, you would know. The minute I met him, I was like, "Well, look at you."

• 36:02Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  And he was from Missouri.

• 36:04Bunnie XO?

  I love that.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  He was from Missouri.

• 36:06Bunnie XO?

  She said, "Look at you."

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. You know, I would, because I'm like, "He's just beautiful." We used to have like swimming pool. I had a real fun swimming pool and I had like a basketball hoop on the swimming pool and And we all used to gather. And I mean, this is like River Phoenix and

• 36:21Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  And you're just really, uh, beautiful. God, I can go on and on.

• 36:28Bunnie XO?

  How was your relationship with River? I feel like he did not get enough time here.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  No, no, not at all. No, it was incredibly sad when he passed away and it was, and, you know, they, yes, they had been, You know, there was always drugs in Hollywood, but it wasn't a mainstream thing back then. We, they drank a lot and we'd smoke pot, but, you know, that was about it. And when it was the cough syrup with something else he had taken and it was so sad and Joaquin, it just, you know, Died in his arms. It was just really, really sad time. And, um, just, but it was a beautiful Time in Hollywood with a lot of people that had no, I mean, Ellen DeGeneres and, you know, we're all hanging out in my pool. What I was saying, Brad's

• 37:13Bunnie XO?

  Did you and Ellen ever hook up?

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Did me and Ellen?

• 37:15Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  No, that's, that would be gay. That's true.

• 37:20Bunnie XO?

  I love that.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Do you understand what I mean?

• 37:23Bunnie XO?

  I get it.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:24Bunnie XO?

  That is hilarious. Got you. So you like, you like the femmes, you like feminine women.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  Yes ma'am.

• 37:32Bunnie XO?

  Okay, she's like, yes. Do you like straight women? Is that the thing?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Well, that was a problem.

• 37:36Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  That was a problem and I got over that.

• 37:39Bunnie XO?

  You like to turn them out?

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Wow, you are, you understand my world.

• 37:44Bunnie XO?

  Well, I am you, you are me.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  That's exactly, that's exactly what my first 10 albums, you know.

• 37:50Bunnie XO?

  I love that.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:52Bunnie XO?

  That is another thing, is you've always stayed so true to yourself in the music. Like, when you would talk about relationships, it was she, it wasn't he. Whereas like, even Elton John, when he first was in the music scene, he had to sing about having a wife and Rocketman, you know, like.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  I told them.

• 38:08Bunnie XO?

  And it's like, you don't have a wife, sir.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  I know. I told them, I said, I'm not going to, well, they said, well, as long as you don't flag wave. I don't know what that means, but, you know, what that meant then, I was like, okay, whatever. But I said, I'm not going to pretend I'm something I'm not. I'm not gonna go to red carpets and find a boyfriend, I'm doing air quotes. You know, and, and, um, no, I just, I wouldn't do that. And, and I always wrote very universal pronouns, language, you know, that you can turn it any way you want. It can be, but boy, did women know that I was singing about women. They're like, oh, nobody writes like that about a man.

• 38:45Bunnie XO?

  Do you think that that's why your album, um, the, the fourth one? I forget what it's called. Yeah, it's.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  Yes, I am.

• 38:52Bunnie XO?

  Yes, I am. Um, do you think that's why it did, it resonated so well with the masses? Because you were just being true to who you were? And people actually accepted it, which during a time when people weren't that accepting back then.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  No, this, it was, the gay community was strong here. And I, and I met a lot of people in the, in the community, a lot of the, the ones who were fighting for our rights. These leaders.

• 39:19Bunnie XO?

  Good.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  And we had, we were right in the middle of the AIDS epidemic and, and our friends and everyone was dying. And we were like, if we don't stand up and say something, everyone's just gonna be fine that we die. So there was a big, strong political feeling about being a.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  A famous person had actually saying you were gay. It was, you know, we, they had outed a few and, you know, and in bad ways.

• 39:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, which that's horrible to ever out anybody.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was really awful, because, you know, it would end careers and it would end, you'd lose your job and all this sort of stuff. And I, I, I never was closeted really, because if you knew me at all, if you met me, I'd introduce you to my girlfriend, you know, I'd, I just, there was a line, it was a serious, "Don't ask, don't tell," in the early 90s of, "We won't ask you if you're gay, and you just don't talk about it, okay?" And so finally, I was at, it was the inauguration, it was the election of Bill Clinton

• 40:24Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  And Al Gore, and it really signified a time of change in America. Because we had had, God, 12 years of conservative Reagan and Bush, and it was awful.

• 40:35Bunnie XO?

  Bill got in there and just started humping everybody.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  And he, sex came back, man, sexy back, yes, it was. And it, we felt that, and it was that night that I was like, "Yeah, I'm a lesbian," you know, didn't, did it, and it was in the newspapers the next day.

• 40:50Bunnie XO?

  Were you scared? Like, what was that, take me on that moment where you were just like, where you were just ready?

• 40:55Speaker 01

  I was ready. I was done pretending.

• 40:58Bunnie XO?

  Hiding.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was done, I didn't, people were starting to ask me, this was already my fourth album, people were starting to ask me the personal questions, "Who did you write this about, blah, blah?" And someone actually did a article where they said, they changed all the pronouns to "my boyfriend," and I was like, "Good God, people are gonna read this and think, and no, no, well, she's gay, why is she saying that?" And they'd think I lied, and that made me crazy. So my, my plan was to come out on Arsenio Hall, because he was the cool, he was very cool, he was one a late-night host that would let me talk, and I had all, I was ready to when the album came out a few months later, but in the meantime, I did the inauguration, and I came out just in the moment.

• 41:40Bunnie XO?

  It was just the perfect, it was divine timing?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  So then as the, the, there was no social media, so this is not something that went poof.

• 41:46Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  But slowly, as I...

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Did my, you know, my tour press and you, you, you do pre-interviews with the city you're going to. City by city, they would start asking me questions and for three years, all I talked about was being gay. Cause nobody would answer, nobody had answered these questions before. And it was just all brand new. So I think it actually helped.

• 42:11Bunnie XO?

