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But Wessel had a competitor. "I kind of had a crush on Weird Al Yankovic," Jackson confesses. "We kind of went on a date, but I don't know if he loved me or not."
In Jackson's brain, "There was this fork in the road." Down one path: Paul Wessel and Jesus, with their matching abs, and life as a poor, pious housewife in Miami. Down the other: Weird Al, SNL and loads of sinful showbiz cash.
PHOTO BY GIULIO SCIORIO
Victoria Jackson
PHOTO BY GIULIO SCIORIO
Jackson on the beach in the other Hollywood, in Florida
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After making up her mind, she got a tattoo of Wessel's initials on her lower back. "Because he's the one that ruined my life," she explains without irony.
That's why she quit SNL in 1992, she says. She headed back to "the swamp" — as she calls Miami — to marry Wessel. Two years later, they had a daughter named Aubrey. Jackson's movie career quickly dried to a crust.
But there's one problem with her morality tale, in which she sacrificed riches and fame to make the perfect God-fearing family.
"No, no, no," agent Dolores Robinson clucks when relayed her former client's claim that she quit SNL. "They dropped her."
Outside a Miami Lakes Starbucks in the pouring rain, Jackson sits under an awning that provides only partial cover. Water soaks her bare legs and pools on her Mac laptop and cell phone. With her Flip camera balanced on a stack of conservative books — Marx & Satan, Socialism Shakedown, The Manchurian President — she recounts taking her younger daughter, 17-year-old Aubrey, to a "gay party" held by Jackson's "newest gay friend, Seth." (Jackson claims to have three gay friends — Seth, Alex and Glen — and she makes frequent mention of them.)
"After we left, I asked my daughter what she thought," Jackson says, her eyeglasses missing an earpiece and tilting down her nose. "She said, 'It felt like they were sad and ashamed.' Out of the mouth of babes!
"If you get killed because you're gay, the murderer gets extra time. It's hilarious! Alcoholism is a sin, too, but you don't see an alcoholic pride parade. Alcoholics hide in little rooms in basements and they go, 'Hi, I'm Fred.' "
Two women huddling from the rain gape at her. Jackson sometimes wonders why she can't get a mainstream gig. Is it her weight? "It's OK to be a liberal and be fat," she complains. "You've got Oprah, Rosie, you've got Joy Behar, you've got Whoopi, you've got the other ones on The View. [Or] if you're black, you're allowed to be fat, and that's sassy, sexy. But if you're white, you're not really allowed to be fat."
Jackson often blames Democratic policies for her modest, Honda-driving life. Her family lives in a $200,000 townhouse with a concrete dock on a murky green pond. Her husband, now an MDPD helicopter pilot, makes $120,000 annually. But, she says, alimony to the fire eater left them broke. Public records reveal that Eventoff sued her in 1995, claiming she owed him $89,000.
The cash shortage spawned a sad, short stand-up comedy career. In the early '00s, Jackson worked clubs around the country while she and Wessel raised their two daughters. She made about $4,000 a weekend, she says. Her material was mostly riffing on hating Miami. She did gigs with SNL alumni Lovitz and Kevin Nealon, as well as former cast member Joe Piscopo. That last pairing was called "the most depressing Saturday Night Live reunion ever" by The Onion's A.V. Club.
In 2004, Jackson released a self-produced full-length documentary about the grief of being away from her family. It debuted at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. "Nobody watched it," she says. Much of it is close-up footage of her sobbing in hotel beds.
But then she discovered something life-changing: When she talked about Obama being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, people watched — and cared. Then job offers came.
In 2007, 15 years removed from SNL, Jackson traveled back to Tinseltown for a last-ditch stab at becoming an "airhead on a sitcom." She explains, "I liked the idea of getting $100,000 a week for having five lines that someone else wrote, and I could do airhead better than anyone. That's my specialty! It would be effortless."
Jackson says she knew nothing about politics and rarely voted. But because "everybody in Hollywood is liberal and Jewish," the best way to network was through a cagey group of industry conservatives.
She refuses to name what she calls a "secret organization," but Jackson is clearly talking about Friends of Abe (FOA). Celebrities who have confessed to being among its 1,800-plus members include Pat Boone, Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer and Gary Sinise. Started in 2007 by "two guys in their trailer whispering that they respected Bush," Jackson says, it's something like a support group for conservatives who fear being blacklisted for their beliefs.
She joined these new friends at film screenings. They watched Blocking the Path to 9/11, which claimed Bill and Hillary Clinton squelched a muckraking documentary. And then there was Hype, about the radical Chicago connections of then-candidate Obama. For Jackson — though she wouldn't appreciate the metaphor — it was a Malcolm X–picking-up-the-Quran moment. This is Orwell! This is 1984! she says she thought about the movie. "And I was, like, No! I gave a copy [of Hype] to my agent. She never thanked me."
18 comments
The LA Weekly, in their print edition, wonders why I "use such a disgusting word" in my reference to Victoria Jackson (below). The answer is in their own article:
"She has declared, in protest of a gay kiss on Glee, that homosexual children need to "pray the gay away" and that there's a "spiritual war in America.""
