A Man from Another Land: How Finding My Roots Changed My Life (27 page)

She looked so happy standing there smiling, shoeless, before the entire world. Then came the questions. First question: “What
designers are all of the ladies wearing?” Second question: “Can you talk about the fight that happened on the set where Isaiah
called T. R. Knight a homophobic slur?”

“NO, NO, NO! This can’t be happening. Not here, not now,” I thought to myself. I felt my breath leave my body. I heard grumbling
in the room. I saw T.R. step up to the microphone. Trying to defuse the situation, he said, “Fight? What fight? There was
no fight.”

Then came a statement from Ted Casablanca, a gossip columnist: “No, Shonda, we are not going any further until you tell me
why Isaiah”—he pointed at me—“called T. R. Knight a homophobic slur!”

Shonda just stood there, looking totally vulnerable and horrified. I blinked and when I looked again, standing right there
under the hot bright lights, I saw Muh’ Dear. She was refusing to let me back in the house if I did not return and fight the
Frazier sisters who called me names, stole my money, and beat me up. Blink. I saw my mother jammed up against the wall, her
feet dangling in midair, being hit and abused by my father and my stepfather. Blink.

For months I heard this
nasty word
being burned into my soul against my will,
threatening
to become synonymous with my name. Blink. I saw my biological father lying in a casket. Blink. I saw the faces of limbless
children in Sierra Leone. Blink. I saw
the children I promised a school and new hospital. Blink. Blink. I saw my boss being humiliated because of
me
….

“GET! OFF! MY! MAMA!” is what I heard myself say into the mike as I broke ranks from the rest of the cast, stepped in front
of my heroine, the woman who believed in me and my talent, and who supported me—a strong, dark-skinned man. I tried to defend
a precious moment in time for her. I was wrong. The world heard differently… and I would soon discover that no one needed
me
to be a hero that day.

The next day all hells of hell broke loose. The wrath I would receive from around the world came back at me even more strongly,
burning out of control like a raging wildfire in the Southern California hills aggravated by the Santa Ana winds. I was sleeping
less than four hours a night, filled with an indescribable level of anxiety. All I could do was operate as a human being,
one minute at a time. I prayed constantly, in between GLAAD (the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) meetings, writing
and rewriting letters of apology, filming PSAs, and dealing with what had become media insanity. I was forced to pay thousands
of dollars for “crisis management.”

I was in big trouble. I was now considered a monster. Everywhere I went, my car was trailed by photographers. I was hunted
down with calls from Diane Sawyer and every other major talk show. They all wanted me on their sofa. They all wanted me to
cry on air. I believe that most people’s sanity would not have survived under similar circumstances. I was eviscerated daily
and, at the same time, could feel the hatred inside of my own organs. In a strange way the evisceration started to feel humane.
It’s hard to explain, but the attacks began to mollify me. I fell upon a quote from Gandhi.

After discovering it, I began praying less for forgiveness and instead started praying to forgive.

Even though the outrage had boosted the ratings to twenty-four million viewers, up 31 percent from the season before, it was
clear that my days on my TV show were numbered.

One day I drove home and, rather than going inside, remained sitting in the car in the garage for about an hour. As time went
on, I did that more often. It took great amounts of energy and courage just to be able to walk through my own door and face
my wife and children. I started to feel that I could no longer protect my own family. I wouldn’t wish that feeling on my worst
enemy, not even on the very people that seemed hell-bent on destroying me, my name, and everything connected to me.

I called my friend Denial and he set me straight. Denial can work as a powerful ally when your faith in yourself is shattered
to the core. Denial is at least kind enough to keep your head up when the world has dropped on it. “This thing will blow over,”
Denial told me. “Soon life will return to normal.”

Once Denial and I finished our conversation
,
I dialed Congresswoman Barbara Lee, whom I now considered a friend. I asked her what she thought of what was going on. She
said, “Isaiah, I think you should resign as soon as possible. This thing is not going to end the way you think it is.”

“ABC knows what they are doing, they told me that it all will blow over soon,” I assured her.

“Isaiah, I don’t know about that,” she said.

I thanked her for her advice and hung up. I just continued sitting there in my garage. I didn’t tell her that I was under
a “gag order.”

In late January 2007, I asked Shonda to release me from my contract. I apologized to her for bringing so much pain and
chaos to her doorstep. It was never my intention. I thanked her for giving me and my family the greatest opportunity of my
career. I asked her to allow me to clear my name.

“They want me to fire you, but how do I fire a man who is trying to change the world?” she said. I walked out of her office,
away from “the Flagpole” (the nickname for the writers’ offices) straight to my trailer. I closed the door, locked it, sat
down. I cried harder than I ever had in my life.

At least TGMF was still moving forward. Sonya was able to plan a trip back to Sierra Leone with Breton F. Washington, the
architect of the future Foday Golia Memorial School in Njala Kendema. The news of the school moving forward was inspiring,
but every day the cast and crew tried to move forward meant another day they were subjected to screams and petitions calling
for me to not only be dispatched from the TV show, but from the Earth.

I called my attorney, Peter Nelson. “I want to check myself in for counseling,” I told him.

Peter asked, “Why would you want to do that, Isaiah?”

I said, “I will write my own letter of apology since they won’t let me go on camera and defend myself. This is about my name.
I want my name back. I will do the executive counseling that they offered. The world needs me to be crazy, so let me be crazy.
But I have to write my
own
letter of apology. The people want to hear from me, not the network anymore. Can you make that happen?”

“I don’t know, Isaiah. They seem to have their minds made up. They are dealing with a firestorm of bad press over this.”

