Author serving up erotica. Why are you so good about writing about sex . Now changing from crowdsourcing to the silver screen. But first the nightline five. Numb good evening. Thank you for joining us. No doubt, marriage can be complicated. For actor and activist Nico Tortorella a most unconventional relationship is challenging labels. Heres my nightline coanchor juju chang. When bethany and i met in 2006, i was a boy and she was a girl. Whatever that means. Reporter this is not your typical boy meets girl love story. Today bethany and i both identify as nonbinary and prefer they, them pronouns. Reporter actor Nico Tortorella and bethany c. Meyers are a uniquely modern couple. My wife, my husband my best friend my partner my everything. Reporter both are gender fluid. Their marriage polyamourous, redefining what it means to be husband and wife. I mean in laymans terms its not man, not woman. All man, all woman. Reporter its all laid out in nicos new book space between a place, they say, where people who dont consider themselves he or she can call their own. And tell me the pronouns that you use . They them pronouns. And i may screw it up if i mess it up along the way. Its still a work in progress for everyone. I still mess up sometimes, too. Whats the point of pronouns . For me they, them fully encompasses all it that exists in my own multidimensional dynamic being. Right at it, it just feels more inclusive. It feels wider. Reporter nico also revealing their painful struggles with coming out and facing their dark battle with alcohol. When i started having access to the party, to the celebrity, to the free everything right. It got out of control like it does for so many people in this industry. Thirtyone year old nico found fame playing the hyper masculine tattoo artist josh on tvlands hit show younger. Reporter portraying Lyle Menendez in lifetimes blood brothers. And in the upcoming spinoff of amcs the walking dead nico plays a queer character battling the zombie apocalypse. You should be scared every time. Reporter on the red carpet, nico often makes a splash with wild genderbending outfits. But here at their upstate new york home their sanctuary, nico and bethany are simply they. Why get married . Because it seems to me a very traditional social construct for two very untraditional people. I knew that when it came to having a foundation and a Family Foundation that this was the person for me to do it with. When it when it comes to you know visiting each other in a hospital. God forbid that ever happens when it comes to bringing children into the world when it comes to health insurance. You know the system was built for a reason. Reporter its what works for them and while bethany and nico are deeply committed to each other, they also each have multiple sexual partners. And so polyamorous, some people think just means having group sex. But thats not what this is . Its the ability to create space for more than one person at any given point. How could you not be jealous. I get a little bit jealous but jealousy is something. Its something i have to practice, its a very normal human emotion. Reporter nico and bethanys untraditional love story began as teenagers in art school in chicago when nico developed a crush. I nico very much liked me and i did not like nico at first but i remember talking to one of my friends and being like i dont know who this person is. And they kind of annoyed me but theyre going to be in my life forever. We talked about where you come from culturally and how that is a place where youve had to deal with some backlash. Backlash and resistance. Im from missouri small town pretty conservative raise very traditional. I was raised believing that if you are gay you go to hell. Niko also struggled, growing up in a working class italian family. I always knew that i was different. I think when i first realized that even homosexuality was an option i saw it on tv. I would go down in the basement and watch queer as folk in the basement and delete it from the queue because i didnt want my parents knowing that i was watching it. Reporter with leaving home in the midwest, nico came into their own and with finding fame came a greater sense of purpose. When you walk the runway with the chip hairy chest and a full beard. Yes maam. Yes maam. In a dress thats alot of hyper masculine female. Well its political. I mean, its not just throwing on a dress because im having fun. Its to prove a point. And i look good in a dress. So whats the problem . I have a certain privilege that other people do not have and wearing a dress is activism for me. Reporter while nicos fame has given them a platform, its also been a doubleedged sword. Youre very candid about your Substance Abuse and how rock bottom it got. Once youre just like alone drinking alone doing drugs alone and youre completely numb to it all. It gets it gets really scary. You know it gets really lonely. You describe Ashton Kutcher intervening. I was 21 years old living in new york city. Everyone was partying and i had gone to ask him for some advice and he was just like dont put anything up your nose. We were all drinking. We were all [ bleep ] up. I got into his face. He was like youre high right now. I was high. So you feel like youre invincible right. And we just started going at it. It didnt get physical. It could have. Reporter before quitting alcohol, alarms bells were also going off at home with bethany. There was a day when i was like hey lets just have a day together lets just be like sober today lets go lets not party lets like be in the sunshine then nico turned around and grabbed a bottle of vodka out of the freezer and started drinking it and i was like, oh, you cant. And that was a really scary moment for me. How is your sobriety today . Great. Still i speak of my sobriety as fluid ke the rest of who i am. Im sober from alcohol. That was the one thing that really was the devil for me. So i gave up alcohol. I still smoke weed and still use cannabis. So one of the things that i found most sort of refreshing about your book was the way that you paint your mothers evolution. Her transition. Her transition and this alongside your transition. And because when you when you quote her early on its homophobic. Theres. Yeah, theres some gnarly stuff in there for sure. But that was normal language. I feel like for so much of that generation. Reporter nicos mom annie joining us, looking back on that first time she saw her son in a dress here at new yorks fashion week. And