A Little Bit Wicked (20 page)

“Kris, you have no idea who you’re getting in bed with there.”

Oh, yeah? That’s what YOU think.

“Excuse me, Mr. Sorkin, I can handle my own media, thank you.”

Why are you telling ME?

“You know very well I’m not part of that hard-line hate stuff.”

No!

“I refuse to hide my faith under a bushel. I am a Christian. I’m proud to be a Christian. But I’m not allowed to say that, am I? No, I’m supposed to be politically correct and smile and agree because Jews invented theatre and Christians invented Hooters.”

I can’t stand it!

“I’m sick of people who’ve never been to church telling me that church is full of hypocrites, and people who’ve never read the Bible telling me that it’s baloney.”

Yes, I covered all the philosophical bases, plus one of my very own:

“I did this project purely with the loving spirit of Jesus in my heart, and anybody who doesn’t like it can suck it!”

And off I went to…Lynchburg?

Yeah. That’s where the show is taped. I saw the sign on my way from the airport—
WELCOME TO LYNCHBURG!
—and you’d think that would have been my first clue. But no. The interview was brief and uneventful. Pat Robertson wasn’t even there. I was with the former–Miss America chick. I sang “Abide in Me,” talked up my album, pluggy-plug-plug, gave Miss America a Hollywood kiss, huggy-hug-hug, everybody happy, home I went.

The next day, a howl went up, from the East Village to San Francisco.

Even the most moderate members of the gay community were astonished to see me perched on the Pat Robertson Couch of Homo-Hate. It didn’t matter that Pat Robertson wasn’t there. Or that I used this opportunity to urge the Christian community to be more open-minded, loving, and inclusive. The blogosphere exploded with rants about what a skinny, rotten, hateful hating hater I was.

Meanwhile, I’d been booked to join the Women of Faith tour for a series of concerts, and all nine of the events in which I was included were sold-out. I’d already done the first concert, and it went fantastically well. But when a few of my gay fans tried to stick up for me, pointing out how obviously not homophobic I am, folks in some conservative Christian circles caught wind of it and decided that I was a liberal, gay-loving whore of Babylon and called for me to be fired.

Lynch. Burg.

“All Christians are gay-haters,” shrilled the überhomos. “Anyone who believes in freedom should boycott Kristin Chenoweth’s albums, shows, and concert performances!”

“All gays are going to hell,” shrilled the fundies. “Anyone who be
lieves in Jesus should boycott Kristin Chenoweth’s albums, shows, and concert performances!”

Somewhere in the middle, where the vast but less vocal majority of both Christians and gays reside—a tiny town I like to call
reality
—I struggled to make nice with everybody while refusing to say anything I didn’t mean. So apparently, though it’s famously impossible to
please
all of the people all of the time, it is quite possible to simultaneously piss everyone off.

“Ah, Kris,” Aaron said when he found me sobbing over it. “If you would have listened to…c’mere.”

He stopped himself just short of “I told you so” and pulled me into the place I most needed to be, with my arms around his middle inside his suit jacket, his chin touching the crown of my head. From the moment Aaron saw that I was about to take a beating from both sides, he did nothing but embrace and support me. He’s had plenty of experience corralling the media centipedes, and he gave me sound advice on how to move forward. I heard him barking on the phone later. Didn’t catch exactly what he said. Just heard him say my name and then a bunch of words that ended with “and anybody who doesn’t like it can suck it!”

Michael Musto, a columnist for
Out,
invited me to talk about all this, probably thinking I’d take the opportunity to apologize, but I told him, “I’m not going to spend my life apologizing to the gay community or anyone else for what I do. There’s always someone pissed off. Would I do the show again now that I know what it’s about? Probably not, but that’s up to me. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t agree with all that antigay stuff. They could just as easily say it’s a sin to be short. Well, I guess it is in the Miss Oklahoma pageant—but you know what I mean.”

I was on location shooting the movie
RV
with Robin Williams, Cheryl Hines, and Jeff Daniels when the head of Women of Faith came to see me on the set.

“You need to know that my best friend is gay,” I told her. “And in a few months I’m going to play a gay woman in a major-release movie. I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not. I’m sorry if that’s a problem for you.”

It was a problem for her. I thought about suggesting more fiber in her diet, but the handwriting was on the wall.

