so unlike billy elliott, i didn't get tap dancing -- i didn't go for dancing lessons.t about it. >> jimmy: wow. >> and i was 18, and i went to the see "42nd street." my dad took me and my brother to see "42nd street." an i il never forget this, that same brother who's now 19 came up to me and said, "i said something really stupid to you years ago. i think you belong up on that rry.e and i'm really, really and so the next day i took my first tap dancing lesson. >> jimmy: is that right? [ cheers and applause ] >> yeah. >> jimmy: see, don't let anyone talk you out of doing it. >> yeah, like, i wish i was more like billy elliott. i wish i had all those years. and it thrills me to no end that -- i think kids today don't have any of those hangups that were around when i was young. like, i think of all those reality shows around dance, around singing. all that stuff is cool. thank go. >> jimmy: and it's helping. yeah, absolutley. >> yeah. >> jimmy: i got to say, the last time you were on our show, we were talking about "greatest showman." >> jimmy: and man, oh, man. that expl

started to recount this story, when i started to write of the different child, you know, the kind of billy elliottf wonderful kid in a milieu where people are not wonderful, and what i wanted to show is that i was just a child who wanted to be like anyone else. and my father was telling me, "why are you different? you are bizarre. why are you like this?" and my dream was to fit in. my dream was to be masculine. my dream wasn't to be toni morrison or simone de beauvoir, you know? at some point, i had to escape because i felt that i had no choice, because it was my only way to survive. but before you escaped, perhaps for readers, some of the most shocking passages in your first book, the memoir of your childhood, the passages concern, in a sense, your complicity with the violence against you. for example, there are two kids in your school, in the small town, who repeatedly, day after day, beat you up. and they also humiliate you in a dozen different ways, which i don't even want to go into — they are so painful to even remember. but you didn't hide from those kids. in fact, you sort of agreed to mee