Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to MoMA Mia out Loud. It's what
Speaker 2: women are actually talking about on Monday, the twenty second
Speaker 2: of September. I'm Holly Waynwright and I am back from
Speaker 2: a sick bed where I have been laid up with
Speaker 2: the flu for a little while, dying to be back
Speaker 2: talking to you.
Speaker 3: I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 4: I'm very excited that Holly is back and Maya has
Speaker 4: officially gone on holiday.
Speaker 2: She has, she's actually left the country.
Speaker 5: She did tell me she downloaded the entire three seasons
Speaker 5: of the Summer Return Pretty to watch on the plane,
Speaker 5: so prepare for that. When she returns, we'll fly. I
Speaker 5: should probably introduce myself. Hello, I'm Claire Murphy. You can
Speaker 5: usually hear me on Momma MIA's twice daily news podcast,
Speaker 5: The Quickie and on Well for all your women's health
Speaker 5: information and funny and gross stuff that our bodies do.
Speaker 2: Funny and gross stuff. My body's been doing some very
Speaker 2: funny and gross Murphy. We'll talk offline about that later. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Here's what's made our agenda for today.
Speaker 5: Jimmy Kimmel's late night show was pulled off the air
Speaker 5: last week. There's been a lot of conversation around it, politically, morally, constitutionally,
Speaker 5: but what does that all mean?
Speaker 1: Does it matter? And should we be freaking out?
Speaker 2: I don't want to alarm you out louders, but we
Speaker 2: know that you always have a little cry on your
Speaker 2: birthday and.
Speaker 1: We know why you do.
Speaker 4: And the wife guy is back, but this time without
Speaker 4: his wife. I'm going to explain one of the most
Speaker 4: ambitious comebacks in all of Internet history.
Speaker 3: But first, Jesse, in case you missed it.
Speaker 4: This morning Australian Time, a memorial service was held for
Speaker 4: conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a stadium in Phoenix, Arizona,
Speaker 4: and estimated two hundred thousand people gathered in and around
Speaker 4: the stadium and all the speakers were shielded by bullet
Speaker 4: proof glass on the stage, which is something we haven't
Speaker 4: seen before. Attendees were also encouraged to wear red, white or.
Speaker 3: Blue to the service.
Speaker 4: Speakers included Robert F. Kennedy, Charlie Kirk's wife Erica Kirk,
Speaker 4: Donald Trump Junior, who was very close to Kirk, and
Speaker 4: of course President Donald Trump, who spoke last. Erica Kirk
Speaker 4: declared that she had forgiven the man who allegedly killed
Speaker 4: her husband, and her address had this real focus on love,
Speaker 4: which was in stark contrast to Donald Trump's speech which followed.
Speaker 4: The President said I hate my opponents, and I don't
Speaker 4: want what's best for them. He referred to networks of
Speaker 4: radical left maniacs who were to blame for Kirk's murder.
Speaker 4: He also repeated the words fight, fight, fight, which you
Speaker 4: might remember from after his attempted assassination last year. He
Speaker 4: also referred to Kirk as a martyr, a patriot. He
Speaker 4: is awarding Kirk posthumously with the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
Speaker 4: which is a higher civilian honor. Many speakers cited this
Speaker 4: battle between good and evil and said that there was
Speaker 4: this struggle going on. Donald Trump Junior asked the crowd,
Speaker 4: will you surrender? Will you back down? Will you give
Speaker 4: up in fear? And Look, the headline is that Kirk
Speaker 4: was used as a symbol for all that is great
Speaker 4: about America. I think even with the colors that people
Speaker 4: were encouraged to wear, it was about patriotism and this,
Speaker 4: you know, almost a suggestion of some sort of civil
Speaker 4: war that's going on in the US at the moment.
Speaker 2: It's interesting though, because as you've said, that's not what
Speaker 2: Erica Kirk was talking about. And the parts of it
Speaker 2: that I've watched this morning, and obviously we're recording, you know,
Speaker 2: at eleven thirty, it's sort of just finished. It was
Speaker 2: like a show, and there was a very distinct difference
Speaker 2: between Erica Kirk, who was very clearly incredibly emotional, incredibly devastated,
Speaker 2: incredibly gracious, you have to say in saying what she
Speaker 2: said about her incredibly immoving, and she said.
Speaker 1: The answer to he is not hate. The answer we
Speaker 1: know from the Gospel is love and always love.
Speaker 2: And then, as you've said, Jesse, there's that beautiful, gracious
Speaker 2: message that I wonder if people can actually hear. And
Speaker 2: then you had like Donald Trump Junior treating it like
Speaker 2: a stand up show. He was throwing out some jokes.
Speaker 2: He made some Kamala jokes, some Hillary jokes, you know,
Speaker 2: all the old hits from the MAGA, right, Trump preaching
Speaker 2: how much he hates everybody. It just seemed like such
Speaker 2: a stark contrast. Like I think so much of this
Speaker 2: conversation is between the very human loss of a person
Speaker 2: and then this huge existential war that seems to have
Speaker 2: been very much fanned by this assassination.
Speaker 4: Which isn't about Kirk at all, really, you know, and
Speaker 4: there's a lot to be said for the left and
Speaker 4: the way that they've discussed, the rhetoric that they've used,
Speaker 4: the vitriol that's come in the aftermath. But it reminded
Speaker 4: me that while the left has dehumanized Kirk, so is
Speaker 4: a right like they've used Kirk as a symbol, and
Speaker 4: they very much did. And when Trump got up, he
Speaker 4: was at a rally. He was at a rally, and
Speaker 4: he talked about twenty twenty and how that election was
Speaker 4: stolen from him and Joe Biden.
Speaker 5: He made some kind of policy announcement too, in the
Speaker 5: middle of all of that, apparently.
Speaker 4: Exactly some medical announcement. And there are reports that people left,
Speaker 4: which I found really interesting when he started to speak,
Speaker 4: because it did feel really disrespectful.
Speaker 5: You know what's really crazy about looking at this memorial
Speaker 5: today is that until September ten, I had never even
Speaker 5: heard of Charlie Kirk. I have no idea who he was,
Speaker 5: except in real vague passing. I'd seen videos on my
Speaker 5: social media feed of him doing those debates with people,
Speaker 5: but it was most often positioned from the person who
Speaker 5: was debating him, rather than him.
Speaker 1: And his debate.
Speaker 5: But now, not only do I know who Charlie Kirk is.
Speaker 5: I watched that man die almost in real time, which
Speaker 5: was horrific to witness, and then not long after that,
Speaker 5: I was given conflicting stories as to who his alleged
Speaker 5: shooter was, his political allegiances, who he's chose to spend.
Speaker 1: His time with.
Speaker 5: This whole situation from the very get go, felt very
Speaker 5: dirty and awful, and we all have participated in it,
Speaker 5: whether it's from watching the videos, whether it's making a
Speaker 5: comment about Charlie Kirk or his rhetoric, whether it's about
Speaker 5: celebrating his death, which some have done, whether it's those
Speaker 5: right wing factions who've now collectively got together to bring
Speaker 5: down anyone who even mentions Charlie Kirk's name, to the
Speaker 5: politicians who are speaking at these particular events trying to
Speaker 5: muster up that same kind of energy that we heard
Speaker 5: for January six, it all feels very performative. It all
Speaker 5: feels like everyone is in it for themselves, and it
Speaker 5: feels like this is where we absolutely expected to be
Speaker 5: at this point in time.
Speaker 1: I'm really not shocked by any of it.
