David Roche on Reclaiming Humanity Beyond Appearance

What happens when the thing the world notices first about you becomes the very thing that teaches others how to see? In this deeply moving conversation, Bernadine Fox sits down with David Roche, a celebrated storyteller, disability arts pioneer, and recipient of the Order of Canada. 

This is a re-air of a 2022 interview done in Memory of David who recently passed away.  Born with a facial difference, David spent decades challenging the assumptions people make about beauty, worth, disability, and belonging. Together they explored the hidden ways our culture equates beauty with goodness and difference with danger—from Hollywood villains marked by scars to the everyday biases that shape how we see ourselves and others. David reflected on a life that has taken him from childhood innocence and devastating rejection to activism, performance, recovery, and international recognition. Along the way, he offered a powerful reminder that every one of us carries a hidden sense of being "not enough" and that healing begins when we stop hiding those parts of ourselves. Warm, funny, insightful, and profoundly human, this conversation asked us to look beyond the face we present to the world and consider what it means to truly belong. It is ultimately a story about resilience, community, and discovering that our greatest differences may also be our greatest gifts.

Music by Shari Ulrich, Christina Acquilara, and Joni MItchell

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