XOXO, Cody: An Opinionated Homosexual's Guide to Self-Love, Relationships, and Tactful Pettiness

by Cody Rigsby

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The beloved Peloton instructor chronicles his journey from small-town North Carolina to New York City stardom in an empowering story that reveals his secret to success: not taking yourself—or life—too seriously.

“Reading XOXO, Cody is like hanging out with that friend who makes you laugh and can open up their heart to you.”—Phoebe Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes

Cody Rigsby has a lot of opinions: Kevin is the hottest Backstreet Boy; grape jelly is a crime against nature; if you wear flip-flops in New York City, you do not love yourself. But if there is one opinion—one truth—that he holds above all others, it’s that we shouldn’t let the fear of looking stupid or being judged hold us back from living our best lives.

Cody didn’t always feel this way. In XOXO, Cody, he opens up about his journey toward accepting himself, from growing up gay and poor in the South to his migration to New York City, where he went from broke-ass dancer to fitness icon. He intimately details what it was like to lose both his father and best friend to addiction and how he began to repair his relationship with his mom as an adult. He recounts his time working at a nightclub on the Lower East Side and his decision to audition for Peloton on a whim, and dishes about competing against Sporty Spice on Dancing with the Stars.

With raw and inspiring stories about learning how to handle the scary sh*t, XOXO, Cody is a bold and heartfelt reminder that sometimes laughing at yourself is the best medicine. Remember: It ain’t that deep, boo.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593722534
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/12/2023
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	4,458
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Adored fitness instructor Cody Rigsby is the cycling director at Peloton. Rigsby is known for his witty humor, engaging storytelling, and pop-culture hot takes as well as his insight into relationships and his advocacy for self-love. He was the second runner-up on the thirtieth season of Dancing with the Stars, and he cohosted the GLAAD Media Awards. Rigsby has been the face of numerous brands, including Adidas, Capital One, Chobani, Therabody, Chipotle, and Gatorade, and he has been profiled in the Los Angeles Times, People, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Vogue, GQ, Forbes, Vox, Us Weekly, and Time, and on Good Morning America. Rigsby lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Growing Up Cody

I was born in California and lived, until I was eight, in Burbank. If you’re not familiar with L.A., here’s the quick run-down: Burbank is in the Valley, and it’s largely known for being the home of production studios like Warner Bros. and the Walt Disney Studios. For much of my young life I was obsessed with the idea of being an actor—not necessarily because I was good at it (I was fine) but because I found fame and notoriety incredibly enticing. I don’t know if that dream was a direct result of my childhood proximity to Hollywood, but the entertainment business was in my orbit and likely influenced my thinking. And I looked the part, too. I had super-blond hair, tan skin . . . it was all very Zack Morris. My favorite childhood picture is of me rocking a neon pink Mickey Mouse shirt with cutoff sleeves. With the Disneyland vibe and yellow locks and the sun-kissed skin, I was serving serious California Boy realness.

All that said, my childhood was not exactly what you might picture when I invoke Bayside High and Hollywood and the entertainment industry. Namely, we were broke. My mom worked various odd jobs but she had trouble holding them, and none paid especially well. The two of us lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the first floor of an apartment complex. It was just the two us—my father died when I was four months old. He and my mom were both addicts, and he died of a drug overdose, though my mom always told me he died of a heart attack. That’s probably true if we want to get into semantics, but it’s not the full picture. I didn’t learn the truth until I was twelve or thirteen, when I was going through boxes of old papers and came across my dad’s death certificate, which listed drug overdose as the cause of death.

I don’t remember my dad, obviously, and don’t really feel any connection to him at this point—he and my mother weren’t married, so I don’t even use his last name. And good thing, because otherwise I’d be Cody Brudnicki, which is fine, I guess, but it certainly doesn’t have that Cody Rigsby ring to it.

My memories of living in California are a little spotty, but good or bad they all center around one person: my mom. Cindy and I were quite a pair. I didn’t have any siblings, and my mother always made a point to tell me that she was never sure if she even wanted kids. She had me at thirty-three and she’d definitely had a few abortions before that. She’s told me multiple times, “Cody, you were the one I kept.” She’s always had a way with words, that Cindy.

There was a lot of joy and spontaneity and silliness during those L.A. years—the fun of my mom and me blasting The Bodyguard soundtrack in the car on the way to school, or making sun tea on our patio (You know sun tea, right? Instead of tea bags in boiling water, you put them in regular water and leave the whole jug outside in the California heat. Hours later—voilà!—you’ve got gallons of tea for a cute summer refreshment. A science experiment!), or riding up the Pacific Coast Highway to see my grandmother in Santa Barbara. She lived there with her husband/my mom’s stepdad, Charles, who we all called Dickie. I thought that was hilarious because, well, I was seven. Dickie had a prosthetic leg, and for that fact alone I found him fascinating because, again, seven.

At home, my mom and I were roommates—we lived in a one-bedroom but the bedroom was big. She slept on one side and I slept against the opposite wall in a lofted bed, above a desk. We lived in that bedroom during the 1994 Northridge earthquake, a 6.7 magnitude early-morning quake centered in the Valley. It was terrifying. I woke up to the literal earth shaking! I was groggy and confused and in my stupor/terror I couldn’t figure out how to get out of my five-feet-off-the-ground bed, so my mom broke off the guardrail to get me out. I guess it was that maternal-strength-survival-instinct you always hear about—you know how they say a mom can lift a car when her kid’s in danger?—because this bitch legit ripped off the side of my bed and picked me up and made me stand in the doorway to the bathroom. Back then we were all taught that the safest place to stand in an earthquake was under a doorframe. Turns out that was fake news, but it’s a myth we were all buying in the ’90s. So anyway, I’m standing in the doorway, having just woken up, and like any kid suddenly awake in the middle of the night, I had to pee. My mom let me go to the bathroom, which probably wasn’t the smartest decision because the bathroom was home to many shelves of glass perfume bottles. There I was, standing at the toilet, the earth shaking beneath my feet and perfume bottles falling to the ground and shattering around me as I tried to pee. It was traumatic.

