Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Mama Mia out Loud. It's what
Speaker 2: women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the twenty eighth
Speaker 2: of January.
Speaker 3: I'm Holly Wainwright, I'm Amelia Luster.
Speaker 4: And I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2: And here's what's on our agenda for today. The latest
Speaker 2: chapter in a very public Australian cheating scandal and what
Speaker 2: it tells us about a woman scorned in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: And we've been reading a lot of celebrity text messages
Speaker 1: these last couple of days, and it turns out they
Speaker 1: really are just like us and Minneapolis.
Speaker 4: What is going on? What does the video footage tell us?
Speaker 4: And where to from here?
Speaker 3: But first, Jesse Stevens, In.
Speaker 4: Case you missed it, Coco Goff, the twenty one year
Speaker 4: old US tennis player who last night lost to Ukrainian
Speaker 4: Elena Spittelina at the Australian Open, wishes we hadn't seen
Speaker 4: that video. So she lost in under an hour. It
Speaker 4: was very decisive and in the aftermath she was caught
Speaker 4: on video. You would have seen it if you've clicked
Speaker 4: on any articles today or you've had the TV on
Speaker 4: of her just smashing that tennis racket on like a
Speaker 4: concrete ramp.
Speaker 2: She's gone a little bit behind a wall. Yep, so
Speaker 2: she's like hiding herself from view. Yes, but there's a
Speaker 2: camera up behind her the right everything exactly.
Speaker 4: And so that has been broadcast all around the world.
Speaker 4: And look, a tennis player losing and then smashing a
Speaker 4: racket not unusual. What is unusual is how unimpressed golf was.
Speaker 4: And she expressed this that that moment was broadcast. So
Speaker 4: in a post match press conference, she said, certain moments
Speaker 4: I feel like they don't need to be broadcast. I
Speaker 4: tried to go somewhere where I thought there wasn't a
Speaker 4: camera because I don't necessarily like breaking rackets. I broke
Speaker 4: one racket at the French Open. This was a few
Speaker 4: years ago. I said I'd never do it again on
Speaker 4: court because I don't feel like that's a good representation.
Speaker 4: So yeah, maybe some conversations can be had. And she
Speaker 4: said that she wanted to take herself away so that
Speaker 4: she didn't take it out on her team, and she
Speaker 4: doesn't like to set a bad example for kids who
Speaker 4: are watching, who watch someone just lose their temper.
Speaker 3: Tic tick Coco Goff is.
Speaker 4: My pictick at the time where recording there's talk of
Speaker 4: a potential fine fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: I don't think smashing the racket. Yes, behind the scenes, yes.
Speaker 4: So if you are playing a Grand Slam. The rules
Speaker 4: state that players shall not violently, dangerously or with anger, hit, kick,
Speaker 4: or throw a racket or other equipment within the precincts
Speaker 4: of the tournament site.
Speaker 3: Does that why Nick Kurrios stop playing?
Speaker 4: He's gone quiet, hasn't he?
Speaker 3: That's a little bit.
Speaker 4: Now what do we think? I'm not sure what I
Speaker 4: make of this, because, I mean, do we expect them
Speaker 4: not to broadcast it? The cameras are there. This is
Speaker 4: part of the theater of tennis. It's not like a
Speaker 4: camera chaster in. It's not like a guy with a
Speaker 4: camera chaster in and invaded her privacy in that way.
Speaker 4: I think it's fair game. What do you reckon, Amelia?
Speaker 1: I do think we're just seeing too much these days,
Speaker 1: just in everything, including the tennis. On the weekend, I
Speaker 1: was subjected to Novak Djokovic's foot like a closer of
Speaker 1: his foot as it was getting a band aid put
Speaker 1: on it, and I just thought, why do.
Speaker 4: I need to see now, I don't want to google that.
Speaker 1: Well, you can google feet in your own time, but
Speaker 1: I don't have to watch them.
Speaker 5: As the point, I don't know.
Speaker 4: It's like, isn't this why they are paid so much
Speaker 4: money because we are going to broadcast them tantrums, feet, injuries,
Speaker 4: all of it.
Speaker 3: I have a lot of sympathy for her.
Speaker 2: She said that she's felt like at this tournament, and
Speaker 2: she made appointed this tournament dig she feels like the
Speaker 2: only place where you're not on cameras in the change rooms.
Speaker 2: And the reason I have a lot of sympathy for
Speaker 2: I think is that she's trying to play against a
Speaker 2: lot of stereotypes about because she's really young, you know,
Speaker 2: it's really young player, about angry women, about all those things.
Speaker 2: She's trying to play against those stereotypes by keeping her
Speaker 2: tanty and frustration private and then everyone saw it.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I would be really pissed off too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you could go to the bathroom. You could
Speaker 4: go to the bathroom, Like I'm thinking, she.
Speaker 3: Couldn't make it to the bathroom.
Speaker 4: She was too angry. She was like in NRL, you've
Speaker 4: got cameras in the locker room. F one you've got
Speaker 4: broadcasting what they're saying to each other. I think that
Speaker 4: access is increasing to all sports people like we are
Speaker 4: seeing them. Certainly the access is and sorry, but we
Speaker 4: want it, Like look at how viral this footage went.
Speaker 2: The thing about this is that she will be labeled
Speaker 2: in some quarters as a tennis brat, right, which is
Speaker 2: a cliche that is handed around a lot, not only
Speaker 2: to women, I mean, obviously lots to men that she
Speaker 2: clearly is actively trying to play against by not taking
Speaker 2: out on her team, not yelling at people on court,
Speaker 2: not doing any of those things.
Speaker 3: And is that fair?
Speaker 1: I'm going to argue against myself here having said that
Speaker 1: we see too much. On the other hand, part of
Speaker 1: the reason why we watch sport is not just for
Speaker 1: the athletic achievement. It is because it is interesting to
Speaker 1: us as humans to watch other humans deal with enormous
Speaker 1: psychological pressure and to see how they deal with it,
Speaker 1: and sports people try and keep it under wraps in
Speaker 1: a way that us ordinary people could never do. We
Speaker 1: were talking before about how Jesse, you and I if
Speaker 1: we were professional tennis players.
Speaker 5: We would absolutely be labeled as hottheads.
Speaker 1: I would absolutely be arguing with the umpire routinely, so
Speaker 1: I have nothing but sympathy for them. But that's part
Speaker 1: of why we like watching sport. We like watching people
Speaker 1: under pressure.
Speaker 4: I found this incredibly relatable. I didn't judge her for it.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, will.
Speaker 4: And you know, I understand she's trying to play against that.
Speaker 4: She's a woman. We're a lot harsher on women, not
Speaker 4: to mention black women. We saw it with the Williams sisters,
Speaker 4: like the idea that you've got a.
Speaker 5: Temper that you can't control to a higher stand.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think tennis in particular, like any sport that's solo,
Speaker 4: you see these outbursts and they have been part and
Speaker 4: parcel of what tennis is since the game began.
Speaker 5: So sny Caveman with fashioning rackets out of tweet.
Speaker 4: It's whether or not in grass or clay. I mean,
Speaker 4: I kind of love moments like this. So maybe I'm
Speaker 4: just a bit of a perf and I just want
Speaker 4: to see people as this shit.
Speaker 3: Look.
Speaker 2: I think Amelia started twenty twenty six thinking maybe there'll
Speaker 2: be a show sometime where I don't have to do
Speaker 2: an explainer about some helli ish shit that has been
Speaker 2: unleashed in America.
Speaker 3: This week is not that week. Sorry, Amelia.
