A father's disappointment can be a very powerful tool.
A phone call from Click sent me into the clouds. They agency had booked me for a gigl Saturday afternoon. They needed a guy with nice abs for a couple of hours.
By the time I reached middle school, I was actually learning to think for myself.
By the time I was 8 years old, sports had pretty much taken over my life.
Calvin had finally taken a look at the ET tape, and he had reacted just as she had expected he would. He loved it; he loved me. Suddenly he was thinking of me for everything: underwear, jeans, suits, even the Escape fragrance campaign.
Carolyn was an enemy of exercise.
Ever since my Clavin Klein underwear campaign, I've wanted to create and design my own underwear line.
I began to believe the fairy tales: You know, how we're all out there looking for our magical missing half.
I broke a few streetlights in my day. I lobbed snowballs into passing cars and made crank calls every now and then.
I didn't have much experience with television, and I was nervous. Within days, I was in the swing of it. I was an actor.
I didn't know a damn thing about style.
I didn't think I was particularly good-looking. I certainly didn't think I looked anything like the men in magazines.
I focused on school and raked in the plaudits. Most Popular. Best Looking. Best Personality. Best Dressed. Teacher's Pet.
I grew up in a three-bedroom, two-story home in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and that's where I went to recover.
I guess that's what I was: a set of abs. And they lit the abs and shot the abs and sent the abs on their way. The photographer didn't look at my face once. I was humiliated.
I have always wanted a big family-a family like mine-and suddenly I couldn't get the idea of family out of my head.
I like parties, but I'm shy, and I often find myself standing around, feeling awkward.
I never learned to ignore the hot lights and the giant fans. And it all seemed so ridiculous. Run in place. Look angry. Look at me like you love me.
I spent two weeks prancing around a studio in Queens in my underwear with nine other guys. They were long days. But what the hell, it was Calvin Klein.
I too have my own demons, and I have struggled. I've made my own mistakes, and I'm not proud of them.
I took the rolled-up dollar bill, leaned over the mirror, and inhaled a line of coke. It was strangely electrifying. And fast. I was suddenly grinning like an idiot.
I wanted to grow up to be just like my father.
I wanted to marry a girl just like my mom.
I was a good student and proud of it.
I was going to get the Carolyn Bessette story out of her one way or another.
I wasn't even 20 at the time, but it taught me something about drugs. They can take a good man, a warm, funny, loving family man, and turn him into a loser and worse.
I'd been around women who put me down, made me feel bad, or said things to fuel my insecurity.
I'd gone to Manhattan to become a model.
It struck me that what I'd heard about certain celebrities was true: they had It, whatever the hell It was. Star power isn't a myth; it is tangible and forceful.
It was pretty awful. Me, son of a cop, getting arrested for disturbing the peace.
My father was a sergeant with the Connecticut state police. My mother was a hairstylist.
New York is tough on lonely people.
Sexually speaking, I was still a kid-and a shy kid at that. I'd gotten off to a late start, and I remained awkward around women.
Thank God for little miracles, right?
The fact is, my parents loved me, and I wanted to be worthy of their love. I wanted to make them proud.
The people on Baywatch were about as nice a group of people as I had ever worked with.
We live in a kissy society.
We were a loud, extended family. My grandparents had a store in downtown Waterbury called International Foods, and my grandmother runs it to this day.
We're all pretty ordinary on paper.
What was it about Carolyn that made her so cautious about revealing herself?
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