He Lost His Family Overnight for Being Gay | Joel Kim Booster

 It's really easy for me to dismiss any rejection that I felt from my family.
 It's much harder to get over it when I get to know from a casting director.
 Wow.
 Did your parents see being gay as some kind of an illness?
 Your dad tried to perform an exorcism on you?
 Yeah, that happened when I was like 12 or 13.
 They gave me an ultimatum of live the way that they wanted me to live or move out.
 And is that okay? I'm gonna go.
 Emmy-nominated writer, actor, producer, stand-up comedian, star of loot, creator and lead of Fire Island.
 Joel Kim Booster has become one of the sharpest, most original voices in modern comedy.
 I had been out of my parents' house.
 She was very nice.
 I know you're going through this.
 If you ever need a place to stay, you can come and stay with me and my family.
 I ended up living there for the rest of my senior year.
 My attitude was like, I'm going to hell eventually for this, but I can't fight it anymore.
 I'm exhausted.
 He sat me down and he just said, God does not care what your sexuality is or who you left.
 I think it opened up a version of my future that I never really considered before.
 Neither of them have ever seen any of my work, then quite frankly, I'm fine with that.
 Look, Paul's for a second. Are you really?
 I'm going to begin as we always do.
 Oh, wow. You really picked a good one with a photo.
 Yeah.
 Tell us who is the person who believed in you.
 This is my dear friend in the whole world since we were 16 years old, Sarah Casey, Reverend
 Sarah Casey.
 I should be more specific.
 And she and her family, it sounds dramatic to say, but they really did save my life in
 a lot of different ways.
 Set the scene.
 Take me back to playing field at the time you met.
 Let's just jump right in and then we'll back up, but take me to the day she first said
 to you what she said that changed everything.
 So I had been out of my parents' house for a couple of weeks at this point and everyone
 at school knew in some shape or form that I was struggling, you know, I was the voice
 of the announcements.
 So I was an integral part of the ecosystem of that high school and everyone knew that
 I was struggling and people offered various bits of help here and there.
 And I remember we had one class together, we had choir together.
 And we were not very good friends at this point.
 We were, you know, classmates, she ran in a very different circle than I did and we certainly
 never hung out socially before this, but she was very nice and she turned around.
 She was with the altos.
 I was with the baritones behind her and she turned around at one point at the end of class
 and said, Hey, I know you're going through this.
 If you ever need a place to stay, you can come and stay with me and my family.
 I don't think she really meant it in that moment.
 I think she was just saying it to be nice because she'd heard, you know, other people
 were offering help here and there, but it was getting colder and I showed up at our
 house and said, Hey, remember when you said that thing?
 I'm here to cash in.
 How quickly did you show up that day?
 Two or three days later, two or three days later.
 When she offered it, did you think, Oh, thank God.
 Yeah, I think I was relieved.
 I think it wasn't, I certainly didn't know the extent to which they would help in that
 moment.
 I thought it would probably be a couple nights, like the other places that I'd stayed.
 And at this point, I wasn't even sure how long I would make it on my own before sort
 of caving and going back home.
 So pause on that part and tell me what you were going through when she offered that.
 I had come out when I was 16 at school, my junior year of high school.
 I, to back up even further, I'd been homeschooled until I was a junior in high school.
 My parents finally sent me to public school because I really wanted to go to college.
 And homeschooling was not preparing me for that.
 And they sent me to school.
 I, within a month of coming out of going to public school, I came out, I hooked up with
 a guy for the first time, drank alcohol for the first time, smoked weed for the first
 time, smoked cigarette for the first time, shoplifted for the first time, did everything
 imaginable that I was never able to do before.
 And I think it's pretty obvious that if you keep a kid under locking key for 16 years
 and then give him a little bit of freedom, he will explode.
 And so I was out my entire junior year at school.
 All my friends knew everyone was pretty aware.
 And then my senior year, the beginning of my senior year, my parents, who I had planned
 on, honestly, at this point in my life, never telling.
 I was pretty sure I could keep it a secret from them for my entire life if I needed to.
 But they read my journal while I was at school one day and came back, confronted me about
 it, lots of tumult and difficult moments for both of us.
 And it just sort of came to a head at one point that they gave me an ultimatum of, you
 know, live the way that they needed me to live, wanted me to live, or I could move out.
 And I called their bluff and said, OK, I'm going to go.
 And again, wasn't at this point certain how long I would make it before having to go
 back.
 But yeah, and then a couple weeks later, probably I got this off from Sarah.
 Did your parents see being gay as some kind of an illness?
 You know, I don't know if I would go so far as to say illness.
 I think it was definitely like something that was a choice that was maybe brought about
 because of environmental factors that could then be sort of worked through.
 But they never, they never have framed it as like a disease or an illness or anything
 like that.
 I think it was more of a spiritual issue that I could work out with God.
 You told my producer that your dad tried to perform an exorcism on you.
 Yeah, that happened when I was like 12 or 13.
 And listen, I was a very difficult kid to raise.
 I had a lot of issues, emotions that were not being well addressed by my parents.
 I will say they did not believe in traditional therapy or mental health or anything like
 that.
 They sent me to a bunch of unqualified, uncertified Christian therapists that were
 not helpful in any sort of way.
 And yeah, I just remember I had gotten so bad at one point that I got in a fight that
 was and was so deeply disrespectful to my father that he had reached his end of his
 rope.
