Rising Stars: Meet River C. Johnson

Today we’d like to introduce you to River C. Johnson.

Hi River, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Of course. Happy to be here! I was born in a tiny town in Mississippi to a lower-middle-class family. I’m talking 25 people in a grade at our school small. And from the moment I was born, I was obsessed with anything creative. While growing up, my nickname was “Boogie” because my mother always said that I could dance before I could walk. I would write little sketches for my little brother & friends and then force them to rehearse the “play” until we all had it perfect so that we could perform the it for my grandparents and parents. Oooo. I was a tyrant as a 5-year-old “director.” I was passionate, okay! Haha.

In school and church, I wanted to join the dance team, be a puppeteer, choir, school play, etc. while all of the other little boys wanted to play football, baseball, soccer, etc. My parents tried their damndest to get me interested in sports. But once they put me on the tee ball field & I picked flowers off the ground for the opposing team at the beginning of the game to apologize for us “having to beat them” because I didn’t want their feelings to be hurt? They knew there was no winning this battle. Lol.

Then the day came that changed my life. I was around 8 or 9 years old. We were doing a play at church called “The Tale of Three Trees,” where everyone played a talking tree. I played the stump. I studied those lines like there was no tomorrow & looked forward to the weekly rehearsal. I don’t quite remember what the play was about. But there was a moment close to the end where I was afraid that they would dig me up – so I ran as this stump. I ran through the church aisles around and around and the entire church was in hysterics. The 3rd time that I ran around the church – I remember specifically thinking to myself, “oh my god. I want this feeling for the rest of my life.” After church and still on a high – I told my mother that I wished there was a way to do that for the rest of my life & she told me about acting and actors and how it is a real job. (I know what you’re thinking. What did you think the people on television were doing all this time? Well, my mother was strict, so all we watched in my home until this age were cartoons, veggie tales, and PBS.) After that, I became obsessed. I started reading magazines like J-14 & Tiger Beat & would steal an occasional copy of my mother’s “People” magazine to read the “real business stuff.”

A few years later, in 7th grade, I was riding with my grandfather in his maroon GMC truck to his job & he asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I told him that I didn’t care how long it would take or what I had to do, but I would be an actor no matter what. Then he hit me with a little secret that I, to this day, have beef with my mother and hometown for keeping from me. Did you know we had a community theatre this whole time!? Yes! This whole time! And no one ever shared this little diddy of information with me, even though everyone knew I had this obsession with acting! Buffoonery! But I’ll let it go, I suppose.

He told me, “Well, hey, buddy. You know they’re having auditions at the community theatre for a play called ‘Fruitcakes’ tomorrow night. You should audition. I’ll take you.” Oh my gosh! I’ll never forget how ecstatic I was! I went to the auditions and asked Frankie Germany (the director) if I could audition twice more because I wanted to “make sure that I got the role right.” She just laughed at how eager I was. I landed the part of “Little Beebo” & I had my first ever “real” role in anything bigger than a church production! After that play, the Ellis Theatre in Philadelphia, MS became my home. I auditioned for every single play that came along throughout the next few years & the people at this theatre became my first-ever real friends. It became an escape from the hell that school was.

Around this time, I learned about the Mississippi School of the Arts. And guess what? They had an acting program that you could audition to be a part of, go to school to study the craft, and be around other creatives! So, you bet your bottom dollar that I began running for student council, entering every club I could be a part of, reading every acting book I could get my hands on, volunteering, etc! Anything that would make my resume stand out amongst the other applicants! You only have one chance to audition & that is your sophomore year of high school. So, once that time came, I auditioned and checked my mailbox every hour for the coming weeks to get my acceptance letter. My acceptance letter eventually came & I moved to Brookhaven, Mississippi & began living at the school & studying acting 5 days a week with rehearsals all weekend. It was a dream come true.

