Speaker 1: Welcome to Go Ask Ali, a production of Shonda Land
Speaker 1: Audio and partnership with I Heart Radio. I don't think
Speaker 1: that there's some one soul mate. It's not like there's one.
Speaker 1: Although bon Jovi is my soul mate, there's always exceptions.
Speaker 1: Are you saying that gossiping is the same as if
Speaker 1: I'm picking lice out of your scalp and eating it? Well,
Speaker 1: you've done both, So what do you think? I want
Speaker 1: to give her too much? I don't like her to
Speaker 1: come in with an inflated head, so we won't mentioned
Speaker 1: the Golden Globe. After all we've been through. We deserve
Speaker 1: an orgasm. Cis I deserve? Welcome to Go ask Allie.
Speaker 1: I'm Alli Wentworth. This season, I'm digging into everything I
Speaker 1: can get my hands on, peeling back the layers and
Speaker 1: getting dirty. I'm really excited about today's show because I
Speaker 1: think it's incredibly inspirational. But before we start talking, it's
Speaker 1: a go ask Ali moment. A listener has asked me
Speaker 1: a question that I'd love to answer. I won't use
Speaker 1: her name, but she asked me this, how do you
Speaker 1: reconnect with friends after taking time off? It's a great question,
Speaker 1: you know. I had a falling out with a friend
Speaker 1: before COVID and I was so upset by it, and
Speaker 1: I have continually texted her and just said I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about you, I'm here if you need me. And by
Speaker 1: the way, it might be completely met by deaf ears,
Speaker 1: but it's the gesture that counts. So I think if
Speaker 1: you want to reconnect with a friend, you should send
Speaker 1: a text or an email and basically just say I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about you and I hope you're well, and sort
Speaker 1: of send it out into the universe. But I think
Speaker 1: when you put that out there, don't expect a response.
Speaker 1: Put it out there with good intentions, and if you
Speaker 1: do hear back from them, that's how you start to reconnect.
Speaker 1: Thanks for writing, my friend. I hope that helps. Okay,
Speaker 1: So today's episode is about beating the odds. I'm digging
Speaker 1: into that special something that some people have when they're
Speaker 1: faced with the most debilitating circumstances, and they thrive when
Speaker 1: others may crumble. I have a friend who years ago
Speaker 1: came to a premiere of mine. I had this show
Speaker 1: called Headcase, a comedy, and she was on the red
Speaker 1: carpet and felt really dizzy and fainted. Now, of course
Speaker 1: I thought she was on some weird fad diet and
Speaker 1: hadn't eaten all day, And it turned out that my
Speaker 1: friend Nancy had a brain aneurysm, and she was rushed
Speaker 1: to the hospital. They literally cut out half her skull.
Speaker 1: She had months and months of physical therapy of retraining
Speaker 1: her brain, and today you would never know anything happened.
Speaker 1: She's a thriving, energetic human being. But the incredible thing
Speaker 1: about it was when you visited Nancy in the hospital
Speaker 1: and at all points during her rehabilitation, she had a
Speaker 1: smile on her face and hutzpah and just the will
Speaker 1: to live and laugh and understand and befriend her doctors.
Speaker 1: And I've always been in all of that. I've always
Speaker 1: been in awe of people that can be going through
Speaker 1: the darkest and most difficult things in life and they
Speaker 1: do it with strength. And here is somebody who, when
Speaker 1: I read his story, affected me the same way. Francesco
Speaker 1: Clark is the founder and CEO of Clark's Botanicals, a
Speaker 1: skincare company that has formulated a very special complex to
Speaker 1: help people with unique skin conditions. But when he was
Speaker 1: twenty four years old, he suddenly became a paraplegic, unable
Speaker 1: to move his body. It's his journey of how he
Speaker 1: built his company, and it's inner self that is so
Speaker 1: incredibly inspiring, and he's with me to share it with you. So, Francesco,
Speaker 1: before we even go into the millions of questions I
Speaker 1: have for you, and I should say right off the bat,
Speaker 1: I'm so in awe of you. I think you're the
Speaker 1: most inspirational person. Thank you for having me. This is
Speaker 1: a huge honor. I want you to tell my listeners
Speaker 1: the story of what happened to you when you were
Speaker 1: twenty four years old, because that is really where the
Speaker 1: interview kind of grows. From twenty four years old, I
Speaker 1: was living every length that a four year old has,
Speaker 1: where you feel like you're invincible and you're really just
Speaker 1: an idiot. Um you know, you think that you can
Speaker 1: do anything that you know there are no consequences to
