When I Was Your Age by Kenan Thompson

Author:Kenan Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

Ten

There’s a Thin Line Between Perseverance and Delusion

Back in the late ’90s, I was partying in a club when, lo and behold, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears walked in, hand in hand. I knew them in a casual way, as we were all in the same orbit of child stardom. Britney and Justin were a brand-new, bold-faced pairing. Justin’s curly blond ’fro was fresh, and their conscious coupling was still very new. The two hit the dance floor, and Britney was just killing it. Justin was trying to keep up—no doubt, the kid could dance his skinny butt off, too—but it was like watching a boy try to hold on to a bronco. She was throwing hair and hips and this, that, and the other. It was crazy. JT couldn’t hold a candle to a young Britney Spears in her prime. As I watched this iconic spectacle, sipping on gin and juice, I had an epiphany. Sir Kenan Thompson, I thought to myself, you’re in the right place. Because if Britney and Justin were here and I was here, too, that meant I’d made it. I was floating amongst the rich and famous in the TMZ, the thirty-mile zone of Hollywood.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that life can change on a dime and it could be over faster than a blond curly ’fro on a white boy. I distinctly remember the moment when my career cratered. When I was about twenty-one, right after I “graduated” from Nickelodeon, I was a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. During the pre-interview, I boasted to the producers that I could do a spot-on impersonation of Jay. That was a lie. I’d never really worked on it. I did an impression of him that was lazy, unpolished, and borderline insulting—just his high voice and a lisp. I don’t even remember what I said; I’ve locked it in a vault in my brain somewhere. You could hear a pin drop, then Jay finally said, “I don’t think that sounds like me at all.” That bit ended up on the cutting room floor, and I was never asked back to the show again. Like ever. Which to this day just crushes and embarrasses me. Sorry, Jay. I was young and dumb.

It got worse from there. After my money was stolen and I moved back to LA, there were some really hard times. I wasn’t impoverished, but it was the kind of struggle where you let your brakes squeak to save a few bucks. Like, when you pull up to a stop sign, and all the dogs in the neighborhood start howling. All of a sudden, I was a barely legal kid from the other side of the country with no job and no prospects.

This was the beginning of a three-year gap of weirdness in my life where I had a loooooot of free time on my hands.

I knew I had to get back to work and back to supporting myself. LA

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