Dove Cameron
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
My first ever gig, I got paid like 120 bucks or something.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, I played at an adults only underground club. Oh, wow. Because he was there. Yeah, they came through on like a little tour, like a club tour.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I don't know if you know this guy. His name is Ryan Gosling. I think it worked out fine. He's doing great. So that was my first ever thing. And then I was just so convinced that I was going to find my people in Hollywood. That was more the impetus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
My parents wanted absolutely nothing less for me than to be in film and television. I think it was something that they felt was kind of inevitable. And that was my sales pitch. I was like, I'm going to do this when I turn 18 with or without you. I would really love your support. And I would love to start before it gets much harder for me to start when all the other girls are 18.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Right, right, right. My parents split up. My mom moved out. I lived with her in her little apartment on Bainbridge Island. And she had just gotten her master's degree in sustainability, which was so badass to watch my mom do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, yeah. Very like Washington. That was when she was talking to me about fuel efficiency. All these things that now are super common knowledge. Glass bottles are not more sustainable than plastic bottles because of the amount of resources we have to use to ship them. All these things. It was such a cool thing for her to do once she had already had her whole business that she ran with my dad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, I think he tried to keep the business going for a while. I think it was kind of impossible to run on his own. The business ended up going very under a few years after.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, it was a truly complex transitional time in the family. I'm going to be 30 next year. And as someone who has retroactively studied my family dynamics ad nauseum in therapy and in my own existence in my brain and my life, I truly don't know if it could have gone any other way. They were always going to divorce. It was not a surprise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So you felt that when you were in the dynamic, they are supposed to be together. I think I knew that from... As early as you can know that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I think that my mom would very confidently say that they were not a love match. It was not something that they endeavored to do was be together for as long as they were together. And when I moved in with my mom, it was because my dad and I were having a very difficult time with a very tenuous relationship at that point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It starts getting dicey around there. As an adult now, I can look back and be like, that was fair on my part to distance myself. Everything was kind of falling apart at once and getting very human and very real and very adult. And my mom just kind of scooped me up and was like, we're getting the fuck out of here, kid. My mom is the most beautiful woman on the face of the planet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And she is so astute, so intelligent, so sensitive. And I think she was just like, and look over here. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Very much. But it was more than that. I'm not sure the tone of the show. We get so deep. My dad was severely depressed, which manifested in a lot of violence, emotional, mental, physical outbursts, very kind of unsafe. And it got worse as I got older. And especially when my sister left to go to college and I was the only kid.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And I was also dealing with my own transitioning into teenagehood depression. And there had also already been a really big, dark, streak in our family because my best friend was murdered by her own father.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I feel like the first eight years of my memory were pretty good. Maybe some tension with the parents. Don't really see them kiss, but not as aware as after that murder-suicide very real thing happened when I was eight. I think it really did shift the dynamic because they were very close to our family and it just accelerated a lot of darkness in the family.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yes. And also my mom was so young when she met my dad. They were 20 years apart. They got pregnant and it was kind of like, OK, we're going to get married. My mom is very open about this. I'm not saying anything that she wouldn't feel comfortable with me sharing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I think it's necessary. It's a sort of a generosity that you give to your kids because it's really helped me in my development.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I always found it strange, this taboo around mental health or loss or trauma, because I would mention something that I thought was singular to me in my young life and like eight hands out of 20 would go up and be like, me too. And I was like, so we're all pretending this is a singular issue and we're keeping it to ourselves for whose benefit?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I know a bloomer. I know a bloomer. I'm all about a bloomer. They originated in cheerleading. Some of them can be late. Some of them can be early. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
But also, I think we're already doing a disservice to ourselves by calling it a darkness. I take back my framing of that because it's only dark in comparison to something that we've constructed that's actually not real or attainable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Relative to this cultural dream that's never existed and is super toxic. So I'm always very open. I just sort of have a knee jerk reaction to being like, am I being too open? Are you OK?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
