The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Aida Rodriguez Talks New Memoir, Upbringing, Transforming Trauma Into Comedy + More

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

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Morning everybody It's DJ Envy Charlamagne Tha God Jess Hilarious We are The Breakfast Club And we got a special guest In the building Yes indeed

We have Ida Rodriguez I think I am The Latin person What we call now Latin A Latin X Latin X right I think

I think I'm the Latin person That's been on the show the most. This is like my seventh time. Oh, and me, Dominican. I know. He on the weekend. I am not Dominican. I think you and Fat Joe. Me and Fat Joe.

Well, maybe Fat Joe. Yeah, you and Fat Joe. Fat Joe. Fat Joe been up here a lot. I mean, Fat Joe is Joey crack. You never not working either. New book, Legitimate Kid. You know what? I was laughing because

she said that um books are the new diss record yes yeah and it is because I'm dissing my mama and daddy in this really Jesus that's right Jesus I'm holding them accountable but I'm not never diss my mom my mom is my queen why do you call it legitimate kid uh because kids in the in the hood are evil and when I was little a kid told me I was a bastard because I didn't have my father's last name Jesus and um I found out what it meant and then I was I felt less than and so I went on a journey to find my legitimacy and I want all the little kids that grow up in the hood that hear this your daddy didn't sign your birth certificate. That doesn't make you legitimate.

That term comes from prostitution. It has nothing to do with legitimacy. I mean, with parental presence in your life. You mean the term bastard? Yeah. Being legitimate came from them saying children that were born to prostitutes were not legitimate. But then they weaponized that against people of color, poor people.

And so I wanted to find out more about myself because that affected the way I dealt with men, you know, in my life as a mom and all that stuff. And so I wanted to I want everybody who reads that book to know that they are legitimate. I know you said something back to the boy. What was the joke back to the boy? You had something for him. Nah, you know my joke. When I was a kid, I was meek. When I was little, this didn't happen until like, this was in elementary.

I didn't get gully until middle school when I started peeping the pro wings. You're too young to know what that is. Pro wings are the sneakers from Payless that the poor people used to wear. I had some Payless sneakers. They was cool. Yeah,

that was cool when you were, not when we was kids. When we was kids, that was full stamps. You probably had them swagged out though. Yeah,

I did. I wore the flare legs so nobody could see that they was Payless shoes. Just the tip, you could see the tip sticking out. Now talk about the journey

of finding your dad and finding your history so you know what my uh i went to the dominican republic i did the documentary that's on hbo and uh my father you know when i met my father my father asked me for money and it was the first question it was not the first question but it was probably like the fourth and it was very painful because I just met him. And, you know, I was really upset with him. I dissed him on stage. It was really, you know, he was DL, I was Monique.

And it got ugly. I went in. And then I decided to really explore what that meant. And my father lives in the Dominican Republic. He's been poor his whole life. And, you know, I was looking at it from my perspective. I didn't want to hate him. I just didn't want to.

I wanted to find love in my heart for him. So I sat down and started exploring all of this stuff. And I was like, yo, he is poor. His child came from America. Not the first, you know, fourth question. You want to know about your daughter. Why she wants to know about me. I got to know America. Not the first, you know, fourth question. You want to know about your daughter. Why she wants to know about me. I got to know the first three questions first.

I know. What were the first three questions? You know, the first thing he asked me, he asked me about my mom. He asked me how my mom was doing. He cried. You know, he asked me about how, you know, how things were going for me. You know, he asked me about me, but it it was just I was getting ready to leave because I was only there for two days and he gave me a hug and then he whispered in my ear I'm gonna need you

to give me some money and I was devastated I left I didn't talk to him for a minute and um you know they had they had mics on me because we were recording a documentary. We were in production. And so all those people heard it. And they were like, ah, they felt bad for me. Did you give them money? I did. Why did I know she did? I know you did. What's funny about that, man?