 And like it was not a planned thing.
 It was a very much in the moment spontaneous thing.
 And he tried to exercise me because he was so at a loss for what to do.
 I had sort of driven them to the ends of their rope and exercise.
 What did he do?
 You know, he said all the things.
 He said, you know, Satan out.
 I buked the in the name of the Lord, like release my son sort of the whole, everything
 you see in the movies.
 When you say I was difficult to raise, give me some examples.
 I was just an instant.
 I'm bipolar.
 I've been bipolar probably since it started to manifest as early as pre-puberty, I would
 say.
 Like I've always had extreme mood swings, been very irritable, reactive, unable to control
 my emotions, especially when I was young, especially when I was hormonal and a teenager.
 And I was defiant.
 I was disrespectful.
 I was a liar.
 I was trying every way possible to undermine my parents in every sort of way that you
 could undermine your parents.
 And listen, like some of that is like as a result of the way that they raised me in the
 very difficult way that they raised me in the very controlling way that they raised
 me.
 But some of it was as a result of chemical imbalances in my brain that they refused to
 address in any real way.
 And some of it was just me being an asshole.
 You were born in Korea.
 Yes.
 Adopted at what age?
 About three months, three to six months, probably.
 Did you ever try and, by the way, figure out who you're biological?
 I have had and have no interest in.
 Got it.
 Yes.
 And what are their names?
 Janet and Ken.
 My father passed in 2021, but what kind of relationship do you have with Miss Janet?
 It's a difficult one, but it is a, um, we sort of reached an impasse.
 I think I have closed the gap about as far as I can close the gap between us.
 And it's a loving relationship at the end of the day, but it is an arm's length relationship
 at the same time.
 Your decision or hers?
 I think a little bit of both.
 Inevitable.
 Yeah.
 Did she attend your wedding?
 No.
 I didn't invite her, um, to show no interest in attending the wedding.
 Unquite frankly, I have never, in since I was 17 years old, imagined any of my family
 being at my wedding.
 And I don't need them there.
 Is this kind of conversation for you, cathartic or intrusive, neither?
 It's sort of why do you choose to speak so freely about the pain of the past?
 I guess I don't see it.
 I don't connect it to pain necessarily anymore in my life at this point in my life.
 Um, it's just, well, I'm very open about most areas of my life and this happened to me.
 And I think that, um, it is as normal for me as talking about what I went to the grocery
 store and bought two days ago.
 If you didn't have the life with the trauma you endured, would you be in comedy?
 That's a good question.
 Um, possibly I don't think that my going into stand up was based in a, was like a trauma
 response by any means.
 I think, um, but I think that there are certain aspects of my personality that, that
 felt as a result of growing up in the environment that I did.
 And that definitely contributed to getting into comedy.
 But, you know, I certainly mined a lot of these situations of my youth when I was growing
 up for, especially in my early material, um, but, you know, I, I don't anymore really.
 So it is, it's, it's something that I've moved on from artistically, at least exploring
 for the most part.
 And, um, yeah, I feel like I've said pretty much everything I need to say.
 Did you see anybody who was like you growing up Asian gay, open market show is probably
 the closest approximation, BD Wong a little bit, although I didn't necessarily know his
 background or his life, his personal life, but I saw him on TV, but Margaret definitely
 I think is, is the biggest example of that.
 Do you feel as though your mother accepts you now?
 I don't know.
 Um, I don't care, but, you know, like I said, like I know she loves me, I love her very
 much, um, she's very kind to my husband and accepting and accepting of our relationship
 up to a point and has been very welcoming to him.
 But at the same time, like I don't know that she explains that I am married or in a relationship
 with a man to her friends or churchgoers or anything like that and, uh, certainly not
 to my nieces and nephews.
 So I don't, I don't know that acceptance is necessarily the word, but, um, we've definitely
 reached, um, a sort of, uh, a point of red resentment, I think, to the things aren't
 really going to change.
 So take me back to Sarah.
 What is that photo?
 This is me at, I believe her qualifying, she was a state champion polevolta in high school,
 very much a jock.
 I was a theater kid and this was at one of her qualifying meets.
 I think I went and saw her polevolting.
 So back to her house three days after she says, Hey, if you need a place to stay, you
 can come.
 You show up.
 Do you remember who opened the door?
 It was Sarah, um, and, you know, I think she was a little puzzled, um, but I was like,
 I remember when you said that thing and I, you know, I'm gushing in basically and,
 you know, her, her mom and dad were sort of immediately like, you can't just invite
 strange boys to stay here.
 Her dad's a quadriplegic.
 She has two younger brothers in the house as well.
 There's a lot going on in that house and I think, um, you know, she convinced her parents
 to let me stay for the night and I stayed up that night talking to her mom very intensely
 about like, you know, my life.
 And, um, yeah, the next day I was going, I was leaving for school, expecting it to be
 the only night that I stayed there.
 They were, they said, come back for a dinner before you leave and, um, not to get to
 it out of myself, but I ended up living there for the rest of my senior year.
 This is her dad, Tim.
 He himself, a pastor who said something to you that when I was doing my research, like
 truly made me pause and as a gay man, it made my eyes well up.
 Yeah.
 What did he say to you?
 I mean, to back up a little bit, I think it's important to note that like I came out
 when I was 16 at high, in high school, but I was so very much indoctrinated into the evangelical
 church, um, leading up to that.
