The Untold Truth Of Hannah Hart
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Hannah Hart, the brains behind the classic YouTube show My Drunk Kitchen, has certainly been keeping herself busy! For one, the show has been running steadily since 2011, when she posted the first-ever episode of the now-classic internet offering. Her channel, MyHarto, has expanded significantly since then, as she now broadcasts all kinds of vlogs, including travel shorts, personal anecdotes, and taste tests.
In 2017, Hart got a huge break — she became a Food Network star, appearing in a show called I Hart Food! She's definitely come a long way from the humble New York kitchen where she first broadcast.
Hart has also penned two best-selling books and inked a deal with Ellen Degeneres' digital network. And that's not to mention that she co-hosts a podcast named Hannahlyze This — clearly she's staying busy! So what else is there to know about the foodie-turned-entrepreneur? We dug up a lot, so, without further ado, here's the untold truth of Hannah Hart.
She had a really tough upbringing
Hart's well-known for her constant smile and cheery personality, but what many may know know is that, despite her sunny disposition, she had a super tough childhood, according to BuzzFeed News. Her mother, who she and her two sisters lived with as a kid, suffered from schizophrenia — which put a huge strain on the family. In fact, their home life was so chaotic that her youngest sister was placed into foster care with an adoptive family. That's intense.
There was a dad in the picture, who Hart and her sisters visited occasionally. But he was extremely religious, and he enforced overly strict rules when Hart and her sisters were present. That didn't jive well with her, to say the least.
To this day, Hart's still processing her upbringing. "Everyone's trauma is different," she reflected in an interview with ABC News. "But it really took me a long time to realize, and I'm still kind of in denial, I guess, that it was more abnormal than normal." That's 100 percent understandable.
The real reason she started My Drunk Kitchen
The Internet was a very different place when Hart, on a whim, made the first video in what would become My Drunk Kitchen. The year was 2011, and Hart had just moved from San Francisco to New York for a job, according to NPR.
One fateful night, Hart was chatting with a friend back west who was struggling with depression. In an effort to cheer her up, Hart decided to make a silly video, telling her, "I'm gonna make a video for you right now where I just do a cooking show and get drunk and cook," according to The Verge. And the rest is history. She uploaded the video to YouTube so her friend could watch it, and racked up 80,000 shares in the process — not much by today's standards, but pretty impressive at the time!
Today the video has over 4 million views, and Hart has built herself an empire with more than 2.5 million subscribers — all because she just wanted to cheer up a friend. What a story!
She's actually a lightweight!
Since Hannah Hart makes a show about cooking while drunk, surely she must love booze and drink it all the time, right?
Actually, wrong! And Hart has confirmed it. "The number-one assumption is that, you know, I'm a huge fan of drinking," she shared in an interview with NPR. "But the honest truth is I'm just a lightweight." So she doesn't binge on mimosas every morning or slug gin and tonics every day at lunch. That's good news for her liver!
So when Hart does hit the sauce, whether it's for work or for play, she gets good bang for her buck. "It only takes me, like, a glass or two of wine, and I am having a great time," she continued. And judging by how fun she is on the show, we bet you'd have a blast raising a glass with her. Bottoms up, y'all!
She hasn't really celebrated Pride
Hart's been out as queer for a long time now, as all of her fans can attest; in 2012, she came out in a public-yet-personal way in a now-legendary video on her YouTube channel. And since then? Hart has evolved into a queer icon, doing her part to make the world a better place for LGBT people. She's even on the board of GLAAD, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Still, Hart admits that she still has some milestones to reach. "I have never really celebrated Pride," she revealed in an interview with PopSugar. "It's kind of been the last thing on my journey of acceptance. To get to that point of feeling proud is feeling great and feeling worthy." So she's not quite all the way there yet. Plus, having a fear of crowds hasn't helped either.
But Hart makes sure to get out there when she can. In fact, she attended L.A. Pride in June of 2018, according to a post on her Instagram page. So she's always moving forward.
Hart once prayed with an Uber driver!
It's pretty obvious in both her shows and in interviews that Hart is quite the extrovert. That's not a front either — she genuinely connects with all kinds of folks on the reg, even if they're total strangers. "I find that, like, in every conversation I have I end up, you know, kind of going deep," she revealed on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Sounds like she has zero problems finding common ground with anyone, which is definitely a gift.
That even includes her Uber drivers, who Hart has bonded with in some surprisingly meaningful ways. "Once we actually prayed together at the end of an Uber ride," she continued. It sounds like a joke, but it's 100 percent true! They even held hands and everything.
She was legit into the experience, too. After communing together and discussing "the spirit," Hart found herself emotionally moved. "Not gonna lie, like, I shed a tear," she added.