  Open doors.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  But helped my career by me coming out. I got extra publicity and people were curious. I, I know I've heard plenty of stories of, oh, my mother never let me bring your albums into the house. You know, you were the devil or whatever. You know, I know. So, so there was, you know, a, a bit of a dampening and, you know, but, um, who knows? I, I think I have a blessed career.

• 42:36Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely. But I also feel like in a way you opened doors for other artists after you.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 42:42Bunnie XO?

  That were, you know, that are in the lifestyle and.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  I listened to Chapel Rohn.

• 42:47Bunnie XO?

  Yay.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  And I'm like.

• 42:49Bunnie XO?

  We love Chapel. We want Chapel on the podcast.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Oh, hell yeah. I'm like, damn, if I could have written that, if I could have, you know, good luck babe. That's, that's just, you know, go, go ahead. It's gonna, you're gonna have to stop the world to stop this feeling, you know, and, and all the songs she writes, I'm like, oh yeah, you go girl.

• 43:14Bunnie XO?

  You guys need to do something together.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  I would, I would love to. She has, she has named me as an influence and because she comes from the Midwest also and,

• 43:22Bunnie XO?

  I love that.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  And coming out and stuff. So she, I know she has an appreciation. So, yeah, yeah. You, you see her, you let her know anything, anytime, anywhere.

• 43:30Bunnie XO?

  We need you and Melissa Etheridge to do a collaboration, Miss Thing, okay? We need that to happen ASAP. I would, I would love that. And you know what? That would actually go insanely viral because Chapel and you together, oh my God, and your, their voices together.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Come on.

• 43:47Bunnie XO?

  A rock and roll pink pony club? Rock and roll pink pony club chapel? We need you baby. We're saying it right here, right here baby.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  I'm ready.

• 43:57Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, she said.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  I'm ready.

• 43:59Bunnie XO?

  She said I'm ready.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Bring it on.

• 44:00Bunnie XO?

  So, moving on from all this fame, hanging out with, oh by the way, how was Jennifer Aniston? Are you guys still friends?

• 44:06Speaker 01

  I haven't, um, talked to her in years, but the last time I saw her, she is-

• 44:10Bunnie XO?

  Did you get her in the divorce? Did you stay with Brad or did you stay with Jen? Cause I feel like everybody had to choose.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  It was, it was really something. I lost contact with Brad. It's not that I, we chose or anything. It was just this, it was so hard for everybody. Cause that was a really strong sort of, kind of Hollywood thing.

• 44:27Bunnie XO?

  It still is. They will not, it's freaking 20 something years later and they just don't leave it alone. Like that's crazy.

• 44:34Speaker 01

  I know, it's nuts. So, I, I haven't seen, we, cause we, it's like any friendships and you know, your twenties and whatever. You, things change and you grow and you have children and you go away and, but I have seen her more than I have Brad.

• 44:47Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  But she is a beautiful, incredible, delightful human being. I could never say anything.

• 44:54Bunnie XO?

  She's an Aquarius.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Oh, she, well see?

• 44:55Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  No, she's a wonderful, wonderful human being.

• 44:58Bunnie XO?

  I love that. I can't wait to meet her.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, she's great.

• 45:00Bunnie XO?

  So, moving on from all of this, you, when do the, the children come into play? When do you start deciding to have children? Because I know I had heard you say that you didn't want to have kids. And that's where I have been my entire life and I'm almost 45 and I finally decided with my husband in this last year. I'm like, I would like a little bit of us running around, you know? And for the longest time, I felt the same way that you did. What changed that for you? Today's episode is brought to you by Vented. Y'all know how it goes. You open your closet and have a million things hanging up. But somehow, still feel like you have nothing to wear. That's me. And let's be real, half that stuff hasn't been touched in forever. Instead of letting all those clothes just sit there taking up space, you might as well make a little money.

• 45:45Bunnie XO?

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• 46:26Bunnie XO?

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• 46:34Speaker 01

  Um, I, I don't know that it changed. I'm, I'm really surprised that I have children.

• 46:41Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  But what, what it was, was my partner at the time.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Again, growing up in the 60s, 70s, even early 80s, it wasn't an option. You, that was one of the reasons it was so sad to families is, oh, you'll never have children, that sort of thing. And my childhood wasn't so awesome that I thought, oh, I want to bring a child in. And my mothering mirror was not, I had, didn't have much mothering or nurturing. I didn't know what I would be like as a mom. So in 95, when my partner was like, I, I think I want to have kids. And I was like, oh, this, this is very interesting. And of course, I was like, wow, I, I don't know what I'll be like. But if you want to have them, I'll be the guy and I'll go work and I'll bring the money home and you raise the kids, right? You know, something like

• 47:29Speaker 01

  that in my head. And, and then my daughter was born and I'm like, oh, oh, wow, this is amazing. And instantly fell in love and realized. That I was, I was a dad mom, you know, I just, I mothered like my father. And have always been like that.

• 47:47Bunnie XO?

  But you're also a generational curse breaker. And I think that you had your dad as a role model, absolutely, but your mom showed you everything you didn't want to be in a mom. So you broke those curses.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh absolutely. I was like, no. I may not have ever heard, I love you, but you're gonna hear it every day. You're gonna, every time you leave a room, I'm gonna tell you, I love you. And every, in our family, whenever someone leaves a, goes from one room to the other, it's like, I love you. It, it, it really stays, you know?

• 48:12Bunnie XO?

  I love that.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  And my children do not ever worry that, or think that I don't love them at all in any way.

• 48:18Bunnie XO?

  Can we talk about how iconic it is that the, that two of your kids, um, David Crosby?

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:26Bunnie XO?

  Was, do we call him the sperm donor, or how, what do we refer to him as?

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Uh, Bailey calls her, him, her bio dad.

• 48:34Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:35Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Because the reason that we chose him, because when, when my partner said she wanted to have children. She, she had been adopted and she didn't like that, she didn't know who, who her real parents were. So she wanted her children to know.

• 48:49Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Who their father was.

• 48:51Bunnie XO?