 Like the last before, like months before I came out of the closet, I would say that I
 would just telling people I was going to be a youth pastor as my career.
 Um, so I was like, in it, I'm, you know, famously a nationally ranked Bible quizer.
 I've read every book of the Bible, some of them, um, not many multiples of times.
 And so I very much was like, when I came out at school that whole year, my attitude was
 like, I'm going to hell eventually for this, but I can't fight it anymore.
 I'm exhausted, but, you know, I will be going to hell, but I might as well, you know, enjoy
 my life to as much as I possibly can until then.
 And that was a really dark mindset to be in and it was really not great mindset to be
 in and I think, you know, I'd probably confess this to Sarah at some point and she told
 her dad and he got wind of it and he sat me down one day and, you know, he is the Methodist
 pastor in our town and very well known for being an extremely progressive pastor and he
 sat me down and he just said, Joel, there is no biblical basis for hell.
 You're not going to hell because hell doesn't exist.
 And God does not care what your sexuality is or who you live.
 At that moment, I think I needed someone, especially someone who had authority in the church
 pastor to tell me that and assure me of that because I don't know that I would have believed
 anybody else and I, you know, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that saved my life
 because I think that I continue to live in the mindset of like, let's just like live to
 the fullest and then eventually go to hell.
 I think that's a really dark place for a 16 year old to be in, a 17 year old to be in
 and I don't think it would have gotten any better.
 I think it would have just gotten darker for me and so that really was a paradigm shift
 in my head for the way I lived and the way I viewed life.
 Did what pastor Tim said in any way change your view of what you deserved out of this life?
 For sure, I think I think like I didn't never really expect to like live a particularly long
 or interesting or fulfilling life before this conversation and I think it opened up
 a version of my future that I never really considered before.
 So you move in?
 This is full time now.
 Yeah.
 What's life like with them compared to at home?
 I mean, night and day.
 I think it was really great to have a year of my high school life where I could come home
 and tell them about like, I would talk to her mom about everything about the guys I had
 crushes on and what was going on in school and what was going on with me and where I wanted to
 be next year and all of these things that I was not able to, I was not able to be myself at home.
 Like even when I was out at school, I would come home and just sort of shut down and like
 mask everything and hide behind everything and I was just like a weight lifted I think for me
 to like come home and still be able to be myself and figure out and not only just be myself but
 be in a safe environment to figure out who I was becoming and yeah, I mean, she made lunches
 for me. She started my car in the wintertime before I left for school.
 She, you know, like at the end of my senior year, they co-sign my student loans.
 They rallied their church to buy me a car for graduation.
 It was just like a really wonderful like way to spend my last year.
 Do you get the sense that your parents saw what the cases were doing for you?
 I don't know. I don't know. I was not in contact with them that year.
 Did you want to in any way rub it in their face? Like you see this is how you truly treat people
 look out their good being? I'm sure there was probably some part of me that felt that way.
 But it's hard for me to remember now how active that was or how at the forefront that was.
 I think I was still really hurt and confused and you know, the cases never were always very
 much like in favor of me reconciling with my parents. It had a lot to do with me reconciling with
 my parents later on in college. But no, I don't think it was there was ever a sense of like,
 I was never gloating. I never felt like ecstatic about the situation as happy as I was
 being able to live freely and all of that. Did you just parents try and get you to come back?
 No, really. Not that I remember certainly not strongly. Did that hurt not getting them
 to want you to come back? No, because I think it was,
 I knew acutely and I think they knew acutely that it was not going to end well for either of us
 if I move back. And I think for me, I was so distracted by finally figuring out who I was where I could
 in a world where I could be the same person at school and at home. I didn't have time to really
 consider their feelings about it or the possibility of coming home. But it wasn't a gloating thing.
 It wasn't like a C.I. told you so sort of thing. I think that that attitude came much later,
 I think, in terms of like post-college life and achieving some of the things that I wanted to
 achieve. And you know, I haven't taken a dime on my parents money since I was 17 and I think
 that has become the cornerstone of my personality today. I'd love to lord that over people. But
 I, yeah, and I think I was just more so proud of myself for being able to make it and survive
 that it never really, it wasn't necessarily about them. It was about me.
 I want to go to this picture. That is your dad. Yes, this is my dad. And I have to be very honest
 with you. I read the research from the pre-interview and I had a lot of feelings, right? I felt bad for
 the little you. I felt mad at them. Being 40 years old, I also wondered if they were doing the best
 they could. And also being a gay man, having a complex relationship with my parents over the
 issue, I wondered that. But then I came upon an Instagram post that you had posted about your dad.
 And I just want to read a portion of it. It took my dad and I a long time to understand each other.
 I'm not sure I was the son he imagined for himself gay and emotional and
 completely uninterested in anything like fishing or hunting or his one great love farm equipment.
 Very country mouse and city mouse vibes. But if he was disappointed, he never let on.
