People never like me and I never like people," she thought. "And I never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were always talking and laughing and making noises.
There have been times in my adolescence where I gave up. I was like, 'I'm just never going to be pretty. I'm never going to be like one of those people on the front of magazines.' It always seemed really strange to me that the projection of how people are in advertisements looked nothing like the people who were actually buying them. You know what I mean? I never understood that mismatch, and now I really start to see that the people you see in the media are a lot more like people actually are.
A whole bunch of people told me that if I went to WWE, I'd never make it. But it's like I never heard them. I never listened. To me, I'm exactly where I belong. I feel like I was born to do this. Whatever your walk in life is, you pick what you want to be, then go ahead and be the best one.
I always felt second best. I was never the prettiest, never the skinniest, never the fastest in my sports. Never the smartest, because I have dyslexia. Then, all of a sudden, people were like, 'You're gorgeous.' And I was like, 'What?'
I've never really felt like a veteran. I've never felt like the guy who's like, 'OK, everyone needs to look up to me and respect me.' I've always just been one of the guys that people are excited to get in the ring with. That's all I want.
I was raised in Harlem. I never found a book that took place in Harlem. I never had a church like mine in a book. I never had people like the people I knew. People who could not find their lives in books and celebrated felt bad about themselves. I needed to write to include the lives of these young people.
I don't think I've ever tried to be something that I'm not. People do that for you. People try to pigeonhole you. People tried typecasting me, before they even saw me in anything else. I've never understood that. I was like, "Why don't you wait until my next project, before you start telling my what my career is going to look like, for the next 10 years?" I've never let it set me back because I always knew the world would try to do that for me, anyway.
I feel very accepted, like I never have any slander. I never have any issues. You know, like, when people see me, they respect me. It's all about how you carry yourself.
Like people coming up to me like, 'Nobody ever told you that you look like Lil Baby?' But I'll be like, nah. Or like, somebody told me that. I'll never just say, it's me.
I just talk just to talk. I like to see what other people think. There's some things somebody tweets me every day where I'm like, 'Wow, I never thought of this issue that way.' It starts great conversation with people who I would never get a chance to actually communicate with.
I never smoked. I never drank and I never took drugs. The funny thing is, nothing is more boring, people like this. For me, it's OK. But most of my friends, at least they smoke and drink.
I used to like people more, but now I have children and that changes your life in a lot of ways. Like you spend time with people you never would have chosen to spend time with, not in a million years. I spend whole days with people, I'm like, "I never would have hung out with you. I didn't choose you. Our children chose each other based on no criteria by the way. They're the same size. They don't care who they make me hang out with."
When people talk about the '60s I never think that was me there. It was me and I was in it, but I was never enamoured with all that. It's supposed to be sex and drugs and rock and roll and I'm not really like that. I've never really seen the Rolling Stones as anything.
For the most part, it was never assumed that I was gay, and I've had people be sort of surprised that I was gay or act apologetic like they didn't know, which would just make me really uncomfortable. And I never had shame for it, but I never felt like introducing myself as, 'I'm Antoni. I'm gay. How are you?'
I'm gay. Megan's my girlfriend... These aren't secrets to people who know me. I don't feel like I've not lived my life. I think people have this assumption that if you're not talking about it, you must be hiding it, like it's this secret. That was never the case for me.
I feel a whole country growing inside me, thousands of years, millions of people, stupid, crazy, shrewd people, and all of them me. I never felt like that before, I never felt that there was anything inside me, even myself.