  I love that though. I, I totally agree with that.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  And I, and I respected that a hundred percent. I was like, okay. But this person, I don't want them to be a father, a, a figure in their life. I want them to be able to go, that's where I came from.

• 49:05Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  But this is the parent that raised me. And that was really important. One of the reasons that we didn't go with Brad Pitt. Who was a very good friend at the time.

• 49:14Bunnie XO?

  Was that an option? That would have been amazing.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  I know, that's, my, believe me, Bailey's like, Brad Pitt could have been my father. Are you insane? You know, but Brad wanted children really bad.

• 49:25Bunnie XO?

  Oh, could you imagine those genes? Good lord.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  I know.

• 49:29Bunnie XO?

  Greatness.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  So he, he, he was only, uh, it wasn't, anyway.

• 49:34Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  So I run into, uh, David Crosby and him and his wife had just used like IVF and different things to um to conceive their child.

• 49:44Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  And so they were very grateful and Jan, his wife, said, "Well, what about David?" And I thought, "That's perfect. He's a musician. He, and he's has children. He's..."

• 49:56Bunnie XO?

  Iconic.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  He's like, doesn't need...

• 49:58Bunnie XO?

  Crosby, Stills and Nash and Young. I mean, come on.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  And, and he's, you know, beautiful and, I mean, people didn't see the beauty that I did in him sometimes.

• 50:06Bunnie XO?

  Bailey looks like him.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. The cheeks?

• 50:09Bunnie XO?

  It's crazy.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  The insane.

• 50:11Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, she definitely has his cheeks.

• 50:13Bunnie XO?

  When I saw her face, I was like, "Holy cow."

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? And he looked kinda like me too, so I liked that.

• 50:19Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, I love that.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  That's as close as I could get. And he was a wonderful, he was always there, but never never inserted himself into their life at all, like...

• 50:29Bunnie XO?

  I love that.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Like a parent.

• 50:30Bunnie XO?

  This is kind of a personal question and we can cut this out, but this is kind of like what I wanna know because we're planning on using a surrogate and if we can't use my eggs, we're gonna be using donor eggs. How was it bonding with the children, you know, with them not having that DNA?

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:46Bunnie XO?

  How was that for, and we can cut this out if you want to.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, no, not at all.

• 50:50Bunnie XO?

  Uh, 'cause I just wanna respect boundaries.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:51Bunnie XO?

  But how, how was that bonding?

• 50:53Speaker 01

  Let me, let me tell you the

• 50:58Speaker 01

  my children are of me.

• 51:00Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  They, they do not have a drop of my blood in them or DNA or whatever that is. But their souls, their spirit, you, you will find when you have this baby that when they are older that they will look like you because they have learned to smile and move their facial movements like you because you will have been smiling at them from the day, the moment they were born.

• 51:31Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  So, all of my children have my smile.

• 51:35Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 51:37Bunnie XO?

  I just got this phone.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  And that's so, there is never, there's not a, there's not a moment's thought unless someone asks me, that I don't think that these children that, I would step in front of a train, I would, you know, all, there is no doubt, and it, it does not come into play, ever.

• 51:56Bunnie XO?

  I love, that's how I feel about Bailey. She's not lying biologically, but like even people are like, she has your mannerisms, she, she acts like you.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  They will laugh like you, they will, all of that, there is not, you know, and I don't know physically that would be the only thing, but the, the features, the spirit, how they look to you, you will be mother, you will always be the only mother.

• 52:21Bunnie XO?

  I love that, that makes me so happy. I just wanted to ask that question because, you know, thinking about using donor eggs, you kind of like, you're just like, what if I have, you know, an issue bonding with this baby, but I mean, I don't think I would because I bonded with Jay's daughter. You know, we've had full custody of her for eight years and she's my child, like I will go to war for this child.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 52:40Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  And that's just the way it is, that's, there's not, it's, there's nothing to do with.

• 52:45Bunnie XO?

  DNA.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:46Bunnie XO?

  Thank you.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  I call this my meat suit, you know, that's it.

• 52:49Bunnie XO?

  It is our meat suit.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:50Bunnie XO?

  Totally, I, I say that to everybody. Can we move on to your son Beckett?

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 52:56Bunnie XO?

  He was also, because you have four children total, correct? You have twins and then you have Bailey and Beckett. Okay, so we're gonna move on to Beckett. Beckett is also, um, you with your ex-wife and David Crosby's, um, bio, bio dad. What, being in the scene that you're in, and you know, being around drugs and stuff like that, and seeing how, you know, substance abuse affected your childhood, how was that whenever your son fell into that?

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Oh, it was so hard. He.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  You'll notice that some children

• 53:39Speaker 01

  just, the wind is always blowing in their face, you know? It's just, it, it's just harder, in all ways. And you see it's a lot of what they believe and how they perceive the world. And it is never up to us to change

• 53:57Speaker 01

  anyone's perception, only they can do that. So when he, and it was young, it was, you know, 12, 13, you, I could see his pushing against teachers and, and, you know, the first thing you do as a parent is, oh, this is my fault. It's because he's from a broken home, it's because of, you know, and you, who knows? This is, this child and, and, and his mountain. And we did everything we could. We, you know,

• 54:29Speaker 01

  I, I put him in, you know, outward bound classes, you know, sort of thing, and, and he would be okay. And then, uh, he started getting into snowboarding at, you know, 15, 16, 17. He was back in school, but it was hard to stay in school. I was trying to do different tutoring for him. And he just got really, really good at snowboarding, you know? I knew, you know, he would, I knew he was smoking pot. I knew he was getting cocaine down the street from the rich kids and, you know, and, and you're just trying to hold it together in a way, thinking it'll pass. And he loved snowboarding. And he's, the Aspen team starts looking at him and he goes to, to train with them in Aspen.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  And he takes a big jump and he falls and breaks his foot in two places. And then they gave him, they gave him Vicodin for the pain, which, you know, he had, his whole dreams were broken. So his, his whole soul was broken and, and he never recovered from it. He never got out from the opioids, the opioids became street opioids, heroin. And last thing, when he was 21, he was during the pandemic and it was Fentanyl. It was over, you know, boom.

