00:01
and I'm bearing it all.
00:03
The moment I knew that comedy was something that I wanted to
00:07
pursue professionally was the very first time I bombed on stage.
00:12
It was a formula that I wanted to crack because it was
00:16
the 2nd time I did stand up.
00:18
The very first time I did stand up,
00:21
but the 2nd time I bombed,
00:23
and then I was like,
00:24
oh, I have to figure this out.
00:25
I've actually never really thought that I made it,
00:30
and I think that's just part of the,
00:32
the game of being a stand-up comedian because comedy is so abusive
00:38
It makes you feel like you've never arrived.
00:40
You can have a really great set one night,
00:43
get a standing ovation,
00:44
and then the next day bomb.
00:46
And so for me one set has never defined me as a
00:50
comedian, even though Netflix was great for me.
00:54
I was on stage the very next day.
00:56
I don't know if I'll ever think that I made it.
00:58
I don't know between the immigrant imposter syndrome.
01:02
And just the way the industry works I don't know what
01:07
making it means anymore.
01:08
My definition of making it is having a cultural impact.
01:12
It's shifting culture. It's because Ida did this Ida said this
01:17
this changed and made things better for us,
01:19
and that's what making it is to me.
01:23
Boston. I went to the Dominican Republic.
01:27
some time with both of my parents,
01:29
I went to Miami and then I went to New York.
01:32
And the way that it affected me was I have a lot
01:35
of anxiety. I moved around a lot and I was,
01:39
poor, so being poor and moving around a lot
01:42
is not like being in the military where you have medical and
01:45
you have doctors and opportunities and safe schools.
01:49
I grew up in an environment that was very toxic and very
01:55
so I think what it did was build resilience.
01:57
It built. A person and a woman who's not afraid
02:02
to go anywhere where there are poor people or black and brown
02:05
people and I think that's a superpower,
02:09
I'm not afraid to go to South Central or.
02:12
The awards in New Orleans or Chicago,
02:15
the South Side, I think it's made me somebody who respects
02:19
all people regardless of how much money they have fame they have
02:24
material or superficial accolades.
02:27
I,, I have a lot of respect for people
02:29
and I respect people who work hard.
02:32
The pivotal moments in my life that you know were rooted in
02:36
violence. And Darkness.
02:41
Are with me always I carry them with me you know
02:44
I had to do Last Comic Standing.
02:48
Maybe 2 months after my uncle got murdered and my grandmother had
02:51
just died of cancer 2 months before.
02:55
it just really made me understand what a privilege it
02:57
is to do what I do because,
02:59
you know, some people have to go back to a factory
03:02
and make towels after they lose their mother or their grandmother and
03:06
some people have to go drive or pick up garbage and I
03:12
It is something that I feel like the things that
03:16
happened to me happen to a lot of people,
03:18
so I, I'm not ever thinking it it's only happening to
03:21
me so I was really I,
03:25
I leaned into my writing to make sure that I didn't ignore
03:28
those people and what I was creating because those people made me
03:33
who I am. And I'm everything I am because they loved
03:36
me. My struggle with anorexia and body dysmorphia started really young
03:41
you know. I started,
03:43
with Barbazan when I was like 14 years old.
03:46
I've always been tall.
03:47
People would always come up to my,
03:49
my my mom or my grandmother and say,
03:54
She has a look is what they used to say,
03:57
because the, the modeling industry is ultimately ran by men.
04:03
That I had this idea of what beauty was that was very
04:08
far from what I was and it was very harmful to me
04:11
which is why I decided that I didn't wanna do it
04:13
anymore no matter how skinny I got my hips were never gonna
04:17
go anywhere because I was just naturally curvy and I got down
04:19
to 117 pounds and I'm 5'10 and my agent asked me if
04:24
I could try to get down to 100.
04:27
And I realized that you know I was close to death.
04:34
my best friend is 4'11 and 100 pounds and I her clothes
04:38
And I was doing a routine where every day I would eat
04:43
boiled egg for breakfast,
04:45
a scoop of tuna and lettuce for lunch,
04:48
and chicken breast and lettuce for dinner.
04:50
And That was what I ate and I got down so I
04:55
got so skinny my my period stopped and I was in the
04:59
danger zone and I kept thinking I could do more but what
05:03
I realized was that that was an inside problem not an outside
05:06
one and I didn't wanna continue to.
05:11
Feed that monster so I had to go to therapy and because
05:15
I went to therapy for my eating disorder was how I was
05:19
able to get therapy for the issues that the,
05:23
the eating disorder was just a symptom of a greater issue.
05:26
I was a victim of sexual abuse when I was a child
05:29
and I never told anyone because I didn't want my mother to
05:31
feel to feel like she failed at motherhood.
05:35
I started to deal with the wounds that allowed me to starve
05:42
I will share this which I've never really shared before.
05:45
I've done everything that you can do to lose weight.
05:50
abused pills. I've done Fen-phen.
05:55
hydroxycut., I got liposuction when I was in my
05:59
twenties and I didn't have nothing.
06:01
I didn't have anything to suction.
