Liza Soberano: Mind Your F**king Business!

Do you wanna, um, formally announce something right now? My fucking goodness! Yeah! Cheers.

How are you feeling right now?

Scared.

Scared?

Can I come in? This is the first time in doing this. This is day three for us where my heart is just, it's really choked up. My chest feels like it's tight and I can't actually take deep breaths into my belly

and I know it's because of the weight of what we're about to talk about. Liza, when we first spoke, I asked you, are there parts of you you feel are misunderstood by the world? There is nothing that could have mentally prepared me

for what you're about to share with us. You broke my fucking heart. You have survived the unimaginable, things no child or no human should ever have to endure. The weight of your trauma is severe, it's complex, and it's ongoing.

You experienced a life of exploitation, silence and survival. I'm saying this because I know we won't be able to touch on everything today. You survived so much suffering and I need everyone here in this room

and who's listening to understand we are sitting with a goddamn warrior. Thank you for trusting me to hold this space, to hold this container for your truth. Let's just take it slow. I want you to close your eyes right now and breathe into the space. Take yourself to day one. Let's just take a few breaths here. Let's take a deep inhale and hold for five. And exhale.

I'm already crying. Sorry. Alright. Can you take us to your origin story? Where were you born? What did home feel like for you in your earliest years? I was born in the UK. I was born in the UK. I was born in the UK.

I was born in the UK. Can you take us to your origin story? Where were you born?

What did home feel like for you in your earliest years? My origin story? So I was born in Santa Clara, California, January 4th, 1998. And I was born to Jacqueline and John. My mom was 18 at the time and my dad was 22.

And they both came from very different worlds, culturally, just literally like physically, they grew up in two different countries. But the one thing that they had in common was they were so misguided. And so when I was born, these two kids, they were still children, they just... And I feel like I'm giving them excuses right now and that's what I always do, but they just, they literally didn't know what to do.

They were working multiple jobs to make ends meet. My mom sadly had like a really bad addiction to crystal meth. And my dad, he was a chemist, among many other things. And so they were kind of like this Bonnie and Clyde duo, not really thinking about the consequences for me.

And soon after, they got pregnant with my little brother.

I was not even one yet and then

something along the way happened. My dad had a girlfriend and a baby with that girlfriend before my mom and she had filed for a restraining order against him. My dad had visited them and a big fight ensued and eventually my dad got arrested. And because he had so many different cases filed against him, one was for making drugs, two was for carrying illegal firearms, and three was trespassing and not following the restraining order.

My dad eventually got deported, and so my mom was left with just me and my brother, not really knowing what to do, not really having a plan. And her addiction got worse because she was even using while she was pregnant with my little brother. And so my little brother was born addicted to crystal meth.

And yeah, that's kind of where it all started.

You don't have any memory of those years, do you?

I actually do, and I think it's kind of crazy because it comes to me in flashes, like in very vulnerable moments, like a sense will get triggered and I can remember these moments. And these memories have been validated by the things that a lot of the grownups around me have told me. I think my earliest memory of kind of all

this trauma was when my mom, after my mom and dad broke up. My mom started dating this guy named Michael and this guy was really bad news. I don't even know how long they dated for but there was a moment where, and I only know this because family told me, but I remember specific moments during that experience. He had stolen a minivan from off the street, and then he took me, my mom, and my little brother, and I was probably, yeah, I was two at the time. My brother was one. And I always had like a very

strong personality, even as a kid, I feel like. So the earliest memory I have is me trying to get out of a car seat. Why? Because every night they would sleep in the back of the van, my mom, Michael, and my brother.

And I was left alone in a car seat. And then I realized, I put two and two when another memory came to me when I was much older. There was a moment when I tried to escape from the van. I was like a two-year-old, but obviously, like, I didn't know how to get out of a car seat at that age. So I remember one morning, I woke up and I just somehow knew how to unbuckle my car seat.