 And in some ways, it was hard for me to square the two, right? Because you hear about the trauma,
 but then you read that post and you think, that's a beautiful post. I guess my question is,
 I guess in life two things can be true. You can feel the love and honor the good
 while also being clear about setting the record on the bat. Yeah, I don't know. I'm very lucky
 that in the last few years before my dad died, we'd repaired the relationship to an extent that I
 think we were in a better place before he died in the years before he died. Then I'd ever been with him
 as a kid growing up. Certainly not since I was a young child. And you know, I think it's easier to look
 back now that he's gone and see all of the things and ways he showed up in his own way. I think
 for me, it was really frustrating because we were very different kinds of people. And like,
 I was loud. I was, you know, very social, very charismatic kid. And my dad was painfully shy,
 socially awkward, quiet, you know, introvert. And we just didn't get each other. We didn't
 speak the same language the entire time I was growing up. I was so uninterested in everything that
 he was interested in teaching me about. And yet, my dad showed up to everything. My dad was at
 every play, every musical, every basketball game, very brief moment in time when I played high
 school basketball and was terrible at it. He came to every, yeah, pretty much everything. My mom,
 I don't think has seen me perform at all and sort of sent my dad to be the one to represent both
 of them at any of these events. And you know, it was a very quiet form of support. Like, you know,
 I don't think he was like on his feet, like giving me a standing ovation at any of these shows,
 but he was there. And it was like, at the time, I don't think I really absorbed how difficult
 that was for him to be out in these public spaces and like be the only parent there and like to
 be watching something that I'm not sure how much he enjoyed or, you know, how proud he was of me
 to be doing these things. But he still came. Did he ever say I'm proud of you?
 Not a lot, if he did. And certainly I, there's no like standout memories of him being like,
 I'm proud of you. I, you know, later in life, they certainly did. They did. They both
 were blessed in so many ways. Like I think like listen, neither of my parents have ever seen any of
 my work as an adult. Have they left? I don't mean to be rude. Have they left playing field? Yeah,
 no. But yeah, no, neither of them have ever seen any of my work. They've never seen any of my,
 they have seen my movie, my standout, any of the TV shows I've ever been on. And quite frankly,
 I'm fine with that. But you know, I was able to pause for a second. Are you really?
 How, but how meaningful would it be if you found out your mom watched something? It would not be
 meaningful at all because I know she'd hate it. And oh, that's fair. And I don't need to put her
 through that in order for, you know, to, it wouldn't, it wouldn't bring me anything at this point
 in my life. Like I stopped expecting certain things from my family a long time ago. I don't need
 to have certain emotional needs serviced by them because I have plenty of people in my life who are
 very proud of me, unequivocally and un, in an uncomplicated way. And I just don't need that from them
 anymore. You talk about the cases when you were in college helping to reconcile you with your
 parents. Was that important to the cases to do? I think so. I think even before I thought it was
 important, they knew it was important. And they knew what would be a regret for both of us.
 If that didn't happen, how did Mr. Mrs. Casey broker? Very small ways. I mean, they talk to my
 parents when I was in high school living with them. And I refused to. They, you know, at my college
 graduation where my parents did come, they were also there. And they, you know, I think it was very
 difficult for my mom to meet them. And because because they took over. And I think had a very
 easy time with me. And I think there's a, there's a lot of different emotions there. I think part of
 it is like she felt replaced. Yeah. I think part of it was you got a good version of him. And you
 didn't have to deal with all the shit that we dealed with, right, dealt with. And, um, and yeah,
 just general weirdness is like why they were able to accept these pertinent certain parts of me
 and they weren't. You're so honest in your assessments, right? Like I've interviewed people for 25
 years. And I know what it's like for people to point this way. It's always the other person.
 But you're very honest about where you also were. Is that, is that from therapy? Definitely.
 And I think it's from life. And I think it's from distance from it. And like listen, in the
 months and years, even probably until after college, well after college, I put most of the blame on
 them. And it wasn't until honestly I started really dealing with my mental health issues now
 and understanding being bipolar and getting help for that. And you know, there's obviously
 resentment there because I think I would have been served by seeing a meant of real mental health
 professional much earlier. But you know, I give them a lot of grace because I was not an easy
 kid to raise, especially a very confusing kid for them to specifically be raising. Have you said
 that to your mom? Yeah, I think so. Yes, I definitely have. We've had conversations, especially
 around my dad's passing that, you know, I have apologized and for, you know, not being the ideal
 version of myself when they had me. And I was living there. And you know, she's definitely admitted
 that there was there was parts of how they handled me growing up that weren't as, you know,
 helpful as they could have been. But she did say that. So there is some self-recognition and
 reflection on her part. Yeah, I think though, the sort of foundation of our disagreement is always
 going to be there. And I don't think she's going to budge on that, which is like the sexuality and
 the, you know, not being a practicing Christian and blah, blah, blah. But I think they definitely
 understood by the end that they pushed me so far out of, they pushed me into leaving in certain
 ways. And I think they would have done a lot of things differently. Had we all had all of us
 would had we had had a chance to go back. But yeah, I give them a lot of grace because I just know
 the older I get and the more I understand it and the more I realize, like, not everyone sees
 the world the same and not everyone operates within the world the same. And I think it's one of
 the most difficult things to not assume that everyone is thinking about things the same way you're
 thinking about things and dealing with things the same way you're dealing with things. Once you
 realize that, I think it's easier to give people grace. I'd like to share something with you that
 someone who said in that chair said to me, Arthur Brooks, who's a thought leader, said to me. And
 I was, we were talking about relationships and I have a good relationship with my parents, but I
 said it's complicated. And I also acknowledged that, you know, for one of my parents, they get
 kind of sad when they hear me describe it as complicated. And what Arthur Brooks said to me is
 relationships are complex. And that was really an aha moment for me because I understand that
 the way my mom receives the word complicated is in a hurtful way as if she didn't do it right.