Speaker 2: We need you to help us understand what is going
Speaker 2: on in America right now. If you've been seeing headlines
Speaker 2: and frankly, very distressing videos all over your feeds about
Speaker 2: what's going on in Minneapolis at the moment, She's gonna
Speaker 2: tell us, and we're also going to get a little
Speaker 2: glimpse into a movie you might be seeing Ads Force,
Speaker 2: starring the First Lady. But first, Amelia, can we start
Speaker 2: with the videos. There has been incredibly distressing footage coming
Speaker 2: out of Minneapolis, not just this week but for a month.
Speaker 2: But everything seemed to really come to another head on
Speaker 2: Sunday with the shooting of a young man.
Speaker 3: Can you tell us a bit about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're referring to the fact that there've been
Speaker 1: two civilians killed this month in Minneapolis, which is a
Speaker 1: city in the state of Minnesota, and both of these
Speaker 1: killings were captured on mobile phones by many people who
Speaker 1: were there. The first killing was of a woman named
Speaker 1: Renee Good. She was a poet, she was a mother
Speaker 1: of three, and she was in her car talking with
Speaker 1: an Immigration and Customs enforcement agent. And we'll get to
Speaker 1: who those people are in a minute, but she actually says.
Speaker 1: Her last words in the video are she says to
Speaker 1: this Ice agent, I'm not mad at you, and she
Speaker 1: is seen visibly turning her car around to get away
Speaker 1: from him, to get away from this tense confrontation with someone,
Speaker 1: and then she is shot four times, including in the head,
Speaker 1: and a man's voice is heard afterwards calling her a
Speaker 1: fucking bitch'nbelievably distressing, it's very upsetting. And then the second
Speaker 1: video footage that people may have seen involves the killing
Speaker 1: of Alex Pretty, who was.
Speaker 5: Also in his thirties.
Speaker 1: He was an icy U nurse at a veterans hospital
Speaker 1: and the video that we've seen there is it's become
Speaker 1: pretty clear that he was actually attempting to stand in
Speaker 1: front of a woman who was being gassed by ice agents.
Speaker 1: He wanted to stop her from getting the gas in her.
Speaker 5: Eyes, yep.
Speaker 1: And then he is tackled to the ground by ice
Speaker 1: agents and then they shot him multiple times after they
Speaker 1: tackled him. And both of these videos are pretty bad,
Speaker 1: they're pretty difficult to watch, they're very upsetting, but it's
Speaker 1: interesting that renee Good was killed in the first week
Speaker 1: of January Alex Preddy was killed this past weekend, and
Speaker 1: it does seem that the pretty case is the one
Speaker 1: that is really turning the tide of public opinion against
Speaker 1: what the Trump administration is doing in Minneapolis.
Speaker 3: And what is that?
Speaker 2: So if we don't understand what these ICE raids are
Speaker 2: that are bringing sort of protesters and these agents into
Speaker 2: such close context, well, what is meant to be happening there?
Speaker 2: What is Trump trying to achieve by sending in these guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Immigrations and Customs enforcement agents, they're called ICE agents.
Speaker 1: They were sent to Minneapolis in what was called the
Speaker 1: biggest immigration enforcement action ever. There were two thousand of
Speaker 1: them who were sent there over the course of January. Now,
Speaker 1: to put that in context for Australian listeners, Minneapolis is
Speaker 1: about the size of Canberra population wise, but it's actually
Speaker 1: much genser. So it's like as if Canberra was sort
Speaker 1: of packed together population wise about half a million people.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine that if two armed people came
Speaker 1: to Canberra and were dragging people out of their homes,
Speaker 1: arresting people, detaining people because they say that they are
Speaker 1: in the country illegally. Although there's plenty of evidence that
Speaker 1: they were also detaining people who were in the country legally.
Speaker 1: That would be very upsetting for the residents of Canberra,
Speaker 1: and they might try and do things to help protect
Speaker 1: their neighbors, as people in Minneapolis are doing so. They
Speaker 1: are blowing whistles to let neighbors know that ICE agents
Speaker 1: are coming into their street. They are following ICE agents.
Speaker 1: The governor of Minnesota, Tim Waaltz, who was Kamala Harris's
Speaker 1: vice presidential candidate, he has actually asked residents in Minneapolis
Speaker 1: to get out their phones and to record what the
Speaker 1: ICE agents are doing. That's part of why we have
Speaker 1: just so much footage of these shocking killings.
Speaker 4: So can you tell me who the ICE agents are?
Speaker 4: Are they like police? Are they separate to police? Who
Speaker 4: are they working for? Because they just seem like this
Speaker 4: other species of law enforcement if you would even call
Speaker 4: it that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are another species of law enforcement. Look, if
Speaker 1: you're curious as to who they want to join ICE
Speaker 1: the Trump administration, I would suggest you go to the
Speaker 1: website ICE dot gov slash join. I looked at this
Speaker 1: website last week and it was kind of shocking. It
Speaker 1: doesn't look like a boring website with government jobs. You
Speaker 1: know what government websites look like. They're usually pretty boring.
Speaker 1: There's some sort of like stock art of people standing
Speaker 1: around a conference table smiling at each other. No, that's
Speaker 1: not what they have on this website. It's very stark,
Speaker 1: and there's just this really big text and it reads
Speaker 1: America has been invaded by criminals and predators. We need
Speaker 1: you to get them out. You do not need an
Speaker 1: undergraduate degree. Good news, Holley. So yeah, if you join,
Speaker 1: And it's pretty clear from this that they just want
Speaker 1: anyone who feels angry at immigrants to come and join them.
Speaker 1: The training process has been really shortened ever since the
Speaker 1: Trump administration decided that immigration enforcement was their nother one priority.
Speaker 1: So they have allocated more money to US than any
Speaker 1: military anywhere in the world except the US military. That's
Speaker 1: how much money they have.
Speaker 2: And they're moving quickly, right, So they're recruiting these people
Speaker 2: and sending them out because they've sent them into other
Speaker 2: cities too, haven't they. So they're sort of moving them
Speaker 2: around the country almost.
Speaker 1: Yes, And there is some anecdotal evidence. We know they've
Speaker 1: really shortened training period for them. So ICE agents used
Speaker 1: to be trained for sixteen weeks, which I think is
Speaker 1: a reasonable amount of time for people who are allowed
Speaker 1: to walk around with guns, like dragging people out of
Speaker 1: their homes. But that's been shortened to forty seven days,
Speaker 1: which happens to be the number President Trump is. He's
Speaker 1: the forty seventh president.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't seem like long enough to train people
Speaker 1: to use guns and to detain people.
Speaker 4: And how is it that these videos come up? I
Speaker 4: have chosen not to watch these videos, but what I
Speaker 4: have seen is then like press conferences of people in
Speaker 4: their government denying what's in the videos and saying like, oh,
Speaker 4: he was a threat, he was armed, she did this,
Speaker 4: she did that. There seems to be these two counter
Speaker 4: narratives operating, and neither side can even speak to each
Speaker 4: other on the basis of fact.
Speaker 5: So let's get this out of the way. Alex pretty was,
Speaker 5: in fact armed.
Speaker 1: He was carrying a gun as the second amen, Yes,
Speaker 1: he was legally allowed to carry this gun, and it
Speaker 1: was I guess in his pocket or not visible. And
Speaker 1: he was holding up his phone in one hand and
Speaker 1: an open palm in his other. So what the Trump
Speaker 1: administration has tried to say is that he was coming
Speaker 1: to this protest to massacre law enforcement. But it turns
Speaker 1: out from the video that law enforcement didn't know that
Speaker 1: he had a gun until they tackled him. So the
Speaker 1: notion that they decided to go after this guy because
Speaker 1: he was brandishing a gun is not true. The interesting
Speaker 1: thing about this is that Minneapolis may ring a bell
Speaker 1: for some listeners as the place where George Floyd was
Speaker 1: murdered in twenty twenty and which led to the on
Speaker 1: mass black Lives Matter protests that happened in the American
Speaker 1: summer of twenty twenty. That murder was committed by Minneapolis
Speaker 1: police officers. But what's happening now is that the Minneapolis
Speaker 1: police is saying, we have tried really hard since twenty
Speaker 1: twenty to build relationships and trust back in the community,
Speaker 1: and now these ice agents who are separate from the
Speaker 1: police are coming in, They are brandishing guns, they are
Speaker 1: detaining people who are in the country legally, and they're
Speaker 1: eroding a lot of that trust that the police built
Speaker 1: up with the local community.
