Part 1 of 3: "Chewbacca Mom" Candace Payne Discusses Happiness, Joy, & Authenticity

Who are you?

Who am I?

Wow.

Um, I think—

What's your real name? Let's start with that.

Well, my name is Candace Payne, not Chewbacca Mom.

No, I think your name is Chewbacca Mom.

I'll take it.

Hashtag.

I'll take it.

Hashtag.

So you had a crazy turn of events in your life.

Yeah.

When a little over a year ago, you sat in your car and you giggled your life away. Basically, over a Chewbacca mask.

Yeah.

Now, I have to tell you, I don't know that I got the Chewbacca part.

Okay, okay.

But I got the laughter. I watched that video, I think, 3 times in one sitting, and then showed it to my daughter, and then had it— I mean, it was a thing because I was so tickled at you being tickled, and I was so happy watching you be happy.

Yeah.

You know? Right. So why do you think, I mean, we all, we see them all the time. We see videos that make us laugh all the time. We see people that are being silly all the time. We see people that are having a moment all the time. Why do you think that video with you in that mask was such a phenomenon? Why do you think that?

Can I just tell my, the—

Yes, you're good.

Because, because I had just talked to you on Facebook, right?

We had just met.

This is before the video?

Yeah, before the mask. Yeah. So then like maybe the next 3 or 4 days, I start seeing my friends are sharing her post and I was like, this book is stalking me. Like, you got sent to my friends that I've been talking to and they are showing— like that literally, you know what I mean? And it was always like, so it took me a minute to be like, wait, this thing, they have no—

like nobody knows.

The iceberg does check on what's going on.

It was just showing like everywhere. It was just hilarious because I was like I gotta find the settings.

Like, where are those privacy settings? That is so crazy.

And then it just was everywhere. And then it was on the news and I was like, well, that doesn't make sense.

And local news wasn't stopping.

No, really.

Why? Why did this happen?

Oh my gosh.

Why did 160-something million people tune in and watch this video?

I can tell you now, over a year, you know, what I believe it was. Initially, just that simple moment that you look at, I think it's when somebody has an authentic reaction that you cannot stage, you cannot manipulate, that you honestly can't control either. There were times I was telling myself internally, "Stop this mess, you are a grown woman!" And I'm just like in my head thinking, "People are gonna think I'm crazy!" But I couldn't stop, and it was because I was so enveloped in the moment. People are attracted to that. They're so attracted to authenticity, way higher than integrity, way higher than all the things.

Sometimes, unfortunately.

Well, I think that's a really true statement. If you think about even the most incredible moral failures or falls that we've seen in the media, give it a day or two and a sincere apology.

Yeah.

We're done. We're back. We're back as friends. And I think that people do that because they want authenticity more than they do your righteousness. It's true.

And they have a radar when it's really authentic and when it's not.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, they do. We all know, we all know. We even know with ourselves when we're like that, you know? So I think people were initially attracted to this authentic moment that had no, I mean, listen, it's a 4-minute video with 3 minutes of laughing.

Right.

Right? It's not like you've got a bunch of dialogue we gotta translate. However, I have seen a sign language interpreter interpreting. That's amazing.

That's probably memed to death. I'm sure there are a lot of varieties floating around.

There are. I don't— I've never, and I do not Google myself. I just feel like that is healthy.

No, it's good.

But I will watch if somebody that I know sends something to me, and so that's— I've seen a few.

So this is— so that what you just said is what you thought it was then, or you're saying that's what you— looking back, that's what you—

that's what I thought it was initially, but I, as many layers have developed over this past year, I really know that it's been a part of revealing my identity as well.

Listen, when you had identity that you knew of—

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, listen, I was a worship— I was a worship leader for so many years, and, um, I really felt like I was gonna have like this next Christian song that people were gonna be singing and like I'd be getting a Dove Award and I'd be so serious. At some point I'd be so serious. I just love, I love this so much.

I love it so much, okay?

And I'm not.

'Cause there's a worship leader thing, you know what I mean? There's a worship leader, there's a, there's a spectrum of how worship leaders should be.

Yes.

You know, and there is a, formula, we see it and we think this is how it's supposed to go.

Yes, and I felt like I was desperately trying to find out how I fit in that world and that that was going to be this incredible breakthrough of my destiny.

Because there's also a spectrum and a box of what we think God is going to do.

Oh yeah.

So if we're worship leaders and we know, we feel like God's going to do something like this, something's happening, and that's what we're doing, then clearly that's like, this is the path. Yeah, this is it.

That's exactly it. And you know, the funny thing is, is what I'm talking about my identity It's not that I'm not a worship leader now, but can we just say for a second, the truth is that I've always been fun. And I've just completely dismissed that from a conversation with him about who I am. And it's not dismissive. Like, I didn't realize there's a place in the body of Christ for fun, on purpose, and it's intentional.

Not accidental.

No, you're not the person going, shh. Shh!

You know?

I felt like that was my life. Straighten up, we are in church here. I felt like that was always me. That I always had an angle or a lens of seeing things as though they had whimsy in them. And I thought that that was very stifled in leadership in church. And I didn't even know if it was useful. So therefore, here I am suppressing that quality about myself. Well, what I've seen is I broke through my destiny with laughter. I broke through my destiny by enjoyment, by having fun. And God started revealing things about me that I legitimately have been wired to be somebody that doesn't just bring joy but also brings happiness and fun too. I mean, have you even heard the shaming statement about happiness?

Say it.

It's like when people are like, "Oh, well, you know, you probably mean that you have joy." Joy! Because happy is this external feeling.

Because Jesus and others say.

Absolutely. I'm sitting here going, why are you shaming my happy? Even there's a place for happy.

I just had a conversation with, uh, Lisa Harper and she has a book out called The Sacrament of Happy. And she said when she looks, and I may not say this exactly right, but when, when you look up happy in the Bible, it's a part of who God is. Like we've stripped not just the happy away from us, we've stripped it away from God. You know, and said because of how we tend to be, which is looking for happy circumstantially, that happy can't be circumstantial. Like right now it's okay.

You know what I mean?

It doesn't take Jesus away from me. You know, it's like I can do that. That's so encouraging to hear.

Okay.

So here's my question for you about that.

Okay.

Did the fun leave or did you not— when you say he— you broke through your destiny with laughter. Is that because the laughter wasn't there and you kind of had to reconnect to it, or it's always been there, you just didn't think he was going to use it?

Oh, it's always been there. And I just got to be honest with you, um, this is a statement that's pretty bold and it may make some churchy people upset, but I'm just going to say how my opinion has been.

Okay.

I feel as though sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes ministry can be a bully. We love to tell you that you have grace to flourish and figure out who you are in the body of Christ and do you. And then the moment we start doing that, we have to put parameters on it or we have to judge it by metrics. How many people came to the altar? How many people got saved? How many are getting baptized? How many are in your group? How many is in your home group? Did anybody do this and this? It's like we want to measure somebody's worth and identity in the kingdom. And the more I've looked at scripture, just being honest, If Jonah was on your church staff, he'd be fired in a heartbeat.

Because?

Because he still didn't get it. At the end of the book, he was still complaining and whining.

That's true. Most of the people that God used either didn't get it or took a long time to get it. They were a little hard-headed.

He was still mad about that tree. He was like, "What?" That guy would be off staff. You would be like, "He doesn't love people. Get him out. He doesn't love people and he's not cooperative. He's rebellious." I mean, all these things, and that's who God chose to use.

Okay, now were you raised in church?

Yeah, yeah, I'm a church kid. I mean, I totally get that.

You're a church kid. I wouldn't date you.