In the spring of 2023, I was finally feeling comfortable identifying as queer. It wasn’t a big revelation so much as a gentle realization that unraveled from a period of intentional time growing my friendships with other queer people.
At that point, I shared a home with a motley of queer artists I cherished: Hanne, Romeo, Oliver, and Ava. We passed snacks to each other from an open kitchen window that led to a patio table where we shared mugs of tea and mini potluck dinners. We read books and talked about old crushes and new ones on the horizon. We made art messily and laughed loudly.
On one rainy night, we cozied up on the couch to watch the sappy sapphic romcom, Imagine Me and You. On another, we projected an episode of The Ultimatum: Queer Love in our living room, gasping and conversing the whole time. I remember scouring internet forums about the show episode after episode, and seeing one of its participants in particular receive consistent waves of backlash from viewers: Vanessa Papa.
Papa was a contentious and oft-discussed character from the series’s eventful run, both in and out of the show. Other participants found her attitude and behavior distasteful and did not shy away from voicing this to her. Viewers lambasted her seemingly flippant attitude towards her partner and the show’s premise. As I prepare to speak with Papa, I keep thinking: what kind of impact does this magnitude of public criticism have on someone’s perception of themself and the world around them? How does she interact with queer spaces today, after being deemed one of the show’s undisputed “villains”?
Papa is the host for the next Lez Brunch this Saturday, where the theme is chosen family and friendships. How has she reclaimed queer acceptance and friendship in her life when she spent the period after the show’s airing hiding, afraid of the “aggression” she was starting to face in her day-to-day life? The Blade sat down with Papa to discuss the impact of being on reality TV as a queer person, how that’s affected how she interacts with queer spaces, and how she approaches maintaining a tight, core chosen family amidst a difficult period of self-doubt that followed the release of the first LGBTQ+ edition of Netflix’s “The Ultimatum.”
Since the show has aired, I’m wondering if the criticism and negativity you received in response still lingers on at all, or if it’s affected the way that you navigate your identity as a queer person?
I think what I encountered very quickly was that the majority of people who were cast were there to put their best foot forward in terms of the public eye. And I didn’t come on like that. I just came on to the show to be my true self, whether I was angry at the time, or sad, or whatever it was. I was just going to be genuinely me. And obviously, when you do something like that, it’s really easy to edit and pick apart the person way more if they’re not putting on a constant mature and happy and calm face, which a lot of them did. I think I understood very early on how I would be edited, but it wasn’t going to change me being me, and it was really hard when the show came out, which was about two years after we filmed.
Basically, my whole life had changed [after] we finished filming, and then before the show came out. I had taken time to travel the world. I got a nose job. I moved to Los Angeles. I was starting a new relationship, and then the show came out, and it was just like: number one, I was in the public eye in a way I’d never been before. And number two, I was so villainized and picked on by the queer community. And number three, I saw things happen in the show that my previous partner had not made me aware of. So it was just a lot of trauma to come on all at once while I was just feeling like I was reestablishing my life without that relationship.
When the show first came out, people were actually aggressive towards me when they would meet me in public. I remember distinctly someone asking me for a picture. They put their arm around me, and while they’re taking the picture, they said, “I fucking hate you.” Moments like that happened constantly for months after the show came out. So I just kind of hid away because people were so cruel. Now, luckily, years later, it’s calmed down.
People tend to have this idea of who I am. It’s really hard to grasp that as the human who went through the experience to have to say: Okay, Vanessa, people who watch the show don’t know what you know, and there’s no way you can fully explain it to them. And you just have to accept that. I used to love being out and open and going to all the queer parties, and then the show came out, and now I have just so much more of a hesitation to be in queer spaces. It’s really upsetting to me, but I’m slowly getting back out there and finding that as the time has progressed, people are softer in terms of thinking they know who I am.
Does that hesitation linger in other aspects of your life and are there certain spaces you just feel more comfortable in now?
I think I feel a lot stronger in just who I am now, so I’m no longer really afraid to go into queer spaces. And if someone were to be unkind to me, I’m just very ready to say, “Okay, I’m gonna walk away now.” I feel like I finally have that bravery, and I’m not just trying to continue to be kind to someone who’s being unkind to me. But in terms of wondering if people are just trying to get to know me or be my friend or get a picture with me because I was in the show, that feeling still lingers. I actually was dating someone for about three years, and that was amazing, and I love her, but we are no longer together.
With that being said, I’m single, and I just have no desire to date, because I cannot imagine going out into the queer world in LA and meeting someone and having in the back of my mind: are they really only on this date because they saw me on the show, or do they think I’m the person from the show? Because the way I was put out there is not really me. I have so much hesitation to get to know someone intimately [since] the show came out, and that’s only something I’ve had to really think about the past few months after my breakup.