And I remember I was making a run for it because at this point we were missing for a few days. I don't know how long, but my mom's family had already filed for a missing persons report and so we were actually on the news and everything for kidnapping. And so I ran out of the van and I can only run so far right? I'm a baby, I'm a toddler. And then I remember Michael scoops me up. He woke up when I got out of the van. He carried me

and he brought me back to the van. And then there was this big fight between my mom, me, and Michael. and he brought me back to the van. And then there was this big fight between my mom, me, and Michael. Michael was getting really mad because obviously he was about to get caught. My mom had made an excuse because he was just

screaming at me and screaming at me, and so she was like, there's some things we need to buy, and we were parked at like a Walmart or something. And she left me and my brother in the van to go buy those things. And when she left me, the next thing I remember, he was screaming at me, telling me to hit

my brother in the head with my car seat, to use it to bash his head. And he was telling me that over and over and I was like, why? No, no, I'm not going to do that. And he kept on telling me to do that over and over again. And I just remember being so confused because I was like, why do you want me to hit my brother's head?

Like, I'm a child. I can't even comprehend what's going on. And my brother's a baby. So I was just, I was so lost. I didn't even know what to do. Like right now I don't even know what a two-year-old would even think of when you're telling them this. And then the next thing I know it he hits me in the

head with the bottom of a gun that he was holding. He hits me in the head. And then next thing I know it my mom's running back to the car and she had bought batteries for a flashlight. And then a few minutes pass and we hear sirens and that's when I realized my mom had called the cops. So Michael had pushed my mom out of the car, and I don't remember any of this,

but apparently he had grabbed onto her hair from the window, and my mom's hair and scalp tore a bit because he started driving the car while holding onto her hair. And then he got arrested, my mom got arrested, and the next memory I have is just being in the back of a cop car with my little brother.

And I just remember looking at him and thinking, like, what's going on?

Fuck.

I can't even imagine what that felt like. Do you feel like there's, like's parts of it still in your body? Do you feel that pain?

I feel immense fear. I don't feel pain for some reason. I just feel fear of bringing shame to my mom. Even though I know she was the one that did me wrong. Do you feel like you have to protect her for some reason?

That makes sense, it was your conditioning.

I'm so sorry. So what happened afterwards, my mom was hospitalized for a while and then

she went straight to prison after, which leaves me and my brother parentless. So, for a while, we are staying with our grandmas and everything, but they're really old, so they're not really in the condition to take on a 2- and 1-year-old. So we eventually end up in foster care. And I don't remember, but apparently I went through a few homes before I landed in the one that I stayed the longest in. And the one that I stayed the longest in is the one that I have a very vivid memory of.

It was with this lady named Melissa. And she was supposedly my mom's high school friend, best friend, but like that was really far from the truth apparently. So I ended up staying with her for like eight months and I remember in the beginning it was like it was alright. I mean I didn't feel super happy or excited about the situation, but it was okay. And then eventually, she started treating me differently as like a few weeks went on.

And it started with one of her son's birthday parties. She had three kids. So he was celebrating his birthday and he had classmates over. And I remember her telling me and my brother that we should stay in our room from like this time to this time. And so we were just in our rooms and then out of nowhere her other son calls us, not the one that's celebrating

his birthday, and me and my brother head out and once we head out they all started throwing cupcakes at me and my brother head out and once we head out they all started throwing cupcakes at me and my brother. And then I don't know if I saw that as something bad when I was little. I think in my head I thought it was like similar to a pajama party where we were like having

fun like a food fight. So I didn't really think of it as something that was mean. And then the next memory I have is, for a while after that, like they would do like family movie nights once a week or something.

And I was the only one that wasn't allowed to participate in family movie nights because I was the family dog. So they would literally call me the family dog and... I would have to sit in like a big cardboard box behind the sofa. And I actually would just sit there like a dog.

And then after that, like, she started really abusing me, not just psychologically. The first instance was I was eating spaghetti at the table, and this is why I have a phobia of meatballs now. She forced me to eat a meatball and I choked. She didn't do anything, she just watched me. And I think she did it on purpose to like make it look like it was an accident.

But for some reason, her husband would always step in when it got really bad, but he wouldn't do anything when it wasn't that bad. So he had saved me from choking. And then the next instance was their actual family dog took a shit on the carpet

and she had called me to come clean it up. So I went over and then I was about to go get like a brush or a toothbrush or something. And when I came back, she was like, what are you doing? And I was like, I'm cleaning it like you asked me to. Obviously, like in my little girl voice. And she was like, no, I want you to use your tongue. And I thought she was kidding until she like grabbed the back of my head and forced me on And then when you're in foster care, your social worker does regular checks on you.