How much was it? I'm not going to say that. But, you know, I just, I was paying him to go away. At that moment, I was like, I'm going to just, because I know he's struggling. But I was like, to go away at that moment I was like I'ma just cause I know he's struggling but I was like this is it this is the cheapest amount of money that I'ma give away and then

I had to go do some work some inner work did you learn any did you learn to give grace to your parents or just realizing they were just human yes my mom absolutely you know who knows what my daughter and my son are gonna say about me when they you know you know what i mean like we all think we got it right you think that because you're not your parents and you're you're not struggling like your parents were that

they had the best shoes they you don't you never know what what the kids are gonna say and so i just i learned to my mom had her first kid when she was 14 and I didn't know that I found out when I was writing the book and that baby died and the father of the baby died playing Russian roulette so that was all before I was even born she was a kid so I was like

how am I going to sit here and judge my mother I mean you know the traumas and stuff she was dealing with I was born into it. And so, and it was generational. My grandmother had her first kid when she was 13. My mom was sexually abused at home, so she was trying to get out. You know what I mean?

Like, I can't do that to her. And even still with all of that, she raised four amazing kids. Like, none of us have ever been in trouble. We're all productive. Who does that? You know what I mean? Ida walked in here was telling us about an interview she did with gail king oh man what did you say gail king said to you

yeah she said girl you've been through some things you know what is interesting though she read the book and i did an interview a couple of days ago with somebody who didn't read the book and when i walked in they were like girl your book's so funny and i was like oh my god see that's why i don't i just respect people that were like you know i didn't read it so tell me about it but she was like you're so funny and i was like oh stop that type of book yo who was that who was that all right well you know when jess and i walked in jess and i walked in and charlamagne was was looking at the book and he was very interested in the chapter that said pizza and penis yeah okay was the one that went straight straight to pizza because I want to know about Carlos I heard that was your uncle I want to know what was that with him we

would definitely talked about Carlos yeah yeah but he but he saw pizza and penis and he didn't even see pizza he just saw and penis about this he was like, I need to ask about this. We need to get into it. You know what's funny? It's Gail King was like, that she was like, I enjoyed this chapter. The chapter is about me getting sexually abused. And so it's not. I feel stupid now. I hope both of y'all feel dumb as shit.

No, no, no. Y'all thought y'all ate with that one. I ain't gonna lie, yeah, I do feel stupid. Yeah, but shut up. All right, go ahead. This is, y'all thought y'all ate with that one yeah i do feel stupid yeah shut up good all right go ahead this is y'all got some good chemistry here um it's you know it was it was i was just i want people to be free like i want people who've been through the stuff i've been through to read this and say i'm gonna be all right i didn't want i don't want i didn't want to do trauma porn like it's not just woe is me my life has been bad bad. Every turn is me turning around and say, I'm going to turn this,

I'm going to flip this into this. And this is how those things became jokes. Do you think a comedian can even have material without trauma? Yes. I think we have a spectrum of comedy and we need, Sinbad was not trauma driven and we love Sinbad and undeniably one of the funniest shout to Sinbad too clean yeah he's healing he's healing well yeah clean comedy I do think so we need that

we need especially people of color we can't all be the color purple right we need some levity we need to have comedians who are light-hearted and do jokes about things everybody doesn't have to be deep and you know that's pretentious you know i think some of us need we need our we ain't have a carrot top like carrot top is a millionaire in vegas we've never had a comedian like that that can just be you know why we always have to have the burden of walking around being the heaviness yeah but it's because we black and brown. Like it's a certain privilege that comes with being a Caratop. Yeah, but we need one.

We need somebody walking around with props and shit. Just, you know. Kevin is the closest thing we got to Caratop. Kevin Hart? No. No. Have you ever been on a Caratop show? No. Oh.

How you gonna go prepare him to Kevin Hart? Because Kevin Hart talks about his experiences, his life as well. I'm just talking about like... You got mad. You were like, how are you going to compare Kevin Hart? He got kicked out of a Kevin Hart show. He ever tell you that story? Oh, no, I didn't know that. Kevin kicked his dumb ass out because he recorded.