I had this person who knew me before the show came out. She obviously wasn’t dating me because I was on a reality show. She had no idea when we started to date. And I look back and I’m like: wow, I got really lucky with that, but I’ll never have that again. Now, I’ll always probably have in the back of my mind: Do you want to date me, actually? Or do you want to date the person whom you saw on the show? Because you can say, “I’m dating the villain from the Queer Ultimatum.”
Did you watch the show with the person you dated after filming had long wrapped? Were you hesitant or anxious to be like: I don’t know how this person I love is going to see me depicted on TV — this almost disembodied version of you?
When I started to date my ex, I had to tell her: I’m going to be on a reality show with my ex. What a terrible thing to tell someone that you’re falling in love with. Number one, I’m going to be a public figure. And number two, you’re gonna have to watch a TV show of me making out with my ex. Crazy. She ended up watching it on her own, so I didn’t get to have the experience with her that I wanted to.
What I can say is, with my family and my friends and people who know me, when they watch the show: they see me. No matter how edited it is and spliced together, they know me. They know my humor. They know my reactions. They know everything. So they are all able to watch it and just laugh at it. But that’s clearly not how the public perceived it.
It was probably very hard for her to watch it, but I think she knew who I was at that point. We had been together for over a year.
It was hard for her to watch it. Was it hard for you to watch it?
Oh, my god, yes. I kept a diary every single day that we were there, because I didn’t want my own reality to get messed up. I would write down who I talked to, what our conversations were. So watching the show, I wanted to scream. “This is not what we were talking about. This is not what happened!” But then I just realized that’s what I signed up for, and I had no real perception of [being on] reality TV before, and I just had to accept it.
I watched the show with two of my best friends, Jordan and Kim, and it was just crazy how often I was pausing it and saying, “Okay, so this is what really happened,” and giving them the rundown. In that moment, I was like, “What the fuck is this?” But then also had to accept there’s no way to change it. I just knew that’s what it was, and I needed to accept it. Whatever you say to add to the conversation, whether you think you’re clarifying something, if they don’t like you and they’re dead set on disliking you, they will use any more information to just compile it somehow.
So I just stayed quiet and didn’t defend myself when my other cast members were coming out and making TikToks about me. People that I love, people I had no beef with, were still leaning into the villainhood of me because it made their social media blow up. And I just stayed silent because I knew there was nothing that I could do at that point to change people’s minds. Because they love a villain, and they had a villain in me.
Do you regret the experience?
It was the worst time of my life. I truly mean that [and] I hope that that remains the worst part of my life. I don’t regret it, because that was the reason that that relationship ended for me, and I genuinely don’t think it ever would have ended without that. That was something that I never would have had the strength to do. It was good for me in that way, but the experience was really a low point. I’m happy it’s in the past.
In this current period of time in your life, what’s keeping you passionate and happy? With the upcoming Lez Brunch theme being chosen family and friendships, how are you leaning into those relationships now?
The past few months are my first months being single, and so I’ve had a lot of time to spend with my friends — which has been so nice. I’ve missed relying on my friends for social situations, because I used to rely so heavily on my partner. It’s been really nice to have free time all the time. When my friends ask me to hang out, I can almost always say yes. And I’ve been doing a lot of reading. I’ve been painting little canvases that I’m going to put on my walls to decorate my apartment. I’ve been doing a lot of karaoke nights.
I’ve been really focusing on acting and honing in on that craft and really applying to projects and finding a new manager and just really setting myself up for success in the acting world. I just want to keep that momentum going. I’m really happy with where I am right now with that.
[With] Lez Brunch, I think there is such a different atmosphere surrounding that, because it’s not: come out late at night when you’re drunk and let’s party — which is pretty much all of the events other than Lez Brunch that I go to or host. It’s more of a hangout experience versus a nighttime event.
[When it comes to chosen family] I have so much empathy for people who are just trying to love the way they want to love, and because of that, they’ve experienced rejection by people who used to love them until they knew this one thing about them. It’s not a bad thing. It’s not a dangerous thing. It’s simply: I might love someone of the same gender.
So I love situations in queer communities where we’re boldly saying: If you can’t have your blood family, you can have your chosen family. We’re all here to support you and make you feel loved. And I feel like that’s what the theme of this Lez Brunch is. We are your chosen family. So come hang out and celebrate, and let’s all outpour love on each other.
Come join The Blade and Vanessa at Lez Brunch:
📅 Saturday, November 22 · 12PM–4PM (or as late as we want!)
📍 Blue Birdy
8917 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Next to the world-famous Whisky A Go Go on the Sunset Strip