Chap­ter 35 cap­tures a peri­od in my life where the con­trol of the con­ser­va­tor­ship suf­fo­cat­ed me, but I still tried to hold on to small moments of per­son­al free­dom. Liv­ing in Las Vegas and per­form­ing reg­u­lar­ly was a bit­ter­sweet expe­ri­ence. Ini­tial­ly, I loved the dry heat of the city and the feel­ing of being part of the excite­ment and luck that Vegas rep­re­sents. But that joy began to fade, as the real­i­ty of being con­trolled by my fam­i­ly and the con­ser­va­tor­ship set in. The begin­ning of my res­i­den­cy in 2013 had been thrilling, espe­cial­ly with my kids by my side, but it quick­ly became anoth­er rou­tine under some­one else’s rules. I had once felt like a star, per­form­ing with pas­sion and ener­gy, but now, it felt more like a per­for­mance for oth­ers, not for myself. The free­dom to make deci­sions about my life and career was slip­ping away as I became trapped in a cycle of liv­ing up to oth­er peo­ple’s expec­ta­tions.

Dur­ing this time, my rela­tion­ship with Char­lie Eber­sol, a TV pro­duc­er I was dat­ing, was one of the few things that brought me joy. I admired his ded­i­ca­tion to his health and well­ness, and he intro­duced me to new sup­ple­ments to help me per­form bet­ter. At first, these ener­gy sup­ple­ments seemed to be ben­e­fi­cial, giv­ing me more vital­i­ty for my shows. How­ev­er, my father didn’t approve. He scru­ti­nized every aspect of my life, from my diet to my health, and once he noticed the dif­fer­ence the sup­ple­ments were mak­ing, he decid­ed to inter­vene. Even though the sup­ple­ments were over-the-counter and harm­less, he insist­ed that I stop tak­ing them and sent me to rehab. He con­trolled every aspect of my life, from the deci­sion of where I went for treat­ment to when I could see my kids. I was sent to a facil­i­ty in Mal­ibu, where I felt iso­lat­ed and trapped, sur­round­ed by peo­ple with seri­ous drug prob­lems. The expe­ri­ence felt like a cru­el irony—my father por­trayed him­self as a car­ing, devot­ed par­ent, but his actions said oth­er­wise.

The con­ser­va­tor­ship con­tin­ued to lim­it my free­dom and auton­o­my, even after my stint in rehab. When I returned to Vegas and start­ed per­form­ing again, I was expect­ed to com­ply with every demand, despite my grow­ing frus­tra­tion. My father mon­i­tored my every move, dic­tat­ing my diet, my sched­ule, and even how I spent my time. The pres­sure to main­tain a cer­tain image was over­whelm­ing, and the con­stant sur­veil­lance made it impos­si­ble for me to feel free. I had been placed on a strict diet, eat­ing almost noth­ing but chick­en and canned veg­eta­bles, while I begged my but­ler for some­thing as sim­ple as a ham­burg­er or ice cream. The diet, which was meant to make me feel good about myself, had the oppo­site effect. I was mis­er­able, both phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. Despite my efforts to meet the unre­al­is­tic expec­ta­tions placed on me, I start­ed gain­ing weight. My father con­tin­ued to crit­i­cize my appear­ance, mak­ing me feel inad­e­quate and ugly. The toll this took on my men­tal health was dev­as­tat­ing.

This con­stant crit­i­cism of my body made me feel like I had no con­trol over it. My fam­i­ly, espe­cial­ly my father, treat­ed my body as though it were pub­lic property—something to be scru­ti­nized, con­trolled, and used for prof­it. Despite the pub­lic facade of my suc­cess, behind closed doors, I was strug­gling to main­tain my sense of self-worth. My fam­i­ly enjoyed the lux­u­ries I pro­vid­ed, stay­ing in beau­ti­ful homes and enjoy­ing extrav­a­gant vaca­tions, while I was left starv­ing, both phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly, and work­ing tire­less­ly to meet their demands. I tried to pro­vide for my fam­i­ly, buy­ing them homes and cars, but they took it all for grant­ed, nev­er acknowl­edg­ing that it was my hard work as an artist that made it pos­si­ble. This lack of appre­ci­a­tion deep­ened my feel­ings of iso­la­tion and resent­ment. It became clear that my cre­ativ­i­ty, once a dri­ving force in my life, was being sti­fled by the con­trol and manip­u­la­tion of those clos­est to me.

Over time, I began to ques­tion why I con­tin­ued to allow myself to be treat­ed this way. My body had become a source of shame instead of pride, and my artis­tic expres­sion had been sup­pressed. I had lost touch with my cre­ativ­i­ty, and it was heart­break­ing to real­ize that my fam­i­ly had played a sig­nif­i­cant role in this. The more I gave, the less I received in return. The con­trol exert­ed by the con­ser­va­tor­ship and my fam­i­ly had tak­en away my abil­i­ty to freely express myself. I began to feel trapped in a life that I didn’t choose, where every deci­sion was made for me, and my dreams were slow­ly being crushed under the weight of oth­er people’s desires. My spir­it was bro­ken, but I knew some­thing had to change.