3

I’m Jennifer Joyner, and I’m Not on TV

JANUARY 1994

If I’m really quiet, maybe no one will hear me. I listen as high heels click-clack on the tile floor, making their way to the stall on the far side of the television station’s public bathroom. Whoever she is, she’s fast. Just barely a minute, and she’s already done her business, flushed, and is now washing her hands. I imagine her fixing her hair in the mirror as I hear the clang of bangles coming together. One of the anchors, no doubt. I pray that her primping will be brief, and mercifully, it is. The nameless, faceless woman click-clacks her way out the door, and once again I am alone, huddled down in a stall.

I’m ready for the tears to come—am willing them out of me—but curiously, nothing. I know the cry is there; the sorrow building in my chest threatens to cut off my very breath. I just want it out, I just want to release it, be free of it, make it finally happen so I can begin to let it go. But … nothing. Can’t make myself cry. Can’t feel the pain anymore. I’m numb.

I start to go over the events of the last hour, hoping the recollection will make the dam burst. I arrived at work a little before 5:00 p.m., ready for my evening shift as a reporter for WPDE-TV in Florence, South Carolina. It was only a part-time job, but I was just twenty-one years old, a junior in college. I wasn’t even out of school yet, and I’d already landed an on-air television gig. Everyone told me that was unheard of, that my future was as bright as they come. Funny … there’s nothing bright as I sit alone in a dingy bathroom trying to make myself sob.

My assignment this evening is to cover a PTA meeting at a local high school. It makes me chuckle when I think of how people think the life of a TV reporter is glamorous; I was going to spend my night in a school cafeteria, trying to get parents to talk to me about the rising rate of student violence. I was going to drive myself to the story (and I was horrible with directions), lug about forty pounds of camera equipment all alone, and shoot and edit the story myself, all on a 10:00 p.m. deadline. Glamorous? Hardly. Stressful? Unbelievably so, especially when you consider the current state of my affairs: I had just hit two hundred pounds. I was constantly paranoid that my bosses would fire me at any minute; after all, how many fat people do you see on TV? I felt their eyes on me as I walked around the newsroom, and I tried to brush it off, tried to feel better by reminding myself I had been good all week. I was limiting my calories, sticking to diet sodas, and watching my portion sizes. I had managed to walk a couple of miles at the campus track three times that week and had plans to do it again the next day. I hadn’t yet stepped on the scale, but I was starting to feel somewhat confident in my efforts. Surely this would work! In no time I would lose the twenty pounds I’d gained since I started working there, and I would keep right on losing. My career would be set, and I would be so happy, finally so fulfilled. I keep telling myself that as I work, trying to avoid the prying eyes of the newsroom.

Because my meeting doesn’t start until 7:00 p.m., my job is to help everyone prepare for the 6:00 p.m. newscast. Again, say good-bye to all the glamorous television news life theories—that prep work includes ripping apart scripts and sorting them into piles for the news and sports anchors, as well as for the director and producer of the show. I am also asked to run the teleprompter for the newscast—meaning I have to sit off to the side of the set and operate the conveyor belt that carries the words the anchors read on-screen. It is mind-numbing work, but I just chalk it up to paying my dues. I settle into the cold studio for what I expect will be an uneventful newscast.

Five minutes in the scurrying begins. Our weather anchor originated out of another studio hundreds of miles away in Myrtle Beach, but the feed for his shot is down. Everyone scrambles, trying to find a replacement, someone who can do the weather at the last minute, from our studio. “Go find Steve Hawley! He’s done weather before!” One of the anchors calls out during a commercial break. A moment later Steve rushes into the studio, out of breath. “I didn’t bring my jacket today!” He has a shirt and tie, but because he’d helped sports earlier, he doesn’t have his blazer. We all look at each other helplessly as the floor manager ticks down how long we have until the commercial break is over. “Thirty seconds!”

Steve looks over at me, reluctantly. As he starts to walk over, I’m confused. How can I help? “Twenty seconds!”

Steve picks up the pace. “Jennifer!” he whispers, urgently. “I need your jacket!”