Like I think it was at least once a month or something. And I noticed this pattern that like she would treat me really badly, but whenever it was about time that the social worker was going to come by, she would all of a sudden treat me really nicely, like extra nicely. She would give me twizzlers, and so I also grew up having a weird kind of love for twizzlers randomly.

She would just tell me all the things that I wanted to hear. And so whenever the social worker came by and would ask me questions and everything, I'd lie, and I'd say everything was fine, that I was happy, that Melissa was so good to me, that the kids were so good to me, that my conditions were fine.

I would lie because I would actually believe that she loved me when she said she loved me because when you're a kid, that's just what you do. You believe anything that an adult says because you think that they have their best interest for you. And then it got really bad because at one point she just stopped being like a human to me. So there was this one night that we were on our way to this fast food restaurant

and everyone was ordering food from like the drive-thru and she didn't ask me what I wanted and so I was like, can I please have chicken nuggets? And she was like, no you can't eat. So I started crying in the car but but I would always like silently cry. Like I wouldn't try to make a scene because I was so scared of what would happen.

And then when we got home, as we parked in the garage, everybody went inside. And then she stopped me at the door, the entrance to the house, and she was like, you can't come in. And I was like, why not? She was like, you've been a bad girl, so you need to be punished. And so she asked me to sleep in the garage that night.

And obviously I was like really scared. It was cold. It was dark. There was no bed. So I kept on banging on the garage door over and over, crying and screaming. And I was like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please

let me in. And then she opened the door and she told me that if I didn't shut up, that she would stuff Justin, my little brother, in the freezer. And so I stayed quiet and I slept there that night. And then after that was a series of her not feeding me and then feeding me. So she would not feed me for days and then all of a sudden feed me a lot of food. And it came to a point where she didn't feed me for like three days, I think.

And the social worker made a surprise visit and that was the first time that the social worker had seen the signs of abuse manifest on my body because my stomach I was so skinny but my stomach was so big it was bloated and I had bruising I had a scratch on my face and yeah that's when I stopped lying to protect her.

Babe, I'm just gonna come sit with you for a sec cause I...

Thank you so much for sharing.

It sounds crazy when I say it out loud. I never really say it in detail.

I'm sorry.

I don't want to cry.

I don't know how much I'm saying.

I want to be so much stronger.

You don't have to be strong. Your feelings are so valid. You don't deserve any of it. You don't deserve a single part of it.

You're the cruelest shit I've ever heard.

How are you feeling?

Good. I actually feel lighter now.

Yeah.

Can we all give Liza a round of applause?

Some encouragement. Thank you. Babe, you're so brave.

Thank you.

I'm like shaking.

I can't even imagine how you're feeling.

Thank you for sharing that.

Thank you.

Thank you for giving me the space.

You want to keep going?

Yeah, I'm okay.

Yeah.

Do you need anything? I'm good. Thank you for checking in with me. Okay, of course. Yeah. Do you need anything? I'm good. Thank you for checking in with me. Thank you.

All right.

I'm going to sit right down.

Can you tell me about what happened next?

After my whole foster care experience, my dad had gotten word about what happened, and he was still in prison here in America. He was in prison for three years before he got deported. And he had called my grandparents, his dad and his stepmom,

and basically asking them to adopt me and my little brother. And then my grandparents were immediately like, yes, we want the Soberano babies. There was a bit of a back and, like a legal back and forth and everything. In the time being,

we were staying with my great grandma on my mom's side. And so one day I just remember they came by, they did a few visits before completely taking us, which I really appreciated about them because my grandparents knew that they didn't, they knew from the get-go that my parents, you know, weren't good for us, but they also knew that we needed to have them in our life.

So they didn't want us, they didn't want to rip us completely of having our real parents in our life. So they slowly transitioned us into moving in with them. And then when we did, we moved to Visalia, California, which is three hours south of the Bay Area. And it was really good. My grandparents took very good care of us.

We were living actually a very lavish lifestyle. My grandparents had pretty good jobs. It was the first time that me and my brother were experiencing something like this. But even though that we were in better circumstances and everything, I was obsessed with my mom.

Like my mom was my everything. And it's funny because I was very aware of everything that had happened, but I had never built up this hatred or resentment towards her. In fact, it was the opposite.

