Celebrity
A few days ago Laura received this email through the website:
You talk so much about celebrities, celebrity and how much you want to be a celebrity. It seems as though you’ve been trying to make a trade with celebrity for a long time. That transaction will never go well, for anyone, let alone you.
She sent this response, which she wants to share with you all:
Oh I know this very well. And the process I went through being JT and the way media created this celeb culture around JT very much enforced my awareness of how hollow celebrity worship is. I feel our culture sells the idea of fame as a fix for our suffering, whatever it might be. I hid and did the work of writing in my room. In the same way I believed food might fix me — it numbed me — fame is another distraction and it does NOT fix anything. Oh I know this. I really do not talk about it much at all, but it is very much the lingua franca of our culture. I am asked about it a lot. Believe me I would rather talk about most anything else. My books are NOT pop culture books, but they do go into the desire to be loved, to be seen, to be needed — to feel important, that your life matters. To feel connected. The desire to find a self.
My work deals with gender fluidity, trauma, abuse. I suggest you read the work — this is what interests me. Please do not mistake what is written ABOUT me with what my true focus is and has been. The trade was never ever for celebrity, at all. It was going to artists I was moved by, it is what I did in the punk scene — I rejected celebrity worship. Being a celebrity, existing in that realm? Nothing could be further from that as my organizing principal. If it were, then when I was outed I would have jumped on all the offers that were thrown at me to create myself as one. I did not. I even got into a lawsuit because a movie company wanted to make my story but I said NO to Hollywood. Please read the work, the essence of it all is there. I do appreciate your coming to me with your concerns instead of posting anonymously. You opened a chance for dialog and that is rare.
Sincerely, Laura
