Down the Rabbit Hole - Holly Madison

and rereading the text. So many petty comebacks flashed through my mind. I wanted to tell her that
soon she would be the biggest running joke (Criss routinely dumped his girlfriends whenever he had a
famous fling, and many of them would come crawling back the moment it fizzled). I wanted to tell her
no one would even want to look at her face, let alone pay to see it. But mostly I wanted to tell her that
Criss lied to her about our breakup. I already knew he could be a piece of shit, but I couldn’t believe
he was sharing my private life with her! During one of our late-night talks, I had confided to Criss that
I had taken antidepressants in the past. I was never ashamed of needing help, but the fact that he
would use that information against me really pissed me off. It wasn’t right.
After taking a moment, I simply replied: “Criss lied to you. I wasn’t even on antidepressants
when we were together.” I didn’t need to prove anything to her—and who knows if she would
believe me anyway—but I wanted to say my piece. Not to mention, I wanted to take the opportunity to
scroll through my BlackBerry and find one of the many flirty texts Criss sent me six weeks earlier
when I was on DWTS (and after he had already moved her in). I selected a particularly salacious one,
typed in my response to her rant, and hit Send.
“Oh my god, what happened?” Angel asked. She had come backstage to wish me luck and
immediately registered the tears welling up in my eyes.
I read the text out loud to her and explained what happened.
“Do not let this get to you,” she said, grabbing my shoulders and looking me in the eye. “Do not
let this ruin your night. And don’t think for a second she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She knows
this is your big night. It’s all over town!”
“Thanks,” I said, sniffing back the tears, so grateful that Angel had been there at that exact
moment to say precisely what I needed to hear. “You’re right.”
I took a deep breath, stood up from my chair, pulled my shoulders back, and left my dressing
room to face the press.
(Being the “small town” that the Vegas entertainment community is, I eventually heard about the
aftermath of my response to that mean text. After reading it—and Criss’s earlier message—his
girlfriend didn’t let him escape unscathed. She apparently made an absolute scene in his dressing
room during intermission and left him, only to come crawling back later, of course. I changed my
number after that.)
Unfortunately, the night would not be without another hiccup as the show encountered some
technical difficulties. The lift that was supposed to carry the male lead and me onto the stage for my
big number wasn’t working. As the stage went dark between scenes the stagehands swept the props
(and us!) off into the wings. Quickly, I raced down the backstage stairs for my change (which
included being dried off and having my hair redone in roughly 60 seconds) before making a far less
dramatic entrance from the side of the stage. After the show, the cast laughed off the glitch and
encouraged me (still rather distressed over it) to do the same. It was somehow freeing to know that I
could survive even the most inopportune malfunctions and still manage to go on.
Despite the mean text message and the broken lift, my official debut in Peepshow couldn’t have
been more perfect! After the performance, executives hosted a gala . . . for me! While fancy parties
weren’t anything new, I felt like the toast of the town drinking champagne and hanging out with