Once I graduated, I thought it was “smarter” & “more practical” to go to college for something that would be “easier to get into” and wasn’t as “hit or miss.” I decided on Hinds Community College. I dabbled as a communications major, then a political science major, then thought I would do marine biology, then yadda, yadda, yadda. But after spending 2 years studying acting nonstop at MSA & then going back to just the books at Hinds? I was miserable. Acting had been all I had ever wanted to do since I could remember. But how was I going to move to a major city? I’m 18. I didn’t have a job. I had no money. My mother didn’t have enough money to help me with such a crazy move. I didn’t even know where to start. But then one night, while I sat in my dorm room bed, depressed, and stuck in a rabbit hole of interviews on YouTube from actors playing “wheel of impressions, “hot seat” and other games/interviews on talk shows. (Never really got over that magazine period of my life, huh?) An interview with Jennifer Lawrence came on & she had just won her first Oscar & they mentioned in the interview that she was only 22. A clip of a Lady Gaga interview came up immediately after. She was only 26 and I mean = THE Lady freakin’ Gaga at this point!

I am 18 and am still trying to figure out what a headshot is. Oh man! It hit me and it hit me hard! I immediately stopped watching the interviews, opened up a google search engine, and typed in “Best Acting Schools in America.” The New York American Academy of Dramatic Arts was one of the first choices to pop up. This was in February. I found out they were having auditions starting in March in states all around America to find their 2014 class! Alas, there were no auditions in Mississippi or even nearby. The closest auditions they had were in Orlando, FL. My mother could not take me to Orlando just for an audition. This was when I had one of my most profound “aha” moments. (I even have it tattooed on my right wrist.) I learned a valuable lesson. The lesson was. ” F*** It.” Yep. “F*** It.” The time was going to pass anyway. I knew from age 8 that all I wanted to do in the world was an act. There are people out there doing it. So, why not me? I don’t care if I’m rich. I don’t care if I’m famous. But the thought of waking up every single day to act all day & be able to pay my bills? There’s no way that I’m letting that life pass me by. It was a crossroads moment for me.

I think back to it often and shiver with the thought of, “what if I would’ve listened to all of the practical voices in my head telling me that this was crazy.” But I didn’t listen. I said, “F*** It.” The worst thing that can happen is what? I don’t get in? So, I applied. I passed the academic part of the audition, and all that was left was the acting portion of the audition. So, I took every penny I had to my name & bought a plane ticket to Orlando, FL. I knew that my mother was never going to go for me going to Orlando alone nor would she be able to go with me (and this is not to count the fact that she was not going to let me move to New York City by myself!) But, “F*** It,” right? So, I found 2 contrasting monologues, locked myself away in my dorm room, and only studied this for the rest of the month. Once the audition date came – I told my mother that I would stay at my friend Victoria’s for the weekend, & I flew to Orlando for the audition. That audition changed my life. I got into the school & it was the first real taste of “audacity” that I ever had. And “audacity” became my favorite meal. Once I got into the school, I knew there was no way I would ever be able to afford it. So, I began applying for every single scholarship that I could find. Hell, I applied to left-handed scholarships! (I’m not left-handed, but your boy was desperate).

Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Hell no! Not even in the slightest! But whenever anyone has ever asked my “secret” on how I’ve accomplished so much in my 20-something (mind your business) years? I always have had the same advice. And I will die on this hill. The secret to life is Delusion and Audacity. My entire life I was bullied mercilessly. I was beaten up on playgrounds and in the hallways, never had the money that the other kid’s parents had, had a broken father figure, etc. But even though every day was miserable and I thought about suicide more times than I can count; what got me through it was my dear friend, delusion. I was delusional as hell.

Chile, you couldn’t have told me any different. In my head, no matter how many times I got called a Faggot, got a black eye, or was told I was weird? None of those a******s mattered to me. Because one day, I was going to move away and none of this would matter. I just knew that one day I would make it in the “big city” & all of those bullies would be “pumping my gas one day.” This helped me get through a pretty rough childhood. And then I dared to think that someone like me would ever be accepted into a major acting school, be a working actor, afford to live in a major city, etc. While some kids have been in tap or vocal classes since they were 3 – Who gave me the right to think I was good enough? My damn self. The A. U. D. A. C. I. T. Y. of me.