What Victoria Jackson does kills people.
All you need to do to get publicity (& a book and maybe a TV show) is to be a raving lunatic like VJ, or Herman Cain, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, et al. Of course VJ got a head start in show biz, but she's even too crazy for la la land. I suppose she will soon take her place among the other loser has-beens who never were, like Dennis Miller, Ted Nugent, etc on the Fox propaganda channel where there will continue their slow road to oblivion. Such creepy people!
Thanks for confirming LA Weekly is obsolete. I stopped picking it up years ago because already have my medicinal marijuana card , and I don't need plastic surgery or a colon cleanse. Seriously ? Why give this half whit more attention?? Disappointed , but far from surprised. Still great for house training pets though.
I thoroughly enjoyed your vintage spelling of wit. Just fancy enough to make me reminisce. Thank you.
Oh man you did it again!
And on a side note, how does an "illegal" vote? And awesome job using a big 'ol word like "amnesty!" You hit that thing right out of the "park!"
As in "Chavez Ravine," you fucking racist.
I read this article as I read every Weekly article. My thoughts are like : what happened to you, VJ? It's like she's bought into every right-wing cliche imaginable to couch her beliefs in. I felt sorry about how her SNL co-workers harshly criticized her voice, and smirkingly rebuffed her religious "offerings" (though she should have kept her beliefs to herself, not brought them to the workplace). When her dad makes derogatory remarks about disliking "fat people", then she herself actually says "you're allowed to be fat and black, because it's sassy and sexy, but if you're white you're not allowed to be, unless you're liberal", smacks of both racism and sour grapes on so many different levels you wonder why she can't see the forest for the trees and pick apart her own words to see how narrowminded and ignorant they are.
Honestly, LA Weekly, this is your cover story this week? Yes, I was sucked in and read it ALL...what a fool I am, but not half the fool that this silly woman is.
This woman's Dad is one nasty abuser. It's really interesting to sit down with someone's family.....if I don't say it maybe no one will. Telling her she's "genetically defective" when she's a kid (without irony!?!!)
That is NASTY and WRONG. There's no excuse to do that to a little girl. It's horrible. Then he sits there all these years later at the dinner table talking about fat people. And there's VJ who at least has gotten out of this town where if you're not about to break in two, you're not thin enough!!! (If you're a woman trying to get acting gigs, that is.) What is his problem? Get over it! Not everyone is thin! Larger women are beautiful!!! I mean, look at actress Rachel Weisz....she was absolutely stunning, back before she got Hollywood-thin. Now she's still pretty, but she just looks like any other actress. It's a health thing. Stop listening to your Dad VJ. He's a jerk and has messed with your head big time. You're not fat. My ex would say "lush" or "glowing."
Also, those politichicks are creepy to watch. It's hilarious how uptight they are trying to imitate other TV shows where everyone sits obediently straight up and then there's Victoria Jackson just going bonkers. Watching the video was worth it just to see their reactions to someone *alive.*
And .....they're not looking for someone "liberal" to co-host. What a joke!!
How the fuck is victoria jackson even slightly relevant? She's just another Tea bagging moron with her head shoved wholly up her own ass. Her conservatism isn't a thing anymore and it shouldn't be because she's a fucking idiot.
Every time I have seen VJ I have thoroughly enjoyed her....she is delightful to watch and totally unique. But it sounds like she is losing her mind. I mean, this: "What if we crashed and died on video?" she says, laughing wildly. "That would be the most viral video of the world! You'd be dead, but you'd have a really viral video!"
This is NOT funny, VJ---you have got to stop this!!! Because of people like you, people like me talk all day about mayhem on the freeways, accident after accident after accident, because people are *playing with their gadgets.* It's NOT a video game out there! Those are not just hunks of metal all around you, they are PEOPLE. And all it takes is one little swerve the wrong direction and you are wearing your steering wheel through your chest, OK? You become one with your car, and not in a good way, OK? Sometimes I think I'm going to go absolutely mad after a day of reciting the latest traffic accidents on the radio. Some of them are horrifying. Some of them kill children, innocents. In the very worst, most painful ways. And countless more are maimed, lives altered forever---it just happened to a friend of mine.I don't blame you alone. Nobody is respecting the rights of others on the road these days, and because of that, in the next ten days or so, ten of us who are alive now have less than ten days to live, and nobody knows who that is. It could even be you. Or me. That's what the stats say. That's what they've said for years. And that's a conservative estimate, ten fatals in ten days for LA County. Anyone who gets in a car, no matter how well he or she drives, is exempt, because we're all out there together. STOP PLAYING WITH YOUR GADGETS WHILE YOU DRIVE. And Victoria-----I'm sorry about your Dad, but his judgement is whack and if you follow it he makes you look whack. He doesn't sound very nice. Your mom sounds cool, though. Wherever the whack comes from, you are so charming, but SCARY.
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