Elizabeth: Welcome.

Carnie: Thank you.

Elizabeth: I'm Elizabeth. I'm your director today.

Carnie: Nice to meet you.

Elizabeth: So Carnie, this show is called "The Me I Used to Be."

Crew: Interview take one, mark.

Elizabeth: And it is about looking back on your life, not just what happened, but how these moments shaped what you believe. It is based on what we call your perception box, which is how you see yourself, other people, and the world around you.

Carnie: Wilson Phillips!

Carnie: Ah, I love you, Nelson.

Elizabeth: So, as you look back on these photos and videos.

Carnie: Whoa.

Elizabeth: We want your honest take on how you felt back then, how you perceived yourself in the world, and how you feel looking back on it now.

Carnie: Wow, that is insane.

Elizabeth: Yeah. It's coming up for you.

Carnie: Woo!

Elizabeth: A lot, it seems like.

Carnie: Yeah. It's just like, I don't know, it's a lot to take in. That's a lot to take in. Seeing my family together, the core four, I would call it, it's so limited to see those pictures. There's not a lot of the four of us -- of my mom, my dad, and Wendy and I.

Carnie: Well, I grew up in Bel Air, California. My father is Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys. What was always happening was just music. Whether it something was on the stereo or piano was playing. I mean, I have memories of sitting at the piano with my dad, him teaching me and playing for him. But it wasn't a typical household. I mean, there were some crazy things that happened. Everybody would come over the house all the time. It was singers, mostly musicians. Elton John would come over, play the piano. Paul McCartney came over with his kids and Sean Cassidy came over and we got a picture of it and my cheeks are bright red. There he is. But we didn't know who was gonna show up. It's like that rock'n'roll lifestyle. I know that I was exposed to so many great things, but there were days and times when I felt really unsafe and saw some pretty bad things, traumatic and have left scars. And I did not have a lot of things that I think would have helped me feel more safe, like dinners at the table, discussing our days, and stuff like that. I didn't have that.

Elizabeth: Was there anything that did make you feel safe when you were young?

Carnie: Safety as a little girl was definitely like donuts, cake, food. I was just the sort of the protective one. That's my nature, you know? My sister was very quiet, very shy. So I always felt like I wanted to feel powerful, you know? I wanted to feel strong. I just couldn't get a hold of my need to eat. I couldn't do it. I had to have my food, and it was definitely about safety. But I didn't feel normal in my own skin because I was always overweight. So I was really, really teased and bullied. Like to the point of just breaking down, hysterically crying every day on the bus. And it was torture. It was torture. You know, I felt that sadness and shame and like, I'm not good enough, right? But despite all the feelings about this, I had such a love of performing. I'd be like, I have this to do. I'm celebrating the arts. I'm singing, I'm performing. I have this relationship with the audience. And it wasn't just like being the daughter of Brian Wilson. It was more like, I share the love of harmony. And I needed that in my life. And I was obsessed with getting my friends together, harmonizing. We started singing like three days a week. Chynna would just come over and we would just harmonize. So here's Carnie, Wendy, Chynna, three individual voices. But when we put our voices together, it created this fourth voice. ♪ Baby you've just got to release me ♪

Host: And that's how Wilson Phillips started.

Host: Making their network TV debut, please welcome Wilson Phillips.

Host: Members of Wilson Phillips include two daughters of Beach Boy, Brian Wilson, and one daughter of former Mamas and Papas leaders, John and Michelle Phillips.

Interviewer (Archived): Yeah, you also mentioned your daughters. Do you get to see them?

Brian Wilson (Archived): No, not very much. No, not too often.

Interviewer (Archived): Have you heard any of their stuff?

Brian Wilson (Archived): No, I haven't.

Carnie: I did feel sadness because my dad was with a doctor, Dr. Landy, who kind of took him away from his family. And I was experiencing all these great things with Wilson Phillips and wasn't seeing him. We weren't allowed to see him.

Host: Here they are with the number one Hot 100 single of the year, Wilson Phillips!

Carnie (Archived): One of the most important things is to take care of yourself. And so we've learned to be healthy and stay away from alcohol and drugs. Until.

Host: This is her first appearance at the public event since the transformation. Please welcome, Carnie Wilson.

Carnie (Archived): Thank you! Whew!

Carnie: When I lost a bunch of weight, I had a gastric bypass surgery and I lost, oh my god, I lost 160 pounds in 16 months. I was changing so rapidly that I didn't recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. And I did not feel comfortable. I guess I just felt vulnerable. I still really don't understand it. You know, I think I wasn't used to being in a small shell of a body and I didn't have, I mean, I had food, but I didn't wanna mess it up. So I started drinking. Yeah. I could not handle it. I couldn't handle how I felt inside, you know? I just wanted to shut it out. When you come from some trauma or you come from, you know, that world, I can't sit in the me, me, me, me, me feelings anymore. And what I've learned about my alcoholism is that when I'm drinking, when I'm using, when I'm doing that to my body and my mind, I'm alienating myself. And that's the opposite of me connecting with others. I'm in a 12-step program. That's what helps me. And it is anonymous, but there's no way I could keep my sobriety without that work. Thank god.

Elizabeth: So besides AA, what helps you attend to that terrifying feeling now? 'Cause you don't do all the things that you used to do to numb and comfort. So what helps you now?

Carnie: Yeah. I mean, I found the love of baking, cooking. I love to bake and cook, and that helps me a lot. But also, I think music heals. I just believe music heals. And harmony, for me, brings serenity. It's that experience of like, singing to them and then seeing emotion in their faces. I take that in, and it's healing. I've been experiencing it with singing with my daughter. She'd be in the bathtub and we'd be singing. And I actually was teaching her harmony when she was just a little baby. Our family unit, you know, that's a big thing with Rob and I and the kids, having dinner together, talking, going through it, the ups and the downs, the challenges, you know? I'm so grateful for that. And I'm also grateful that my dad got to experience my kids in the way that he was able to. It wasn't, you know, like, this interaction, it would never be enough.

Elizabeth: Okay.

Carnie: It'll never be enough. But I'm so happy that we got to connect and that I got to sing to him until basically the day he died. When I was young, I think more of the narrative was like, I just wanna feel okay and like, safe and good and inside my body. And now it is that I already have everything I need in my life to feel fulfilled. I don't need to keep searching.

Elizabeth: You know, it's really interesting. When you were young, you craved these family dinners, and then you gave your family the family dinners. Tell me about that.

Carnie: It's weird because I have to admit, there have been a few times when I've been sitting at the dinner table. I know this is gonna sound weird to say, but why not? We're letting it out here today. I would sit at the table and I'd look around and I'd look at Lucy, look at Lola, look at Rob, and I would think to myself, "Oh my god, we're a family and we're here around this dinner table, and we're a family and we love each other and we're here." And it's like, it's the most beautiful thing. And like, there's a part of me that doesn't really understand that, that can't connect to that, but it's like, changing. It's changing history. It's changing myself. It's changing. It's allowing those feelings to be real and beautiful, and not scary, not negative. I try to relate to it and take it in and be like, they deserve for all of us to be together. I deserve to feel this love. And I just think that we'll always have like that, I'll always think of the core four, which is me, my sister, my mom and my dad, and me and Rob, and Lola and Lucy.