 She'll tell you she did the best she could. And I believe she did the best she could. But
 something about him using the word complex felt a little freeing and a little fairer to them.
 Do you agree? Totally. Yeah. I think it was both for me. It was complicated because it was
 complex, but I definitely think that like it is a both thing for me. Do you believe in God?
 I lean more agnostic than anything. I guess I think that there are definitely things about this
 world that have, you know, not to my satisfaction been explained well enough. And I think that there
 are things that will never be able to explain. And I think that there are aspects of our world that,
 you know, remain a mystery to me. And so I never want to come down and say like for sure that I'm
 an atheist now, I just I certainly don't believe that if God exists in the as the picture of what
 organized religion pains him to be them to me. But yeah, there's not something that I engage with
 seriously anymore. I want to come back to the bipolar. I have some questions about that. But I also
 want to for the moment go back to the person who believed in you. You guys weren't friends when she
 invited you to stay at her house. But tell me how the relationship took root and blossomed once
 you were living there. I mean, listen, we were it was not a big house. They sort of converted their
 basement into my bedroom. And it's a very strange thing to go from being acquaintances with someone
 to being their housemate. Like, you know, I think we just it was just not even I went I don't know
 if how slow of a burn it was even but we just became these people that would like sit on the porch
 and talk until late at night. And, you know, I think the more she understood where I was coming from
 the life I was coming from the life that I had. I came more into focus for her and she came more
 into focus for me. And we just learned how similar we were in so many fundamental ways. And how,
 you know, our view of the world was so similar. And it just became a very easy transition into being
 best friends. So strip away the logistics, the housing, the loans, the late night calls,
 you guys would have. What do you think she fundamentally believed about you that made all of those
 concrete acts possible? I mean, she always believed I think before anyone else that I would be
 right where I am right now. And I think her family believed that in a less maybe informed way.
 But I think once she understood not only that it was an interest of mine, but who I was as a
 person and the ways in which I would fight for that. She knew instinctually that like I would be
 doing some version of what I'm doing now. I know Mr. Casey told you that there's no biblical
 basis for hell and so God doesn't care if you're gay. Do you remember who first said you as a gay man
 or exactly who God made you to be? Do you remember who first told you that?
 I mean, he said some version of that, but I don't know that anyone has ever said that those exact
 words and it certainly would have only been Tim. It would not have been anyone in the church that
 I was going to before or and I haven't really attended church or engaged with organized religion
 sense. Because for me, I don't know if anyone said that to me, but I do remember when I came to
 realize that, but I came to believe that it meant a lot to me to believe that like, I'm exactly
 who the creator intended for me to be. Do you believe that? No, because I don't necessarily believe
 in a creator or even in predestination in that way. I think that you believe you're doing whatever
 the power that put you here intended for you to do. I think that I'm doing exactly what I am
 well suited to do and what I want to do. And I don't know that I believe in any sort of
 direction from a creator or the simulation or whatever, you know. Universe not into the, yeah.
 Okay. It knocked my socks off when I got to the part of the research where it said that Sarah
 is now an ordained minister. Yeah. She followed in her dad's footsteps. She is a methodist
 pastor. In some ways, it makes complete sense. Yeah. And she is wanted to do that since I
 knew her when in high school. Like she knew from a young age that she was called to do that. And
 yeah, I'm very proud of her. And how is she in dealing with the fact that you're agnostic?
 She must have some feeling about that. No, because I mean, her view is a pretty
 radically progressive view of God and the church and the church's role. I think like for her,
 you know, God is genderless. God is a lot of different things. You know, she still very much
 believes in the Bible as a text that provides a lot of the framework through which she
 views the world. But she is not concerned with people's belief in God. Like she is concerned
 with serving her community, feeding, including the homeless, making sure that people have a
 have a home base for the community when so many people feel lost and alone. And she, her end goal
 is not to convert people to Christianity. It's to take care of them whether or not they believe
 in God or not. This was where 2016 from her Facebook. Oh, this was our friend. This was our
 mutual roommate, Caitlin. My college roommate and her roommate in Chicago, Caitlin's wedding. Yeah.
 You went to college in Chicago? No, I went to school in Decatur, Illinois, which is about three
 hours south of Chicago. Millican? Okay. But you started if my research is right performing before
 plays in Chicago. Yeah. I mean, that was one of the many things I did. I didn't start doing that,
 but that is where it sort of grew into because I was, I moved to Chicago to do theater and started
 doing stand-ups sort of on this side as like my, you know, a creative outlet. And then slowly,
 because I was so much more involved in the theater scene than I was the comedy scene in Chicago,
 by the time I started doing comedy, I was finding ways in which to do comedy and stand-up comedy
 that didn't involve the structure of the comedy machine in Chicago. And so part of that was like
 people in the theater community knew I did stand-up and I was good at stand-up and so they would
 find these opportunities for me. So like, Stepin Wolf did a comedy one time and they had me warm
 up the crowd by doing stand-up beforehand. Oftentimes kids and I'm speaking from experience here
 who deal with a lot of pain as children stay out of the spotlight. That's the last place they want
 to be. I didn't. You didn't. Why? I'm addicted to attention and it's the only thing I've ever been
 good at. Did success come early? Like when you first audition did they say, oh yes you're the best
 come on? Or did you struggle to get people to believe in you and say you're hired? It depends on
 the level of success and what we talk about is success. Like it certainly was not, I worked a day
 job until I was probably, how old was I? In 2016, like 28, 29. And I worked full-time day jobs,
 50 hours a week, like doing open mics at night. And so I wouldn't call until I quit my day job
 is probably when I would say that's a level of success that I can really point to and be proud of.
