Drinking and Tweeting

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CONTENTS

Intro

Chapter One: If He Walks like a Duck and Talks like a Duck . . . Then He’s a Pig

Chapter Two: It’s a Breakup, Not Cancer

Chapter Three: The Third Kind of Job

Chapter Four: With Friends like These . . .

Chapter Five: Drugs and Other Drugs

Chapter Six: 17 Again

Chapter Seven: Drinking and Tweeting

Chapter Eight: My Favorite Threesome

Chapter Nine: His Future Ex

Chapter Ten: I Will Survive

Chapter Eleven: A Billionaire Saved My Life

Chapter Twelve: A New Housewife

Acknowledgments

About Brandi Glanville

DEDICATION

I
dedicate this book to the two people who have had the most impact on my life since my divorce: Michael Broussard and Leslie Ann Bruce Amin.

Michael Brousssard, my amazing book “gaygent,” my future husband, and my third child. Since meeting you, my life has changed—I now have family in Southern California. Most importantly, thank you for not allowing me to fire you after you left me drunk and lost at a gay bar in Venice when we had barely just met. You truly are “the gift that keeps on giving.”

Leslie Ann Bruce Amin, my amazing coauthor of this book, one of the most talented writers that I know, and one of my dearest friends in the world. You are smarter, funnier, and more photogenic than me, and at times brattier than me. I would not be where I am today with out your love, advice, and direction! Thank you for not allowing me to put half-naked pictures of myself on the internet. I love you.

INTRO

A
re you a vagina owner or a gay? Then you’ll want to read this book. Has your partner ever tried to convince you that you were just “born” with HPV? Then you’ll definitely want to read this book. Have you woken up one morning in a three-bedroom rental in Encino, only to find your husband is now married to a washed-up country-music singer and you’re in the middle of a reality-television meth controversy? You’re going to want to pour yourself an extra large glass of sauvignon blanc . . . because you’re me.

As a forty-year-old divorcée and a single mom, I am the first to admit that I don’t have all the answers. Okay, that’s a lie. I actually have answers for everything; I’m just fairly certain they’re all wrong. Over the last four years, I’ve watched my world explode right in front of me, and for the first time ever, my path is completely up to me. No parents, agents, or husbands to tell me where
to go, how to act, or what to do next. Sure, it was scary as hell, and sometimes even now I wake up and wonder what happened to my picture-perfect life. But I’d rather struggle with my uncertainty and fear than continue to live a lie. It took me a while to figure that out, because the lie can be comfortable and easy. But I had to ask myself, What kind of life is that?

When I got divorced, I realized I had completely lost my sense of self. I had always identified myself as any number of nouns: daughter, sister, girlfriend, model, friend, wife, mother, occasional amateur pharmacist—you get the point. I spent most of my life happy just squeezing into someone else’s idea of the roles I should play. And finally, after four decades of living, two children, and one costly divorce, I am thrilled to be meeting Brandi. And can I be honest? It took me a long time to get to her, but I think she’s just amazing.

My journey has not been smooth or without embarrassing hiccups—and by
hiccups
, I mean huge mistakes—but better me than you, right? Hopefully, you can learn from some of my blunders. . . .

I spent my entire life doing what either fell directly into my lap or what other people told me I should do
(although I didn’t always listen), so you can’t fault me for going crazy when given my first glimpse of freedom. Most women make their mistakes during their college years. Well, I didn’t go to college. I went to Europe. And while girl-on-girl experimentation and drugs were prevalent, it wasn’t quite the same. I had an agent watching me like a total hawk during every waking moment, and I had the pressure of the nineties fashion world on my shoulders. I know it sounds like champagne problems, but when you’ve had a notoriously beastly supermodel push you off the runway during Paris Fashion Week or helped a “friend” cover her heroin track marks for a runway show, then come talk to me about how high-pressure college is.

Silly mistakes can be fun and adventurous—it’s also where my self-discovery happened. However, waking up in the VIP room of a Vegas strip club only to discover that I’d married my former best friend’s ex-husband—and tweeted it out to roughly eighty thousand people—is a story I’d sooner forget. I’d also like to forget the one about my husband having an affair with a country-music singer—along with just about every cocktail waitress in LA—but we can’t pick all of our battles; sometimes they choose us.