I craved and longed to be with her. While we were living with my grandparents, my mom would visit and eventually she started visiting with, it was like every visit she would have, she would bring a new sibling to introduce me to. So yeah, that was kind of my childhood in America that I remember. It was a lot of going back and forth between homes, between cities. I lived in Visalia during the school year.

During any type of vacation, my grandparents would allow my mom to borrow me and my brother. So there were times during summer break that we would live with my mom for like two months at a time. And I was always very happy. Those were like my happiest childhood memories. There were times during summer break that we would live with my mom for like two months at a time.

And I was always very happy. Those were like my happiest childhood memories because I got to spend them with my siblings. I think from a very early age I really took on the responsibility of, or like the role of being the older sister. And I loved it so much. So yeah, I always, I was always looking for opportunities to be with them, to spend time

with them.

I was such a sweet and affectionate child, I would say, always sending letters to my mom and everything. And during these times, my mom was actually doing well too, I believe, because I got to see her for myself, that she wasn't on drugs during those times. But who knows, like, I found out a lot of things later, but everything seemed fine. She eventually got married to my stepdad and they had babies too.

And so I thought all was well. But then eventually my grandpa, my Filipino grandpa, got really, really sick. He had type 2 diabetes and had a heart attack that eventually led to open heart surgery. And during these times my my grandparents faced like a very bad financial setback. We ended up having to move out of the house that we were living in. We moved into a new home and my grandma had to quit her job because

she had to take care of my grandpa. And because of that, they made the decision to send me and my brother to the Philippines to meet our dad for the first time. And I strongly opposed to this. I didn't like my dad at all. I didn't grow up with him.

I knew of him. I would talk to him on the phone from time to time, but I wasn't, I could never imagine myself going to the Philippines and living with him full time, but that's what needed to happen. And so at the age of 10, my brother and I migrated to the Philippines to live with our estranged father. What was it like returning to your father after so long. It was so uncomfortable because he demanded so much from me as a daughter that I feel

was like unmerited because he wasn't around. I remember the first meeting we had, it was at the airport in the Philippines. And you know, it's, I'm in culture shock, like, it's my first time out of America, like, flying ever, and I'm in the Philippines. And at the time, Manila wasn't what it is now.

It was not as developed. And so a lot was going on, a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty. And then out of nowhere, this guy comes up to me and kisses me on the cheek. And it's my father. And I'm just, I pushed him off of me, and I'm disgusted.

And he was like, hi, Hopie. Because my real name is Hope. And I'm like, who are you? He's like, it's Daddy. And I was like, John are you? He's like, it's daddy. And I was like, John, nice to meet you. Because it's like he expected that we would act

like we knew each other all this time when we've only had conversations on the phone that would last like three minutes. So yeah, he didn't know how to take it step by step and it just made me very uncomfortable. I just want to take a few moments to reflect on everything that just came up for you. Can you tell me if baby Liza was

sitting with you right now? What would you want her to know? I would want baby Liza to know that it's not her fault. I think that one thing that I realized is, I developed this habit of making myself so small out of fear of being a burden to people

because I was afraid that if I did something that they didn't like or something that upset people, that they wouldn't want me anymore or that I'd become unworthy of their love. And so I tolerated and accepted a lot of disrespect and abuse out of fear of losing people that weren't afraid of losing me. What do you think you need right now?

What do you think baby Liza needed that you didn't get?

I think baby Liza just needed people to keep their word. There was no lack of words of affirmation. People told me they loved me, but then they would do the complete opposite of what you do when you love someone. So that's why words don't really mean anything to me.

It's all about action, because you could say you love someone. You could say that you're trying your best, you're doing your best, that you want the best for someone, but if your actions don't show it then it's not true.

Was there a moment in your life when you started to believe you were worthy of

love and were you able to to receive it? I think the first time that I felt truly worthy of love was when I started gaining fans

through my acting and my career.

So it was from the outside world and there wasn't, was there anyone in your internal world

that was giving you that love?

It was also my love team partner or my career partner. For those of you who are not familiar with what a love team is. His name was Enrique and he was my first love.

Can we fly in the gelato, please? Thank you. Oh my god. Okay, so feel free to enjoy that as you answer these questions. Can you tell us who you're summoning in right now? Who are you calling in?

