By Barbara Chai

Comedian and actress Margaret Cho stopped by the WSJ Studio to talk with Speakeasy’s Barbara Chai about her new DVD, the coming season on Lifetime’s “Drop Dead Diva,” and her freshly-inked tattoo.

Some outside facebook observer said that my “language” was too much and told me that I had “lost a fan” because she couldn’t condone my “language”. I am sorry for that, as I love my fans, and it sucks to lose one, but obviously she doesn’t understand that when you grow up the way that I did, with kids at school throwing rocks at my face because they hated it because it was so ugly to them and they wanted the blood from my wounds to cover it so it wouldn’t have to be seen and at summer camps stuffed dog shit in my sleeping bag because I was told time and again that I looked like shit – and that I had to empty myself in the dark forest and still sleep in smelling that shit all that night and for weeks after because my family was too poor to afford a new one, my “language” is on the strong side. I apologize for offending the former fan, but I am only myself. That is all I can be, and if I must apologize for that, I don’t mind. All I am trying to say is that no young girl should be told she is ugly. If she is, you kill her spirit, and she may grow up like me, and lose a fan.

I grew up hard and am still hard and I don’t care. I did not choose this face or this body and I have learned to live with it and love it and celebrate it and adorn it with tremendous drawings from the greatest artists in the world and I feel good and powerful like a nation that has never been free and now after many hard won victories is finally fucking free. I am beautiful and I am finally fucking free.

I fly my flag of self esteem for all those who have been told they were ugly and fat and hurt and shamed and violated and abused for the way they look and told time and time again that they were ‘different’ and therefore unlovable. Come to me and I will tell you and show you how beautiful and loved you are and you will see it and feel it and know it and then look in the mirror and truly believe it. If you are offended by my anger and my might at defending my borders and my people you do not deserve entry into my beloved and magnificent country.

If you were raised lovingly and told you were perfect and beautiful and loved and the best at all things, I am just jealous. You had it much better, and so you really should spread that love around as opposed to judging those like me who never had that, never knew what it was like and never could even imagine it. I could learn from you instead of feeling judged by you. Give the less loved and less cared for and less treasured a chance. If I had that opportunity, then my language and attitude might not be so offensive. If I had been told once when I was a little girl that I was pretty (other than when I was being sexually molested – that doesn’t count) it might have made me nicer. It just didn’t happen. So I had to make do and make up for it myself. And that made me a bit on the edgy side. It made me a bit of a bitch.

When someone says something negative about my face or body I will always and forever just completely lose my shit, because I have so much hatred in me, a violence that lies just beneath the surface of my delightfully illustrated skin. Being called ugly and fat and disgusting to look at from the time I could barely understand what the words meant has scarred me so deep inside that I have learned to hunt, stalk, claim, own and defend my own loveliness and my image of myself as stunningly gorgeous with a ruthlessness and a defensiveness that I fear for anyone who casually or jokingly questions it, as my anger and rage combined with my intense and fearsome command of words create insults meant to maim, kill and destroy.

Things I could say should be left unheard and unsaid because I am not willing to be the bigger person. I do not take the high road. I take the low road and blows below the belt are my absolute favorite. The best revenge is not living well. The best revenge is revenge. My mouth and mind and typing fingers are weapons of mass destruction and I pity those ignorant idiots who would leave insults about mine or any women’s bodies in comment boxes because there’s ways of hunting people down. Lots and lots of ways. It’s not as anonymous as they think, as stupid as they are.

I’d like to say things that would haunt them for the rest of their days, because their hideous words stay with me eternally. Their insipid spouts of “no fat chicks” are branded onto my soul, so they must reap what they sow. If I am in my worst way and I talk to you, you will know you have been talked to. I want to punish you with the unforgettable shit you will take to your grave and hurt you long after you are dead in the ground. may my poison bore holes in your dry, decaying bones. I am not proud of this, but it’s just the way this life has made me.

I want to defend the children that we still are inside, the fragile sensitive souls who no matter how much we tried were still told we were not good enough. I want to make the world safe and better and happy for us. We deserve beauty, love, respect, admiration, kindness and compassion. If we don’t get it, there will be hell to pay. I am no saint, but I am here for you and me. I am here for us, and I am doing the best I can.

My parents have been preparing for my tattoos since I was 12 years old, when my father’s employees suggested that he allow me to get tattooed because then I might make some friends. That has always stuck with me. get tattooed, get friends and this has been the truest thing, because many of my friends are tattoo artists and heavily tattooed people. it was the right crowd for me.

