Two years earlier, our end-of-year concert had been upgraded from the local services club down the road to Jupiters Casino on the sunny Gold Coast, and it was next level: a full-blown casino that tourists and rich old men looking for foreign wives would flock to. I’m not sure if it was because we were now the official Johnny Young Talent School that we were treated to end-of-year concerts at the casino, but I think the dance school’s namesake and the casino were as dodgy as each other, so it just makes sense.
Each year we would have a different compere for our concerts. One year it was Humphrey B. Bear (a fucking mute bear, go figure), another year it was Miss Colleen’s random son Brad, another year it was our singing teacher. I always dreamt of being that compere; I thought of this position as being much like when a Saturday Night Live cast member comes back to host, something I really wanted to do and aspired to.
This year we had some old, washed up local ‘entertainer’. I’m sure he was a great pimp back in the ’20s, and what seemed like the natural progression of his career was to then host nightly trivia on cruise ships and compere at kids’ dance concerts.
So, my costumes were set, I had just finished – sorry, SLAYED – my solo and I ran offstage, dodging my fellow not-so-professional teenage dancers as they made their way on with chairs and feather boas, and looked for my carefully placed gear.
It was exactly where I left it. YES, let’s get busy!
As I raced over to my things, adjusting my clipped-in wig, I noticed there was a stool placed over my stuff. No problem, I’ll just reach under said stool, grab my costume, throw it all on and be back onstage for the opening bars of ‘Big Spender’ – front and centre where I belonged, goddammit!
It was at this point that I realised the compere, a Big Fat Talentless Old Man, was sitting on this stool, preventing me from getting what I needed (oh, what a metaphor for life as a female). The Big Fat Talentless Old Man was talking to another Big Fat Talentless Old Man, and the two of them were having a jolly old time side stage at a kids’ dance concert. When they saw me approaching they smiled at each other, and the compere spoke to me.
Big Fat Talentless Old Man: What’s wrong, sweetheart?
Me: Um, I need to get my things.
BFTOM: Where are they?
Me: Um, they are under the stool.
BFTOM: Oh, I see.
And with that he looked at the other Big Fat Talentless Old Man and smiled.
I could hear the beginning of ‘Big Spender’; I needed to get my stuff and get the fuck out of there. When I realised what I needed to do to get my things and the smug looks on their faces, I froze.
The compere stared at me as he sat back in his stool – the fucking stool that was preventing me from getting to my things and my career! He crossed his arms, spread his legs open as wide as his creaking old hips would let him, and slid his crotch forward on the stool.
‘Well, you better get down there and get them, sweetheart.’
You’ve got to be kidding me. I walked slowly to the stool, feeling both their eyes on me, and instantly felt sick.
When I got to the stool I bent down to get my things as quickly as I could, and he spread his fat short legs further apart and slid his crotch further forward on the stool towards my face and groaned, and the other Big Fat Talentless Old Man laughed for a second time.
‘Fuck you,’ I wanted to say. But he was a man, and I was a female child. But fuck you!
As soon as I grabbed my stuff I thought, ‘Brilliant, I’m done, I can quickly get changed and get the fuck out of here, and tell my dad all about it after the concert so he and my uncle Ray’ – who wasn’t even at that concert but would have made the seven-hour trip – ‘can beat up these two predators.’
However, as we weren’t performing at the O2 Arena like we acted as though we were, there wasn’t a lot of room side stage, and I quickly realised that this exploitation wasn’t over. It had, as I was about to learn, only just started.
I realised I had nowhere to change except directly in front of the fat, groaning, objectifying men. I felt a wave of fear come over me. I had to either miss my dance – a dance that I was so excited about, my fucking dance – or get dressed in front of these two pigs, who seemed to delight in making a 15-year-old girl feel uncomfortable, unsafe, scared and as though it was her job to entertain them.
I kept my head down and got changed as fast as I could. They were staring at me the whole time. The only time they broke their stare was to wink at each other. I focused on the music onstage, knowing the quicker I ended this involuntary performance behind the black curtain the quicker I could get out onstage and perform in the light.
I got my skirt on, changed my shoes and ran onto the stage four bars into the song with tears in my eyes.
Tears soon turned to sweat as I danced my heart out, completely forgetting about what had just happened, to the point of thinking I had made it up and it hadn’t really happened at all.
My Jupiters Casino costume with alternating black and silver sequins. To be paired with a red feather boa of course.
Siblings by blood. Best friends because we are paid to be.
@khloekardashian
@kyliejenner
with Olivia Barber-Hays
The One About My Fake Brother, Michael
IN THE FIRST HOUSE WE LIVED IN, Dad built Liv and me a Costume Room off the back of the garage to keep all the dancing costumes my mum had sewn for our not-so-lucrative yet overenthusiastic careers as entertainers. It was awesome.
For my sister and me, the Costume Room was a magical place. It was where our two worlds collided.
Growing up, Olivia and I were completely different. She was cool and independent and ate 37 apples a day. And even though she was clumsier than a newborn trying to ride a unicycle, she was fearless.
Walking home from school one day, she said, ‘If I ran fast enough I could totally jump over that four-foot barbed-wire fence,’ and with that she ran full-force into said fence, which resulted in a busted knee, a trip to the hospital and 12 stitches.
At 36, she recently tested out her agility by trying to ride a skateboard – an obvious choice for a fully grown adult who trips over uneven grass.
‘Can I borrow your deck and have a roll?’ she asked Api one summer’s day.
‘Sure, mate.’ He is her biggest fan.
She jumped on that board like she was a seasoned pro. As the skateboard took off down the hill with Olivia atop it, laughing her head off, my
