| "Everything
is Perfect When You're a Liar" (It Books: 318
pp., $25.99), chronicles Kelly Oxford's
misadventures growing up in Edmonton. |
 |
LOS
ANGELES — At 35, Kelly Oxford is Hollywood’s latest
"It" girl, a Twitter superstar with a
following of more than 460,000, who last year sold her
first screenplay to Warner Bros. (Drew Barrymore is in
talks to direct) and will soon begin work on a
television pilot. Now the Canadian-born mother of three
has published a book of essays, "Everything is
Perfect When You’re a Liar" (It Books: 318 pp.,
$25.99), which chronicles her misadventures growing up
in Edmonton.
Oxford’s
writing is marked by the same wry voice that’s made
her a social media sensation. From an ill-fated trip to
Los Angeles to lure a pre-"Titanic" Leonardo
DiCaprio to be her boyfriend to the outrageous tale of
her first date with now-husband James, she tells stories
few would share. In junior high school, she accidentally
accused a sexually promiscuous friend of contracting
AIDS; on another occasion, an open letter to an
emergency ward nurse led to Oxford giving herself an
enema while high on morphine.
Recently,
Oxford sat down over a brisket sandwich to discuss
"Everything is Perfect When You’re a Liar."
Q.
Is any of this fictionalized?
A.
None of it. And my mom is going to hate that. I wanted
to write about the times when I was messing up because I
was just doing what I wanted to do. Those memories are
easy to keep because I was constantly saying, "What
am I thinking?" Those were the most marked
times/events in my life.
Q.
You wanted to be a writer early on. Were you always
collecting stories?
A.
I always felt like the child actor playing myself in the
biography from the future. I did really dramatic things
all the time. But most were so humiliating —
especially the peeing the pants and the barfing at the
party — I never thought I’d tell anybody.
Q.
Did you hesitate about putting any stories in the book?
A.
I don’t think so. In fact, the things I didn’t want
to share before, I was excited to get out there. It was
so liberating. Even "The Terrible Horrible"
(which involves a scam Oxford pulled with her best
friend while traveling around Canada in a camper van
with a lot of marijuana) ... when I read it, I thought,
that’s a really good story and it makes me a terrible
person, which is kind of the point of all this.
Q.
So it’s about creating a persona of Kelly Oxford?
A.
It is a persona, but it is exactly me. Everyone’s
always like, "Oh, she’s so soft-spoken and nice
and she isn’t mean at all." But I am. I also can
be a nice, normal person, but I’m a bit antagonistic
so I like stoking the fire because I like seeing people’s
reactions.
Q.
How have your memories remained so vivid?
A.
When I was a kid, I loved going to bed because I was a
total weirdo and I would lay there for hours retelling
all the crazy things that happened to me. I would also
go into the future and think, "How am I going to
get that guy to be my boyfriend?" I would act out
all the conversations we were going to have. Basically,
I was writing dialogue, writing scripts and trying to
figure out how people worked. Playing all those
conversations out in my head where they sounded real and
not prompted and not fake.
I
remember everything. In junior high school with the AIDS
thing, I remember everyone was mad at me. And I thought,
"This is going to happen my whole life, I’m going
to be really honest and people are going to think I’m
a gossip but I’m just talking. And I can’t stop
talking." That’s what was going through my head:
I’m going to be cornered by women when I’m 40 —
"You said this and I heard that you said
this."
Q.
Now that you live in Los Angeles, have you met Leo
DiCaprio?
A.
No, and I don’t want to meet him. It would ruin the
facade. Now that I’ve revealed the story, I’m too
weak. It’s put me in a weak position. I’m not used
to going into a relationship/ friendship from such a
weak position. So I don’t want to meet him at all.
Q.
Have your kids read the book?
A.
I’ve let them read the enema one and the modeling one.
The kids aren’t allowed to read the one when I met
James. I remember going into work the next day and they
asked me how my date was. And I said, "I really
like the guy, but how do you rebound from that date? How
am I ever going to face this guy again?" One, I had
sex with him in a park — who does that on a first
date? That’s never going to work out. Two, somebody
thought I was a dude and threw rocks at our heads, so
that’s not going to work either.
Q.
Have any reactions to the book surprised you?
A.
A lady said the book stressed her out. I feel sorry for
her. My life didn’t stress me out, and I lived it. I
hope people feel a little more relaxed and human when
they read my book because I think we are all kind of
awful creatures but we are very good at disguising it.
Maybe if they read it, they won’t feel so bad about
sharing what goes on in their lives.
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