My family is both very accepting of my artwork and wary of it at the same time. They know it is something that is true and important to me, but they miss me like I was. They know they can’t control me, and they wish they could. I don’t blame them. I wish I could control me too.

I love tattooed women, maybe because they are uncontrollable, they are themselves to the point of drawing symbols of their power on their skin. Talk about owning your own body, being in your body, claiming yourself. I love it. When the world is in an uproar over whether women should have a choice or not when it comes to their bodies, being tattooed is one of the most visible choices of all.

I find that I get the most harassment where people feel proprietary over women’s bodies. In the South of France, there is a great love for women that is undeniable, but that love comes with a price. When you don’t conform to the stereotype of what makes women beloved there, you are privy to the scorn and complaint, or in a lighter vein, the curiosity and bemused admiration of others, which no matter what it comes out as, you are being judged and often touched and always, always hassled.

In much of the world, women are viewed as public space, to varying degrees, and the more you decide that space is your own, most visibly by being tattooed, it sends out an alarm that tacit agreement is being violated and you are subject to the opinions and sometimes violent reactions of those who consider themselves the guardians of said public space.

It’s something that I have learned to deal with, but often its also why I cover up, because I don’t always want to talk about my decision to be tattooed. I don’t need to answer to my skin. my skin is my own soul’s house, and I shall decorate it as I please. I don’t need to share it with anyone, as this place was built just for me. Having to answer for it or explain it especially to strangers is unpleasant, not in every circumstance, as people can be nice and complimentary as well, but I don’t appreciate being assessed, which is probably unrealistic as I cut quite a bella figura no matter where I go and what I do, my flamboyance in evidence whether I have my tattoos on display or not.

Beverly’s film spoke to me deeply not just because of the frustration I feel but also for the deep love I have for female tattoo artists – who I feel akin to as women who are working and thriving in what has traditionally been considered a man’s occupation. It is just the same in comedy, so we are sisters for sure. I have long loved Vyvyn Lazonga too so it’s great to see her here.

I hope that I see more tattooed women talking about what its like to be who they are. I hope that we can get together and rejoice in our love for art and ourselves and revel in the rebellion. It’s just so fucking great.

She tells me the romantic history of that particular tattoo, something english sailors would get permanently emblazoned over their hearts during WW1, a woman’s face on gossamer wings, an illustrated hope, a dermal wish – made with careful and skillful lines and curves and subtle gradations of color – that their lovers would return to them after the war. The elegantly stylized art nouveau visage, wickedly sweet old school european traditional boldly drawn across Michelle’s flawless bone china white alabaster skin, the languid eyes sensual and knowing, with dramatic color and vibrancy and wit and decadence makes me swoon and sigh every time I see it. Every time.

The gossamer wings, fine and delicate in their painstaking detail seem to take flight and I’d like to hang onto them like a character in a children’s novel, wind watering my eyes as I blissfully enjoy the ride. It’s a classic tattoo I suppose, one that I have seen versions of in flash and in tattoo books and on living skin in front of me, but Michelle’s is so utterly mesmerizing that even though it is a familiar image from the great and venerable history of tattooing, on her, it’s like I’ve never seen it before. It’s beautiful to the degree that it stands alone, all others pretenders to the throne. Michelle’s tattoo rules and that is that.

The tattoo obsesses me, and I have a crush on it, and I am not sure my deep feelings aren’t reciprocated. When art is alive like that, who is to say it cannot love you back? I adore that tattoo with a passion (clearly) and I always thought I would have it someday, even though it’s not such a good thing to envy someone else’s tattoos because that leads to the inevitable crime of plagiarizing another’s tattoos, which is wrong.

Tattoos are individual and unique and best suited to those clever lucky few who thought to get them originally. Aesthetic genius should be rewarded with exclusive rights and privilege over intellectual property. Yes I believe this wholeheartedly, but Michelle’s tattoo is so fucking good that I had to have it somehow, so I asked her point blank if it was ok if got the same thing and she said of course it is because she is awesome and super cool and my friend.

I didn’t get the wings on it because there are already snakes on my ribs and stomach, so I thought there should be even more snakes and the face would be Medusa’s instead. Medusa isn’t really considered a romantic heroine but I like her style, her power and majesty isn’t really about pretty, it’s about something darker and therefore better, more thrilling and important. It’s feminism gone wild, which I dig immensely.