I was not recording. Yes, he was. But did you get kicked out? I did get kicked out. He was trying to bootleg the show. It's not true. It was but did you get kicked out i did get kicked out okay i was um he was trying to bootleg the show it was not true it was actually in philly okay uh kevin kevin was performing my phone started to ring so they tell you in those shows do not pull your phone out but you know when you got kids when your phone rings you pick it up yeah so i went to try to pick it up like kind of on the low but you know the light is bright sure did kick my ass out good yeah kevin see me getting

kicked out too it was like imbc later oh wow that's right i have no problem with that none whatsoever wow now talk to us about how junkies and prostitutes uh assisted your mom my mom uh was uh the the person she was dating at the time beat her she was pregnant and he left her for dead in the park in Central Park she was nine months pregnant and it was the junkies and the prostitutes that were around who took her to the hospital and saved her life so she's

my mother is not a respecter of persons she lives that bible life like she feeds anybody she will she's so wounded but she'll never forget she does not look down on anybody and so we were never allowed to do that we could never be make fun of somebody because you know whatever it was she'd be like don't do that she will always say it was the prostitutes and the junkies that's what they called them not the

people she was like those are the people who saved your brother's life. And so we were raised to do this. That's how we all are. Treat everybody with respect. Ida, when this becomes a movie or miniseries, is it going to be a dramedy or a horror movie? What the hell? Nah, it's a dramedy. I'm developing a TV show now. No, it's going to be a dramedy. We got

to laugh at it. How difficult was it to write this? It was hard as hell. And how long did it take? Because I wrote my own book. There's no ghost writer. So the thing is, it took me two and a half years, but I've been working on that book for seven years. But you don't, you know,

like you say you're going to write a book and you think, because you got the ideas and you got the stories. But when you start writing them down and that publisher, that editor is like, I need 80,000 words. It right it becomes a whole different you like man I could just tell you when you write the story down it's two pages you're like that's it I got it but now you got to go in and you got a details and and it was um it was one of the hardest things I ever did one of the greatest lessons for me not to take anything for granted. Cause you know,

authors, these authors have been real snobby towards me. Like even people of color that I've been, I've reached out to, and I've been posting about their books and they all been kind of, kind of like kind of greasy with me. And it's because I'm not, I'm a comedian stepping into their world and they're like,

here goes another one. They're going to do a book and then they're going to bounce. And I was like, nah, I've been writing my whole life my stand-up is writing my tv shows are writing you know this book is writing the movies i've written i'm i'm a real writer i know and i don't need y'all validation because y'all goofy for that but i understand that you know they they do this all day long and then celebrities will come in do books they do the press and then they out they're like that's just one more notch on their belt they don't they don't really assume the role of author where i i could write a i could write books until i die like i would like to was it good therapy or

bad therapy because you have to relive a lot of the stuff i'm sure trauma that you had since a kid so sometimes you like you push it out of your brain so you don't have to think about it but when right when you're writing a book you you got to dive deep into it. It can't just be like two pages like you said. It was traumatic to relive it, but I needed to do it so I could heal. Like I needed to forgive so I can move on. Because you know what? That's the thing about forgiveness.

It's for you, right? You think it's for the other person. I ain't forgiving them. What do they say? You know, revenge is like drinking poison and hoping the other person. I ain't forgiving them. What do they say? You know, revenge is like drinking poison and hoping the enemy dies. I needed to forgive these people, like all of them.

My stepfather, the one who got his ass whipped on the bus stop for being racist. I needed to just let it go. And I want somebody else to read it and also let it go. Like your life can be so great when you forgive somebody.

That doesn't mean you got to hang out with them. You don't have to forget i choose to forget but it just it's freedom i'm realizing forgiveness isn't linear though no it's not because you gotta you gotta remind yourself okay i forgave him yeah you know yeah you gotta remind and you gotta accept it acceptance is probably one of the hardest things we we deal. People always say, love yourself, love yourself. You can love yourself. Acceptance is where we thrive, right? Being able to say, I'm okay with the fact that I'm never going to be a size two again. You know what I mean? Like that is freedom for me.

