Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Mom and Mia out loud. It's
Speaker 1: what women are actually talking about on Monday, the thirteenth
Speaker 1: of April. I'm Holly wayIn right, Oh.
Speaker 2: I was poor. I was poor because you had something.
Speaker 1: In the script I did, and I do. I'll bring
Speaker 1: that back. I was going to do it at the end,
Speaker 1: and then I was like, I'm Holly Wayne right, and
Speaker 1: I've got a rogue Monday question before we get started
Speaker 1: today from my friends here you are? You are?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm Clare Stevens and I'm in Burnham filling in
Speaker 3: for Amelia today.
Speaker 1: I heard this heated debate in the office this morning. Well,
Speaker 1: you know how Monday morning everyone's chitty chatting in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: We're still going on with the weekend. Do you share
Speaker 1: a towel with the people you live with? Now, I
Speaker 1: know that you live alone, Emily, but you grew up
Speaker 1: in a house with other people, so you get to
Speaker 1: answer this question too. Do you share a towel? Like,
Speaker 1: not one towel, but like are there specific towls for
Speaker 1: specific people? Are just general towels for use?
Speaker 4: So this is kind of one of the problems with
Speaker 4: my life. I share a towel my husband don't know that.
Speaker 4: My husband think, what do you mean you share a towel?
Speaker 4: As in, like, if my partner's just got out of
Speaker 4: the shower and his towels hanging up, I'll.
Speaker 1: Just use it, Jail.
Speaker 4: I'm like, here's my theory immune systems. I think I
Speaker 4: have I reckon. We should all be using each other's
Speaker 4: town I've been known to use someone else's toothbrush and
Speaker 4: people get really.
Speaker 1: Mad, and I'm like, I don't know. This is the debate,
Speaker 1: right m Because the debate in the kitchen went something
Speaker 1: like somebody said what you just said, Claire, which is
Speaker 1: also my position. There are towels hanging up in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: as long as they're dry and not smelly, I'm using it.
Speaker 1: I don't. It's not like that spread's towel, this is
Speaker 1: my house.
Speaker 3: Touch someone else's genital Yeah, that's exactly what.
Speaker 1: So you present the other argument because Nicole, our friend Nicole,
Speaker 1: was like, that's disgusting. It's disgusting.
Speaker 2: What do you want from their.
Speaker 3: Fungal insection because you're gonna get one so.
Speaker 1: In your house of origin, and if you've got other
Speaker 1: people in your house, now it's like, here's your towel,
Speaker 1: here's my tael your town.
Speaker 3: No, after they all go on the washing machine, then
Speaker 3: like you can have a different town.
Speaker 1: Maybe if you're looking for a different color.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're getting bored, but no, if that's your towel,
Speaker 3: that's your tail for the week.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: I did find out this week's towel, that's this week's
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 4: Find out I've got I had this like weird gut
Speaker 4: bacteria called h plori I want to have. It can
Speaker 4: be like a risk factor for bow cancer stuff. So
Speaker 4: I'm glad I found out I had it and it
Speaker 4: got traded. But the way I found out was that
Speaker 4: Jesse had it. And they basically said, if you've lived
Speaker 4: in the kind of family that has few boundaries german wise,
Speaker 4: all I just called up my family being like, guys,
Speaker 4: we've all, we've all.
Speaker 1: A few boundaries germanise. That is a great way of
Speaker 1: putting it, all right, I'm sorry to start Monday like
Speaker 1: that out louders, but if you want to her, if
Speaker 1: you want to ask yourself this question, are you like?
Speaker 1: Because I know some people who are like the child
Speaker 1: the green tails of mine, the yellow tells yours. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm looking at you differently. It's what's actually
Speaker 1: made our agenda for this Monday morning.
Speaker 4: It's Biberchella and the young millennials and older gen Z's
Speaker 4: cannot stop cry. Why did the singer do you wedding?
Speaker 1: With?
Speaker 4: These old YouTube videos feel strikingly profound.
Speaker 1: Also, the world is incomplete chaos. Her husband is making
Speaker 1: everything worse. So why did Milania Trump choose this moment
Speaker 1: to step out in front of a camera and prompted
Speaker 1: to deliver a very strange address? She's so funny and.
Speaker 3: Good girl dying and Lena Dunham and the addiction to fame,
Speaker 3: everything that's been happening since she stepped back into the spotlight.
Speaker 1: But first, it's Christmas week and buy that. I mean
Speaker 1: it's Harry and Megan. Yes, indeed our favorite, not favorite
Speaker 1: ex royals. They are like sort of royals now because
Speaker 1: he is. We still don't know who they are in
Speaker 1: We don't really know, but anyway, they are arriving on
Speaker 1: our shores. They may be pulling up right now via ship.
Speaker 1: I really doubt it.
Speaker 2: British people always that.
Speaker 1: Would be fun, but I doubt it. I mean, possibly
Speaker 1: by either first class or PJ PJ with the fuel. Christlis,
Speaker 1: I who knows. I don't want to slander them. They
Speaker 1: may well be just on an ordinary plane, but it's
Speaker 1: going to be very interesting to see what happened. So
Speaker 1: Harry and Megs are in Australia for the first time
Speaker 1: in eight years. The last time they were here, a
Speaker 1: young Claire Stephens, yes young naive royal obsessed went down
Speaker 1: to the Opera House and were among the throngs who
Speaker 1: queued up to see them. That was like a very
Speaker 1: traditional kind of royal walk about. What was it like?
Speaker 1: What was the vibe?
Speaker 4: So the vibe was hugely, hugely positive. Everybody was obsessed
Speaker 4: with them. Everybody loved them and for example, like I
Speaker 4: remember seeing I think they were like snipers on the
Speaker 4: top of the opera house, Like the security was insane
Speaker 4: and not for a second did anyone question it, whereas
Speaker 4: now I think the narrative has changed.
Speaker 1: Well now it's different because this isn't an official royal
Speaker 1: tour and they they're keeping a lot of it under wraps.
Speaker 1: But what we do know about this trip, because it's
Speaker 1: funny when you said so when they came to Australia,
Speaker 1: that was they hadn't been married long it was when
Speaker 1: we found out that Megan was pregnant with Archie. She
Speaker 1: announced that, well, they're in Australia. It was also, they
Speaker 1: told Oprah afterwards a big turning point because it went
Speaker 1: so well. Harry said, everything changed after that. The world
Speaker 1: got to see the family, meaning the royal family got
Speaker 1: to see how incredible Megan is at the job, and
Speaker 1: he was insinuating that. Then they got a bit jealous
Speaker 1: and things began to turn.
Speaker 3: I remember everyone was very excited, like it felt like
Speaker 3: the energy in the air was very It was actually
Speaker 3: my introduction to Mum and me because I was going
Speaker 3: for my job interview here and I was like, let
Speaker 3: me look at their instagram and the Instagram story was
Speaker 3: Claire in the Mummy offices and everyone touching her.
Speaker 2: Head because she touched Prince Harry.
Speaker 1: I was like, this sounds like a great job for me.
Speaker 1: Claire touched Prince Harry. This time is a private visit.
Speaker 1: So the way that they roll now is they're doing
Speaker 1: these sort of they're not royal tours because they're not
Speaker 1: official working royals anymore, but there will be public elements.
