Being Kendra (14 page)

I do all this stuff just for fun. It’s not really a big deal for me. I go out there and try to take good pictures and then go home. I’m not into the extreme of getting ready for an event. You’ll never find me getting a colonic or an enema to prepare for an event. I’d rather be constipated, bloated, or two pounds overweight than go to extremes.

The most extreme I ever got is piercing my own ears. My ears close up all the time because I never wear earrings, proof that I just don’t like jewelry. The last time I wore earrings was my wedding day. I actually pierced my own ears because I had borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry and figured if ever there was a time to wear earrings it was then. So I took the earrings themselves and just started piercing through my ears. I hadn’t worn earrings in a couple of years so I was forcing them through, blood and all. There I was sitting in my wedding dress just minutes before the wedding. It took about five minutes to break through the ear all the way. Pain aside, I was mostly worried about getting blood on the dress, so we kept putting napkins all around me. It was a last-minute decision to wear the earrings; I wasn’t planning on it because that’s just not my style. If I’m not into getting all done up for my wedding day, you can see that stressing over this stuff during the rest of my life just isn’t that important.

Of course going out “Hollywood style” for us doesn’t always mean red carpets, Escalades, and a glam squad coming over to my house. We do double dates with other couples just like everyone else.

During
Dancing
with
the
Stars
I became close with cohost Brooke Burke. She’s a mama just like me, and she and her husband, David Charvet, are nice, normal, regular people who just like to go out and have fun. They don’t need wild parties every night. They just need good company (and wine, of course!). So we did a double date at the restaurant Ago and had a lot of fun. Whenever we run into a married couple who are down-to-earth, people who aren’t so conservative and have kids, we like to go on dates with them. These are people who we can relate to. We can’t relate to Hollywood couples who show off their giant mansions and private jets and always have ten bodyguards with them.

Most of the cast of
DWTS
was going out to the clubs after each show to party all night. I did it once because Kirstie Alley asked me to go with her. But usually that’s not my style anymore. I don’t like to be clubbing all night, especially when I have to wake up to a baby and go dancing all day. My after-work style is early dinner and occasionally a nice glass of wine. That’s why I get along with Brooke so well; we both seem to be past the stage of our lives where clubbing is appealing. She’s so cool, she actually took the time to get to know us. She didn’t say, “Let’s just go out to the club and get drunk.” She said, “Let’s get our husbands together and all go out.” So we met them and had a double date and had great talks about life and the future and kids. We rarely brought up our careers or Hollywood. You really appreciate nice couples like that who are secure in who they are. Brooke is someone I want to get to know better and tell all of my secrets to.

I really don’t have a lot of people like that in my life, who I can open up to and share my secrets with. I just don’t trust anybody because in Hollywood everyone has an agenda. That’s why people like Eddie become so important to me. Eddie is with me every day and he hears me vent the most. If I’m frustrated with work, he’s the one I vent to. Eddie and Hank, they are my go-to people for venting. As a celebrity, my trust level is the lowest it’s ever been. I’m very guarded; that’s why it’s so refreshing to have people like Brooke Burke come into your life.

Yes, I’ve got my friends from home, like Brittany Byars and Savannah Stinson. We don’t talk a lot because of the craziness that has become my life, but those are my real true friends. They knew me before I was ever famous. They know my intentions, they’ve seen my struggle, and they know I’m not a rich, glamorous girl. People like that I will keep in my life forever. They make me feel like that girl in high school I used to be, a normal girl.

And, of course, if you watch my show you know that in recent years Brittany Binger has become one of my best friends. We met at the mansion and we became best friends. She’s the same person as me, but I’m more outgoing. She’s from a small town in Ohio, and she’s so beautiful. She keeps to herself. She can separate Hollywood and who you truly are. Brittany is so pretty you’d think she’d be Miss Hollywood, and she knows how to dress—she wears $15 tops and makes them look like a million dollars. She’s one of the few people I trust in this town as a friend.

