In Jeffree Star’s video called ‘Revealing My Last Dark Secrets,’ besides revealing that Star was a self-harmer who cut himself for years, which was stunning and painful in and of itself albeit recently revealed in part during a YouTube series the makeup maven did with YouTube superstar Shane Dawson, was the shocking revelation about his mother, ‘Laurie’ Steininger.
As Heavy previously reported, Star was born Jeffrey Steininger. His father committed suicide when he was just a young boy and he was raised by his mother, Laurie Steininger who he said was a model. He played with her make-up and by the time he was in junior high school, he wasn’t just playing dress-up at home. Star, who changed his name legally several years ago, was wearing full makeup in junior high. That he went into the cosmetics business, starting at the MAC counter and by doing make-up for friends as side hustle, and modeling and with early MySpace music videos and ultimately make-up tutorials, hacks and reviews, Star became a star.
But there were “dark secrets” he did not share. And the story of his mother had fans and followers stunned when he revealed the truth.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Star Revealed That All the Pictures of His Mother on the Internet Are a ‘Lie’
Calling it a “very weird and bizarre secret” Star says that while in his series with YouTuber Shane Dawson, he speaks about his mother and while what he says is true, what people find on the internet, images of him and his mother are a “lie.”
“It’s all a lie.”
Laurie Steininger Momma Star Twitter
“The imagery that pops up when you Google my mother is a lie. The name and pictures of us, all of it is a lie.”
2. ‘Up Until Christmastime of Last Year, I Have Not Spoken to my Mother, my Birth Mom in 10 Years’
“…The main reason is we always argued. Our personalities always clash,” he said, so “every time we saw each other we would fight.”
Star said the relationship between he and his mother was untenable. He said he was “miserable.” But admitted that it was as much her as him. He said he was “closed off” and hard to get along with. He high school, he said, he avoided her and was curt and short no matter what questions she asked including the perfunctory mom query, ‘How was your day.’
Star admitted that their relationship was further fractured and while there were the occasional texts, ‘Hi, how are you?’ or ‘Are you still alive?’. He said he was “so broken,” and their relationship so fractured that two years of not speaking turned to five.
Star used words like “awful,” “awkward” and “weird” to describe their relationship and the gap in years between any real conversation: “I hated it.”
He tried to see her on a holiday.
“That was the one and only time I’d seen her in 10 years.” Star said he did not contact his mother for years because there was “so much pain and anger and frustration there,” but soon came to realize that time was flying by and until Christmas of 2017, had “no idea how she looked …”
3. Star Would Meet His Mother & She’s Back in His Life, But There’s More to the Story
Jeffree’s Vanity clothing. http://t.co/jneAxm3M
Star said before seeing her nine months ago he had no idea where she was or how she was doing. Where did she work? Did she remarry? Did he have a step-father? “I knew absolutely nothing about the woman that gave birth to me.”
He admitted that he’s spent “one third of my life I spent not talking to her.” Star is 32.
And though he says they have reunited, there’s a “dark middle” he needed to confess.
4. Star Has Been Posting Pictures With His Mother For the Past 5 Years. It Was Not His Mother
“I have been lying to all of you. The woman that I have been posting for the last five years is not my mother.”
Someone just called from the play boy Magazine for @JeffreeStar
Ironically, his aunt playing his mother helped to promote and launch Jeffree Star beginning in early 2012 as evidenced by her Twitter account. His real mother never said anything, at least publicly.
“Her name is Laurie and she’s my actual aunt,” on his father’s side by marriage. His father, named Jeff, Star said he was a “junior before he passed away,” had two brothers, Roger and Phillip, all deceased, and that Laurie is the wife of his uncle Phil.
He said it did start out as a white lie, using his aunt as a placeholder for his mother but he had no choice.
we’re a match made in hell.
“I needed something to tell the internet. I was growing, my numbers were growing, I needed to say something but I was just embarrassed. My father was dead. A lot of my family had passed away. I wasn’t close to a lot of my family …”
He explained that his uncle and aunt were together for more than 30 years, were high school sweethearts who accepted and loved him and so, he made Laurie his mom. He looked at her as a second mom. “Part of me thought I would never see my mom again. I felt guilty …” But he did end up getting his mother’s number and last year, he reached out.
5. Star Was in Hawaii & Wrote, ‘Merry Christmas, It’s Your Son.’ But Star’s Mother Was Homeless, Living Out of the Trunk of Her Car
His mother responds and later that night, he called her and they spoke for hours. The next part of the confession video, he admits, is “so hard it actually makes me sick to my stomach.”
He says, “How are you.” She answers, “Homeless.”
Star says she knows nothing about him and he knows noting about her; their struggles in particular.
The mother told her son that she’s been homeless and living out of the trunk of her car. “In a hatchback. Sleeping in a trunk for four years.”
They cried “for an hour” together. Star says the back story is so terrible he was not comfortable sharing it and suggested that maybe one day she would or could and perhaps they’d do it together. Or not. That said, Star shared that the fact “I can talk to my real mom feels great.”
“I apologize to her for calling someone else my mother. I was embarrassed.”
He said his mother was devastated. But she said she’d check online once in a while to see of he was alive but “it was really hard to look.”
Star said learning that his mother didn’t know where or if she’d eat or shower with nothing to her name while he was living a life of extreme luxury was “hard to fathom.”
How he explains it:
“As of now, you’re not homeless anymore.” Star flew home from Hawaii where he was enjoying a lux holiday and began the process of helping his mother. Apparently her life was so bad he said he cannot even speak about the horror of her existence. He said that a house and a car can’t fix what’s happened to her but the process of healing is under way. Starting with a bed, a real bed to sleep in.
“The fact that I’ve reconnected with my mom, I don’t even know how to put it into words. It’s so beautiful, it’s so fulfilling emotionally to heal so many internal scars that me and her have both had and just to be able to hug each other. We’re working on each other and we’re working on our relationship and I can’t wait to see what the future brings.”