The craziest thing she's ever done for a girl
We've all done something nutty at least once in our lives in the name of love. Whether it's getting your boo's name tattooed on your body or jumping on a plane last-minute to profess your undying love on their doorstep, love has the power to make you do things that, under ordinary circumstances, you wouldn't even consider as an option. And yeah, they can be kind of foolish, too. But no judgments!
Hart has a pretty wild love-struck story of her own. "One time in college, instead of using the money I had been saving for this trip to Japan, I saved it," she shared in an interview with Diva magazine. "So that when I got back I could buy a car because I knew this girl needed rides." So instead of enjoying the trip of a lifetime, she saved the cash to chauffeur her crush around town. Let's shed a tear for all of that uneaten sushi.
Opening up on her terms
Despite the fact that Hannah Hart has been an internet celeb for years now, she hasn't dished about everything on social media. And she values the importance of processing her thoughts and feelings on her own terms. That's something she emphasized in her memoir, Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded. In the book, she opens up about her childhood, her trauma, and her family struggles — the culmination of years of personal reflection.
Being willing to share such intimate details didn't happen overnight for Hart. Rather, it took ten years of preparation in order for her to feel comfortable opening up. "That's what this decade of journaling has been, and that's what the accounts I've written about in the book have been," she reflected in an interview with Hello Giggles. "The data of my life that I have processed within my own private boundaries. Now I'm ready to share."
She's a self-harm survivor
Another thing that Hart opened up about in her memoir is that she's a self-harm survivor. And learning how to stop was not easy for her, which she discusses at length in her book. "I've talked about depression, but I just never felt comfortable trying to talk about self-harm on [my] channel," she revealed in an interview with Hello Giggles. "How do you put that in a YouTube video?" It's just not something you drop into casual conversation, for sure, given its deeply personal nature.
For Hart, the best way to discuss her struggle with self-harm was in a written format, which allowed her the space to both elaborate and provide context for her readers. "I wanted to explain why someone would hurt themselves," she continued. "I think that's a big part of the book that people aren't expecting." What an exceedingly brave thing to do, girl.
That time Hart enlightened a 'dad in Nebraska'
Hart has had many interactions with fans over the years, whether it's at meet-and-greets or in the comments section of her videos. They're almost always totally positive, too. "I feel really fortunate in that the community that's drawn to my channel are really good, decent, want-to-share people," she noted in an interview with The Verge. Who knew the comments section, of all places, could be so positive?
Of those many encounters, one of them stands out the most to Hart: an email response she received to her 2012 coming out video from a "dad in Nebraska." He wrote that he and his family were fans of My Drunk Kitchen, but not of LGBT lifestyles. But he also said that learning that Hart, someone he's a fan of, was a lesbian gave him something to think about. "It's nice to be able to expand someone's worldview," she continued. Way to win over hearts and minds!
She has a secret board game strategy
They say you can tell a person's true nature by seeing how they treat children, or watching how they react in a crisis situation. Well, Hart has her own philosophy: she believes you can learn a lot about someone by playing a game with them.
"People are like, what should you do on the third or fourth date?" she mused in an interview with Instant. Her advice? "Play a game with them, and see if they're a sore loser or not." Good idea. And, if they hoard all of the Monopoly money or cheat at Boggle, that's definitely something you want to know about their character!
Hart doesn't just watch and learn, either, as she has another trick up her sleeve. "I always lose the first time I play a game with somebody. Cause if you win they won't play with you anymore," she continued. "If you lose, they'll always remember the time they won!" That's a sneaky — but smart — strategy.
Her dream wedding reception
As fans of Hart learned in July of 2018, she finally got engaged to her partner, Ella Mielniczenko! Hart announced it on Instagram, then followed it up with a tell-all vlog on her YouTube channel. Congrats, ladies! They are such an adorable couple.
While, at the time of this writing, we don't yet know what they're wearing or who's going to be there for the big day, Hart has previously dropped some hints about what the spread at the reception might look like. "I would love to make my wedding a series of small plates, like, dishes that I and my partner love that we want to share with our friends and family," she gushed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "We really like a lot of street food, and so I think it would be amazing to ... have a street food vendor situation kind of going on at a wedding." That sounds like a good strategy to please a crowd!
She wants to be the 'lesbian Hugh Grant'
Hannah Hart's got a lot on her proverbial plate. She has her vlogging and television career, which is only getting more impressive by the day. She's newly engaged, which means there's a wedding to plan. Her podcast is in full swing, and she has to sleep sometime.
But Hart has some other burgeoning ambitions as well. So on top of being tapped by Ellen Degeneres for a show on her digital network, Hart's scheming about the world of comedy. "I wanna be like the lesbian Hugh Grant. That would be like my dream of dreams," she quipped in an interview with BuzzFeed. Wait, what?
Hart doesn't mean that quite so literally. "Not, like, Hugh Grant himself, but I wanna make like, 50 gay rom-coms with adorable little plots. Wouldn't that be nice? Just a little joy?" she continued. We are here for that!