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing. I'm and I had just graduated college
Speaker 1: two years earlier, thinking I was in adult and proving
Speaker 1: myself to my family and my friends. And I was
Speaker 1: working in the fashion industry at Harper's Bazaar, and when
Speaker 1: I was promoted a year later, I was celebrating in
Speaker 1: the Engines in Long Island and drove into a pool,
Speaker 1: thinking that it was a deep end because of the
Speaker 1: metal ring ladder that they normally put in the deep
Speaker 1: end was in the shallow end. And the second that
Speaker 1: I jove in, my chin hit the bottom of the
Speaker 1: pool and it snapped back with such worse that I
Speaker 1: shattered my C three C for vertebrae two inches above
Speaker 1: that bump in the back of your neck, and I
Speaker 1: was underwater. My arms flayed to my side, completely paralyzed,
Speaker 1: and I knew exactly what happened, and I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but for some reason I heard my mom's voice saying,
Speaker 1: do you realize how much physical therapy you're going to
Speaker 1: have to do get better? So then I was brought
Speaker 1: over to sunny stern Brook Hospital and one of the
Speaker 1: best neurosurgeons said, you have a nine chance of not
Speaker 1: only surviving tonight, but the next two years of your
Speaker 1: life because my left landon collapsed completely um I left
Speaker 1: local board was now failing and I was going to
Speaker 1: be on life support for two weeks on event Leader,
Speaker 1: and they said You're never gonna be able to breathe
Speaker 1: or talk or forget about your arms forever. So you know,
Speaker 1: my twenty four year old life went from feeling amazing
Speaker 1: to not being able to grab a glass of water
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night and you're thirsty. Changed
Speaker 1: very quickly. But there's something that happened in that hospital
Speaker 1: room with your parents that I think is foreshadowing of
Speaker 1: what kind of person you are. What happened in that room.
Speaker 1: The surgeon told me this partnosis when I was wheeled
Speaker 1: into the emergency room, and the surgeon and the nurses
Speaker 1: were saying, you have to sign your right of life
Speaker 1: over because you have such a little probability of surviving
Speaker 1: that we have to call your next of kin. And
Speaker 1: I was kind of like, hell, no, you're not calling
Speaker 1: my parents. I don't want to tell them what happened.
Speaker 1: I felt like the biggest idiot in the world. And
Speaker 1: they came back a second time, the third time, a
Speaker 1: fourth time, and the fifth time they said, so, you
Speaker 1: actually are going to die if you don't get you
Speaker 1: into surgery. We have to call your parents. I knew
Speaker 1: exactly where they were on vacation in Florida, and I
Speaker 1: remember the room number of the hotel, and so I
Speaker 1: got on the phone with my mother and she said,
Speaker 1: you know the surgeon just told me what happened. Now
Speaker 1: that I can hear your voice, I know you're gonna
Speaker 1: be okay. We're gonna be by your side when you
Speaker 1: wake up. Then she put my dad on the phone
Speaker 1: and he said, just think about us being by your
Speaker 1: side tomorrow. And my sister got to the phone with
Speaker 1: me and she yelled at me because she's like the
Speaker 1: nurse said that you don't want to call us. That's bullshit,
Speaker 1: Like you should not act like this, to being so selfish.
Speaker 1: And then I realized that suddenly I had enough strength
Speaker 1: to get through the next twelve hours. I wasn't alone anymore,
Speaker 1: even though I was about to be wheeled into this
Speaker 1: mint green operating room with all these machines kind of
Speaker 1: plugvering over your body. By the way, only only somebody
Speaker 1: in fashion would describe it as a mint green room. Yes,
Speaker 1: product green, it was a product Green. And the next
Speaker 1: morning I woke up and I was being wheeled out
Speaker 1: of surgery. It took thirteen hours for the surgery, and
Speaker 1: I woke up from anesthesia to the surgeon speaking to
Speaker 1: my parents who were standing next to my bedside, and
Speaker 1: the surgeon was saying exactly what he had said to me,
Speaker 1: but to my father and to my mother, but he
Speaker 1: didn't realize that my father's a medical doctor, and so
Speaker 1: you know, you're saying he's not gonna be able to
Speaker 1: speak or breathe or move anything. And my father looks
Speaker 1: at him and he said, I hope you don't speak
Speaker 1: to your other patients like this, because you could have
Speaker 1: said I don't know. And then my mother turns to me,
Speaker 1: and an Italian, she says, boss Calso, move something, and
Speaker 1: so I pitched my shoulder and then she looks back
Speaker 1: at the surgeon and she was like, you don't know, Francesco.