Speaker 2: Well, it's very hard to be shocked by anything now
Speaker 2: to be I'd suggest that Erica Kirk doesn't seem like
Speaker 2: she's in it for herself. I mean, she did say
Speaker 2: in her speech about Charlie, she said that she's going
Speaker 2: to take on his work and she's going to become
Speaker 2: the CEO of Turning Point USA and absolutely going to
Speaker 2: keep moving with that, which is deeply understandable given the
Speaker 2: kind of person Charlie Kirk was and the mission that
Speaker 2: she says their family shared. But it's just that juxtaposition
Speaker 2: between a very human grief and then this intense politicization. Anyway,
Speaker 2: what we're going to talk about next is kind of adjacent, right, Murphy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because obviously the fallout, as I mentioned, there's been
Speaker 5: a lot of collective movements coming together to stop any
Speaker 5: conversation about Charlie Kirk's murder from anyone who's considered vaguely
Speaker 5: left of center. So obviously one of those big fallouts
Speaker 5: is Jimmy Kimmel. So, if you have not heard, late
Speaker 5: night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is currently off the air.
Speaker 5: He's been indefinitely suspended by the ABC after making this
Speaker 5: comment about the Charlie Kirk assassination.
Speaker 2: New rose over.
Speaker 6: Then with the Magga Gang desperately trying to characterize this
Speaker 6: kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one
Speaker 6: of them and do everything they can to score political
Speaker 6: points from it. In between the finger pointing, there was grieving.
Speaker 6: On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff,
Speaker 6: which got some criticism, but on a human level, you
Speaker 6: can see how hard the President is taking this half.
Speaker 4: Indulghos on the low finger friend Charlie Kirk asked, sir personally,
Speaker 4: how are you holding up over the last day and
Speaker 4: a half served?
Speaker 6: I think very good. And by the way, right there
Speaker 6: you see all the trucks.
Speaker 7: They've just started construction of.
Speaker 5: The new Baurold to the White House, which is something
Speaker 5: they've been trying to get.
Speaker 6: As you know, for about one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 7: And it's going to be a beauty.
Speaker 6: Yes, he's at the fourth stage of grief construction. There's demolition.
Speaker 2: Construction.
Speaker 6: This is not how an adult griefs the murderer of
Speaker 6: someone he called a friend. This is how a four
Speaker 6: year old morns a goldfish.
Speaker 2: Okay, can I just jump in and ask you about Kimmel,
Speaker 2: because if you're not massively conversant in American late night culture,
Speaker 2: we know that there are these big shows that have dominated,
Speaker 2: or they certainly used to dominate American political discourse in
Speaker 2: the late nights. But I always get my Jimmy's mixed. Ye,
Speaker 2: So there's Jimmy fallon. Yes, it was much as a
Speaker 2: little bit more like he always seems a bit more
Speaker 2: mischievous he used to be on Saturday Night. Like Kimmel
Speaker 2: is the one who's hosted the Oscars a couple of times, right, right,
Speaker 2: and Trump has always kind of hated him. I remembered
Speaker 2: alive on stage at the Oscars, Trump was tweeting about him,
Speaker 2: and he was reading out the quotes, right, And kim
Speaker 2: OL's been a big force there for a long time too.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 5: Also, after it was announced that Stephen Colbert, who's another
Speaker 5: one of these late night hosts, that his show was
Speaker 5: being canceled in twenty twenty six, Trump put out on
Speaker 5: his social media that Kimmel would be next, which and
Speaker 5: indeed indeed he is. So After those comments were made
Speaker 5: on Kimmel's show, conservative commentators came down really hard. One
Speaker 5: had said that he's painted all of the MAGA movement
Speaker 5: with the same brush, essentially calling all of them collectively murderers.
Speaker 5: Elon Musk then weighed in he was at the memorial today.
Speaker 5: Elon Musk was called Kimmel disgusting. X then was lit
Speaker 5: up with conservative voices, and that echo chamber spread out
Speaker 5: far and wide across the Internet. The ABC then received
Speaker 5: pressure from the Federal Communications Commission, which is a government
Speaker 5: department that oversees media in the US. The chairman warned
Speaker 5: the ABC that they would pull their broadcast license and
Speaker 5: calling Kimmel's comments truly sick. Now, there are also major
Speaker 5: broadcast companies that take Jimmy Kimmel Show and broadcast it
Speaker 5: to stations across America. So they came together and said
Speaker 5: that they would pull Kimmel's show. Advertisers were being targeted.
Speaker 5: Some employees were also receiving threatening messages. So they bowed
Speaker 5: to the pressure and ABC stood Kimmel down. There is,
Speaker 5: of course, a lot which we do not have time
Speaker 5: to fully deconstruct here today going on up and down
Speaker 5: that chain. So these big companies like the ABC, they
Speaker 5: need government approval for acquisitions because they've got many fingers
Speaker 5: in many pies, and they won't get that if they,
Speaker 5: for example, from himmat with them, if Trump is angry
Speaker 5: with them over Jimmy Kimmel.
Speaker 2: It's also worth pointing out that when we say the ABC,
Speaker 2: we don't mean the Australian Broadcasting Corporations. Yes, even though
Speaker 2: the Australian ABC says they've been getting a lot of.
Speaker 5: Complaints about they have hundreds and hundreds which they put
Speaker 5: up on their social media just yesterday, and they also
Speaker 5: put an email address for who to actually complain to
Speaker 5: if they.
Speaker 1: Were like, this is not us.
Speaker 2: Guys, Yes, it's not us.
Speaker 1: We did not do anything.
Speaker 2: Has he been fired forever Murphy or has he been like,
Speaker 2: has anyone given an indication of how long Kimmel is
Speaker 2: sitting on the bench for and he hasn't spoken about it.
Speaker 1: Has he has not? Sobly sitting with his lawyer?
Speaker 5: Yes, so he is currently in talks with his lawyers.
Speaker 5: The reports are is that he is very concerned about
Speaker 5: his staff because apparently reportedly he said that he's very
Speaker 5: worried about them. They're still financially recovering from the writers'
Speaker 5: strike that happened a year or two ago, so he's
Speaker 5: in talks, but obviously there is one of the those
Speaker 5: broadcast companies that I talked about pulling Kimmel show. They
Speaker 5: have asked for him to apologize formally to also pay
Speaker 5: Charlie Kirk's family money and pay Kirk's foundation money as
Speaker 5: well his nonprofit. So they said that will pave the
Speaker 5: path for his return to the airwaves. But of course,
Speaker 5: the conversation here is now, how do the late night
Speaker 5: show hosts respond to this, because they under threat of
Speaker 5: also being kicked off the air if they make jokes
Speaker 5: about this situation.
Speaker 2: Well, and also the conversation seems to have gone to Jesse.
Speaker 2: This is the beginning of the end of free speech, right,
Speaker 2: because when this happened on Thursday, my feeds were suddenly
Speaker 2: flooded by lots of well known American leftist comedians. When
Speaker 2: I say leftist, I just meant, you know, to be honest,
Speaker 2: Until very recently, almost everybody in Hollywood was an outspoken leftist. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so lots of people saying it's happening. We said
Speaker 2: authoritarianism was coming. This is the first real sign of that,
Speaker 2: is that where this conversation is now, is it about
Speaker 2: the death of free speech, which is, let's be clear,
Speaker 2: something that the right side of politics, as in the
Speaker 2: megaside of politics, free speech was the thing that supposedly
Speaker 2: radicalized and evangelized the Elon Musks of the world, the
Speaker 2: Joe Rogan's of the world, the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world.
Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk himself as a free speech advocate, of course,
Speaker 2: And they're like, but they're saying that it was the
Speaker 2: left that we're trying to silence debate and that's what
Speaker 2: pushed them to the Trump side. Is this the first
Speaker 2: step in authoritarianism?
Speaker 4: To be clear, Trump campaigned on free speech. He talked
Speaker 4: in his inaugural address earlier this year. He said, after
Speaker 4: years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to
Speaker 4: restrict free expression, I will sign an executive order to
Speaker 4: immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech
Speaker 4: to America. There his words months ago. And so I
Speaker 4: think everyone is going, hang on, this is absolute hypocrisy.