I don’t have time to be embarrassed, humiliated. And I suppose I don’t think to be right away. Time is of the essence, and I’m in a hurry to help any way I can. I jump up from the teleprompter station and take off my black blazer. It isn’t until Steve throws it on, and not only does it fit, but it is a little loose, that the lump starts to form in my throat. Steve is not a small man; he is over six feet tall and has a nice masculine build. The fact that my jacket fits him makes my cheeks flush and my eyes smart instantly. Everyone in the studio looks away immediately, suddenly very busy with getting into place and shuffling papers. Steve makes it over to the weather wall just as the floor manager ticks down the final seconds with his hand. Crisis averted. The show goes on.

I sit at my teleprompter station, and, as discreetly as I can, untuck the purple shell out of my black skirt. No need to add to my humiliation by having the fat rolls once disguised by my jacket now on display. Tears threaten to spill over, but I can’t allow it. What has happened is bad enough; I don’t want to add to my humiliation at this point.

The weather segment ends, and Steve walks over to me, sheepishly. With as little fanfare as possible, he takes off the jacket and hands it over. “You’re a lifesaver!” he says, a little too enthusiastically. I beam up at him, my smile equaling his banter. “No problem!” I reply. He quickly shuffles out, and I quickly put the coat back on as discreetly as I can.

The rest of the newscast is a blur. I bite my lip and focus on the teleprompter belt, pushing the tears as far down as I can. My face feels hot, and I can’t look at anyone. When the final credits wrap, I bolt.

I already feel as though I could be fired at any minute because of how I look, and this certainly doesn’t do anything to boost my confidence. I’m a rookie reporter with limited experience, and my weight is definitely an issue. How long can it be before they let me go? Every day I fear I will get called into the news director’s office and given the boot. I’m incredibly anxious, and my anxiety drives me to eat. It’s a vicious cycle.

It was a miracle I was even in a newsroom in the first place. Growing up chubby and with low self-esteem, you wouldn’t think I would conclude that broadcast journalism was the perfect career choice for me. Indeed I feared from the beginning my looks would be a sticking point, a fact that I would have to work around. But I’d always known since I was a little girl that I wanted to be a reporter. I can remember starting my own newspaper when I was nine years old, the Neighborhood Observer. I would ride around on my purple bike with the pink basket, gathering news stories about the Walkers’ cat who was missing or the exchange student staying at the Davenport house. I’d type up the stories and deliver them to my neighbors, ringing the doorbell and running away in my shyness. As a freshman in high school, I became the representative of my high school for the Saturday page of the local newspaper—a real job that paid real money! News just fit with me, it felt natural.

Public speaking also came very naturally to me. I couldn’t hold a tune, and acting wasn’t my thing, so instead of singing or performing, I was always chosen to host school choir events or serve as narrator for school plays. In high school I got to make the announcements on the loudspeaker every afternoon, something that gave me such a rush. I really enjoyed being the one telling people what was going on.

Around my junior year of high school I put the two skills together and decided I should go after broadcast journalism. I knew I had reporting skills, and everyone told me I had a good voice. I also knew that my looks were average at best, and my weight was an issue. But back then it wasn’t too hard to imagine that I could be on television. Not everyone looked like a Barbie doll, and I just figured my skills and hard work would make up for any physical shortcomings. I found a college with an excellent broadcast journalism department and I went for it.

As a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, I shined. The school ran its own television station, and I immediately set my sights on being a news anchor. It was a small enough program that I got my audition pretty quickly. I tried out for weatherperson, and I nailed it. I was ecstatic when I got the job and thrilled that I was on my way to realizing my dream.

I have WPSU-TV to thank for my first real on-air job; I also have the television station to thank for introducing me to my future husband! Michael was a senior and a whiz at all things technical. I was miserably inept at running the equipment, and Michael took me under his wing and helped me out. I was head over heels in no time, and by the end of my freshman year, we were inseparable.

