Name: Robert Kelly on Overcoming Childhood Struggles, Being a Ward of the State, Getting Sober at 15
Uploaded: 2022-10-21T17:19:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Robert Kelly on Overcoming Childhood Struggles, Being a Ward of the State, Getting Sober at 15' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-10-21. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Robert Kelly on Overcoming Childhood Struggles, Being a Ward of the State, Getting Sober at 15' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-10-21. Transcript available.

the Joe Rogan experience. Dude I was 350 pounds I believe you said it best I
saw
the one with you and Louie and Joe and you were like Bobby ate himself into a
shape. Well when I first met you you were young and thin and good-looking. I
was
gorgeous but I remember I've met you twice that was so funny too it was such a
perfect description. I met you at UFC 100 and you came out of the back you went
you you looked at me go what happened to you? I was like hey Joe no it's been
it's
it's been an addiction for me since I was a kid was my first addiction when I
was a
kid was food it was a you know I remember when my mom I had an abusive stepdad
for
a while five years and I had nobody and I remember I found food like I would
wake up in the morning and say goodbye to my mom in sixth grade go out the
front
door go around the back crawl into the basement and in the corner of the
basement I had a little pillow and a blanket and I would just sit there all
day and I would eat. So you'd pretend you were going to school? I'd pretend I
was
going to school because I was just so afraid I had no friends I had nobody and
I
was in a major depression I didn't know it and I would sleep in the basement
and I
remember I would just eat food like you know Susie Q's and ring dings and it
just
made me feel almost like a friend you know you know I just had a problem and I
I I
remember I got real big and then my sixth day my sixth grade teacher actually
mr.
D'Perzio got me into running it was like all of a sudden I he became my dad you
know he
kind of took me under his wing and we were at the Olympics remember the the
sixth
grade Olympics and it was just horseshit thing but I meant way to do the 440
all
the way around the track and I remember he came up to me goes Kelly you gotta
win I want
you to win and I remember I was like I'll win I'll fucking I just I just wanted
somebody
to fucking believe in me you know what I mean yeah and I remember I was racing
against this
skinny black kid fast as lightning and I remember we running and I fucking won
I
remember I beat him everything I had and I won and I just felt fantastic I
started
jogging I started doing marathons but you know then I got into drugs after that
I found drugs in very shortly after that in seventh grade and then I of course
went
to you know jail what do I think I went to jail the first time 13 Jesus yeah
that
was terrible did you go to jail for unarmed robbery assault and battery and
malicious destruction trespassing and breaking probation holy shit so breaking
probation at 13 I was on probation I was on probation at 12 oh my god so what I
robbed a canteen truck of cigarettes and fucking I think Twinkies Wow so I got
on probation for that and then yeah it was terrible the first I remember that
we went
my jail at 13 yeah my my bail was I think 10 bucks
and my mother didn't pay it cuz the the judge said she said what do I do and
she she he
was like let him go through the system let him go and my mother listened to him
oh my god yeah it was
bad cuz I remember I was in the jail cell Somerville courthouse the jail cells
downstairs the regular prisoners the juvie stay downstairs so I had my own jail
cell
and I remember I was looking at a lake pay the fucking money because all my
friends
moms paid oh and they got out they got out and I went they take you downstairs
and she
came down and I just I walked up to her I was just crying and she was like
Bobby
she's crying I'm so sorry I you know blah blah blah and I just turned around
and
started doing push-ups and then they came and got me and they throw you in the
van the regular prisoners would be in the back of the van and the juvie's in
the
front behind the drivers on a bench and I just remember the real prisoners just
hey
little bitch you know just I was shit in my pants and they take you up to Danvers
State Hospital uh Danvers State gave there's a the morgue they gave to the
detention the juvenile detention so you go up there it's called intake and you
get
up there and there's a bunch of other kids they strip search you and you got to
get naked and do jumping jacks I'm 13 you get a bend over it was embarrassing
it was
terrible you go into this room and there's all these other kids of all
nationalities just in this room watching this one TV I remember they came in
with
a box of deli sandwiches and chocolate milk and everybody ran over and grab and
you grab a sandwich and they they had these purple onions on top these wet
onions because I think they were old sandwiches that they would donate to the
juvies and they all took them and threw it on the ceiling and I looked up on
the