Once I got all of the scholarships that I needed to pay for at least half of my school – I found an apartment and roommates and then broke the news to my mother that I would be moving to New York City. (She was horrified, but that’s a different story for a different day.) I moved off to NYC. It was one of the most difficult years of my life. NYC rent is expensive. The subway pass was around $125 a month at the time. Living expenses, utilities, & college necessities were adding up. And, as I said, the scholarships only paid for a portion of my tuition. So, the rest of it was up to me. My mother had 2 other children and understandably saw NYC as a personal elective of mine. So, there was no way she could afford to raise 2 children plus try to pay for my “big city dreams.” So, this was all up to me. So, I found a job at a little coffee shop called Manhattanville Coffee. With this, I officially became a full-time student with a full-time job, full-time rehearsals, scene studies, & loads of college-level homework in the most expensive city in the world.

It wasn’t humanely possible to be able to balance this world that I wanted so badly. (To shed light on the horror that this was – there was once a rumor that I would sleep on a window ledge inside one of the stalls at the coffee shop bathroom that I worked at during my lunch breaks. Though I denied it then – this rumor was very true. When else was I going to be able to sleep?) Balancing full-time student/full-time employee in the most expensive city in the world with only a small town Mississippi point of view of the world to go off of? I failed. I learned so so so much. But I failed. I slept 2-3 hours a night if I could even go to sleep. I was exhausted from classes. I was falling behind with school payments & living off of a cup of noodle diet. After a year of trying everything possible – I eventually accepted that it just simply wasn’t working. So, I moved back home to Mississippi. I spent the time back home thankful for my family, got a job working at my mother’s preschool, & traveled a little bit with my new, more refined outlook on life. But I still had a plan & I still needed to finish it. I failed once, but “F*** it,” remember? Even if that road failed, one of the roads would still have to work out, right? My wins? I had gotten over my culture shock. I understood how major cities worked, the means necessary, & what I would need. I had even more acting training that I could take with me. These were some positives that I could use as weapons for whatever my next “if you choose this – turn to page 32, but if you choose this – turn to page 78” road that I decided to take was.

I chose Los Angeles. The audacity that I had to think that even after one city kicked my a** like everyone said that it would that I could do well in a different scenario.

The delusion that I had to think that I was still good enough.

“F*** It.” The worst that could happen is that LA also doesn’t work out. And at the very least, I had an amazing cultural experience.  If LA also doesn’t work out – Home will always be here. But in my mind? It would work out. Because NYC was the “rough draft.” I now had all of the necessary knowledge & tools that I needed to try again.

The. Audacity Of Me. “F*** It.”

I posted on a “Gypsy Housing” Facebook page to find an apartment. A woman messaged me and 2-3 zoom call later = I had the room. But she needed me to move in by no later than September 14th. It was mid-August at the time. Oy. But I didn’t have another option. I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity, and I knew that plane tickets this close would keep getting more expensive the closer we got to the 14th.

So, I bought a one-way flight to Los Angeles, California for September 14th, 2016. I moved into a tiny little room with 3 beds with 3 people living in the room. But I was just happy to be there. When I moved here, I only had enough money for my first month’s rent + 27 dollars. Yes, there were all of the same financial monsters as in NYC, but this time I came with my friends – knowledge, audacity, & delusion. I knew I needed to find a job for the second month’s rent & Pronto! I only had 30 days to figure this out. So, I woke up at 6 am on the 15th and got dressed in a blue button-up and khaki shorts. I went to Staples & spent $5 of my $27 left to print out resumes (bless my heart. No one told my small town self that people were using digital resumes at this point. I got weird looks as I handed the resumes to managers in my Mississippi garb. Lol.) I went into every place I could find that I might be a good fit.

After a few days, I landed a job as a front desk receptionist at a spray tan salon in the middle of Beverly Hills. For the next few months, I only lived off of 7-Eleven (a popular convenience store) $2 10-piece mini tacos OR a $5 Seven-Eleven pizza. I would make the pizza last almost a week only eating 2 slices at a time.

After I got the hang of it (mostly), I saved some money and spent my time reading acting books & business of acting books, watching online classes, finding a community I could be a part of that would give me advice, etc. I began spending the little money that I did have on headshots, acting classes, casting websites, etc. – whatever I needed to make my goals happen. I needed it for the 11-year-old me who spent nights crying himself to sleep because he had no friends, wasn’t interested in football & wanted to sing, act, and dance “like the girls.”