Speaker 5: So that brings us to what's happening.
Speaker 1: Now, which is that in the last twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: Trump has basically said, Okay, this went too far, which
Speaker 1: is fascinating.
Speaker 2: I've heard a lot of commentary which suggests that the
Speaker 2: videos and the fact that, for example, the shooting of
Speaker 2: Alex Prette, you can watch from every angle, right, So
Speaker 2: you were saying before that Tim Waltz said, go forth
Speaker 2: and film, and there's something a little bit there's very confronting,
Speaker 2: but it means that the spinning doesn't work. And I've
Speaker 2: seen a lot of commentary that's sort of saying that
Speaker 2: Trump is now looking at those videos and going, I
Speaker 2: can't satify as raw.
Speaker 1: And a key component is guess who's mad at him?
Speaker 1: The National Rifle Association the NRA. These are the people
Speaker 1: who for years have been pushing this idea that it
Speaker 1: is Americans god given right to carry guns, as outlined
Speaker 1: in the Second Amendment. You mentioned Jesse that school shootings
Speaker 1: happen because there aren't enough good guys with guns, And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Trump, a Republican president who is
Speaker 1: meant to be supported by the NRA, is saying that
Speaker 1: Alex pretty maybe deserve to be killed because he took
Speaker 1: a gun to a protest. This has angered them. So
Speaker 1: you're seeing all these interesting fractures in what used to
Speaker 1: be a coalition of say the police the NRA, the
Speaker 1: Republican president, and now that is all being torn apart,
Speaker 1: and Trump does not like that. He doesn't like feeling
Speaker 1: like his support base is dwindling, and Americans are saying
Speaker 1: in polls, we don't want we don't want people meted
Speaker 1: in the streets like It's fair to point out that
Speaker 1: a majority of Americans do want an immigration crackdown, that's
Speaker 1: what they voted for, and they also support ICE agents
Speaker 1: going into cities and doing this, but what they don't
Speaker 1: support is killing people.
Speaker 3: All of this sounds horrific.
Speaker 2: What I am seeing, though, is a lot of reporting
Speaker 2: from all kinds of publications in different places saying this
Speaker 2: is a turning point, This is a breaking point, this
Speaker 2: is going to be everything's going to change from here,
Speaker 2: maybe for the good.
Speaker 3: Maybe Trump's going to back down.
Speaker 5: Maybe.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that this particular incident or series
Speaker 2: of incidents has become quite so? I don't know if
Speaker 2: important is the right word, but seeing significant.
Speaker 1: Well, another incident that we haven't talked about, which I
Speaker 1: think has contributed to the sense that it's a turning point.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw that a five year
Speaker 1: old boy whose father was detained by Ice agents was
Speaker 1: also detained and CenTra, an immigration facility in Texas. There's
Speaker 1: photos of him wearing his Spider Man backpack. He's come
Speaker 1: home from school, his father is being led away by
Speaker 1: these Ice agents, and by all accounts, his mother, who
Speaker 1: was in the house where his father was detained, is saying.
Speaker 5: Please let him stay with me.
Speaker 1: But the five year old was instead taken away to
Speaker 1: Texas with his father for who knows how long. So
Speaker 1: I think the visuals of this are really upsetting. To
Speaker 1: see this five year old boy in his Spider Man backpack,
Speaker 1: with this huge looming Ice agent with a covered face
Speaker 1: and a mask standing over him, and then pushing him
Speaker 1: into a car. I don't think most Americans like that.
Speaker 1: I want to be clear. They wanted a crackdown on immigration.
Speaker 1: There is a perception that immigrants are bringing crime and disorder,
Speaker 1: particularly to American cities.
Speaker 5: But I don't think people like to.
Speaker 1: See a five year old separated from his mother and
Speaker 1: pushed into the back of a car for doing nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: And I don't think people like Alex Pretty, who was
Speaker 1: by all accounts a great guy an icy U nurse,
Speaker 1: I don't think they like to see him killed in
Speaker 1: the street either, and this gun component has really scrambled
Speaker 1: things culturally because for the right, they're very uncomfortable about
Speaker 1: Trump saying well, he shouldn't have had a gun. That's
Speaker 1: a really uncomfortable clash of cultures.
Speaker 2: Okay, onto something that is adjacent but seems ridiculous in comparison.
Speaker 2: The First Lady has a movie out this week. I
Speaker 2: hope you've all seen the trailer. This morning, I was
Speaker 2: getting ready and I had Breakfast TV on in the
Speaker 2: background and in the ad breaks, I saw several full
Speaker 2: length Milania trailers out in cinemas January the thirtieth.
Speaker 4: I've totally miss it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, so I want to hear a bit
Speaker 3: about this movie.
Speaker 4: Sorry, Is it out in cinemas in Austria?
Speaker 3: Is in Australia you can go and see.
Speaker 4: I can go to Hoyt. Yeah.
Speaker 2: This is in a break on Sunrise this morning, like
Speaker 2: out in cinemas in Australia January thirty, they had a
Speaker 2: screening of this movie. It's going to have its official premiere.
Speaker 2: I saw in New York a glittering premiere.
Speaker 5: That's why I'm going to America in a weekend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think. Also January the twenty ninth New York.
Speaker 2: But they had a screening at the White House on
Speaker 2: the night of the Alex Preddie killing in Minneapolis, so
Speaker 2: things are very heightened there. They still had this screening.
Speaker 2: Lots of very important people turned up to bend the
Speaker 2: knee and watch the movie. Amelia, what the frick is
Speaker 2: going on with the Millennia Trump documentary?
Speaker 1: You know, if anyone listening to this things, what does
Speaker 1: she know about this? I'll tell you I am the
Speaker 1: world's foremost expert on Millannia Trump because I read her
Speaker 1: memoir and I don't think anyone else.
Speaker 4: You're the only person I know who read the whole memoir.
Speaker 4: Everything there is, Tom.
Speaker 3: If you also watched the whole documentary.
Speaker 4: Every time she comes up, we're going to be like,
Speaker 4: we're calling in an expert.
Speaker 5: And I might have to go. Actually, shall we listen
Speaker 5: to a little bit of it?
Speaker 3: Yes? You can.
Speaker 2: Want will be there, trumph together, we'd like minded leaders.
Speaker 6: We have a voice.
Speaker 5: Is it safe?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: Everyone wants to know.
Speaker 3: So here it is, Hi, mister President.
Speaker 2: Congratulations, I did not Yeah, I will see it on
Speaker 2: the news.
Speaker 3: I really want to go see this documentary. What about
Speaker 3: a team outing? Shall we all go.
Speaker 5: I think we need to go. Why is the soundtrack
Speaker 5: like Teams Succession?
Speaker 4: I know it is. I think it's North Korea. I
Speaker 4: think that it's some sort of It's like a fascist
Speaker 4: propaganda film where I can see like the posters coming
Speaker 4: down and everyone has to do.
Speaker 2: It's made by Milania, really right bye? Well by Ratner,
Speaker 2: who's a very terrible person by all accounts.