Speaker 1: So what we know is going to happen, and obviously
Speaker 1: will keep you abreast of developments. But they said on
Speaker 1: the record that this trip is and will include a
Speaker 1: number of private business and philanthropic engagements. So we know
Speaker 1: that on Wednesday in Melbourne, Harry's going to do a
Speaker 1: November event about male mental health.
Speaker 2: Is he growing a massage?
Speaker 1: Oh? That would be great, not a great point. It's
Speaker 1: not November yet, no, so probably not for all.
Speaker 2: It'd be nice.
Speaker 1: Kylen Berg is going to be there, Sylemberg. Kyler Burg
Speaker 1: is on that panel too from the Imperfect. So lots
Speaker 1: of big, lots of big mental healthy people are going
Speaker 1: to be there. And maybe on Thursday, it hasn't been
Speaker 1: confirmed yet, but they're expecting some kind of games event
Speaker 1: maybe on Sydney Harbor. And then on Saturday night, we
Speaker 1: do know that Megs is doing her gala dinner for
Speaker 1: besties everybody, which is like a lot of women are going.
Speaker 1: They're spending the weekend and then there's going to be
Speaker 1: a dinner and she's going to talk. Everybody is speculating
Speaker 1: though that there will be an announcement that as ever
Speaker 1: goods will be going to finally be shipped to Australia
Speaker 1: of June, which obviously means I will no longer have
Speaker 1: to rely on the good will and charity of us
Speaker 1: out loud is to send me my jam and I
Speaker 1: might finally get to get tipsy on too Rose, which.
Speaker 3: Would be and the flower sprinkles, yes, and the dog biscuits.
Speaker 1: I've still got some flower sprinkles. Turns out not so
Speaker 1: many uses for the little flower sprinkles in my life
Speaker 1: to have, though, it's going to be a very interesting week.
Speaker 4: Are they gonna be gallivanting?
Speaker 1: No, because the thing is, well, we don't know for sure.
Speaker 1: It sounds like the event on Sydney Harbor might be
Speaker 1: relatively public. But to your point before about security, that's
Speaker 1: why they can't do that. So when you're coming on
Speaker 1: a royal tour, you've got this baked in level of security.
Speaker 1: And this is his art. This has been Harry's big
Speaker 1: sticking point with going back to the UK. This is
Speaker 1: a private visit so as in they're doing some philanthropic
Speaker 1: philanthropic things, but now when they travel they don't have
Speaker 1: that weight behind them, so it's unlikely they can like that.
Speaker 1: They can handle that security wise, crowds and stuff, but
Speaker 1: we'll see what happens because they're keeping it very quiet
Speaker 1: I assume for security reasons, but we all know about it.
Speaker 4: We know a little bit like where are they staying?
Speaker 4: And I guess it's funny because I'm always like, oh, security,
Speaker 4: Like people are pretty normal, you have to worry about that.
Speaker 4: And then I think about myself and I think, if
Speaker 4: I knew where they were staying, I'd be doing some
Speaker 4: drive buse every day. Coachella twenty twenty six aka the
Speaker 4: Influencer Olympics aka Sabrina Would aka bab Cella has a
Speaker 4: lot of names AKA for most of us. Bedchella started
Speaker 4: on Friday, and it is like a lightning rod for culture.
Speaker 4: There is so much going on. You've got a former
Speaker 4: World Leader there. You've got so many Kardashians.
Speaker 1: Do you mean Katy Perry's boyfriend. Yeah, yeah, And he
Speaker 1: is looking.
Speaker 4: Good, looking good, and I feel like he was just
Speaker 4: there for justin as like it's kind of like when
Speaker 4: your teacher comes to support you, but it's like the.
Speaker 2: Former premis being like co justin.
Speaker 4: Of course, you've got gossip unfolding, which we will get to.
Speaker 4: And you've got influencers like beck Yard and Tammy Hembrou
Speaker 4: and Sofa Dofa and all these other influencers crying outside
Speaker 4: because their passes didn't work.
Speaker 2: Was anybody on that side of TikTok?
Speaker 1: That would be upsetting if you went all the way
Speaker 1: there and then you couldn't get in, and you were
Speaker 1: like all ready to do your outfit reveal and everything,
Speaker 1: and then you're like, this is what I wore to
Speaker 1: get denied entry to Coachella exactly.
Speaker 4: Apparently there were all these issues. Basically, if you bought
Speaker 4: it slightly late, you couldn't get in. So many would
Speaker 4: you do?
Speaker 1: Content wise?
Speaker 4: Then sorry, you film yourself crying and it goes pretty viral.
Speaker 4: It's actually probably goes more viral than if you were
Speaker 4: in there. Great content strategy. So I'm watching it all
Speaker 4: from my lounge with a hot water bottle obviously, but
Speaker 4: just a quick recap. First, Sabrina Wood, did you guys
Speaker 4: see Oh Sabrina Carpenters.
Speaker 1: But my favorite moment was when she did tears, which
Speaker 1: obviously the famous line is about tears run down my thighs,
Speaker 1: and she sat on top of a fountain but very subtly.
Speaker 2: Shot out tears from.
Speaker 1: Underneath her mutton.
Speaker 4: I loved her. Oh my god.
Speaker 3: I love big concerts, like I just want to have fun.
Speaker 3: I don't want to think, I want to release my inhibitions,
Speaker 3: and I just want to watch Sabrina Carpenter on a
Speaker 3: car getting wet.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of from what I saw, there
Speaker 1: were a lot of costume changes, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of scenery changes. There was a real life car, there
Speaker 1: was a real live fountain, there were dancing poodles. Like
Speaker 1: it was a big deal.
Speaker 2: She was in a movie.
Speaker 4: She was starring in a movie.
Speaker 3: So I think Beyonce took it to the next level
Speaker 3: when she did her Bachella concert, and it feels like
Speaker 3: everyone who had to headline after that has to really
Speaker 3: be like, oh, this is the concert off for a
Speaker 3: certain young man we're about to talk about her basically
Speaker 3: was wearing.
Speaker 2: A hoodie exactly.
Speaker 4: So then there was Baba Tella, So Sabrina Carpenter headlined
Speaker 4: the first night and just Biber headlined the second night.
Speaker 4: And there has been a little bit of criticism that
Speaker 4: Sabrina Carpenter literally was doing the most. She had Susan
Speaker 4: Sarandon doing an interlude.
Speaker 2: Monologue that was weird and.
Speaker 4: Not funny and quite dark, and she had Will Ferrell
Speaker 4: kind of popping up on stage and pretending to be
Speaker 4: an electrician, like she really was doing the most. And
Speaker 4: then there was Justin Bieber in a hoody essentially on YouTube.
Speaker 5: I see them.
Speaker 1: He was sitting on the floor with his laptop like
Speaker 1: looking at the YouTube videos and then going, oh, this
Speaker 1: sound's fun and singing along with it. Is that an
Speaker 1: accurate representation?
Speaker 2: But it was genius.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like you know when you pick.
Speaker 3: Up your phone to check the time, and then sudden
Speaker 3: you're scrolling on TikTok and you're like, what was I
Speaker 3: doing on Justin?
Speaker 1: You're before me. I want you to explain to me, Claire,
Speaker 1: because obviously I've seen bits of it. It looked great.