• 55:44Bunnie XO?

  I couldn't imagine the heartbreak of getting that phone call and just having to deal with that.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  By the time you get the phone call.

• 55:52Bunnie XO?

  You're expecting it.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  You're, you, I already went through the, okay, I'm, I, it's either, you know, I'm gonna make myself sick now. I can't do this anymore. I can't save him. I can't, you know, I've, I've gone through the, giving him something to help him and do this, to taking everything away, so he's homeless, to, you know, you do everything and.

• 56:15Bunnie XO?

  Just nothing works.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  There's nothing and they just keep sinking down and then it's gone and there's, it's, there's a little bit of a relief, like, okay, he's finally out of pain. And there's some peace and you're not worried every time your phone lights up, you know. And so it was very hard for the last couple of years. And so when, when you send the welfare check, cause I hadn't heard from him in four days and I used to hear from him every single day. And four days and you just know and you finally send the police and they say, yeah, he's dead and.

• 56:44Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  You know, but you move on, you, you do. And he would not want me to punish myself or feel guilty for some choices he made. He would, he wants me to be happy. He's in a place where he's out of pain. It's okay. I don't need to punish myself for any of that.

• 57:04Bunnie XO?

  That was in his soul contract. I believe that. I believe in soul contracts. Not, not everybody does. But I do believe that before we come here, we want to learn certain types of lessons and that was his exit strategy. And I really truly feel like people that die from overdoses, maybe they might've gotten off the path, but that, all in all, was part of their soul contract.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  It's going back to the mother. That's what it has been described to me, that, that heroin takes you back to that place, the feeling of the womb. And they, they want to go back and they're, they want to go.

• 57:36Bunnie XO?

  I've never heard that.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's, it feels like that. That's what it feels like, yeah.

• 57:41Bunnie XO?

  That is amazing and crazy all at the same time. Amazing and like, it's deep, that's very deep. Thank you for talking about that, by the way, cause I know it's never.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  I think it helps, cause I know there's hundreds and thousands of families who are suffering with it today, right now.

• 57:58Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  And if I can help someone feel.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Better. Get over, you're not sink into despair themselves. You know, then, then that's good.

• 58:10Bunnie XO?

  Hmm, yes. Testimonies, testimonies are powerful and I feel like it also helps people realize like, because you know, you're doing this docu-series, which we'll talk about in a second. Um, I think it will shed light on why you're going so hard. I mean, you've been performing in prison since you were 12 too. So, I mean, it's just kind of like how your life has come full circle. But before we talk about that, can we talk about how you are a breast cancer survivor?

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:36Bunnie XO?

  That is amazing. And I think I heard a story of the morning of the Grammys, you had radiation.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:42Bunnie XO?

  And had no hair.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:43Bunnie XO?

  And then you still went and performed at the Grammys.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:46Bunnie XO?

  You're a soldier. You're a warrior, woman.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  I, I, I just, I'm not ready to give up. It's, it's not an option.

• 58:55Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  It never has been and in, this, this was 2004. I'm actually 20 years cancer-free this year.

• 59:02Bunnie XO?

  Yay.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  So yay. Yeah, and um, this was after my first divorce. This was a very lost time in my life. I had had the big success and there's nothing more that's gonna freak you out than actually all your dreams coming true, because you're gonna realize it doesn't solve all your problems. You know, it's like, oh, I thought this would be, you know, the end. I did it, there you go, it's great, I'll be fine now. But that's not life. Life is, is up and down and, and I, I, I didn't have a relationship with myself. I was very sad. I was, I, you know, here I had become a mother and then instantly we divorced and now I'm a single mother and I just feel like I let the world down and it just really weird time.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  And I was eating like crap. It was the end of the 90s, early 2000s where everyone thought they had to be pencil thin. And so I tortured myself. You know, it's just all this stuff that we would do until my body just said, look, I can't do it anymore. And there was a tumor on my breast, my left breast. And right before that, just months before that, I had a, um...

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  Unintentional heroic dose of cannabis.

• 1:00:22Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's one of those. Oh, let's, you know, let's have, oh, that's a real good cookie. Oh, this is good, you know, and you eat three.

• 1:00:29Bunnie XO?

  She said unintentional heroic dose. That was so poetic.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:34Bunnie XO?

  Poetic as fuck.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  That's what it was. And it's one of those where your mind opens up.

• 1:00:39Bunnie XO?

  You meet God.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  You meet God. And I saw God and I understood what life was. And I came back changed. And then a few months later, I get cancer and I'm like, wow, this is crazy because I didn't fear death anymore. And I'm on this sort of spiritual path now. And so the cancer just.

• 1:00:56Bunnie XO?

  That's why it happened.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  It put it into Uber drive, right? It just super, everything changed. I changed. It was magnificent. And I've been on this high ever since.

• 1:01:08Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  And life is, so, so that I'm so grateful for breast cancer. And I went through it, got two surgeries. It was stage three. They told me, you know, I was always gonna, and I don't believe any of that. I, I believe that I understood what gave me the cancer.

• 1:01:23Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  And if I can make joy a priority in my life, if I can eat the things that bring me joy, make me feel good and, and do the things and make the choices for myself, that I will be able to live a healthy, happy life. And it's been 20 years and I think I can brag about it now.

• 1:01:43Bunnie XO?

  Yes, ma'am, you can. You earn that, right? You earn those stripes. I am a firm believer, and I preach this on the podcast. I know they're so tired of hearing it. But what the mind feels, the body will follow.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. The, the body is in reaction to the mind. The mind, the, like I said, meat soup.

• 1:01:59Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  Total meat soup.

• 1:02:00Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  And it, I know instantly, I can tell. It's like, oh, this hurts, that hurts. Oh, that's because, you know, you, you get things and it's, wow, well, I've been feeling very closed down. I've been, you know, of course, my back's gonna start hurting. I don't feel supported. You know, oh, you know, just all of that stuff. And it makes, it, it makes our, our bodies make sense. When, when you have the belief that, oh, something might happen to me. I might get cancer out of nowhere. I might get heart disease out of nowhere. That's not how it works.

