Transcript
Why are you bald?
Thank you.
I shaved all my hair off and I'll tell you why. Because people make fun of me for being bald. "Hey, you're bald!" As in like I haven't noticed something. Right. Well, yeah, correct. I shaved my head three times a week. Like, so I could grow a full, I could grow hair back as beautiful as yours.
Thank you.
I'm not missing my hair at all. My hairline's fine. I could grow my full head of hair like Tristan if I decided to. When I was maybe...
10 my mother and father we grew up in indiana in america and my mother and father got divorced and my amer my dad stayed in america and my mother moved back to england with me my brother and my sister right what divorce because my mom was originally from england and england has a social care system where you get a free house and you can live from the government money whatever that
So we had to move back to England. Yeah. So we moved back to England to a really bad area because it's free housing. And my father stayed in America to play chess because there's no chess scene where you can live off of in Europe at the time. I didn't see my father very often, but my father was a massive influence in my life. I think I had the best father on the planet. I think he was the smartest man who's ever walked the earth bar none. Smarter than me by a hundred times. I wish he was alive because having him on a podcast would break the internet. Dude was a genius.
I have so many stories to prove his genius, but that's a tangent. I have a little tangent here to your dad is Emory Tate, right? Correct. So in 2010, what year did he pass away? Yeah, it was about it was about seven or eight years ago now. It might have been. It might have been. Yeah. So in 2010, I went to a benefit with a very rich family friend of mine.
And there was a man who played chess that went by the name of Mr. Tate there. And he was an older African-American fellow. And I'm not sure if that was your father. If I met your father. Yep, you met my dad. Which is really strange. Also, Lady Gaga's ex-boyfriend was there too. That was like another kind of claim to fame that was at that event. But yeah, I just, sorry, sorry. I just thought that was really interesting. I thought I should bring that up because I believe, I believe that I have met your father when I was a child. It's amazing to hear.
and that's amazing to hear. And yes, Mr. Tate, the older African-American chess player was my father. Correct. Yes. I played chess with him. He destroyed me. I was nine years old. I only saw my father maybe once a year at this point. I was about 10 years old. We'd moved from America two years before. I'm now living with my mother. By coincidence, my father was coming to visit. So my mom said, you have to get a haircut. Your father's coming. You need to look good. It's like, cool. So we went to the hairdressers. The hairdresser was full, a normal hairdresser. So we went to another hairdresser. I got a haircut at the other hairdresser. My mom said, I don't like how they've cut your hair. I don't like how they've cut your hair. It doesn't look as good.
It doesn't look as good, whatever, whatever. I'm 10, so I'm just a kid, right? - Yeah, you don't care. - My dad turns up. First time I've seen my dad in a year. He gets in the house, he's in the house for about five minutes, and my mom's like, "Yeah, I took him for a haircut, Emery," but, uh, Emery was his name. Emery.
But I didn't like the way they cut their hair. And my dad's like, "Well?" And then I'm like, "Yeah, I don't like how they've cut it." And my dad went,
nuts. My dad went, "You're raising my boys, talking about how their hair looks. They're 10 years old. You got them looking in the mirror like girls. Talk about their hair. What's wrong with you, woman? You're going to my boys up." And he lost his temper big, right? I'm all scared. And he said, "Emory, it's the first time I've seen you in a year. This is why we couldn't be together anymore. You're crazy. You're crazy." Called the police and told my dad to leave the house because my dad's saying, "Look, you can't raise my boys. You're going to raise them."
Bitches that had lost his temper. My dad was a big guy, scary guy, right? Police came, kicked my dad out. So the first time I see my dad in a year, he gets kicked out the house in less than an hour.
He messages my mom and says, "Look, I want to see my boys. I don't want to come to the house. I don't want to see you, bitch. I want to see my sons." So my mom puts us in a taxi to go over to his hotel. We go to his hotel and he takes me and he marches me down to the hairdresser and he says, "Son,
I'm gonna shave all your hair off.
And I'm only 10. So I'm like, why? Why? He's like, when you grow up and you become a man, you'll realize that nobody gives a shit about the kind of hair you have. They care about the kind of man you are. They care about your qualities as a man. Haircut is probably the least important thing. Only low quality men are going to judge themselves on a haircut. If you have any kind of substance, any kind of capabilities, a man, it doesn't matter what your hair looks like.
We're going to shave your head. So he sat me down in this chair.
They start shaving my head and because I'm only 10, I started crying. Right? I don't know if the kids at school might make fun of me, whatever. I don't know. I'm 10, right? I'm human. I'm a child. I start crying. Shaved my head. He sent me back to my mom. My mom went f***.
nuts.
I remember her on the phone. "You're never gonna see them again, Emery !" Because she's only - my mom's a good person, but she's only - she's a female. She doesn't understand the real world. Women don't understand the real world. Is she still around? She's still around. Okay. "You're never gonna see them again, Emery !" "You're f***ing - he's crying !" "Why did you do this? You traumatized him !"
All this shit. So this was the
-da -da -
After only being in England for two days, once he realized, after he shaved my head, he left. And he sent me a message on, he emailed me at the time, and he said, "Look, when you grow up, you're going to understand that I'm not going to have my sons raising a paradigm where they're concerned about their...
haircut that is detrimental for your your mindset as a man life is difficult as a man and you've got bigger worries your mother doesn't listen to me anymore she won't understand everyone's calling me crazy now and and she called the police on me and i'm a crazy guy i don't mind being crazy son i'll be as crazy as the world calls me son i'm a i'm six foot three kickboxing world champion multi-millionaire top g i'm here on the internet saying all these things i'm teaching me who gives a about my anyone who's going to be concerned about my haircut is missing the broader message
Like if you're listening to my words, talking about strength and heroism and all these things that can genuinely change your life and you're sitting there going, yeah, but your haircut, like then you're just a dumbass. So that doesn't bother me. So it's a two-tiered story. It's my father's first original story. And then the time it truly hit me and I realized how correct he was. Now, when I have sons, because I will die with 20 sons by 20 beauty queens. I've already made that proclamation. Do you have any sons yet?
uh i'm not prepared to disclose how many children i have if i have okay go ahead go ahead when i have 20 sons by 20 women because i have nothing else to do and i'm rich when i have 20 times by 20 women they're going to go through the exact same traumatic traumatic
It's not even trauma, but trauma. They're going to go through the same process. There's going to be a day I'm going to walk them in there and shave their heads and say no.
You are a man.
I'm gonna tell him the exact same shit my father said to me, because that's because my dad was so right. It's really amazing. I wish my father was alive because all the times everyone called him crazy. People called him crazy his whole life. And as I've lived my life, I just have 100 examples of him being completely correct every...
time he was right the world when the world calls people crazy listen everyone's calling me crazy now right it's crazy it's crazy but the people with a brain are listening to me going tate's not crazy tate's and right tate's correct
So that's why I have no hair and that's why I refuse to have a haircut anymore of any kind because I can't sit there as a full-grown man in a chair with another full-grown man and start explaining how I need my haircut so I don't...
feel insecure. If you don't cut it this way, I won't be shy. It's stupid. Shave it off. Who gives a f***?