The artist behind Michelle’s magnificent tattoo is Craig Jackman, and I’d driven by his place, American Electric Tattoo, upwards of a million times. It’s on my daily beat. Sunset is my Appian Way and all roads lead to Echo Park.  I would pause for the stoplight at Maltman and look at the funny storefront with its elegantly aged taxidermy and hypnotic mural of a tattooed lady, altogether looking like an ancient fortune teller’s machine at the Musee de Mechanique and think “If I got a tattoo here, I’d be home by now”.

That particular stretch of Sunset is legendary to me, paved with guava cheese tarts and songs by The Eels. I went on one of the most memorable dates of my life at the 99 Cent Store (I am not kidding – it was super intimate and hot and got slightly out of hand and risque around the off brand breakfast cereal display) and Millie’s, the only restaurant where I can honestly say I almost got into a for real not even lying fistfight – seriously you can ask Greg Behrendt – whose biscuits provided me with hangover relief so many times that i actually get a serotonin spike when I pass by its doors.

American Electric is probably the most old school of all the tattoo shops I have been in and have had work done in, with flash on the wall and artists on hand day and night who are good at doing anything and everything, japanese and bio-mechanical and traditional and portraits and script and single needle black and grey and pinups and coverups and anime and sobriety dates in old english lettering and what have you. This is the kind of blue collar tattoo shop of years past, where sailors might go on shore leave to get anchors on their arms or women’s faces on gossamer wings over their hearts. The place feels like it’s haunted by Bert Grimm, and being there has a time machine quality. Everything is a little bit sepia.

It’s always busy there and the constantly in use machines add a buzzy layer to the punk rock and heavy metal and Portishead and even Fleetwood Mac played loudish to distract the inhabitants from the pain, both given and received, as the artists don’t like hurting you as much as you don’t like being hurt.

The diversity of the musical choices speaks to the diversity of the clientele, and that in itself is a testimony to the versatility of the artists. It’s rare when you can be all things to all people, but American Electric tattoo manages it somehow without sacrificing the quality of the work, which is nothing short of miraculous.

The process of tattooing for me has been vastly different. I can spend years picking an artist and then wait more years for them and me to have openings in our insanely busy schedules. At American Electric there’s a possibility for instant gratification. It’s a place you can go when you are in the mood for something and you just want to go get it done right then. That’s a rare pleasure, to go from idea to impulse to realization in a day or even an hour. I haven’t done this yet, but watching other people do it during my multiple sessions with Craig is exciting and almost as good as doing it myself.

When the Medusa was first outlined, she looked a lot like Selene Luna, but now she has some shading on her, a bit of color on the snakes, and she looks like someone else, maybe someone I haven’t met yet who will turn me to stone at first sight. Craig has a light hand, which I am thankful for, as Medusa’s face is right on my sternum, and the snakes of her hair lie across each rib as if they are descending stairs. The detail is extraordinary, each snake with its own personality and shedding scales. The healing process has me waking up in a bed full of dry green skin like corn flakes, as if I were turning into the snake itself. I like it. If I poured milk on myself I would turn the whole of everything green.

The tattoo is brilliant, I can tell already, and it’s all a real dream come true. Much thanks to Michelle for allowing me to plagiarize and of course thanks to Craig Jackman for the inspiration and the realization.

I fall in love with everyone who has paint and ink and glue splatters on their pants and tattoos all over their arms. When I see heavily tattooed arms, I know that I will be held, not necessarily literally, but in an abstract emotional way. Tattooed arms draw me in close and we don’t even have to be touching. The affection hangs in the air. I love heavily tattooed folks. We are together a country, a nation.

The men and women who worked for my dad, who essentially raised me, were getting full body suits from Ed Hardy (my first tattooer) and Bill Salmon in the 80s – the revolutionary tattoo artists who changed it all and elevated the bloody pastime of sailors and Hell’s Angels to the category of fine art.

My search for my own revolutionary tattoo artists has brought me into the most rarified circles – lately spending days in renown studios belonging to Mr Cartoon, Kim Saigh, Eddy Deutsche, James Spencer Briggs, Craig Jackman and Shawn Barber. I am lucky beyond anything I could have wished for, anything that ‘The Secret’ could manifest. And of course I thank god every day for what I get to do, see, be.

