TRANSCRIPT:
When Nathan was growing up, he was a really troubled soul. As a young boy, he was always getting in trouble at school. And to the point where the teachers thought, “Well, maybe he needs to be put on medication or something—something to calm him down,” because he was all over the place.
And as he grew up, he would get into trouble at school—he got into drugs, he got into, you know, other criminal activities. He had a rough—he had a rough life growing up, you know.
Even when Nathan was a little boy, you know—my father passed away in 1990. But when he was alive, and the three of the kids would get together, you know, and my dad would hold them, put them on his shoulder, Nathan was always the one—he was like the outcast—he was always the one that, you know, you just could not get, you know, lots of love and warmth from him. Never. He was always like that.
My daughter and I moved in with Nathan and my sister for a little bit back in 1996, ’97 for a little bit. We had just moved back to Clearwater [Florida] and we needed a place to stay. And what I observed from Nathan, is that he sulked a lot. He stayed in his room. He didn’t want to be part of the family. You know, we had to, like, “Come on, come out and do something with us,” kind of thing. And then, he was still obviously in school, and in school he was having his own troubles and didn’t like being there. And then I remember at least once, possibly twice, he got brought home by the police officers in the middle of the night because he had snuck out of the house, and he was now under the influence of drugs, and he was a minor. And they saw him walking on the streets, so they had to bring him home.
You know, this took a lot of effort and time and care from the family to help him. And then, my sister Sharon, she and her family actually took Nathan in for several months. He lived with them in New York.
And he went to school with my niece. They went on camping trips, they went to Europe, they even went to the grand opening of Disneyland in France. So, you know, there was a lot of love and compassion and help. We wanted to help him so he would have, you know, a regular childhood. And he fought it a lot.
You know, like, if his mom or I or my sisters, somebody would want to help him, it—he took defense, you know. It was kind of like—he was a very, very smart child. He’s a genius actually. And the point is, it was hard for him to get along with people and be in the family. So, whenever we tried to help him, he kind of pushed us away. If he really wanted help, then he would accept it, if it benefited him in some way. But otherwise, nah.
And I remember the last time I saw him in Clearwater was, my daughter and I were doing a dance performance at a studio, and he attended it. Sort of reluctantly, but he came. And he afterwards—he was talking with other people and making plans for the next day with one of them, and then in the middle of the night, somehow, he snuck out and left. He just ran away unannounced to anybody. And it was sometime later before we found out that he had actually gone back to New Mexico, gotten back into drugs, actually overdosed and ended up in a hospital. And then the next thing we knew he was in Los Angeles.
The very last time that I saw Nathan was actually in LA. I went out there for a business meeting and I found out where he was. I contacted him and we met in a restaurant. And he showed up and I was actually kind of surprised how he looked. He was totally dressed in a, you know, a hoodie that covered every part of his body, and his jeans. And he told me that he was actually very ashamed about all the tattoos that he had gotten. And he regretted all the drugs that he had taken. And that, you know, he had really messed things up, and he really wanted to turn his life around. And you know, he was very, very happy that I had come to see him because he knew that he had created such a mess, and that he had distanced himself from the family. And so, you know, that was actually the last time I saw him.
And, you know, he’s been a troubled guy since he was born and the whole way through. And, you know, finding this show that’s on TV by this evil person, Leah Remini, who all she wants to do is promote hate and, you know, religious suppression and break up families. You know, like what is she doing? So she finds somebody like Nathan who’s a bit lost and abandoned his family, and now wants to turn it in on us.
But he doesn’t need to make up stories and lies and keep that going and going and perpetuating it for no reason.
