*A 57-year-old aspiring actress is generating talk online after posting an emotional video detailing her struggle with being broke. The clip, titled “57 and Broke,” finds Celeste Jona Gay in her car on a dreary February day during her lunch break, speaking to her 42 subscribers on YouTube.
Gay touches on the choices she has made sense arriving in Atlanta to pursue a career as an actress and mistakes she’s made in her journey, CNN is reporting. Despite holding down jobs that paid her “a good salary” and live comfortably, Gay opted to pursue her dreams of being an actress. A dream she has had since the sixth grade after appearing in a play.
“It has been really tough for me because of some decisions that I have made that I regret making,” she said in the video, clearing her throat. “I always talk about Atlanta, and I feel like when I left my corporate job making a good salary and decided to chase a dream, thinking everything would fall into place, things would be in order, my life blew up.”
Soon after she posted her clip, amassed more than half a million views as well as a slew of support, with a noticeable jump in subscribers totaling more than 21,000 subscribers on YouTube.
“It just kind of knocked me over like a tidal wave,” Gay told CNN of the response. “I didn’t think all this was going to happen.”
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A product of Tennessee State University, where she majored in journalism and theater, Gay’s background was the opposite of her current circumstances. With a master’s degree in business administration and marketing, Gay found work in Washington, DC as an editor.
Despite the security of her position, Gay couldn’t turn her back on where her heart was at. But she never got over the acting bug she caught in the sixth grade after appearing in a play.
“I always loved acting, but I was trying to be a ‘quote unquote responsible adult,’ get the 9 to 5 job, have the benefits, save for the 401k,” she said. “But I wasn’t satisfied.”
Fast forward a few years and Gay’s status was one of a twice divorced, child-free program manager at FedEx in Memphis by her early fifties, earning about $80,000 a year and benefits.
Yet acting remained her preferred occupation as Gay considered leaving her more than stable employment situation to fully pursue her dreams
“My manager said at the time, ‘Let’s think about it — reconsider,’ and I was like ‘No, this is calling me. This is what I believe I’m supposed to do. This is my time,” she recalled about people who tried talking her out of life as an actress.
“He was a great manager and he understood. I did have a few other people say ‘Are you sure?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, I’m sure.’ And I left. I packed up and I left.”
From there it was on to Atlanta, where Gay was confident in finding success in movies and TV series filmed there.
Although she questioned whether she, as an older actress, would find parts, a younger actress Gay mentioned opportunities in the ATL that would be to her liking.
Despite getting being connected with a non-acting job opportunity in Atlanta that she said was “right up her alley,” Gay got in the way of her success. In her eyes, she “self-sabotaged.”
“I said, you know what, I can’t do this job,” she said in her video. “I’m going to be acting. I don’t know when I’ll need (time) off … I made an excuse because I’m thinking it’s going to be ok.”
But without a steady paycheck, things were anything but Ok. Instead, Gay encountered debt and no lucrative acting jobs in the place she thought would provide those opportunities.
“I did everything I could,” Gay shared said in her video, her voice cracking with emotion. “I also ended up withdrawing my pension and my retirement because I just didn’t have enough money. And this is not how I expected things to go. I really didn’t, because I’d always landed on my feet and this is the first time I had not.”
Watch the video above or below for Celeste Jona Gay’s full story.
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