06:05
I've abused anabolic steroids.
06:09
I've done all the diets.
06:10
I did the cabbage soup diet which is designed for,
06:12
for heart patients where I would eat cabbage soup every day,
06:17
and I'm very candid about this because I know there are a
06:19
lot of young women out there struggling,
06:21
especially because social media is so big now.
06:24
I, I, I just had magazines and an agency telling
06:28
me, but this is constant stuff it's all a lie and
06:32
it's not none of it is true and what makes you magic
06:35
is you and. That little cellulite or the the fat is
06:40
not gonna make or break you,
06:41
but they will tell you that it will and so I had
06:46
deep trauma therapy,,
06:48
a lot of young women who have eating disorders or self-destructive eating
06:52
habits, it's usually rooted a lot of it is rooted in
06:55
sexual abuse, so I had to deal with the real wound
06:59
because,, I like to eat.
07:02
I'm gonna go get some tacos when I leave here.
07:04
I work in a very male dominated industry.
07:09
and,, as many people think that has changed because
07:17
because of we've made progress.
07:19
It really hasn't changed.
07:22
there's still a lot of that in there.
07:24
There's been some progress made,
07:25
I think that I grew up around boys.
07:28
I grew up with my 5 uncles and I grew up with
07:31
my 2 brothers and I grew up.
07:35
I'm, I was always around a lot of boys,
07:37
and then I started doing stand-up comedy,
07:39
and I'm always around a lot of boys,
07:41
so I just learned to ignore it.
07:43
I always feel that when a man is hateful towards me is
07:46
because he feels threatened by me.
07:47
I just don't feel that people who really feel good about themselves
07:51
dedicate their time to making others miserable.
07:54
So I always just accepted that as a reality for myself and
07:59
I just go around it.
08:01
I don't have time to focus on the misogynist and the racist
08:05
They're not, they're gonna be there and for me the
08:07
focus is how do I get to where I need to go
08:11
and that's what, that's what freed me from that.
08:13
I can't blog daily about how racist and sexist comedy is.
08:17
What I can do is write some really good jokes,
08:19
some solid sets, have a point of view,
08:22
have something to say,
08:23
make people laugh. And just work through it that way and
08:27
and in my sets and in my writing and in my films
08:31
and in my shows and my book I address it.
08:35
With the words, but I,
08:37
to,, convince anybody that I'm a full human being
08:41
If that's your deficiency because you believe that others are inferior
08:45
to you based on their sex or or their race,
08:49
then that you have a deficiency,
08:51
not me. Homelessness taught me a couple of things.
08:56
I can stay awake a lot longer than I thought I could
08:58
when we were sleeping in my car.
09:00
I wouldn't sleep because I was afraid that somebody was gonna break
09:02
into the car and do something to my kids,
09:04
so I would sleep in the daytime,
09:06
and I would stay awake at night while they slept
09:10
And then when I drop them off at school,
09:11
I would pull up into a safe what seemed like a safe
09:13
neighborhood and I would sleep in my car.
09:16
but what I learned was about resilience is that a
09:20
lot of people who are unhoused.
09:23
Are not lazy people that.
09:27
Don't wanna work there are a lot of people who are veterans
09:30
that you worship when they're going to fight your wars but you
09:32
ignore when they come back a lot of them are struggling with
09:35
mental health which we completely ignore in this country and if we
09:39
address we would rid of a lot of our issues as I
09:42
got out of the situation and was able to,
09:45
you know, go to a different level where I would no
09:48
longer be unhoused that the people that I was around helped
09:54
me that were also unhoused helped me.
09:59
understand that community is important in everything that you do
10:02
even homelessness, so I built a resilience and a respect
10:08
for human beings. So now that when I see someone who
10:12
is unhoused, I remember that that's a human being and not
10:17
a detriment to our society or you know somebody who lowers the
10:23
value of our property or stuff like that.
10:27
And and I love that.
10:29
I love that I can have a conversation with people and try
10:32
to help them because.
10:34
We are nothing and at the end of the day when we're
10:37
80 years old we're just gonna be counting we're gonna be like
10:39
how many days do you think we got left?
10:41
We're not gonna be worried about what shoes we had on,
10:44
what TV show we did,
10:46
and I always think that way and so homelessness taught me that
10:50
I was a lot stronger than I thought I was.
10:54
that I was able to do things if I really
10:57
believed that I could.
10:59
And that things are not as easy as they seem because you
11:04
have privilege. And I don't ever,
11:07
ever, ever take any of it for granted.
11:10
Ada at her core is somebody who wants to be surrounded with
11:16
people who all wanna go and it's never been a singular
11:22
journey for me for me it's always been about let's go together
11:26
because it ain't no fun if the homies can't have none so
11:30
at my core at Ida's core,
11:33
I am someone who genuinely cares about others.
11:38
Gifts freely without expectation of return.
11:42
And loves to see other people win.
11:45
I feel that it is fuel,
11:48
not an obstacle to me for me to get to my
11:52
own goal so that's why I'm at my core.
11:58
I'm Ada and I'm bearing it all.
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