I wasn’t surprised when they asked me to quietly withdraw from the concert series. That would make it easy for everyone. They’d save face; I’d avoid any more adverse publicity. Dannielle and I discussed it for hours as the series organizers pressured me to quit. My fan club had gotten buses together. People who believed in me were counting on me to be there. But what about other people? Now that such a big deal was being made of all this, I didn’t know how Christian audiences were going to respond to me. At the end of the day, after weighing all the apples and oranges—professional, personal, financial, and spiritual—I decided I’d rather stand up and get booed off the stage than sit down and backpedal my beliefs. I’d never watered down my message of faith for Hollywood, and I wasn’t going to water down my message of acceptance for these folks now. It’s no picnic to be where you’re not wanted, but I was determined to fulfill my contract, sing my heart out, and do a great job for them.

“Kristin will not quit,” Dannielle told organizers. “If you want her out, you’ll have to fire her.”

They fired me.

A bunch more blather ensued with CNN and all the gang covering the whole thing. I got a heartbreaking letter from a woman who’d come to see me at my first and only Women of Faith concert: “I wanted to rededicate my life to Christ after that night, but I’ve changed my mind. This has reminded me why I hate church people.”

It was the single saddest moment in my professional life.

“I don’t understand,” I cried on Aaron’s shoulder. “It was so—so hearts and flowers—the little personal note about each song—the
happy little extra track. How the heck does anybody read something malicious into Taylor the freaking Latte Boy?”

There was really nothing I could do but wait for time to distance me from the stench. When I tried to think what possible good God could draw from this experience, all I could come up with is that it really required me to ask myself, “What am I willing to fight for?”

Not long ago, I sat in the corner of the sink-into-it sectional on Aaron’s lanai overlooking L.A., listening to him talk about
Studio 60
with a writer friend. She chalked the show’s failure up to casting and circumstances, but Aaron wouldn’t have it. He’s never allowed one stripe of the horse-whipping to fall anywhere but on his own back, and I admire him a lot for that. He’s a stand-up guy.

“Look, I screwed up
Studio 60
nine ways from Sunday,” he told her. “I made storytelling mistakes. I wrote angry. And anger is good fuel for the tank when you’re writing, but not over the course of twenty-two episodes.”

It occurred to me that the same is true of life in general. At times you have to get your Harriet up, but it’s corrosive to be constantly embattled. Life requires peace. Peace requires balance. And balance requires a certain amount of get-over-yourself.

No more struggle, no more strife, with my faith I see the light. I am free in the Spirit. Yes, I’m only here for God.

Every time I go to church with Denny, I can’t help but notice how nicely our singing voices blend. I usually go to a grand old United Methodist church with soaring architecture and sturdy rituals, but Denny’s discovered this new place, and the integrated message appeals to every part of my soul. I’m not sure if the service is nondenominational or all-denominational, but I feel the same spirit that inhabits the more traditional churches I’ve attended throughout my life—the same spirit that surrounds me during my strongest moments onstage and quietest moments of contemplation.

One aspect of
The 700 Club
thing that tore me up for a long time was the idea that I’d inadvertently done something to embarrass or hurt Denny. He didn’t tell me not to go on the show and never said a word about it after. I never apologized about it to anyone, but standing beside Denny in church today, I make my elbow touch his arm when we speak the prayer:

“For those we have harmed, knowingly or unknowingly, we are truly sorry. Forgive us and set us free.”

Religion and politics. Dicey territory. I try to steer clear. I don’t beef with people like Mel Gibson. I don’t need to agree with his religion to like his movies. Not my pig, not my farm, as Grandpa used to say. And I don’t need Gibson or Tom Cruise or the Women of Faith to agree with me.

When Jerry Zaks (who calls me his “shiksa goddess”) directed me in
Stairway to Paradise
in the City Center Encores! series, he and I were sitting backstage, shooting the bull one day. Jerry stuck a cigar in the side of his mouth and said, “So, kid, tell me about that Rapture.”

“Well, it’s when Jesus comes and takes all his followers up into Heaven.”

“You mean, we’ll be sitting here and you’ll just disappear?”

“That’s what I believe.”

“What’s left after you disappear?”

“I don’t know. A pile of clothes, I guess.”

He pondered that a moment. “Will your panties still be here?”