I'm calling on Angelina Jolie from Girl Interrupted.

You look like her. I'm feeling her. She's in the room with us. You've told us this is your alter ego. Can you talk to me more about her and what you're trying to channel right now?

I think there's just like this rawness to Angelina Jolie's character in Girl Interrupted and girl interrupted that is very unfiltered. And that's like something that I long and crave for, not that I think that I'm a fake person by any means and that I don't tell the truth, but I honestly keep things to myself a lot in order to either protect other people

or not get misunderstood. And so I long the freedom that she has, but at the same time I relate to her because I know that it's all just like a persona that she puts on because in reality, she's really just afraid of being alone.

You were still surviving so much when the world asked you to become someone else. You started acting at 12, right? And before you even had a chance to catch your breath, you were placed into this love story, one that was created for you, not by you.

There was no break between the pain and the performance, just a costume change. And somehow you kept going. I don't think many people understand what that does to a person. Can you help me understand what love teams really are and what they were for

you? Okay so what a love team is and this is based on how I feel like other people interpret it is, it's kind of like this fairy tale romance that the whole country is in on. It's when they put two actors or ship two actors together and we end up basically becoming career partners in the sense that we do every single TV show, film, commercial, you name it, together. And for some people the romance

is real, for others it's manufactured. And we are told by the people that create these love teams, which is usually like the studios, the networks, management, that we're not allowed to have a publicized romance outside of the love team because it's damaging for the growth of the love team. So if you're lucky enough to actually be in love with your love team partner, it's great, but for other people that aren't actually in a relationship, it's restricting and it's basically living a life in a lie.

For me, what love teams was, was really like, it was a bit of a fantasy to me, but it was also more of, I treated it more like a safety net. When I started working with my love team, it was the first time that I truly felt like I wasn't alone. Through my love team, I gained a lifelong best friend, my first love, but also it's when all the violence and abuse stopped because I started also earning more

and being able to pay for things by myself. I was able to take myself out of poverty because of the love team and I was able to do all the things that I couldn't before without people bringing me down. So yeah, the love team was a safety net, but also like an armor for me.

So can you tell me when you realized

you were actually in love with, is it Enrique?

Yeah.

So his name is Enrique, but his nickname is Ken, spelled Q-U-E-N. And the first time I realized I was in love with him, so our love story kind of happened actually very organically. It didn't really start as a manufactured love team first. Like there were feelings before we even were a love team. He had the same manager as me and so it was inevitable for us to meet. We met in a dressing room

at the studio and he had said hi to me and I thought he was, immediately I thought he was really cute, I thought he was really cute, but I didn't think anything of it because I was meeting all these celebrities and I was really young at the time and I wasn't in the headspace

for looking for a boyfriend or anything. And then I heard from a lot of people that were working at the studio that he was requesting to work with me specifically. And so we eventually ended up doing a movie together where we weren't the lead roles,

but we were like the second lead. And I played his best friend and there was like a budding romance between the two of us. And I think that's when, in hindsight, that's when I fell in love with him, but I think I was suppressing it the whole time

because he was already an established actor and he had already done so many TV shows and movies with other actresses who were very successful and I was just up and coming at the time so I didn't think that there was ever a possibility really. So I kind of kept it to myself or I didn't even allow myself to go there. But then after that, filming that,

he started texting me a lot. And he did a TV show with another actress, but he was texting me. And so that's when I felt like really special, I guess, because he would talk about how much he wished he was doing a show with me instead.

So that's where it started. It started before the love team.

Can you tell me about the feeling of anticipating hearing from him?

Yeah.

So actually, there's a funny story of how we first started kind of like actually talking outside of work. I was preparing for exams at school because I was going to school and working at the same time and someone calls me at like 12 midnight and

I don't normally answer phone calls from miscellaneous numbers But I don't know for some reason that night I just did and I answered the call and then he had put on a voice, but I knew it was him and he was like You ordered pizza. I'm outside and I was like, you ordered pizza? I'm outside. And I was like, no, I did not order pizza. I was just kind of playing along with it the whole

time but I actually kind of knew that it was him. His voice was peeping through a bit. And so that's where the conversation started from him trying to prank me. It was a failed prank. I can't get pranked. And then, yeah, it just, I remember that was the first time that I actually felt, there's this Filipino word called kilig, which translates to butterflies in your stomach. And I started feeling kilig all the time and just being giddy all the time and really wanting to succeed because I wanted to work with him.