Usually i get tattooed in 3 year cycles, stopping for three years and then starting again and then stopping. This is my 3rd time around. For the tattoo growth spurt, I get a lot of tattoos, with multiple sessions, with my beloved artists. We see each other constantly and the process of getting tattooed by them feels like a fun night out with friends, except it’s a night in – a night in their fantastically imagined and then made real spaces. Every session is memorable, the pain of the bloodletting releasing endorphins that surpass any recreational drug. The breaking of my skin to permanently embed images is a transcendental experience. I am high like the sky for hours afterwards. I feel like i am getting taller, still growing, like recurrent dreams I would have during my formative years, of falling and falling. I am falling backwards into bliss like a Nestea plunge.

Memoir Tattoo is the site of many miracles happening. It is like Lourdes or Varanasi or Mecca. I come to Memoir Tattoo and I am transformed as if i had bathed in The Ganges. I always leave their spacious, airy studio feeling like I have realized more of myself, I am coming closer to who I am truly meant to be. These tattoos were always on my skin. These gifted artists are allowing me to bring these lush adornments to the surface, and I am ever so grateful.

Nathan Kostechko, the wunderkind who tattooed the immortal and much admired phoenix on my left arm years ago now works at Memoir, so this is yet another good sign that I have come to the right place. What Kim, Shawn, Nate and Spencer draw on my skin creates and recreates me. Brendan Rowe, yet another amazing artist at Memoir and i have dates booked to do outlines, and I am so elated, having stumbled upon what i consider to be the Justice League – seriously these guys are the superheroes of tattooing (lovely Kim is Wonder Woman obviously, Shawn is Superman, Brendan is the Green Hornet, Nate is Plasticman and Spencer is Aquaman because allegedly he puts aquaphor in his hair) and to be able to call them my friends – that is the greatest brag of all time.

I came to the studio yesterday with a colorful kimono birthday gift bag waiting for me. Kim had gotten me macaron (delicious and of course they were almost gone by the time i got home so I gave my husband one of them and an empty plastic sleeve, yum) and a beautiful red leather writing journal with a sacred heart emblazoned on the front! It’s so pretty I am scared to write in it, but I know that to write in this gorgeous thing is to remind myself constantly that my thoughts have real and honest value.

Shawn gave this painting to me for my 43rd birthday, and it took all my might not to burst into tears at the sight of it. The compassion I see in every stroke of his brush makes me cry. When i look at this painting, I can actually feel my soulmate hovering around me – my precious dead dog Ralph – the true owner of my heart – I can almost touch him again, pet him again – what i wish for the most is to pet him one last time, like i used to do when i was late for something. I would look at him watching me rush around and try to leave the house, holding me in the rich red brown stare of his root beer eyes, and no matter how late i was i would always have to take a moment to love him up, feeling the silky fur of his chest between my fingers. I feel the warmth of his great big dog body and I remember lying on the floor holding him as he died, our bodies like two ‘c’s together, one enveloping the other, uppercase and lowercase. The heat of him radiating into the heat of me.

Shawn’s painting recalls a good time in that dog’s awesome life. I look at it and I remember when he was healthy, when he was so robust and bursting with life that I had to make deals with other dog owners at the dog park to help me catch him because he was fast and strong and I couldn’t run as fast as his exuberant young shepherd mix body did. That dog taught me to treasure the feeling of being alive, and now that he is dead I feel I must live harder just for him. Feel it. Appreciate it. Love it. Like I love art. And Shawn’s painting brings Ralph back to life. I am humbled by his talent and generosity. He gave me my dog back. He raised Ralph from the dead like Lazarus resurrected from the tomb and this is the power of art. This is what art should do. Art is life. 

The best show about tattoos and tattooers is the amazing Tattoo Age on vice.com. The artists featured are stellar, beyond genius, visionaries and revolutionaries. Also there are bright and interesting commentaries and cameos from artists who have done work on me such as Don Ed Hardy, Eddy Deutsche, Chris O’Donnell – and artists I am dying to get work from like Henry Lewis <3, Grime <3<3, Freddy Corbin, Dan Santoro, Mike Rubendall, Troy Denning – hell – everyone involved with the show. I wish I had more skin. Artists – I salute you! Amazing job Chris Grosso and vice.com!!! Cannot wait for Season 2!

Eddy Deutsche, just one of my amazing tattoo artists, had a magnificent beast of a dog, Hodji. An all black Newfoundland, with glossy long fur and a massive head. He was the noblest of creatures, and quite a comforting presence, calming those with needle anxiety, resting his impressive maw on shaking limbs and touching noses as if he could heal, and I am sure he did heal. Animals are magic. The world is theirs. We live in it to honor and appreciate them. Their presence is a tremendous gift that nature provides us. Those we can tame, we are meant to care for and love and hold and treasure. They remind us of how limited our capacity for love and devotion is. They show us how to worship and how to be present and how to live. How to uncurl and curl our spines when we lay down. Everything and everything can be learned from these small, medium and sometimes very large teachers.