Please tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others.
Well, It’s been six years since I moved to Los Angeles, California. I have been beyond imaginably blessed. I often have moments where I must take a seat and reflect on my life. I am grateful. I am a working actor, writer, executive producer, host, dancer, standup comic, & model. My only source of income comes from these things. I am everything I dared to tell myself that I could be without any grounds to stand on. I have made a career out of horror films like “Acquired Taste,” “NONA,” “Everlast,” and “The Dead End.” (Who would’ve ever thunk that I would be a scream king? Haha.) All of the hell that I went through as an adolescent became the inspiration for me in the making of LGBTIA+ based films like “I’m Straight, “The Sound of Walking,” & “Emerald City” in which I star in. I am coming on as host for a podcast called “My Childhood Ruined” alongside Heather Moran. I have headlined the House of Blues as a standup comic. And I am executive producing, acting, & writing for my very own sketch comedy television show called “The Comedy Sketch Variety Show!” alongside Ellis Perry – premiering in early 2023.

After years of failure, convenience store pizza, & only having myself? I live on Sunset BLVD, baby!!!

I say all of that to say this. Always remember audacity & delusion. In most scenarios revolving around your goals and/or dreams – the worst thing that could happen is someone says no or it doesn’t work out. That is the WORST thing that could happen. You’ll survive. At the end of your life, you will be 100. (Hopefully.) And when you’re 100, you’ll realize that the time has passed whether you were doing what you dreamed of doing or you weren’t. Don’t let that time pass you by. Don’t put it off. No one can tell you that you cant…except for yourself. Have the audacity to believe in what you want. Keep the delusion of thinking you’re the only one who can offer what you can. Because you’re already here. You might as well make it worth it. And for all of the gay kids? As miserable and empty as it feels now? It gets better, as cliche as it is to say. I promise it does. In most of America, people don’t care who you love or that you can sing every Britney lyric or that you dont like football. Regardless of what you’re hometown might tell you. You being gay everywhere else carries the same weight as you being a Harry Potter fan. I have hundreds of gay friends. I am part of a beautiful community that loves the same things that I do who sing Christina Aguilera to the top of their lungs and who are my chosen family. 18 years in hell might seem like a long time. But remember that the other 80 are a helluva lot longer & you have millions of people ready to grasp you with open arms that you havent even met yet. Keep that in mind.

What were you like growing up?
Oof. We’re gonna go there, huh? Well, My childhood was pretty rough. I’m gay. I knew I was gay by the time I was 4 years old.

I grew up in a highly religious & sheltered household. I didn’t even know that having a girlfriend was a thing…much less a boyfriend. It wasn’t something you talk to a 4-year-old about or that they are seeing on their Saturday morning cartoons. But without even knowing anything about sexuality or boys or girls – I had a crush on a boy in my class. Naturally, it was most definitely not a choice. And with the hell I went through throughout the next decade of my life. If it had been a choice? I would’ve opted out immediately.

As I said, I went to a tiny Edinburg Elementary School until 7th grade that had no more than 25 kids in a grade. (Around 15 by graduation because of dropouts) They separated our classes by gender. And, of course, I was the only little boy who didn’t wear boots, didn’t like or understand sports, & didn’t enjoy hunting or fishing. My interests all were within the realm of the arts. So, with a school of only around 13-14 boys. It was super easy to find the one that didn’t match up. The kids would torment me by screaming, “Let’s play ‘Smear The Queer’” & then throwing the football at me so that everyone could tackle me. They would throw paper balls at me in class, throw pencils at me, throw books at the back of my head in the hallways, etc. The grown-ups were even worse. The number of times I heard, “my momma and daddy said that you’re a ‘faggot,’ so I can’t play with you,” is obscene.

Middle school was the worst. After years of praying to God every Sunday to give me one single friend – I had become a shell of my former self. I would cry myself to sleep every night praying for it to end. I didn’t want to kill myself but at the same time, I wanted it all to end.