Kilig. I like that. I think.

Okay, so in terms of like the public kind of peeping into this relationship, what does it feel like to have millions of people projecting their fantasy of love onto your actual life? And did that ever impact the love

that you guys had for each other? It was a lot of pressure, a lot of pressure to be someone worthy of looking up to, a lot of pressure to please the people that were betting on us as stars or as actors. And it was also very confusing because this was like my real first boyfriend and it was

happening in such a public manner that and also during a time when social media was becoming so big in the Philippines, that I didn't know how to properly set up boundaries between what I was okay sharing with the world and the public and what I wanted to keep for ourselves. So I was very candid and unfiltered about it. I just always obeyed the cardinal rule

of not admitting that we were actually in a relationship, but we would constantly tease the fans and kind of lead them on. I mean, we were actually together, so we're not leading them on, but we wouldn't give them that final yes

until we felt like it was the right time, which happened five years later, I believe.

So what did it feel like to not have to keep it a secret anymore?

It was very freeing because it came to a point where it kind of felt stupid to not admit it anymore because it was so obvious. Like we were hanging out literally all the time. Like vacations were spent together with our families. So it was very funny to me that we weren't admitting it and whenever we would be like doing interviews or whatever, we would just deny, even though

like we were holding hands while denying it. So it was really jarring because you want the fans to like be Kiliig for you and you want them to fantasize about you being together but you don't want to give them the yes. So yeah, I kind of felt like a trickster at times to be honest. It was very freeing to not keep it a secret anymore.

Was there ever a moment where you were like, wait, am I even in love? Or

just playing someone who's in love? I would say I always knew I was in love with him. And I was very much deeply in love. It's just that I started at some point questioning the things that I would do publicly. I didn't know if I did that from a place of love, from being a proud girlfriend, or to please other people. So no, I never had to pretend that I was in love with him, except for moments when we would fight probably, and we would be on set, and then once we leave our green room I'd

have to pretend that we were okay. But even if you're fighting and angry, love is still there. Yeah, I think it's just a question or a matter of, were all my actions truthful or did they feel truthful to me in the moment? Do you wanna formally announce something right now?

Yeah, I've been honestly itching to tell people this because I haven't been very truthful. Ken hasn't been very truthful. Ken and I broke up. But yeah, we've been broken up for almost three years now. And the reason, well, originally the reason why we haven't said anything about it is because Enrique, or Ken, asked me not to say anything about it first. And I think it, I don't want to speak for him, but I think it was coming from a place of not wanting it to be real.

And at the same time, you know, I agreed to that because I also didn't want it to be real. And this is coming from the people pleaser side of me because I was so afraid that if

people found out that we weren't together anymore

my career would go bad or you know people just wouldn't love me anymore and so it's like, I just, it was me again, like just pretending or putting the things that I need to do for myself off to make other people happy and to make them feel safe. But yeah, me and Ken broke up almost three years ago. Sometimes love ends long before the relationship does. I know I emotionally preferred to break up with my ex a year before we actually separated. Do you remember the moment you emotionally left even before you left physically?

Oh, wow. Um...

That's like a yes and no question. I think a year before I actually broke up with him, there were already signs that were showing me that I was unhappy. But because I had built up this kind of toxic habit of pushing away anything that I felt like bothered me

because I was afraid of confrontation, I decided to just swallow it or like sweep everything under the rug. I kind of accepted... I remember I did like a mental check with myself and I accepted that there were certain things about him that I wasn't okay with and that it's just always going to be like that and that's just life. Like you have to... you win some, you lose some some you have to deal with the good and the bad So I was like mentally

telling myself these things because we were already at that point almost eight years together and I was genuinely expecting us to get married like soon, but then that didn't happen and so when I broke up with him, I Would say it was so it was such a beautiful breakup because it was still so full of love. That's why I say yes and no, because it was so hard for me to actually break up with him

because I love him. I still love him as a person. When I look back at our time together, I just see good moments all the time. And he's like, I think of him as like a childhood best friend. And so it's just so beautiful. And, you know, I carry a lot of guilt for not being the one that held on, because that's what my fans wanted to do. But also, like, I just, I needed to find myself and grow too. And

there were things that I knew that I shouldn't tolerate for the people that look up to me, for the younger me, and also for my future children. And that's not to say that he's a bad person. He didn't do anything bad. Nothing bad happened. Our breakup was really good. It was just, we weren't a match anymore.