Instead of, you know, love is beautiful, but what Tina Turner said, what's love got to do with it? I think acceptance has been the greatest journey for me. And yeah, I forgave them people. What did writing the book teach you about illegitimacy? You know, that illegitimacy and feeling that those feelings of not feeling invalidated are crippling for most people. We all battle with it, whether it's because you dark, dark skin or you don't speak English. You got you got an accent

you you're in a wheelchair like we all struggle with it um and they can give it a term for every single sector of it but the truth is that we all battle with it and we cannot give it to somebody else to declare it for us we cannot that's my favorite scene in Jerry Maguire was when Regina King looked Cuba Gooding in the eye and said, we validate our worth. And that was that was like the most powerful thing I had seen at that age because I was much younger. You got to validate your own worth in comedy. You know, people are always saying who they think is funny, who is great, who is you cannot let anybody else tell you who you are, because if you let if you give them the power to feed you you give them the power to starve you that validation has to come from within i was going to ask you know one of the producers after reading the book

was like she has to hate all men like damn near all men did her dirty in this book so so how do you feel about men after you know them going through the process of a lot of men that did you dirty a lot of men that would foul to you um i well if you read the book then you would see that i adore my uncles my uncle carlos passed away um and my uncle raymond my uncles raised me my uncles together they were a transformer they all got together and they became the father that i needed and they used to be hustlers they were on the, but they have always been my heroes. I love men so much. I made a great one. My son is an amazing human being. And I don't hate men. And I hate that the rhetoric, like all of this stuff that goes on on social media with men and women.

It is so toxic and unnecessary. It's just divide and conquer just keeps getting deeper and deeper in terms of what happens with our communities i uphold men and i you know i hold them accountable but i hold women accountable too yeah you know i'm not i'm not basic so i don't i don't delve in that man ain't you know it's some men that are trash it's a bunch of women that are trash too you know it's some non-binary people that are trash yeah right so everybody gets So everybody gets it, you know. So I don't hate men. Yeah. I think another thing people will learn from like, you know, growing up without your father's last name. How did you feel after your mom told you why?

I felt worse because she gave it to me so casually. She was so like cavalier about it. But it was because that was what she knew. She grew up. She didn't have her father's last name. You know, it was like, I just mean, you don't have her father's last name you know it was like it just means you don't have your dad's last name like it's all good it for me it was a stamp that it made me a victim to uh i thought in my head that means i'm gonna get mistreated people know my father is not around because my idea of a daddy was protection you know

provide yeah exactly you know you're very good you're very good. I don't know if you are in real life, but on social media, you're a great dad. Oh, shit. No, no, because, you know, people allow social media, but that's where I am. But you know what I'm saying? You know, people do it all for the, you know, but my idea. I know some Instagram daddies, some FaceTime fathers. That's what I call them, FaceTime fathers. Man, they better be glad I am messy because I have to put some people on.

I know some stories, but the thing was that I thought that because that's what I thought a father was, it made me feel vulnerable. Like I was like, now anybody can do anything to me, you know, whatever. And it wasn't true. My grandmother was walking around with that gun, making sure that she protected us. Ida, man, your story is crazy. It is.

Even having your mom as a whole. Oh, yeah, because you know what? That's what kids would do when they see your mom. You know, in the hood, everything is fair game. When you're playing them dozens, those kids will be like, that's why your papi got cancer. The kids are evil you know it was crackhead son like you was a child your daddy was a crackhead your mom's a crackhead son crackhead

daughter yeah that's how we process the pain that's how we deal with it and when somebody said that mama the the creepiest thing about the whole thing was that the girl the lady who said my mama was a hoe was the biggest hoe on the the block. Like, you know, and she was talking about my mom because we, she thought that because her kids had the same father and we didn't, that her, she was better than my mom. And I was like, how sad.