Speaker 4: It is a double standard. There are fractures within the
Speaker 4: party that are going this is what we fought for.
Speaker 4: As you say, Holly, it is something that has been
Speaker 4: pinned on the left in terms of cancel culture and
Speaker 4: workism and you know, political correctness gone mad. But the
Speaker 4: thing about that, and I would argue, we've talked about
Speaker 4: cancel culture on this show. There are definitely instances where
Speaker 4: there's been overreach, but that's often self censorship, a board
Speaker 4: maybe trying to be really really careful and not offend people.
Speaker 4: The difference here is that it's hard power, not soft power.
Speaker 4: That's why I think it feels so scary.
Speaker 5: When I spoke to John Barron about this and the Quickie,
Speaker 5: he said, the big difference is these directives are coming
Speaker 5: from the president down, which has not been the case.
Speaker 5: It's normally like a public opinion or is a business
Speaker 5: level decision, but this is very much coming from the
Speaker 5: White House itself.
Speaker 4: Often it's within the interests of like, for example, they
Speaker 4: don't want to lose advertisers. This happens in Australia. Someone
Speaker 4: says something offensive, they don't want to lose advertisers. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's a soft power that it can be troubling. But
Speaker 4: this is a directive coming from within the White House.
Speaker 4: And that's why it feels like communist China. Like it
Speaker 4: feels as though you're living under a government who gets
Speaker 4: to decide what you can and cannot say. And the
Speaker 4: profound paradox in all of this is, of course they're going,
Speaker 4: even at the memorial, look at this bastion of free speech.
Speaker 4: You will look his opponents in the eye and speak
Speaker 4: to them. And now you're going, you can't disagree with
Speaker 4: what Kirk said, the man who got killed for saying
Speaker 4: things that like, that's where it leads. Suppression of free
Speaker 4: speech leads to something like a bullet because you say,
Speaker 4: I do not want that person to speak anymore. I
Speaker 4: do not think that person deserves a platform. It is
Speaker 4: where you go in terms of an authoritarian regime. This
Speaker 4: has played out throughout history, and I think that's why
Speaker 4: people My first reaction upon seeing this story was, this
Speaker 4: is really scary shit.
Speaker 2: It is scary shit. I think it comes from a
Speaker 2: basic place because, as has been widely what Jimmy Kimmel
Speaker 2: said there was not that shocking, right. And also on
Speaker 2: the day of Charlie Kirk's assassination, Jimmy Kimmel, like most
Speaker 2: mainstream democratic figures, said exactly what they should have said,
Speaker 2: which is, my heart goes out to his family. This
Speaker 2: is inexcusable. Like he did all of those things right,
Speaker 2: What this is actually about is that President Trump hates
Speaker 2: to be mocked. Let's face it, most of us do, right.
Speaker 2: But from all the way back before he was seriously
Speaker 2: standing for politics, the Jimmy Kimmels of the world, in
Speaker 2: Trump's view, people that he would broadly call the Hollywood elite,
Speaker 2: the leftist Hollywood elite, have taunted him, not taken him seriously,
Speaker 2: taken the piss out of him. It goes all the
Speaker 2: way back to President Obama at the White House correspondence
Speaker 2: dinner in twenty eleven, who stood up and roasted him,
Speaker 2: and he was in the room at the time. Trump
Speaker 2: he was a guest of Newsweek, and Seth Meyers stood
Speaker 2: up and said, Donald Trump says he's going to run
Speaker 2: for a president as a Republican, which is surprising since
Speaker 2: I just assumed he was running as a joke, and
Speaker 2: everybody just took the piss out of him. And many
Speaker 2: Trump insiders say that was the moment when Trump went,
Speaker 2: I'm coming for you lot, and look what's happened. He did,
Speaker 2: and he won, and he didn't need any of these
Speaker 2: guys who have been, let's be honest, trashing him for decades.
Speaker 2: He didn't need any of them to get him to power.
Speaker 2: He doesn't really need their approval, but he hates their
Speaker 2: derision and he's been waiting for this. As Murphy said,
Speaker 2: Colbert is going off air. He said that Jimmy Kimmel
Speaker 2: was next. Now he says that Falon's next, seth Myers
Speaker 2: is next. All these guys are going to go. It's
Speaker 2: interesting because their power is reduced in lots of ways
Speaker 2: since nobody watches network TV anymore. But they will all go,
Speaker 2: and as they lose their jobs from their networks, they
Speaker 2: will all go to YouTube, to podcast, to all the
Speaker 2: different tech platforms, and they will speak there and whether
Speaker 2: or not they really have clout anymore. I think it's
Speaker 2: that classic thing in a way that what may lead
Speaker 2: to this authoritarianism is like a man's bruised ego.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 5: There's also some reports going around that people like Colbert
Speaker 5: and a bunch of others in the background are starting a.
Speaker 3: Rogue news network, which will.
Speaker 5: I'm guessing be Internet based in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 2: Which is what lots of the right guys have done.
Speaker 2: It's what Toker Carlson's done and not. You know, like
Speaker 2: this is where all these people are talking now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 5: So it looks like it might create a whole new
Speaker 5: network of sort of left wing ideology there. But just
Speaker 5: before we stop talking about this, like do we need
Speaker 5: to check ourselves and just look at this from the
Speaker 5: other perspective for a minute.
Speaker 4: I've been thinking about this because I don't think that
Speaker 4: free speech is unlimited.
Speaker 3: It never has been.
Speaker 4: I think that there are things that Jimmy Kimmel could
Speaker 4: have got up and said that are so offensive that
Speaker 4: actually maybe would have warranted a little bit of censorship.
Speaker 4: So if he had come up and incited violence, excused violence,
Speaker 4: said I'm glad he died, he had it coming, who's next?
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I think that there would be a really important
Speaker 4: national conversation because there is a standard of speech that exists.
Speaker 4: But he didn't say any of those things. And my
Speaker 4: first response to this story was, oh, well, I'm going
Speaker 4: to look really closely at what Jimmy Kimmel said, because
Speaker 4: some left wing commentators have feared into that, and if
Speaker 4: that were on the other side, we would be just
Speaker 4: as horrified. But to me, it's the banality of what
Speaker 4: he said. His crime was being imprecise, Like what he
Speaker 4: said was actually factually wrong. It was early days. He
Speaker 4: didn't know it was wrong yet, and so that's something
Speaker 4: that you know. Inaccuracy, you can definitely charge him with that,
Speaker 4: But inaccuracy doesn't get anyone else pulled off the air.
Speaker 4: And then some people said, well, the ratings were shit,
Speaker 4: so they were just looking for an excuse. That's okay,
Speaker 4: but you don't pull people off immediately for bad ratings.
Speaker 1: You wind him up.
Speaker 2: You're right, Murphy in lots of ways. And I think
Speaker 2: that one of the things about this is is that
Speaker 2: when I looked at all the responses from the other
Speaker 2: late night guys, and they were all very clever, because
Speaker 2: these are very clever people, and they've got huge staffs
Speaker 2: of writing people who are also very clever people, and
Speaker 2: they are exactly as I said before, the kind of
Speaker 2: people that Trump would dismiss as Hollywood at least, and
Speaker 2: they're thinking of the cleverest, funniest ways to go viral
Speaker 2: by mocking the president. I would suggest that one of
Speaker 2: the things we learned last year is that you can
Speaker 2: have every famous, powerful Hollywood person on your side, from
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift to Bad Bunny to every single Hollywood starter.
Speaker 2: George Clooney and you're still not going to win the
Speaker 2: election because nobody likes being mocked and dismissed and taking
Speaker 2: the piss out of And that goes for Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: but it also goes for Donald Trump's supporters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does.
Speaker 4: But I would say that parody and comedy and sending
Speaker 4: things up. In the world of comedy, the rules are
Speaker 4: that kind of nothing is untouchable, and so of course
Speaker 4: these shows were going to touch it in the same way,
Speaker 4: whether you were right or left, you were going.