You know, sometimes we have to learn to be selfish, to protect ourselves and choose ourselves and I don't think walking away was a bad thing because you were choosing you and you were choosing finding yourself and finding your freedom away from him and finding your independence. So it makes me sad that you feel guilty. Do you think you can get to a place in your heart where you liberate yourself from the guilt,

having chosen yourself?

I really genuinely hope I do, because I still feel very bad about it. Like whenever I talk to him, we still talk from time to time. Whenever I just check in on our circle, our group of friends, I can't help but feel like

they feel like I was so selfish, and I was being selfish, and I feel guilty about that. I don't know, I feel like I was born to be the person, the understanding person and I don't know why I couldn't do it in that moment and I forever like will hate myself for that but at the same time like I knew deep down in my core that something was wrong and that I would be doing a disservice not

only to me but to him if I didn't say anything or do anything about it so I'm not there yet but I hope to be. I'm proud of you for being able to choose yourself though and I hope you that you can feel proud of yourself too one day.

Thank you. I feel like you've prioritized every single person in your life before yourself,

and so like just think of baby Liza in these moments and tell her she deserves

to put herself first, you know? If you could say anything to her right now what would you like to say I wish you would love yourself a little more and to the public who are nosy and shaming you and slut-shaming you do you remember the line you gave me that you want to say to them? Mind your fucking business.

Louder!

Mind your fucking business!

As loud as you can.

Mind your fucking business!

I want you to close your eyes and picture freedom.

What does it look like now? Freedom looks like an open field, just full of life, full of green pastures, flowers, butterflies, birds. It feels like, it just feels so open and airy. And it feels safe.

It's really beautiful.

Do you feel like you have that freedom right now? No, I don't feel like you have that freedom right now? No, I don't feel like I have that freedom right now. What do you need to get that freedom? I need to let go. I need to let go of caring about what other people think about me before, caring about what I think of myself.

I need to put myself first. And I need to truly not give a fuck.

Can you make a promise to hope, to Liza right now, that she's going to do that moving forward?

Hope, I promise you, I'm never going to let anyone make you feel inferior.

Ever. Ever. I just wanted to share something really quickly. But my friend recently told me that when there are birds around, there's no danger. And I felt that was really comforting. And the fact that there's birds chirping around right now is a nice little affirmation that you're safe, that we all are. Did you hear that?

I was agreeing with you.

They're talking to us right now. It's very special. Can you tell me whose approval you're finally done chasing?

I'm done chasing approval from from my family. I'm done chasing approval from my fans. I'm done chasing approval from industry people and from people I quite frankly that I don't care

about. Fuck them. Fuck them. So I want you to cut the cake and let every slice Go ahead.

This first slice is dedicated to Michael, whom everyone has heard about in the first

part. Here you go, Michael. Here's to being a piece of trash.

And this is for Melissa. Melissa, I hope you burn in hell.

Damn straight.

This? I didn't get to introduce you to him, but this is for JR. JR was my first kiss.

Fuck you, JR. JR was my first kiss. Fuck you, JR. What?

This is for you.

So fuck you. You don't even deserve my love.

You don't deserve a sorry from me. You don't deserve a single word from me. Okay?

And last but not least I'm gonna be a little nicer with this one This is for Liza Liza you were so hard on Hope.

You didn't love her properly.

You allowed her to suffer in silence. So this is saying goodbye to old habits, toxic habits. And I hope that we grow and heal.

What do you want to do to those slices? Honestly, I just want to smash them.

I just want to smash them all.

It feels so good. Any final words before we wrap? I just want to say thank you, Sarah, for giving me the space to feel safe to release. I'm crying again, but I never feel like anybody actually listens to me, even when I'm crying for help. So it's nice. So thank you. And I just hope that everyone will be a little kinder to themselves and not tolerate bullshit. Don't let people that everyone will be a little kinder to themselves and not tolerate bullshit. Don't let people

hurt you. Don't stay because you're afraid of rocking the boat. Love yourself first and life will get so much better.