LadyGang - LadyGang Reads their Audiobook to You

Episode Date: June 5, 2020

It’s here, It’s here! Our book “Act Like a Lady” is officially on sale today. To celebrate this monumental day we are giving you three terrific tales from the audiobook version, one from each of us! Hear about Keltie’s dating profile alter ego, Jac’s journey to self acceptance, and Becca’s story of embracing her leaked nudes on the internet! Make sure to get your copy today.   A big thanks to our sponsors! La Croix – Learn more at lacroixwater.com.   Brooklinen – Get 10% off your first order plus free shipping with code LADIES at brooklinen.com.   Daily Harvest – Get $25 off your first box with promo code LADY at dailyharvest.com.   Caldrea – Get free shipping on orders of $50 or more when you shop online at caldrea.com.   See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Well, what is this? Welcome to the Lady Gang. That's amazing. Say that again. The Lady Gang. Things are about to change around here. Each week we catch up with Hollywood's hottest girl posse, Kelty Knight, Becca Tobin, and Jack Vanek.

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the Lady Gang. I am Becca Tobin, and today we have a special episode where we are sharing chapters from our audio book, Act Like a Lady. Enjoy. boy. Introducing Sally Prescott. After months of wallowing in a terrible heartbreak that completely destroyed my confidence, I joined an online dating site. After all, it was impossible

to get over my lost love without finding a new love. I was at a point in my life where I was constantly around the same group of people. I was traveling on tour and surrounded by mostly women. I had done enough therapy to have a clear vision of the kind of guy I wanted to meet and guys with real jobs was not a group I found myself in very often. So I set to work on setting up my dating profile. I clicked away, checking the boxes of all the qualities my dream man would have. The great thing about hiding behind a computer while doing this was that I could be completely honest.

I devilishly checked off my age group, 25 to 35, height requirement, 6 foot plus, and salary, $100,000 plus per year. I added a little about me, that I love reading, dogs, seeing concerts, things that were turnoffs, smoking, children, nail biting. Next, in the what am I looking for section, I wrote that I was looking for a nice guy, that I had been burned in the past, and that I really needed someone who was 100% honest. And then I lied. I used a fake name, Sally Prescott. I don't really know where the name came from. I figured I would be more protected from the possible lover Googling if I had an alias. Being Sally, I was willing to talk

to anyone who happened to introduce himself to me. I felt safe behind my profile, and I cannot believe how many men looked at my glamorous headshot and thought, Sally Prescott seems like the lady for me. I was essentially homeless at the time, definitely brokenhearted from my last relationship person, and totally not ready to fall in love. In the days before everyone single was on a dating app, there was a lot of shame around being pathetic enough to sign up for online dating. But surprisingly, I wasn't the only hopeless and desperate enough romantic looking for love online at all hours of the night. I chatted away with all types of guys. The attention was creepy and wonderful. Some requested naked photos, who I instantly blocked. Others sent me pictures

of their cats, rooms, or faces. I hadn't checked off an area of the country that I wanted to find my date in because I wanted to keep my options as open as possible. I was that pathetic. My story was semi-true. I was a professional dancer on tour and I lived anywhere and everywhere. They lived in Texas. I love Tex-Mex. They lived in Miami. I've been there twice and I love the beach. I connected with a photographer who seemed cool, wrote me constantly, and was an excellent and pretty hat distraction. Having never actually met in real life and after spending hours looking at the two total photos he had on his profile, I was convinced that this was the guy for me. Online stranger man and Sally forever. It just so happened that as the end of tour loomed,

I made the decision that I was going to take a break from my old home in New York City and moved to LA. To anyone who asked, I would say that it was because my friends had moved there or I wanted to change. But really, online dream man played a larger part in the move than I care to admit. In a way, I just wanted to feel wanted and I was willing to move to a new city for that. You live in Los Angeles? Oh my God, I was just planning to move to Los Angeles. Oh, and by the way, Sally isn't my real name. Almost as soon as I moved to LA and as soon as he had been properly introduced to my actual first name, I met long distance online dating lover in real life. We went on an awkward first date where I found out he was recently divorced and very much in the same