My sophomore year I heard about the Florence job and felt I had to try to get it. The pay was extremely low and the distance was great, but I knew it was an amazing opportunity, one that I had to at least give a shot. I was about 180 pounds at the time, my journey of real weight gain just beginning. I was ashamed of my appearance, but I didn’t let it stop me. I bought the best size-16 suit I could find, and I got my hair professionally styled for my job interview. I went in and tried not to vomit from fear as the news director led me to his office. He was a very nice man, and we talked easily. He suggested I go up on the anchor desk and try reading from the teleprompter. An impromptu audition, if you will. I practiced deep breathing as I sat and waited for the lighting to be adjusted. Soon I was given a cue, and I read the script. It was a good audition. I felt great about my delivery, and I thought things were going pretty well.

The news director came out of the booth and joined me at the desk. “You are a natural,” he said, and I beamed. My instincts were right; I was made for this kind of job! I was still shining when he leaned in to talk to me more quietly. “Can I give you some advice?” he asked. I nodded eagerly, waiting to soak in any and all information that would help me fulfill my dream. “You may want to try sitting at a slight angle,” he said, still talking low so that the others in the crew couldn’t hear him. I must have looked confused, because he went on to explain. “When I was a reporter, I was quite heavy,” he started slowly. “When I was on the air, I learned to sit at an angle so I didn’t look so broad to the viewer,” he smiled warmly and patted my arm. I nodded and swallowed hard. I had hoped my looks, and especially my weight, wouldn’t be a factor this early in the game. And I had thought the interview had gone so well. But clearly the news director was so distracted by my girth that he was forced to give me this advice. As he led me back into the newsroom, I steeled myself to receive the bad news: I wasn’t going to get the job. I was simply too fat.

Surprisingly I was wrong. The news director offered me the job on the spot. I tried not to look too surprised as I happily accepted. I did it! I actually landed a real job at a real television station! Despite my looks! For a moment I was on cloud nine.

The moment didn’t last very long. I was paranoid from the moment I started working there, surrounded by gorgeous, skinny twentysomethings who, like me, were hungry to get their careers started, but didn’t face the physical challenges I did. My female coworkers wore cute tailored jackets and skirts; I struggled to find size-18 clothes that were suitable for me to wear on the air and didn’t make me look as though I was wearing a circus tent. We all had to shoot our own stories, and it was physically taxing to lug around all the camera equipment. I would return to the station, huffing, puffing, and sweating from an evening of gathering news, hoping no one noticed my ill-fitting clothes or red, slick-with-perspiration face. One of the interns in the station told me that a reporter from a competing station had stopped him to ask about me, referring to me as “the healthy new reporter.” I laughed it off, but boy did it sting, and I began to imagine that everyone was talking about the fat new girl, wondering how she’d landed the job. While my weight hadn’t kept me from getting hired, I just knew that it would eventually cost me my job. And the more I worried, the more I ate … and the cycle continued. I just couldn’t get a grip.

My dream was to be a television reporter. But the reality of the dream was like living a nightmare—it was physically difficult to do the job, and the mental toll of carrying around such anxiety was more than I could bear. Every day when I went to work, I expected to be called into the news director’s office and be fired. I honestly felt I was just as good as any reporter there, but my issues with my appearance undermined my confidence at every turn. In the end, convinced it was the only way to save a shred of dignity, I quit. I’d only worked the job for thirteen months, and it broke my heart to give it up, especially under those circumstances. I just felt I had no other choice. I told my news director I needed to concentrate on finishing school and on my new marriage. I didn’t mention my mounting weight, and thankfully, neither did he. He wished me well, and that was that. I left the job I had wanted more than anything.

I was sad to leave and ashamed that I was unable to get my weight under control and keep the job. But I honestly felt like it was a temporary setback; I never once, at that time, thought my television career was over. I just needed to retool, refocus, and get my life together. I was not doing well in school, having spent so much time on the road to my out-of-town job. And my brand-new marriage needed some tending to, as well. I calmed my fears by telling myself that this was a temporary sabbatical from the pursuit of my dreams.