 But there were little fits and starts and little moments of success. Like I think you have to move
 to start the goal posts in a reasonable distance away and then move them as necessary. And so I was
 definitely hitting those milestones early on in my career. But they were small. They were like, you
 know, get booked on a real show, not an open mic, get booked on, you know, get past it by this club,
 you know, like little victories were how I kept myself sane and motivated. And it was,
 you know, six years in before I had really been able to call myself a success. Did the rejection
 you faced as a child help you deal with rejection as an adult? No, I don't handle rejection
 well at all. And I don't know that there was any helping that. And it's a very different kind of
 rejection to feel. In some ways, it feels almost more personal as a professional than it does,
 than it did when, you know, I look back on my family's rejection of me. But yeah, because
 their rejection of me, it feels unfounded and silly at this point in my life. And the industry's
 rejection of me feels very pointed. So I don't know that it's I see it in a different way. It's just
 a completely different form of rejection and feeling behind that rejection. Pointed why? Because
 it's just, it feels much more personal. It's my life and it's my work and it is something that's
 deeply important to me and when to hear the amount of knows that you hear in this industry. And in
 every category of my life, from stand up to writing to acting, it feels, I don't know, I think like
 it's really easy for me to dismiss any rejection that I might have felt from my family back then.
 Fascinating. It's much harder to get over when I get a know from a casting director. Wow.
 Trying to sit with that for a minute. Like that's surprising. I just, they don't, I don't allow them.
 You put more into a casting director's know than let's say your mom and dad's. Yeah, because
 the casting director is paying my bills and getting me work. My parents have nothing to do with
 my career or my talent or anything like that. And they have less of a frame of reference to
 even judge whether or not I'm good at this. So it doesn't matter to me.
 Are you black and white? Oh, thanks. No, there's a lot of great. Yeah, lots of great. Okay,
 here's a random fact about Joel Kim. You were the 72nd employee at Groupon. Uh-huh, something like
 that. That's random. Um, I want to come back to the bipolar. You were diagnosis bipolar two
 about six months before the lockdown, the pandemic lockdown, right? How did finally getting the
 diagnosis help you just understand your past and how you had acted and showed up? It was just like
 framework through which to a new lens through which to view some of the behavior that,
 you know, at this point in my life by the time I was diagnosed was like deeply ashamed of and
 confused by and behavior that had and patterns that had persisted on into well into adult life
 and escalated and became worse. And it was a relief more so than anything to under, to have
 that framework and the lens through which to view that behavior and so many moments in my life
 made so much more sense because of it. You have said that I every time I get a new IMDB credit,
 I up my meds five milligrams. Don't remember saying that, but that is true. But you've also said that
 you can blow up your own life, but you don't want to blow up the life you have built with your
 husband. And that kind of stopped me for a moment because as I read your stuff, you're very just
 sort of like, nope, I'm done. You're, you know, you're very decisive, right? On the thing,
 but when it comes to him, there seems to be a lot of softness in a beautiful way. So tell me more
 about that, about how he keeps you accountable. It's a very fine line between doing it for him,
 keeping taking care of my mental health specifically and my overall health specifically, doing it for him
 versus doing it for me. And I think like I've had to really watch myself and make sure that it
 doesn't just be because of him and for him. And it has to be as a result of like a lot of other
 influences. And I have never really understood, I think it's like the purest form of feeling
 loved by someone is really important and life changing and transformative for me and the way I
 view my life and the way I approach my life. What's his name? John Michael. How did John meet?
 We met in Mexico in Puerto Vallarta and it was post-vaccine pre-delta. We were both very locked down
 for a year and a half and it was our first big group vacations with our, you know, friend groups and
 we met out on the first night and I have talked to him every night since. What does he do to you that
 makes things so much better? I think it's a very uncomplicated and at this point very
 unquestionable sort of love and I think I was always a very anxious, insecure person in relationships
 and in dating because I was never quite sure if I, if they loved me or liked me as much as I liked
 them or loved them. And he's the first and only person I think I've ever been with who in so many
 ways shows up and proves and you know confirms his love for me in ways that I think he means to
 and other ways that he is not even aware of. Does he, I say about my partner, he makes me more
 thoughtful, kinder, softer, sweeter and you feel the same way? Yeah, he's often the edges for sure.
 Softensy edges, yeah. We should for the moment just remind everybody you're starring in a reboot
 of scrubs, right? And you've got a podcast called Bad Dates. How's that going? Great, yeah. Scrubs
 was a lot of fun to shoot. I get to do something a little bit different than I've done in the past
 and I, you know, I was a fan of the show growing up and I think that I remain a fan of the show
 today. It is, it's very similar tone and the comedy feels very much like a full continuation of
 the tone and comedy of the old series. And Bad Dates is a lot of fun because it is very, listen,
 I consider myself an investigative journalist. So I love talking to people about things in their
 life, especially these bad dates and getting to the bottom of why the date was so bad and why people
 put themselves in these positions and put up get to the point of a bad date. And also, what
 have you learned? Give me a few tips. What have you learned? I've learned a few things. I've learned
 that women have it much harder than men and this is, this could be said of a lot of things in
 life, but specifically with regard to dating. I think women, I have learned straight women in
 particular have had to learn how to mask certain emotions and to modulate their behavior in a way
 that is palatable to not only men, but society writ large. And that has resulted in a lot of
 decisions that I think it's very easy for me to sit where I'm sitting and say that is crazy.
