The Real World Homecoming 's Tokyo talks 'Come on Be My Baby Tonight' and ghostwriting porn
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Warning: This story contains plot details for the April 27 episode of The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans, "Outta Bounds, Part 1."
Tokyo Parker has no regrets. Though he didn't have the easiest time relating to his roommates on MTV's The Real World: New Orleans back in 2000, today the singer, writer, and artist formerly known as David Broom has nothing but love for his castmates.
"They're amazing human beings," says Parker, who reunited with Jamie Murray, Matt Smith, Melissa Beck (née Howard), Danny Roberts, Kelley Wolf (née Limp), and Julie Stoffer for the Paramount+ reunion series Real World Homecoming: New Orleans. "We are the best cast. We are cerebral. We are thinkers, and I just love that about us."
Here's another adjective to describe the New Orleans cast: watchable. In the premiere, Melissa and Danny confronted Julie about disparaging things she's said over the years, and this week, the roommates watched in dismay as Miss Julie got exceptionally inebriated at a drag show and refused to leave the club. Parker was right in the middle of it all, and he was gracious enough to let EW grill him about all this week's messiness. He also put up with several questions about his iconic 2000 earworm "Come on Be My Baby Tonight" and dropped an exclusive in our lap about his budding career as an adult-film ghostwriter. Enjoy, won't you?
Paramount + Tokyo (f.k.a. David) on 'The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans'
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did you emotionally prepare to go back to the show?
TOKYO PARKER: Well, to be honest, I don't think I had to prepare because — well, this is my flaw. I can forget about anything in a second, right? It really doesn't take me anything to prepare because I'm an introvert. I stay to myself, in my mind palace, and no one can come there. As long as you're strong mentally, you can go into that psychosis of a setup [and survive]. And don't get me wrong, I loved the experience, I would not change anything for the world — but you have to be [mentally] strong.
Did you watch any of your original season before shooting Homecoming?
I never watched my old previous season. I don't watch now.
Wait, so you've never seen it?
I've never seen it. I still have, I think I still have the VHS in storage, but I've never taken them out. I've never seen an episode, and I don't watch now. I've lived it, I've gone through it. And for me to then take on the burden of wondering what the editors are going to do, and then what other people are going to feel about it, that's just too much. So I just say, "Amazing, blessed, gratitude. I love the experience. I will never regret it." And then it's gone in my mind. That's it.
The first time [our season aired] 22 years ago, we didn't have social media. So when I went underground — girl, let me tell you, I went underground a mountain, and no one was able to find me. Now it's different. I need to take my roommates with me because I appreciate the fact that they're the only six other people on earth that understand what this is like. I want to take them with me, but at the same time, how do I keep out the noise? For me, it's very simple. I take those six castmates, and that's it. I don't talk about the show. I'm appreciative, and God bless every single opportunity I've had.
At first I didn't remember much about the New Orleans season — but as soon as I heard "Come on Be My Baby Tonight" in the Homecoming trailer, it all came flooding back to me. Did you know Paramount+ was going to use your iconic song in the trailer?
They did let me know, because they have to license it and all that good stuff. But let me tell you something: "Come on Be My Baby Tonight" was [created] as my olive branch to my roommates to say, "Hey, I'm a creative person. I'm not all this do-rag stuff. Can we talk?" And when that went horribly wrong, girl, and they were like, "This is the stupidest s--- ever," I didn't expect it to take on another life in reality reality. "Come on Be My Baby Tonight" took on a life of its own. But it was just for my roommates [originally]. And I'm glad that they're part of it now.
You seem a lot happier as a person this time around. How would you describe the changes you've gone through over the last 20-plus years?
Well, The Real World is actually — it's a fire starter. So If you're a person that doesn't really know who they are and what their value is, imagine going into a situation like Real World. You're [expected] to participate with who you are, but you don't know who you are, so you're kind of lost.
It was very draining for me because I was trying to find that voice, trying to find who I am. Not only that, I wanted to bring the rough edges with me. Um, and the rough edges. We spend so much time sanding down our rough edges so that we can say, "Okay, this is the me that I'm proud of." But that's the you that you think other people are going to accept. So [over time] I just learned to understand my flaws and to work with them. I'm not going to solve them — I'm going to work with them and make them a positive. To answer your question, I would never recommend going to find yourself on a reality show. That makes no sense.
During the original season it seemed like you had an adversarial relationship with your roommates, but this time around it's almost like you're a calming presence in the house. Were you making a conscious effort to change that dynamic when you filmed Homecoming?
Well, I made a conscious effort to accept them. Remember how I said I can just forget things? Like, poof, gone? Well, I did that before and I missed out on six amazing kindred spirits. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to take them with me. I didn't give them anything last time — so literally just saying hello [to them] is like a whole different, other-side-of-the-pillow experience.
I made a conscious effort to give them what they didn't get last time, because they deserve that, and I did myself a disservice by not living the experience with them. It was an amazing, amazing time for me, and to give what I didn't give last time.
You end up sharing a room with Julie, who has a very complicated history with some of the roommates. What was it like getting to know her again?
