Q 6

PLAYBOY: Say you're naked and looking in the mirror. What do you see?

Kirstie Alley: I see a big mistake. I've never looked in a mirror and gone, "Wow. Wow." I've always gone, "What's up with that? What's up with this?" I see all the bad things. I don't think that will ever change. I have always wondered why any guy is with me, especially if he's really cool. When I'm with James I can't believe that it's happening. The girls who have been with the men I've been with all have spectacular bodies. They're the kind of girls who walk into a room and you go, "Oh my God!" That makes me even more introverted. I think, Maybe you can't see under my dress. Then, after he's seen under there I think, Are you high? What the hell are you doing? He says, "You're so beautiful." I say, "You are high!" You'd think that would make me believe I'm beautiful. But it doesn't. It makes me think he's lost his mind. Or maybe he's tired of the big-breasted-whore period and is ready to get down--or he's slumming. I've never been with a man who hasn't been with beautiful women, so I can't help but compare myself. Why I've been so lucky and gotten beautiful men, I don't know. I must be putting out some vibes. And here's the weird thing: I'm not insecure. I never worry about a beautiful guy leaving me. I understand why he's with me, but I'm never not confident that he is, if that makes sense.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: What is the most romantic thing James has done for you?

Kirstie Alley: One Easter he didn't give me anything. I moped all day. I thought, He doesn't love me anymore; I can't believe this is happening. I know this sounds overdramatic, but it's the truth. I was in the bath and he was off working on a house. He kept calling, saying, "What are you doing now?" I could tell he was being sweet with me, but all I felt was, Fuck you. Don't I at least get an Easter egg? Then he'd call again and say, "Now what are you doing?" I'd say, "I'm taking a bath." I couldn't figure out why he was too busy for me.

I contemplated packing my bags and taking off for Italy at midnight, leaving a note that said, "You don't care about me! (By the way, I'm in Italy.)" He came home around nine o'clock and said, "I'll flip you for going over and getting a bottle of wine." We live in two houses, connected by a bridge across the third floor. I lost and he said, "OK, you get the wine and I'll get the glasses." I walked across the bridge into my bedroom and there was this beautiful chinoiserie desk that I'd seen four months earlier in an antique store. It was the most fabulous desk I'd seen in my life, but at the time he said, "Ah, you don't need that. It's too expensive." So I totally forgot about it. But there it was in my bedroom, with candles all over it, and roses thrown all over the room. He also left an amazing note saying that's what he'd been doing all day. He had to get it to the house, hide it in a truck down the street and move it upstairs, all while I was next door moping.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: Your TV character Veronica Chase wrote The Guide to a Fairy-Tale Marriage. Based on your experience, which part of marriage is the fairy tale?

Kirstie Alley: The fairy tale is that most people, probably including myself, hope love is just something that happens to you, that you're just zapped with the love bug and you're not responsible. When you meet somebody you are zapped, in a way that puts you on your best behavior. But sustained love--and marriage--has to be created. Even though it takes directed energy it can still be the most romantic thing in the world as long as you don't lie to each other. The fairy tale is that people don't believe they have a responsibility to create that. If married men would continue to court their wives like they did when they met--heavily--they'd never have a problem with their women. It doesn't have to be, "I'm coming over. Turn the lights off, take your clothes off. Get into bed." Flowers, gifts and surprises, on an almost daily basis. The result would be that the women would act like they did when they were being courted. Women would act like women, which is what women want to do [smiles]. Here is what women also want: attention. They want romance. They want the knight in shining armor. Think of men and women as non-gender-specific spirits who are on Earth to play a game. They meet. What do you do? If you dribbled a basketball down the field in a football game, you'd be in the wrong game. Lots of people refuse to play the game. They think there's something wrong with it. I think you play the gender you've selected. If you get the woman's body, be a woman. If you get the man's body, be a man. Both have to play.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: Who makes the first move?

Kirstie Alley: The man. And I'm not talking only about the bedroom. Feminists are going to hate me for saying this, but I believe women have to yield to a higher strength. It's not always easy for me. I was raised in the feminist era and heard, "Burn your bra." But then I thought, Why am I burning my bra when I look really good in my bra? It's not like somebody told me I have to wear a bra. There's a benefit to all these things. It doesn't mean that I'm not as smart, or as able, or as powerful, or that I shouldn't have equal opportunity and equal pay. But many of the old traditions our society is trying to do away with are basically true for me. I'm not going to pick up a gun and go to war. Am I opposed to shooting somebody if he's the enemy? No. If somebody breaks into my house, I'll blow his head off. But if somebody breaks in and I'm lying next to James, I'll say, "Hey, James, somebody's breaking into the house. Get the gun." My job is to call the cops. The right to vote, the right to have equal pay--those things should have nothing to do with sexuality or gender. That's the world of business affairs. But in the game of men and women, the better you are at playing a woman, the better a man can be a man. That's why people love romantic movies. In a romantic movie, a woman lets a man be a man.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: What should America pay attention to?

Kirstie Alley: How about the fact that our kids are on psych drugs and that they're in school systems that don't teach them anything? How many kids are on Ritalin? It's bullshit. The same kind of kid who stuck pencils in his nose 30 years ago is now called sick? While we're so worried about street drugs, how much of the population is on psych drugs? And yet we're sitting around wanting to know who's fucking whom?

Q 11

PLAYBOY: What would you like to seal in a time capsule to be opened in a hundred years?

Kirstie Alley: Eyeliner. I know it's been around for thousands of years, but who knows what's going to happen in another century? Women are nothing without black eyeliner. It's perfect for any occasion. If I were stranded on an island, I would want eyeliner. It speaks the word woman to me. Cleopatra, Bardot, Verna Lisi, Sophia Loren. It's mysterious, a bit on the edge, stained. No eye shadow. I also like eyeliner on men. Kohl, on the top and bottom. Women, top only. When I was young I wasn't allowed to wear makeup. So I took my eyeliner to school, put it on and then washed it off in the bathroom right before classes ended. My dad had this theory that women are most beautiful when they're natural. But I have the theory that only beautiful women are beautiful when they're natural. God should make all women naturally beautiful so that they can then whore themselves up a little bit. Every man likes a bit of whore, and to me, black eyeliner does it.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: Describe your last shower.

Kirstie Alley: I never shower. Showers are for sex. It's the place to do anything and everything that you wouldn't do if you weren't in the shower. Showers are for men.