 And sometimes it is and I will say that, but it is also I think like it's helped me understand
 all of the various, you know, sort of contexts that lead and have led to this sharp divide. I think
 you're seeing in men and women, like women specifically, you know, skewing more progressive than
 men and that divide becoming wider and wider. And understanding, I think in talking to
 especially the straight men that I've spoken to, understanding the male loneliness epidemic and
 understanding like how difficult it is for men to find love and how like the emotional education
 that most straight men perceive is next to none. And so, you know, they're learning on the job.
 And I think like it is, you know, in a different way, very, very difficult for men to figure out
 how to be vulnerable and open enough to find success in a relationship. And gay people are doing
 all right, I would say. How has that perspective changed the way you view your own relationship?
 I'm hyper aware of how much work it is now. And I think like, you know, I always knew that people
 have been saying that for years and years and years at Nazim about relationships. But I think it
 has sort of given me a framework around which to view how to view that work. And like,
 you know, it's not necessarily, it shouldn't, it doesn't necessarily have to be hard. Work
 doesn't have to be hard, you know, and it's about like gauging. I think sometimes you get to
 the end of these some of these stories and it's like, it shouldn't be that difficult to apply
 yourself and work at maintaining a relationship. You've talked about giving grace to other people,
 your parents, namely, how good are you at giving grace to yourself? Not great.
 I have really, most of my down periods come as a result of shame or disappointment in myself
 and frustrations with myself. And it's hard for me to see myself in the same way that my husband
 sees me, for example. It's just not an easy lift. How does he see you? I think he sees me as
 or really remarkable, like kind, ambitious. He thinks I am, you know, my creative work is amazing.
 And I don't necessarily believe those things about myself all the time. You have said that you
 worry that being bipolar will affect your creativity. I worried at the start that being
 medicated for being bipolar would affect my creativity. I think that some of my most creative
 moments have been in the midst of eye-bomantic episode. And I think it's very difficult. One of
 the most difficult parts about transitioning to being medicated for this and was worrying and
 missing the mania in a lot of ways, because when I'm a man at hypomanic, yeah, I'm like, the thing
 about a bipolar two, in bipolar two, we experience hypomanic episodes, not full on manic episodes,
 which can be quite worse. But hypomania is still not a cakewalk. But I just say that to be specific.
 I'll probably refer to it as manic episode somewhere else later on the line. But if you know the
 difference, you know the difference. But when I'm manic, it is, I am oftentimes the most charismatic
 fun-loving like jovial version of myself until I'm not. And I also can be very creative in that
 period. And you know, can write for hours and hours and hours and the hits never stop. And then,
 you know, something happens that disrupts my routine or my plan for the day. And it just I snap
 and it all turns to anger and rage. And I'm no longer a fun version of myself. When that happens
 in your relationship, do you and your husband have a thing that you'll do so that he doesn't
 take it personal, maybe gives you your space and lets you kind of sit in that episode?
 Because sometimes that can, yeah, I win relationships. Yeah, definitely. I think even in the
 fog of war, I am aware of, I don't know, I try not to direct as much of it to him as I probably will.
 I'm hyper, the shittiest thing about my brain is that I'm hyper aware of who I have the currency with
 to get away with some outrageous behavior. And with him, as much as I know that he has seen the worst
 of it and, you know, is committed to standing by me through a lot of it. He is also not someone
 who is going to be a doormat about it and is very firm and has been very firm. And like,
 I understand the hurt and the pain of these moments for you, but you don't have the currency
 to treat me a certain way. And it's been a journey and it's been a lot of trial and error,
 but I think like I am hyper aware of that. And I think that even in the midst of some of my worst
 moments, I am able to really fixate my brain on how important he is to me and how much I cannot
 miss out. What do I see in your eyes? I'm trying to, I'm trying to, allergies or emotion, probably
 a little column A, a little column B. But I just think like he is, again, not the reason I take
 care of myself, but he is a huge motivating factor in making sure that I show up to be the best
 version of myself for our marriage. I'm so damn happy that that little you has got him. Yeah,
 because that little you that went through what he went through deserved a John Michael.
 Yeah, and someone who would make you feel the way he does.
 Yeah, I think I'd spent most of my life imagining what it would be like to fall in love with a person
 and I never once stopped to consider what it would be like to be loved by a person and how
 transformative that can be. And it took it takes a lot, it took a lot of therapy and a lot of time
 for me to accept it and receive it in fully. But it is one of the best feelings to just sort of let
 yourself go and feel how, like I said, transformative and safe it can feel to just let yourself
 be loved by someone else. Have you told him this? Yes, that was a very big part of my wedding
 vows. You've said the last six months of your life have been some of the most stable.
 Yeah, because of I think because of our marriage, I think my cadence with my medication,
 I found a really good balance of the right doses, the right medication. And I think like it's been
 easier to handle some of the dips and highs that come with my brain. And it has been a good mix
 of a lot of environmental factors and a lot of chemical factors. I think that have made the last
 six months a little bit easier. Would anybody in Plainfield who went to high school with you have
 thought you would have turned out to be who you are today? Not a single one. Not a single one.