ceilings it was just years of onions it was fucking terrifying and then the
kid comes up he's like hey man when you they call you out ask him where you're
going and if they don't tell you it's somewhere bad if they tell you it's
somewhere good so like Kelly I went out they start shackling me and they
handcuffed me and I'm like where am I going and he just looked at me and he
shook his head and they shackled me to two other 18 year olds I was 13 and they
took me to the Charlestown Y so the Charlestown Y the bottom floor was the Y
but the top floor
was a juvenile lockup so you had to go through the gym go upstairs and they
take
into this room and they again I got strip searched how to get naked you go and
then
you have to take a shower I was 13 I had a little pecker I think I had like you
know
four pubes and I'm showering with these 18 year olds next to me it was I was
scared
shit that night they some kid got a pencil in his eye from another kid and and
then you go into this
room with just bunk beds steel bunk beds filled in the room and the highway I
don't remember the
Charlestown Y the highway with 93 was right there so it's just cars like as
close as me and you
were just whipping by on the highway all night long and uh yeah I went to jail
and they from there you
just go to another jail another jail for I think it was till I was 15 I was
going in and out of juvie
jails and foster homes Jesus Christ for uh for because once you're in you're in
so if your mom had
just paid that 10 bucks you would have never I'd probably be dead really I'd
probably be in jail jail
real jail that saved me and you know there's that thing where it's like that I
don't know if you've
heard that thing where you know you don't know is it good or bad I don't know
yet you don't know if
something's good or bad yet you got to wait you know you think something's
terrible right but you
don't know it could be good you just don't know yet it feels like shit and it
felt like shit but if
she didn't do that I wouldn't have got sober I got sober at 15. I went to a
place called the road back
I got arrested again upstate New York they shipped me back to Boston because I
was a ward of the state
you're owned by Massachusetts so they shipped me back down I went back to jail
and then I finally
realized like look drugs and alcohol it that's what it's not people places and
things it's my
drinking it's my drugs I go I need to go somewhere what drugs everything I did
everything anything you
put in front of me I wasn't doing drugs because I like drugs I was doing drugs
because I didn't want
to be alone anymore I didn't want to go back to that basement by myself you
know what I mean
yeah I don't want to be that anymore that was terrifying to me so if I had to
do drugs or
I had a drink I would do whatever the fuck it took to have friends you know to
have a group of people
to belong because I didn't have anybody so these kids you know I got to the
point where I what we
would move around like I get out of the jail I go to a foster home and then I
would go home from there
and my parents were somewhere else like they were in Spencerport New York they
were in
Ben Salem Pennsylvania and I what I would do is I'd go on the first day of
school and I would
get into trouble go to detention because those are my kids so I get in trouble
go to detention
and I'd always have weed I'd always have a couple joints and as soon as I got
to detention I'd lean
over to the toughest looking kid I'd be like you want to smoke some weed
friends immediate friends
yeah sure we'd smoke weed and those are my guys and and then I'd hang up with
them for the duration
until in Ben Salem I wound up running away and getting arrested again and then
in uh what was it
Spencerport New York was the last time I got drunk we fucking stole gumball
machines
I went to jail for gumball machines it was stupid um it was terrible because
you know I mean I we got I
drank a half a bottle of scotch I drank a bunch of beers and I we did whippets
and they were like
I want these gumball machines so I just took them and smashed them and the cops
came I remember I was
running from the cops down the railroad tracks I hopped the fence and as soon
as I hopped the fence
there was a shotgun right in my face and the guy made me get down the cop he's
like freeze get down
the ground and he goes if he moves shoot him that was like it was gum oh my god
they took me to jail
up there and it was that was the worst jail Rochester New York was the worst
jail I've ever been in
and uh you know they put me in a room and that was the first time I literally
asked for help
I was just like help me please just help me I'm done I know I know it's drugs I
know it's alcohol
please help me get help I need it um whatever I just gave up I gave up the
first time I was like
this is it and uh then I went to jail to Boston they flew me on a plane
remember I was smoking on the
plane wow I asked the flight attendant can you give me a light she just got me
a light I lit up
in the fucking place you could smoke on play smoke on play I was 15 and um
right when I got off the
plane there was two state troopers waiting for me and they handcuffed me took
me to jail and then I met