When Hodji died, Eddy envisioned a huge tribute, a blazing, blistering image of the beautiful beast leaving his earthly dog body and entering another one more suitable to contain his grandeur. The dog was no longer an adorable pet, but closer to a sun god – with fire in his breath and veins. No longer bound to the earth by his bad hips and far too accelerated dog years – in death, he had come to his true self.  I love this painting.  What do we do with our grief for our animals is important. When we can make beautiful art such as this, we can transcend our pain and suffering. We can know that their lives and our lives were made better by our closeness, and see plainly that those countless moments where our eyes met, were not dog to human, but rather, divine to the divine. Namaste indeed.

I have missed Ralph every moment since his death. Years and tears have not blunted the harsh emptiness of the loss of him. There is a blank spot in my psyche and my heart, an empty echo that used to be filled with his long black nails on the wood floor, cold spots where his body would warm the planks. When I wake up in the morning, I will still instinctively put my hand down where he once lay next to me every night, reaching for him and I will remember in the most shattering yet devastatingly silent way, that he is not there. I cannot be convinced to scatter his ashes. His remains must remain where they are, near where his bed was in life, wrapped with his black leather sailor jerry flash collar, resting on a funereal shrine to him, adorned with oil paintings and watercolors and pencil drawings and other tiny appreciations of my love. He’s become like king tut, his greatness realized more in his death, his tomb filled to bursting with riches.

Eddy helped me put yet another tribute to Ralph on my skin, where he lives now. The memory of the big dog resides in my body, the softness of his fur on my hands, especially underneath his chin, and on the wide plains of his chest, white like he wore a poet’s shirt under his black jacket of curls.  I can feel my lips touch the top of his head, where his skull lay hard and sure underneath his butterscotch dot eyebrows. I can smell his big corn chip paws and feel the roughness of the pads, as my fingers searched between them for tiny pebbles from our many millions of walks. He lives in me, not on the earth,  not in the sky, but in me. and he’s a horse here, which is what I think he would have liked to be, perhaps what he thought he was. Tall and strong and fast and a kicker and a runner and a majestic beauty. My tribute to my love done by a masterful artist who truly understands. This tattoo brings me to almost uncontrollable cathartic crying with its beauty and sincerity. Perhaps I can let the ashes go now. I have this.

I walked for what seemed like miles, up the rue de Antibes, the Rodeo Drive of the South of France. I walked into le shoppe, a pretentious, stupid, ugly, clothes-too-small overpriced boutique for the 1% of the world. I picked up a golden revolver on display in the entrance. The overly tanned saleswoman, looking like a corpse that had been buried in the bogs brusquely said, “when you touch somesing – you must ask me first” then looking me over as if I was just out of women’s prison. I wanted to pinch her, but I just kept walking. I went far up, past the macaron shops – the French sweet I love so dearly – my favorite being the ones so large they look like Mcdonald’s cheeseburgers. The sugar in them makes my teeth ache and my face expand and I will never give them up. Fran Drescher and her sister Paula and Peter Mark Jacobson and I spent many delicious hours at the Carlton the night before and I put away most of the macaron, stuffing them into my face as if I had cheek pouches like a squirrel. Maybe I do….. mmmmmm chocolate and pistachio. Want to get me a gift? Get me macaron.