Speaker 3: But this is Millania endorsed.
Speaker 1: Correct, Oh very much mine here endorsed. Amazon paid forty
Speaker 1: million dollars for it, which will a lot of filmmakers
Speaker 1: thought was a lot of money for this documentary. I
Speaker 1: love this quote from a Vogue correspondent who wrote, somehow
Speaker 1: I know less about this woman's life than I did
Speaker 1: before I watched this trailer.
Speaker 4: Is that how you felt after reading the book?
Speaker 1: No, and you way too much about her after reading
Speaker 1: the book. I love this bit. I was looking at
Speaker 1: the news headlines about how the ticket sales were going worldwide.
Speaker 1: Apparently in the UK ticket sales are soft.
Speaker 5: Does that surprise you?
Speaker 2: Holy, I can't imagine why love It'd be as keen
Speaker 2: as the Wuthering.
Speaker 4: High Hamna Marti Supreme Millennia.
Speaker 1: Why don't we see look outliers. If you want us
Speaker 1: to go and see it, we will do that for you,
Speaker 1: or I will do it.
Speaker 5: I don't know about you.
Speaker 4: No, I'm actually kind of keen after hearing that trailer.
Speaker 2: I'd quite like to wait for streaming. I don't think
Speaker 2: I'll have to wait too long.
Speaker 5: Life in a moment.
Speaker 1: Reading celebrities text messages makes me feel icky, but I
Speaker 1: can't look away.
Speaker 3: Louders, It's mea here.
Speaker 5: Do you remember me?
Speaker 6: I am back in your ears twice a week on
Speaker 6: Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Speaker 5: I hope you remember me.
Speaker 6: Exclusively for Mum and Maya subscribers. Yesterday I did a
Speaker 6: Royal rap a wrap up, not a rap dance, although
Speaker 6: Holly and Jesse were in the studio for that one.
Speaker 6: So if you're not already a subscriber, follow the link
Speaker 6: in the show notes to get us in your ears
Speaker 6: five days a week.
Speaker 1: We've been reading a lot of text sent by famous
Speaker 1: people recently. Have you noticed that?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yes, it's been fascinating but also a little bit troubling
Speaker 1: to get this peek into their lives. And in many ways,
Speaker 1: what I feel like when I read these text message
Speaker 1: is that they're just like us. They text like us,
Speaker 1: they talk like us. They have the same friendship disputes
Speaker 1: and the same kind of bitch sessions about people in
Speaker 1: their lives.
Speaker 4: That's why it's so mortified.
Speaker 1: That's why I can't look away. And Jamila Jamil has
Speaker 1: popped up in some of these text messages in this
Speaker 1: ongoing Blake Lively Justin Baldoni. It ends with us situation
Speaker 1: because she is best friends with Justin Baldoni's publicist, and
Speaker 1: texts have come out between her and the publicist because
Speaker 1: of the ongoing court case, which I'm not even going
Speaker 1: to pretend to summarize for you, who knows where it
Speaker 1: is at this.
Speaker 2: Point, we're not reading all these text messages because the
Speaker 2: celebrities have willingly.
Speaker 3: Handed the moment right.
Speaker 2: They have been subpoened as part of this very complex
Speaker 2: yes exactly.
Speaker 1: Jamil texted Jennifer Abel, who is the Baldoni publicist, about
Speaker 1: Blake Lively. She said she's such a suicide bomber at
Speaker 1: this point, and she also wrote of Lively, I've never
Speaker 1: seen such a bizarre villain act before. Now I don't
Speaker 1: see any problem with this. I think Jamil is just
Speaker 1: being a supportive friend and I don't think there are
Speaker 1: any winners or heroes in this Blake Lively Justin Baldoni thing,
Speaker 1: And if my best friend was involved in it, I
Speaker 1: would also be complaining about Blake Lively.
Speaker 5: Am I wrong?
Speaker 4: I actually completely agree with you. I saw that Jamila
Speaker 4: Jamil had written a substect about it, and it was like,
Speaker 4: I defend my right to say aweful things.
Speaker 5: Don't women say that? She wasn't allowed to say anything.
Speaker 4: I think people went, hang on, you call yourself a feminist.
Speaker 4: And Blake Lively has come out and said she was
Speaker 4: the victim of sexual harassment and a smear campaign. Justin
Speaker 4: Baldoni has denied those allegations, and that's going to court
Speaker 4: in May. I think there is so much confusion about
Speaker 4: what the court case is even about anymore, and why
Speaker 4: we are reading everyone's text messages all the time. What's
Speaker 4: going critical is that these text messages that Jamila Jamil
Speaker 4: sent were actually sent before any of those allegations came
Speaker 4: to life. So she was just seeing bits of the
Speaker 4: press conference where you'll remember Blake Lively was like, go
Speaker 4: watch it ends with us where your florals, and a
Speaker 4: lot of people saw that as distasteful.
Speaker 2: But also she would have because Abel is her friend,
Speaker 2: she would have known about all the drama that we
Speaker 2: did not yet know about at that time, which was
Speaker 2: the whole Blake Lively tried to hijack the movie Blake
Speaker 2: Lively did a recover on, so she would have known
Speaker 2: about all that, which would inform those comments.
Speaker 4: And now these text messages come to light. Question like
Speaker 4: as even as I was reading these, was like, why
Speaker 4: am I reading these? And what do they have to
Speaker 4: do with anything? And why is her name available?
Speaker 3: That's what she says.
Speaker 1: Also in that sort of document dump where text messages
Speaker 1: between Blake Lively and Taylor Swift and I know Mia
Speaker 1: spoke about this on a Subs episode last week, but
Speaker 1: those texts are like so cringe because it's basically about
Speaker 1: Blake being like are you mad at me?
Speaker 5: Which is a text.
Speaker 1: Every woman has sent a close friend at one point
Speaker 1: or another.
Speaker 5: And what I kept thinking.
Speaker 1: Was, God, this is such proof that we do have
Speaker 1: to be more careful about what we put in writing,
Speaker 1: and none of us, not even the celebrities, are paying
Speaker 1: attention to that.
Speaker 4: We're not being savvy because I was reading those as well,
Speaker 4: and I always think, no, one comes across well when
Speaker 4: they're private. Texts aleaked like no one Taylor Swift almost did.
Speaker 4: I thought that the more I read from Taylor Swift,
Speaker 4: the more I went, Oh, I respect you, I respect
Speaker 4: your She was very forthright. She said, Yeah, I'm a
Speaker 4: bit annoyed because You've been talking to me as though
Speaker 4: I'm on the receiving end of a leegal.
Speaker 5: Eck whipmus test.
Speaker 1: A friend who said to you, Jesse in the past,
Speaker 1: are you annoyed at me? I'm sure someone has said
Speaker 1: that to you. Have you ever responded with, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: a little bit annoyed.
Speaker 4: No, No, that's why I respect it. That's why I
Speaker 4: was like, good on Taylor for kind of acknowledging because
Speaker 4: Blake is really and I can I can understand that
Speaker 4: Blake Lively is paranoid, traumatized, overwhelmed, the whole world has
Speaker 4: turned against her. But you read her messages and you're like,
Speaker 4: i'd be so annoyed, Like they are quite irritating messages.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: I also was impressed by Taylor Swift's friendship politics handling,
Speaker 2: but also those messages prove that what Justin Baldoni was
Speaker 2: saying was right is that Taylor Swift was very much
Speaker 2: on Blake's side.
Speaker 5: I think what we see in those texts is Blake making.
Speaker 7: A lot of asks of Taylor, say this to justin
Speaker 7: read this script, like watch this cut, and we don't
Speaker 7: actually see Taylor necessarily following through on any of that.