Speaker 1: He looked really well, which is good because I remember
Speaker 1: this time last year at Coachella he did not look well.
Speaker 1: He was stumbling around, he could barely stand up. Everyone
Speaker 1: was like fears for Justin. But what I don't really
Speaker 1: understand that I need a millennial to explain to me
Speaker 1: is why there are literally women in the office today
Speaker 1: almost crying about how glorious it was.
Speaker 2: Oh, I found it so moving.
Speaker 4: So for part of his set, as I said, he
Speaker 4: searched himself on YouTube playing some of his oldest hits
Speaker 4: like baby, never Say Never with You and those sorts
Speaker 4: of things, and he dueted with himself, and.
Speaker 5: Because his voice used to be so high, it was
Speaker 5: so low, and there's such like he really wanted this
Speaker 5: so much and then all these years later it's nearly
Speaker 5: killed him exactly.
Speaker 4: And that was I think a really stark contrast for
Speaker 4: people watching that you had this boy who was really
Speaker 4: and still is incredibly talented.
Speaker 2: He see got mocked and very much.
Speaker 4: I mean, his behavior went down some.
Speaker 2: He went off.
Speaker 4: Track for quite a while. He's had, if not kind
Speaker 4: of there's rumored drug issues, but it had there not
Speaker 4: been drug.
Speaker 1: If you've seen the videos from last year, the drug
Speaker 1: roomors are not rumored.
Speaker 4: H Yeah, there are suspicions now that he was kind
Speaker 4: of exploited, if not potentially abused as a young performer.
Speaker 4: And seeing this performance, he looked so joyous. And there's
Speaker 4: also he was really self deprecating. He was kind of
Speaker 4: making fun of viral meme videos where he walked into
Speaker 4: a glass wall and where he was just yelling at
Speaker 4: the paparazzi and he's kind of quoting himself, which I
Speaker 4: don't think we've ever seen him in recent goods. We've
Speaker 4: never seen that, And some of the commentary was about
Speaker 4: he's literally showing up to heal everyone's in a child
Speaker 4: like There was something quite profound about seeing somebody almost
Speaker 4: speaking to themselves as a child. But there's another element
Speaker 4: to it that I was not aware of, which is
Speaker 4: apparently in two twenty twenty three he sold his entire
Speaker 4: back catalog of music because the rumors where he needed
Speaker 4: the money. So instead of getting royalties for all his
Speaker 4: history of amazing albums, he got one up front fee
Speaker 4: of like two hundred million or something.
Speaker 1: Britney Spears has just done exactly the same. Ye.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so that's a bit of a theory about
Speaker 4: why he was sitting there on YouTube, because he still
Speaker 4: has the rights to the YouTube videos and he was
Speaker 4: only playing small snippets clever. The theory is that he
Speaker 4: was kind of trying to get around that loophole. But
Speaker 4: he also did an amazing at the kid LaRoy and
Speaker 4: Enjoy was on stage and they what's that Boddy's on?
Speaker 1: Stay?
Speaker 4: They didn't stay and it was freaking amazing, and I
Speaker 4: think it really reminded us how talented that man.
Speaker 1: His voice, he's so talented.
Speaker 4: His voice really is outstanding.
Speaker 1: No, he was. He was great, lots of good songs.
Speaker 1: Were you upset that he was allowed to do that
Speaker 1: in his pants? He got paid ten million dollars? He
Speaker 1: got paid ten million dollars. Apparently it's the most that
Speaker 1: a headliner at Coachella has ever been paid. And he
Speaker 1: was very His whole set was very low fire, which
Speaker 1: I like, Like, I don't think every show needs to
Speaker 1: be have fountain spurting out from under your legs. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's room.
Speaker 3: For everything if you're headlining coach I if I bought
Speaker 3: tickets to Coachella, because a lot of people buy tickets
Speaker 3: just to see the headliners because they haven't been able
Speaker 3: to see them in concerts. Separately, I know a lot
Speaker 3: of people would have bought tickets to Coachella just to
Speaker 3: see Justin Bieber. And if I was one of those people,
Speaker 3: because I love Justin Bieber so much, I would have
Speaker 3: felt a bit robbed, really a bit robbed from a
Speaker 3: performance because it was like, it was a great performance
Speaker 3: from videos I saw. But that is not the kind
Speaker 3: of concert I want to go to. I want to
Speaker 3: go to something where I literally can just stand up
Speaker 3: and dance and have a good time. If I want
Speaker 3: to go to something where like I want to connect
Speaker 3: with my inner child, I want to think about it.
Speaker 3: I want to look at, Wow, what a great artistic
Speaker 3: journey you've taken on this, Then maybe I would just
Speaker 3: sit at home and watch it online, which is what
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 1: Don't you think it's probably likely that he's at the
Speaker 1: point in his career and he's got all these things
Speaker 1: to prove, as discussed in these legal complications, and God
Speaker 1: does what that he wants to prove to everyone that
Speaker 1: he can just perform, and he can like he doesn't
Speaker 1: need twenty thousand dancers and fountains and a set and
Speaker 1: a mark can do.
Speaker 3: That, but like, then perform, like give me a performer.
Speaker 4: I also think though, that people are looking at it
Speaker 4: say like it is funny to say, okay, he was
Speaker 4: in a hoody on YouTube in front of a huge
Speaker 4: Coachella stage that would have been so Matiq planned. Oh,
Speaker 4: and there is something genius about it, which is so
Speaker 4: many of us have found ourselves in justin.
Speaker 2: Bb YouTube rabbit holes, and it is a joyous place to.
Speaker 4: Be and it's really really it's kind of like looking
Speaker 4: behind the scenes to see him watching it, and I
Speaker 4: think there was something because I know what you mean.
Speaker 4: Em On the surface, especially, it can feel like it
Speaker 4: was quite indulgent, that it was kind of an artist
Speaker 4: having their own moment.
Speaker 2: But it's actually the fact that he gave the fans.
Speaker 4: Everybody just wants him to play baby his old frickin' songs,
Speaker 4: and he gave it to them, and he did in
Speaker 4: a beautiful karaoke.
Speaker 1: Esque What about the other gossip? Because what I love
Speaker 1: watching Coachella through my phone and you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: some of those performances are amazing, but it looks like
Speaker 1: it's hard to have a good time there as a
Speaker 1: famous person because I've just seen so many famous people
Speaker 1: kissing other famous people being drunken than they should be.
Speaker 1: Although things, That's why I saw justin last year backstage
Speaker 1: like that wouldn't be any fun. Why do they all
Speaker 1: still go and have a good time? On what gossip
Speaker 1: did we learn this time?
Speaker 2: I reckon some of them are having fun.
Speaker 1: Laudie, I hear was having quite a lot of fun
Speaker 1: with Kylie Jenner. Yes, no Kendall, sorry, Kyle's Timothy.
Speaker 4: That would be front page. I think Kylie was cheating
Speaker 4: on Timothy with Jacob.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Kendall and Jacob are allowed to kiss
Speaker 3: because that's height appropriate, which is very important.
Speaker 4: Although I did think that Jacob was should with his girlfriend,
Speaker 4: but I guess not. But yes, the rumors are that
Speaker 4: Kendall and Jacob were hooking up. There is no footage,
Speaker 4: but there is somebody that they saw it, and so
Speaker 4: do we believe that? I don't really know.