• 1:02:30Bunnie XO?

  What's your fear you'll feed?

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Yes, thank you. You know it all.

• 1:02:33Bunnie XO?

  No, for sure.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  You're just on the, you're on that journey.

• 1:02:36Bunnie XO?

  Well, I had to. I got sober and I, you know, went on, I saw The Dark Knight and went on my spiritual journey. And I'm telling you, I just got misdiagnosed with an aneurysm last month. And I told myself, like, I thought I was gonna pass out when I got the news. Said it was on my carotid artery and my mom actually had one and almost died. So I felt like I was gonna pass out. Anyways, long story short, uh, cause this isn't about me, but it's just, I didn't believe it. I was like, this is not, and if I do, and if I do have it, I'm gonna have surgery and it's gonna be fine or whatever.

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:08Bunnie XO?

  I was getting a CAT scan. I heard the loudest voice in my head and it said, it's not an aneurysm. Went to two neurosurgeons. Turned out that I have two identical blood vessels on both sides of my carotid arteries. That's just my part of my DNA. So I was just like, praise Jesus, you know, like,

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  It's a miracle.

• 1:03:26Bunnie XO?

  But you have to literally just, no matter what, I think our, our life lesson is to learn how to have faith. You cannot control everything and you have to just, sometimes you have to say, you know what, God? Whatever your will's gonna be, or whatever higher power you believe in.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:40Bunnie XO?

  You know, it's just whatever your will is, let it happen and.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  And that has been the most exciting 20 years of my life have been the last. When you, when you stop trying to make your happiness dependent on other people or other things, when you can find your happiness inside yourself and you're in charge of it, oh, that's so powerful.

• 1:04:01Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  That's so powerful. And that's, that's, that's the path. That's, that's where you wanna walk.

• 1:04:05Bunnie XO?

  That's the good stuff.

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  Gets really good. And you start changing the world like you have.

• 1:04:10Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely. You too, though.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  See, look at us.

• 1:04:12Bunnie XO?

  When we first met you at, at Music Cares, I just, I told my husband, I was like, I love this woman. I was like, she has such amazing energy. You just have angel energy. And you can tell when people are good humans, you know? And my husband just adores you. Like, he's like, I can't believe Melissa is my friend.

• 1:04:30Bunnie XO?

  He's just so excited. Like, he just can't believe it. Him and you, you and Bon Jovi just blow his mind. The fact that you guys, that he can call you guys friends. He's just like, the- This is amazing to me.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  He's, he's, he's special too, and you know that. You know that, and he's, he's got that big wonderful heart. And of course, as his friend, I do, I think about him a lot. And, and I know what a weird space it can be. I tell him, and I would tell you too, man, call me, just.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  Please do. I'm gonna give you my number, cause I don't trust him to give it to you.

• 1:05:05Bunnie XO?

  So moving on, how did we meet wifey? Cause I, I stumbled upon a really cool, well, it was awesome to me, cause I'm into astrology and all that stuff. You guys have the same frickin' birthday, like, how, like, only two Geminis would find love in each other. I mean, I think that's hilarious, because you guys are either exactly alike, or you guys are opposite ends of the spectrum. Are you guys exactly alike, both?

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  So, we'll start with, I met her twenty-two, three years ago. Twenty-three, two thousand one, so twenty-three years ago. She is a, um, television creator, writer, producer. She was. She was, yeah, boss mama, big time. She was the showrunner for the Seventy Show, that Seventy Show.

• 1:05:54Bunnie XO?

  Oh, awesome.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  And, uh, went on, she's created Nurse Jackie, and she's, she's a pioneering.

• 1:06:05Bunnie XO?

  I love that. Nurse Jackie was huge, dude. That's amazing.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  And the first thing to ever really deal with, you know, uh, opioid abuse, first show that ever talked about it. So, she called me in because she was doing a new show called The Eighty Show. And, um, she called me in because she liked my work, and respected me, and thought I would be. Uh, it was a character of a, that ran a music store. And she just really wanted to base the show on a strong, so I came in, met her, instantly it was like, they offered me the part and I was touring and the money didn't, you know, and I couldn't, and I was like, oh god, I can't do it. But, I really liked her, and this is back in the early 2000s before they had reality shows.

• 1:06:55Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  Like, reality shows were about to come in, and I remember sitting at a table, because we said, we want, let's do something together, you know? And, and she saw how very interesting my life was, and was like, man, if we could just have a couple cameras around your life, I was like, that's weird. And then The Osbournes came out right after, and we were like, oh my god, that was a, they took that idea, you know?

• 1:07:14Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:15Speaker 01

  But, it was in the, it was in the ether, but, so we, we were best friends. She became my best friend because we were so much alike.

• 1:07:22Bunnie XO?

  Aww.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  And we loved football.

• 1:07:25Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  Humongous.

• 1:07:27Bunnie XO?

  Who's the teams?

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  She's a Packers fan, Green Bay Packers.

• 1:07:30Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  She grew up, was born in Wisconsin, grew up in Illinois, but remained a Packer fan.

• 1:07:34Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha.

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  I grew up in Kansas, so I'm a Kansas City Chiefs fan, and I am enjoying life very much these last few years.

• 1:07:40Bunnie XO?

  My husband thinks they're gonna go to the Super Bowl this year.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Well, of course. I think your husband and I should go to the Super Bowl.

• 1:07:46Bunnie XO?

  Let's do it, we can all go, that'd be amazing.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  It's in Vegas. No, no, it's not, it's in New Orleans, New Orleans.

• 1:07:52Bunnie XO?

  Okay, yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  It was in Vegas last year, it's in New Orleans. Yeah, so, we were best friends. She helped me through cancer, as my friend. She saw me through the hard times in my, uh, relationship, again, my second marriage. Uh, she knew all my children, my children loved and adored her, especially my oldest.

• 1:08:11Bunnie XO?

  Good.

