It was a day like any other. I was driving my luxury car through the Pacific Coast Highway three sheets to the wind. I had five mocktails (I was pregnant at the time) as well as several bumps of cocaine. I felt that white horse bucking and rearing to go and I let it run at an incredibly dangerous speed. It took me about five miles before I plowed into an old lady and her terrier in a Buick.
The news went crazy for the story. "Diedre Sabazios Lives to Tell the Tale of her Harrowing Car Crash...And Some Old Lady Died, Too." "Diedre's Near Death Experience at the Hands of Some Now Dead Old Lady." "Some Dead Old Lady Nearly Killed Poor Diedre!" I was excited by the boost in ratings for my reality show, the "Truly Hot Thirty-Something Babes of Suffolk County," but I had a sneaking suspicion I had done something wrong.
Years went by and I lived my life as I had before. Dancing on the roof of my car to Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again" and snorting pounds and pounds of cocaine. My show started to fail once the other Truly Hot Thirty-Something Babes began to drop dead, and I watched Mickey Rourke leave me yet again to go to Thailand for more plastic surgery.
It was then that I hit my lowest point since my prison stint. I wasn't trending on social media, no paparazzi followed behind me and no one was stopping me in the streets to shout my famous catchphrase, "You whore!" I was lost. And I found my way into a Mexican cantina and the rest is history.
Someone filmed me wearing a sombrero and singing that song, "Tequila" with a few restaurant employees. The press went mad for it! "Diedre wears sombrero, sings Tequila, mocks all Mexicans." "Mexicans hate Diedre after her sombrero-wearing, tequila-singing debacle." "Diedre is a huge fucking racist bitch." The tabloids hounded me, the cameras followed me and I was officially canceled.
But what they didn't realize was that by canceling me, I was given the best underdog story I could ever have received. This racist bitch was going to repent for her sins, and so the apology tour began.
I went to every Taco Bell I could find and begged for the patrons' forgiveness. "I am sorry I appropriated your culture," I said to the woman clutching a seven-layer burrito. "You must know I value Mexicans so much, especially how clean they make my house look."
I was getting booked on The Today Show, Good Morning America and Good Afternoon the United States, all to offer my sincere apologies to Mexican people for wearing their country's national hat and singing their country's national anthem. It was only a month later that I was approached by a documentary filmmaker to cover my apology tour. That turned into "Forgiving Diedre," which was a hit at Sundance and won the Academy Award for Medium-Length Documentary.
And so, I realized after all this that my suspicion that I had done something wrong that day after I killed that old lady and her dog was just survivor's guilt. Why did she have to die when I got to live, even though I clearly was much better looking, younger, and richer than she was? I knew what it meant to be a survivor because I was able to survive cancel culture, and therefore, I canceled cancel culture from canceling me (that's the title of this piece.)
So the next time someone tries to cancel you for wearing a sombrero and singing Tequila at a Mexican restaurant as a whitey, just know that I survived that, and you probably won't because you're not me and you don't know how to cancel cancel culture from canceling you (see? I did it again.)