Anyway, / I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. // And / the way I ended up on this path / was from a very tragic event. / I was uhm... / maybe 19, / and my girlfriend at the time / was killed in a car accident. // And I passed the accident, / and I didn't know it was her / and I kept going. // And I found out / shortly after that it was her. // And / I was living in a basement apartment. // I had no money. // I had no heat, / no air. // I had a mattress on the floor / and the apartment was infested with fleas. // And I was soul searching. // I was like, / why// is she suddenly gone / and there are fleas here? // I don't understand. // There must be a purpose. // And wouldn't it be so convenient if we could just pick up the phone and call God / and ask these questions? // And I started writing / and what poured out of me was an imaginary conversation with God, / which was one-sided. // And I finished writing it // and I looked at it and I said / to myself, / and I hadn't even been doing stand up ever. // There was no club in town. // I said, / I'm going to do this on / "The Tonight Show" // with Johnny Carson. // At the time he was the king. // And I'm going to be the first woman / in the history of the show / to be called over to sit down. // And several years later, / I was the first woman in the history of the show / and only woman in the history of the show / to sit down because of that phone conversation with God that I wrote. // And I started this path of stand up / and it was successful and it was great, / but it was hard because I was trying to please everybody / and I had this secret that I was keeping that I was gay / and I thought if people found out / they wouldn't like me, / they wouldn't laugh at me. // Then my career turned into, / I got my own sitcom / and that was very successful. // Another level of success and I thought, / what if they find out I'm gay, / then they'll never watch / and this was a long time ago. // You probably, / this was when we just had white presidents. // But anyway, / this was back / many years ago. // And / I finally / decided that I was living with so much shame / and so much fear / that I just couldn't live that way anymore. // And I decided to come out and make it creative / and my character would come out at the same time / and it wasn't to make a political statement. // It wasn't to do anything other than to free myself up from this heaviness that I was carrying around / and I just wanted to be honest. // And I thought, / what's the worst that can happen? // I can lose my career. // I did. // I lost my career. // I got, / the show was cancelled / after 6 years without even telling me. // I read it in the paper. // The phone didn't ring for 3 years. // I had / no offers. // Nobody wanted to touch me / at all. // And yet, I was getting letters from / kids that almost committed suicide, / but didn't because of what I did. // And I realized that I had / a purpose. // And it wasn't just about me and it wasn't about celebrity but / I felt like I was being punished / and it was a bad time. // I was angry. // I was sad. And then I was offered a talk show. // And the people that offered me the talk show tried to sell it and / most stations didn't want to pick it up. // Most people didn't want to buy it because they thought nobody would watch me. // And really when I look back on it, / I wouldn't change a thing. // I mean it was so important for me to lose everything / because I found out / what... what the most important thing is, / is to be true to yourself. // And ultimately, / that's... that's what's gotten me to this place. // I don't / live in fear. // I'm free. // I have no secrets. // And I know I'll always be okay / because no matter what, / I know who I am.