What is that? What happened to you? I get so burnt out if I talk about anything except for someone's real life. Yeah. But I'll be at the airport with someone who's helping me with my baggage or something or a security person. I'll be like, how's your mom? I've never met that person before. And I'm like, what are you doing after this? What's your night going to look like?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, I'm like, where did you go to college and who was your first love? I love it. I love humans. I wish we could just demystify.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yes. When I got to Burbank High, Burbank High School, I was so culture clashy at first because it was huge. The school was bigger than the population of the place where I was from.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
My choir was. I don't think I was, but it was so cool.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Show choir is you're putting on like a 20 minute traveling medley mashup dancing. It's fun. It's super sick.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Costume changes. It's super full out. And competitive. Yeah. Is Burroughs the same thing? Burroughs is the same thing and we are rivals, baby.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It's very funny because my absolute best friend in the world, Veronica, we met because she was in the rival show choir. Oh, fun. Because it's very glee. This Burbank versus Burroughs is glee. It's what it's based off of. People were getting their fucking tires slashed and shit. Wow. So nuts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And also like SoCamp. Some weird rural California school to compete. And then everybody's like, they smashed our fucking tires. You got to go full out on that grunge day, dude. Like it was so funny. You better lock in on those fucking harmonies, dude. Show them where we come from, Burbank. But yeah, I loved it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Do you play Connections? I hate that I don't know what that is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
There's a powerful magnetic field under that AMC. I take my very Italian boyfriend and I'm like, isn't this amazing? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
A Nordstrom Rack, I think. Yeah. A Nordstrom Rack. That's as suburban as it gets. The Nordstrom Rack. I really go there when I need to like crack a line in my brain. When I need like an alignment adjust, I go back to San Fernando.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Normally, as a 14 year old, all you get sent out on is Disney. And I remember my first couple rounds of going in for Disney and all of the casting directors being like, please don't send this girl in anymore. She's not funny and she's actually quite dark and she's off putting. And I was like, fuck you guys. Yeah. I came here because I wanted to do dramas. Yes. Serious acting. I was super unshaken.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I, at that point, was very not 14. They kept being like, she's not reading as young as she biologically is. She doesn't have that sparkly thing. And the reason that my mom felt confident enough to bring me to L.A. was because we got really far in the process of casting for True Grit, Coen Brothers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
No, but we got down to the point where we'd been going in for like three months and they were calling us with updates. It's down to you and three other girls. It's down to you and two other girls. And so my mom was like, oh, so my kid's not out of her mind. She might be able to do this. And so I really wanted to keep going out for film. And there was all these really exciting things happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And Disney, in the least ungrateful sounding way, it just was not on my bucket list.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And I also didn't have cable. So I didn't have the Disney upbringing. I saw it at my friend's house. I knew what it was. But the basic like bunny rabbit ears wasn't a thing in my house. And so we stopped going out for Disney. And then my agents got this call being like, we have a Disney thing, but it's being directed by a guy who mostly does film, Andy Fickman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It's like a sort of a breaking the fourth wall thing. It's a bunch of movie people. And the script is actually really funny. Would you go in for it? And I loved all of Andy's previous work. She's a man. And so I was like, yeah, fuck it, whatever. I'll go in. And I was reading for something else because one of the casting directors from Disney famously did not like me. I didn't know why.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, exactly. And I went in and I just decided to go full manic balls to the wall, stupid slapstick over the top comedy. And I booked it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I was just having so much fun because the comedies that I was raised on were all of the Monty Python and Gone with the, not Gone with the Wind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
The pianist. Exactly. I'm thinking of A Mighty Wind, all of those, Christopher Guest and Monty Python. So I knew stupid comedy better than rhythmic laugh track comedy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And so I just went in being like, I'm going to be so crazy stupid and I'm going to like scream at the top of my lungs and do the most outlandish choices because either I'm going to get the role and have so much fun doing that or they're going to be like, that was so crazy. Never bring her back. And I was comfortable with that. I I was like, I don't want to really do Disney anyway.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So we booked it and I had so much fun. And at the time, it was a sort of a modern family set up, a blended family. I was playing the older sister who really loved fashion, was bratty and didn't want to deal with her little siblings. And then we had Joey and Tenzing who ended up playing the brothers. And then we had another younger actress who was playing my younger sister.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And then we had this very pivotal scene where we're talking in the mirror during the pilot that I guess swung Disney in the direction of they had always wanted to do a twin show, but they never tried it. And at that point, I had already done one Disney Channel original movie for them where I was like snowboarding. It was so crazy. And they just bet on me. We went away for like nine months.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
