Confessions of a Video Vixen, by Karrine Steffans, commonly known as “Superhead™”, starts out with our author convulsing on the bathroom floor and heaving into the toilet of a Los Angeles restaurant from an overdose of who knows what. Thoughts of her son flash through her head, an epiphany – the will to survive dominates her.
Flashing back to what has brought her to this low, Karrine shares her foundation, her youth, and the things that have shaped and molded her into the woman she is today. St. Thomas: Karrine’s birthplace, the island that gives her that spicy personality and go-with-the-flow mannerism. Her mother: an insecure woman, co-dependent upon men, throwing the punani like a boomerang to make a man stay with her. When the men walk away, she turns to Karrine as a therapeutic target of her violent outbursts. Her Grandmother: Karrine’s nurturer, protector and savior.
On many occasions, granny rushes to her granddaughter’s side to save the child from her mother’s brutal wrath while she is confined by the boundaries of the island life. Miami, Florida: the city that liberates Karrine and allows her a bit of normalcy as she steps beyond her mother’s treacherous grasp, giving her a taste of what the four walls beyond her apartment have to offer. The city that takes her side and sends her into to her father’s loving arms, away from her mother. Her father: a safe haven in Arizona, a new life and carefree pleasures of teenaged life. But when he remarries, Karrine finds herself second fiddle to the stresses of supporting his new family. She runs away…
Karrine then hits the streets running, quickly learning to market her wares to survive. She has a tumultuous and abusive relationship with Kool G. Rapp for a few years, has a son – her pride and joy, – and exits stage left. Her life is then a roller coaster of parties, drugs and men, living beyond her means, until she hits rock bottom and finds herself in that precarious situation.
A sexual resume to rival Heidi Fleiss, Karrine boasts relations with some of the entertainment industry’s most prominent personalities – Music, Movies and Sports included. She begins her escapades by befriending Ice-T: he introduces her to several high profile men. She boasts of being a lover to such folks as Puff Daddy: Karrine is ‘given’ to Puffy, arriving at his South Beach home for sexin’, but at a later date, is asked to keep her fling with him a secret as to not disrupt his family; Mystical: Karrine stars in his video, controversially baring her gold star pastied augmented breasts and her thong in a backless pair of leather chaps; Bobby Brown: a lengthy relationship while he was still married to Whitney, enduring the ups and downs of his drug addiction – and the latest news now puts Karrine and the “King of “R&B;” together as an item as he and Whitney Houston go through a divorce; Fred Durst: a one-time, much sought after backseat oral delight; Vin Diesel: tension built on the set of A Man apart, resulting in some hot and heavy off-camera action; Ja Rule: Karrine’s long time love, gave her the name “Superhead” for the super head that she gave him; and NBA powerhouse Shaquille O’Neal: a short-lived affair, he gave money and furnished her home, but he had too many hush-hush rules to abide by. To her list also add Ray J (Brandy’s brother), Xhibit, DMX, Dr Dre, Usher, and Jay-Z, and to her professional resume, LL Cool J, and R Kelly.
Money, music videos, movies, parties, drug binges and even furniture for her home, Karrine is wined, dined, sexed and ditched. She takes it too far, at one point winds up living out of her car with her son. When she’s at her lowest point, no one is there to lean on. She musters the ‘umph’ to make it on her own, gets an apartment a job and tries to leave the allure of the ‘industry’ behind her. However, it calls her back. The book comes full circle, as she wades and then plunges back into that precarious lifestyle, diving deep into the sex and drugs, thus ending up on the bathroom floor.
Karrine definitely seems to have made her rounds, most recently having dated Bill Maher of Politically Incorrect, and now publicly involved with Bobby Brown. I suspect there are some things she left out – like her stint as a prostitute and the fact that Ice-T pimped her out. If you’re looking for a literary masterpiece, don’t do it to yourself, but if you’re into music and entertainment gossip, this book’s for you.