Speaker 3: I think the reason celebrities hook up with each other
Speaker 3: at Coachella because it's because they know everyone's doing it.
Speaker 3: They're like, if we do it now, then maybe everyone
Speaker 3: would just be looking at Kim Kardashian and Louis they
Speaker 3: won't be looking at us.
Speaker 1: And I also know because I found the staggering fact
Speaker 1: that Justin Bieber's headlining set did not start till eleven
Speaker 1: thirty five pm.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: And I'm just like to imagine in my youth, I
Speaker 1: went to lots of music festivals, how out of it
Speaker 1: everybody is By eleven thirty five pm you would be
Speaker 1: passing a fence post. I'm thinking it was Jacoba Laudie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what I would be.
Speaker 4: That's also what's fun about it is that you see
Speaker 4: mad celebrities in the crowds, singing and dancing and losing it.
Speaker 4: There's a guy called m You're going to think, I'm
Speaker 4: there's a guy called Somber.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, my daughter likes it.
Speaker 4: Yes, he that was hilarious him. I think it was
Speaker 4: Justin Bieber, him dancing and singing, Justin Bieber. And it's
Speaker 4: like when you forget your famous, you're really famous and
Speaker 4: you're having a lovely, lovely time. But the other kind
Speaker 4: of gossip, so less gossip. But the trend seems to
Speaker 4: be amongst influencers that it's very much about like we're
Speaker 4: not really trying, We're just pulling our outfits together last minute.
Speaker 4: We're quickly doing our makeup like I'm here to have
Speaker 4: a good time, which is hilarious because if you look
Speaker 4: at the outfits, you're like, you can't have a good
Speaker 4: time that in that at all.
Speaker 2: But Kendall.
Speaker 4: Seeing a photo of Kendall Jenna beside Kylie Jenner at
Speaker 4: Coachella is the biggest reminder that there are two kinds
Speaker 4: of people at a festival, and one of them, Kendall
Speaker 4: is just shortsna T shirt and Kylie is like my
Speaker 4: ba dazzled bra Yeah, the oldest.
Speaker 1: Youngest sister.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely vibes.
Speaker 4: But I just cannot look away.
Speaker 1: After the break Malania's speech, we have one word.
Speaker 3: Why oh.
Speaker 1: Look, the world is still in a mess, and we're
Speaker 1: not going to get into it too much because it
Speaker 1: is moving at breakneck speed and who knows what might
Speaker 1: be happening by five pm today when this show comes out.
Speaker 1: It's kind of impossible to summarize, but let's just say
Speaker 1: that as we are recording this right now, talks between
Speaker 1: the US and Iran through a lot of intermediates in
Speaker 1: Pakistan have broken down, and Vice President Vance is taking
Speaker 1: these toys on his plane and he's gone, that's it.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is threatening to blockade the already blocked straight
Speaker 1: of her mors and Israel continued to insist there was
Speaker 1: a loophole in the currency sfire that allowed them to
Speaker 1: bomb Lebanon. And so into the middle of all this
Speaker 1: mess wanders the first lady, Malania Trump.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, I was wondering what was
Speaker 3: happening with her, because.
Speaker 4: Haven't been distracted by how this is filtering out to
Speaker 4: an international crisis. I wanted to know what Milania what
Speaker 4: was on Millania's mind.
Speaker 1: Well, Mlardia wanted to tell you. She wanders nowhere. Actually
Speaker 1: she more strides, She starts. She was a model, after all,
Speaker 1: she knows how to walk in a pair of very
Speaker 1: high heels. So she walks into the grand foyer of
Speaker 1: the White House on April the ninth, and she steps
Speaker 1: up to a mic and unannounced and apparently without learning
Speaker 1: her husband, to set the record straight on something that
Speaker 1: no one was talking about anymore.
Speaker 6: Here she is would afternoon, the lies linking me with
Speaker 6: the disgrace for Jeffrey Epstein need to end today. I
Speaker 6: am not Epstein's victim. Epstein did not introduce me.
Speaker 1: To Donald Trump.
Speaker 6: I met my husband by chance at the New York
Speaker 6: City party in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: She went on to say that those are the only
Speaker 1: time she ever met Epstein was at various parties, and
Speaker 1: that people in New York and Palm Beach all go
Speaker 1: to the same parties. So of course she knows because
Speaker 1: they've been a photographed together. There are many photographs, She
Speaker 1: named checks and press outlets and journals who she thinks
Speaker 1: have been spreading nonsense. She urges Congress to act on
Speaker 1: Epstein's cohort. She says that she wants a public hearing
Speaker 1: for survivors, saying they all need a chance to tell
Speaker 1: their story. This has confused a lot of people because
Speaker 1: a lot of prominent Democrats are asking for that too, right,
Speaker 1: and so they're like, that's funny, why is she suddenly
Speaker 1: asking for that? To use the polite pilance of reporters,
Speaker 1: it was unclear which specific accusation spurred the First Lady
Speaker 1: to respond publicly to this, but clearly what she was addressing,
Speaker 1: although the timing remains mysterious. Are the rumors that have
Speaker 1: been around for a long time and Trump's talking about
Speaker 1: this before that Epstein introduced about to Coravana then, but
Speaker 1: that was another Trump wife from a different time introduced
Speaker 1: Milania to Trump. And there are rumors that maybe she
Speaker 1: was involved in, you know, Epstein's world, and that he
Speaker 1: introduced it to Trump, And those rumors have been everywhere
Speaker 1: for years, but they've never been stood up. There's never
Speaker 1: been a clear proof of that at all. So it
Speaker 1: seems really weird that she is suddenly bringing it up.
Speaker 3: So what why why exactly?
Speaker 1: And Trump doesn't know either, He said like that recently,
Speaker 1: We're not very care. He also said that she said,
Speaker 1: because he talked to the New York Times, he said,
Speaker 1: she finds it particularly insulting and infuriating that these rumors
Speaker 1: that that's how they met won't go away. And he said,
Speaker 1: she finds it very insulting. So she said she wanted
Speaker 1: to make a statement, and I said, says Trump, if
Speaker 1: you want to do that, you can do that. If
Speaker 1: she wants to do it. I didn't recommend it, but
Speaker 1: I said, I let it be her. I said, if
Speaker 1: you want to do it, do it. And apparently she
Speaker 1: did it.
Speaker 4: In Milania's defense, just because Trump doesn't recommend well, like
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be taking Trump's advice on how to deal
Speaker 4: with anything. So good on her for ignoring that. I
Speaker 4: think this is the biggest evidence of how we are
Speaker 4: all living in our own algorithm bubbles. So Milania clearly
Speaker 4: on x or truth Social or Instagram or whatever social
Speaker 4: media platforms she's on, she's getting so to this content.
Speaker 1: She's seen a lot of it.