Speaker 4: I can see Taylor feeling used.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 2: But the point I'm thinking about the day that she
Speaker 2: goes over there and then Blake says you were.
Speaker 3: A lion today or whatever.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about all that stuff before the point, like
Speaker 2: clearly she did stick up for her mate until the
Speaker 2: point where it all became too annoying.
Speaker 3: All well, and then it seems backed away slowly.
Speaker 2: But I think what's interesting about this and the fact,
Speaker 2: like I read Jamila Jamil's newsletter about the horror of
Speaker 2: having your group texts leaked whatever they say, and as
Speaker 2: you've said, we can all respond to that. But one
Speaker 2: of the problems with this is it's so mortifying. It
Speaker 2: can only really have a chilling effect. Like you hear
Speaker 2: people say all the time, why would I, for argument's sake,
Speaker 2: sue my sexually harassing boss If every single message and
Speaker 2: every single thing I've ever said about him, and every
Speaker 2: group text I ever sent to my girlfriends, and maybe
Speaker 2: once I said that I thought he was handsome or
Speaker 2: whatever is all going to come out in court now
Speaker 2: that we all know is very often weaponized. But it's
Speaker 2: very interesting because to your earlier point, Emeli, we all
Speaker 2: like to imagine that what we say online is private,
Speaker 2: but we know and we know, and we know and
Speaker 2: we know that it absolutely is not, and yet we
Speaker 2: can't help ourselves.
Speaker 4: We can't help ourselves. And this is I have had
Speaker 4: friends say this. I know high profile people who have
Speaker 4: said this, that they feel hamstrung that they can't sue
Speaker 4: or pursue something in a court of law because they're like,
Speaker 4: my text message is irrelevant. Text messages will be printed
Speaker 4: and made for public consumption, and no one remembers what
Speaker 4: the court case is even for. So it's like, in
Speaker 4: terms of who is actually behind this court case, it
Speaker 4: would look like Blake Lively is on trial, which I
Speaker 4: suppose you sort of are if you ever bring a
Speaker 4: court case forward.
Speaker 1: Imagine then having your text on the front page of
Speaker 1: the newspaper. And I have to admit it's making me
Speaker 1: really start thinking about the fact that I wish I
Speaker 1: could be more careful in my tones, like.
Speaker 4: Yeah in theory. I think that for thirty seconds and
Speaker 4: then I get on my phone and just like there's
Speaker 4: a bit that Jamila Jamil wrote no newsletter that was
Speaker 4: spot on. She said, sometimes in a moment of hurt
Speaker 4: or weakness, we actually genuinely feel something dark and unfair.
Speaker 4: We just want to say the unsayable in response to
Speaker 4: a culture of thought policing. We want to touch that
Speaker 4: red button. We make duck jokes, we say on savory
Speaker 4: things away from those who could be hurt by our words.
Speaker 4: We want to shock, we want to make someone laugh.
Speaker 4: We want to buy back. We want to be the
Speaker 4: smaller man. We want violence, we want vengeance. And I'm like,
Speaker 4: I get it.
Speaker 3: Don't put it in writing. There's this button on your phone.
Speaker 2: You press it, you get to talk to the person
Speaker 2: that you want to talk to, and you can have.
Speaker 5: Aig old round about it that it is so generic.
Speaker 2: But we avoid all this. If you just call and
Speaker 2: you go putting anything in writing.
Speaker 5: You got to be careful. But holy are you living that?
Speaker 1: Because I'm still a lot of bitch in this day
Speaker 1: and age to say it, But I doult You've got discipline.
Speaker 2: No, not really, but I I don't trust them, you
Speaker 2: know what i mean, Like even without the I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm not a famous person who's going to be invaded,
Speaker 2: but I've got friends who will just randomly add people
Speaker 2: to the group chats in.
Speaker 3: A whole minute.
Speaker 2: And so I'm always thinking, has anyone ever said anything
Speaker 2: about that person back in the history, like is it
Speaker 2: this or that? You know, like none of us ordinary
Speaker 2: people are text savvy enough to protect ourselves from just
Speaker 2: the little fires that will start in our friendship groups.
Speaker 3: And the the snubs.
Speaker 2: And though you had you had a thing and you
Speaker 2: didn't invite me, or like I'd forgotten Betty's in that group,
Speaker 2: but I said this thing about Betty, Like.
Speaker 3: In our tiny little lives, we're not disciplined at all.
Speaker 4: I think as well, there was something so confronting about
Speaker 4: the email that Blake Lively sent Ben.
Speaker 2: Affleck Oh that to me was the most cringing to
Speaker 2: do with anything. Just for a tiny bit of context,
Speaker 2: I know it's all too complicated, but basically it is
Speaker 2: true that Blake and Ryan Reynolds, her husband, took a
Speaker 2: cut of the movie from Justin Balderoni and.
Speaker 3: Redid it right?
Speaker 2: They basically did, and there's a lot of chitty chat
Speaker 2: about that, and then they sent it to all of
Speaker 2: their famous friends and said, give us feedback, tell us
Speaker 2: what you think.
Speaker 3: But the cringe worthiness of the language, the.
Speaker 4: Language, and I think that it's because we probably see
Speaker 4: some of ourselves in it, right, is because we've all
Speaker 4: asked for favors from people in the industry, and we
Speaker 4: know that in order to ask those favors, we have
Speaker 4: to absolutely grovel, And.
Speaker 1: So it's not so much even like the favors. What
Speaker 1: I related to is we've all been in a situation
Speaker 1: where we cannot stop thinking about something where we feel
Speaker 1: we have been uniquely agreed and you can't stop talking
Speaker 1: to every person in your life.
Speaker 3: Yeahbout it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And that's why.
Speaker 4: And it's being printed. So she's like, Ben, it's Blake,
Speaker 4: don't hang up. I'm writing with a zero pressure ask
Speaker 4: I've just come out the other side of well, almost
Speaker 4: the most upsetting experience I've ever had on a movie.
Speaker 4: And then she kind of makes these jokes and then
Speaker 4: she says Ryan has asked Matt Damon to watch as well.
Speaker 4: Can you believe Jason Bourne is watching my movie. I'll
Speaker 4: get you an autograph one day, don't worry you.
Speaker 1: Just it's that meme of ben Affleck with the cigarette
Speaker 1: and the duncan you know, head up?
Speaker 4: And he's just and you know that ben Affleck got
Speaker 4: that email.
Speaker 5: He's dealing with the two Jennifers. He can't deal with
Speaker 5: this as well.
Speaker 4: And he's savvy enough to pick up the phone and
Speaker 4: he called Matt. He went, Matte, have you got this
Speaker 4: fucking email from Blake? Are you actually watching it? I
Speaker 4: Am not getting dragged into this. I have enough drama
Speaker 4: going on right now. No.
Speaker 5: But you know why Matt.
Speaker 1: Responded because she was savvy enough just to send the
Speaker 1: message to Matt, to Matt and his wife.
Speaker 5: And women feel a need to respond to emails. Yes,
Speaker 5: And Matt.
Speaker 1: Damon's wife dautifully responded and hit the ball back and
Speaker 1: bothered with Blake because women take on that emotional.
Speaker 5: Letter of correspondence. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The thing that's most surprising to me after reading all
Speaker 2: this is that that movie ever came out, that they
Speaker 2: ever thought no one was going to find out about
Speaker 2: all that it was a massive hit. Because also the
Speaker 2: hypocrisy of Hollywood is on clear display.
Speaker 4: If you'll allow me. I would like to update you
Speaker 4: both on the status of the Brooklyn Beckham v. Please
Speaker 4: please Beckham brand feud right.