im like, are you kidding me . I mean, like at one point does it stop . Right. Wheres the line . And i realize there is no line. If you start drawing lines then youre put in a box. What would you say to other moms out there whose kids may be exploring sexuality. And gender, right . Reporter and gender. I realized that it was more important for me to have the love of my son. Who am i to judge who he loves, who he doesnt love. He loves everybody. Reporter and over the years those Lessons Learned from nico became part of annies everyday. How did you get to be friends with so many queer people in florida. It started with my hairdresser. As it does. Reporter annie now surrounding herself with members of the lgbtq plus community. Like her son. Trans masseuse, gay hair stylist and the lesbian doctor. Yeah. Reporter husband and wife and a mother and son on their separate paths but bound by respect and an abiding love. You said a lot of things to nico, im sure he said plenty of choice things back. When you look back on it now what do you think . I want to say, i wish i could do it all over again. I cant change the past, i can change today. Just as he is changing today for so many people. Hes done that for me. Hes helped you change. Our nikos book, space between is out now. Up next, shes just wild about harry styles. Her steamy erotic writing based on one direction heating up more than just the pages. We call it the mother standard of care. Its how we care for our Cancer Patients like job. When he was diagnosed with cancer, his team at ctca created a Personalized Care plan to treat his cancer and side effects. So job could continue to work and stay strong for his family. This is how we inspire hope. This is how we heal. We love you, daddy. Good night. I love you guys. Cancer Treatment Centers of america. Appointments available now. Shhhh. I took mucinex dm for my phlegmy cough. Merica. What about robs dry cough . Works on that too. And lasts 12 hours. 12 hours . who studies that long . only mucinex dm relieves wet and dry coughs for 12 hours with 2 medicines in 1 pill. Ok ill admit. 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Usaa took care of her car rental, and getting her car towed. All i had to take care of was making sure that my daughter was ok. If i met another veteran, and they were with another insurance company, i would tell them, you need to join usaa because they have better rates, and better service. Were the gomez family. Wethe rira family. Were the kirby family, and we are usaa members for life. Get your Auto Insurance quote today. Author anna todd is turning up the heat and turning lots of heads with pageturners by boy band one direction. His mouth travels down to my neck then my chest. His tongue dips down. His hand massages one of my breasts. I feel the pressure building in my stomach and it is pure bliss. I mean thats some thats some hot reading. Reporter at just 30 years old, anna todd is on fire. Anna i love you reporter creating one of the wildest erotica empires in the world. Why are you so good at writing about sex . Ive been married since i was 18, so i cant be like i have tons of experience. I think its just me reading so many erotic novels. Reporter annas after series loosely based on her love for british pop band one direction. You dont know youre beautiful reporter has propelled the former waffle house waitress into literary stardom. New york times bestselling author, 10 books published, eleven million copies sold worldwide, your books are in 35 languages. You have a feature film, youre shooting your second feature film now. What is it about after that made all these numbers possible . I mean i would love to know what it actually is because then i would just do it again and again and again. But i think it was a mixture of different things. We were in this space where it was post fifty shades and it was hard to find stories that were different. And then its the addiction part. Like, i literally couldnt stop writing it. And i had to know what these characters were doing. So as a reader i would imagine you feel that even stronger. Reporter like fifty shades of greys e. L. James, and the kissing booths beth reekles, anna is part of a growing movement of authors who selfpublished online first, before literary agents and movie studios came knocking. Its weird because i dont feel like i sacrificed to here, i feel like i hit the frickin jackpot and i like snuck in the back door. Theres like a christmas book tree. Reporter but shes stepped in seamlessly as a screenwriter and producer on her second film adaption after we collided. I get here when the crew gets here, go to hair and make up first, check with wardrobe, are we going to get that Product Placement from so and so, how are we going to shoot this scene . Shes the boss. She really is everywhere around the clock but in a really nice, supportive, reassuring way. Youre making sure that youre sticking to the story and the characters and the heart of the characters. Its just so surreal. Its like the most basic word, but its the only word that describes it. Reporter another word might be remarkable. Anna grew up in a trailer home in dayton, ohio. Her father, a drug addict, was murdered before her first birthday. And her mom worked long hours just to make ends meet. And then coming home at night and not really having the bandwidth to be super present. I think thats where the bookloving came from. And my friends were wanting cds im like, okay. Mariah careys cool but i want a book. Was it an escape . Yeah, definitely. Its the only time where you can just shut off to live someone elses life. Reporter she met her nowhusband in 11th grade, graduated high school and got married at 18, working minimum wage jobs while he served overseas in the army. I didnt grow up in a house where i was told to go to college i was told to get a job and be able to pay your bills and take care of yourself. Reporter by 2013, anna wasnt just caring for herself. My son was a baby. He wasnt mobile yet and he has a lot of medical conditions, i was just home with him all day. But i still could read and i was obsessed with romance completely down a rabbit hole. Reporter it was around that time she discovered a selfpublishing app called wattpad, where anyone could upload their own stories and receive instant feedback from readers who left comments. I just was like, ill just write a chapter. Im bored, why not . Where did you come up with the idea for this series . I basically put everything