Speaker 4: We're getting Coachell and she's getting this and so she
Speaker 4: maybe she has I assume she has a Google a
Speaker 4: lot on her name. Oh my god, So she is
Speaker 4: getting all this stuff and so for her, she's like everyone,
Speaker 4: they won't stop talking about me and Epstein, and it's like, lady,
Speaker 4: there's a war, Like nobody was looking at that thinking
Speaker 4: about that. Also in terms of I guess the accusations
Speaker 4: slash moral failings of that family, this like this one
Speaker 4: was bad, but it honestly wasn't the worst. It's so
Speaker 4: so so weird, and the fact that it didn't it
Speaker 4: wasn't even clear really what she was dressing, because she's like,
Speaker 4: I was not Epstein's victim, but also I wasn't like
Speaker 4: part of it.
Speaker 2: And it's like which rumor, what room?
Speaker 4: I don't know what the rumors are.
Speaker 1: Well, her name came up in the Epstein files with
Speaker 1: email exchanges with Glene Maxwell right, which were redacted, and
Speaker 1: she addressed that in this speech and said and said
Speaker 1: they were just very polite email responses to being invited
Speaker 1: to things or whatever.
Speaker 2: She did call her.
Speaker 1: G She did call her gen Nick. It does sound
Speaker 1: a little bit friendly. But that's one thing that she
Speaker 1: was specifically rebutting. But the thing that's interesting in this
Speaker 1: that's just the general chaos of that house really and
Speaker 1: this era, is that a lot of people think that
Speaker 1: a lot of what Trump's doing is to distract from
Speaker 1: the Epstein files. So it's like, but Mlani didn't get
Speaker 1: that membo. She was like, let's look back over here.
Speaker 1: But then maybe that also just tells us how bad
Speaker 1: the mess has got in the world. But now they're like,
Speaker 1: let's start talking about Epstein again. That seems like a
Speaker 1: better idea exactly.
Speaker 3: My advice for Milania is my favorite quote from Jemima Kirk.
Speaker 3: I think you're think you might yourself a bit too much.
Speaker 4: That's exactly it, speaking of what Milania is distracting from,
Speaker 4: they're in our fears the Middle East conflict could lead
Speaker 4: to higher food prices and even shortages. The Guardian run
Speaker 4: a story today about how shoppers are buying more and
Speaker 4: more canned goods like tomatoes and lentils and long life
Speaker 4: milk to fill out meals if there ends up being
Speaker 4: a really scary supply crisis.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, pantry Max.
Speaker 3: I live off ten goods because I don't cook an
Speaker 3: out of my tuna.
Speaker 1: Prices at like.
Speaker 2: Four dollars ten.
Speaker 1: It used to be three five.
Speaker 4: It's like, this is for lazy girls, This isn't for
Speaker 4: international crises. Ballarat resident Robin Power says families in her
Speaker 4: community are starting to shop like they did during the
Speaker 4: pandemic lockdown.
Speaker 2: Oh no, she said.
Speaker 4: People are worried the trucks will run out of diesel
Speaker 4: and won't be able to get goods to the shop,
Speaker 4: so they're trying to drive less often to go to
Speaker 4: the supermarket themselves. So they're getting staples because they last
Speaker 4: longer they can fill out a meal. People are thinking,
Speaker 4: if anything does happen, at least I've got baked beans
Speaker 4: and spaghetti. And this comes after news that the federal
Speaker 4: government is launching a multimillion dollar advertising campaign encouraging Australians
Speaker 4: to reduce high use, launches today as the global oil
Speaker 4: crisis persists, and it's called Every Little Bit Helps, and
Speaker 4: it asks the public to consider using their car less
Speaker 4: but also promotes all these tips to improve fuel efficiency.
Speaker 2: Which I very helpful.
Speaker 4: I had no idea about, such as driving smoothly not
Speaker 4: my strength, not my strength, and unloading excess weight.
Speaker 1: So all that shit you've got in the back of
Speaker 1: the car that you were taking to the charity shop,
Speaker 1: that you've been driving around for months.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're really meant to get rid of the problem.
Speaker 1: With this whole tin goods. Panic is so because because
Speaker 1: I grow my own food. Friends, you know that, right,
Speaker 1: except people message me and go tell me how to
Speaker 1: grow my own food. And I'm like, mate, if I
Speaker 1: was relying on the one capsicum and plants that I
Speaker 1: could turned out of my summer crop, I would be
Speaker 1: very very thin by the tinned goods. By the tinned goods.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's just not in a panicky way.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, I don't If.
Speaker 3: You don't like tuna, don't buy please, don't worry.
Speaker 2: I hate Thank god.
Speaker 1: This is my campaign. It's not like the government said,
Speaker 1: don't buy fuel you don't need it. It's like, don't buy
Speaker 1: my tuna, my specific brand tuna.
Speaker 2: Chili tuna.
Speaker 1: Leave it for me chili.
Speaker 3: After the Break, a millennial icon has walked back into
Speaker 3: the spotlight with a new memoir and I have never
Speaker 3: needed to read anything more. Lena Dunham sat down for
Speaker 3: an hour long interview with The New York Times and
Speaker 3: she spoke about some of the things that she discusses
Speaker 3: in the upcoming memo.
Speaker 1: I think it's out tomorrow. Actually.
Speaker 3: In Australia fourteen fourteen, fourteenth fame sick in the interview.
Speaker 3: The whole interview was a great advertisement for her book
Speaker 3: because now I need to read it even more than before.
Speaker 2: She knows how to clickbait.
Speaker 3: She knows how to clickbait. She talked about writing on Girls,
Speaker 3: the show she created when she was twenty four. She
Speaker 3: talked about breaking up with her co showrunner Jenny Connor.
Speaker 3: She talked about Adam Driver, which what we all wanted
Speaker 3: to hear about. She also talks about who she was
Speaker 3: most nervous about reading the book, to which she said
Speaker 3: her parents, and then when she asked when she was
Speaker 3: asked what they thought of it, she said, my father
Speaker 3: said one of the most amazing things, which is, it's
Speaker 3: hard for me to understand why anyone would want to
Speaker 3: publish a book such as this. Go dad, and it
Speaker 3: sounds exactly.
Speaker 1: Like my dad. Oh, I'm my dad for sure.
Speaker 3: Lena Dunham to me, she is I think now forty.
Speaker 3: She's nearly forty, nearly forty. I'm nearly thirty, so she's
Speaker 3: ten years older than me. I probably watched Girls seven
Speaker 3: or eight years after it came out, so when I
Speaker 3: watched it, it was kind of like she was in
Speaker 3: this height of cancelation where I was watching it, and
Speaker 3: I was so obsessed with it, but I wasn't allowed
Speaker 3: to tell people I was obsessed with it. So everyone
Speaker 3: I talked to about it, especially my older girlfriends, they
Speaker 3: would be like, oh, yeah, it was great at the time,
Speaker 3: but now, no, no, don't talk about it.
Speaker 1: Don't talk about it. Yeah, it got very quickly, it
Speaker 1: got revisionist history very quickly.
Speaker 3: Yes, And now I feel like it's had this second resurgence,
Speaker 3: especially with younger gen Z women. I have a sister
Speaker 3: who's twenty one who's just started watching it, and she's like,
Speaker 3: this is the best thing ever. So it was one
Speaker 3: of those shows that I felt like could have been
Speaker 3: like a friend or a sex in the City, but
Speaker 3: it just had like this distinct break where everyone just
Speaker 3: didn't acknowledge it existed, and didn't acknowledge she existed. And
Speaker 3: now it's like she's just started to creep her way
Speaker 3: back into the spotlight, and it's like we're all obsessed
Speaker 3: with her again. Except what I'm confused about is why
Speaker 3: this happened in the first place.