place emotionally as me, i.e. anyone to fill the space will do. We maybe had a second date. I remember him cooking me dinner and talking about himself and his ex-wife incessantly, and after that, while I was driving around Los Angeles giggling with happiness, singing along to love songs on the radio for my newfound beau, he stopped talking to me. That was the end of that. I never heard from him again. Sad Sally. I was now stuck in a completely strange city with no real purpose for being there, no job, no agent, and once again, a heavy heart. I couldn't believe that the guy that I had met and talked to online for six weeks and went on two dates with after lying about my name and life's purpose didn't fall madly in love with me instantly. Can you imagine? I was out of my

mind. And in a way, this was a big wake up call for me. I said goodbye to my fake profile and I never went back to dating online. I decided to stop trying to find love as Sally and I started working on falling. Eating well shouldn't be complicated, but somehow it turns into recipes, prep, cleanup, and half your Sunday gone. Factor solves all that. These are fresh, ready-to-eat meals designed by dieticians, delivered to your door, and ready in just minutes. No prep, no cleanup, no excuses.

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I'm a fierce, intelligent, badass bitch, but I constantly find myself fighting a battle inside my own head over the dumbest shit sometimes. When I open up any social media app, I immediately get bombarded with insane bodies, outrageous vacations, and happy couples. Perfection in all facets of life is literally getting shoved down my throat everywhere I look. And the more everyone is feeling hashtag blessed, the more I feel hashtag stressed. And I'll go ahead and say it. Social media is f***ing toxic. apps that were originally supposed to connect people have turned into massive sources of anxiety and self-esteem crushers for so many people including myself we're now in a constant

downward spiral in the competition for followers likes comments and external praise we just want more more more in an effort to feel validated in our lives it's narcissism at its finest and it's addicting as hell. What a great cocktail for healthy self-worth, right? Ugh. And I'll rewind a bit. I was never really super confident in my looks growing up, but I never really obsessed about them either. And I hid my typical teenage insecurity under 10 pounds of black eyeliner and overly contrasted pictures from the MySpace angle. If you know, you know. And sure, as a teen, I'd look at Britney Spears on the cover of Cosmo Girl and wish I had her abs, but she was this untouchable angel to me. There was this sense of disconnect from the perfection that I saw in

magazines because I knew these polished bodies and faces were all perfected by professional hair and makeup, studio lighting, photographers, and artistic airbrushing. And plus, they were celebrities. It's like comparing dollar store apples to Whole Foods oranges. And then social media came around. It was a gradual process. I followed a few beauty bloggers here, a few fashion influencers there, and slowly but surely, my feed started filling up with only beautiful people living extravagant, dreamy lives. And I found myself getting super self-conscious about things that I had never even noticed about myself before, like the size of my nose or the gobble under my chin or, and I'm not kidding, the skin on my eyelids. I went from seeing perfection only

on billboards to seeing perfection in normal girls in every single photo all over my social media feed. Like any other moderately insecure adult, I started comparing myself and obsessively picking apart my flaws. I found myself glued to my bathroom mirror, hyper-analyzing my face far, far more often than I would like to admit. I would spend hours lifting my eyebrows and pursing my lips and squishing my nose to see what I could change that would make me look like all the pretty girls that I saw on my phone. But what I wasn't taking into consideration was the tens of thousands of dollars spent on rhinoplasties and breast implants and liposuction, lip filler, lasers, Botox, it took to get there. Oh, and Photoshop, of course. And I'm self-aware enough

to realize that I'm scrolling through avatars and fairy tales of people's cracked lives, but I'm not self-aware enough to not let it get under my skin. It's like a head versus heart thing, but it's way too easy to alter a photo. And I felt this subconscious pressure to keep up. If you can't beat them, join them, right? So I started altering my pics too. Nothing huge, tiny tweaks. I'd make my waist a little smaller or my lips a little bigger. And then I'd get comments complimenting my tiny waist and pretty lips. People were literally praising the things that I was altering in my photos. So now, not only was I comparing myself to other people, but I was comparing myself to this enhanced version of myself. What an ugly, vicious cycle

dude. And it wasn't just my physical appearance. I was fabricating this bogus life of happiness in my relationship at the time on social media too. From the outside, it looked like I was living the life. From the outside, I was super in love, traveling the world with a mega hot dude without a care in the world. From the outside, I was always happy. But on the inside, I was fucking miserable. And ironically, the sadder I was, the more perfect our relationship appeared on my feed. And when I was hurting the most, I would overcompensate with a super sappy post to justify staying in my crumbling relationship. But in reality, the luckiest girl in the world had just gotten into her 50th screaming match over pancakes. And once I began to realize the

