Roy Wood Jr.

You know, I enjoyed laughter.

Laughter was an escape because...

You know, we moved to Birmingham from Memphis when I was in the third grade and I was never in the same school system for more than two years until high school.

So every two years I'm having to meet new people and humor was the easiest.

If I make this person laugh, he's not going to fuck with me.

So let me figure out how to make people laugh.

And it wouldn't even necessarily be the bully in the classroom.

You identify the bully, but you identify who the bully's cool with, and then that's the person you go get cool with.

And then by proxy, maybe you get the bully off your back.

So...

You know, for me, humor was more of a defense mechanism than anything.

But it just came naturally.

I mean, I play sports, but I wrote the bench.

So you just you're alone in your thoughts.

Just the PTSD of existing as a black man in that time, right?

So it's like, okay, I can look at him and see that he's

Not well, most of the time.

So you either cope with that with drugs or alcohol or, in his case, women.

Like, that was the escape.

Like, you have to have.