They were like, don't work. And then one day they called me and they were like, hey, show's picked up. Get ready for everything in your whole life to change. Also, you're playing twins and we'll see you on Monday. Wow.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
You're shooting every scene twice. Yeah. Oh, no. Honestly, I had fun. I feel like everybody's waiting for me to be like, so tell me about Disney. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We had the best team. We had Ron and John, who were our showrunners. I really grew up on that set. When I was getting my driver's license, all the showrunners and writers walked out with me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I got picked up on the studio lot by the driver, and they showed up with signs being like, watch out, new driver on the road. Disaster. And I was like, yeah, you guys can do it. It was just a really lovely, safe way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I couldn't have prepared. I also think I surprised myself by being more introverted than I anticipated, which you truly don't know until you're put into that situation. And then you're like, oh, I'm very introverted. I didn't really learn how to navigate fan attention or public attention for many years. I used to have panic attacks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So not to heavily shift, but to give you context at the point that Liv and Maddie was airing and I was working, my father had taken his own life. Oh. And so there was so much going on in my personal life. That's going to affect any kid when you're 15 and that happens. It changes the course of your life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I can't believe I'm already making connections. Oh my God. Wow. I have a question because I'm just first time sitting in this. Is there a way to angle the camera so I'm not flashing everybody? Oh, that's a great. Okay. Gorgeous. I love it because there's so many cameras that I don't know why you're catching. And I always just like to like mission statement.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And within the same calendar year, we were in 900 million homes that translated into all these different languages.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I couldn't at 15. land in a soft spot around what happened with my father. There was no way for me to wrap my head around it. We were at his funeral on Bainbridge Island. And then a couple months later, I was at the Grove with people asking me to sign glossies and I didn't know how to...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
really reconcile with that because like the beginning of my career I was so shrouded by this heavy cloud that it didn't hit me that I was a famous person until years later I really was protected in the sound stage I would come to work every day and some days would be good and some days would be bad and everybody was super protective of me and it was kind of like a volatile time
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
In my life in general, just being a teenager, being on TV, the show was a great escape.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It was this mindfuck because you're in this world of like, hi, guys, I'm Dove Cameron and da da da da. And you get home and it's silent and your mom is like, you OK? And you're like, yeah, I don't know. Am I OK? And then you're in therapy and then they're like, you want to be medicated? And you're like, I don't think so. I don't know if I can act if I'm medicated. It was this crazy teenagehood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, it was a weird thing because to be completely honest, I tried to mend my relationship with my dad a lot. There's this thing that happens with a lot of people who are depressed where they are perpetually pushing people away. And for the entirety of 13 and 14 and 15, I was really trying to connect with my dad. He was always a depressive person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
My mom and him met and he was like, I'm super suicidal. And she was like, oh, Okay, I'm 20. We're going to try to get you out of this. Oh, boy. Yeah. So it was always sort of there. But I was really just like, I miss my dad. I know something's weird. He doesn't answer when I call.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's it's also like. I think about this a lot because I was so young. And I have a memory of him coming to stay with us once. in Burbank. And I just remember thinking all the color had left his face and I didn't know he was drinking so heavily and all of that. And I remember being young enough, like 14, he was staying on a little blow-up mattress in our living room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
He wasn't looking at me in the eye. I thought he was mad at me. And I came to like say goodnight or lay down next to him because I was still a very young 14th. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I've been on TV for so long. You got to ask these things because someone's going to be like, oh, your ass was out the whole time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So wait, is that because of the girl's side or your side? He likes one side. Yes, this side. I like one side too.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
We can never be photographed together because we have the same side.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