Speaker 1: To touch it.
Speaker 5: South Park they didn't have an episode go live last week,
Speaker 5: and they put it down to they left it too
Speaker 5: late and didn't get it finished.
Speaker 4: Thirty years and they always managed to get it finished.
Speaker 2: I think that was a smart move on their part
Speaker 2: because of they've been all over the headlines lately. For
Speaker 2: I was just saying how Donald Trump doesn't like to
Speaker 2: be mocked. They have been mocking him on an extreme
Speaker 2: scandal more than anyone from the micro penis down exactly,
Speaker 2: So those guys would have to be worried. And I
Speaker 2: think if they made a call to not go to
Speaker 2: air the week of Charlie Kirk's murder because they knew
Speaker 2: what they had was inflammatory. I would say that was
Speaker 2: probably a smart choice. I think that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 2: Not to defend censorship in any way. In a moment,
Speaker 2: do you cry on your birthday? So do we and
Speaker 2: now we know why. Jesse Claire, do you cry on
Speaker 2: your birthdays?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Okay, I need to know more details about both these things.
Speaker 2: At what point on your birthday do you normally cry?
Speaker 2: Jesse Stevens normally more than once.
Speaker 4: But I've identified yeah, And I've identified the moment where
Speaker 4: I cry, and it's when I am doing something mundane.
Speaker 4: So I find myself mopping the floor, scraping a dish,
Speaker 4: putting on the dishwasher, and I think it's my fucking
Speaker 4: bird and why am I doing this task? And I
Speaker 4: also get that feeling on Christmas.
Speaker 2: So basically, a birthday should be a day off from
Speaker 2: boring activities.
Speaker 3: It should free path only be extraordinary.
Speaker 2: Murphy, do you like Do you like birthdays or not
Speaker 2: like birthdays?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 5: I love my birthday. I also share my birthday with
Speaker 5: the spookiest.
Speaker 1: Holiday of the year. Oh, so Halloween.
Speaker 5: I get to go trick or treating with my child,
Speaker 5: which has not always been my favorite thing to do.
Speaker 1: But now I've kind of come around to it, but
Speaker 1: I do not cry on my birthday.
Speaker 5: I've made it very clear to my family that I
Speaker 5: will not be doing any mondane work on that day,
Speaker 5: and that is purely up to them to do all
Speaker 5: of that shit and also wait on me hand and foot.
Speaker 5: My husband has been well trained to provide cups of
Speaker 5: teas in bed if it is a weekend. He's been
Speaker 5: very well trained to cook me dinner or take me somewhere.
Speaker 5: This has been well established in my household. Plus, I
Speaker 5: am the youngest child in my family by a long way,
Speaker 5: so like there's a big gap between my brother and
Speaker 5: sister and I.
Speaker 1: I have been spoy yelled like.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Murphy is the queen of the birthday boundaries.
Speaker 2: That's why I've discovered, now, how you, Holly, I have
Speaker 2: been known to cry on my birthday. But the reason
Speaker 2: I'm asking you this is because we ran a piece
Speaker 2: on Mamma Mia this week which a lot of women
Speaker 2: have related to, right, which was about why women cry
Speaker 2: on the birthday because apparently it's very common, very common,
Speaker 2: and there are a number of reasons. But back day
Speaker 2: in this piece, she wrote, for example, there was somebody
Speaker 2: who she spoke to who said the biggest fight she's
Speaker 2: ever had with her partner was over his failure to
Speaker 2: post a public display of birthday love on Instagram, even
Speaker 2: though the last time he'd posted was in two thousand
Speaker 2: and sixty. So very reasonable things here. Some people said,
Speaker 2: maybe it's just an echo of the day that you
Speaker 2: first entered the world, scrunched faced and crying and trying
Speaker 2: to figure out all this shit.
Speaker 4: It does feel overwhelming in the same way being born.
Speaker 2: Mike, yes, exactly, and counselor Julie Sweet said, the reason
Speaker 2: that a lot of women cry is because disappointment and
Speaker 2: conflicting emotions often present when the pressure to appear happy
Speaker 2: doesn't match in a feeling. So, no matter what's going
Speaker 2: on in your life, maybe your relationship is falling apart,
Speaker 2: maybe you're sick, maybe your kid's being a shit, maybe
Speaker 2: your boss is being a shit, whatever's happening on your birthday,
Speaker 2: it's still happening, but you have to kind of pretend
Speaker 2: that it isn't and that can be overwhelming. So she said,
Speaker 2: Julie Sweet, that this creates a double whammy of overwhelm
Speaker 2: and internalized blame, and we end up wondering why we're
Speaker 2: not happier, all the while berating ourselves for not feeling
Speaker 2: grateful enough.
Speaker 1: I know what that's like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I wonder too if it's my expectations are
Speaker 4: unsaid because they are unacknowledged within myself, Like I couldn't
Speaker 4: if I tried to journal what I wanted my birthday
Speaker 4: to look like. I don't necessarily have a vision or
Speaker 4: the words, but some part of me clearly has a
Speaker 4: standard for the day that is never realized.
Speaker 2: Well, it's complicate, more complicated for you because you share
Speaker 2: your birthday. You're a twin right, so through your life,
Speaker 2: was it important for your family to make a fuss
Speaker 2: of Jesse, make a fuss of Claire? And we also
Speaker 2: have the added thing you and I have being Christmas babies. Yep,
Speaker 2: so one of the things you'll got ripped.
Speaker 4: Oh we do.
Speaker 2: One of the things that I often used to happen,
Speaker 2: not anymore, but I used to struggle with on my
Speaker 2: birthday when I was younger, is I was like, nobody
Speaker 2: cares because everybody's focused on Christmas and I'm only going
Speaker 2: to get joint presents and nobody wants to celebrate d
Speaker 2: And there would be that kind of sulky la laugh
Speaker 2: thing about.
Speaker 4: It, which is all true. But I think that whether
Speaker 4: we want to admit it or not, we do build
Speaker 4: it up. As like even when we look at a
Speaker 4: calendar year, right, if you were going to put the
Speaker 4: first things in, you'd go, well, that's Christmas and that's
Speaker 4: my birthday. Like it is, it exists in my head
Speaker 4: all year round. The trick I have started to adopt
Speaker 4: is I must have a plan. And I resisted that
Speaker 4: for a while because I thought that plans inevitably bring
Speaker 4: with them expectations and I don't want to be disappointed.
Speaker 5: And was there an expectation that someone else make those
Speaker 5: plans because it's your birthday? Maybe maybe I expect to
Speaker 5: wake up and just be take him through a day
Speaker 5: of joy. And that's never happened.
Speaker 4: Like my mum was always just pissed off because it
Speaker 4: was nearly Christmas.
Speaker 5: Like, so your mom popped out like twins after twins,
Speaker 5: like she had a lot on her plate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like she did not care and no, she didn't
Speaker 4: care about making it special for each of us.
Speaker 3: She was tired.
Speaker 4: So I now A'm like, it's the existing in those
Speaker 4: moments of in between that I really really don't like.
Speaker 4: And I've found that with Christmas too, that I wake up,
Speaker 4: I have this excitement that I kind of didn't even
Speaker 4: expect to have.
Speaker 3: I still have it.
Speaker 4: And you have a plan, and sometimes you'll go and
Speaker 4: do the plan, but then I don't like when the
Speaker 4: plan's done, I'm just at home, and at six o'clock
Speaker 4: on Christmas night, I feel sick because I'm just like,
Speaker 4: this is just like any other night. What am I
Speaker 4: meant to have leftovers? This is Christmas like?
Speaker 1: And I'm horrified by that.
