Beauty and the Guest

Follow Chad the Diamond on all social media platforms: @chadthediamond

Follow Beauty and the Guest podcast on Instagram: @beautyandtheguestpodcast

This episode I talk to my friend Miss Iliah, and girllll, was it a good ole' time! Join Miss Iliah and I as we cackle telling each other stories from heterosexual dating woes, infatuations with unavailable coworkers, mixed sexual signals that confuse the hell out of us (ugh), to exploring gender identity and a whole many more topics our short-attention-prone minds discuss! 

(Originally recorded June 2021)

Gabriela AKA Lady Paraiso is a drag queen, performance artist, and activist using her voice to speak about trans and disability causes. She lives with Ectrodactyly which is a congenital disorder that affects the formation of her hands, feet, and skin among other things. In this episode, Gabriela shares her experience growing up with not only Ectrodactyly, but questioning her gender identity along side it. Gabriela opens up about the passing of her mother, how her Nicaraguan roots has shaped her and her family and what it has meant for her transition and disability; and she touches on her experience of being put in jail for her activism.

Today I am speaking with an inspiring and compelling person living a fascinating life with which my guest talks about in a powerful and authoritative way (that’s the most accurate way I can describe it.) I am speaking with Jay Guercio.

I am honest when I say that after I'd finished interviewing Jay, I turned my computer off and started to cry because I was that moved to live more of my own truth in regards to many things in my life, and because I was exceedingly appreciative of her mind and the love she has in her life and heart that she freely shares with others.

I found Jay on Tik Tok while scrolling though my For You feed stumbling on her viral video where she explains how she is in a platonic marriage with her female best friend raising their foster son together.

What? Yup, I had a lot of questions as you can imagine. And she answered all of them - everything from where Jay and her wife met, their 15 year old foster son, Eddie - his background, how and why Jay became his foster mom with the added dynamic of being a transracial family, to the platonic marriage itself - where Jay and Krystle even got the idea that this kind relationship could work, what roles they play as wife and wife. They are also in an open marriage and are free to date outside of the marriage so we talk about that.. and many more topics.

For me the most compelling and exciting thing about their story is not even the platonic marriage and how that all works for them, but it is this: that love is not-can not, be defined or confined to where we previously think it has to be. Love can show up in unique and new ways in our lives. And further more, the kind of love that maybe a lot of us imagine saving or curing our lives can from places we don't even know exist.

I am so proud of this interview and I hope you are moved the way I was.

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Follow Chad the Diamond on all social media platforms: @chadthediamond

Follow Beauty and the Guest podcast on Instagram: @beautyandtheguestpodcast

Follow Jay on Instagram and Tik Tok: @thelovelyjaybird

In this episode I am interviewing the beautiful and talented, Clawdeena. 

I wanted to interview Clawdeena for a number of different reasons; the first reason is because I am a fan; I live for her fashion, her makeup, her aesthetic, her bad-bitch-essence. The second reason is I’ve always admired her point of view, the way she thinks, and I am attracted to the kind of communicator she is. He thoughts are nuanced; they are of substance, and I repeatedly learn something new and valuable when I listen to her speak. The third reason is I think she lives an interesting life and has a very interesting story that I was curious to know more about.

From starting her YouTube channel at 10 years old, being bullied in school, her introduction to drag, to becoming a rising star in the beauty industry, Clawdeena is unreserved in sharing her story with me, particularly, her story of why at the height of her career as a beauty influencer, did she suddenly delete her Instagram, seemingly leaving it all behind.

Clawdeena did eventually come back to social media, but as a new kind of content creator, as someone who, in her own words, is the, “more authentic and mindful” version of herself.

This episode is about what it really looks like to choose authenticity above all else, even when it feels like you’re losing it all to choose it.

As a word of caution, the topics of self harm, sexual abuse, and suicide are talked about in this episode, so just keep that in mind if those things might pose as a trigger for you.

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Follow Chad the Diamond on all social media platforms: @chadthediamond

Follow Beauty and the Guest podcast on Instagram: @beautyandtheguestpodcast

Follow Clawdeena on Instagram: @mamadeenaofficial

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In a crisis?

Text HOME to 714741 to connect with a Crisis Counselor. 

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National Sexual Assault Hotline

800.656.4673

Available 24/7.

In this episode I talk to my good friend Stephanie Fowler.

Stephanie is a resilient person who has so much love inside of her! She exudes warmth, and I always feel included whenever I’m with her; she’s one of those people that feel so safe to be around. I want to say thank you to her for sharing what she does in this episode, as she does open up to me about the sexual abuse that happened to her starting when she was 5 years old. If this topic is something that might trigger you, we just wanted you to be aware that we talk about it.

If you have faced sexual assault and are in need of help, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline by calling 1-800-656-4673.

They’re available 24/7.