After the earthquake, the entire apartment complex community looked out for each other and took care of one another. We were literally shook, and we hung out in the shared courtyard most of the next day because it was dangerous to be inside. People were grilling and making food for one another, and it was one of the first times I remember seeing a community really come together. The neighbor kids were my closest friends—I was the only white kid in the complex; it was mostly Latino families. I was invited to so many birthday parties and celebrations that my memories of that time almost all involve piñatas and barbecues and this amazing birthday cake that I still think of to this day. It was a tres leches cake with strawberries and almonds in the middle, with this light and airy whipped cream–type frosting. Perfection.

As much fun as my mom and I had during those California days, there was also some real darkness. While I didn’t explicitly understand that my mom was a drug addict, there were moments when I knew something was not right. When I was six, my mother put me in the back seat of her car one evening and drove along a bunch of poorly lit streets into a sketchy neighborhood, where we came to a stop at an underpass. A thin man who was missing a few teeth approached her window. I couldn’t understand why we would talk to this guy, but the next thing I knew my mother was rolling down her window and handing over cash. In return, he pulled two balloons out of his mouth and gave them to her. Looking back, it’s obvious that she was buying heroin, but all I knew at the time was that something felt weird and unsafe. I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing, and I tried to push aside any inkling that something was off, because I loved my mom and didn’t want to believe that she would put me in danger. Still, it was not right, nor was it okay (thank you, Whitney).

My mom also had these friends, Winnie and Trey, who she hung out with a lot. I liked spending time with the three of them because I was a kid who wanted attention and wanted to be a part of things (some might say I’m an adult who wants attention and to be a part of things, but that’s a conversation for another day). When we went to their houses, my mom and Winnie would disappear into the bathroom for a long time. Like, a really long time. Back then I was just like, What the f*** is happening?, but of course now I know. Ding! They were doing drugs! With me in the next room! I was even there the day Winnie’s boyfriend died—probably, I know now, of an overdose. While I was too young to articulate or fully understand what was going on, I knew there was something desperate and scary about the way we lived.

Editorial Reviews

07/03/2023

Peloton instructor Rigsby charts his journey from closeted Southern teen to fitness superstar in his endearing debut memoir. After laying out his core philosophy (“Never take life too seriously”) and dropping dishy anecdotes about his time as a professional backup dancer, Rigsby briefly recounts his mother’s struggles with addiction and the challenges of growing up gay in a small North Carolina town. It’s not long, though, before the quips start coming hard and fast: after a still-closeted Rigsby declined sex with a woman in college by claiming he didn’t have a condom, she “came bounding into my room holding up a Trojan like she found Willy Wonka’s golden ticket.” During a summer internship in New York City, Rigsby finally came out to his family and friends, and from the experience gathered life-changing confidence that helped him—when the time came in the early 2010s—embark on a career as a fitness instructor with Peloton despite the fact that he’d never taught a class of any kind. Rigsby’s willingness to laugh at himself makes him enchanting company, though his lack of filter won’t be for everyone (“You did not survive a pandemic to fake an orgasm, OK?”). Still, this brash, funny, and often inspirational memoir will appeal even to readers who’ve never clipped in to a Peloton bike. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

To say this book is charming is an understatement. XOXO, Cody is like hanging out with that friend who makes you laugh and can open their heart up to you. In a world that’s dark, it’s necessary to read a book that will put a smile on your face and remind you that when times get tough, fix your wig and go get your life together. You got this! And so does Cody!”—Phoebe Robinson, New York Times bestselling author of Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes

“To know Cody Rigsby is to love Cody Rigsby. And now we get to know him even better with this hilarious, and refreshingly candid book about his life so far and everything he’s learned along the way. A must-read!”—Bowen Yang, actor, comedian

“Cody Rigsby is a delight, and so is his book. His knowledge of pop culture is unmatched and he had me laughing out loud on every page. But his candid storytelling and vulnerability is what makes this book truly something special.”—Karamo Brown, Talk Show Host and Co-Host of Queer Eye

“XOXO, Cody is a must-read for anyone who needs a little inspiration to live their best life. While Cody opens up about struggles many of us can relate to, he still reminds us that sometimes the best thing we can do is just laugh at ourselves. Whether you're a fan of Peloton or just looking for some inspiration, XOXO, Cody is a book that will leave you feeling empowered and ready to take on the world. So go ahead, laugh at yourself a little, and remember: ‘it ain't that deep, boo.’”—Bobby Berk, Emmy-nominated TV Host and author of Right at Home

“Cody writes essays about his life in the witty, inspiring, and totally unfiltered voice that’s made him a beloved Peloton instructor—and XOXO, Cody let’s readers feel like they’ve spent the afternoon chatting with their best friend.”—Tunde Oyeneyin, New York Times bestselling author of Speak

“Cody Rigsby’s life is a ride for sure but reading it in his one of a kind voice is another level. His personal stories are candid and revealing, full of determination, and hilarious but deeply vulnerable . . . I couldn’t put it down.”—JC Chasez, NSYNC, singer, songwriter

From the Publisher