- I have learned and you've changed my life with hair.
I wear heat protectant now every day of my life.
(audience clap)
Jonathan put his product
on a piece of toast, put the toast in the toaster.
It popped out.
Everything was black and charred,
except for the patch where his was,
was doughy, pillowy soft, white, untouched.
So I'm- - Yeah, it's so cool.
It's so cool.
And your hair, it does look, it's giving me shiny.
You've come a long way.
I'm really proud of you for that.
(audience clap)
It looks so good.
- It changed my hair.
So what is a good piece of advice out there right now
that we can all learn from Jonathan Van Ness about hair?
- I will say not to be my own PR person
about the book, but "Love That Story", honey.
I put this chapter or this essay in here
and it's called "Tales from the salon"
and it's literally everything I learned
from being behind the chair,
also having my hair done 'cause I've had such a interesting,
like I was only behind the camera for 12 years,
and now I'm on camera,
and I know how to do hair,
but sometimes I gotta trust somebody else to do it.
And you're like (sighing).
But you gotta keep that.
So really this is how to invest in your relationship
with your hairdresser and yourself.
And also I talk a lot about the smoking mirrors
that the beauty industry creates
'cause so often when someone's bringing in a photo
and they're like, "I want my hair to look like this."
It's like, "Honey, there's thousands of dollars
"of extensions on that head of hair.
"There's also thousands of dollars of Photoshop,
"color correction, so many lights."
- Picking up highlights
that are not really there. - Bear hair doesn't even
look like that. - Exactly!
- Bear hair doesn't even like that.
So kind of level setting
where did we get these beauty expectations from
and realizing that even so much
of what we're aspiring to be isn't even real.
So let's celebrate where we are.
And if you still wanna go for that, go for it.
But you're trying to get that ballpark,
not exactly that picture
'cause that picture isn't even real.
- That's true, and I'm just so glad that you're sharing it.
I'm a better person for you being on the planet.
- Thank you Drew. (audience clap)
I feel the love and I feel so much of the support
and I also do love to share my healing.
I love to share where I am with people and it is cathartic
and healing for me.
And at the same time, I do feel this huge sense
of responsibility because queer people, LGBTQI plus people,
we are dealing with so much in the world,
more specifically in this country, there is so much fear.
There's so much transphobia.
There is so many kids that are being targeted.
There's so much misinformation.
There's so much fear mongering.
And that hasn't changed,
that's been here since I was a little, little kid.
And that fear of not knowing how to find myself,
not knowing who I was,
thinking that there was something wrong with me.
From my earliest ages,
some of the times I remember being bullied as a little kid,
I remember thinking, "If I could ever do something
"that could make it
"so that other kids didn't have to go through this,
"I would do that."
So this book is also about me giving other young people
and other people roadmaps for healing
and roadmaps for how to contextualize a world around them
that doesn't leave a lot of clues.
- It doesn't stop with you.
I never know what's coming next and it all works together.
I love you so much.
- I love you much Drew.
I love you so much. - Thank you so much
for coming and promoting this beautiful, beautiful book,
"Love That Story", Jonathan Van Ness,
"Observations from a gorgeously queer life".
And I love how much you talk about messy and gorgeous too.
It's such a strong theme in this book.
I relate, "Less of the gorgeous, do the messy."
I love it.
- Drew, you are gorgeous!
You are gorgeous. - [Drew] You are gorgeous.
- You are, thank you so much. (audience clap)
(upbeat music)