I’m just learning to be accepting of all people and that love is love

I started out with a very alternative childhood. I was raised in a single parent home. My mom was having trouble with her family coming out as a homosexual. She was thrown out of her own family, then raised with her, we had our own troubles so I was sort of raised in the foster care system as well. It’s always been a different path I’ve taken from sort of your standard story. As a result I sort of have a lot to prove coming from that environment. Not a lot of people make it out and become successful. So it has been a goal of mine to represent well the foster care and foster care community. And do well by myself and do well by the rest of the kids who maybe didn’t make it. A lot of the kids had a really rough background and it’s tough for them to make it on their own. For me it has been a lifelong goal to do better and to make it out of there alive and come out stronger on the other side. And to show people that foster kids and kids in the system do well for themselves and come out and function as positive adults and human beings on the outside.

I’m just learning to be accepting of all people and that love is love. This has been one of the keys to my life

I remember having panda bear as a kid that was always very dear to me. These days I feel like it’s kind of, it was sort of fortuitous, in that it is my spirit animal. Very relaxed, very cool, chilling out in the forest, not really bothering anybody, but I’m just rolling around having a good time.