Speaker 4: Well, she so I listened to the New York Times,
Speaker 4: the Interview, the hour Long line, Oh she's on that,
Speaker 4: and there's a written version of it too, and it's
Speaker 4: absolutely brilliant. She's one of those people where she speaks
Speaker 4: and you're kind of nodding along, and then an hour
Speaker 4: later you're still.
Speaker 2: Thinking about one of the things she says.
Speaker 4: But what she's says in that is at the time
Speaker 4: that Girls aired, there were only and like think America
Speaker 4: bigger population. All of that, it was only being watched
Speaker 4: by about a million people an episode. Yet the commentary
Speaker 4: was so it was just saturating everything, and she makes
Speaker 4: the point that a lot of people who had a
Speaker 4: problem with her, who had a problem with the show,
Speaker 4: were not watching the show. It was more kind of
Speaker 4: the symbol of what she was and what she represented,
Speaker 4: which was millennial narcissism. The scene, that iconic scene, I
Speaker 4: think it's in the first episode where she says, I
Speaker 4: think I might be the voice of my generation, or
Speaker 4: at least a voice of a generation. There seemed to
Speaker 4: be a lot of people who didn't get that, didn't
Speaker 4: get that it was a joke and it was self aware,
Speaker 4: and so there was all this backlash, and you're right,
Speaker 4: she did have to disappear, although the show was.
Speaker 2: On for a very long time.
Speaker 4: I think twenty four till she was like, it's twenty several.
Speaker 3: Seasons, twenty twelve to twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and so she but after that she did
Speaker 4: kind of disappear because she just could not cope with
Speaker 4: the absolute beating her reputation has taken well.
Speaker 1: And also, and if anyone is like a little bit like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Lena donnamight I know who she is? Broadly, there's an
Speaker 1: episode of out Loud. We'll dig it up. We'll put
Speaker 1: the link in the show notes where Amelia and Mia
Speaker 1: and Jesse I think went through kind of like all
Speaker 1: her supposed crimes, like the sort of background to her
Speaker 1: various cancelations. And it's very satisfying because she disappeared because
Speaker 1: of that, but also a whole lot of other things,
Speaker 1: which is what this book is about. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of not unrelated in a way to what we're talking
Speaker 1: about with Biber, I mean different, different, But it's called
Speaker 1: Famesick because she said, you know, she during that period
Speaker 1: of time when the show is on, she went from
Speaker 1: being just a kind of arty, privileged artie kid from
Speaker 1: New York City to being one of the most famous
Speaker 1: women in America. Even though, as you say, not everybody
Speaker 1: was watching the show, but she also was dealing with
Speaker 1: massive health issues and mental health issues and addiction issues.
Speaker 1: So like, in this very short period of time, everything
Speaker 1: rushed at her. And she says that her retreat was
Speaker 1: a choice in many ways. She went to rehab, she
Speaker 1: got various treatments for her I think it's basically a
Speaker 1: form of vender meets triosis, but also a neurological yes,
Speaker 1: So she got treatments, and she moved to England and
Speaker 1: she's now married to an English guy, and I think
Speaker 1: like her life looks very different to how it looked then.
Speaker 1: So she's reflecting on this very intense period. And the
Speaker 1: thing I thought when I was listening to that interview,
Speaker 1: which was brilliant, The title of that interview was the
Speaker 1: question that she must get asked all the time, which imagine,
Speaker 1: if this is the question that everybody asks you all
Speaker 1: the time, why why do you annoy everyone so much?
Speaker 1: I was basically I can't remember exactly what the title was,
Speaker 1: but it's basically a variation on the things she always
Speaker 1: get asked are why are you so annoying? And why
Speaker 1: does everyone hate you? Basically the two questions that this
Speaker 1: incredibly accomplished artist gets asked over and over, and the
Speaker 1: thing that I can't get out of my mind is
Speaker 1: why you would ever step back into that arena? Why
Speaker 1: you would choose to write a memoir that I can't
Speaker 1: wait to read. I haven't read it, and I can't
Speaker 1: wait to read it. But the promotional cycle that goes
Speaker 1: with that, like it's a choice, right, Yeah?
Speaker 4: Well she I think her answer to that question of basically,
Speaker 4: why do you annoy people so much? Was so good
Speaker 4: because she acknowledges that since she was in preschool, she's
Speaker 4: annoyed people, She's annoyed.
Speaker 2: Other children, she's annoyed, she's just all.
Speaker 4: And I found that really freeing today because I I
Speaker 4: was just very honest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I was like, I.
Speaker 4: Think I was that kid, and I don't know, like
Speaker 4: I wasn't aware of why I was annoying everyone. But
Speaker 4: it's quite nice to hear somebody be that forthcoming about
Speaker 4: that and a little bit self aware that I'm not critical.
Speaker 1: But I also think it is revisionist history that she
Speaker 1: says that, because I'm sure that's true. To point. The
Speaker 1: thing that I thought lots when I was listening to
Speaker 1: this interview is that like, we do this to people
Speaker 1: all the time, where we hold them up and go
Speaker 1: this woman in particular, we do it to women, represents
Speaker 1: all these things. So the things that you just talked about, Claire,
Speaker 1: like millennial narcissism, woke culture, body positivity or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: that then we want to get irritated with and throw
Speaker 1: rocks at her head. And what you actually get when
Speaker 1: you listen to what Lena Dunham is saying is she
Speaker 1: is a very particular person with a very particular story.
Speaker 1: She grew up in a very rarefied world. She's the
Speaker 1: daughter of artists in New York City who grew up
Speaker 1: in a loft and spent her time going to performance
Speaker 1: art and you know, foreign films, and she was right
Speaker 1: precociously creating art that then got a platform because of
Speaker 1: who her family was from a very young age. She's
Speaker 1: not an every woman, and yet we want to project
Speaker 1: like every woman onto her when really she's just one
Speaker 1: very specific woman telling a very specific story that has
Speaker 1: some applications to other people.
Speaker 4: And she sort of That was ultimately the big criticism
Speaker 4: of her. I feel like she her rise intersected with
Speaker 4: so many different movements. She got a lot of criticism
Speaker 4: as I think America was becoming a bit more aware
Speaker 4: of representations of race in popular culture. People were saying,
Speaker 4: you're making a show about New York City and everyone's white,
Speaker 4: And you could see her try to figure that out
Speaker 4: in real time, which is awkward to watch somebody clearly
Speaker 4: realize that they're doing something wrong. But it's also you're thinking, well,
Speaker 4: we've all got blind spots. But I have been thinking
Speaker 4: about Lena Dunham for a couple of years now because
Speaker 4: when I was finishing my book and then when I
Speaker 4: was doing some interviews about it, I got asked basically,
Speaker 4: what was the story or what was the thing about
Speaker 4: people getting canceled? And I use that word. You know
Speaker 4: it's a loaded word, but you know, people getting their
Speaker 4: reputation destroyed. What example was it that made you drawn
Speaker 4: to this subject? And I think the trajectory of Lena
Speaker 4: Dunham's career was so unconsciously. It unconsciously shaped a lot
Speaker 4: of how I felt throughout my twenties in that I
Speaker 4: almost think it gave a lot of people internalized shame
Speaker 4: because you watched Lena Dunham. I remember being early twenties
Speaker 4: watching girls and thinking I've never seen anything like this.