As part of getting my school career back on track, I had to find an internship. I felt a little silly applying to a television station for a job; now that I had been paid to report, how could I go and work in an unpaid capacity, doing jobs that I thought were clearly below my skill level? Instead I decided to apply at a local radio station. Our broadcasting program had little in the way of hands-on radio training, and I thought it would be good to try my hand at it. Plus the station was only twenty minutes from my house, a far cry from the huge commute of the television station. In the end I thought it would be an easy way to earn my internship credits and possibly learn a bit as well.

I ended up staying for five years.

The station had an oldies format on its FM side, and a sister AM station played adult contemporary music. At first all I had to do was log commercial times and help answer phones, nothing at all to do with actual broadcasting. But it didn’t take long to meet and get to know all the nice people who worked there, most of whom were more than willing to show me around the soundboard. Once my bosses learned of my news experience, I was given the chance to give morning news reports on the AM station. I had to get up at the crack of dawn, but I felt once again like I was doing something I was meant to—reporting and announcing news. And it was radio, so my appearance didn’t matter! How refreshing that was—I could show up and not feel so self-conscious about how I looked. After the internship was over, I was offered a full-time job, making very little money. They wanted me to do news reports for both the AM and FM stations in the morning and then handle the station’s public affairs responsibilities. Another full-time job, and I wasn’t even out of college. I felt very lucky, even though I still viewed the situation as temporary. After all, I wanted to be a television reporter—radio didn’t make my pulse quicken. And news, to me, was only big in pictures, not just words. Still, I took the job and was excited to be back on the air.

I graduated college and was as heavy as I’d ever been, approaching 250 pounds. Focusing on my classes and the shorter commute to the radio station didn’t help my situation as I’d hoped they would. I still overate and didn’t exercise, always promising to do better the next day. With my degree in hand, I felt pressured more than ever to hurry up and get my television career restarted—but I couldn’t get myself going on any significant weight loss. I stayed at the radio station and right after graduation they added to my duties: They wanted me to cohost the morning show on the FM oldies station.

I was twenty-three years old. It was strange, to me, to be on an oldies station. I had nothing against Elvis Presley or the Beatles, but that was my dad’s music. Plus I was a newswoman—I never really saw myself as a laugh-and-cackle morning gal who told jokes and spun tunes. But it was a job, and I was in no shape to look for another one. Plus they gave me the title of news director, and I was still able to do the news for both stations. Again telling myself it was only temporary, that I would do it only until I could lose the weight and get a “real” job, I took it.

The job was a lot of fun. My on-air partner, Larry Smith, was one of the nicest guys you could ever meet, and we had a great rapport. Off air he totally supported my reporting ambitions and always tried to encourage me to lose the weight and get back in the TV game. He was the consummate radioman, and that show meant a great deal to him. I have a lot of guilt about not supporting him in his dreams. You see, on the one hand, being on the radio was great for someone like me: I had a nice voice, and I found it easy to laugh and joke on the air with my buddy Larry. We built an audience, and I had my share of fans, particularly male listeners who would call and talk about how beautiful I sounded and how they would love to see what I looked like. The fact that they couldn’t see me allowed me to live in a sort of fantasy world, where I was beautiful and desirable.

But eventually fantasies die and reality sets in. In order for our morning show to grow, we needed to promote it—to hit the streets and meet our listeners in person. I was scared to death. I honestly felt those loyal fans would take one look at me and never listen to our show again. The fantasy would be over, and everyone would know the reality of what I had become physically. I couldn’t handle the humiliation, so I refused to help promote the show. I used the excuse that they were paying me peanuts, and really, that was the truth. The extra hours I would have spent making appearances would have gone unpaid. But the people who tuned in every morning and supported our show deserved more, and I certainly owed it to Larry to help him in every way he had helped me. In the end I couldn’t face it, and the show suffered, as did our friendship. We lasted several years, and we’re still friends today, but I will always regret how I handled that situation (add that to the big pile, I suppose).