Speaker 1: And as soon as she said that, it clicked that,
Speaker 1: of course I would get better. Of course, yes, that
Speaker 1: was my darkest moment in life, but of course it
Speaker 1: would get brighter from there, because if you have a
Speaker 1: bossy Italian mother and this like incredible for giving, amazing
Speaker 1: supportive father and family, you have the support of other
Speaker 1: people to bring you up when you have no idea
Speaker 1: what to do. And I started to think about how
Speaker 1: to get through each day with a sense of humor.
Speaker 1: From that point on, Well, I agree with the parents,
Speaker 1: but I also believe that there are people who have
Speaker 1: a spark or something within them too. The strength comes
Speaker 1: from within. And strangely enough, I know to other people
Speaker 1: that dove into a swimming pool and are paraplegic, and
Speaker 1: one of them is, you know, working on rights for
Speaker 1: handicapped people. The other person just spiraled into a dark
Speaker 1: depression and I haven't heard from him in a long time.
Speaker 1: So there are choices to be made. But what is
Speaker 1: it that made you metaphorically get out of bed? What
Speaker 1: I've noticed this is from my lens. From my point
Speaker 1: of view, people will always say, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: just had the shittiest year, but it would it's never
Speaker 1: as bad as yours could have been. But that's not
Speaker 1: really true. Everybody is allowed to have the shittiest year,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to think about comparing yourself to
Speaker 1: somebody else because what happened to me is very visible,
Speaker 1: to the point that it feels like the scarlett better.
Speaker 1: Sometimes in the beginning, that was very difficult to deal
Speaker 1: with because strangers would come up to me and be like,
Speaker 1: what happened, But a lot of other people everybody has
Speaker 1: something happened that happens in their life. You could have
Speaker 1: breast cancer, you could have brain cancer, but nobody would
Speaker 1: know walking down the street. But people wouldn't come up
Speaker 1: and would be like, oh my god, what happened? Oh,
Speaker 1: you dove into a pool. You must be an idiot.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of people would say stuff and you
Speaker 1: don't know how to react. People would really come up
Speaker 1: to you and just say what happened. They'd have the
Speaker 1: audacity to just be that bold. Yes, And it's fine,
Speaker 1: It's totally fine. I welcome that conversation now. But in
Speaker 1: the beginning, the first three years, I was very vulnerable
Speaker 1: and I was very depressed, to the point where if
Speaker 1: I was in a room with a lot of windows
Speaker 1: looking at my reflection, all I would notice was a
Speaker 1: wheelchair and burst into tears. And So getting back to
Speaker 1: what you were asking, like, how did you get out
Speaker 1: of bed? I got out of bed because the people
Speaker 1: that I surrounded myself with don't treat me any differently.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm very lucky to have the most supportive
Speaker 1: family that anybody could ask for, but even their friends,
Speaker 1: the people that I choose to be around, they never
Speaker 1: treated me any differently. Afterwards, and you know, I would
Speaker 1: talk to my mother and she would just say like, well,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do now, not like what are
Speaker 1: you gonna do now in a bad way, but like, well,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna work on next? What's next? And
Speaker 1: maybe also because of the fact by d n A
Speaker 1: I'm an optimist. By d n A, I've always been
Speaker 1: a bit of a dreamer. Thank God, I've been a
Speaker 1: dreamer because before falling asleep, like in a hospital bed
Speaker 1: every night, I used to think about, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I feel pins and needles in my feet, of my
Speaker 1: legs and my chest in my arms, twenty four hours
Speaker 1: a day, seven days a week. But it never goes away.
Speaker 1: So that could drive you crazy because you start to
Speaker 1: think about you start to think about these little phrases
Speaker 1: that people would say when they would visit me and
Speaker 1: the I see you, and they used to say everything
Speaker 1: happens for a reason, and they say it in a
Speaker 1: very light, meaningful, optimistic way. But then they get to
Speaker 1: go home, they get to go out to like a
Speaker 1: movie with their friends, and then I'm stuck in bed
Speaker 1: and I'm waking up three in the morning because the
Speaker 1: ventilator wroke me up, and I'm like, well, what's the reason? Like,
Speaker 1: what did I do wrong? They didn't mean it that way,
Speaker 1: but I mean I think that's everyone's way of of
Speaker 1: sort of here's the silver lining, although I've never subscribed
Speaker 1: to that particular phrase myself, because sometimes ship happens and
Speaker 1: there is no reason for it. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to bring up the Holocaust,
Speaker 1: but like you know, no, there's no big white board
Speaker 1: with somebody figuring out, Okay, this has to happen for
Speaker 1: a reason. I do want to add this. When you
Speaker 1: were talking about the support system around you, I love
Speaker 1: that you went and met with your boss, Glenda Bailey,
Speaker 1: who was the editor of Harper's Bazaar. You had lunch
Speaker 1: with her, right and you were sitting there and she goes,
Speaker 1: I don't see anything ever, it just looks like you
Speaker 1: but sitting Yeah, that was actually was. I couldn't afford
Speaker 1: an aid at the time. So my sister was starting
Speaker 1: medical school and she was also caring for me at
Speaker 1: the same time along with my mother, and my sister
Speaker 1: was driving me around like to help me feel like myself,
Speaker 1: like to meet friends and for work stuff. And Glenda
Speaker 1: Bailey said, I'd love to meet for tea for tea.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's British, someone's very British and you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to meet with her, and she said, you
Speaker 1: look the same. You just look like you're about to stand.
