Read Online Going Off Script by Giuliana Rancic - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Giuliana Rancic
Tags: nonfiction, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Retail, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Television
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beating him up. I threw down the flowers and slapped him anyway. I was the crazed woman scorned, the one you see on
Dateline.
I finally forgave Sam after the seventh-period slap, and we went to prom together before I broke up with him for good. With Lance, though, what happened was much darker, and finding my way out was more complicated.
At first, things were fun. Lance’s best friend, Brandon, was the hottest guy in the world. Brandon was always sweet to me, and dating Lance felt like I was sort of shadow-dating Brandon. Just being in Brandon’s circle was motivation enough for me to pair up with Lance. Compared to the rich, preppy boys who went to Walt Whitman, though, Lance and his pals were definitely more urban than suburban. They frequented the sketchy hip-hop clubs that sprung up in warehouses on the ragged fringes of D.C., and favored an underground band called the Junkyard Boys. I thought listening to Vanilla Ice made me street. When I heard Lance blasting the Junkyard Boys from his boom box, I thought he was the epitome of cool. I became a Junkyard Boys fan, too, banking on a cool-by-association ploy that fooled no one but yours truly. Lance may not have been a threat to society, but he was just enough danger for me.
The abuse started out as a joke, just Lance being an asshole, and me being the tough-cool chick who could handle it. “You’re so ugly. You know how fucking ugly you are, right?” Lance would say, and I would laugh along with him. But the more often he said those words, the sharper they became, any pretense at humor filed off their edges until nothing but the sharp thin blade remained. No one had ever spoken to me that way before.I acted like I knew how to take it, but I didn’t. I would laugh it off and tell Lance to fuck off, too, but then I would go home and cry. I would stare in the mirror at my swollen, red eyes, my mouthful of braces, my bad skin, and skinny, crooked body and see that Lance was absolutely right: I was ugly. The Giuliana the world saw was nothing like the beauty queen and anchorwoman who lived in my imagination. Even though, at sixteen, I was fully Americanized, the insecurity of being a foreigner, of always lagging behind in school and not quite fitting in, never left me—it lingers to this day. I still felt different, never as pretty or talented or intelligent as the other girls. Lance wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t secretly known all along.
I never told my family that I had a boyfriend. Babbo would have flipped out. I remember sitting around at dinner one night with the TV on, all of us watching
Beverly Hills 90210,
and Brenda kissed her boyfriend. My father was horrified. “He’s kissing her in high school? That’s terrible! That’s wrong! Giuliana, just so you know, you won’t be doing things like this until you are much older!” I nodded earnestly. “Yeah, I know, Dad. She’s a
puttana.
And so are the other girls on this stupid show, Donna and Kelly.” I’d been dating and kissing boys on the sly for some time by then, but I knew the wisest course was to just agree with my parents and then do whatever I wanted when they weren’t looking.
One time, my mom came home earlier than expected to find Lance and all his hoodlum friends splashing around our pool, drinking and playing loud music and being rowdy. When Mama walked out on the patio, a boy who looked like he had served time for murder happened to be jumping up and down like a crazy person on the diving board. My mom yelled at me and kicked everyone out. She would have really freaked if she knew one of those losers was my boyfriend.
Much as Lance enjoyed an audience when he was humiliatingme, the emotional abuse was worst when we were alone. Lance would rip me apart, telling me how hideous I was. He would shove me into the bathroom and yell at me to face the mirror.
“Look at you, look at your face. You see how fucking ugly you are?” he snorted, laughing at his own bad luck. “Your
Dateline.
I finally forgave Sam after the seventh-period slap, and we went to prom together before I broke up with him for good. With Lance, though, what happened was much darker, and finding my way out was more complicated.
At first, things were fun. Lance’s best friend, Brandon, was the hottest guy in the world. Brandon was always sweet to me, and dating Lance felt like I was sort of shadow-dating Brandon. Just being in Brandon’s circle was motivation enough for me to pair up with Lance. Compared to the rich, preppy boys who went to Walt Whitman, though, Lance and his pals were definitely more urban than suburban. They frequented the sketchy hip-hop clubs that sprung up in warehouses on the ragged fringes of D.C., and favored an underground band called the Junkyard Boys. I thought listening to Vanilla Ice made me street. When I heard Lance blasting the Junkyard Boys from his boom box, I thought he was the epitome of cool. I became a Junkyard Boys fan, too, banking on a cool-by-association ploy that fooled no one but yours truly. Lance may not have been a threat to society, but he was just enough danger for me.
The abuse started out as a joke, just Lance being an asshole, and me being the tough-cool chick who could handle it. “You’re so ugly. You know how fucking ugly you are, right?” Lance would say, and I would laugh along with him. But the more often he said those words, the sharper they became, any pretense at humor filed off their edges until nothing but the sharp thin blade remained. No one had ever spoken to me that way before.I acted like I knew how to take it, but I didn’t. I would laugh it off and tell Lance to fuck off, too, but then I would go home and cry. I would stare in the mirror at my swollen, red eyes, my mouthful of braces, my bad skin, and skinny, crooked body and see that Lance was absolutely right: I was ugly. The Giuliana the world saw was nothing like the beauty queen and anchorwoman who lived in my imagination. Even though, at sixteen, I was fully Americanized, the insecurity of being a foreigner, of always lagging behind in school and not quite fitting in, never left me—it lingers to this day. I still felt different, never as pretty or talented or intelligent as the other girls. Lance wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t secretly known all along.
I never told my family that I had a boyfriend. Babbo would have flipped out. I remember sitting around at dinner one night with the TV on, all of us watching
Beverly Hills 90210,
and Brenda kissed her boyfriend. My father was horrified. “He’s kissing her in high school? That’s terrible! That’s wrong! Giuliana, just so you know, you won’t be doing things like this until you are much older!” I nodded earnestly. “Yeah, I know, Dad. She’s a
puttana.
And so are the other girls on this stupid show, Donna and Kelly.” I’d been dating and kissing boys on the sly for some time by then, but I knew the wisest course was to just agree with my parents and then do whatever I wanted when they weren’t looking.
One time, my mom came home earlier than expected to find Lance and all his hoodlum friends splashing around our pool, drinking and playing loud music and being rowdy. When Mama walked out on the patio, a boy who looked like he had served time for murder happened to be jumping up and down like a crazy person on the diving board. My mom yelled at me and kicked everyone out. She would have really freaked if she knew one of those losers was my boyfriend.
Much as Lance enjoyed an audience when he was humiliatingme, the emotional abuse was worst when we were alone. Lance would rip me apart, telling me how hideous I was. He would shove me into the bathroom and yell at me to face the mirror.
“Look at you, look at your face. You see how fucking ugly you are?” he snorted, laughing at his own bad luck. “Your
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