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Good Life Project
Kulap Vilaysack | Origin Story, It’s Complicated
Kulap’s parents fled violence in Laos, finding themselves in a refugee camp in Thailand, before moving to DC, where Kulap would be born, and then Minnesota, where she’d grow up. Her world was blown apart when, at the age of 14, in the heat of a fight, Kulap’s mom revealed that her father was not, in fact, her biological dad. The trauma of that moment shook her, but would then get largely buried, as she left home, built a career and got married. Now, decades later, a successful writer/director, actor, comedian, former co-host of the longrunning Who Charted podcast where she sat behind the mic for 8 years, and creator, show-runner and sometimes director of the TV series Bajillions Dollar Properties, Kulap started considering having her own kids, and she felt like she had to discover her true original story in order to move forward. So she decided to do something radical to take control of her own narrative.
She mounted a quest to uncover the truth, one that led her to travel back to Laos in search biological father she never knew, let alone knew existed, and find out the events and awakenings that would forever change her, her life, and her understanding of her parents, extended family and the choices they all made. The story is laid bare in Kulap’s original documentary Origin Story (https://amzn.to/2GqIrIi) and we dive into this decades-long experience in today’s conversation.
You can find Kulap Vilaysack at:
Website : http://www.originstorydoc.com/
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/iamkulap/
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