disconnect between my real life and my online life, the more I began to realize everything I was seeing on social media was total bullshit. And it's not like everyone is just posting their happy days. Everyone is posting what they want everyone else to see, even if it's a lie. No one posts about the real life shit like heartbreak, loneliness, financial problems, mental health issues, or insecurity. No one talks about the flawed stuff because the flawed stuff won't get he likes. And I've always been pretty outspoken about how social media grinds my gears. One day I was venting about how I unfollowed all these perfect Instagram girls on social media because they made me feel bad about myself. And that's when Becca hit me over the head with the truth

bomb. And she's really good at that, by the way. She said, Jack, you are that annoying bikini-wearing globe-trotting Instagram girl to some people you know. And I realized that I was so far up my own ass on one end of the spectrum that I didn't even realize that I was literally part of the problem for others. So from that day on, I made a pact with myself to be a little bit more honest on social media, to show my cellulite sometimes, to post my unattractive outtakes along with my best photos. To refrain from smoothing out a pimple. To be more honest when I'm not feeling my best. To post not only when I'm feeling real pretty, but also when I'm feeling pretty real. It's ridiculous that it takes courage to post an imperfect photo, but it does. And guess what?

The flawed stuff does get you likes. Because our flaws make us human, and in reality, everyone is actually craving a true connection and something to relate to. We're at a point in society where everyone is sick of seeing the facade of curated bullshit all over our feeds, and now it's actually refreshing to see some vulnerability and reality on social media. So now, for me, it's all about balance. I'm still going to post pretty photos in my bikinis on vacation, because I like to, and because it's part of my job. But now I realize that posting a fire selfie doesn't make me feel any happier, and posting a lovey picture with my boyfriend won't save a failing relationship. The more real

I am on social media, the more confidence I'm finding in accepting and even embracing my imperfections. I'm finding myself wasting less and less time in front of the mirror. And it's way more fun being myself than being a fraud. Trust me, you should try it. Through this, I've learned that insecurity and self-worth don't discriminate. Human beings are flawed and envious by nature, no matter what deck of cards you're dealt in life. Supermodels are still photoshopping their own pictures, and they're supermodels. How fucked up is that? At the end of the day, everything is relative, and I don't think it's fair to judge anyone for their relationship with their own body.

But to anyone who wanted to unfollow me because I was one of those Instagram girls, I hope my dimply legs can shed some light on the fact that I'm just a normal gal with normal gal problems. And listen, I know my rant sounds trivial and unimportant in the grand scheme of our issues on this planet. Like, literally, we need to save our planet. But at the very core, self-worth directly affects everything you do. From how well you perform in your job, to how long you can hold onto friendships, to how deeply you can love another person. It all comes back to your relationship with yourself. So, if you're 100% secure in the meat suit you live in, I applaud you.

My ramblings won't apply to you and I'm trying to get there at some point too. But for any ladies who feel lesser than when they're mindlessly scrolling through their social media feeds, just remember that the perfect girl you see on your screen is probably just as insecure as you are. You're listening to The Lady Gang. Leak nudes, no regrets. Picture this. A warm summer day in August 2014. I was in Atlanta visiting my family and getting some

quality time with my nephew Jack. I was sitting next to my dad on the couch watching sweet little Jack tinker with his toys. Since watching children play bores the out of me, I decided to take a stroll on social media, Twitter to be specific. It was 2014, so Twitter was my lifeline. I clicked on the mentions tab, the place that was usually filled with Glee fans, throwing compliments my way and telling me how amazing I am. Yes, this is why actors are horribly conceited people. But that day was different. Instead of my usual accolades, a slew of nude photos of myself from many years before started traveling down my feed. My stomach dropped out of my butthole like I had just eaten gas station sushi. I quickly tilted my phone away from my dad, trying to convince myself