We could prom it. I just have a stronger symmetry on the right side. Like my jaw is more defined on this side. I have a slight difference in the tip of my nose. I also think maybe this eye is like slightly bigger. I'm sure it's an insanity.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Whereas with music, you are the director, you are the producer, like you are the little drummer boy in the front of the parade being like, go again, go again. You are your own sort of planetary system. And I am someone who really runs everything with my music. I have an incredible team around me, but I'm not one of those artists that's like, I trust you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I do trust my team, but I'm also like, let me hear it again. Let me hear it through headphones.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And I will be sitting in the studio being like, can we do a breath here? I'll go in down to the final last day and I will be working on mood boards with video directors and I will be scouting people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. And I'm so obsessive just because I really have an idea of what I want it to be. And that's part of the fun. My partner is always like, baby, you got to chill out. You're going to burn out. And I'm like, yeah, but it's that extra 10% of attention that for me as an artist takes it from whatever I did my job to, oh my God, I'm so proud of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, try to pretend like I have a strong mandible. But see, you've got this beautiful thing happening where you have a very small face and huge features.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It was weird in the sense that I actually had not been doing it for that long. music I released initially was my partner's music and Disney's music at the time, my partner. Then the music after that, it wasn't music I was entirely writing because labels are very like, you came from Disney, you have a good following. We think you should go on this record.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And I would rewrite some of it, but not really all of it. And it would be stuff that I kind of liked.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
You didn't feel ownership of it. No, and I was extremely plagued by, I think this is who people want me to be. And I had done that for so long on Disney that I was like, I know how to do that. I guess I'll do that. And then I was enjoying it because it was new, but there was no onus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Boyfriend, the song that I wrote that went a little wild, it was the first song that I had ever written entirely top to bottom from nothing. All of these other records that I know people have heard and fans have loved that I'm sure I will get back on Spotify one day. They were originally written by other people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And then I sort of changed some lyrics to fit more my story just because I was like, I don't think I would say that. Or I was starting to experiment with writing. And that's what a lot of artists do is they'll take records that other people have written and they'll put their own spin on it and change some things. Not everybody has the time. to take six months to sit in the studio and only do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So there's no hate or shame in that. That's pretty normal. And then some people, that's their whole gig. They're singer songwriters. That's what they do. I never really believed in myself enough to try to write a whole fucking song based on like a concept that I had had. And I one day was just like, maybe. And so I went into the studio to try to start to write.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And my label really didn't think anything of it. They were like, have fun, babe. You know, like dropping me off at the mall. They were like, OK. I wrote Boyfriend pretty early on. I think it was the first one that I wrote in that time, or if not the first, like one of the first. And I randomly put it up on TikTok because that's what the label is like. Everything's on TikTok.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. I've never heard it like that. I like that. I was just reading something the other day about the different beauty preferences for all around the globe. And the small face, big features is very youthful. I do read young.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And I woke up to a crazy record breaking. Like I had almost no TikToks up. Literally, the TikTok was live photos that I had taken of myself that I turned into video and just put together. Oh, nice. Like it was not a good TikTok. Yeah. And I guess singing about being bisexual or attracted to women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
We got the moms. So anyway, it was the first time I'd ever experienced something that I had conceptualized, brought to life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Right. And then kind of before that, I felt like I didn't exist. And then after this thing, I felt like I finally existed in a more authentic way in the world than I ever had before. And also coupled with this coming out of it all, which I was pretty afraid to do.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, interesting. No, I mean, I got some of that after I came out, but it was actually I had made a music video for another song that I'd released called We Belong. It wasn't a music video, it was like a visualizer because we had no money for a real music video. And there were all these faces being drawn and like embracing in cartoons.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And someone sent it back to me and I realized that it was only representing heterosexual couples, even though they were drawings, they were very like white. heterosexual couples, boldly non-inclusive. And so I just sent a note back being like, can we get some more representation in this cartoon? Everything still remained white and outlining.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It was just more varied and silhouette and men and women and then women and women, men and men and androgynous looking. I was just like, this is weird. It doesn't really represent me. And also it was kind of a jarring POV for me where I was like, that is so hetero and narrow. And so I put that out. And then it was like the time when people were putting emojis to hint at what was coming.