Speaker 3: It obsessed us all for a few days. And then
Speaker 3: have you moved on? I was a little bit moved on,
Speaker 3: but I I still want to know what's no no.
Speaker 4: I thought I'd moved on, and then Tory put a
Speaker 4: picture up with the Spice girls and I have not
Speaker 4: moved on. I have still heavily invested. So firstly, two
Speaker 4: of Brooklyn's ex girlfriends have come out in support of him.
Speaker 5: This is so damning.
Speaker 4: This is damning, Like I keep wondering if the ex
Speaker 4: girlfriends reached out to Brooklyn first.
Speaker 1: I'm not speaking out against my like in support of
Speaker 1: my ex's on literally.
Speaker 4: Okay, So the first one Aften McKeith. I used to
Speaker 4: watch this show called like Embarrassing Bodies or something in
Speaker 4: the UK, and I'm pretty sure her mum was on
Speaker 4: it and she was anyway, I'm obsessed with this. Google
Speaker 4: her mum. She's famous.
Speaker 5: Often.
Speaker 4: Keith dated Brooklyn in twenty seventeen and she saw these
Speaker 4: Instagram stories last week and then she went, you know who,
Speaker 4: I need to talk to the Sun so she called
Speaker 4: up the Sun and she said it was hard for
Speaker 4: him growing up. There are two sides to every story,
Speaker 4: but I know growing up in the spotlight was very
Speaker 4: challenging for him. And she recalled that whenever he got
Speaker 4: his picture taken by the paparazzi, he was really upset.
Speaker 4: She talked about his anxiety and how his parents were
Speaker 4: away a lot and that left him feeling isolated. Then
Speaker 4: another ex named Talia Storm, who was Brooklyn's teenage girlfriend.
Speaker 3: Talia storm yame love it.
Speaker 4: Victoria is, like I thought I'd heard the last view
Speaker 4: Talia Storm. Well, apparently Victoria never liked her. She Talia
Speaker 4: called the Mirror and she said, my first wife, Victoria
Speaker 4: never liked She said. My first thought was good for him.
Speaker 4: People have all heard a million stories over the years,
Speaker 4: and I just thank God, bless Brooklyn for coming out
Speaker 4: and sticking up for himself.
Speaker 5: Elf.
Speaker 4: I think he's just had enough. So this is all happening.
Speaker 4: And then the Spice.
Speaker 5: Girls picture drops.
Speaker 4: So Victoria Beckham, I guess she's at an event or
Speaker 4: something and she's.
Speaker 3: With somebody babies, babies, baby, okay.
Speaker 4: And so more of them. Look I am a little bit.
Speaker 5: Jerry was there, Jerry was there. One of the main
Speaker 5: wasn't there.
Speaker 4: Okay, That's what I need to ask you about because
Speaker 4: I'm a little bit rusty on my Spice girl's law.
Speaker 4: Is there friction?
Speaker 5: They don't like each other?
Speaker 4: Okay, so we had they all showed.
Speaker 5: Up for Jerry's fiftieth. I need to point that out. Okay,
Speaker 5: maybe baby's actually not easy to get along with.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Okay, because there were four of the five Spice Girls
Speaker 4: and everyone got very excited about that. And then I
Speaker 4: think Victoria got given an award that's also a by
Speaker 4: the French. Everyone was there, lots of picture the.
Speaker 1: Best people to give you awards because it always happens
Speaker 1: in like a fancy chateau.
Speaker 2: Yes, told us everything about the Beckham strategy. They are
Speaker 2: keeping calm and carrying on because basically, although everybody said
Speaker 2: last week and we talked about this on the show,
Speaker 2: oh David, he's responded in Davos, he didn't. He just
Speaker 2: had that on the schedule and he had to do it.
Speaker 2: This Paris thing is very much. She did what she
Speaker 2: would have always done. Everybody went, everybody wore their nice dresses,
Speaker 2: everybody smiled at the camera, the sons, the girlfriend's harper.
Speaker 2: She is just keep the playbook, keep going faces forward,
Speaker 2: everybody spit wash your face.
Speaker 3: We're getting on with it.
Speaker 4: Do you reckon We're done?
Speaker 2: I think from the Beckham side, I do not think
Speaker 2: they are about to spill their guts. I don't think
Speaker 2: Brooklyn's done because Brooklyn and Nikola have got a huge
Speaker 2: boost from this publicity wise, because as often discussed, what
Speaker 2: do they do right? So their profile is brasing.
Speaker 5: Holly, you have the hot sauce?
Speaker 1: Do you know how many iterations there were before on
Speaker 1: the right formula trying your hot sauce?
Speaker 2: I nearly run out of it and I will be
Speaker 2: sad when that happens, because it's fricking delicious.
Speaker 3: But that's true. Okay.
Speaker 2: So apart from test out hot saws in one of
Speaker 2: their many mansions, what do they do? So this is
Speaker 2: great for them? And as we talked about last week,
Speaker 2: apparently the rumors of the book.
Speaker 4: Are headlines great which books all?
Speaker 2: Nicola will do a tell all that Brooklyn will do
Speaker 2: a Harry. Basically, no, I think the Brooklyn will write
Speaker 2: oh good. But I think that these things are all.
Speaker 2: I don't think that Brooklyn has done. But I think
Speaker 2: that for now we've seen the Beckhams decide to keep going.
Speaker 2: And there was a little bit of shade thrown by
Speaker 2: the boys. They posted a TikTok cruise and Romeo with
Speaker 2: their girlfriends and Harper I think in the back of
Speaker 2: the car and they were doing some silly TikTok trend
Speaker 2: and it was like, imagine hating and we're just here
Speaker 2: like that. But I mean it wasn't exactly skating. No,
Speaker 2: I think they're going to keep trying. I just imagine
Speaker 2: that Vicky is telling those boys every day Romeo and
Speaker 2: do not do not.
Speaker 3: I don't want to hear it. No posting, but they're
Speaker 3: going I hate him.
Speaker 1: What are.
Speaker 3: After the break?
Speaker 2: What is the right way to show up in public
Speaker 2: after your partner has publicly humiliated you. An Australian influencer
Speaker 2: has a new playbook for us.
Speaker 3: Friends, gather around. I have a story and a question.
Speaker 3: This story was.
Speaker 2: Absolutely everywhere over Christmas and New Year when we were
Speaker 2: not on the.
Speaker 4: Air, right I totally missed it. I came back, I
Speaker 4: heard bits and pieces and I'm desperate for you to
Speaker 4: fill me in.
Speaker 2: We also one of the reasons why we haven't talked
Speaker 2: about it is also because it is a bit icky,
Speaker 2: but it keeps getting more public. So we are going
Speaker 2: to talk about it because I think there are some
Speaker 2: lessons in here for us all. When your relationship explodes
Speaker 2: in spectacular fashion and you are betrayed and humiliated, whether
Speaker 2: that's either in your little community, because this is something.
Speaker 3: Like, you've still got to show up at work.
Speaker 2: Everybody knows that your marriage has gone through a bad time, whatever,
Speaker 2: You've still got to show up at the schoolgate. You
Speaker 2: still got to go whatever it is right. You know,
Speaker 2: people talking about how are you meant to behave when
Speaker 2: you're the wronged woman? Are you meant to a hideaway?
Speaker 2: Lick your wounds, protect your peace? You might have some
Speaker 2: shame attached to it. Let that fade, reassure the kids
Speaker 2: everything's going to be fine, or do you go hard relaunch?
Speaker 3: I will survive. Fuck you all of that stuff. The
Speaker 3: Lily Allen Roote, We could call it the Lily Allen Root.
Speaker 2: Tabloid readers and Instagram scrollers have been watching this particular
Speaker 2: decision being made in real time by Australian influencer.
