On this week’s episode of Living OUT Loud, Michele sits down with her longtime friend and radiant storyteller, Jimmy Belasco is a man whose humor runs deep, whose heart runs deeper, and whose new memoir, I Was Born “Pretty,”reminds us that healing often arrives wrapped in laughter.
Jimmy invites us into the Belasco Bunch: a preacher dad, a hilariously inappropriate mom, five kids, and a dog named Spot who “went to live on a farm” long before any of them realized what that really meant. It was a home soaked in faith, contradiction, chaos, and unconditional love. But sometimes that means that it shapes you in ways you only understand years later. (Anyone else relate?)
Through stories of growing up queer in an ultra-conservative family, navigating love and loss, and finding his truest self later in life, Jimmy shows us how humor becomes a lifeline, how grief can carve you open in strangely beautiful ways, and how a mother’s pearls of wisdom can lead you back to your own heart.
This conversation is tender, honest, and laugh-out-loud funny. The kind that feels like sitting at the kitchen table with someone who tells the truth without flinching.
Together, Michele and Jimmy explore what it really means to live with courage, to love with your whole chest, and to step fully into your own light.
Most of all, Jimmy reminds us that living OUT loud is not about perfection; it’s about presence, truth, and choosing love over fear every single time.
This is an episode for anyone who’s ever lost someone, loved someone, or tried to figure out who they are in a world determined to tell them otherwise.
Tune in… and bring a tissue. And maybe a giggle.
Thank you again for listening... and share with one friend who could use some of this in their life.
Stay Loud + Stay Proud!
Michele