Speaker 1: And my sister was like, well, he's not always just
Speaker 1: about to stand. He's like making the stuff with our
Speaker 1: father in the kitchen. And it was this little like
Speaker 1: lab sample of something that I was working on. But
Speaker 1: the part that I didn't know about Glenda is that
Speaker 1: she actually left university when she was in the UK
Speaker 1: to become her father's career. And this person who works
Speaker 1: in the fashion industry you would assume would be shallow, frivolous,
Speaker 1: like everything that goes along with fashion or beauty. It
Speaker 1: was the opposite. The people that we're working in this
Speaker 1: industry that you would assume wouldn't give a crop, were
Speaker 1: the most generous and stuck their necks out in ways
Speaker 1: that we're so surprising, um and I never would have expected.
Speaker 1: But that's why I love that story so much. That Glenda,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's kind of a funny thing to say,
Speaker 1: but also she wasn't going to pity you. She wasn't,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And I think how she
Speaker 1: reacted to you was actually cool, just great in her
Speaker 1: sarcastic British way. I think support comes in different forms,
Speaker 1: and it's time for a short break. Okay, let's get
Speaker 1: back to it. Tell me about how did you go
Speaker 1: from this point in your life to now being a CEO?
Speaker 1: How Francesco did you go from watching Oprah and eating
Speaker 1: hoggas ice cream to creating this unbelievable brand. This is
Speaker 1: the secret sauce I'm trying to get at. I had
Speaker 1: reached the lowest point in my life, and I had
Speaker 1: reached this point of shaving my head baled. Every week.
Speaker 1: I wear the same paper hospital of pants every day.
Speaker 1: I wear the same T shirt every day from the
Speaker 1: hospital from Mount Sinai. And because you just didn't care, right, well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't that I didn't care. It was almost the opposite.
Speaker 1: It's so weird, and it's survivor's guilt and so and
Speaker 1: I don't I actually didn't understand this. And I don't
Speaker 1: know how you've spoken to other people about this, but
Speaker 1: survivor's guilt, I've realized, is this thing where you realize
Speaker 1: the impact of what has happened to you. Um and
Speaker 1: from my perspective, the amount of trauma that my family
Speaker 1: had to go through was so great that all I
Speaker 1: wanted to do was to fix what happened to them
Speaker 1: because of me. And so because I thought that way,
Speaker 1: for me, it felt how do I become the opposite
Speaker 1: of a worry? And so the opposite of a worry
Speaker 1: for me was doing nine hours of physical therapy and
Speaker 1: occupational therapy every single day from home and then going
Speaker 1: to Kessler, New Jersey, and then back home to do more.
Speaker 1: I never left the house of them to go to
Speaker 1: the hospital for three years. And it also meant dedicating
Speaker 1: under of like my energy towards moving my pinky toe,
Speaker 1: which I couldn't feel. And with that comes therefore I
Speaker 1: don't care about the way that I look. Therefore I'm
Speaker 1: going to think badly of myself if I think like, oh,
Speaker 1: it would be nice to have fun today, No, you're
Speaker 1: not allowed to you because look what you did. And
Speaker 1: then you start to think, well, why would I care
Speaker 1: about the way that I dress? And then when you
Speaker 1: see a reflection of yourself, you're reminded of the amount
Speaker 1: of pain that you've caused these people that are like
Speaker 1: caring for you twenty four hours a day, seven days
Speaker 1: a week. It's not a healthy way of thinking, but
Speaker 1: it's a reactive way of coping with it. And I
Speaker 1: it took me three years to realize okay, that's not
Speaker 1: okay um. And the thing that snapped me out of
Speaker 1: it was the day the Christopher We've passed away and
Speaker 1: Barbara Walters announcing it on the news. I felt like
Speaker 1: my Superman I just been taken away. He was the
Speaker 1: biggest advocate for people with spinal cord injuries. He flew
Speaker 1: to Australia, flew to China. Um he was an eventilator.