It was difficult because we went through a couple things, and I'll let you watch the show for that. Julie is very, very unique. If I don't speak Chinese, I'm no good if [I try to] interpret something. You have to speak the language of people in order to learn them. I had to learn Julie — and I was learning little by little, and at the same time there's a lot going on with her and the other castmates. So this was not the proper time [for us] to hash things out properly. I don't want to just do it for the sake of it and say, "Hey, here's the camera. Let me talk about this because you need to change." No, I choose to take you with me, and we can hash this out at a later date, because two weeks is not enough time.
That seems like a healthy attitude to have while filming a reality show.
Here's the thing, though: That's not what a reality show is looking for. They don't want you to talk about it later. "No, we want that on camera." And when you don't, then what'll happen is they'll constantly, incessantly ask you [about it], because they have the right to. Like, "Why can't you talk about this? Why won't you talk about this?" What happens is your mood becomes irritated. So when you say it's a very healthy way of thinking, it's a constant fight. It's a constant fight, and sometimes I am not nice. I allow myself to not be nice.
So in this week's episode, most of the roommates go out on the town to a drag club, and Julie gets very drunk. You and Jamie and Melissa all try to get her to leave, but she won't. Eventually you pick her up and try to carry her to the door. Can you give us a little bit more context about what was going on in that moment when you physically tried to get her out of the club?
If we allow ourselves to be truly in it for people, we will take their keys when they're too drunk to drive, right? It's, "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. Give me your keys." Julie had gotten very belligerent, slapping water [out of our hands]. I needed her to drink water. The music is so loud, and I'm trying to scream at her like, "Listen, you're 40 years old. You have kids, you have a family." I'm trying to yell at her like, "Listen, you need to drink water. This is not what you want. You do not want this episode. You do not."
So I pick her up to take her to the other room so that it's quieter so I can [tell her], "Listen, we need to go." And she didn't like being picked up, and I understand that. However, there are times where a friend has to be a friend. Because unfortunately now it's an episode [of the show], with her passing out head-first into the pavement. I'm like, "Listen, we can have a great time, but right now you're trying to live every bit of those 22 years that have passed, and you can't do it. You can't."
I do apologize for how it made her feel. I would do it again because that's my friend. I will swipe your keys. I will take them from you with absolute force.
Paramount + Tokyo tends to a very drunk Julie on 'The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans'
In the preview for next week's episode, they show clips in which Julie seems to accuse you of manhandling her and leaving some marks — and you're understandably frustrated by that. Can you give us a tease of how that plays out next week?
Sure. Well, here's the deal: If I go out of my way to make sure you're okay, and the best thing that you can think of is the worst, then we're not connecting. If I'm literally taking you out of harm's way, and the only thing you can come back with is, "Oh, you did this to me," come on. Are you serious? Really? I talked to your husband at 3 o'clock in the morning to let him know that everything was okay. I stayed up till 4 a.m., literally on the floor next to her, just in case she had to vomit. And the only thing [she] could think of is a negative — that's not a good space to live in.
When EW first posted the trailer for Homecoming, a bunch of people tweeted at me to say they've had "Come on Be My Baby Tonight" stuck in their heads for over two decades. How do you explain the enduring appeal of this song — especially when it's not even really a full song?
If you really listen to it, it's like three notes. Let's really be real about it, right? Girl, it's not even a song — it's not even the S letter of "song." But isn't that how it happens? I can spend like days and weeks writing or editing a video, doing everything to make it cool — and then nothing, crickets. No one feels it.
But then I just do something that is on my mind, on my heart, just like five minutes, bam. And what happens? It becomes something, you know? I let it be, I let the universe deal with it. It's not a whole song, just like you said, and technically every time I sing it, it has to be different. It's not written down, it's just "squee dah boo dwee dah boo dah," and then I just rant. It's a trip.
It got so much pushback in the beginning. But then Dave Chappelle said, bro, I need you to sing it on stage — and that's when [attitudes around] it changed.
So you're okay if the first line of your obituary says, "Tokyo Parker, the man who created the phrase 'squee dah boo dwee dah boo dah,' died today…"?
Yeah. Matter of fact, it's just literally going to be "Squee dah boo." I don't mind that. I don't mind that at all. I want to hear somebody do it as opera, I want to hear somebody do it as heavy metal.
You're a musician, you're an artist, you make musical cooking videos under the name Chef Showtime (which people can see on your Instagram). What else are you working on now?
I tell you, I have so many ideas. I have not told anyone this, so this is exclusive to you: You know what a ghostwriter is, right?
Yes.
When the pandemic hit, I was a ghostwriter for a couple of people on adult websites. Adult movies need plots too. So I would ghostwrite for a lot of adult websites and production companies, to give them scripts. I can only do it early in the morning, because I didn't want my neighbors to think I was freaking crazy. I have to say [the lines] out loud to make sure they work! Adult movies, they're getting sophisticated. They're really sophisticated now. They have budgets. I thought I was going to be [writing stuff] like, "Hey, want some pizza?" "No." But no, [these movies] have, like, deep conversations and stuff. The point is, all these things that I do, I learn something from it, and [then I] just put it away in storage and let it mature, let it do whatever it's going to do. And then hopefully that creativity takes off [in future projects].
New episodes of The Real World Homecoming: New Orleans drop Wednesdays on Paramount+.
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