Speaker 4: I've never seen a woman who is that frickin' funny
Speaker 4: and doesn't give a shit about how she's not conventionally beautiful, which.
Speaker 1: Is hilarious to say out loud.
Speaker 4: Now she says, she's like, I don't look like that anymore.
Speaker 4: But looking at that, and I just remember thinking I
Speaker 4: want to be her. I want to be her. I've
Speaker 4: just never worshiped anything like this, and to see that
Speaker 4: individual so brutally destroyed was really distressing, as like, I
Speaker 4: think there are probably a lot of women who see
Speaker 4: that and wanted to yell, this is still radical.
Speaker 2: This is still radical having a.
Speaker 4: Woman like that on screen and having a woman who's
Speaker 4: who this is a show about friendship, This is a
Speaker 4: show about imperfection, and we are saying it's not good enough.
Speaker 1: It was the time right because her that rise coincided
Speaker 1: exactly with like peak counselor and a cultural shift that
Speaker 1: I think we're on the other side of now really
Speaker 1: where she was almost like the example held up for
Speaker 1: what could happen to you? But I have a radical
Speaker 1: question about this right her life now, as per her
Speaker 1: description of it, she's very happy. She gets to make
Speaker 1: loads of art that she loves making. She writes for
Speaker 1: other people, she writes for herself, she works on films.
Speaker 1: She says herself, like that living away from that, the
Speaker 1: heat of that constant perception, constantly being looked at and
Speaker 1: perceived as great. So I think, why do we feel like,
Speaker 1: why do we feel like there's something sad about that?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Because maybe that's why I
Speaker 1: think her dad would have said, why would you write
Speaker 1: this book? Because I'm not saying why would you write
Speaker 1: this book? I think that she's written, I'm sure a
Speaker 1: beautiful memoir about a really important cultural moment. There's no
Speaker 1: question that that period of of pop culture is fascinating.
Speaker 1: But you're also stepping back into an arena that at
Speaker 1: the time we all thought it was really important to
Speaker 1: be in the arena and say what you think and
Speaker 1: have the arguments and did Da da Da, and many
Speaker 1: of us have discovered through getting burnt doing that that
Speaker 1: actually like back away from the arena and do what
Speaker 1: you want to do and put out what you want
Speaker 1: to put out. Like I don't know, I guess what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say is why do we think it's
Speaker 1: a tragedy? To not be that kind of famous anymore.
Speaker 3: I think right now it feels like she's elevated herself
Speaker 3: above all the work she's created recently.
Speaker 2: I remember a lot of reading a lot of.
Speaker 3: The backlash when I started watching Girls for the first time,
Speaker 3: and I think it came due to she was so
Speaker 3: young when she created that show. She was twenty four.
Speaker 3: Her main character, Hannah, is the person that she also
Speaker 3: played in the show, and there were so many direct
Speaker 3: comparisons to Hannah and her real life about wanting to
Speaker 3: be an up and coming writer. And the issue with
Speaker 3: The every Woman is that she was in every Woman,
Speaker 3: but she was writing the every Woman, and that's the
Speaker 3: biggest issue I think people took with it, like everyone
Speaker 3: knew she was an EPO baby and she had like
Speaker 3: this amount of privilege, and yet she was writing about
Speaker 3: these four girls who literally came from nothing and thought
Speaker 3: they were the center of everyone's universe, which is how
Speaker 3: everybody feels, which is happen everyone feels in their twenties.
Speaker 3: But I think it came from this group of people
Speaker 3: who were like, but you don't know that everyone feels
Speaker 3: like that in your twenties because you weren't experiencing that,
Speaker 3: and I think now with the shows she's creating, like
Speaker 3: the latest one Too Much with Megan Salter, I think
Speaker 3: that was the first show I saw of hers where
Speaker 3: everyone was like, this is a really good show and
Speaker 3: it happens to be created by Lena Dunno.
Speaker 1: She also made a movie like She's She and they
Speaker 1: couldn't get any project green lit.
Speaker 3: But it feels like her now she's able to do
Speaker 3: the memoir and like come back as like Lena Dunham
Speaker 3: the person, because that's not going to get reconnected to
Speaker 3: the work she's doing.
Speaker 4: I do think though, like what you say about the
Speaker 4: criticism of Girls and even it happened with two Much,
Speaker 4: I do think it's a uniquely female experience that you
Speaker 4: make art and everybody analyzes how it does or doesn't
Speaker 4: reflect your real life and whether you have the right
Speaker 4: to tell that story. So with Girls, I remember thinking nobody,
Speaker 4: no man, who's making a TV show. Nobody was looking
Speaker 4: at you know, Seinfeld and being like, well you didn't
Speaker 4: consider X y Z. And I know it's a different
Speaker 4: time and all of that, but I do think it's
Speaker 4: uniquely female that we analyze it to that extent, And
Speaker 4: with too much. It was very much people, and I
Speaker 4: did it drawing parallels between her relationship with Jack Antnoff
Speaker 4: and all of that.
Speaker 2: But in terms of the why, the why.
Speaker 4: For her doing this because it is what her father says,
Speaker 4: and you do think it while you're listening to her speaking,
Speaker 4: I think ultimately we all have a deep human instinct
Speaker 4: to be understood, and I think she probably still feels misunderstood,
Speaker 4: like from everything when you go back and look at
Speaker 4: all the stuff that she got quote unquote canceled for.
Speaker 4: So much of it is absurd and some of it
Speaker 4: is really legitimate, which she acknowledges that she needed to
Speaker 4: apologize for things and that she did. But I do
Speaker 4: think that you can tell she kind of outwardly says,
Speaker 4: this isn't what she's doing, but I think she wants
Speaker 4: to be understood.
Speaker 1: And I also thing she wants to sell a book,
Speaker 1: which is wrong with that, and she's doing it very
Speaker 1: well like her role out for it's been great. But
Speaker 1: here's the thing. I think it's interesting if fame makes
Speaker 1: you sick, which we know it does to a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and she says in that interview, never give
Speaker 1: someone under thirty Lots of money, nothing good will come
Speaker 1: of it, you know, like all of those things there are.
Speaker 1: Culture and history is littered with examples of people who
Speaker 1: get really successful and really famous young and it doesn't
Speaker 1: go well. And it seems like she's in a good place.
