Syndicated columnist and stand-up comic Tina Dupuy (pronounced d00-pwee) has one final night of sleep before the whole world knows her secrets. On Friday, NPR’s “This American Life” will air the interview they did with her. And life as she knows it will never quite be the same.
“I’m terrified,” she told The Mirror Thursday night. “I’ve developed a nervous tic. I just keep telling myself that it can help people. Then there’s the tic again. This is the stuff I should be blackmailed with instead of broadcasting on public radio.”
The headline on NPR’s release:
But it gets even better — or worse — depending on if you’re more concerned with her or her story.
“Tina Dupuy, the successful syndicated columnist, reveals a childhood with her former cult member parents and a 24-year membership in Alcoholics Anonymous, which began at the tender age of 13,” they continue. “Tina’s parents met in the notorious 1970s cult, The Children Of God that blended fundamentalist Christianity with liberal sexual ethics and Calvinist punishments. …In the late-80’s, her mother was a subscriber to the group and then en-vogue philosophy Tough Love. At 11 she was sent to in-patient care. Why did her mother put her tween daughter in a mental hospital?”
Because she skipped school. Because she was rebellious. Because she had an attitude problem.
By 13 she was in juvy hall.
Once out, she joined AA and even became a circuit speaker.
These days, AA is not part of her routine. “I’m either an alcoholic or an abused child,” she says in the release.
So is she an alcoholic? “They told me I was,” she tells me over text, explaining that she drank but there was nothing “destructive” about her drinking. She calls herself “laughably low tolerance.”
Asked if she still attends meetings these days, she told The Mirror, “No, I go to wine bars.”
Dupuy lives in Manhattan but periodically visits Washington on business and for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
The interview airs Friday on “This American Life.”
Follow her on Twitter: @TinaDupuy.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: This segment will air Saturday, Nov. 8 at 1 p.m. Not Friday as was originally thought.