The Naked Truth: Finding Freedom in the Spotlight of Solitude

Naked! Telling my truth with nothing left to hide.

Listen, I need to tell you something about being forty-something, Black, gay, and trying to make art in this concrete jungle—it's like showing up to a potluck dinner with collard greens only to discover everyone else brought quinoa salad. They look at your dish like it's too much flavor, too much soul, too much everything for their bland-ass gathering. But you know what? I'm keeping my greens on the table anyway, because somebody's got to feed the people who are starving for something real.

The industry told me I was past my expiration date, like I'm a carton of milk they forgot in the back of the refrigerator. Excuse me, what? I'm not spoiled—I'm aged, like good whiskey or fine cheese or that vintage Saint Laurent blazer from Tom Ford's era that becomes more iconic with each passing season. I'm talking about that piece you hunt down on TheRealReal, the one that cost more than your rent but transforms your entire silhouette—that's what forty-something looks like on this body. While Hollywood stays stuck on mayonnaise-bland leading men, I'm over here seasoned like my grandmother's cast iron skillet, ripening into the kind of authenticity that makes people clutch their pearls and check their privilege simultaneously.

My YouTube channel has become this beautiful disaster of truth-telling, like if therapy and reality TV had a baby and raised it on a steady diet of good dick and existential dread. I read my diary entries to strangers on the internet because apparently my coping mechanisms have no boundaries, and honestly? It's working. Each video is me performing open-heart surgery on myself while the audience watches through their fingers—terrified but unable to look away.

Acting will never leave my bloodstream. It courses through me like ancestry, like muscle memory, like that one ex you can never fully get over because they taught you how to love yourself. Every character I've ever played lives in my chest cavity, a whole apartment building of personas paying rent in my ribcage. But here's the revolutionary part: I don't need Hollywood's permission to perform anymore. I'm not sitting by the phone like some tragic heroine waiting for validation. I'm creating my own stages, my own stories, my own damn spotlight.

This writing thing became coping with the "no" as a form of survival and evolved into salvation. While the industry moves with the urgency of continental drift, I'm out here building an empire of honesty, brick by vulnerable brick. Every blog post is a love letter to my younger self, every video a roadmap for the lost souls navigating similar storms. I'm not just creating content—I'm creating community, connection, a lighthouse for people drowning in their own authenticity.

The personal became political the moment they decided our love was a debate topic instead of a human right. So when I write about politics now, it's not because I suddenly developed a political science degree—it's because silence in the face of oppression is just collaboration with a better outfit. Every essay about Trump's America is me refusing to be erased, refusing to be quiet, refusing to make myself smaller so their fragility can breathe easier.

I write about my anxiety like it's that friend who always shows up to the party uninvited, drinks all your good liquor, and then tells everyone your business. Last Tuesday I'm standing in the skincare aisle at Duane Reade, having what can only be described as a spiritual breakdown because they moved my moisturizer to a different shelf. Suddenly I'm questioning my entire existence over CeraVe placement—like the universe is personally rearranging my life without permission. That meltdown became a whole essay about control and chaos that somehow resonated with more people than my latest headshots. The absurdity writes itself, boo.

The dating stories? Boo, those are anthropological studies in human behavior with a side of comedy gold. I'm out here collecting material like a sociologist with commitment issues, turning every awkward Grindr encounter into art. That guy who showed up to our coffee date wearing his whole political identity on his sleeve like a personality disorder? That's not just a bad date—that's a whole essay about the audacity of mediocre men who think their opinions are foreplay.

Being an introvert who performs his private life for public consumption is like being a vegetarian who works at a steakhouse—technically possible, but exhausting as hell. Every time I hit "publish" on a piece about my sexual adventures or my journey into becoming the daddy I never had, I feel like I'm standing naked in Times Square holding a sign that says "Ask Me About My Transformation." But here's the thing about nakedness—once you get used to the breeze, clothes start feeling like costumes.

I'm writing from a place of service now, not ego. My mistakes have become masterclasses, my failures transformed into fuel for other people's freedom. That time I fell in love with a straight boy? That's not just heartbreak—that's a cautionary tale with subplots about internalized homophobia and the mythology of conversion through good dick. Every story I share is a gift I'm giving to my past self, who needed to know he wasn't alone in the wilderness of becoming.

The views might be small, the readership intimate rather than infinite, but revolution doesn't always happen in stadiums. Sometimes it happens in living rooms, in comment sections, in the quiet moment when someone reads your words and thinks, "Finally, somebody gets it." I'm not trying to be the next big thing—I'm trying to be the first me, completely and unapologetically.

Hollywood can take its sweet time figuring out what to do with complicated Black gay men over forty. I'll be here, creating my own opportunities, building my own audience, turning my lived experience into art that matters. Acting fuels every word I write, every story I tell, every moment I choose truth over comfort. This isn't plan B—this is revolution disguised as confession, activism dressed up as entertainment.

So here I am, forty-something and finally free, writing and creating and performing my way into a legacy that looks nothing like what I planned but everything like what the world needs. Am I the Black gay Carrie Bradshaw? Maybe, if Carrie had to navigate systemic racism, queer identity, and artistic ambition while wondering if her Mr. Big was actually just good at sliding into DMs. I'm asking the real questions: "I couldn't help but wonder... when did my sexual liberation become my artistic revolution?" Except my brunch conversations happen in comment sections and my relationship drama gets monetized through YouTube ad revenue.

I'm something entirely new—a hybrid of hope and hustle, therapy and theater, diary entries and dream sequences served with a side of righteous indignation and really good lighting. The spotlight might be smaller than I once imagined, but it's mine. And in that light, naked and unashamed, telling stories that save lives starting with my own, I'm exactly where I belong.

This is my church now, my congregation of the courageously vulnerable, the beautifully broken, the authentically audacious. Come as you are, leave transformed. The only requirement for membership? The willingness to tell the truth, even when it makes everyone uncomfortable.

Especially when it makes everyone uncomfortable.