Dad needs to show an incredible amount of respect and humor and friendship toward his mate so the kids understand their parents are sexy, they’re fun, they do things together, they’re best friends. Kids learn by example. If I respect Mom, they’re going to respect Mom.
A guy is a lump like a doughnut. So, first you gotta get rid of all the stuff his mom did to him. And then you gotta get rid of all that macho crap that they pick up from beer commercials. And then there’s my personal favorite, the male ego.
My mom raised us like we were still in the Philippines. She tried to cure everything at home like a real Filipino woman. You had to die to go to the hospital. My mom cured everything with Vicks VapoRub. I should’ve died nine times when I was a kid!
My mom and dad divorced when I was 8 years old, but my Dad never left my life. We would go over there on weekends and he’d be playing his guitar, listening to Bobby Blue Bland and B. B. King and KBLX radio while he was out in the garage painting custom cars.
When I was 12, I was living in Iowa, and I emailed so many wrestling schools, and one of them was actually in Boston. I joined it at 18 – the New England Pro Wrestling Academy. They were doing a fantasy camp. I was 17 about to turn 18. I told my mom, ‘I’m 18 now. I just signed these papers by myself, and I’m going to do this.’
My mom thought I could dance because I used to dance to this Janet Jackson song she’d play when I was a baby. Then she would take me to a Saturday dance school. I used to go every week and got spotted by a scout, who suggested I audition for the role of Billy in ‘Billy Elliot the Musical.’
There’s no one else I would rather have as my manager than my mom because I know that she has our best interests at heart. Sometimes, it’s hard to separate manager mode from mom mode. I think as our manager, my mom will get more emotional about situations than she would if she was just our manager.
My youngest sister, Cindy, has Down syndrome, and I remember my mother spending hours and hours with her, teaching her to tie her shoelaces on her own, drilling multiplication tables with Cindy, practicing piano every day with her. No one expected Cindy to get a Ph.D.! But my mom wanted her to be the best she could be, within her limits.
No matter how good you are, at some point your kids are gonna have to create their own independence and think that Mom and Dad aren’t cool, just to establish themselves. That’s what adolescence is about. They’re gonna go through that no matter what.
My mom had me at 16 and took me every place she went. I remember going on peace marches. She tried to take me to Woodstock – it was pouring rain. It was on my birthday, and I was crying so much in the car they turned the car around and dumped me at my grandmother’s house… I had a little attitude.
You may earn whatever money you earn as a cricketer, but you want to play for your country. At the end of the day, you want to do something special. There are plenty of people who earn 50 crores or 100 crores as businessmen or big professionals or who are really doing well in business. But what gives pleasure to your mom and dad is the fame.
When I was 16, I was watching ‘101 Dalmatians,’ and my mom never let me bleach my hair, so I told her I was going to dye my hair like Cruella De Vil; she didn’t believe me. I came home with my hair like this, and she didn’t talk to me for, like, a week. It was really hilarious.
I went to see ‘Phantom of the Opera’ with my grandma and my mom when I was very little. The stage, the voice, the music… Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has been a massive inspiration to me for some time – the storytelling, that deliciously somber undertone in his music.
Starting in my teens, I was always standing on the corner near our apartment singing harmony with friends. We’d also go to the park and sing under the bridge near the lake for the echo. When it was cold out, we’d stand in the little heated lobby in the project’s administration building, where my mom paid the rent each month.
I’ve always been surrounded by many great people and professors, but my family, especially my mom who was a teacher, was the person who encouraged me to study and pushed me to continue. When we’re young, we don’t understand why our parents bug us so much with school and doing homework, but it’s a blessing to have that support at home.
Although I have a lot of close female friends in my life, my number one is still my mom. Without her, I wouldn’t have the values that I have and see the world the way that I do today. She taught me how to appreciate and respect women. She taught me chivalry and how to love a woman and respect their feelings and emotions.
I would say that my role model, as far as just somebody leading by example, which to me is what a great youth counselor does – they are there to talk to and lead by example – would be my mom, but she wasn’t a youth counselor. She was a teacher, and she is a good person and definitely one of the biggest influences in my life.
Growing up watching WWE, they used to have bra-and-panties matches or pillow fights, and that’s why my mom didn’t want me to watch wrestling. But when my parents divorced, I was able to watch wrestling again, and that’s when I started to really get into wrestlers like Ivory.
Wigs have always been a part of my life and have become a staple accessory in my closet. I can remember being a little girl and hearing all the commotion in my house from my mom, aunts and grandmother when picking out their wigs for the day. It was such a good time for them and part of their everyday beauty routine.
Most of the time, the lyrics are kind of like my secret messages to my friends or my boyfriend or my mom or my dad. I would never tell them that these songs are about them or which specific lyric is about somebody. Often, when I sit down to write a lyric, it is in the heat of the moment, and something has just happened.
My mom is awesome. She’s really young. My mom is 40, and she raised me listening to Nirvana and Courtney Love and Coldplay, Gin Blossoms, The Cranberries, and stuff. Like, my early, early memories are of being a little kid running around in floral skirts and Doc Martens when I was, like, three.
I know Spanish pretty well. I’m half-Puerto Rican – my mom is from Puerto Rico – so I have a lot of family there, and my mom’s first language is Spanish. But growing up in the States, and with my dad being from the States, I’m kind of just like this white kid.
My mom is such a strong, independent, strong-willed woman, and she always taught me to accept my worth for how I viewed myself and female empowerment, and it’s okay to be independent and also need someone at the same time. I kinda get to be both.
My dad is still Christian Scientist. My mom’s not, and I’m not. But I believe in God, and that there’s a higher power and an intelligence that’s bigger than us and that we can rely on. It’s not just us, thinking we are the ones in control of everything. That idea gives me support.
I’m Mexican-American. My dad was actually born in Mexico. He was raised up there, and he came back and forth to America pretty much his whole teenage years. My mom is from Sacramento, California, and she’s a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl. She’s a whitey.