It’s hard for me to open myself up to people, because I’m afraid they are going to run and tell the tabloids. I wouldn’t share my deepest darkest secrets with just anyone. So the people I can trust, I put on pedestals: Hank, Eddie, the two Brittanys, and Mykelle. Of course there are a few other people I’m close to but not comfortable enough to really confide my deepest darkest secrets to. Then there are shady people in my life who I have to have around for one reason or another but you will never catch me spilling anything to them.

Hanging out with one of my best friends, Brittany Binger, at a Too $hort concert.

My lack of trust for people doesn’t mean I close myself off to new opportunities. When we lived in Tarzana, we met Mel B and Stefano Langone, who lived across the street from us. They came over and introduced themselves one day and we instantly became friendly. The last time we went out they invited us over to their house, and we played games and downed some wine. They are our game buddies. We get drunk and play couples’ games like Catchphrase—normal couples things! They are fun and young and we love being around people like that. We still want to have crazy sex, we want to talk about sex, and people like Mel B get it. She didn’t even bat an eye when Hank drunkenly told her a story about how he accidentally stuck “it” in my butt once. We all cracked up! Everyone related, and it didn’t feel like TMI at all!

H
ank and I rarely get a normal, non-Hollywood date night alone, but when we do we try to make it as romantic as possible. We have a special date spot where we can step away from the spotlight and just be ourselves. It’s a little restaurant called Vibrato hidden in a small shopping area. They play jazz music, it’s very dimly lit, there are candles everywhere, and it totally puts us in the mood! It’s a place we go when we want to be adults. To us date night is very simple: Get ready, go out, go home. No drama.

If Hank’s mom or dad is in town, they’ll watch the baby, and if not we’ll hire a babysitter. We have two babysitters that we use, and one of them is Victoria Fuller—she’s a former Playboy Playmate from back in the eighties; baby Hank is going to love that when he gets older! If she’s not available we call another babysitter named Chelsea, who actually works on my show. Regardless of who it is, we try to put Hank to sleep first so he doesn’t really know we are gone.

We don’t have a full-on nanny. We just have these babysitters, so there’s no guarantee that our planned date night actually gets to happen. We have babysitters cancel on us just like the rest of the world. There are some times where Hank and I have a spontaneous thought that we’d like to go out and have some fun. But then we call everybody and nobody will watch the baby. Sometimes we reach out to friends who don’t have kids and have never taken care of a baby before, but we trust them. It’s not rocket science. But I would never ever leave him alone with someone I didn’t fully know or trust. I need to know them in and out.

I once called my friend Mykelle, who was six months pregnant at the time, because we thought it would be a good idea to give her some baby experience. Plus baby Hank knows her and would be comfortable with her. So she and her husband came over. They spent a good hour playing with the baby before they put him to bed. And when we came back from our date, we thanked them and let them go. We woke up in the morning and found that they had put the diaper on backward! Oops! Baby Hank had peed through his diaper. We couldn’t help but laugh because it was funny that for once it was someone else’s fault!

We love the getting-ready process because it’s almost like foreplay. Shaving, showering, makeup, moisturizing, doing the hair, painting the eyes, choosing the outfit—and I always make sure Hank is stealing a look.

I love to put on something sexy and just be Kendra again, not a mom. What I wear on a date with Hank really matters. I want Hank to know that I really try for him. It’s important for us, especially because when we’re filming our show the wardrobe and makeup is handled for us, so on date nights we dress up for ourselves, by ourselves, without the cameras around.

It’s very important, especially with our lives, that we make date night our own with a real date that we arrange and pay for. We would rather pay for our meal than have a restaurant pay for our food because that makes it an official date. We get invited to restaurants all the time, and they want to wine and dine us for free in exchange for a picture. You know what, everyone wants a free meal, but at the end of the day that’s considered a job for us. That’s not an official date. It’s a complete mind-fuck in that way, because we can seriously go out, just the two of us, and have a few glasses of wine and forget about all the celebrity shit and the show and fame and the paparazzi. But then if we’ve accepted a free meal, the next thing you know there’s a photographer waiting there to snap us.