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So when people were like, when's the new single coming out? And I was like, emoji, emoji. And then like the women loving women emoji kissing. And then the song came out and it wasn't about being queer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And everybody was like, you're queerbaiting. This is horrendous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Queer baiting is when something is for the queer community and it's not quite or you like keep it in the hetero bubble, but you sort of give crumbs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It's a marketing technique that a lot of shows have been accused of where they'll also give same sex people a lot of tension, hinting that there might be something there and then they never fully go there because they're like, that's not really what it is. They just want to get the queer community and sort of make money.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
That's queerbaiting. So I had to basically go on Instagram live at the time and be like, guys, I'm not queerbaiting. I'm queer. And I just wanted more fucking representation in the fucking cartoon. And the emoji was just hinting at the music video. I was so confused by it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And also at that time, I'd never said it publicly, but all my friends, all my family, they knew I was queer. But I just hated that I had to say it. But I did.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
We have a long way to go. Yeah, I do too. We've made like a little bit of progress within our own internet-y liberal bubble of people who are maybe queer community adjacent. And also just like within the queer community, there's some weird discriminatory things. Even within the queer community, people are very heavy on labels. You have to define yourself. You have to know what it is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah. And also just if we have that issue within the community, I think we have quite a ways to go.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I had a feeling that people were going to say I wasn't queer enough.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I didn't really have an issue being second guessed because I truly was like, I know who I am. My hang up was more my experience in my personal life was so liberal, wonderful, beautiful, kind, protected, sweet, nurturing, supportive. And my experience of the outside world was so scary. I was also on TV in the 2010s. We were still like, she's 110 and so she's fat. People were being so crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It was tabloid time. People were just making shit up about celebrities. I was on the tail end of all that really ugly shit. My body type now would have been like, ooh, she's really, you know, it was a... Terrible time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, but really? What about anal? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it counts still, right? It counts. It was so bad. And so I just hadn't really recovered from that or thought that society would be like, rock on. You're queer. We kind of knew it. I wasn't expecting that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I've never heard it. No, I'm needing to prove this to you right now. I'm feeling like this space is no longer safe. Educate me. You know, the practice of alchemy, when something is something that can transmute energy, it is alchemical.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
No, but it's kind of cunty just to have Alchemical volume one. It's like, where's Alchemical volume two? It's like in the vault, maybe. Can I make a pitch? Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
One day, we'll be like Volume 2, it'll be like 40 songs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
That's cool. It's a good model. It was funny to do Alchemical Volume 1 and 3 and then just be like, where's 2? Oh, that's good. You haven't heard it? It's very Taylor Swift of you. Oh, really? You know, keeping things and then big releases. That's true. That's true. I could learn. I went in to write what I thought was going to be Alchemical Volume 2, but this crazy thing happened.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I spent two years basically off the face of the earth and processing a lot of trauma. I found my dad's baby journal, and that sounds like it's nothing, but I truly had all of this...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
storyline in my head that my dad didn't like me didn't love me didn't ever see me didn't ever know me so I had all of this unresolved shit probably with men in general I went through like a horrendous breakup just one of those like if I could tell it you'd be like no no like it just kept getting worse and I'm not going to talk about it but it was something that really truly like took me out at the knees yeah I don't even know how the fuck it happened if I'm honest I went through two really bad long-term relationships kind of back-to-back
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
The first one was kind of all bad. The second one, it had its beautiful moments. And then towards the end, it was just horrendous. And I was in this like weird situation where my friend had just passed. So I was coming off of antidepressants and I was trapped in Canada during COVID. Couldn't leave. No one could come see me. And then we broke up and I was like, untethered. It was wild.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And all the streets were shut down. And it was just the most horrendous fallout from that relationship. And so we're glossing over some things. But if I were to say those two years, sort of 2020 into 2021, I was kind of listless. And that was when I dyed my hair, came out, wrote Boyfriend. And then Boyfriend came out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And then I was like kind of listless again because I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to follow up this song. I didn't write anything.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I was like, I don't even know how I did it the first time. And I also won all these awards prematurely, which then I was like, guys, are you fucking sure? I'm a fraud.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So much imposter syndrome. And so then I found my dad's baby book and I basically swore off of dating anybody. Rest of 2022 into most of 2023. And I dipped into the deepest, darkest depression. And I just fell off the face of the planet. I did a lot of internal work and everybody was like, you gave up your career. You don't give a fuck. And I was like, I can't make myself get down on that. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
