October is National Bullying Prevention Month. For many years, I have done anti-bullying PSA campaigns to contribute to the discourse, but truth be told, it was hard to find a way in 2025 that didn’t feel too earnest or treacly. Sadly, we still see bullying behavior everywhere. If it isn’t the FCC bullying Jimmy Kimmel, it’s LGBTQ+ rights under attack, and even Kanye West’s forthcoming album, Bully. What could I do this (fucking) year that didn’t feel tone-deaf, but could somehow help?
In early September, I texted Richard Christiansen, founder of lifestyle and wellness brand Flamingo Estate, to ask him if, like some recent collaborations—Pamela Anderson’s pickles, Laura Dern’s olive oil, and LeBron James’s honey—we could join forces on a candle in support of National Bullying Prevention Month with a small portion of the proceeds benefiting some anti-bullying organizations. Candles have always been something that help me ground and find my center—especially in tough times. I burn them daily in my home as a reminder of warmth, and the fragrance transports me. I travel with candles, gift them often (yes, even after I read that hosts often think a candle has been regifted), and always have one lit near my bath. But more than anything, candles symbolize a light in the dark. “I love that idea. God knows I had enough bullying at school,” Christiansen replied in seconds. “And no—not a small portion of the proceeds. ALL OF THE PROCEEDS [can go to the charities].” (Yes, get yourself a friend like Richard Christiansen.)
While I was initially flattered that Christiansen had responded so quickly to me (although in case you forgot, I am charming after all), I came to learn there was a deeper meaning behind his enthusiasm.
Growing up in rural Australia, one of two boys raised by farmer parents, Christiansen experienced incessant bullying at school. “I was a soft, gentle, gay kid who grew up in a very hypermasculine, sort of rural world. My dad sent us to a school that had a cadet-like program—I think to toughen us up,” he explained over the phone. “I was very aware that I was just not like the other boys. My brother and I both were bullied pretty heavily all the way through high school.”
And so the idea behind Flamingo Estate’s newest candle, Blossoming Camellia, materialized. It combines white camellia, lemon, vanilla, and a little bit of clove for a fresh but spicy scent. As promised, proceeds are in support of four global anti-bullying organizations: the Tyler Clementi Foundation and Hetrick-Martin Institute in the US; the Diana Award’s Anti-Bullying Programme in the UK; and Project Rockit in Australia. All of these organizations help young people who are being bullied and teach their peers how to avoid bystander behavior. According to the American Society for the Positive Care of Children (SPCC), “When bystanders intervene, bullying stops within 10 seconds 57% of the time.”
But even before my idea, Christiansen, who describes himself as “a huge believer that the universe is pushing us together and weaving with these silent, invisible strings,” was already writing a chapter on camellias for a forthcoming book.
“The main thing is it’s not the quarterback flower. It’s not a sunflower, it’s not a rose, it’s not one of these summer flowers that blooms in summer and needs the hummingbirds and needs the bees,” he explained over the phone. “Camellias bloom on their own time, in their own way…and they often bloom in the dark.”
Camellias bloom on their own time, in their own way…and they often bloom in the dark. This notion is familiar to me. The very reason I became an activist was because after a long period of bullying, hiding, and healing (being in a presidential political scandal will do that to ya), I reemerged in a first-person essay for this magazine in 2014, titled “Shame and Survival.” The night before it was published, I was a morass of nerves and trepidation. One of my closest friends gave me a card with an encouraging Anaïs Nin quote: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Was it kismet that Christiansen and I both found strength in the teachings of the natural world? Maybe.
“Also, the history of the camellia in California is very layered,” Christiansen went on to say. “Largely promoted by Japanese American farmers who were on the receiving end of terrible discrimination during the war. [They] ended up selling their farms and their land at massive discounts and were forbidden from buying property for such a long time. But yet they were the backbone of farming in California before the war. And to continue to face such discrimination—which is a form of bullying—for so long. So there’s a number of coexisting narratives with the camellia that I love.”
I have the opposite of a green thumb (I once killed a cactus in three days), but before Christiansen and I hung up, he talked to me about another natural wonder: thin-skinned fruit. Something, I must admit, I had never thought of before in my life, but perhaps a metaphor for where we find ourselves now. According to the SPCC, 70.6% of young people say they have witnessed bullying at school. And I know as a highly sensitive person (HSP), it’s not been easy these days.
“Now that all of our food and produce is shipped across the world, which is a terrible thing, we lost anything that was soft-skinned. The idea that you would want to have the same tomato in Mexico as you would have in Miami, that you would have in Minneapolis, makes no sense,” he said. “I think the same is true of people. We need to celebrate the differences of each other so that we don’t all end up being exactly the same. And so that uniqueness of thin-skinned fruit and thin-skinned people I think is really precious. It’s great to have people who feel things deeply, imagine things deeply, and dream deeply. All those thin-skin qualities I think are something that we should encourage.”
I do too, Richard. I do too.
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