Plus, like, on top of it all—and Mandy probably doesn’t want me saying this, but like, whatever, I’ll edit it out if she really asks me to—I think a big part of the reason we started to see that our thing wasn’t going to work was that Mandy just couldn’t stand Bob. I mean, they got along fine at first, you know, because Mandy’s a really sweet person and she’s not gonna be mean to anybody unless she decides that she doesn’t like them, but Bob’s kind of this no-bullshit guy—like, he just says what he thinks one hundred percent of the time—and so being around him, like, he demands everyone’s full participation in every conversation, and I think Mandy just found it exhausting after a while.

I remember Mandy crying after this double date we had with Bob and my mom where she was like: He makes me feel so STUPID. And I just started laughing, and I was like: Bob makes EVERYONE feel stupid. Isn’t it amazing? And Mandy was like: No! It makes me feel awful! And then she started telling me about how she was losing fans because of the shit Bob had said about gay people, and how she really didn’t think it was a good idea that I was so closely associated with him, and I was just like: Shit. I’m gonna have to make a decision here. Like, I’m gonna have to choose between Mandy and Bob. And that honestly wasn’t that difficult for me. Mandy’s my girl for life, no question about it, but it was just so clear at that point that we were heading down different paths, and Bob was like, I mean, at that point, Bob was already my family.

Yo, but I’m realizing, it’s pretty crazy that I’ve been writing this thing for as long as I have and I haven’t even said anything about my security team!

I just thought about them, because, like, during all the shit with Mandy, I remember we would be fighting all the time in front of these dudes, and at a certain point, I remember looking at Patrick—that’s one of my guys—after we dropped Mandy off at her house one night, and Patrick was just like: Bro … And the two of us just immediately started laughing like crazy. He almost knew before I did that things were going sour, you know, because he just spends his whole day, like, watching me, observing what’s going on, so he’s got a pretty clear picture of what’s happening in my head.

I know it’s their job to like, stay in the background or whatever and sort of keep a low profile, so I won’t say too much about them, but it just feels insane that I spend so much of my time with these guys and I’m writing this book and I haven’t even told you anything. I’m sitting here on the jet right now, looking around and taking a break from writing for a minute, and I’m realizing like: I hang with these people probably more than any other people in the world—they’re the only ones who ride with me everywhere when we travel, they’re the only ones who sleep in the house—and in a way, like, these guys are my closest friends. I’m not ashamed at all to say that: My security team are some of the most important people in my life.