“Can you set up a deal with the network about my letter?”

I spoke to Shonda and she agreed to let me have time off for counseling, but the network PR people couldn’t resist. They
released a statement about me “needing help with my issues.” Those who knew me recognized that the network-released statement
didn’t sound like me at all. But it was too late. I had been branded around the world as an angry black man, damaged goods,
a fuckup, a bigot, a coward, a liar, a bully, a monster; someone not worthy of forgiveness, let alone a five-million-dollar-a-year
salary.

I knew my tenure at ABC was over, but my life was not over. I had been severely bludgeoned and battered by the words “reportedly”
and “allegedly” in the press, but I was still breathing. I had my friend Norrell Walker drive me to the private counseling
location in Newport Beach.

I was watching the Screen Actors Guild Awards when my cast mate Chandra Wilson thanked me in her acceptance speech. “First
of all, it’s about those ten cast members sitting over there and the other one in rehab, I mean y’all just hold me together!
I thank y’all so much!” The next day the press went crazy over the word “rehab.” It was another nail in my proverbial coffin.
I said aloud, “No, Chandra, it’s ‘executive counseling.’ ” I reached for my mobile phone, grabbed a cigar, walked outside
the private residence, sat down on the patio, and cried some more. I had spoken with Chandra earlier that day just after she
finished the red carpet. I texted her a note of congratulations for her win. There was a time delay so she got the text well
after.

I checked out of the counseling facility after six days. While there I participated in:

- three psychiatric sessions

- four psychotherapy sessions with a clinical psychologist

- one spirituality session

- two life-coaching sessions

- three energy psychology (emotional release) sessions

- three amino acid therapy biochemical evaluations

- one tai chi session

- three massages

- three personal-training sessions

- three stress-management sessions

- two yoga sessions

- one nutritional consultation

I was diagnosed with an Axis I: 309.9 Adjustment Disorder. The recommended treatment was a six-month program of weekly follow-up
meetings; weekly psychotherapy; weekly stress management, yoga, or meditation; weekly sessions with a personal trainer; and
life-coaching sessions every other week.

On February 8, 2007, Sonya called me from Sierra Leone excited that she and Breton had broken ground for the new Foday Golia
Memorial School, in Njala Kendema. The sun was shining brightly as I sat in my SUV in the parking lot on the set. Suddenly,
it seemed out of nowhere, it started to rain. I looked at the beads of water on my windshield shimmering in the California
sunlight like tiny diamonds, and said, “The devil is beating his wife!” I had witnessed this scene so many times in my life,
in Houston as a boy, and thousands of miles away in Africa as a man. Now, here it was again in LA. But now it was happening
in more ways than one. It was sunny outside and construction on the school was finally under way, and that was a good thing;
but at the same time it was raining on my career and on my soul.

I climbed out of my SUV and walked into my trailer. I had some calls to make. I called my manager, Eric Nelson, and told him
that I didn’t want him to have to screen calls and duck the media anymore. I told him that he was great to work with, but
I thought rather than fending off the press and defending me all day his time could be put to better use. I released him as
my manager against his wishes. Next I called my publicist, Cynthia Snyder,
one of the sweetest and most honorable people I know. I knew this situation was taking a toll on her. I also knew that she
was in way over her head, but that she would try and weather the storm with me. Cynthia didn’t need this in her life, no one
did. I released her against her wishes as well. Of course the media reported otherwise. They wrote that I blamed her for my
bad press!

I lit up a cigar, sat down, and opened up my laptop. My inbox was flooded with my crisis. I noticed one from a friendly source,
my old friend Antonio K. Hubbard. He had sent me the following poem:

The Bridge Builder

An old man, going a lone highway

Came, at the evening, cold and gray,

To a chasm, vast, and deep and wide,

Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim—

The sullen stream had no fears for him;

But he turned, when safe on the other side,

And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,

“You are wasting strength with building here;

Your journey will end with the ending day;

You never again will pass this way;

You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide—

Why build you this bridge at the eveningtide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head.

“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,

“There followeth after me today,

A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,

To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”

—W. A. Dromgoole
¹⁶

My new publicist, Howard Bragman, and his team at Fifteen Minutes advised me on the dos and don’ts for my arrival at the 38th Annual NAACP Image Awards. He said that I would have to skip the red carpet and take my seat much later than everyone else.
I was seriously considering not going at all, but Howard said that there was a very strong chance I would win an award. He
predicted the media would pounce on me even more if I didn’t attend.

Damn. No way out.

On March 2, 2007, I attended the awards and my friend Clarence B. Jones, former speechwriter and counsel to Martin Luther
King Jr., personally wrote my acceptance speech in case I should win. He said, “Son, you shot yourself in the foot with this,
but I’m going to walk with you.”

It turned out I was able to use that speech. I was honored to be named Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series for
Grey’s Anatomy
. That night
eonline.com
posted an article noting:

The wrap-up music cut Washington off before he was finished. So, we’ll never know whether he was about to acknowledge the
recent conflict that prompted him to seek treatment for his “issues.”
¹⁷

The next day I received a call from Vic Bulluck from the NAACP. He said his phone had been ringing off the hook. The cancer
had spread. People were angry and outraged that the NAACP would give me an Image Award, and they were
even more outraged that the entire audience gave me a standing ovation.

I guess it’s true. People do believe everything they see on TV and read in the tabloids. I had apologized numerous times.
I taped a PSA about the power of words for GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network), I played a gay character
in a Spike Lee film ten years before, went through counseling, but it still wasn’t enough.