While I don’t consider myself a “celebrity,” I hope my story will allow you to peek behind the curtain of a true Hollywood breakup. It’s so salacious, it might as well be a Lifetime movie. Oh, wait . . .

For the first time ever, I will reveal the dark underbelly of a celebrity breakup—including staged photo ops with paparazzi, tawdry weekly-magazine contracts, and even how social media can be your own worst enemy. So let me offer you my first piece of advice: if you don’t already have a prescription for a good antidepressant, go see a doctor. (I recommend Lexapro; they’re now making a more cost-effective generic form! Who said health care was failing?)

But this isn’t just a breakup book, ladies and gays. As a middle-aged divorcée who is trying to #KeepItSexy, I’m offering this single’s guide to getting your life back together for anyone who is in need of a well-deserved pick-me-up and perhaps a little direction. I know what you’re thinking: What does this woman know about my struggles? Sure, I’m a former-model-turned-reality-personality living in Beverly Hills. I’m sure most of you are thinking,
Boo-fucking-hoo.
But I didn’t always have what I have now. I started out in the ghetto of South Sacramento, getting beat up daily by a neighborhood
thug. Yes, I was previously married to a gorgeous Cuban actor, but he almost ruined my life. Yes, I misidentified historical icon and British politician Winston Churchill as an American civil rights activist on national television. And, yes, I’m known for my tiny bathing suits and my lack of a filter. But I’m also a single mom who shamefully had to go to her youngest son’s preschool Halloween parade in the outfit I wore on a date the night prior, because I somehow found myself staying over at the Beverly Hills jail, slapped with a well-deserved DUI. And three months after I left my husband over his inability to stop cheating, I sat alone on Christmas Eve looking at Twitter photos of my entire family having a beautiful holiday dinner—without me. Instead, in the center, sat the woman he wouldn’t let go. Even my mother-in-law, the light of my life whom I nursed through cancer, was there. I sincerely hope this never happens to you.

My mother taught me three simple truths in this world that everyone should recognize: everybody has been dumped; everybody has a bad day; and everybody hates anal (unless you’re gay . . . even then it’s a maybe). These are truths, people.

I’m a firm believer that however you come into this
world is how you live your life. I was born on November 16, 1972, feet-first with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck three times. Despite my dramatic entrance and a few firm smacks from the doctor, I refused to cry. (Let’s be honest, I’ve always enjoyed a good spanking.) Growing up the second of three kids, I had a relatively typical childhood. My father was the local marijuana distributor, my mother regularly failed to wear undergarments, and our gay teenage neighbor lived on our couch. I routinely got into fistfights with our neighborhood bullies, I tweezed my eyebrows within a centimeter of their life trying to mimic the glossy fashion magazines I was obsessed with, and my first kiss was with my cousin “Biffer.” Like I said, totally normal. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, it also prepared me perfectly for the world of reality television.

After high school, I spent a year partying in San Francisco, enjoying my fair share of mind-altering drugs, while weaning myself off my Almay shimmery-pink and midnight-blue eyeshade kit (my agent made me get rid of it). Somehow, I stumbled upon a successful modeling career that took me to Paris and Milan at nineteen years old and introduced me to a world of Brazilian bikinis, private jets, and uncircumcised penises. I had never even been
on a plane before (and purposefully missed my first flight, out of fear). When I met Eddie at twenty-three years old, he asked me to stop traveling, thereby crippling my career, but I was happy to oblige. I would have done anything for that man. And at twenty-eight, I found myself the Hollywood trophy wife to a little-known, but relatively successful, made-for-TV-movie actor. But what he lacked in public notoriety, he more than made up for with local “star”-fuckers. After eight years of our marriage and his high-profile affair with a country-music singer, I discovered my husband landed more pussy than a Backstreet Boy—back when people actually fucked Backstreet Boys.

It doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, or where you live, everybody struggles from time to time. It’s not the struggles that define you; it’s how you overcome them. Among the many lessons I’ve learned, here are a few of my favorites:

 If your husband requires more than one “guys’ night” a week, he’s either fucking a twenty-year-old cocktail waitress . . . or gay.