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  Uh, when I went through my spiritual change, she was one of the only one that would listen to me and was interested and understood. And we were extremely close as best friends, then when my marriage fell apart, uh, she was working on Nurse Jackie in New York, and she was selling her house, and I was like, well, come stay with me, you know, my wife's gone, and I have no housekeeper, and I have four children, and I'm a single mom, and so she came and stayed, and... The thought had crossed her mind that maybe we might take a step further. I was like, I suck at relationships. I'm horrible. I'm never gonna be in a relationship again. And no, but but be my friend and help me.

• 1:08:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  And for months, she would get up with me. She would make the lunches for all four kids. She would help me with the breakfast. She would until one and and every night after they went to bed, we'd sit and talk.

• 1:09:03Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  And just our relationship was this like this and then one day, little ones were running around, the two year olds were running around and and we had changed some things in the kitchen and I was like, where are the sippy cups? And she looks at me and she goes, well, dear. And I went huh. Because it went inside and you know, all of a sudden, that was the click of.

• 1:09:26Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Man, I I'm finally having the relationship with a person, this home relationship that I always wanted, that I could count on, someone who I could, I knew could help me with my children, who all these things. And I find her attractive. Oh shit, you know, oh no, what am I gonna do now? And I didn't want to mess up our friendship. But she was like, and she she just.

• 1:09:49Bunnie XO?

  Did you always love, did you love her?

• 1:09:52Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. And I didn't know just how deeply, because I was in my own relationships and drama and whatnot, so. Um, but yeah, I guess I just, I sold it.

• 1:10:02Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  And it has never, because soon we found out our differences, which were very good. And worked together and um, and the the sexual part of the relationship has been better than I've ever had in my life.

• 1:10:15Bunnie XO?

  Fire.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  I had no idea. I had no idea. And it's been, uh,

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  how many years have we been together? Ten, fifteen?

• 1:10:26Speaker 03

  Three, ten, together fourteen.

• 1:10:28Bunnie XO?

  Four. Oh, my goodness.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  Fifteen, I forget. I forget, you know, when you get to the point, you know.

• 1:10:32Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:32Speaker 01

  But they didn't let us get married till ten years ago, so we're married ten years.

• 1:10:35Bunnie XO?

  I love that. Isn't it amazing when you find that person? It just happens.

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  And I think it happened because I finally got myself into a place of.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  Because I used to believe, oh, I had to, I had to have that beautiful, straight-looking, smart, you know, not smart, but beautiful and straight. Because those were things I didn't feel, and I felt I needed that. And I would fall in love with the look and just hope they fit later. And that was no way to do it.

• 1:11:06Bunnie XO?

  Disaster.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  And finally, I have had, I've had this solid relationship with a person, and I'm like, oh, I can fall in love with that.

• 1:11:13Bunnie XO?

  You can fall in love with a soul.

• 1:11:14Speaker 01

  With a soul.

• 1:11:16Bunnie XO?

  That's how it is with my husband. Like, I just love his soul.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  And I love myself enough.

• 1:11:22Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  To see that, no, no, it's about me being happy. This person makes me so happy. You know?

• 1:11:29Bunnie XO?

  To be together that long and to still feel that way, what is your guys' secret? What's, if you could give anybody relationship advice, like, what's one key thing?

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  I say this

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  because we say it to each other all the time because we understand it.

• 1:11:44Bunnie XO?

  I've been needing new glasses forever, and it's just one of those things I keep putting off. So I finally went on Zinni to pick out a new pair. I'm going with these black rectangle glasses that are really similar to the ones I already wear because, listen, I know what I like. They're classic, they go with everything, and I'm excited to get them. Zinni has frames starting from under $30, and I love that you can use their virtual try-on to see what different frames look like before you order. You just find a pair you love, enter your prescription, customize your lenses, and they'll ship them right to your door. Zinni is truly the easiest way to shop for stylish prescription glasses without the headache, backed by over 150,000 5-star reviews. Check new glasses off your list today with Zinni.

• 1:12:26Bunnie XO?

  Go to zinni.com/podcast and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off, plus free shipping over $65. Style sellout, so don't wait. That's Z E N N I dot com slash podcast, promo code PODCAST15. Zinni.com/podcast, code PODCAST15.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  You have to love yourself as much as you want the other person to love you.

• 1:12:55Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  You have to take care of yourself as much as you want to take care of your partner. And you, you know, and you want them to take care of you, you have to. There are certain things that it's, it's not about, the other person doesn't fill you up. You have to fill you up.

• 1:13:16Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  And then that joy allows all this happiness. We can't save our partners. We have to be a light in ourselves. She went through a health thing a couple of years ago. And I knew it's like, okay, I can't get sick enough to make her well. I have to be well, I have to be enjoying my career. I have to be loving where I'm going so that I can be a light so that she can.

• 1:13:44Bunnie XO?

  Raise up.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  Be uh inspired by that.

• 1:13:48Bunnie XO?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  That's what we do, we inspire each other. She inspires me. Oh my God, there's so many times I fall down a deep hole and she's like, are you crazy? You know, you know, you silly girl, she doesn't go down there with me. She stays up, you know, and we had, because we fill ourselves up.

• 1:14:03Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  We are there for the other one.

• 1:14:05Bunnie XO?

  Hmm, that's powerful. I love that. That's amazing. That's so real too. Cause I feel like people get lost in each other.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:13Bunnie XO?

  When they get into, and that's.

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  Well, they think that's love.

• 1:14:15Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  We were raised with that. We were raised with mothers that said, you have to take care of me.

• 1:14:20Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  You know, if you do this, I'll die.

• 1:14:23Bunnie XO?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  And, and we think that we have to be something for somebody else to be okay. Boy, you got, you have to change that, cause that, that will make you sick.

• 1:14:31Bunnie XO?

  Now, that's how Jay and I are. We, we love each other immensely, but we also make sure that we each have our own separate things to where it's like, we're, we're each other's rocks in different ways. You know, it's like if he falls down, I lift him up. If I fall down, he lifts me up. And that's really the way you have to do it. You have to be steadfast in yourself to be able to, you know, maintain a relationship for a long time. We've only been together eight years. You guys have us way beat.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  Still, eight, eight's good.