Speaker 1: I was like listening to the way that he would speak.
Speaker 1: He would be able to testify against Congress. You could
Speaker 1: meet with the smartest scientists medical doctors around the world
Speaker 1: and spar with them in the nicest, most charismatic way.
Speaker 1: Of course, you want somebody like that around you, and
Speaker 1: it's like it's the thing that lifts you up. And
Speaker 1: then to suddenly be gone and to not know why
Speaker 1: for like more than six months was for me a
Speaker 1: huge blow. Why was it a big blow to you?
Speaker 1: Was it your own fears of you know, is this
Speaker 1: going to happen to me? Why aren't they telling us?
Speaker 1: Or were you afraid to learn something that would kind
Speaker 1: of pull down this heroic worship you had. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you have something happen that is um for now incurable,
Speaker 1: there's this sense of unknown, there's this sense of unease
Speaker 1: about why did it happen? How do I fix it?
Speaker 1: How do I do deal with it? And then not
Speaker 1: knowing why he had passed right away, I said, well,
Speaker 1: why did it happen? Couldn't have been prevented and why
Speaker 1: has he gone? Right? But there were no answers to that.
Speaker 1: So it was that like, Okay, you're paralyzed. Now we
Speaker 1: don't know how to fix you. There's no cure. And
Speaker 1: his mission with the Christopher Mea Foundation was all about
Speaker 1: finding a cure, helping to care. He was all about
Speaker 1: finding answers. And then suddenly when he passed, there were
Speaker 1: no answers, and so it kind of instigated this domino
Speaker 1: effected me where I didn't know what to think. And
Speaker 1: so I was doing physical therapy and New Jersey like
Speaker 1: two hours later, and I said, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: sitting here waiting for somebody else to have an answer
Speaker 1: for my own life. That doesn't make any sense. I
Speaker 1: need to take responsibility for what happened in my own
Speaker 1: life and I can't wait around for the next Superman.
Speaker 1: I had been asked to be part of an advocacy
Speaker 1: group for Westchester County for people with disability ease on
Speaker 1: the elderly, and I hadn't answered in like two or
Speaker 1: three months. The meeting was two days later. I came
Speaker 1: home that nine and I said, you know what, Mom,
Speaker 1: I'm going to join that group. And then I said,
Speaker 1: but in order to join that group, I need to
Speaker 1: put on a real shirt and real pants. And she
Speaker 1: was like, oh, thank God, and she just like left
Speaker 1: the room to find shirts and pants that maybe could
Speaker 1: fit me. I did like pounds. I just didn't care.
Speaker 1: But I looked in the mirror for the first time
Speaker 1: when I was getting ready for that meeting the next day,
Speaker 1: and I was terrified because suddenly I was going to
Speaker 1: be in a room with uh strangers and I had
Speaker 1: to have a conversation with people I've never met, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't like a safe place anymore. Was there any
Speaker 1: point when and this sounds like a cliche, but was
Speaker 1: there any part of you that sort of felt like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I have to be my own Superman who was gone,
Speaker 1: but now like I have to start advocating for myself
Speaker 1: and sort of take on in a small way some
Speaker 1: of the work he was doing in a way. But
Speaker 1: I wasn't comparing myself to him. It was more out
Speaker 1: of the sense of this is not living, This is
Speaker 1: not life, and I'm not going to live out of
Speaker 1: desperation anymore. The day that he passed was my lowest point,
Speaker 1: and I said, like, fuck this, this is not living.
Speaker 1: I can't live like this, and I'm just gonna like
Speaker 1: be me. I don't care. I mean I do care,
Speaker 1: Like the point is I care a lot, Yes, Like
Speaker 1: I don't care about other people's reactions, and I'm just
Speaker 1: going to be myself and do whatever the hell I
Speaker 1: want to do. And I don't care if people ask
Speaker 1: about the wheelchair. I don't care if people criticize and
Speaker 1: say like, oh, what happened to you? Like, oh, just
Speaker 1: go just be yourself and do it. There's no excuse anymore.