By the time 7th grade hit, everyone was paying more attention to who was cool and who was not. It was no longer recess warfare. It was real fists being thrown, not toddlers. And at this tiny school, football was a required class. Yep. 6th period. I didn’t like football. Frankly, no one had ever taught me how to play football. So, since I didn’t want to play – they had me walk around the track surrounding the football field for an hour.

One day, some of the boys in my class had come off the football field after practice & I had bent down to tie my shoe. One of the boys yelled, “Y’all look! River is trying to get us to look at his butt! Faggot!” All the other boys joined in laughing, screaming faggot, and throwing footballs and cleats at me. I went into the bathroom to hide from them. But three of the boys (including the boy who had remarked initially) followed me in & beat me up pretty badly – kicking me on the floor & spitting on me. Out of all the rough physical encounters I had, I remember this one being the one that especially broke me emotionally and mentally.

Our school break was 30 minutes long & it was the longest 30 minutes of my life. I would generally hide in a bathroom stall the entire break so that I didn’t have to be around the other kids. But halfway through my 7th-grade year & a few weeks after the bathroom debacle. Randomly, I was put into detention for the remainder of the year. (Thank God, right? No breaks.) So, I sat in the classroom with my reading teacher while everyone else was on break. One day, when we had a substitute teacher – she looked at me and said, “you’re the shyest child I have seen in a long time. I cannot imagine what landed you in detention. What could you have possibly done?” I told her that I didn’t know. (I wonder if she believed me or not).

But this did raise a question in my mind. So, the next day when my teacher returned. I asked. His reply? “Because you’re a faggot & some parents don’t want you around their kids.” To this day, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that low. The constant bullying accompanied by this comment by my teacher sent me into a downward spiral. I became even more depressed than I already was. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t doing anything. But I was always scared to tell my mother what was happening at school because I didn’t want her to be embarrassed that she was the parent of the “dorky kid.” Or even worse – she would hate me and think that I was gay too. But as any mother does, she could tell that something was wrong. So, she eventually forced me to tell her. Once she found out – she went to the school to figure out how to fix the situation. What is the principal’s response? “Well, is he gay?” My mothers? “He’s 12. He’s not any sexuality.” By the end of the conversation, the principal essentially had sided with the students, believing that the bullying would “build character” and teach me that “being gay is wrong.” So, what did she do? She moved me in with my grandparents so that I could move schools & attend a different, larger school in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

MY COMING OUT STORY IG PRIDE POST (SEPARATE):
I remember being a kid and praying to god every night to make me straight. Kids were mean. Parents were meaner. The only gay people I had even heard of had some face or words of disgust to follow once spoken about. My parents were super religious. I lived in Mississippi (we all know how much MS loves the gays.) I used to tell myself that I would never come out. And I was okay with that. I spent years and went through a lot of being left out, having no friends, being bullied, being stared at, whispers, & hating myself to be comfortable with it finally. And even after all that, I still had to work on society’s connotations of what being a man is. I would deepen my voice, put a little base in my walk, and dress a little less…well. I had a little moment yesterday at LA Pride where I remember looking around and thinking, “Damn.” I’m in a place in my life that I thought I would never be. I proudly go out & “kiki” as I please. My parents could care less about me being “a homo.” I have beautiful friends who are part of the same community. And I (was at the time of this post) in a motherf*cking relationship with a man. A. Man. If you had asked 11-year-old River if he was gay, he would’ve broken down in tears/probably had a panic attack. Moments like yesterday make you realize how important it is to “come out” on social media. It’s not for me. It’s for that 11-year-old who follows me on Facebook/Instagram & is crying himself to sleep every night. It gets better. It gets so much fu***** better. People live for us in the future  || So,  here’s to 11/15-year-old River. Growing older, learning, getting through the tough years, and how f*cking proud of him I am. This month is a lot more than just heavy binge drinking. (Although it’s a plus. ) It gets better. I promise. Happy Pride

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rivercjohnson/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandon.johnson.1485537/
• Other: TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@riverc.johnson?lang=en and/or https://www.tiktok.com/@heathernriver?lang=en

Image Credits
All of the orange jumpsuit photos are screen grabs from – “Acquired Taste” The black wife beater photos are from, “NONA” The headshot photos are from the photographer, Circumpunct Studio