Speaker 2: This is the thing, said the experts say. And I'm
Speaker 2: going to get to your excellent birthday boundaries in a minute,
Speaker 2: Claire Murphy, because you have got the right idea, you'll
Speaker 2: be surprised to hear the experts say that managing expectations
Speaker 2: is the absolute key to this right, but also for
Speaker 2: the people around you to understand what's required of them.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: There was a brilliant piece online about a man who's
Speaker 2: trying to opt out of his wife's unrealistic birthday expectations.
Speaker 2: He said, they've been married for years, and they've got kids,
Speaker 2: and she really wants a big, big, big fuss on
Speaker 2: the birthday, and he's worked out over the years that
Speaker 2: no matter what he does, it isn't enough. So one
Speaker 2: year he'd planned her she wanted to go skydiving, she
Speaker 2: wanted a picnic in a hot air balloon, whatever, and
Speaker 2: he did it all, and she still ended up in
Speaker 2: tears at the end.
Speaker 1: Of her Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Okay. And so he had written online and he'd said,
Speaker 2: I've decided to set a boundary that I'm just out
Speaker 2: of the birthday business because I can't win, and we
Speaker 2: just have a big fight every year. I told her calmly,
Speaker 2: and she responded with shrug shoulders that she knew I'd
Speaker 2: changed my mind. He told her that he's not going
Speaker 2: to plan anything. He's not going to do anything right.
Speaker 2: Her birthday is now two months away, he writes, and
Speaker 2: she's been coy, silly, persistent in hints that she's excited
Speaker 2: to see what I've got planned. And he's said, I'm
Speaker 2: planning a nice dinner at home with our kids and
Speaker 2: anything else you need to plan yourself. His wife now
Speaker 2: thinks that this is a strategy to hide reverse psychology. Really, so, Murphy,
Speaker 2: what's going to happen to this poor man? And are
Speaker 2: we sometimes unrealistic in our birthday boundary demands.
Speaker 5: Yeah we are, and we're unrealistic about a lot of
Speaker 5: these things. We're unrealistic about what marriage looks, like, we're
Speaker 5: unrealistic about our relationship with our boss. Like we're unrealistic
Speaker 5: about so many things. And like that could be for
Speaker 5: many reasons. Maybe your mum and dad had the most
Speaker 5: wonderful relationship in the world, and Dad's spoiled mum and
Speaker 5: now you are ruined for every other man that comes after,
Speaker 5: or like maybe it's because you've watched too many rom coms.
Speaker 5: I don't know whatever it came from. But like, it's
Speaker 5: not that I have low expectations. It's just that I
Speaker 5: don't expect everyone to I don't know, like stop their
Speaker 5: entire lives for one day, Like I don't know. I
Speaker 5: just I want people to acknowledge that is my birthday,
Speaker 5: by me gifts.
Speaker 1: I love.
Speaker 5: My kid creates the most ridiculous artwork for my birthday
Speaker 5: and I love that.
Speaker 1: So, like, there's lots of things that I do expect.
Speaker 5: But if my husband was to get up and go,
Speaker 5: I have got an emergency at work. I can't do
Speaker 5: your birthday thing today?
Speaker 1: Is that Okay.
Speaker 5: I'd be like, yeah, cool, get on with my day,
Speaker 5: Like I'm not so let down by it.
Speaker 2: At the end of it all, Jesse, you're going to
Speaker 2: hate one of the suggestions that the expert had, because
Speaker 2: we've talked about this on the show before. Instead of
Speaker 2: making it your birthday day, make it a birthday week
Speaker 2: because you spread your expectations out across the week.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't think so.
Speaker 2: Do you think that is why people have started doing
Speaker 2: birthday weeks.
Speaker 3: That's a good point.
Speaker 4: But then it's like, it's a Monday morning, and I'm
Speaker 4: indignant because the Monday mornings aren't meant to happen during
Speaker 4: my birthday week. Like I have the pleasure of never
Speaker 4: nearly never having to work on my birthday because.
Speaker 2: It's very often sometimes, but it's very often almost holidays,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which maybe puts more pressure on it.
Speaker 4: Like it was always also school holidays, so it was
Speaker 4: like the sitting around waiting for a fuss to be
Speaker 4: made was just always so so unmeat. It was Luca's
Speaker 4: birthday over the weekend, and he was just like not
Speaker 4: interested in doing and I kept trying to push something
Speaker 4: because I was like, you'll be disappointed. You'll be disappointed,
Speaker 4: and we sat.
Speaker 1: There realistically, you'll be disappointed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well he was fine.
Speaker 4: On Saturday night we watched TVA and a Mexican. I
Speaker 4: was like, this is the saddest thing ever, and he
Speaker 4: was absolutely found it very joyful.
Speaker 2: You need to have your rules, so as you've got Murphy,
Speaker 2: You're like, I expect these things to happen. I expect
Speaker 2: the people who live in my house to do these things.
Speaker 2: They're not extravagant things, but they're things that matter. And
Speaker 2: I'm the same. I'm like, whoever's birthday is in our
Speaker 2: house gets breakfast in bed. Whatever they want for their birthday, Yeah, breakfast.
Speaker 2: So if it's one of the kids' birthdays and they
Speaker 2: want chocolate for breakfast on their birthday, they can have it, fabulo.
Speaker 2: That's no problem. I expect to be able to be
Speaker 2: eating what I want for dinner that night, whether it's
Speaker 2: out or in, and I expect, as previously discussed, to
Speaker 2: not have to empty the dishwasher. Those are the can
Speaker 2: I ask.
Speaker 3: A question quickly?
Speaker 4: I keep saying to people around me, it's the big
Speaker 4: thirty five this year. I want to do something special
Speaker 4: for my thirty fifth.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry the what Okay, No, this is good.
Speaker 4: People have started to react, like Uclaire, where they're like,
Speaker 4: thirty five ain't a big birthday and I'm like, guys,
Speaker 4: I think we should go away for my birthday and
Speaker 4: they're like, thirty five isn't a mile.
Speaker 1: So no it's not.
Speaker 5: You get eighteen, you get twenty one, and then it's
Speaker 5: ten year increments from that.
Speaker 2: Note, you're on trend. My brother so he had he
Speaker 2: was fifty five this year. Yes, we're ancient, and he
Speaker 2: had a massive party. He didn't have a massive party
Speaker 2: even for his fiftieth, but he had a massive party.
Speaker 2: Apparently in Europe, the five years there we go europaid
Speaker 2: turn is becoming more and more popular as the one
Speaker 2: because the Zeros are so confronting zero.
Speaker 1: It's like I confront you that halfway through.
Speaker 2: So you are on trend.
Speaker 4: Jesse Stevens, Okay, see I've got to do something big
Speaker 4: for my master birth Can I tell you what I'm
Speaker 4: doing for my birthday this year? I'm turning forty seven,
Speaker 4: so it's not at anything birthday, but my best friend
Speaker 4: and I are going up to the Gold Coast and
Speaker 4: we're recreating our childhood experiences by going to all the
Speaker 4: worlds because we used to go to the Lord Kids.
Speaker 2: That's so fine.
Speaker 5: And the beauty of working at mamamir As you get
Speaker 5: your birthday day off. I know that sucks for you
Speaker 5: guys because often a public call it. Anyway, you get
Speaker 5: your birthday day off and then you get to go
Speaker 5: and have fun, which is really cool. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 5: going to like dream World and wet and wild and stuff.
Speaker 5: Oh that's so fun.
Speaker 2: Do you think that man's marriage is going to survive?
Speaker 2: The one who's often birthdays and his wife thinks he's planning.
Speaker 1: That's going to be the biggest fight of their entire lives.
Speaker 4: The advice was you need to write her a letter
Speaker 4: to warn her, And I'm like, no, she'll just think
Speaker 4: this is part of the elaborate prank. Like she's just
Speaker 4: going to go, Wow, you've really lowered my expectations.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna end well. It's not going to end well.