• 1:14:59Bunnie XO?

  I mean, yeah, listen, I don't know how we've made it this long. I always tell everybody, they're like, congratulations on eight years. I'm like, I think you need to congratulate him on surviving.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you know what? We do it every day and we just, we just learn more every single day. This is a practice. We're, we're supposed to get it wrong.

• 1:15:18Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  And there's not even, you can't get it wrong because you can always do it more.

• 1:15:22Bunnie XO?

  And you learn. You live and you learn. And I really truly believe friendship is a huge basis for any relationship. Because my husband and I are friends before we're lovers.

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  That's, that's exactly us. And we always, we always say, or she'll say to me, she goes, gosh, I love your girlfriend now. You know, because, you know, she used to, anyway.

• 1:15:43Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotcha.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  You know, I'm not going to explain the joke.

• 1:15:46Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha. Moving on from the love story, let's talk about this docu-series.

• 1:15:50Speaker 01

  Oh, man. Yes. Growing up in Leavenworth, Kansas, actually, when I was seven years old, Johnny Cash came to the prison that was three blocks from my house. I could see it from the backyard.

• 1:16:03Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:16:04Speaker 01

  Yes. Federal Penitentiary. It was a big part of Leavenworth. It's just, it was part of my childhood. And, and there it was. And he came and none of us got to see him. Nobody but the prisoners. And I thought prisons must be a place of fine entertainment, you know? I want to do that. So I started, kind of started with that as a child. But then later, when I did go in with some variety groups and these crazy things that I did go into entertain, I saw everyday people. They're all in the same clothes.

• 1:16:38Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  And, you know, you could tell that, you know, they were here and they weren't incredibly happy.

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  But I saw people who were fed by entertainment and joy and music and how much it did. And they were so enthusiastic for anything they saw. I would sing and it was the first time an audience was like, yes, you know, a hundred, a hundred people. Two hundred people to a twelve-year-old, you know?

• 1:17:04Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:17:04Bunnie XO?

  That's just insane, though, that they even allowed a twelve-year-old in a prison.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  I know. Believe me, you don't know how insane it is, it's crazy, but it really happened and it was, I went into the women's prison. Which was the first time I saw, I was like, looked at the audience, I thought, I thought this was the women's prison. First time I saw women, masculine women, you know, and it kind of blew my mind and, and then went into the state penitentiary. I went in to the army penitentiaries there.

• 1:17:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:32Speaker 01

  Played in every single one of those and, and um, have always in the back of my mind thought of it. As a matter of fact, in the early nineties, I was friends with Tammy Wynette.

• 1:17:40Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  She was beautiful woman and uh, we both had a desire to go play at a women's penitentiary. And we were talking to HBO about going to one in, in Virginia that was run by women and it was a women's penitentiary. And then she got sick and died. And so I had almost done it in the nineties. And so it's always has been in my mind that I wanted to go back into a prison. Well, now my life goes on. I lose my son, I become very involved with um, finding alternatives to pain reduction and to opioid addiction. And um, I go in, I finally get the opportunity, Paramount Plus, MTV say, yeah, we'll do this. And Sun Records, the, they paid for the album.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  I've got a live album now out on Sun Records, which I've never had a live album and I'm so thrilled about it. And the concert was the Topeka Correctional Facility. Finally found the warden, a female warden who, she's so good that she is now in, in charge of all the wardens of Kansas.

• 1:18:43Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  She has been promoted, she's so good because she understands that their punishment is their freedoms taken away. It's not up to her to punish them more in the prison.

• 1:18:52Bunnie XO?

  That's so amazing.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  It's rehabilitating them and getting them out.

• 1:18:55Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  So she says yes, when I, when we come ask, can we do a concert? She's like, yes. I say, how long? She goes, how long you want? I say, I'm gonna curse and they're gonna get really excited because that's what I do to an audience is bring people up. And she's like, go ahead. I'm like, okay, here we go. And it, it changed my life. And because so many of those women are in there because of crimes committed to feed their uh, drug addiction. I, I related and I gotta tell you, there's a moment when I'm on stage and I'm talking to the crowd, these, these women who have lost their freedom, they are in there, they are working hard to try to get their lives together. And, you know, joy is, is hard to find.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  And I'm, start telling them about my son and how I had lost him. And the outpouring of empathy and caring, every one of them put the little hearts over their heads.

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  I was like, this wave of empathy from an audience that surely, you know, has had so much happening. They, they don't even see their children. And it really showed me that people are people and, and we all have the same makeups. And, and we all have our own times that we gotta go through our stuff. But there they were, just being empathetic and, and delightful. And it, it really, I, I can't wait for you to really, you sit down with it and.

• 1:20:26Bunnie XO?

  Oh, we are, we're gonna, we, I told you, we have a 14 hour trek, we're gonna watch it. And it's available on.

• 1:20:31Speaker 01

  Paramount Plus.

• 1:20:32Bunnie XO?

  Paramount Plus, okay. And it's called, I'm Not Broken. Where did you come up with that title?

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  Well, there's a couple of things. I, I, in the movie, I write them a song.

• 1:20:40Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  And I, I met them, I, uh, really felt like I didn't wanna write a song that was like feeling sorry for them. Any, you know, sad, you know, oh, the green, green grass is home or something like that. I didn't, I didn't wanna make them sad.

• 1:20:53Bunnie XO?

  Right, right.

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  Right? You know, and, and I'm like, I wanna lift them up. I want them to see what power they have. And, and that where they are did not define, you know, where they're going.

• 1:21:02Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:03Speaker 01

  And, and so I, I wanted a rock and roll song. I wanted a song that they, that we could do a call and response to, you know, and, and just get, lift people up. And I was like, one, one of the things I wanna say, I wanna say, I'm a burning woman. So that the name of the song is, I'm a Burning Woman. And I was with a friend of ours, a director, um, Amy Tinkum, she had directed my Broadway, uh, show. And she had just been like, uh, researching Bob Marley because she did his show in Vegas. And, and she was, she had been to this mountaintop with this reggae Rastafarian man. And, and this take her to the priest and the priest just looks at her and says, you're not broken.