“Yes, Jerry,” I said with the loving spirit of Jesus in my heart. “My panties will still be here. And you may have them.”

I’m looking forward to Heaven, where I suspect Mel Gibson and Marc Kudisch’s dad will sit around with me, Molière, Emily Dickinson, and Grandma Chenoweth, sharing a good laugh about that. All these years on earth, I’ve lived by the motto “Drink more coffee and sleep when you’re dead,” so I’ll be ready to take a nice long nap as soon as I get there, but before I do that, there are a few things I really need to know…

Questions for God When I Meet Him

• Who killed JonBenét? And does she pretty much own the pageant circuit up here?
  
• Did Marilyn kill herself or was it a Kennedy?
  
• Did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone?
  
• Seriously…was it the cookies?
  
• Why is forgiveness so dang hard?
  
• Why is slapstick so dang funny?
  
• Who
  is the sadistic genius behind cellulite? Lord, please tell me you did not have anything to do with that.
  
• Does restless legs syndrome actually exist? And is there something about it that compels the person to sit in the front row?
  
• How on earth (or elsewhere) do you keep track of everyone?
  
• Why would someone go to all the trouble it takes to be a serial killer? Is there always some kind of
  Sweeney Todd
  backstory?
  
• Where are the mates to most of my socks?
  
• Why did Mom have to battle cancer twice? Seriously. Once was more than enough.
  
• Does sugar cause cancer? And if not,
  what does
  ?
  
• Does sugar cure cancer? And if not,
  what does
  ?
  
• Why do so many people find homosexuality scarier than war?
  
• What if you made it so that hate would cause hemorrhoids? Just an idea.
  
• Do you have Leonard Bernstein’s cell number? I need to talk to him right away. Also, Puccini. And Ethel Merman.
  
• And one more thing, Heavenly Father. Are you proud of me?
  

I
know you’re going to say no,” Dannielle said when
FHM
came calling in 2006, “but we should talk about it.”

I’d been asked to bare all for
Playboy
and turned them down flat (having evolved past the simple criterion of “What would a bunny do?”), but
For Him Magazine
wasn’t asking me to bare all. Just bare…most. And you have to understand that actors are used to getting stripped naked by costumers and crew. There’s not a lot of room for modesty when two dressers are cinching you into a corset and a soundman is spelunking up your skirt to artificially inseminate you with your microphone pack. You get used to the idea that your body is the canvas on which another artist works her craft.

I weighed the risks and benefits of the
FHM
thing, but in the wake of the whole “As I Am” rodeo of danged-if-you-do-danged-if-you-
don’t, I wasn’t in the mood to kowtow to anyone’s idea of who I was supposed to be.

It fits,
I decided.

But for some reason…nothing else fit. Helping me prep my wardrobe for a concert at Walt Disney Hall, Denny and Kay, the dresser, tugged at an obstinate zipper. They finally managed to wrench it all the way up, but the Betsey Johnson dress I’d worn just a month or two earlier now fit me like a latex glove fits a football.

Denny looked at me dolefully. “You’re Fatty McFatterson.”

I tugged at the muffin-puffed bodice. “I guess I’m retaining a little water.”

“Like Hoover Dam retains a little water?”

“I was looking at a
West Wing
forum last night,” said Kay. “People were saying you’re preggers.”

“
What?
Oh, my gosh. I can’t be fat right now. This is not a good time for fat.”

I don’t often step on the scale, but it was time for a reality check.

“You’re up nine pounds,” said Kay. “Hard to distribute on a four-foot-eleven-inch frame. And every little dimple is going to show in that
FHM
thing you’ve got coming up.”

“Thanks, Kay, for that important message from our sponsors.”

“FMH?”
Denny coughed. “You’re kidding.”

“They said I could wear my own bikinis. You’ve seen my bikinis, Denny. They don’t give up much. I’m not Miss Noodle. I’m a woman.”

“With a nice rack,” Denny nodded.

“I have nothing to prove to anyone.”

“But if you did want to prove that you’re a woman with a nice rack, this would do it.”

“Yes, it would. And I won’t be displaying anything you don’t see sashaying down the catwalk in the Miss USA pageant. What’s the difference?” I heard myself protesting too much, but felt compelled to add, “I told them no nipples. Strictly Barbie breasts.”