We hope you’re elevated by this episode.

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Follow Chad the Diamond on all social media platforms: @chadthediamond

Follow Beauty and the Guest podcast on Instagram @beautyandtheguestpodcast

Follow Beauty and the Guest podcast on Twitter @beautyNtheguest

In this episode I had the great pleasure of talking to someone who’s just such a delightful person; I’m talking to singer-songwriter and content creator, Jaci Butler! 

With an audience of 4.1 million followers on Tik Tok and over 750 thousand subscribers across her Youtube channels, Jaci talks to me all about her interesting career from being in a nation wide touring band starting at 12 years old, her time as a contestant on the 15th season of American Idol, the story behind why her band broke up which ultimately lead her to becoming a solo artist, to how she has amassed her large following across her Tik Tok. And later on in the episode, she opens up to me about what it’s like living with OCD. She explains the challenges that that has brought to her from a young age to adulthood, but also how she uses her story of pursuing mental health as a way to inspire others

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Follow Chad the Diamond on all social media platforms: @chadthediamond

Follow Jaci Butler on all social media platforms: @jacibutler

Follow Beauty and the Guest podcast on Instagram @beautyandtheguestpodcast

In this episode I am hanging out with my friend Roze Teeh. Roze is such a genuine and good, good friend to me and I was so excited to talk to her especially since it’d been a couple of years since we caught each other up.

We began by talking about how we met, reminisced a little bit about high school, how we were casted in our school’s theatre production of Peter Pan ( such fun times), and then we eventually get into what she’s been up to lately. Roze is 27 years old and she has never had sex; I know a lot of you will wonder, “Why has it taken her that long?” And she explains to me the reasons behind her trepidations about sex, how body image in the context of being a woman of a bigger size playing both a positive and negative role.

Roze tells me of the confidence she has built over the last few years in tandem with the things she stills has challenges with. It was so enjoyable for me to hear her story about how she made out with a random stranger at a bar citing that experience as a conscious attempt to step outside of her comfort zone.

This episode is really about what taking intentional steps to becoming confident looks like. It’s baby steps and they are all deserving of celebration! I love this episode with Roze as it reminds me that confidence building is a conscious practice. It takes time and has to be done with a lot grace towards yourself, and that we can’t let other people set timelines for when our confidence grows.

We hope you enjoy the episode and thanks for listening!

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Follow Chad the Diamond on all social media platforms: @chadthediamond

Follow Beauty and the Guest podcast on Instagram @beautyandtheguestpodcast

In this episode I am hanging out with my friend Roze Teeh. Roze is such a genuine and good, good friend to me and I was so excited to talk to her especially since it’d been a couple of years since we caught each other up.

We began by talking about how we met, reminisced a little bit about high school, how we were casted in our school’s theatre production of Peter Pan ( such fun times), and then we eventually get into what she’s been up to lately. Roze is 27 years old and she has never had sex; I know a lot of you will wonder, “Why has it taken her that long?” And she explains to me the reasons behind her trepidations about sex, how body image in the context of being a woman of a bigger size playing both a positive and negative role.

Roze tells me of the confidence she has built over the last few years in tandem with the things she stills has challenges with. It was so enjoyable for me to hear her story about how she made out with a random stranger at a bar citing that experience as a conscious attempt to step outside of her comfort zone.

This episode is really about what taking intentional steps to becoming confident looks like. It’s baby steps and they are all deserving of celebration! I love this episode with Roze as it reminds me that confidence building is a conscious practice. It takes time and has to be done with a lot grace towards yourself, and that we can’t let other people set timelines for when our confidence grows.

We hope you enjoy the episode and thanks for listening!

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Follow Chad the Diamond on all social media platforms: @chadthediamond

Follow Beauty and the Guest podcast on Instagram @beautyandtheguestpodcast

In this episode I am hanging out with my long time friend, Nicole A. Lew. Nicole is smart, funny, thoughtful, honest, animated, and someone who’s counsel I have sought and valued from my literal preteen years to now.

We talk about a number of different things. The main thing or main theme that she gets into is the concept of reimagination--what does it look like to reimagine everything in your life? To redefine who you are, what your purpose is, and what happiness or success means to you. She talks to me about the illuminating effect reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle had on her. How it’s helped her to remain in the present moment more often and how it’s quieted down her ego.

Nicole has had to change a lot of her previously held ideas about what her life should look like, the timeline of when things should happen, or specifically what things need to happen for her to be happy. Discussions like this make me happy because it gives me more of a permission to change the rules that I or other people thrust upon me. 

We hope you enjoy the episode and thanks for listening!

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Follow Chad the Diamond on all social media platforms: @chadthediamond

Follow Beauty and the Guest podcast on Instagram @beautyandtheguestpodcast

Follow Nicole on Instagram @nicolealew