Cojo has mojo back

[okarol]

Cojo has mojo back
Celeb shredder says his book about surviving kidney disease is a tragic comedy

February 15, 2008
Rita Zekas
Living reporter
TheStar.com

He's the wicked wit of the west, skewering celebs on the red carpet for their perma tans and fibreglass breasts with built-in solar panels.

Steven Cojocaru is a self-described "professional featherweight" who flits between coasts as a fashion and celebrity correspondent for Entertainment Tonight and The Insider. He lives for hair straighteners and concealers, and alphabetizes his wardrobe by designer label.

Yet his book, Glamour, Interrupted: How I Became the Best-Dressed Patient in Hollywood, is touching, moving, inspirational, funny and candid. It details his near-fatal battle with kidney disease and his victorious return to the air-kissing set.

In June, 2004, Cojocaru was diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease. He survived one failed kidney transplant and underwent months of excruciating dialysis before getting a second kidney from his mother, which took.

His mom is fine. He feels great and energized and all his blood levels are good. Throughout it all, Cojocaru's hair is perfect.

The Montreal native, 43, is calling from New York, fresh from interviewing Madonna, who seemed "very vulnerable and nervous" at a Gucci event.

No, she didn't speak in a British accent but she might as well have.

"Her hair tone is very Queen Mother," Cojo says. (Everybody calls him Cojo, or Cujo, or even Frodo.) "It looks like she has it done in a village in Yorkshire."

All she needs is a corgi on her lap and a handbag on her wrist.

He says he doesn't really know why he wrote the book.

"When living it, it felt like a movie," he says. "During the dark times, there were so many things I laughed at. The publisher came to me and I had morphine drip every 10 seconds." (He jokes that he is such a wuss, he takes morphine drip for a paper cut.)

"When I was lucid, I regretted it," he says. "It was physically painful, emotionally scarring, but it turned out into a good thing. It is a tragic comedy. Nobody is making an offer but Johnny Depp would make a good Cojo (in a film version). Brad looks too old and has a lot of sags and jowls. Maybe Jennifer Aniston – we share hairstyles."

Cojo's world is obsessed with thinness and beauty. He was a stick, perpetually on the Skinny Eastern European Supermodel Diet.

But prednisone made him blow up into Jerry Lewis: steroids make your face look like a Bundt cake.

"I puffed up to the size of Anguilla. After dialysis, I looked like my own gated community," he writes.

But he's come to terms with it. He's no Hedi Slimane (the über-skinny designer, formerly of Dior) – but he's alive.

"I feel great and don't obsess about it," Cojo says. "It's about self-acceptance. I look better. Before, I was so emaciated. It's not my job to be beautiful. It's Demi Moore and Gywneth's job.

"I did an interview with Mary Hart and I was freaked: my face was distorted because of prednisone. I take only a tiny amount now and I wear body Spanx to fit into a tuxedo."

He can now empathize with plus-sized women.

"Now I see how women go through these degrading weight struggles," Cojo says. "I can relate to going into shops and being told there is nothing in them for you."

If he were to have another kidney transplant, would he ever go the international harvesting route and go to Pakistan to get one?

"My gut instinct is no for ethical, moral and personal self-protection reasons because the chance of complications scares me," he says. "But you never can say no. Dialysis sucks the life out of you. I nearly kicked the bucket."

His illness helped him bond with his parents, who moved in and took care of him. His father cooked, his mother fussed, cleaned and comforted. And Cojo whined and dined.

"I love being a crybaby," he admits. "I am the former captain of the Beverly Hills Whining Squad. There was a lot of friction over the years but I was humbled when I was sick like a dog and became a little boy in a fetal position and wanted my mom. We are closer.

"My mother is a warrior. She calls me every day about my career. My parents are old country parents, Romanian immigrants with a vision of their son being this perfect doctor with a five-bedroom fake chateau and they'd live next door in their version of Everybody Loves Raymond. I wanted to be a rock star."

He had an epiphany of sorts: "It scared me how the superficial Hollywood bon vivant was ingrained in me." But he loves his job. He loves sharing lemon hummus dip with Penelope Cruz. Besides, he has no fallback position.

"What else can I do? Be an army nurse or shampoo girl? I am not equipped. I have a PhD in ripping stars to shreds. I have a well-rounded life, I am no longer shallow all the time," he says.

"I don't hang out with celebs. The No. 1 mistake is never, ever think you are friends with the star. We have an air-kiss relationship. I am not part of their entourage. A lot of celebs have paid friends because they can't cope with having people say no to them."

What does he hope people will take away from the book, aside from being nice to your mother?

"We can expand as human beings," he says. "The book is not a kidney memoir – it's about being positive.

"I'm a survivor. I hold my head up high. I'm alive and well and it makes you a better person. And my teeth are looking more gorgeous than ever."

http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/303685