Now that I'm an adult, I'm like, what a sad existence that that's where you pop your collar. Not something you did positive in the world, but my kids got the same daddy and they got their father's last name so I'm better than you and I was like mmm nah I was that's when I started snapping no right no she's oh do you believe me in holes what do you believe in people being home well you know it depends on who you allow I

mean I always told my daughter you determine your whole don't you let the streets do it. You know what your threshold is. If we start allowing, I mean, that's very patriarchal. That's where it's rooted in. And people, men get to call women hoes all day long and assess their value while they out there hoeing. That's right. Spreading diseases, doing all kinds of stuff.

Not all men, but y'all know what I'm talking about. So do I believe in the concept of hoe? You know, I think it's nuanced. You know, do I believe in the concept of ho? You know, I think it's nuanced, you know, do we perpetuate some of that stuff? If we telling little girls that if you have, you don't let nobody take your goods,

if they not giving you money, because we like to uphold that rhetoric. Yeah. And then, but that is why little girls volunteer for cartels on the border and say, I want to, I want to work because I want to have, you know, Gucci or whatever.

So there's a fine line. We need to have honest conversations about that. The terminology of hoe is something I rebuke because it comes from toxic men when they are telling women that they're hoes. Are you willing to turn the camera onto yourself and call yourself a hoe? Because your value doesn't drop in society like ours does but you know i don't i don't know i mean we all had our moments where we we we were a little more playful than and then our moments where we're a little more dedicated and serious and we should

be able to do that right yeah i believe in the concept of hoeing if it goes both ways if you if you're gonna call the guy to hoe for the nasty, and we do it. We know some nasty. Men hoes? Yes, some nasty things. We do too. So if it goes both ways, I believe in the concept. But if you're only just saying that to a woman, I don't respect it. I mean, I respect that. All things have to be fair.

They love to count women's partners. You'll say, oh, she was with such and such. But then you see the dudes and you're like but damn like he's been with everybody yeah but he gets praised for that you know what i mean oh you had that you had her and then it's like hey you you mess with him him and him yeah yeah and i don't know like do you use condoms with everybody you know like it's it's it's we do yeah so i think that if you're gonna use hoes it let it be across the board but if you only you saying that hoes out too you can use

come up here and act like i'm pious like i'm some right you know we don't do that we be calling people hoes too but we talk we we talk about dudes like we talk about women like yeah we not we're not just sitting here you know women love to do that too because women we they have socialized us to hate each other so when we we love to call other women you know i'm not like that yes you are you've had your moments yeah stop it yeah and also the other thing about the hoeing nobody would know who's doing what if everybody would just shut the fuck up like how do you even find out a person is a hoe yeah who's the one who's it is every guy saying that they slept with this yeah you've been there before

probably in your younger South Carolina these guys though yeah I gotta be lying like yeah guys like oh she a hoe and I'll be like, oh, you hit? No. So how do you know who that is? Because my man told her that, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's talked about. Everybody just need to shut up. The thing is, like, do you really care? Like, honestly, the thing about social media that has really been, my management is always like, you're really terrible at social media, and I am.

But I'll say this, like, I'm always watching people, like, the people who are, are like I'm letting the haters know nobody cares like the people the people who are like I'll show them who you showing people look at it they'll comment they'll talk about it then they move on to the next thing yeah because they're consuming it like Doritos they don't care you put so much effort into shutting your haters down yeah God bless Jamesannah brilliant comedian who passed away he used to say people of colors haters are their imaginary friends because it was like they don't exist yeah he was like it's it's you know we put so much we put so much weight on that

yeah do you really care if somebody i don't care who's a hoe like they talk about j-lo all the time and And I'm like, what does it, how does that affect my food? Like, how does that affect my mama? I don't give a damn. Like it's, it's for a minute and then you move on.