Hot mom and dad ready to hit the town. The verdict is still out on that hat . . .

I love the time that we spend getting ready. Hank and I usually peek at each other back and forth so each of us can see what the other is wearing. And how many husbands actually flat-iron their wife’s hair? Mine does. Hank knows how much time I’m putting in with my hair and actually comes in and helps me so it cuts the getting-ready time in half. I blow-dry it and he’ll come in and I’ll have two flat irons plugged in, and he’ll do one half and I’ll do the other. One night he even helped me put my eyelashes on. He’s so good when it comes to things like that. He’s willing to help me, especially since he knows I’m doing all this for him. He loves it, he appreciates it, so he comes and helps me. And I love him knowing that I’m putting on makeup for him—because if I hire someone to put my hair and makeup on or the show does it, it’s not the same as me putting my hair and makeup on. When I do it myself, I’m putting in the effort to show him that I love him. I want to look good for him. I don’t want to seem so lazy that I’m just going to hire some hair-and-makeup person. He actually stands in the doorway and watches me do it. He looks at me with those goo-goo eyes and says, “Babe, I love when you do your hair and makeup; that’s my favorite look on you.” Because he knows I’m doing it for him.

Hank is usually dressed first while I’m in a robe putting my hair and makeup on. He’s an athlete with an amazing body and he takes really good care of himself, so he looks good in anything he wears. Most of the time I yell at him and I say, “Babe, I didn’t say dress up!” And he’ll say, “I didn’t dress up, this is just really regular.” But what actually happens is I get really insecure. I see how great he looks and I can’t help but be jealous. Physically, he’s a god compared to most people: six foot four and completely chiseled. Hank can basically wear anything he wants and make it look like he spent a thousand bucks on it. Black sweaters, long-sleeve button-downs, a tight T-shirt—he can rock anything. Me? I’ve got to go through a dozen outfits before I can find one that will do. I’m not tall, I’m not stick-thin, and I don’t consider myself a fashionista. I know I can look a lot better in a tank top and a pair of exercise shorts. So going out and finding a blouse or a top or a pair of pants that makes me look and feel the way Hank does is not easy. I’ll be done with my hair and makeup and he’ll ask me how he looks. I’ll get so mad and insecure because I need to find an outfit that looks as good as his.

I remember when I was still trying to lose weight after baby Hank was born and my clothes did not look good on me. I was really insecure and feeling like shit because I wasn’t losing the weight. Of course, Hank would come out looking hot. I remember going into my closet and trying on every single outfit, every dress I owned. They all ended up on the floor. Nothing looked as good as what he was wearing, so I started crying. I love Hank so much because he’s honest. Sometimes he would be like, “Yeah, I can see what you’re saying about that dress and how it looks there. Maybe it’s not the best look, so let’s find something that is.” I love that in a guy, but some girls hate that. I appreciate the fact that he’s honest with me. But if I put something on and I hate it and he loves it, that’s when I’m like, “Oh, hell no. Are you just saying that because we’re going to be late and you want to leave?”

When we go on a date, sometimes we’ll call in a town car because we want to have some wine and we don’t want to drive—we are against drinking and driving. But it has to be a town car and not a stretch limo. We are too down-to-earth to show up at a restaurant in a limo, just me and Hank. We don’t want to look like that. I get worried that paparazzi will catch us or a reporter will see us and I just don’t want to look like that. I just want to be so intimate with Hank. I don’t want to feel cheesy. I want it to be normal.