“What did your mom and dad say about it?”

“My parents love me unconditionally…so there’s no reason for them to know.”

“Kristi, they’re going to know sooner or later.”

“I’ll take the second one.”

“Maybe the Ambien is making you fat,” said Kay. “I’ve hear it causes night eating.”

This made sense in conjunction with the fact that I’d recently awakened with a Pop-Tart in one hand and a chicken leg in the other. I thought maybe Denny was playing a joke on me. But a few days later, he was out of town, and I opened my eyes to find several of those little red Hot Tamales candies stuck to my leg.

I asked my mom, “Have you heard of people night-eating on Ambien?”

“Oh, it’s possible,” she said. “I heard someone bought a car.”

“Oh, no…”

A chasm of crap yawned on each side of me. Take the Ambien and be a well-rested fat girl. Or skip the Ambien and be a skinny insomniac. Tipping the scales as it were, was the
FHM
photo shoot. But I certainly wasn’t going to tell my mom about that. Better to break it to my parents as a fait accompli, I figured. A done deal. A fleeing horse after which there is no point closing the barn door.

First things first. I had to whittle down to bikini weight in time for the shoot. The best body I’d seen on camera in quite some time was Jessica Simpson’s in the movie
The Dukes of Hazzard
. Dannielle and I did some homework and came up with the name of her trainer: Mike Alexander. A personal trainer has to be the right combination of technical expertise (that’s the trainer) and motivation (that’s the personal).

Mike’s standard greeting is “Who wants to get hotter than they are?”

He begins and ends his fitness philosophy with the idea that every
woman has reason to celebrate her body exactly as it is because if you don’t love this body, what could possibly motivate you to invest the time and energy it takes to make it stronger? Yes, we do our share of “curls for the girls” and “flies for the thighs”; self-improvement is always possible, but it has to spring from an appreciation for what’s already there. Maybe I’m not as tall as most women, but there’s a lot goin’ on with what I got. My skin’s not perfect, and neither is my hair, but I have a simple choice when I look at myself in the mirror each morning: be happy. Or not. Happiness requires less raw cookie dough.

I’m not going to sit here and make any pretenses about it. Those
FHM
pictures are pure, all-American, tape-it-to-the-bottom-of-the-top-bunk, razzleberry-swirl cheesecake. The accompanying Q&A asked loaded questions to which I gave coquettish answers. The photo shoot was a lot of fun, and I felt the finished product successfully accomplished the Gypsy Rose Lee thing—leave ’em wanting more. I was proud of the results of the hard work I’d put into it, but I waited to tell Mom and Dad until just before the photos were published.

Kaboom.

“I’ll never be able to go to church or 7-Eleven again,” Mom mourned.

Dad was…unhappy. Let’s just draw the curtain there because I have to give them credit; a year later, I did a completely nude photo shoot for
Allure
magazine, and they were completely cool about it.

“These are more tasteful,” said Mom. “With the nature and everything.”

The pictures were softly focused and posed to shield my most private privates. (But I can’t really recommend the whole concept of tree bark as underwear.) The text that went with the photos was about body image, how women struggle with it no matter how big or small or short or tall they are. A good message.

“Howard Stern says you’re definitely the hotter witch,” Dannielle told me after the photos came out. “He wants you on the show.”

That was not hard to turn down. Howard Stern and I don’t fit. But I wish him all the blessings in the world.

“So Miss High-and-Mighty is too good for the show,” Howard Stern railed after I turned him down. “I just want to know how you do this Christian-music CD and then you do the T-and-A thing in nude photographs?”

It’s funny—the fundamentalist Christians said the same thing. And so did Joy Behar one morning on
The View
. Who would have thought that just by showing a little skin, I could bring together such disparate groups, uniting them in a common cause. See, I really am promoting world peace. One pink bikini at a time.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.

I say it daily in my heart. I sing in concert, in the shower, and wherever else the spirit moves me. At first blush, it sounds like a rather pageantastic ambition, and sometimes it’s hardest to extend that peace to those closest to me, those I’ve hurt and been hurt by, knowingly and unknowingly, including my parents and Denny and Mr. Hello I Must Be Going.

But there’s the beauty of life beyond the bubble. It’s possible for someone to see your wicked bits and still love you.