Editor’s note: Playboy Club model and viral internet star Amy Boiss is also a talented country musician. She talks to Playboy about living with ADHD, internet stardom, and why she believes country music needs to change.
Playboy: Where were you born and what was growing up like for you?
Amy: My dad was in the Army for 20 years, and my mom was pregnant with me when they were stationed in Japan, and then he retired when I was three. So he took this really rinky-dinky old cargo plane back to the States. And, yeah, he retired. We retired, family in San Antonio, Texas. The only thing that I have to remember from that whole thing is the plane ride was really rough back to the States, and I had a couple of teeth that were growing in, and I bit my dad really hard on the hand. He has a little scar.
Playboy: That’s wild. So what was school like for you once you got back to the States?
Amy: When I was young, I had undiagnosed ADHD—I just found out recently—and so I would always be fidgeting in class, and I couldn’t pay attention, always trying to talk to everybody. And the craziest part is that when I was in pre-K, my my principal brought my mom into the office and said “Your daughter’s not going to amount to anything. She cannot focus.” She was let go a year later.
At the same time, I think having ADHD, it really helps me think outside of the box, like those balloon shoes or even other videos that I’ve done. Other creators would be like, how did you even think of that? I don’t know. It just made sense to me.
Playboy: How was it for you to be diagnosed as an ADHD adult?
Amy: I was looking back and thinking it explains so much. Being extremely creative, to be able to make viral videos that have gotten 100 million views, 300 million views, 700 million views. There’s a lot of creativity, a lot of work that goes behind it. I’m great at it but I struggle with the business side of it. It’s kind of hard to talk about, but I do talk about it because I hope to inspire others.
Playboy: Tell us about your social media experience as a creator.
Amy: Right now I’m doing reaction videos to TV court cases. And I was like, I was like, is this a thing? [But] people on Facebook love it, they eat it up. I’ll have women between the ages of 40 to 60, they’ll watch the whole reaction video, and then they’ll comment paragraphs. So with the high watch time of these videos, I try to hit five- to six-figure months on Facebook. I’ve been doing Facebook full time for five years.
Playboy: How did you begin your journey to pursuing a career in music?
Amy: I originally went to LA to pursue music, and I knew some people that used to organize the shows for Chris Brown and like some other people. But with LA, it’s good and bad. The people I was with were promising me all these things, saying oh yeah, we’ll get you in the studio. I was 23 at the time, just drove from Texas, was very sheltered. It didn’t work out.
And then I got into social media and live streaming, and I always put that music on the back burner. I turned 31 on September 6, and I was thinking to myself, let me try to pursue it again and see what happens.
But yeah, with the music, it was written over the past two years. I met a guy maybe two years ago, and he was a little bit wasted, and he’s saying “friends with benefits.” I was like, that actually would be a good song.
Since I’ve been in Las Vegas for the past five years, I haven’t really dated that much, because a lot of the guys coming through here just want a quick hookup for the weekend because they’re with their boys for bachelor parties. Their fiance’s waiting back [home], and they don’t want any strings attached. With country music, it’s either about getting drunk in a barn, or oh my God my girl left me, but I’ll always think of her for the rest of my life.
I don’t really hear any songs, especially from women, that are talking about—I want to make sure I word this the right way. A lot of times men stereotype women in songs. We can do the same thing too. There’s sayings about guys too, [but] why don’t people talk about that in music? They maybe don’t have the guts, or maybe they think that is gonna get backlash.
Playboy: You mentioned that you felt it was time for country music to change.
Amy: I love the outspokenness of hip hop, and even pop as well. Growing up, I was around a lot of friends that listened to hip hop. Then in college, I’d go to the dance hall with girlfriends and I would listen [to music there] and think, this music so dry. They’re talking about the same things over and over again. I definitely want to talk more about being an empowered woman that doesn’t give a fuck, having the power as a woman to do what I want, to accomplish, to be anything that I want.
Amy Boiss is on The Playboy Club. Talk to her now.