In a year, it kind of hit me all at once. My best friend was like, you have never stopped working. And I was like, yeah, but if I stop, everything's going to find me. And then it did. Yeah. It always does. Yeah. And I was like, fuck you, Veronica. You were fucking right. I don't know how I'm going to get myself out of this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And so I just bared down, isolated myself, which is not something I recommend, but something I definitely did on instinct. Kept myself out of trouble, stayed in my house and then had a lot of dark nights of the soul and just kind of dug, cleansed, dug, cleansed and basically purified myself in the craziest way. And then I met my partner.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
The Italian Stallion. And then I tried to write the album. Two months after we started dating, I wrote the first song about him. And it was very clear that the album was going to be a massive departure from anything I was doing before. I was like, why are we trying to write a part two when I was so depressed in those songs? And this one is like a fully different book.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And then I'll get depressed again. We got it scheduled. I'm going to be depressed probably from November to like March, I would say. So don't reach out. No, no, no. Honestly, I don't mean to make light.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I really didn't expect that. I couldn't have written this album if I had not dropped off the face of the planet and learned a little bit more about who I was as an adult and as an individual. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, it's so funny because finding this baby book was really a pivotal thing in my human evolution timeline. I can't overemphasize enough what it did for me. This came straight out of that excerpt, which was something I apparently said to him on the changing table when I was two, like barely verbal. We'll be friends forever. And he was like, hold on, and had to date it and time it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And he was like, we will be friends forever. But there was so much in there that was like, today you read the first word out of your newspaper. You're so smart. You know, like stuff that I never got from him when he was alive. Stuff that he was too sad to tell me as I was growing up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I think just knowing that he really did see me, the things that he would say about me, I was so shocked were things that were still true now. He was like, you're so intense. You're so independent. You're so fiery. You always stand up for yourself. You always apologize first. You always make sure everyone around you is okay. And I was like, how do you glean this from someone who's five and under?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
But I think there was something in that. I'd always thought that there was something wrong with me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And also the way that my dad really didn't love my mom very well. My mom and I were so similar. I was like, there's something wrong. He doesn't love us. He doesn't like us. And I really like and love him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And so I think it really skewed my perspective on having to be something for so many people. I thought that I had to win love. I thought that I had to put up with dark things to be worthy, to be good enough. Also, growing up with an unstable parent, you really start to sort of calculate and read other people's behaviors and triggers before they get triggered. And so you're walking on eggshells.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And apologetic. Anyway, all of that is to say that when I read that actually I was entirely wrong and he couldn't wait to see who I would turn into and truly saw me... Madly in love with you. Yeah. And in the way that I was with him, I was finally able to like put this massive rock down. Oh, I have always been...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
exactly who I am I have always been seen as the person I am today and really he didn't miss anything oh that's interesting yeah that's very sweet if he could love me like that I can love me like that yeah that also I think was really what made my life what it is now is that fucking baby journal so keep a journal for your fucking kids well then lets you enter into this Italian stallion situation a much probably healthier version of yourself oh yeah what's different about an Italian yeah
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Without bringing anyone else into it, my political answer, what my partner is that I have never seen firsthand is he is the most... honest, beautiful, truly off the charts, intelligent, funny as fuck, kind, good hearted person.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
He has to know almost no words, and those are some of the words he knows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Sorry, I don't know how to talk about anything else. Both of our mascara is running. I also love this laugh. Like you're in pain. You're like, so crazy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
