Published in Issue 7 of Paper Chained in September 2022.
No stranger to the spotlight, former prisoner and reality TV star Lizzie Kommes talks to Paper Chained editor Damien Linnane in this issue for an exclusive interview.
Why don’t we start at the beginning? Where are you from?
I’m originally from the upper peninsula of Michigan. I was raised on a farm. I was the only minority in my school, and there were no other blacks in our town. There was a lot of racism there, so when I finished high school I immediately left for California. I wanted to be an actress and a model and all that stuff, but I ended up becoming a stripper at 17.
Was that job what first got you into drugs?
I started experimenting with alcohol and marijuana around 15, then at 17 I got into cocaine and everything else. GHB, shrooms, acid ... I didn’t discriminate. Just recently I celebrated one year sober. When people hear that they ask me what drugs I used to do, and I’m like ‘everything’. Whatever was available, whatever I could get high off.
One of the other strippers first introduced me to harder drugs. We were at a party and there was a pile of cocaine and a line next to it and I was given a straw. I just stuck the straw into the pile because I didn’t know that only the line was for me. I was like, why would I do just the line when there’s a whole pile there? (laughs)
When did you start getting in trouble with the law?
I kept taking drugs and kept getting DUI’s. About one a year for several years. I did about five months in custody between my first six convictions, a month here and a day there, that sort of thing. For my seventh DUI, I got about eight months in Wisconsin, but while I was on bond, I got my eighth one in California. That landed me in prison for eight years, though I ended up serving nine-and-a-half due to new charges during my sentence.
Eight years for DUI seems harsh ...
It had a lot to do with the fact that I breached my bond and was also interstate. I tried heroin and ended up nodding off at the wheel. I hit a bus stop and ran over a guy’s foot. Thank God I didn’t kill anybody, I was in no condition to drive. I didn’t have experience with heroin and didn’t know it would make me fall asleep like that. Anyway, I guess they wanted to slam the book at me, especially as I wasn’t from there. I didn’t really know the law well in California so I just took the first deal they offered me. I’m glad now that I took that deal, because I wasn’t ready to change yet. I was still doing drugs, including heroin in prison. I went into prison in 2009, I didn’t stop doing drugs until 2017. I needed that time. If I had of gotten another slap on the wrist, I wouldn’t be here to have this conversation with you, you know what I mean?
What was your first reaction when you got that longer sentence?
I was scared. I was sent to Chowchilla, which is a maximum facility. The Manson girls were there, other famous murderers as well. I’m going into these rooms where eight people sleep, some of them were murderers and I’m just a DUI girl. I’d never intentionally hurt anybody. It was terrifying.
What did you do with your time in prison?
I had a sugar daddy from the streets. He was helping me out and stuff with money, but all the girls in there were like ‘you’re so pretty you can make all this money’ and I’m like ‘how?’ And they told me about these websites where people can form connections with inmates. [Editor’s note: The website’s Lizzie refers to are only available for US prisoners] I had a lifer teach me how to do it. I started getting all these pen pals that started putting money on my books. So I spent my time hustling. Prison taught me how to hustle! (laughs)
All up over my sentence I got $800,000, and I put it all in my veins or smoked it. I only had a few thousand left when I came out. I could have done so much more with that money. Instead, I just got high. It was crazy. All I wanted to do was to keep getting high. I didn’t want help. Nothing else mattered to me. I just conformed to the life of prison. I have an awesome life now, and I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want that prison lifestyle, but at the time I did.
How did Love After Lockup offer you a role on the show?
I did a sexy pose for a mugshot back in 2008 which went viral. It made nation-wide news and I ended up being listed on a website where I was ranked as one of the hottest inmates in the world. That’s how they found me and reached out.
How would you describe Love after Lockup?
Crazy! (laughs) It’s a reality TV show about finding love while you’re still in prison. It’s a challenging show because you meet these people while you’re in prison and you’ve literally got to start a life with them when you get out. You never get to date the person properly first or anything like that. It was pretty crazy. They’re still making the show, but I don’t watch it. I only watched my episodes! (laughs) The show covers me going to live with Scott who was my sugar daddy at first, but then I gained feelings for him.
You were often portrayed as the villain in the relationship with Scott. How do you feel about that?
There’s so much controversy over this. I was portrayed as the villain on the show, but Scott was controlling my money. During the first season they couldn’t give the payments for filming to the person in prison, so they gave my share to Scott, and he controlled me by refusing to give me my money unless I did what he wanted. I’m not upset about how I was portrayed though, because the show definitely made me very memorable. It was good TV, and I’m still popular because of it, people still want to talk to me even though its been four years. I did get so much hate mail on social media at the time though, people telling me I should die or go stick a needle in my arm and OD. If you go through the history of my Instagram you can still see all those comments. People ask me why I don’t get rid of that. I deliberately leave it there because I feel like it makes me stronger.
What else did you do after you got out of prison?
I wanted to get a degree, it didn’t matter what it was. It was more the fact that I always wanted to go to college. I ended up doing Applied Arts. I can’t say I’ve done anything specific with it, it was just something I wanted to accomplish for myself.
I’m doing really great, still free from addiction. When I was first in prison, I thought when I got out I was going to open up a strip club, because I was a stripper. But my life is in a very different direction now. My plans for the future are to start a not-for-profit which helps rescue children from sexual violence, exploitation, and trafficking. I’m working towards starting that up now, just taking it one day at a time at the moment, because if I put in 10% of the energy I used to put into looking for dope I’m sure it will be a success.
What would your advice be for people currently in prison?
Try not to get too involved in the mix, because prison isn’t cool. Try to better yourself while you’re in there, but otherwise just do your time and get out.