Speaker 4: After the break a man named ned, some secret photographs
Speaker 4: sent to his wife and the explosion of an internet career.
Speaker 4: You either know nothing about this story or every little detail,
Speaker 4: and I'm here to explain.
Speaker 2: One unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday
Speaker 2: and Thursday exclusively for Mamma Mia subscribers. Follow the link
Speaker 2: at the show notes to get us in your ears
Speaker 2: five days a week. And a huge thank you to
Speaker 2: all our current subscribers.
Speaker 5: There was a story that went viral over the weekend
Speaker 5: back in my hometown of Adelaide. I don't know if
Speaker 5: you caught this, but a lady went to donate some
Speaker 5: goods to her local second hand store and did something
Speaker 5: that if you've ever given.
Speaker 1: Birth to a child, we are all at risk of doing.
Speaker 1: She went, dropped off the goods, all is well and good,
Speaker 1: went back to the car. She's got a toddler and
Speaker 1: a baby. She's strapping them all in.
Speaker 5: She drives away, leaves behind her seven hundred dollar Bugaboo
Speaker 5: pram And for anyone who's ever had babies, you know
Speaker 5: what a status symbol a Bugaboo pram is. Anyhow, of course,
Speaker 5: the thrift stall looks at it and goes, oh, someone's
Speaker 5: just left this not where it's supposed to be. They
Speaker 5: sold it to someone for twelve bucks, and then this
Speaker 5: lady went on the internet.
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm so sorry I left my pram behind.
Speaker 5: Someone bought it for twelve bucks, desperately tried to like
Speaker 5: get it back again. Apparently the woman who bought it
Speaker 5: for twelve bucks, who thought she had the investment of
Speaker 5: the century for moms, then came back and said, yeah,
Speaker 5: look it was me.
Speaker 1: I will give it back to you.
Speaker 5: But then apparently Bugaboo has come back to the original
Speaker 5: mum who lost your prem and s that here have
Speaker 5: another one.
Speaker 1: The other lady.
Speaker 4: Okay, wait, I have a big question that I keep
Speaker 4: wondering with this story, because if I left my Pram
Speaker 4: outside of Salvos, no one would touch.
Speaker 2: You're thinking the same thing, because you know how before
Speaker 2: you donate anything to the salvo that you meant to
Speaker 2: clean it and you meant to have it all nice
Speaker 2: and well crapped beautiful.
Speaker 3: Must have Pram have been so my pre tailed it.
Speaker 1: People would not detailed it like that.
Speaker 4: Maybe she detailed for fear of infection, like it has
Speaker 4: mandarin pills, half a banana, dirty wipes, toys like spills
Speaker 4: of smoothie and juice all on the white thing, like
Speaker 4: the fact that it was in such condition that it
Speaker 4: was sellable. But I reckon I have thought this with
Speaker 4: prams because I'm in my parme Era. Love it the
Speaker 4: places I leave the pram because I feel as though
Speaker 4: like it's got this.
Speaker 3: Stench, yes, stench that's like no one will ever.
Speaker 2: Take active stench.
Speaker 5: But also like a security aur about prams. Yeah, like
Speaker 5: I see prams outside of places all the time. You
Speaker 5: don't touch them, you don't steal them. They're for babies,
Speaker 5: leave exactly. So I leave mine.
Speaker 4: I will go I'm sure you're not meant to do this,
Speaker 4: but like into my local. It's not a shopping center,
Speaker 4: but it's like a little mall thing, right, And I
Speaker 4: will leave it out the front because Luna's at the
Speaker 4: age where she likes going up and down the escalator.
Speaker 4: That's our excursion. So I will leave it sometimes for
Speaker 4: thirty minutes with just whatever in it, thinking that no
Speaker 4: one will touch it.
Speaker 3: No one ever does touch it.
Speaker 1: That's the rule.
Speaker 4: So I if I were her, I would not be
Speaker 4: expecting anyone to sell my buck a book.
Speaker 2: I also feel for this woman because we all know
Speaker 2: that to get the hand me downs to the Salvos,
Speaker 2: she would have been driving around with them in the
Speaker 2: back of her car for at least six months. We
Speaker 2: all do that where you're like I'm definitely donating this,
Speaker 2: I'm not throwing it out. But then you don't remember
Speaker 2: she was driving around and she thought she had the
Speaker 2: PRAM in the back of the car. The bit of
Speaker 2: this story, she goes home, she opens the boot, it's
Speaker 2: not there and the bags have gone, and she's like,
Speaker 2: maybe I've had some kind of breakdown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Really feel for her. I understand it on a deep level.
Speaker 2: And the fact that someone out there scored a dirty
Speaker 2: bugaboo pram for twelve bucks, oh my god.
Speaker 5: Applause, amazing And just finally, could we maybe normalize using
Speaker 5: prams when you no longer have a baby?
Speaker 1: Like, just thinking about this, I'm like, God.
Speaker 5: I wish I still had a pram, Like the amount
Speaker 5: of stuff you can fit.
Speaker 1: In it, don't have to carry anything.
Speaker 3: So Claire, I have not used a plastic bag for
Speaker 3: more than two.
Speaker 2: Years because I'm a mental warrant shark.
Speaker 4: I just have like banana whatever I've bought, just in
Speaker 4: the bottom of the pram. But the thing is, if
Speaker 4: I see you walking down the street with a PRAM
Speaker 4: and no baby, I just assume you drop the baby
Speaker 4: off somewhere. I think that you can absolutely go for pram.
Speaker 2: Your kid's ten, but.
Speaker 5: Then eventually you could maybe convert into like a dog pram,
Speaker 5: like you know, I'd.
Speaker 3: See a lot of those around.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Also the amount of stuff I've accidentally shoplifted because I've
Speaker 5: put it in the bottom of the pram and then
Speaker 5: walked out without paying for it. I apologize. I promise
Speaker 5: not to do that anymore because it's not baby brain.
Speaker 5: But like, can we just if we all had a pram,
Speaker 5: we'd just be a much happier place.
Speaker 2: I think, where's my midlife pram?
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of shit.
Speaker 2: To hurry around? Have you seen my skincare bag?
Speaker 4: I want to introduce you both to an all or
Speaker 4: nothing on a man named Ned former. If that rings
Speaker 4: a bell, then you might be a rusted on out
Speaker 4: louder who remembers our show from September twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Who doesn't. Yes, I've committed exactly, yeah, every single one.
Speaker 4: And that was three years ago, right, and our friend
Speaker 4: Ned came up. Let's start at the beginning. Ned was
Speaker 4: part of a group called the Try Guys. They were
Speaker 4: all over BuzzFeed and then they went to YouTube and
Speaker 4: you won't believe it, but they tried things.
Speaker 2: They tried like a comedy kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Yes, and they started like one of their most viral
Speaker 4: videos was simulating labor paint. Well, they would try being
Speaker 4: pregnant and put on like a pregnancy suit.
Speaker 1: Or they saw one where they got waxed.
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly right, just like try being a poker champion,
Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff. And their videos had billions
Speaker 4: of views, like they were totally, totally viral, and there
Speaker 4: were four of them, and Ned Fulmer was known as
Speaker 4: the wife guy. The reason he was kind of known
Speaker 4: as that was that he had two little kids at
Speaker 4: the time and his wife Ariel, who appeared in a
Speaker 4: lot of the content as well. People really leaned into that.
Speaker 2: Life guy became kind of like we've thrown it around
Speaker 2: a lot, like I always say, David Beckham's a wife guy.
Speaker 2: There are certain celebrities who are always like being really
Speaker 2: in love with their wife is part of their brand.
Speaker 3: And that started with Ned.
Speaker 2: Ned.
Speaker 3: It was the first time we heard he's the og
Speaker 3: wife guy. He's the og wife guy.
Speaker 4: And look that was until fans photographed Ned having an
Speaker 4: affair with the producer of the show.