uh I met this guy and uh NFI shelter care was this uh Yitzhak his name is Yitzhak
he developed this
system for juveniles that it was called open door setting normalization um
there was no locks on the
doors at NFI there was no you know guards really they had people there at night
but you could run
you could leave walk right out the fucking door but they incentivized you 30
days you got steak 60 days
without a run lobster dinners they incentive they gave you responsibility as a
kid and they we all kind
of formed together to kind of keep each other in check to to receive these
benefits and they gave you
you know help you know they they talked to you instead of these other places
just went in and did
your time this place was all on you we had school we could go we went they took
us to the beach
they loaded us in the I remember they took all these juvies we'd load up in a
van and go to
Gloucester a wing of chic peach and we just sit on the beach and have fun they
gave you these
incentivized things to not leave and then the guy came up to me he's like you
can go to rehab we
got you set up you can go to six months co-ed or you can go to a year all boys
and that was I was
like what do I do he's like knowing you you're all boys if you go with his
girls you'll fuck up
you'll fuck up you'll try to bang the chicks you try to have sex and you'll
fuck it up so I did I
listened I was like okay and I went to the road back it was a house again
normalization no bars no
nothing I showed up and I was sitting in this room this guy Tom Tompkins used
to be had a lot of money his wife was a
famous opera singer he was in show business and he lost it all from alcoholism
and drugs so he started
this house called the road back and I remember I was sitting there petrified
and all of a sudden
he comes down there's all the staff and there's this one kid fucking being fuck
this place I don't
want to fucking be here fuck this I want the fuck out screaming and yelling and
he came down the stairs
old dude gray beard psoriasis he had a misty cigarette you know those little
slim and sassy
just smoking it he came down he goes where's this fucking fuck up where's this
cocksucker that wants
to leave because like me he's like you want to fucking leave you want to get
the fuck out of here get the
fuck out there's the door you fucking pussy and one of the councils the new
counselors was like hey maybe we
shouldn't he goes fuck you you're fired get the fuck out he goes you want to go
fucking leave there's the
fucking door okay I'm trying to save your life you little fuckhead I'm trying
to save your life if you
want to fucking live stay here and shut the fuck up if you want to leave get
the fuck out but I care
about you and I don't want you to fucking die and the kid starts crying and he's
like yeah okay are you
staying or leaving because I'm gonna stay he goes great I'm glad you're staying
because you're gonna
you're gonna save your life now and then he goes where's Kelly I'm like right
here he goes meet me
upstairs and I went upstairs the sweetest human being I've ever met I mean he
was he just saved my life
this guy was the best person I've ever met in my life he he used to take us to
his house to build
entertainment systems and he would fucking give us Elio's pizzas and little
cakes and shit I thought
he was trying to fuck me you know I mean because every once in a while these
kids would just take
off in the van oh my god it's like Kelly come on let's go oh my god I gotta
fucking suck this guy's
dick now fuck fuck I'm gonna have to blow this old guy in his house for cakes
and pizza
you know what I mean but he didn't he was just fucking wanted us to get better
Thank you.

Robert Kelly on Overcoming Childhood Struggles, Being a Ward of the State, Getting Sober at 15

the Joe Rogan experience. Dude I was 350 pounds I believe you said it best I
saw
the one with you and Louie and Joe and you were like Bobby ate himself into a
shape. Well when I first met you you were young and thin and good-looking. I
was
gorgeous but I remember I've met you twice that was so funny too it was such a
perfect description. I met you at UFC 100 and you came out of the back you went
you you looked at me go what happened to you? I was like hey Joe no it's been
it's
it's been an addiction for me since I was a kid was my first addiction when I
was a
kid was food it was a you know I remember when my mom I had an abusive stepdad
for
a while five years and I had nobody and I remember I found food like I would
wake up in the morning and say goodbye to my mom in sixth grade go out the
front
door go around the back crawl into the basement and in the corner of the
basement I had a little pillow and a blanket and I would just sit there all
day and I would eat. So you'd pretend you were going to school? I'd pretend I
was
going to school because I was just so afraid I had no friends I had nobody and
I
was in a major depression I didn't know it and I would sleep in the basement
and I
remember I would just eat food like you know Susie Q's and ring dings and it
just
made me feel almost like a friend you know you know I just had a problem and I
I I
remember I got real big and then my sixth day my sixth grade teacher actually
mr.