 Not anyone I went to college with. Not anyone that I would die school with. I don't think
 are you still in some way trying to prove something to those people?
 You know, I think I'm trying to prove it to myself. I think more so than anything because I didn't,
 I don't, I think part of the reason no one believed that I would have arrived at this moment
 in my life is because I don't think anyone got the sense that I believed I would arrive at this
 moment in my life. Can we agree that one person did? Yes, Sarah did. But you know, so I don't blame
 anybody. And I certainly wasn't like popping off in any interesting way. I was not the most
 talented. I was not the most prolific person in high school or college. And a lot of my success has
 come as a result of yes hard work, but a lot of luck and a lot of consistency on my part.
 Let's both agree that sometimes the people who can have the biggest impact on our lives for
 the better are people who we don't seek out are people who don't necessarily seek us out.
 But people we just maybe bump into share a moment and amend it with
 and then come to realize that they are chosen family. Yeah.
 Because it seems like she's your chosen family 100% on the heels of this wonderful conversation
 we've had. What do you want her to know? It's hard. That's a hard question because I think she knows
 it was so much supposed to be easy. No, you know, I think like she and I have been are very close and
 very free with our sort of gassing each other up. And I think that she is always known
 how important her support and how how much I appreciate her support. I think like for me,
 I want her to know that like, you know, she may never get the accolades or the amount of followers
 or attention from that I will get from but I think that and I think she knows this because I have
 told this to her and told this to other people. But I think she's a rock star. I think she's a superhero.
 I think that she is someone who is doing real work in her community. Real tangible results
 of that work can be seen all over that community. And I think that she is someone who is
 actively changing the world in ways that may never get the same amount of attention or appreciation
 for the work that I do. But it is and she knows this 10 times more important. Well then how cool
 has it been for you to sit here for the better part of an hour and shine the light on her?
 Very cool. I think she consumes pretty much everything I do. So she will stumble upon this
 eventually and listen to it and I will probably send it to her. But she these stories and these things
 are not realizations for her. I think she would I think in a tongue-in-cheek way take responsibility
 for a lot of the great things in my life in my career. She will. This is her daughter. This is her
 daughter. This is as I heard that you told my producer one thing you want to do is do as much as
 you can in some way for the little girl. Yeah. Just as a way of giving back. Yeah no I mean listen
 I grew up with nothing I have more than I ever thought I would have at this point and I'll never
 like be used to not leaving paycheck to paycheck. And so if I can provide for them things that I
 never had as a kid like I'm definitely going to step up and do that. Where is Joel Can Booster in 20
 years? Hopefully at my kids middle school or high school graduation at this point and hopefully
 living a life that is less centered around self promotion and begging and scraping it and just
 getting on my knees to people to you know hopefully come and see my shows and things like that and
 like be at us at at enough of a stable point in my career that I'm not necessarily worried where
 the next mortgage payment is coming from. Regarding those kids do you dream about making their life
 the kind of life you wish you would have had all the time and you know my sister's very religious
 is raising them very religious and I just want to be able to be an outlet and a source of
 safety for them. If and when they ever want to explore the world outside of the very tiny one
 that they're that's being constructed for them. And I want to end with a picture we started with
 one for the people listening and not watching this is a photo of Joel when you were probably 27 maybe
 handsome backwards hat but with a little bit of a timid look on the face. So imagine that's
 the younger self. What would you tell that kid now? I would say you have everything figured out
 that you need to to arrive at the place that I'm speaking to you from. You know jack shit all about
 pretty much anything else. I think like continue and I would say to him that like I would caution him
 to think he knows the ending of any story in his life until he has some distance from it because
 I think that's the biggest mistake that I have made in over the course of my adulthood is thinking
 I understand the arc and the ending of a story before it's actually come to an end and making
 decisions based on what I think the ending of a story might be before I've let it run its course
 fully and had and been too close to it to understand the actual arc of it and to to maybe not
 not try to you know tie everything in a neat bow because you think it's the end of the story because
 you're too close to it. This has been 10 times better than I hope. How's it been for you? It's been great
 yeah. You've asked the right questions and you've made it very easy for me to be open. Thanks for
 coming with an open heart. Yeah definitely thanks man. I can't wait to cheer you on. You got a new
 big fan. Thank you so much. A new big fan. Hey I'm Joel Kim Booster and the person who believed in
 me is my best friend staircase. I thought you might want to know but this podcast is at the heart of
 a company I founded called Do Good Crew. I've spent 25 years telling stories. It used to be the
 bad news and now I want to focus on the good news. The everyday heroes who are doing extraordinary
 things. You can join us. We do live events but we also have a newsletter. It's free and you can
 sign up for it by going to www.TheDoGoodCrew.com. Our podcast was created by me David Begno. Our
 executive producer is Olivia Del Foss. Our booker is Sully Block. Foster Parks is our director
 of photography. Audio technical production is Joseph Gabay and Will Whitley from Static Creative.
 Our associate producer is Jonah Johnson. Our director of social media is Mariah Mall.
 The theme music for our show was created by our friends at Slipstream. Post production and
 edit was done by Longwave Digital. If this episode moved you in any way consider subscribing to
 our YouTube channel or following and rating our show on whatever platform you're listening on.
 This really is the best way to help our show grow and touch more people and we thank you for it
 and one more thing before you go. If you want to join our crew go to the DoGoodCrew.com. You'll
 love what we're doing.