Jeffrey Self on ‘Self-Sabotage,’ Sex Work, and His ‘30 Rock’ Secret
In 2009, Jeffrey Self got his first big break as an actor: a guest star spot on 30 Rock. He played Randy Lemon, the cousin to Tina Fey’s Liz, who visits New York City to experience life as an out gay man for the first time. In one memorable scene, Liz finds Randy passed out on the couch after a night on the town with “SLUT” written across his forehead.
“What the audience didn’t know was that I had gotten full-blown gonorrhea from a client, so I spent every moment of down time sneaking off to my dressing room to change underwear to avoid staining a sofa on NBC,” Self writes in Self-Sabotage, an upcoming book of essays about his life scheduled to publish in March. “That said, I was able to cross one item off my bucket list: ‘Film my first television appearance across from Tina Fey and James Franco, while having a leaking penis.’”
Self is an actor and author known for appearing in series like The Horror of Dolores Roach and Search Party, in addition to his memorable 30 Rock stint, as well as in movies like 2022’s poignant gay romance Spoiler Alert.