Speaker 1: And so I looked in the mirror and I didn't
Speaker 1: look like me. And when I didn't look like me,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe this was the fashion part of me
Speaker 1: from before that. By this point I had tried, you know,
Speaker 1: the fancy creams, the prescription and all that stuff, and
Speaker 1: I turned to my dad and I said, like, you
Speaker 1: have to help me. I look like crap. I want
Speaker 1: to look the way that I feel. You're talking about
Speaker 1: your face at this point. Your skin, yes, wasn't a
Speaker 1: symptom of what you went through the fact that you
Speaker 1: can't sweat exactly. Yeah, I didn't know that until I
Speaker 1: started to really think about, like, why do I have
Speaker 1: constant dermatitis? Why is my skin oily and dry? And
Speaker 1: I looked ten years older than I actually am, And
Speaker 1: it was because my kids stopped sweating because of my injury.
Speaker 1: When you were talking to your father about helping you,
Speaker 1: you didn't know that this was an actual medical condition.
Speaker 1: I kind of knew that. I mean, when you have
Speaker 1: a spinal cord injury, bed sores and her sores and
Speaker 1: sitting all the time can be a huge factor to
Speaker 1: health issues, which is one of the things that led
Speaker 1: to Christopher Reeve passing. But I didn't think that it
Speaker 1: would lead to this other aspect of my life and
Speaker 1: the way that others could perceive me. You know. By
Speaker 1: this point, obviously I started to breathe on my own
Speaker 1: and talk and move my arms more, and so I
Speaker 1: felt strong. I felt happy and confident. By this point,
Speaker 1: I didn't look strong, I didn't look happy, I didn't
Speaker 1: look confident, And now I wanted to connect with you know,
Speaker 1: talking to a stranger walking along the street in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: Before that, it would have been like my biggest nightmare
Speaker 1: to speak to a stranger. And so suddenly I was
Speaker 1: open to you know what you and I are doing now.
Speaker 1: And so the way that you look and the way
Speaker 1: that you present yourself almost becomes this site the logical
Speaker 1: aspect of the way that you are emotionally. And when
Speaker 1: you think about one of the first signs of what
Speaker 1: it means to be in a depressive state, you don't
Speaker 1: care about the way that you look. You shut yourself
Speaker 1: off from the world. You almost want to look unaccepting
Speaker 1: or inhospitable because you don't want other people to talk
Speaker 1: to you. But when you're in a healthy state of mind,
Speaker 1: it's the opposite. You're like, I don't know, they seem approachable,
Speaker 1: I don't know, they seem happy. And it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be always a shallow point of view or a
Speaker 1: shallow theory where we think like, oh, just because you
Speaker 1: care about the way that you dressed, in the way
Speaker 1: that you look you have to be an idiot. For me,
Speaker 1: it was about kind of unleashing that inner strength, of
Speaker 1: that inner power that had to have grown from trauma
Speaker 1: and kind of came through from this life event. And
Speaker 1: it was eye opening because then, you know, when I
Speaker 1: met with Glenda, she didn't know that my father and
Speaker 1: my mother and I were mixing things in our kitchen
Speaker 1: in my childhood home. I had no intention of making
Speaker 1: products to sell them. I was just making products to
Speaker 1: kind of deal with the psychological schism in my life
Speaker 1: where I wanted to feel like a human being again
Speaker 1: and feel stronger and look stronger. And so then when
Speaker 1: it started to work, my sister started stealing some of
Speaker 1: the little vases I had in my desk, that's what
Speaker 1: sisters do. And then my mom started stealing some, and
Speaker 1: then my mom started giving them away to a lot
Speaker 1: of my dad's antients who are undergoing chemotherapy and conditions
Speaker 1: like that where they really care about ingredients and toxicity
Speaker 1: but having it be immuno stimulating. And so we were
Speaker 1: literally just making in the kitchen, Saint, We're making products.
Speaker 1: But then when Glendam said, you look like you're about
Speaker 1: to stand my sister took out one of the little
Speaker 1: blast phases that she had stolen and she said, Francesco
Speaker 1: is not just sitting around doing nothing. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, shut up. Darling was like, he's making
Speaker 1: this stuff in the kitchen and I'm looking like, could
Speaker 1: you like I was bright red, and Glenna said, well,
Speaker 1: if you're using it, I have to use it. And
Speaker 1: she put it on her face and whatever, you know.
Speaker 1: We go home. We get a call six seven weeks
Speaker 1: later and she said we're gonna shoot it in the
Speaker 1: September issue and I said thanks, but no thanks, and
Speaker 1: she said, well, don't hang up. I'm transferring you to
Speaker 1: the beauty director. And the beauty director said, whether you
Speaker 1: like it or not, it's happening. And so she's like,
Speaker 1: we're giving you six months find a factory packaging and
Speaker 1: make it look chic, but it's gonna be in there
Speaker 1: if you say yes or no. So then I said okay.