He's really in both of his energies, I would say. He's really masculine and feminine in all of the most beautiful ways. I always like to say that I would have found him in any body. I truly think that he is the most beautiful soul. He's kind of shy. And so actually, I think he puts out this air of unapproachability.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, which is really just he's introverted. The thing that he said to me first that then I started saying, because it's really true, is that I was really afraid of... of humans at the time that I had met him. And I had really been convinced that something was wrong with me and I was not allowed to engage with the other humans for fear of either me inadvertently harming them or being harmed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And I was starting to get really introverted and weird. And when I met him and when he asked me out, it was maybe only three or four weeks into dating that we were crying and doing the deep dive. And he was like, I think I really needed you to come into my life because I was starting to disappear. That was exactly what it was for me. He's my proof that I can be here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
in the most beautiful way because I have the most incredible friends. But the way that he sees me is something that I've never experienced and the way that we're best friends. And I think that's really one of the cornerstones of our relationship is just the way that we are so healthy for each other. We really are normal human beings first.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, yeah. The main difference I really can stand on is that he wants me to be as big and expressed and healthy and whole and off the rails. Whoever I am, he wants me to be that at a 10.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And that was really my experience. He really couldn't be more of the opposite. If I'm ever hiding in any way, he's like, what the fuck are you doing? He's my biggest amplifier. And that to me has just been so healing. Also just for like my inner child.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
He's going to absolutely slay and slam this. I also love this crazy combo of you have a protein shake, you have a Diet Coke. I really know I'm home. I come never anywhere with less than three beverages in my purse.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, you don't want to fucking go over there. It's a whole family of bikinis, all right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
You don't even want to go over there. The guy parking your car? Bikini. Bikini.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
She's the belle of the ball. I have a new single coming out very, very soon. We're kind of vacillating between two, but I'm pretty sure I know which one I want it to be. What month is it? March? Okay, I have a new single coming out next month.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And then probably just one more and then somewhere in there, the album.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Clove. Clove. Clove is good. Clover. Oh, shit. Yeah, get that vape mist in the atmosphere. Get that nicotine mist all up in the atmosphere. Use a little nice smoky scent and vitamin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Like once a year I get a cry-in. Once a year. I'm feeling so connected. I'm feeling so high-vibing. No, I'm the same.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, we're going to know this is where it all started.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Okay, I will. All right. Just like tonight for dinner? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can just live here. Don't even come back. A bikini reunion.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Really? I think it's because we're so stimulus addicted. I realized I was a stimulus addict 10 years ago. I was little and I was like, I can't do anything unless there's many things happening at once.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
You know something funny? This is just a random anecdote that I have for you. Your wife guest starred on my Disney Channel show. Oh, wow. She came for an episode of Liv and Maddie when I was itty bitty. And it was because she was friends with Andy Fickman, who created Liv and Maddie.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I'm actually glad I didn't know that because I was such a fan of both you and Chris. I probably would have passed out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but genuinely a huge fan of you as well. I was always a massive comedy girl growing up. I remember you guys have a movie together that I was really obsessed with. Hit and Run? That opening scene when she's crying and all of that. It's so beautiful. Thank you. And Dax wrote that. Yes, I do. I remember.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Uh-huh. The Pacific Northwest is so beautiful and it's full of people who are born there, raised there, never leave. And then if you're not from there, I'm always shocked that you might have a reason to go there. It feels like a Twilight Zone-y area that to me does not exist outside of the people who eat, sleep and breathe that community.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
We went gooey duck. What the heck is that? I still don't think in my adulthood I could explain what a geoduck is. It's like this massive... I'm going to get it wrong and everyone's going to be like, this is not a geoduck. We'll fact check it. The geoduck community is going to be livid. But it's this massive, long, amorphous clam thing. It's a hard shell sea animal. Inside there's some eatins.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And you like boil the geoducks like a clammy oyster. And it's chewy. I never liked them. Yeah, this sounds horrible. It sounds disgusting. But I remember the hunting process being super exciting and romantic. In between kayaking, hiking, it was a very natural, North Face-branded upbringing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I have my own theories about how Seattle became what it is because Seattle particularly has a huge coffee culture, huge underground music culture, and huge jazz music and wine culture. Ooh. My theory is the same as yours. I think that everyone was like, it's fucking miserable outside. What can we do inside?