Speaker 1: Last week, one of the best selling words at her
Speaker 1: times unmasked herself. If you've ever read The Housemaid, such
Speaker 1: a good book or seen the movie, it's written by
Speaker 1: a woman called Freedom McFadden. Now what you may or
Speaker 1: may not know is that that's not the real writer's name,
Speaker 1: and that she's also written twenty five books, and that
Speaker 1: until last week nobody knew who she was. Those books,
Speaker 1: The Housemate and all the others have sold more than
Speaker 1: thirty six million copies. So we are talking about an
Speaker 1: unbelievably successful author. She at one point last year I think,
Speaker 1: had like thirteen books in the top one hundred or
Speaker 1: something crazy like. That's certainly three in the top ten
Speaker 1: in New York. She's a best selling author in Britain,
Speaker 1: all over the world. She is actually a doctor called
Speaker 1: Sarah Cohen. She's forty five. She's a physician who specializes
Speaker 1: in brain disorders, and she started writing because she loves it. Obviously,
Speaker 1: because why wouldn't you, And she started self publishing under
Speaker 1: a pseudonym because she was a doctor, and she was like,
Speaker 1: I thought that maybe one day my goal would be
Speaker 1: to keep it secret until I was ready to step
Speaker 1: back from my doctor job, so it wouldn't be like
Speaker 1: everyone I worked with suddenly new and it compromised my
Speaker 1: ability to do my job. Fair enough, But when you've
Speaker 1: sold that many books, you could have very happily sailed
Speaker 1: off into the sunset as freedom McFadden for a really
Speaker 1: long time, forever, like you don't need the spotlight. Because
Speaker 1: when I saw last week that she had told a
Speaker 1: journalist her real name, her real face, her real everything.
Speaker 1: She often wears a wig if she's out in public,
Speaker 1: and stuff to disguise herself, I thought, oh, mate, because
Speaker 1: now everyone's going to do to her what you were
Speaker 1: just describing Claire, which is what we particularly do to women,
Speaker 1: where instead of just going, oh, she wrote this book.
Speaker 1: I love this book, we go who is this woman?
Speaker 1: Which bits of her life are in this book? Does
Speaker 1: she deserve to tell this story? Oh she's married to
Speaker 1: so and so, or she's not married to so and so,
Speaker 1: or she has kids, or she doesn't have kids or
Speaker 1: whatever that now we're obsessed with finding out about the
Speaker 1: people who create the things we like. And I it's
Speaker 1: such a dilemma to me that I would not to
Speaker 1: me personally, obviously, But if I was Freedom McFadden, why
Speaker 1: would I ever not just stay behind the scenes and
Speaker 1: count my money and write the book I want to
Speaker 1: write and live in a big, beautiful house and get
Speaker 1: to walk through the streets with no one knowing who
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 4: I think there is also a human instinct to take
Speaker 4: credit and to put them to be known and to
Speaker 4: be known like and I think that it is like
Speaker 4: you always have this weird thing, Holly, where you want
Speaker 4: to be out of Elton, John and Bernie talk in
Speaker 4: you want to be Bernie Well, because.
Speaker 1: Fame isn't good for anyone.
Speaker 3: No, yeah, but I'm type three and achiever.
Speaker 1: It is good for me. But it's not though you
Speaker 1: don't know what I mean. Like achieving is the money,
Speaker 1: the recognition, the respect of your peers, like all those things,
Speaker 1: But there are very few people in the world who'll
Speaker 1: tell you, Oh, it's amazing that I can walk down
Speaker 1: the street and everyone stares at me and I can't, you.
Speaker 3: Know, what I mean, Okay, but imagine like you wrote
Speaker 3: under an alias, and then you're walking along and you
Speaker 3: meet someone and they're like, I just read the most
Speaker 3: amazing books. I think, if you don't want to be
Speaker 3: like me by this or the named Wally Hayne Wright,
Speaker 3: have you heard of it? It's so good, there's no
Speaker 3: way you're going to be like wow.
Speaker 1: What I think is because obviously my real life, like
Speaker 1: we all use social media and all of these things
Speaker 1: to work, like to promote ourselves and promote our books,
Speaker 1: and i live publicly in lots of ways, and I've
Speaker 1: got the teeniest tiniest taste of what it feels like
Speaker 1: for people to recognize you and come up and say
Speaker 1: I love what you do, and it does feel really good.
Speaker 1: But also I've got the teeniest tiniest taste of what
Speaker 1: it feels like to know that people are looking at
Speaker 1: you in a room. And I mean, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to sound like a dickhead, like I've got the
Speaker 1: teeniest tiniest little midgeon of that. If I imagine that
Speaker 1: multiplied and multiplied and multiplied, I can't see where it
Speaker 1: goes anywhere good. And just though I guess in my mind.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wouldn't it be amazing to be Freedom mcfannon
Speaker 1: and be or Lena Dunham and get to live my
Speaker 1: beautiful life. It's too late for her, She's already famous.
Speaker 1: Live my beautiful life, create my beautiful art, have financial
Speaker 1: success and respect and not the fame bit.
Speaker 4: But I think, as these are both writers that we're
Speaker 4: referring to, obviously Freedom mcfathm's fiction and Lena Dunham has
Speaker 4: written memoir, I think when you're a writer, your whole
Speaker 4: life is about making sense of yourself, and it's incredibly narcissistic,
Speaker 4: but like wrestling with who am I and what is
Speaker 4: my story and all of that. I completely Lena Dunham
Speaker 4: coming back and writing this memoir feels like the most
Speaker 4: inevitable thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh for sure, it really does.
Speaker 1: And she'll write another one in twenty years about this
Speaker 1: period of her life.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: And I, as somebody who have followed her and adored
Speaker 4: girls and scene the trajectory of her career, I think
Speaker 4: that there is enormous value in her writing that memoir
Speaker 4: and her coming out now and speak thing about those experiences.
Speaker 4: And I think it would be a huge shame if
Speaker 4: women like her were publicly shamed to the extent that
Speaker 4: they retreated from public life and never came back.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Because then public life, the public arena, would only be
Speaker 4: occupied by a certain type of woman who is not
Speaker 4: Lena Dunham and a certain set of experience.
Speaker 1: I agree with you entirely on that, because one of
Speaker 1: the things you hear all the time is why women
Speaker 1: often don't want to put themselves forward for leadership positions
Speaker 1: that are public facing, for political positions that are public facing,
Speaker 1: is because they know that the amount we've all seen,
Speaker 1: as you've just expressed, like the cautionary tale of what
Speaker 1: happens if the world or the internet decides that you're
Speaker 1: the wrong type of woman. We all know that right,
Speaker 1: and it would be a shame. I entirely agree. I
Speaker 1: just I wrestle with that idea of how you who
Speaker 1: can handle it? Like who can handle that level of
Speaker 1: attention and criticism and push on. I'm very glad that
Speaker 1: she is. Don't get me wrong, I'm not like shut
Speaker 1: up lady at all about her. I think she's fascinated,
Speaker 1: But I also think, wow, you must have balls, and.
Speaker 4: For anyone, for anyone listening who deals with chronic illness
Speaker 4: or chronic pain. There's a very interesting theory that the
Speaker 4: interviewer puts forward in that New York Times interview that
Speaker 4: she's basically able to withstand such negative negative feedback, such
Speaker 4: like social torture, because of what she's been going through
Speaker 4: physically her whole life. And I think that's a really
Speaker 4: interesting theory for anybody who has lived with chronic illness.
Speaker 2: That was good.
Speaker 4: That was good, That was very meaty.
Speaker 2: That was a big.
Speaker 1: Interesting out louders. I'm not saying that was good to you,
Speaker 1: because you get to decide that. You're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that was Laura out loud as Happy Monday. Thank you
Speaker 1: for being here with us, for having us in your ears.
Speaker 1: As always, we adore you. We'll be back with you
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. Mire, we're back, which all right, we'll be
Speaker 1: back to you on Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Bye.
Speaker 4: Mummy acknowledges the traditional owners
Speaker 2: Of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.