A Quote by Brian Ortega

There's a lot of times when I shouldn't have been here. I go, 'Man, I'm blessed.' I've had people shoot at me and had all kinds of stuff happen, and somehow I'm still here, and other people are not.
My old man taught me a lot of stuff in his death that I don't even know if he would have been able to teach me had he been alive. And that was to never do stuff that can jeopardize the people you love and hurt them.
I've been bumped, I've had to go up after them, I've had stuff thrown at me, I've been booed. I've had people steal from me and lie to me.
I have had a lot of blessed, interesting things happen to me and have bumped up against some amazing people.
My grandfather had asked me many times whether I'd like to come to South Carolina with him. He wanted to introduce me to our people down there and I didn't want to go. In those days, the South was still a place where black kids were lynched. Something horrible could happen to you. I've had that feeling my whole life.
Now I'm not going to go, "Oh my God, what are people saying about me?" I had a choice to be a student and not become a model, and becoming a doctor was another one of my dreams. I had a choice between not becoming a singer or becoming a songwriter and writing behind the scenes; nobody would have seen me writing songs for other people. I had the choice of not marrying my man; we could have just been hidden lovers, but I couldn't cope with it. I had these choices to do all these things, so I'm not going to cry over a life which has been really lucky.
I was heartbroken at the end of that, because I thought that was going to be it for me. Somehow I had worked my way into this movie and it had exposed me to people and I had a chance to be an actor, which I loved, but I didn't think it was ever going to happen again.
I had sort of had a 21st birthday when I was 17, 18-years-old living in Japan. I had all of that stuff sort of happen earlier for me, which happens to a lot of people. My 21st birthday was just a little boring. Not a great story.
I've been so blessed to have the career I have had, so each and every shoot and job is a privilege for me to be at.
People always go on about me being an inspiration, which is nice. But it's an unrealistic pedestal to be put on. There are other people out there who have had things happen to them, not just me.
First of all, a lot of people, a lot of women and men, have lost their children. I'm not the only one. But I happen to be blessed that my son gave me all these things to work with so that I get to work out my grief in a way that other people are not able to. So I can't possibly be downtrodden about that.
A lot of people are like, "Oh, it's so much easier to be a supermodel now because you have Instagram. You don't even need an agency anymore." But that's just not true. I still had to go to all the castings, I still had to go meet all the photographers, I still had to do all of that to get to where I am now. There wasn't a step taken out just because I had social media. I still have 12-hour days, I still have even 24-hour days sometimes; I still have to do all those things. We don't work any less hard than the '90s models did when they were young.
When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you. . . . Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you. After being severely wounded two weeks before my nineteenth birthday I had a bad time until I figured out that nothing could happen to me that had not happened to all men before me. Whatever I had to do men had always done. If they had done it then I could do it too and the best thing was not to worry about it.
I had to fight tooth and nail to stay in an industry where I had a lot of problems. I've gone through a lot in my life and have somehow managed by my faith and some great people around me to continue on this journey where I'm at today.
I wanted people to know that I've been through the rain. I've been broken into pieces; I had a daughter at such a young age. There were times people would say, 'That's it for her.' But that didn't happen.
When I moved down to Houston, I had people who were willing to support me with sponsorships and different endorsement deals. That's really how I stayed afloat. It isn't ridiculous money where you can live however you want - I still have to be disciplined - but I've been very blessed with having people to support me.
It's so weird, like, it's not like Gamergate is the only bad thing to happen to me. I've been homeless before, I've had to come through other stuff. A profoundly abusive childhood, but at least that stuff feels like I got to move on from it, that stuff is in the past.
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