Speaker 3: She used to be called a wag.
Speaker 2: She hates being called a wag, but all the wags
Speaker 2: hate being called a wag. She is a wag or
Speaker 2: she was Jules Neil? Right, she has picked aside and
Speaker 2: she's picked the second one and yesterday she went publics
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 3: Do you know who I'm talking about when I said
Speaker 3: Jules Neil.
Speaker 4: I had never heard her name before this morning. Who
Speaker 4: was she married too? Or is she married?
Speaker 2: Jules Neil is married to Lucky Neil. He's an AFL
Speaker 2: player and he's a big deal AFL player. Until a
Speaker 2: hot minute ago, he was captain of the Brisbane Lines.
Speaker 2: The Brisbane Lines won the premiership last year, so he's
Speaker 2: the lead player in the most successful team in the country.
Speaker 2: He's won the Brownlow twice.
Speaker 3: He's a big deal. Okay.
Speaker 2: His wife is called Jules Neil. They were teenage sweethearts.
Speaker 2: They have been together forever. They are from Perth. They
Speaker 2: got married in twenty eighteen. They've got two little kids
Speaker 2: under four. She is a bit of an influencer, not
Speaker 2: like a big deal influencer, but like she's always had
Speaker 2: a quite a public profile, posting.
Speaker 3: About their lifestyle and the babies.
Speaker 2: And obviously they moved to Brisbane and when they moved
Speaker 2: to Brisbane, she became really good friends with Tess Crosley,
Speaker 2: who was an influencer and entrepreneur and interestingly a former
Speaker 2: Mormon missionary.
Speaker 3: We won't go down that rabbit hole, but oh my god,
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: And as beck Day wrote on Mama Mia this week,
Speaker 2: the pair were the ultimate influencer BFFs, posting together from
Speaker 2: AFL red carpets, lux holidays, and footy games, as well
Speaker 2: as for a time co hosting a podcast together where
Speaker 2: they discussed their lives, fashion, and the reality for Jewels
Speaker 2: being in the AFL spotlight. The two families social media
Speaker 2: was intertwined, shared holidays, social outings, and dinners populating both
Speaker 2: women's feeds. I bet you can guess what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: Apparently they live five minutes away from each other and
Speaker 2: everything's cozy until in December, Instagram detectives noticed that the
Speaker 2: pair had unfollowed each other and that Jewels.
Speaker 3: Had deleted all the pictures of tests from her feed.
Speaker 2: And then in December, Jewles abruptly moves back to Perth
Speaker 2: with the kids. So Lockey's wife moves back to Perth,
Speaker 2: and when stories started to appear about this, she posted
Speaker 2: on Instagram story. This is why this has become very
Speaker 2: popul because she commented She posted on an Instagram story
Speaker 2: Brooklyn Beckham style, outlining in no uncertain terms where she
Speaker 2: stood with the separation. I want to make it very
Speaker 2: clear that I am not working through anything she posted.
Speaker 2: I have been betrayed in the most unimaginable way. All
Speaker 2: I can do now is try to heal and do
Speaker 2: what's best for my children. And the tabloid world went so.
Speaker 4: The translation is that Lockeye, the football captain, has had
Speaker 4: an affair.
Speaker 2: Well, nothing has been confirmed in that way, but if
Speaker 2: we would expect, stories fly that another footballer's partner found
Speaker 2: Locke and Tess in a car together.
Speaker 3: Told Jules and all hell bros.
Speaker 2: Right, that's never been confirmed. But what definitely did happen,
Speaker 2: which tells us that we all know something really happened,
Speaker 2: is that Locke quits his job. He is still playing,
Speaker 2: to be clear, but he gave up his captaincy, which
Speaker 2: is a big deal when you rise to that point.
Speaker 2: He's got the most high profile job in all of AFL.
Speaker 2: And on January the second, I think earlier this year,
Speaker 2: he stands up and gives a press conference where he
Speaker 2: confirmed he'd done something, and he stepped down as captain confirmed.
Speaker 2: He says this, I can confirm that Jules and I
Speaker 2: have separated. I have let my family down. He's standing
Speaker 2: in front of a camera with all the mics and
Speaker 2: all the all of the media in front of him
Speaker 2: when he says this, and I have let my family down,
Speaker 2: and I apologize for my actions which have hurt those
Speaker 2: closest to me. I accept that this is a consequence
Speaker 2: of my actions, and I need to rebuild the trust
Speaker 2: with Jules, who is in Perth and nowhere near him.
Speaker 3: Are you with me?
Speaker 4: I am so with you?
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 2: Ever since juwles Neil, everybody's looking at her right, So
Speaker 2: this story is all over the Daily Mail and news
Speaker 2: dot Com and all over Instagram and everywhere, and everyone's
Speaker 2: looking at juwles Neil to go what's she going to
Speaker 2: say next? And she's been giving a bit of a
Speaker 2: masterclass in refusing to play the wronged wife. Really, she's
Speaker 2: been like tiktoking vision boards of nights with the girls
Speaker 2: sipping wine with like Olivia Dean songs playing in the background, with.
Speaker 5: A really great shaguitary board.
Speaker 2: Yes, Taylor swift song's playing in the background, and then
Speaker 2: she signed with a talent agency. There have been think
Speaker 2: pieces about how she's rejecting the shame of a public
Speaker 2: cheating scandal, and then also people saying she shouldn't have
Speaker 2: gone public at all because somebody think of the children.
Speaker 2: And then this morning the Daily Mail carries this story,
Speaker 2: which is also on the front page of The Age,
Speaker 2: inexplicably on every morning TV news bulletin, which sounds a
Speaker 2: bit like it's out of Bridgington, which is the former
Speaker 2: wag stepped out at the Australian Open in Melbourne on Tuesday,
Speaker 2: making her society debut as a single woman.
Speaker 1: Stepped out is the greatest. We need to do more
Speaker 1: stepping out.
Speaker 4: I know I never stepped out.
Speaker 2: Now, I know that Jules Neil is a real person
Speaker 2: and she is building her career back up. I know
Speaker 2: that these people aren't normal though in terms of the
Speaker 2: amount of attention that's on this, the level of public
Speaker 2: interest isn't normal. But what I can tell you is
Speaker 2: that when any big split happens in a friend group
Speaker 2: or a community, it does come with a lot of
Speaker 2: public opinion. The mom's at the schoolgate or the parents
Speaker 2: at Schoolgate. Let's not be sexist about it. We'll be
Speaker 2: playing the role of the Daily Mail here.
Speaker 3: They'll all be like, poor you, oh dear, did that
Speaker 3: really happen? Or did you hear about that?
Speaker 2: Or they'll be talking about it. She must have known
Speaker 2: something was going on. How could she not? Like a
Speaker 2: million opinions and the score woman is usually portrayed as
Speaker 2: something as a shameful figure.
Speaker 3: Are we seeing the end of that?
Speaker 2: With the Lily Allen's of it, but also of this
Speaker 2: very Australian example where Jules Neil is looking a million
Speaker 2: and twenty bucks at the Australian Open, sip in her champagne,
Speaker 2: going this is me, screw you all.
Speaker 4: It's like the Schoolgate example is oh, she must be
Speaker 4: so embarrassed, like there's a sense that the embarrassment lies
Speaker 4: with you. And what I love about this narrative and
Speaker 4: how she's handled it is that there's no trace of
Speaker 4: her feeling embarrassed. And in fact, when she got a
Speaker 4: whiff of that, she jumped out and went, hang on,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to let you all speculate about what
Speaker 4: I am and am not working through. I've done nothing wrong,
Speaker 4: which by all accounts she hasn't and she didn't go
Speaker 4: into an enormous amount of detail, but she did enough
Speaker 4: to kind of go I'm in Perth looking after my kids.