Speaker 2: This is one of the problems with being a wife, guy,
Speaker 2: is that if it turns out that you're not so
Speaker 2: great to your wife. What happened?
Speaker 4: So the fan was out and about and he was like,
Speaker 4: he must have been kissing us.
Speaker 3: It was very, very obvious.
Speaker 4: But they took photos of Ned and this woman and
Speaker 4: then sent them directly to Ariel He's white, directly to
Speaker 4: the wife y outed by a fan, and then some
Speaker 4: video photo thing went absolutely viral and ultimately Ned was
Speaker 4: booted from the group. And this story to give you
Speaker 4: a sense of how big it was at the time.
Speaker 4: It was parodied on Saturday Night Life, it was in newspapers,
Speaker 4: it was everywhere. It made it to us even though
Speaker 4: we'd never heard of the Try guys before this moment.
Speaker 4: Three years past, both of them disappeared. You've not heard
Speaker 4: anything from them. It was one of the biggest cancelations ever.
Speaker 1: Did they get divorced like we presumed that they split.
Speaker 3: Up, We didn't know.
Speaker 2: Lost his job. Basically they booted him from the crew
Speaker 2: because he was bringing them into disrepute. Ye wow.
Speaker 4: And there had been sightings those of the two sort
Speaker 4: of around where they lived, and they were like, oh,
Speaker 4: maybe they're still together, maybe they're not. We don't really know,
Speaker 4: but Ned is back. He has a podcast called rock
Speaker 4: Bottom where he interviews people who have made big mistakes
Speaker 4: and he asked them how they came back. And the
Speaker 4: first guest, which doesn't actually quite fulfill that promise of
Speaker 4: a podcast, but anyway, his first guest is his wife Aeriel.
Speaker 4: And here's a little taste of the conversation they had.
Speaker 8: People ask me like, do you forgive Ned for what
Speaker 8: he did? And I mean the answer is no, absolutely not.
Speaker 8: How can you forgive somebody for like, for lying to you,
Speaker 8: for cheating on you?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Fuck no, fuck no.
Speaker 1: I think I like Ariel.
Speaker 3: I like Ariel a.
Speaker 2: Lot, though she obviously has forgiven him, to the point
Speaker 2: where when I was reading a little bit about this,
Speaker 2: they talk about how they are kind of still together,
Speaker 2: like they're not together, but they're together, like as in,
Speaker 2: they're together as a family unit, they do things together
Speaker 2: as a family. They're not explicit in whether or not
Speaker 2: they've moved on or really got divorced, but clearly she
Speaker 2: wants everybody to know that she did not stick with
Speaker 2: that idiot who was so silly that he was cheating
Speaker 2: in public as a famous person who was a.
Speaker 4: Wife guy exactly. Interestingly, he isn't resentful about being canceled.
Speaker 4: He says it was justified. And then he totally gets
Speaker 4: it and that what the internet wants is a one
Speaker 4: dimensional character, which he played into, which was his wife
Speaker 4: guy thing. And in Good News, Ariel is setting up
Speaker 4: a pottery business. I hope it was a link in
Speaker 4: the show notes and we all that for her go
Speaker 4: by a pottery.
Speaker 2: So he's coming back and she's coming back in different
Speaker 2: ways exactly now what he's been doing for money for
Speaker 2: three years.
Speaker 4: Here's my question, right, is because there has been an
Speaker 4: enormous amount of resistance, people say, oh interesting. In the podcast,
Speaker 4: she calls it the affair, he calls it the scandal. Right,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of eye rolling. Three is a long time.
Speaker 2: Does he go into any detail about the affair? I
Speaker 2: think he says it's someone at work, right, But he
Speaker 2: doesn't give you any context in how long was it
Speaker 2: going on?
Speaker 4: No, and then he says something that I didn't like
Speaker 4: about how their marriage was kind of a fantasy and
Speaker 4: the dream was starting to break. I really hate it
Speaker 4: when an affair like this happens and they're kind of like, well,
Speaker 4: you know, there was a problem with.
Speaker 3: The marriage, even if that's true.
Speaker 4: Yeah, just like it attempts to place blame on the
Speaker 4: other person in a way that I think is really unhelpful.
Speaker 5: Like life can get hard, you don't have to cheat
Speaker 5: on your partner. You can have open discussions with them
Speaker 5: and act like an adult.
Speaker 3: And in the relationship that's allowed.
Speaker 2: But is there a good way to be a amous
Speaker 2: person or a public person and to come back from
Speaker 2: a cheating scandal without looking like a dick. Because I'm
Speaker 2: thinking about I mentioned before wife Guy Trademarke, wife Guy
Speaker 2: David Beckham very famously there was a big cheating scandal
Speaker 2: with Heat and Posh in the noughties. Their strategy has
Speaker 2: always been don't talk about it. Just don't talk about it,
Speaker 2: just don't go there, just don't give it oxygen. Even
Speaker 2: in their documentary, the Beckham Documentary, it was kind of
Speaker 2: referenced as we went through a hard time. Some of
Speaker 2: the headlines even about that story were a bit edited.
Speaker 2: So they've never given it fuel. Now this guy is
Speaker 2: giving it a lot of fuel in a way, but
Speaker 2: he's still kind of talking around it. As you say, Jesse,
Speaker 2: he's calling it a scandal, a problem in my marriage,
Speaker 2: he's not. Is there a way for a cheater, particularly
Speaker 2: a male cheater, although maybe we don't see female cheaters
Speaker 2: talking about publicly to win back a female audience, do
Speaker 2: you reckon?
Speaker 3: So that's a good point about the female audience.
Speaker 4: That I should say as well is that eighty percent
Speaker 4: of the Try guy's audience was young women. And I
Speaker 4: think that's the other, the other important factor, and that
Speaker 4: I don't think his crime was in fidelity. I think
Speaker 4: his crime was being inauthentic. Yes, people felt as though
Speaker 4: I was sold this version of you, and now I
Speaker 4: saw someone in an article compare him to someone that
Speaker 4: was a literal criminal, and I went, no, No, he's not
Speaker 4: a criminal. He did something bad that a lot of
Speaker 4: people do. I mean, even the word bad, like it's
Speaker 4: very moralizing, like who or any of us to judge.
Speaker 2: But she says she felt betrayed, So yeah, so we
Speaker 2: know that for her, cheating was a line. Like we
Speaker 2: talked about this when it was the Coldplay couple. You
Speaker 2: don't always know what's going on in people's marriages. You
Speaker 2: don't always know where they're up to and whether or
Speaker 2: not they're separating or not. You don't always know. Maybe
Speaker 2: they're open. Maybe they're not, but she has clearly said
Speaker 2: here like this devastated me and I will never forgive you.
Speaker 5: But I think what you said, Jesse then is so
Speaker 5: true in that the audience that he was catering to,
Speaker 5: being majority women, are going to be a lot harder
Speaker 5: to win back than if your audience is majority men.
Speaker 5: Like Donald Trump, for example, has famously cheated on his
Speaker 5: wives and and so on and said awful things about women,
Speaker 5: and yet it doesn't really matter for him that much
Speaker 5: because the majority of his supporters are men. And I
Speaker 5: think if you are catering to women, women are so
Speaker 5: much more judgmental of you if you have hurt another woman,
Speaker 5: unless for whatever reason, the Internet hates that woman, which
Speaker 5: could be for various reasons. So we don't hate Ariel.
Speaker 5: We like Ariel. So that's why it's going to be
Speaker 5: really tough for him to come back unless he takes
Speaker 5: full responsibility, which it sounds like he is definitely not
Speaker 5: done well.
Speaker 4: It's funny, right because even the name of the podcast
Speaker 4: being rock bottom, Like if he went to the best
Speaker 4: crisis PR team in the world, which I reckon he has,
Speaker 4: and he said, what's a move? I think This is
Speaker 4: exactly what they would tell him to do. I think
Speaker 4: they'd say, laylo, try and repair things to some extent.