I wasn’t having much success in the weight-loss department, but I never gave up hope that I would make it back onto TV. I also wasn’t getting any younger, and I started to worry that if I didn’t do something soon, I was going to lose my window of eligibility. There’s no written rule that older women can’t be television reporters, just as there is nothing in writing that says overweight women can’t be on TV. But I think it’s safe to say the deck is definitely stacked against heavier and/or older females.

Then I saw an opportunity to get back into TV—not as an on-air reporter, but with a station I greatly loved and admired. It was an entry-level position at the Fayetteville bureau of WRAL-TV, the CBS affiliate out of Raleigh/Durham, where Michael had worked as a news photographer for the last several years. I knew I could go in and wow them with my skills. I figured once I lost the weight they would gladly put me on the air. I know this all sounds so unrealistic, but to me, it was quite real and within my grasp. My afternoon job would be in Michael’s office, supporting the stories that he and his reporter were working on. I would be doing double duty, because I still worked at the radio station early in the morning. My schedule would be packed, but I figured that was a good thing; no time to eat, right? Right.

Being back in television felt like home. News was my primary focus, and it was where I felt my strengths were. And I worked for an awesome station, with some of the best reporters in the business. I learned so much about news gathering and ethics and journalism, there was no doubt this was my passion. I gave up the radio job so that I could work full-time as an assignment editor at the main station in Raleigh. It was a two-hour commute every day, but I loved it, and I honestly felt it was a means to an end. I still, even after all of that time, felt I would lose the weight and make it on the air. I was already impressing everyone with my work; once I got my appearance in order, I would be well on my way.

The job was wonderful, but it was very stressful. I was in charge of the assignment desk, which is the nucleus of the television newsroom. I helped decide what stories we were going to cover and how we would cover them; I reacted to breaking news with our many resources, including satellite trucks and a helicopter. I had to manage a staff of reporters and photographers and find content for multiple newscasts a day plus our 24/7 news Web site. It was a busy, busy time. I should have lost weight with no problem. But again I used the stress and the commute to my disadvantage, turning to food to calm me down and pass the time riding home. Every day I sent reporters out on stories that I knew I could cover well, that I could tell in a meaningful way. But I just couldn’t seem to make it happen. I was beginning to finally face reality: My dream of returning to on-air reporting was starting to slip away.

And then something really strange happened. Our television station also had an FM radio station that played adult contemporary music and had a locally produced morning show. The news was provided by anchors at the television station, which was a hard thing to manage. Those anchors had speaking engagements and other responsibilities, so making it in to do radio in the morning was difficult. Word got around that I had worked in radio for years, and I was asked if I wanted to fill in. I would be paid overtime, which was excellent money, plus I would be able to return to on-air reporting. I was thrilled! I filled in several times and was complimented by many people. The extra money was terrific, and it was exciting to be back on the air.

All of a sudden, though, there was a problem. When I did these newscasts, they were live, from a booth at the television station. I wore headphones, and I plugged in and waited for my cue, much like I had done for years at the oldies station in Fayetteville. But then one day I found myself really, really nervous. This perplexed me. I had done this so many times before, not just at the oldies station, but here for the big station, too. Why was I scared? But as the commercials wrapped up and the music started to play for my intro, my heart was pounding and my palms were sweating. I went to speak, and I barely had any breath. I sounded truly rattled on the air—it was clear something was wrong. I finished as fast as I could, and the phone immediately rang. It was the morning show crew from their studio across town wanting to know if I was okay. I didn’t know what to tell them—I myself couldn’t explain what had happened. I just made something up—told them I lost track of time and had to run to the booth and was out of breath. They bought the excuse just fine and said they’d “see” me at my next cut-in, which was in thirty minutes.

I tried to calm myself down, but nothing worked. As the next newsbreak approached, I thought I would pass out from the lack of oxygen; I was that scared. The commercials ended, the music cued … and I froze. I couldn’t say anything. I turned off my mike and listened to the few seconds of horrible silence in my headphones before the radio crew dumped out and went to commercial. I was stunned. I could not believe what had happened—and worse, I couldn’t figure out what to tell them. The phone rang again, and I didn’t have to fake a feeble voice when I answered. I lied, saying I’d thrown up right before airtime and couldn’t make it back. They sympathized and said they hoped I felt better. I was so relieved there were no more scheduled cut-ins for that morning; there was no way I could face that fear again.