Other times we decide to drive ourselves, and when we do that Hank always puts on really, really romantic music. He’s the man! We are people who love good romantic throwback music—we have a handful of songs that we put on. We have a playlist on our iPod that’s our date night soundtrack. I call it Hank and Kendra’s cheesy love songs for the road:

• “My Cherie Amour” by Stevie Wonder

• “Caught Up on You” by .38 Special

• “Take Me Home Tonight” by Eddie Money

• “Why Don’t We Just Dance” by Josh Turner

• “Sold” by John Michael Montgomery

• “When I See You Smile” by Bad English

• “Forever and For Always” by Shania Twain

• “I Wanna Know” by Joe

• “Show and Tell” by Al Wilson

• “As My Girl” by Maxwell

So we put it on, and the second the music starts I feel at ease. The music that we have and the songs that we have are so romantic. They have the words that just make you feel so at peace and so in love, it’s almost like one of those late-night infomercials for love songs! When we are romantic, we go all-out with romance. We’re driving at sunset, and every stoplight we look into each other’s eyes and say how much we love each other. Red lights reflecting on our faces, green lights. It’s a very sexy, calm feeling. Even with all the insecurities, when we get on the road I feel calm. We talk to each other about how much we love each other and why. Date night is for a husband and wife and we’re able to leave the “mother and father” aspect of who we are at home.

We’ll be cruising down Ventura Boulevard or Sunset Boulevard listening to “Caught Up in You” by .38 Special and “Take Me Home Tonight” by Eddie Money. Songs like that make us feel so good. We look at each other and it makes us see how much we love each other and want to be with each other forever. We talk about each other, memories of our relationship, what we’re looking forward to in the future. We laugh at certain things, we share, and most of all, we just have fun with each other.

In Hawaii, Hank spelled out our initials in flowers. What a romantic!

Hank is the cheesiest romantic guy I’ve ever met in my life. I’ll have a couple glasses of wine and be laughing my ass off, almost peeing in my pants because he is so serious about being romantic. I have to laugh because I have the man that every girl dreams of when they’re starting to fantasize about marriage. Sometimes I can’t believe I have him. He’s so perfect—sexy and romantic—and he never lets me go to bed without a kiss.

On date nights, we try to take our time over dinner. Our goal is to drag out the meal as long as we can, to savor it and not be rushed. This is our time. Usually Hank orders two dozen oysters and sucks them down in a matter of seconds. He’ll smile at me over the platter and say, “Oh yeah, baby, be ready for me.” Every time he has oysters I know he’s going to attack me later that night. I usually order soup or salad, but I might suggest that Hank order something so I can try a little too. He hates when I pick off his plate; that’s his pet peeve.

Of course, besides our aphrodisiac meals, we’ll also do some spontaneous little flirting like under-the-table footsie. Oh yeah, we don’t just limit our touching to footsie. We’ve introduced handsie into the mix. If we’re at the jazz restaurant, say, and it’s just the two of us and it’s dark and we’re in a little booth with candles lit, we’re going to have some fun back there. Just a little rubbing and having fun—nothing too scandalous for a restaurant but just enough to get Hank to say, “Check, please!” At that point we start talking about what we’re going to do to each other and how we always want each other in the car right then and there. We always want to have sex in the car and we do, a lot. We love having sex in the car. As a married couple with a kid, that’s about as sexy and risqué as we can get. Sometimes we can’t wait and it’s right there in the parking lot of the restaurant, or if we want even more privacy, sometimes we’ll just pull over on a quiet street. Of course, we’re always careful about who is around. Let’s just say that once we had to stop in the middle of it all and hit the gas and get out of there!

It’s a rush. And the car is not only a perfect place for us on a date night (getting a hotel room would be so much effort!), it’s also less time-consuming. The apartments we were in for the better part of Hank Jr.’s life were so small that making love and doing the passionate stuff was not right. It just didn’t make sense to us. I wasn’t in my home; the spaces were too small to have fun with. Our sex, with what we were going through, was short—we still had a lot of sex, but it wasn’t like making love. When we’re making love it’s in bigger areas and it’s a long, drawn-out, time-consuming process. While we were living in the Studio City apartment, I was uncomfortable making love because it wasn’t our real home. During that time we, of course, had plenty of sex—two, three times a week—but we didn’t make love for a good couple of months because of our situation. So the car makes sense for us when we just want to have good, quick, spontaneous, tipsy sex.