that it had just been a glitch in the app. Maybe those photos weren't sent to me from strangers across the ocean. Maybe my cloud, still unsure of how it even works, just happened to open up on my personal device and no one else's. But as I scrolled and scrolled and saw usernames like dirty girls and super slutty chicks with my nude photos next to their tweets, I quickly realized that a breach in security had definitely happened, and that was indeed my bear beaver on the internet superhighway. To get a little more specific, the photos were Christmas-themed. Santa hat, fur boots, full frontal, ho ho ho, you get the picture. My phone rang immediately, and it was my manager, Ricky. He informed me that there had been a whole group of women in Hollywood who were

part of the hacking, and one of whom was Jennifer Lawrence. After hearing that I wasn't the only one, I was comforted, and it's probably because I knew that Katniss Everdeen was the only nude body anybody would care to see or go searching for. Phew. I got off the phone, took a deep breath, and wondered how long it would be until I heard from J-Law herself. I mean, at that point, wasn't it like we were both in the same sorority? The next and possibly biggest hurdle in all of this would be breaking the news to my amazing, supportive, esteemed attorney father that he raised a daughter who not only decided to do a cheesy Christmas-themed nude photo shoot for her boyfriend five years ago, but also that by some crazy act of Satan, those photos had ended up

on a public website called The Fappening. This was no doubt a stark contrast from my older sister Jessica's picture-perfect life as an attorney with a loving husband and a bouncing baby boy. So, in true Becca Tobin fashion, I decided it was best to just be blunt and rip off the band-aid. I walked back inside the house, looked Tom Tobin in the eye, and said, Dad, I'm going to need you to stay off the internet for a while. Someone hacked into my photos and my naked body is strewn across the internet. He looked at me calmly and answered, Okay, no problem. I'm so sorry, sweetie.

And that's reason 6,897 why my dad is the greatest human on earth. It was pretty much the same non-judgmental empathetic response I received from the rest of my family. And that reaction did something truly extraordinary for me. Since my family didn't react in a way that made me feel stupid or ashamed or gross or slutty, I decided that I wasn't going to allow this experience or other people to make me feel that way either. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was still a giant shit sandwich I was having to snack on, but it was going to take a lot more than this to kick my gorgeous Christmas ass. Hours passed and the calls came rolling in from friends, family, ex-boyfriends, etc.

I realized that I needed to somehow acknowledge this event to the rest of the world, or like my five fans who cared. My response? A simple tweet saying, Merry Triple Xmas. Let me remind you that it was August. And you know what? The tweet was a fucking hit. I got responses from girls all over the world about how much my ability to make light of a shitty situation inspired them to do the same. I'm not saying we should all just sweep shit under the rug, especially when you're violated like that, but I am saying that there's a sense of freedom in being able to take back control. After I was able to get over the initial shock and disgusting feeling of being violated, I took a step back and saw what those photos

actually represented. A young woman feeling confident enough to take sexy photos for her boyfriend. Those photos represented something I was and still am proud of, a positive body image and enough confidence to have fun with it. It meant that I was comfortable with my sexuality and I feel grateful that I was able to express that in a healthy and in this case very festive way. As women, we are often told to hide those parts of us, to keep them behind closed doors, and then if we don't, it somehow makes us slutty. Well, I'm here to tell you that slutty wasn't the worst feeling I could have felt during that time. The worst thing I could have felt was that the disgusting, sick, fucked up man who hacked into my iCloud had somehow brought me down, defeated me,

or made me feel ashamed. I knew that my public reaction to these photos would impact other people and I wanted the impression not to be about me somehow feeling sorry or ashamed of my naked photos. I wanted my reaction to be the thing I have carried with me for my entire life. We're all human. Shit happens. Let's laugh about it so that we don't cry. So the moral of the story is a couple things. One, just because people try to make you feel ashamed of something doesn't mean you have to feel the shame they clearly feel about themselves. two Jennifer Lawrence still hasn't called it's fine I've moved on have I though three if you're gonna take nude photos of yourself make sure you either leave your face out or love them enough to

be proud of them if they land on thefappening.com one day thanks for listening and make sure to rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcast we have new episodes of lady gang every tuesday and thursday follow us on social media at the lady gang uh follow us personally at kelty most importantly at becca and at jack banik the lady gang network is produced by will sterling steve delamater kirsten woodward and elizabeth baquet thanks for rating and reviewing wherever you get your podcasts and tune in for new episodes every single week