• 1:21:45Speaker 01

  And it just healed her. She was like, oh, you know, didn't know that that was a belief. And she came home and when she said, I'm not broken, I was like, that's it. That's it. That's exactly what I want to say. So the, the chorus is, I'm a burning woman. I'm not broken. I'm a burning woman. I am worth it. You know, and, and that's what I wanted to leave with them. So the Paramount and we all agreed that the name of the thing would be, I'm not broken. That you're not broken. You're just learning.

• 1:22:17Bunnie XO?

  Have you ever stopped to think that that song is kind of like an affirmation?

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  Oh, all of my songs are a hundred percent affirmation. For myself. No, it, it is, there's just as much healing going on for me.

• 1:22:32Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  As there was in, in the crowd. And, and that's, I love singing it every night. Even if people don't know it, I get, it's the only song I've ever cursed in.

• 1:22:41Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  You know, I, oh.

• 1:22:42Bunnie XO?

  I love that.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  You know, and so I tell the audience, I said, I know, good spice. There's some strong language in this. And I just, you know, singing it and, um, just bringing it and it, and it's just, it's definitely an affirmation. I'm not broken and I, I'm, I am worth it. And I sing that to myself every single night.

• 1:23:00Bunnie XO?

  I love that. And you guys have to check it out. It's on Paramount Plus.

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  Please do.

• 1:23:04Bunnie XO?

  We're gonna watch it while we're driving from LA to El Paso in the next few days. So I can't wait. I'll, I'll text you cause I'll have your number.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:23:10Bunnie XO?

  I'll be like, hi Melissa, I watched it. This is your new BFF. I'm just gonna, we'll have a group text. We'll have a group chat.

• 1:23:18Speaker 01

  You're not gonna get rid of us now. We're gonna be all over you.

• 1:23:22Bunnie XO?

  I love it. And let's talk about, you have a tour and an album dropping. And then I'll let you out of, I'll let you out of here. Cause I've kept you for so long.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  No, the live album is, I'm not broken. It's, it's the live album. It's a double album set, just like in the seventies.

• 1:23:33Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  Like Peter Frampton. It's, it's this concert. It's got the hits on it, but it's also has some deep tracks that I really wanted to bring to the women, uh, uh, about, you know, transformation and, and, and fear and darkness and these things. And, um, the tour I'm on, I'm always on tour, cause that's what I love to do.

• 1:23:53Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. I like my husband. You guys just live in a bus.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  I can do that.

• 1:23:58Bunnie XO?

  That's my husband too.

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  If it wasn't for my children, might not, because my wife comes with me, we're like, yeah, it's what it's all about.

• 1:24:04Bunnie XO?

  I love that, me too. I have my own bus, though.

• 1:24:06Speaker 01

  Oh, smart.

• 1:24:07Bunnie XO?

  I was like, you're not putting me on a bus with 11 dudes, not happening.

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  Okay, well, there's four, five dudes on our, no, four dudes on our bus and us two, so it's okay, I have a small man.

• 1:24:15Bunnie XO?

  I love it, yeah.

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, uh, we're going out, uh, doing some dates on our, on my own, well, I've just got about six weeks left, I think, and, and then some dates with Jewel, but this summer I did some dates with the Indigo Girls, and they were great.

• 1:24:27Bunnie XO?

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  It was huge, it was really great.

• 1:24:30Bunnie XO?

  I didn't know they were still together.

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, they've, they've, yeah, we're all coming together, it's a big, like, 90's fest.

• 1:24:35Bunnie XO?

  That's so, you guys should do a 90's fest.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  I think we're gonna do, yeah.

• 1:24:38Bunnie XO?

  Remember, uh, what was it, Lilith Fair, do you remember that?

• 1:24:41Speaker 01

  What do you, what do you think, I want to know your definition of what Lilith Fair was?

• 1:24:46Bunnie XO?

  I went one year, and I forget who was playing, because I was so fucked up, but my definition of Lilith Fair was like, uh, just a bunch of powerful women who got to go and bring other women together, and like, that's why we went, because it was so, I've always been like, woman power, you know?

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  I, I never played Lilith Fair, that's another thing, but I do, I do think there's another, like, all-female, powerful something coming.

• 1:25:10Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, it needs to come back around, and we need to have powerhouses like you, Stevie Nicks, like, yeah, just everybody, just go and fucking perform, I'll be there.

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:19Bunnie XO?

  I might show my titties, because I'll be excited, because I'll be super excited, you know, and it's gonna be all women there anyways.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  Come on.

• 1:25:25Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, I think maybe we need to design that, let's do it, let's set it up.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:25:28Bunnie XO?

  Melissa, thank you so much for coming, and just being able to sit down with you for this past hour and a half has been just a blessing.

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  My pleasure, you are a delightful woman, and I am just blessed to be in your presence, thank you.

• 1:25:42Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I, listen, you guys all want to make out, because we can.

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:25:46Bunnie XO?

  I'm very wifey into this, too. So you guys, I gotta let you go, because Bailey is going, is getting married, you are heading out to...

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  She's at her engagement party, which is a thing they do nowadays, yes, I guess, I never had an engagement party, but okay.

• 1:25:58Bunnie XO?

  It's gonna be, so how cool is that, to have you as a mother-in-law, though?

• 1:26:01Speaker 01

  Oh, she puts up with it, you, you know, kids are kids, no matter how famous you are, no matter who you are, what you do, you still are, you can still let them down, you can still, you can still not perfect.

• 1:26:11Bunnie XO?

  No, I get it, I totally get, we have, we got our daughter at home, and sometimes she's like, I'm just, you know, can you guys just turn it off?

• 1:26:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:18Bunnie XO?

  I'm like, what do you mean?

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. We're good, we're fine. Everything's great.

• 1:26:26Bunnie XO?

  Aw. Well, thank you guys again for being here. And I'm so happy I got to meet wifey too.

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:26:31Bunnie XO?

  And thank you guys for tuning into another episode of Dumb Blonde. I'll see you guys next week. Bye.