Speaker 1: And suddenly the weird thing is it felt the same
Speaker 1: as my mother in the hospital saying move something you
Speaker 1: don't know our son. Was the same thing as Blenda
Speaker 1: saying it's happening. Whether you like it or not. You
Speaker 1: have this unconditional support from an outside source. Thing you're like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know if they believe in me
Speaker 1: or in somebody so much. Then I guess a part
Speaker 1: of that has to be true. And then you start
Speaker 1: to realize that you have a family that can be
Speaker 1: more than just your d n A. But also your
Speaker 1: mother said move something, and you did, and Glenda said,
Speaker 1: you know, give me these products, and you did, so
Speaker 1: you know the support system is there. But I'm also
Speaker 1: giving you credit that you mustered up the strength to
Speaker 1: move a piece of your body in the hospital and
Speaker 1: you went and created this great product. So I think
Speaker 1: it's the marriage of both those things, of the support
Speaker 1: system and the ability to go all right. I never
Speaker 1: thought about I actually never thought about that. Thank you.
Speaker 1: That's of course, I mean, it's it's true. It also
Speaker 1: felt like, Okay, there's a product in a jar that's
Speaker 1: gonna be in a magazine like Big Whoop. But then
Speaker 1: I thought about, like, how do I connect my former
Speaker 1: life in fashion and my injury, And that was the
Speaker 1: hardest question to answer until I thought about Christopher Reef,
Speaker 1: and then I said, like, I'm just gonna email the
Speaker 1: CEO of the Christopher ree Foundation and try to have
Speaker 1: a portion of proceeds from the products get back to
Speaker 1: finding a cure. And this goes back to like the
Speaker 1: reason why this all changed was saying like I don't
Speaker 1: give a fuck, Like I don't care, Just to be yourself,
Speaker 1: do whatever you need to do. So I started emailing
Speaker 1: people this is what I want to do. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to do it. I'm kind of an idiot, like,
Speaker 1: but I'm happy to learn. Can we talk? And so
Speaker 1: the first person that I emailed was Peter Wilderader, who
Speaker 1: was the CEO of the Christopher Ree Foundation, And it
Speaker 1: came to my house and we met for two and
Speaker 1: a half hours, and I'm I was talking to him
Speaker 1: and I felt like I was like auditioning because like
Speaker 1: he didn't really talk that much, but it was just me.
Speaker 1: And after two and a half hours, he set up
Speaker 1: a bunch of other meetings at their headquarters in Short Hills,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and I meet with all the directors and
Speaker 1: a couple of months later they asked if I could
Speaker 1: become one of their ambassadors and it was like a
Speaker 1: huge honor. I said, that's great, but that's not why
Speaker 1: I wanted to meet. I wanted to connect the skincare
Speaker 1: line to helping to find a cure and to give
Speaker 1: a voice to people that feel like they're not represented
Speaker 1: in an industry that speaks to other causes, but sometimes
Speaker 1: it feels more like marketing speak as opposed to an authentic,
Speaker 1: strong voice. So I wanted to connect with them on
Speaker 1: that level. And the next thing I know, I'm meeting
Speaker 1: with Alexander Reeve Givens, his daughter, and then I meet
Speaker 1: with Matthew Reef, his son, and then I meet Will
Speaker 1: Reeve and I'm like, said, only meeting these people, but
Speaker 1: they had no idea who I was. But now I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, I can't believe this is happening.
Speaker 1: It's almost like make a wish and work towards it,
Speaker 1: and then when you start to see it come through,
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, now I actually have to make
Speaker 1: it work. You have You've made it work. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have this whole line of incredible botanical skin creams.
Speaker 1: And I want to say this, because you know the
Speaker 1: podcast is audio, so people can't see. I want to
Speaker 1: say now, I want to explain that I'm looking at
Speaker 1: a very handsome man with perfect skin, but really like
Speaker 1: modelly handsome with a crisp white shirt and you're moving
Speaker 1: your arms and you're smiling, and you're moving your neck
Speaker 1: and shut out my vocal work. No, we'd like you
Speaker 1: to talk on podcasts. But my point is that not
Speaker 1: in as two official way, I'm saying, I am looking
Speaker 1: at somebody who has worked so hard, yes on his
Speaker 1: outer stuff, but on his inner stuff to be where
Speaker 1: he is right now, which is an incredibly accomplished businessman,
Speaker 1: and somebody who looks incredibly approachable and handsome. And you know,
Speaker 1: I should say, right now, Francesco, I'm married, So I'm
Speaker 1: off the table. So whatever you were thinking, that's not
Speaker 1: going to happen. But I think it's important that people
Speaker 1: could see what I'm seeing. Basically, we could do weekends,
Speaker 1: Oh god, weekends. Weekends are my worst weekends. Weekends I'm
Speaker 1: in my my lands and night eating ice cream. We
Speaker 1: talked about and we'll be right back. Great, let's get
Speaker 1: back to it. So, Francesco, I'm trying to paint this picture.