I struggled with that stage fright for the next several months. Sometimes I filled in and was perfectly fine; other times, without any real explanation, I was scared out of my mind. No one ever said anything to me, but I finally couldn’t take it anymore. The stress and the fear were too much, and I told my boss that the extra hours were just too hard. I no longer wanted to fill in. Once again my on-air career was over.

It was around this time that I seriously started to realize I would never make it back on the air. I was heavier than ever, now approaching three hundred pounds. I was also getting close to thirty years old, and I should have been getting street-reporting experience for a good ten years by now. And with the unexplained stage fright, I started to consider that this dream just wasn’t going to happen. It made me incredibly sad.

I still loved journalism, though, and I excelled at my job on the assignment desk. I was promoted to assignment manager, and I developed real leadership skills that were noticed by my superiors. I started to consider a career in news management, possibly becoming a news director one day. It was a lofty goal, but I felt I had the skills and drive to pull it off. Plus my weight didn’t matter.

Or did it?

As I made my way in the corporate world, I was more self-conscious about my size than ever. It undermined my self-confidence, and I believe it kept me from pursuing opportunities. Again, when you have a weight problem, you are screaming to the world that you have issues. There is no hiding the fact that you have a problem. I constantly wondered and worried about what others thought about me, and I was very paranoid. That worry kept me from doing as well as I could have. So much of making it in business and management is political. You have to know the right people and make good impressions. You’re constantly thrust into situations where you have to be “on” … where you have to exude confidence, even when you don’t necessarily feel it. As I slowly moved up the ranks, I found myself invited out to lunch with the head honchos, and I can’t tell you how incredibly self-conscious I was. First, I never knew what to order. I felt if I ate modestly, I would draw more attention to myself, like whom was I kidding? A chef salad? Yeah, right! And I always worried about the seating arrangements—just sitting next to people at a table made me feel so big and awkward. And Lord help me if there was a booth I had to squeeze into. Hard to be full of confidence when the table is jabbed into your huge stomach, or God forbid, when others are watching as you try to slide your big ass off the vinyl seat at the end of the meal. It sounds funny, and I suppose I can find some humor in it now, but trust me—back then, it was terrifying.

I was really good at my job, but I was horrible at the social responsibilities that go along with making it in business. I would avoid the company Christmas party every year. What in the world was I to wear? It was a black-tie affair, and most of my female coworkers would arrive in strapless gowns with slits up to there and stilettos. The only size-24 options for me were grandmother-of-the-bride-type selections. One year I found a black and gold long-sleeved sequined jacket and a long black velvet skirt. The jacket was kind of low cut, and I had to buy a special bra to try to create some somewhat attractive cleavage. Truly, I just wanted to crawl under a rock, but I knew I had to go, so I made the best of it. As I got ready for the evening, I tried to convince myself I was young and beautiful and glamorous, but the reality was anything but. The special bra nearly cut off my circulation, and the acts of contortion I had to perform to get into the shimmery off-black Just My Size pantyhose were nothing short of breathtaking. I tried not to be bitter as I considered the fact that the entire outfit cost me almost $500, and I didn’t even want to go! I spent the evening smiling and laughing and trying to talk to all the right people. But inside I was mourning the fact that I was dressed way beyond my twenty-eight years—and trying to ignore that I was about to pop out of my 3X top.

The price of being fat was sky-high for me in so many ways. It had robbed me of my dream of being an on-air news reporter. When I settled for wanting to make it in news management, my size kept me from feeling the confidence I needed in order to succeed. As I failed in my career, suffered in my marriage, and started wanting nothing more than to hide from the entire world, I began to realize there was no hiding, no escape. Being morbidly obese affects every single aspect of your life. And to me, there was no way out.