ive ever loved like pride and prejudice, wuthering heights, vampire diaries, even cruel intentions. Fifty shades, like, everything, twilight everything ive loved i just dumped it in a bowl and stirred it basically and i tried to find ways to make it almost even more intense. Reporter spicing things up with her obsession for one direction, anna typed out plotlines on her phone about bad boy sophomore harry styles and Innocent College freshman tessa youngs tumultuous, whirlwind romance. Im done playing this game. Reporter readers would give her instant feedback and shed use those comments to guide her into the next chapter its part of a strategy called social writing. Its fun to feel that live reaction and posting a chapter and. 10 minutes later you have a thousand people telling you its either the best or the worst or you hate this or they love that. So your fans are almost like your editors. Yes, and they catch things like tessas car was white then silver then white. Im like oh yeah thats wrong. It really speaks to the way people communicate today, the way people find most of the things they like to read, the things they like to watch. Its all happening socially. In just one year, annas posts racked up almost half a billion views. And the girl with no previous ambitions of being a writer, landed a sixfigure book deal. Youve created six, seven hundred page books and theres multiple of these. Why do you think teens and young adults are latching on . I think its because its actually something that they can relate to, theres a really big disconnect between publishing houses and what actual youth wants. Reporter anna had to change the one direction names. Harry styles became hardin scott but otherwise things remained the same. Even after you got this big publishing deal you still made sure that it was available on wattpad for free for people yes. Why was that important . And i will never take it down here. I know how it is to not be able to buy a book. I have literally bought books. Read them as fast as i can and returned them. Theres no price tag on me taking that down. Everyone thought that was very risky well, it turns out a lot of the fans actually wanted to own the object. They were very invested in the story because they had seen it evolve online. I think it really opened the door for a lot of other wattpad authors to get their own book deals and their own movie deals. Reporter many have accused anna of glorifying issues like alcoholism and domestic abuse. Well, this is life. Not everybody has an amazing childhood and not everybody had someone to look up to or to teach them the way. Reporter and she says what some people call controversial sex scenes are important for young women to see. Im writing for the teenage girls who were like, oh, its not weird for me to be curious about sex and want to talk about sex and want to have sex and initiate it. Reporter and equally portant theyre filmed from a womans perspective. Sexy to me is eye contact, and fingers touching, and breathing and those types of things well, the way youre describing it, is almost a woman creating a sex scene. Yes, exactly, exactly. Reporter for anna, this total control of the scene is part of the future revolution writing. I also am very aware of the hundreds of thousands of writers who would love to have a publishing deal. You can do this. Its my mission to give a voice and get people published who would never be published. Reporter for nightline, im maggie rulli in atlanta. And up next, remembering one of our own. Corrupt president in our nations history. When i called for his impeachment two years ago, washington insiders and every candidate for president said it was too soon. But i believed then, as i do now, that doing the right thing was more important than political calculations. And over eight Million People agreed. We proved that there is no challenge that americans cant meet when we work together. Im tom steyer, and i approve this message. [boy gasps] for real cold and flu protection with lysol, you can help protect them from a real cold. Lysol disinfectant spray kills the 1 cause of the cold and clorox wipes dont. Lysol. What it takes to protect. Hey. Hey. You must be stevens phone. Now you can take control of your home wifi and get a notification the instant someone new joins your network. Only with xfinity xfi. Download the xfi app today. We all have things we love and long for. A place, a feeling, a moment. But only kerrygold can take you there. To irelands lush, green pastures. Where grassfed cows produce rich, creamy milk for the most delicious taste imaginable. Thats no ordinary cheese. No. Its kerrygold. Kerrygold. The taste that takes you there. In the human brain, billions of nefor people with parkinsons, some neurons change their tune, causing uncontrollable tremors. Now, abbott technology can target those exact neurons. Restoring control and harmony, once thought to belost forever. The most personal technology is technology with the power to change your life. Annoepidemic fueled by juul use with their kidfriendly flavors. San francisco voters stopped the sale of flavored ecigarettes. But then juul, backed by big tobacco, wrote prop c to weaken ecigarette protections. The San Francisco chronicle reports prop c is an audacious overreach, threatening to overturn the ban on flavored products approved by voters. Prop c means more kids vaping. Thats a dangerous idea. Vote no on juul. No on big tobacco. No on prop c. Reporter finally, tonight we remember our abc news colleague and dear friend, lauren brennan. Heres my nightline coanchor juju chang. Lauren brennans smile warmed peoples hearts. A friend described her as goodness and light rolled into one human being. She passed away this week after battling ovarian cancer. Lauren was a part of the abc news family for 16 years, working at almost every show at the network, saying yes to every challenge thrown her way. Beloved by everyone, especially cherished by her colleagues at 2020. One saying she would tell silly jokes, and inject a smile into any situation. Her laughter could make any situation lighter and brighter. But most of all, she was a true friend in every sense of the word. Lauren adored her husband jerry and their miracle twins, aubrey and mason, born 4 months premature, weighing just over a pound each. Lauren was their tireless advocate, now two and half, they are thriving. They are her legacay, their lives a gift lauren left for the world. Reporter we miss you, lauren. Thats nightline