D'Perzio got me into running it was like all of a sudden I he became my dad you
know he
kind of took me under his wing and we were at the Olympics remember the the
sixth
grade Olympics and it was just horseshit thing but I meant way to do the 440
all
the way around the track and I remember he came up to me goes Kelly you gotta
win I want
you to win and I remember I was like I'll win I'll fucking I just I just wanted
somebody
to fucking believe in me you know what I mean yeah and I remember I was racing
against this
skinny black kid fast as lightning and I remember we running and I fucking won
I
remember I beat him everything I had and I won and I just felt fantastic I
started
jogging I started doing marathons but you know then I got into drugs after that
I found drugs in very shortly after that in seventh grade and then I of course
went
to you know jail what do I think I went to jail the first time 13 Jesus yeah
that
was terrible did you go to jail for unarmed robbery assault and battery and
malicious destruction trespassing and breaking probation holy shit so breaking
probation at 13 I was on probation I was on probation at 12 oh my god so what I
robbed a canteen truck of cigarettes and fucking I think Twinkies Wow so I got
on probation for that and then yeah it was terrible the first I remember that
we went
my jail at 13 yeah my my bail was I think 10 bucks
and my mother didn't pay it cuz the the judge said she said what do I do and
she she he
was like let him go through the system let him go and my mother listened to him
oh my god yeah it was
bad cuz I remember I was in the jail cell Somerville courthouse the jail cells
downstairs the regular prisoners the juvie stay downstairs so I had my own jail
cell
and I remember I was looking at a lake pay the fucking money because all my
friends
moms paid oh and they got out they got out and I went they take you downstairs
and she
came down and I just I walked up to her I was just crying and she was like
Bobby
she's crying I'm so sorry I you know blah blah blah and I just turned around
and
started doing push-ups and then they came and got me and they throw you in the
van the regular prisoners would be in the back of the van and the juvie's in
the
front behind the drivers on a bench and I just remember the real prisoners just
hey
little bitch you know just I was shit in my pants and they take you up to Danvers
State Hospital uh Danvers State gave there's a the morgue they gave to the
detention the juvenile detention so you go up there it's called intake and you
get
up there and there's a bunch of other kids they strip search you and you got to
get naked and do jumping jacks I'm 13 you get a bend over it was embarrassing
it was
terrible you go into this room and there's all these other kids of all
nationalities just in this room watching this one TV I remember they came in
with
a box of deli sandwiches and chocolate milk and everybody ran over and grab and
you grab a sandwich and they they had these purple onions on top these wet
onions because I think they were old sandwiches that they would donate to the
juvies and they all took them and threw it on the ceiling and I looked up on
the
ceilings it was just years of onions it was fucking terrifying and then the
kid comes up he's like hey man when you they call you out ask him where you're
going and if they don't tell you it's somewhere bad if they tell you it's
somewhere good so like Kelly I went out they start shackling me and they
handcuffed me and I'm like where am I going and he just looked at me and he
shook his head and they shackled me to two other 18 year olds I was 13 and they
took me to the Charlestown Y so the Charlestown Y the bottom floor was the Y
but the top floor
was a juvenile lockup so you had to go through the gym go upstairs and they
take
into this room and they again I got strip searched how to get naked you go and
then
you have to take a shower I was 13 I had a little pecker I think I had like you
know
four pubes and I'm showering with these 18 year olds next to me it was I was
scared
shit that night they some kid got a pencil in his eye from another kid and and
then you go into this
room with just bunk beds steel bunk beds filled in the room and the highway I
don't remember the
Charlestown Y the highway with 93 was right there so it's just cars like as
close as me and you
were just whipping by on the highway all night long and uh yeah I went to jail
and they from there you
just go to another jail another jail for I think it was till I was 15 I was
going in and out of juvie
jails and foster homes Jesus Christ for uh for because once you're in you're in
so if your mom had
just paid that 10 bucks you would have never I'd probably be dead really I'd
probably be in jail jail
real jail that saved me and you know there's that thing where it's like that I
don't know if you've
heard that thing where you know you don't know is it good or bad I don't know
yet you don't know if
something's good or bad yet you got to wait you know you think something's
terrible right but you
don't know it could be good you just don't know yet it feels like shit and it
felt like shit but if
she didn't do that I wouldn't have got sober I got sober at 15. I went to a
place called the road back