Speaker 4: And then for her to reclaim that narrative of a bit,
Speaker 4: I think she has been listening to Lily Allen.
Speaker 1: There's a difference with Lily Allen because Lily Allen goes
Speaker 1: into minute details on how she is wronged. What I
Speaker 1: find so graceful about what Jules has done is she
Speaker 1: told us where she was at. She didn't know allegations
Speaker 1: or disclose what anyone else had done or hadn't done.
Speaker 5: She tells us what she's up to.
Speaker 2: And to be clear, she would probably be offered quite
Speaker 2: a lot of money to do that. This kind of
Speaker 2: consumed everybody for a period over that quiet news time,
Speaker 2: and there would be tabloids and there would be tabloid
Speaker 2: news shows. Who would be like Jules Neil Tellell And
Speaker 2: so far she's obviously chosen not to do.
Speaker 4: That, but I can't understand the pool though. There were
Speaker 4: reports as well that she did comment on her former
Speaker 4: friends Instagram basically being like, remove these images.
Speaker 3: You're embarrassing your.
Speaker 4: You're embarrassing yourself.
Speaker 5: So, and I deleted it.
Speaker 4: Yes, then deleted it, which I've found incredibly relatable. And
Speaker 4: I think that when you're in moments like this, you're
Speaker 4: so up and down, like sometimes you're full of adrenaline
Speaker 4: and you're angry and you want to respond and you
Speaker 4: want to put it all out there. But I think
Speaker 4: so far she's shown kind of a lot of restraint,
Speaker 4: and I love the idea that she gets to own this.
Speaker 4: She has a talent agency thing. She's just like, you
Speaker 4: don't get to shame me. I'm going to go to
Speaker 4: the Australian Open with a drink in my hand and
Speaker 4: pose on this media wall and I've got nothing to
Speaker 4: be embarrassed by.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what the vibe shift is. I
Speaker 1: think you've really nailed it there by saying that it's
Speaker 1: about taking away the shame and embarrassment factor, because the
Speaker 1: woman in this case has not done anything.
Speaker 4: Whereas it sounds like it's sitting on his shoulder. It's
Speaker 4: like even that press conference, like he ought to be
Speaker 4: mortified by what he's done.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's another question there about whether you have
Speaker 2: to quit your job. She's done something you know terrible.
Speaker 2: Is maybe an overstatement, but it's not criminal, but something
Speaker 2: you know bad, Yeah, in your private life. That's like
Speaker 2: almost another conversation. I mean, who knows where he'll end up,
Speaker 2: whether he'll end up going back to playing Perth and
Speaker 2: all those things. But I wonder also if maybe the
Speaker 2: narrative of a woman's life being entirely ruined by a
Speaker 2: man's actions or choices maybe one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: the vibe shift is there, because does that have to
Speaker 2: be true?
Speaker 1: And increasingly it's not, as women are able to build
Speaker 1: their own lives separate from their partner. There was a
Speaker 1: substack recently by Lisa Dawson, who's a writer in her fifties,
Speaker 1: talking about how the script on divorce has been flipped.
Speaker 5: It's no longer an inevitable tragedy.
Speaker 1: It was called if you leave me now, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be absolutely fine, and she talks about her husband
Speaker 1: basically seemingly out of the blue, telling her I'm not.
Speaker 5: Happy in the marriage.
Speaker 1: They're both in their mid fifties, him pretty much up
Speaker 1: and leaving after that, and she tracks how she felt
Speaker 1: on the first few days after he left, and it's
Speaker 1: really surprising to her because on day one, yes, she's unhappy,
Speaker 1: she's sobbing. Her twenty three year old daughter is comforting her.
Speaker 1: On day two she's actually back to doing Instagram ads
Speaker 1: that's part of her career. And then by day three
Speaker 1: she describes actually feeling liberated, and she's also just very surprised.
Speaker 1: This is not what she thought was going to happen,
Speaker 1: and she tries to figure out why she's having this
Speaker 1: really unexpected response, and she has this interesting theory. She
Speaker 1: says that women in midlife experiencing divorce have actually been
Speaker 1: on this upward trajectory to that point. They've been climbing
Speaker 1: career ladders, they have been raising children. They have, by
Speaker 1: her telling, often taken on more of that work than
Speaker 1: the male partners in their lives. So they've been improving
Speaker 1: themselves basically getting tough, as stronger, more organized, whereas she
Speaker 1: says that for men in midlife, they're typically plateauing. They're
Speaker 1: not doing that self improvement journey in the same way
Speaker 1: as women are. What do you think about that theory?
Speaker 2: I see that theory play out a lot around me.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because it's very different life stage to the
Speaker 2: Juels Neil story, but in a way it echoes itself,
Speaker 2: because in both those cases it's kind of like I
Speaker 2: can get on with things and my life can be fine,
Speaker 2: whereas before there may have been more of a well,
Speaker 2: it depends.
Speaker 4: A bit what he decides to do, isn't it Also
Speaker 4: isn't the common denominator in all of these stories, Lily Allen,
Speaker 4: this one, and Jules Neil, they're all supporting themselves financially.
Speaker 4: I think that it's like that's the part where you
Speaker 4: can remove the feeling of feeling completely disposed by someone,
Speaker 4: or feeling pathetic or feeling which none of those are true.
Speaker 4: And there are so many women who do sacrifice career
Speaker 4: to look after children and then if they are dumped tomorrow,
Speaker 4: that's a very very different.
Speaker 2: There's different also different life stage. Yeah, right, So if
Speaker 2: Jules Neil's got tiny little kids, and I mean again,
Speaker 2: they're not normal people and when it comes with normal incomes,
Speaker 2: but if you're in the middle of that time little kids,
Speaker 2: is very different to the place where the substack writer is,
Speaker 2: where she's got grown up children and she has been
Speaker 2: rebuilding her career. But I think that's very absolutely true,
Speaker 2: is that the financial cost of divorce is enormous in
Speaker 2: terms of lifestyle change in terms of all the decisions
Speaker 2: that have to be made, in terms of what it
Speaker 2: means for your future. That's why an enormous amount of
Speaker 2: people don't do it, who may want to, is because
Speaker 2: they're like, everything will shift, And that is absolutely true,
Speaker 2: and it's not to minimize it in any way, but
Speaker 2: when more and more and more women are financially independent.
Speaker 3: It does shift that switch a bit.
Speaker 2: It does move that needle and go, well, I could
Speaker 2: I could support myself, I could move on, I could
Speaker 2: do this, I could do that, and emotionally what I
Speaker 2: liked in that sub stack. Anyone in long term relationship
Speaker 2: knows how complicated they are, and it's very rarely you know,
Speaker 2: he's bad, she's good, or she's bad like whatever, either
Speaker 2: of these women are prepared to wear. The woman in
Speaker 2: the subtext says, no, my marriage was good, we were happy,
Speaker 2: we did talk about things, we did do this, we
Speaker 2: did do that. He has chosen that he wants something else. Yes,
Speaker 2: it doesn't necessarily mean that I did anything wrong.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to wear that rejection for the rest
Speaker 4: of my life.
Speaker 1: Or readjust what I was perceiving reality to be. That's
Speaker 1: a really key point she made. She's like, well, I
Speaker 1: was happy, and I'm pretty sure he was happy too,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to erase all of that just
Speaker 1: because he made a choice.
Speaker 2: That is all we have time for on this Wednesday.
Speaker 2: Thank you for being with us as always, and thank
Speaker 2: you to our amazing team for helping us put the
Speaker 2: show together.
Speaker 4: Bye. Mom and Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of the
Speaker 4: land on which we have recorded this podcast.