I walked. Walking off the macaron. Walking off the sexual assault. I came to a perfume store. I didn’t know what else to do. I walked in. The handsome, soft spoken man inside greeted me with the smile of a rape counselor. I was sure he was gay, and possibly a fan, but I didn’t want to presume anything. He asked me what I was looking for, and I said I didn’t know. I had never really worn fragrance, being more of a shower and go type of gal. Well, maybe not even shower, just go. If you know me, you know how true this is. Sometimes I won’t bathe – my justification being, “what’s in it for me?”. I am really gross. I told him that I didn’t understand perfume. I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t know what I should smell like, but that now, it was time to find out. He said, “this, is deeply personal. Mostly intuitive. If you smell it, you will know it. you will feel it. And it can be many different fragrances, for different times of the day. Different moods. Like clothing – it is about how you want to express yourself right then and there.” This was music to my ears. I had been feeling so awful. So jetlagged and lonely and then assaulted. I probably should have gone to the police but instead I came here, surrounded by amber and gold and rich potions in heavy cut glass bottles, their hue imbued with all the precious ingredients of the world – saffron, rose, musk, vetiver, leather, synthesized hormones, opium, sandalwood, violets, mint, jasmine, intellect, passion, wit and charisma. I wanted to cleanse my soul with a bracing bump of coffee bean. The handsome man looked at me all over – but not in the filthy, invasive way that the family (Manson or Texas Chainsaw Massacre style family) looked at me. Me looked at me with a respectfully distant but deep appreciation, and also with a searching quality. He was assessing my mood, my appearance and connecting it with scent. He took a few cardboard strips and started to collect bottles from around the shop, spraying each strip and handing them to me. He was silent and intense, focused on playing matchmaker between me and my new perfume. I smelled each. Not winners all. “this one will give me a migraine.” “oh no that smells too flowery.” “hm, I am not sure. That’s kind of too patchouli for me. I love the idea though.” “this smells like straight up chewing gum.” He gave me more strips. “this is better.” “ooh grapefruit. I love that.” “hm. I can’t tell. This is nice. Put this one aside.” We went through many. I tried to use my nose to help me. He was patient and devoted. Then I found it. Blanche by Byredo. I don’t know what is in it except maybe for white rose. I don’t know what it smells like, other than, it was me. I found myself. I smelled it and I knew it was me. it smelled like me, what it smells like to be inside this face, this head, this body. The handsome man was delighted. He could smell that it was me too. I paid for a big bottle. The handsome man wrapped everything up and put it in a startlingly beautiful art nouveau bag. He also packed up a dozen small bottles of samples for me to have for free. Perfumes he thought that I might consider later, which now I have tried and love. How sweet that he knew me now just from my scent. Then right before I left he said, “the man who makes this perfume, he has tattoos all over. Many tattoos. Very beautiful. I just remembered this. Isn’t that interesting?” It was, but I felt almost like I knew that already. It makes such sense. I thanked him profusely and walked back to my hotel. I sprayed myself with my new perfume and felt whole. Perfume is useless, I know. Who gives a shit really? But I was in need of comfort, and I was scared and I was far from home and I could find love only in a bottle – a perfume bottle, that is.

The sun was setting. I wanted to go outside and see it on the beach. I walked out, now perfumed and feeling less scared and less stared at and I was walking around with my head up high and maybe not really happy but happier – maybe – coming down from the fight-flight adrenaline from my attack. I was calmer. I smelled good, and now was breaking a sweat, stepping into the shadows of early dusk when the light in cannes is burnished gold. Everyone was starting to drink in the sidewalk cafes but the stores were still open. I saw some knee high red motorcycle boots that I liked, and the shopgirl let me try them on even though she wanted to close up shop and leave work. They were too big and I kept walking and I was ok and everything was ok, and then I saw them. The family. There was a flash of tracksuit colors, red, green, yellow and royal blue. The little girl saw me first. She pointed at me and started to let out a low scream, alerting her insane relations of my presence. Low and getting louder like a siren. I immediately ducked into the boutique in front of me. it had expensive clothes with turquoise and silver embedded into denim and everything cost thousands of euros. Through the plate glass window I saw the little girl. We locked eyes and I knew the family were coming. Coming for me. I kept pretending to shop and tried to act like she didn’t scare me, but she did. The girl paced in front of the entrance, ominously, staring into my eyes, waiting for me. the store would close soon, in maybe 6 minutes. She had the time to spare. I didn’t see her brothers yet. I didn’t see anything but the cold, steely hatred in her eyes. I didn’t see anything but her stalking me and a belt that cost a thousand euros. Well, it was a really nice belt. The saleswoman noticed the girl standing outside and marched out to confront her. They seemed to know each other. They started arguing and just then, I saw a back entrance to the store, behind a curtain, by where they kept their overstock. The door was open. As the little girl and the saleswoman screamed at each other in French, I made my escape. I ran. I ran so hard, all my cardio training in the last year since Dancing with the Stars paying off in spades. I saw no one behind me. The perfume rose off my body and slammed into my nostrils and I ran and I finally made it to my hotel room and I actually collapsed inside my door, sliding down against it, like a heroine in a Lifetime movie. I didn’t leave my hotel room again in Cannes. I stayed in. Smelling like a Rose.

Mike Davis is tattooing me in the painting! Its so fucking awesome I scream with joy whenever I look at it.

Love Shawn Barber so much!!!!

Wrap up on Jezebel.

Here’s a Behind the Scenes video where Margaret dishes on her tattoos and LL Cool J.