I got arrested again upstate New York they shipped me back to Boston because I
was a ward of the state
you're owned by Massachusetts so they shipped me back down I went back to jail
and then I finally
realized like look drugs and alcohol it that's what it's not people places and
things it's my
drinking it's my drugs I go I need to go somewhere what drugs everything I did
everything anything you
put in front of me I wasn't doing drugs because I like drugs I was doing drugs
because I didn't want
to be alone anymore I didn't want to go back to that basement by myself you
know what I mean
yeah I don't want to be that anymore that was terrifying to me so if I had to
do drugs or
I had a drink I would do whatever the fuck it took to have friends you know to
have a group of people
to belong because I didn't have anybody so these kids you know I got to the
point where I what we
would move around like I get out of the jail I go to a foster home and then I
would go home from there
and my parents were somewhere else like they were in Spencerport New York they
were in
Ben Salem Pennsylvania and I what I would do is I'd go on the first day of
school and I would
get into trouble go to detention because those are my kids so I get in trouble
go to detention
and I'd always have weed I'd always have a couple joints and as soon as I got
to detention I'd lean
over to the toughest looking kid I'd be like you want to smoke some weed
friends immediate friends
yeah sure we'd smoke weed and those are my guys and and then I'd hang up with
them for the duration
until in Ben Salem I wound up running away and getting arrested again and then
in uh what was it
Spencerport New York was the last time I got drunk we fucking stole gumball
machines
I went to jail for gumball machines it was stupid um it was terrible because
you know I mean I we got I
drank a half a bottle of scotch I drank a bunch of beers and I we did whippets
and they were like
I want these gumball machines so I just took them and smashed them and the cops
came I remember I was
running from the cops down the railroad tracks I hopped the fence and as soon
as I hopped the fence
there was a shotgun right in my face and the guy made me get down the cop he's
like freeze get down
the ground and he goes if he moves shoot him that was like it was gum oh my god
they took me to jail
up there and it was that was the worst jail Rochester New York was the worst
jail I've ever been in
and uh you know they put me in a room and that was the first time I literally
asked for help
I was just like help me please just help me I'm done I know I know it's drugs I
know it's alcohol
please help me get help I need it um whatever I just gave up I gave up the
first time I was like
this is it and uh then I went to jail to Boston they flew me on a plane
remember I was smoking on the
plane wow I asked the flight attendant can you give me a light she just got me
a light I lit up
in the fucking place you could smoke on play smoke on play I was 15 and um
right when I got off the
plane there was two state troopers waiting for me and they handcuffed me took
me to jail and then I met
uh I met this guy and uh NFI shelter care was this uh Yitzhak his name is Yitzhak
he developed this
system for juveniles that it was called open door setting normalization um
there was no locks on the
doors at NFI there was no you know guards really they had people there at night
but you could run
you could leave walk right out the fucking door but they incentivized you 30
days you got steak 60 days
without a run lobster dinners they incentive they gave you responsibility as a
kid and they we all kind
of formed together to kind of keep each other in check to to receive these
benefits and they gave you
you know help you know they they talked to you instead of these other places
just went in and did
your time this place was all on you we had school we could go we went they took
us to the beach
they loaded us in the I remember they took all these juvies we'd load up in a
van and go to
Gloucester a wing of chic peach and we just sit on the beach and have fun they
gave you these
incentivized things to not leave and then the guy came up to me he's like you
can go to rehab we
got you set up you can go to six months co-ed or you can go to a year all boys
and that was I was
like what do I do he's like knowing you you're all boys if you go with his
girls you'll fuck up
you'll fuck up you'll try to bang the chicks you try to have sex and you'll
fuck it up so I did I
listened I was like okay and I went to the road back it was a house again
normalization no bars no
nothing I showed up and I was sitting in this room this guy Tom Tompkins used
to be had a lot of money his wife was a
famous opera singer he was in show business and he lost it all from alcoholism
and drugs so he started
this house called the road back and I remember I was sitting there petrified
and all of a sudden
he comes down there's all the staff and there's this one kid fucking being fuck
this place I don't
want to fucking be here fuck this I want the fuck out screaming and yelling and
he came down the stairs
old dude gray beard psoriasis he had a misty cigarette you know those little
slim and sassy
just smoking it he came down he goes where's this f