Speaker 4: You don't have to get back together, but show that
Speaker 4: she can tolerate you. That's a good start. Willing enough
Speaker 4: to come on your podcast is enough? Yes, Yes, platform
Speaker 4: her because the big thing is always like, well you
Speaker 4: got your say, she didn't get hers, So give her
Speaker 4: her say.
Speaker 2: There's someone else, though, isn't there who isn't getting a say?
Speaker 2: The other woman in this situation, which is why these
Speaker 2: things are so thorny to discuss because we always talk
Speaker 2: about like you can tell your truth, but your truth
Speaker 2: nearly always involves someone else and their truth. So maybe
Speaker 2: also wherever that woman is, the woman who was in
Speaker 2: the photos that got sent to Ariel, this will blow
Speaker 2: all this up for her as well. Like if I
Speaker 2: was you know, we're all done our time as internet journalists.
Speaker 2: Whatever happened to the woman that ned Fulmer was passing
Speaker 2: in that restaurant, like, it also blows that back up
Speaker 2: for her. So there's another strategy here, which is that
Speaker 2: ned Fulmer came back to make an interesting and original
Speaker 2: podcast about something that had nothing to do with his
Speaker 2: personal life.
Speaker 4: See, I don't think that was ever an option. I
Speaker 4: reckon that he's brand now is rock bottom, Like that's
Speaker 4: his brand and he needs white wife guy, and he
Speaker 4: needs to own it and go I'm the guy that
Speaker 4: was spat out by the internet ruthlessly. I'm going to
Speaker 4: explore that in a series with like bear All, and
Speaker 4: I think that we've seen a lot of men, even
Speaker 4: like the Louis c ks is like they've got to
Speaker 4: be the canceled dude.
Speaker 3: They have to kind.
Speaker 4: Of wear that for a while, right, even all their
Speaker 4: specials are like corns anything.
Speaker 2: You're so right, But as Murphy's just said, that works
Speaker 2: okay for your brand if your brand was never squeaky
Speaker 2: clean in the first place. Like the reason why you're
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's and your Charlie Sheen's. You were talking about
Speaker 2: that doco the other day, Like everybody knows that they
Speaker 2: are not morally, you know, untouchable when it comes to
Speaker 2: the cheating on their wives. Is probably good for their
Speaker 2: brand in some twisted way. They're not pretending. You hit
Speaker 2: the nail on the head before Jesse when he said
Speaker 2: it's about the inauthenticity, which is why some people get
Speaker 2: canceled for things that other people can say freely. It's
Speaker 2: because they're like, well, I thought you were somebody different.
Speaker 2: I didn't think you were that person.
Speaker 3: Ellen DeGeneres her not being kind.
Speaker 2: Because everyone was like, but she's the nice lady who
Speaker 2: dances on the show. But it's interesting because your point
Speaker 2: about this is a great strategy to come back into
Speaker 2: viewing people at the bottom of pylons. Is that it
Speaker 2: because he can't put himself in company of genuine victims,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? Like people who have
Speaker 2: genuinely been misrepresented bleed, Like he can't really put himself
Speaker 2: in the company of that when he was having an
Speaker 2: affair with a co worker and just was not smart
Speaker 2: enough to be private about it.
Speaker 5: Be interesting to see who his next guest lineup is,
Speaker 5: because you're right, it would be pretty difficult for him
Speaker 5: to connect with someone who's been canceled for other reasons.
Speaker 5: But if his list of candidates is like other men
Speaker 5: who've done things like that, might be interesting to hear
Speaker 5: how men speak to.
Speaker 1: Other men about these moments.
Speaker 5: But I think trotting out Ariel forp one, I think
Speaker 5: I could see what they were trying to do with that.
Speaker 5: They want to blow open all the cobwebs. They don't
Speaker 5: want anyone to ask any more questions. They want that
Speaker 5: out of the way upfront, like, stop talking about it,
Speaker 5: let's move on with this.
Speaker 1: Now new podcast idea.
Speaker 5: But I'm really interested to see who these next guests
Speaker 5: are going to be, because I think that will then
Speaker 5: mark what kind of guy this guy is.
Speaker 2: I also think you nailed it in there. There's lots
Speaker 2: of enthusiasm for Ariel because very often when a public
Speaker 2: man is cheating and then his wife comes out and
Speaker 2: says that she stood by him in whatever capacity, she
Speaker 2: usually does say that she forgave him. She usually says
Speaker 2: I knew he wasn't being himself. I knew he was
Speaker 2: going through a hard time. I know there's a lot
Speaker 2: of love here. And so to hear Ariel say quite
Speaker 2: so clearly no fuck no about this, I think there'd
Speaker 2: probably be a lot of women cheering.
Speaker 4: And the question is whether this relaunch is gonna work.
Speaker 4: Because he has every right to come back. He can
Speaker 4: lost whatever show he wants.
Speaker 2: You could argue that losing your job for a private
Speaker 2: you know, is not really fair, but as we've already unpacked,
Speaker 2: a's largely because he was being fraudulent in his representation exactly.
Speaker 4: But we don't have any obligation to listen, or to
Speaker 4: enjoy or to consume the content.
Speaker 3: And I can't.
Speaker 4: Really see it being because he's his role was. He
Speaker 4: described himself as a comede before, and this all has
Speaker 4: to get very serious in order for him to wear
Speaker 4: it and try and build back his reputation, and I
Speaker 4: don't see it working.
Speaker 2: I hobby, I hope her pottery businesses a lot of
Speaker 2: cops that say fuck no at the bottom of it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I love it out loud as a massive thank
Speaker 7: you to all of you for being with us here today,
Speaker 7: and to you Claire Murphy of course for filling from
Speaker 7: Melia Lester, and to everybody for putting up with my
Speaker 7: slightly wobbly voice.
Speaker 2: Friends, don't forget that if you want to see our
Speaker 2: glorious faces. This is what Need got wrong is he
Speaker 2: didn't realize he was Internet famous at a level that
Speaker 2: we know. This is why you can't scream at your
Speaker 2: daughter in public. No, you see, I can't choke passion
Speaker 2: pop at at his school function.
Speaker 8: No.
Speaker 4: The rule is, Claire, you can't cheat in public. It's
Speaker 4: got to be behind closed doors. That's the number one
Speaker 4: role of having your face on the internet.
Speaker 5: Look, I'm glad you told me that because I would
Speaker 5: never have worked that out on my own without you
Speaker 5: killing me in.
Speaker 2: If you want to be able to recognize us causing
Speaker 2: misdemeanors in public, you need to go over on YouTube
Speaker 2: how over to YouTube watch.
Speaker 5: Please don't judge me for my middle aged pram, which
Speaker 5: will be in some kind of condition by the time
Speaker 5: you see.
Speaker 2: It, and we will be back in your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 4: Out loud as before we go, Parenting out Loud, your
Speaker 4: favorite news show is in its own feed, so you
Speaker 4: need to go and follow it At Parenting out Loud.
Speaker 4: There are new apps every Saturday and it is hosted
Speaker 4: by Monic Bowley, Amelia Lester and Stacy Hicks. And in
Speaker 4: the latest episode, they talk about the rise of something
Speaker 4: called stealth mum and why more and more women are
Speaker 4: choosing not to share that they're parents. Plus they also
Speaker 4: have a chat about the new rule book around praise and.
Speaker 3: Why millennial parents are overthinking things no I do.
Speaker 4: What's It's a great episode.
Speaker 3: There's a link in our show notes.
Speaker 4: Bye bye, shout out to any mom and me A
Speaker 4: subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want
Speaker 4: to support us, subscribing to mom and Mia is the
Speaker 4: very best way to do so.
Speaker 3: There's a link in the episode description
Speaker 2: Being then protest conta