So just remember when you are directing all that energy to the people who you really think you're shutting down, they don't care. Nobody cares. That's right. Now it's almost the holidays these memoirs cause problems oh yeah how does your family feel about you revealing so much in the book yeah i don't know um i think the only people who read the book so far my aunt and uncle the the normal ones

that are in dc uh because a half of my family is in florida and the other half is in like the D.C., Virginia area and the DMV. Okay, DMV. Yeah, they the normal ones. So they're cool. They all right. I'm going to read the, I'm going to sit with my mom and go through the book because I want to make sure that my mom is in.

Yeah, I can't. I don't ever want to demonize her. So I want her to understand where that came from. And I'm going to read the back first with her because, you know, I give her grace throughout the book, but I want her to know that she's still the queen wow you dreading that conversation um it needs to be had she still has to be accountable she was still my mom you know like I still did I still went through a lot of stuff in life you know as a kid and she should

you know she's she said to me I'm so sorry for the things that I put you through. I was a kid. But, you know, I think it's a necessary conversation for us to heal. She needs to forgive her mother. She's still holding on to things about my grandmother. And my grandmother's dead. I'm like, bro, you got to let it go. Like, she's gone, you know. And you have to move on.

I don't think there's too many things that are more freeing than an apology from your parents. I got it. I got it. That's why I say I apologize now as a father to my young kids just because I know how it felt to never hear that from a parent you feel like might have did you dirty. Yeah, and amnesia. Like my mom used to beat my ass.

And now when I talk about it, she's like, I never hit you. And I'm like what this is revisionist history at it's best she used to beat I mean I she fractured my ankle I wrote a an essay in there she did my mother was cause my mom got hit

with an extension cord me too so she felt like because she hit us with a belt that it wasn't as bad as the extension cord and it wasn't but I was it could and it wasn't but i was like yo and that switch my grandma my grandmother ah we used to and so that's a that's a people of color thing in spanish it's called la varita and they'd be like and she'll go go get the better go get your switch and that was there was no winning in that there was not a switch that didn't hurt that didn't exist. Yeah. You know?

Jesus. All right. The book is out right now. Make sure you get it. Legitimate kid. Thank you for joining us. Yes. Thank you for having me.

I appreciate y'all. All right. What else you got coming up, Ida? You always working. So I'm directing another special, a comedy special. I'm trying to direct

as many women of color comedy special because I want them to get out. Marcellus did really well on HBO. I'm doing one with Gina Breon. I'm shooting her special in December and I'm developing two TV shows because I want to not just work,

but I want to be surrounded by people who look like me, sound like me, you know, people of color, black people, and I want to put some people to work. There you go.

So I'm developing the shows right now, and I'm getting ready to direct this special. Dope. That is amazing. Congratulations. Thank you. Miss Ida Rodriguez. Go get Legitimate Kid right now.

And it's The Breakfast Club. Good morning. And the book is not funny, dummy. Thank you. What's that ass up? Early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Hey, guys. I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show,

where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Had enough of this country? Ever dreamt about starting your own? I planted the flag. This is mine. I own this.

It's surprisingly easy. 55 gallons of water, 500 pounds of concrete. Or maybe not. No country willingly gives up their territory. Oh my God. What is that? Bullets. Listen to Escape from Zakistan.

That's Escape from Zakistan. Escape from Z-A-Q-istan on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up? This is Ramses Jha. And I go by the name Q Ward.

And we'd like you to join us each week for our show, Civic Cipher. That's right. We discuss social issues, especially those that affect black and brown people, but in a way that informs

and empowers all people. We discuss everything from prejudice to politics to police violence, and we try to give you the tools to create positive change in your home, workplace, and social circle. We're going to learn how to become better allies to each other. So join us each Saturday for Civic Cipher on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, my undeadly darlings. It's Teresa, your resident ghost host. And do I have a treat for you? Haunting is crawling out from the shadows and it's going to be devilishly good. We've got chills, thrills, and stories that'll make you wish the lights stayed on. So join me, won't you? Let's dive into the eerie unknown together. Sleep tight, if you can. Listen to Haunting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture

of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.