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And then you got all of these little jazz bars and these weird little underground city hubs.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Capitol Hill, so fucking sick. And then everybody just sort of stayed inside and never came out. And it became like this cozy little, we listen to jazz and drink wine. Everybody's like a little bit pretentious. Depressed, pretentious, but like you're chill about it. Good mix. Good. Yeah. I started drinking coffee at like 12. That was my hunch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It's just disgusting outside. The rain used to be such a constant for me that it was like you're walking in the rain. You don't put makeup on. You don't do your hair. You surrender to the rain. And then I lived in L.A. for one year and I went back to Seattle. You lose your tolerance.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It's true, but I also think it's because truly they have nowhere to be.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Not in a derogatory way, but in a healthy, we're living a real human life. We're living slow. Now that I live in L.A. and New York and I'm really splitting my time, the rushing and the mania of these cities, you go back to a healthy, normal working city where it's like you go to your job, you go to the airport, you bank three hours. So I think that that's part of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
It's less that they cannot drive in the rain and it's more that they're like, eh, fuck it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So crazy enough, they didn't work on the island. They worked as far away as they possibly could. They had a business out of India.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Oh, wow. Jaipur and New Delhi, Jodhpur, some select parts of Mumbai. They were importers, so they would design jewelry and certain goods. They had all of their suppliers in India, which is where all of the silver, gold, all the fine gemstones, all of the materials are imported. India. And they had all of these houses and suppliers that they worked with.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
So they truly spent half of their year in Jaipur and New Delhi. Oh, really?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, yeah. I have an older sister and she was very much in high school and they were like, you can't do your homework on the road. And I was like, I want to be homeschooled. I want to travel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
They say that that's like the only child. It is. You grew up in two different lives.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
No, I think the longest I went was four months. Wow, though, that's a long time. That's hefty.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Absolutely loved it. I feel like I've spent so many of my early brain forming amoebas connecting memories in India. And it was so life changing. My dad was always also really big on if you ever are saving money, it's for travel. If you ever do anything, it's for travel. It's for education. It's for expanding the frontal lobe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Travel is always the number one to do. And so I was really lucky because my parents were just like, she's so small. What is she really going to fucking learn in second grade? Let's get out of here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I was in public school, which on Bainbridge Island is like 20 kids. I did public school from kindergarten through second or third grade. And no kid is happy in school. But I was really struggling. I was starting to get a little weird and internal. And my parents were like, she doesn't have peers. Were you shy? I was really self-expressed. I was very precocious and I was too much for other kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And I really, really wanted to be friends with other kids. But I think I was not an easy fit for groups of friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
No, I've really mellowed out over the years. But I think as a kid, I wanted to like love people and love them hard. That's also around the age where kids start to suss out who's weird. Yes. And kids start to be like, you're doing weird things and we're not doing any of those things. In group, out group. That was very much in the out group.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Right. I feel like so many of us, especially in the industry, have that story.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I was like, are you? Halaciously traumatized. And they were like, I just want to go home and watch Nickelodeon. I was like, I don't have Nickelodeon. I very much like also was always hanging out with my parents' friends. And so I was trying to have real conversations when I was too little to be doing that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
I was one of those kids that was wearing big coats and being like, I'm just so stressed. Honestly, I'm exhausted, like with my empty wine glass.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Yeah, that was kind of the only place my mom could stick me. She was like, you got to channel the energy and you hate soccer. And I was like, let's do theater. It was this tiny, sweet little community theater where they were putting on Les Mis Teen Summer. And I was playing Little Cozat and doing Shakespeare Summer Camp and playing Lady Macbeth. And I was so into it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And then, funny enough, the first gig I got was for Ryan Gosling's Halloween Band. Oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
And it is fucking incredible. Of course, that bastard. It's so good. That fucking asshole. God, what a dick.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Dove Cameron
Something about him, I just can't resist it. He had this crazy Halloween band called Dead Man's Bones. Okay. Okay, Robbie. He's a dead man's bone. First time he's ever spoken today. And it's really quite good. I still listen to it. It's very experimental, him and his friend. But they had this concept of having like a ghostly children's choir. Okay.