Speaker 1: You're twenty four years old. You've been working in the
Speaker 1: fashion industry, which is you know, can be seen as
Speaker 1: somewhat superficial and elitist. I mean, did your feelings about
Speaker 1: beauty change after the accident. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think that like when I was in the I
Speaker 1: c U, I started to realize, wow, there are certain
Speaker 1: people that come to visit me every single day when
Speaker 1: it smells really bad. And then I see you and
Speaker 1: you start to realize what it means to have a
Speaker 1: real human connection someone. Would you really want to be
Speaker 1: remembered just by the way that you look? You know,
Speaker 1: I had a near death experience when I was based
Speaker 1: down in the pool and my eyes were open, and
Speaker 1: you think about your entire life and you never ever
Speaker 1: think about, like, wow, you were so pretty? Who cares?
Speaker 1: Look at me? Obviously I don't care, but no. But
Speaker 1: but what I find so amazing is that you went
Speaker 1: through what you went through and you are a fuller
Speaker 1: person for it. Listen, you could have ended up being
Speaker 1: just the biggest asshole in the world, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like, like, sometimes it is these things in
Speaker 1: life where we have a choice on which road we're
Speaker 1: going to take and the lessons we're going to learn.
Speaker 1: And the reason you're on my podcast is because I'm
Speaker 1: eating up the lessons that you've learned and I'm inspired
Speaker 1: by them. The internal stuff, Thank you, And I love
Speaker 1: your skincare, Thank you, Alia. I don't know there's there
Speaker 1: was one other thing, and you also did just kind
Speaker 1: of touch upon it where you say you could have
Speaker 1: been a huge asshole. I mean, and we're all one
Speaker 1: decision away from a completely different life every day. And
Speaker 1: so what my good friends pointed out to me in
Speaker 1: those moments where I needed support, they were kind of like,
Speaker 1: you're exactly the same as we've worked before. But the
Speaker 1: one thing that might have changed is the prison in
Speaker 1: which I look at appreciating life has s banded a
Speaker 1: little bit more. And the reason why I say that
Speaker 1: is that I still say stupid things, I still think
Speaker 1: stupid things. I still I still get sad. Well, you're
Speaker 1: human exactly, but I think there is a part of
Speaker 1: us that also thinks, if you've survived this horrible disease
Speaker 1: and you've got better, or if you've survived this horrible
Speaker 1: accident and you've got better, it doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: you're a saint. It just kind of means that you've
Speaker 1: mature quicker. But it doesn't always mean that you know,
Speaker 1: all the answers are that, like, we're all people anyway.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what I'm trying to say, absolutely agree
Speaker 1: with you. And I have, you know, many friends who
Speaker 1: have faced great difficulties. One of them Michael J. Fox,
Speaker 1: who has Parkinson's, and you know, I equate you with
Speaker 1: him in that he gets angry, he gets sad, he
Speaker 1: gets pissed. He you know, but he's a person who
Speaker 1: has integrity and outlook and has worked hard to fund
Speaker 1: research to destroy this disease, Parkinson's. And that is a choice,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I'm probably not going to
Speaker 1: have that experience that you had, but you know, thank
Speaker 1: you for at least telling your story and for showing
Speaker 1: me the stuff that you've learned, because I can get
Speaker 1: a tiny percentage of that inspiration just from you. And
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's a gift, and thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: and you know what, like thank god, Michael J. Fox
Speaker 1: gets really angry about things. Oh God, the mouth on
Speaker 1: that man. I need. I also needed that anger to
Speaker 1: say this is not my life, like, this is not
Speaker 1: who I am. If I had been complacent and blase
Speaker 1: about everything, which is what depression does, you don't do
Speaker 1: anything like you need that anger, you know. When I'm Italian,
Speaker 1: so part of it is just family dinner is like that.
Speaker 1: I'm married to Greek, so it's somewhat similar. I get it. So,
Speaker 1: you know, there's that that hot bloodedness about what do
Speaker 1: you stand for? What do you give a crap about?
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do about it? Well, what I
Speaker 1: really liked about what what you do is that you
Speaker 1: went from what I would perceive as a place where
Speaker 1: you think of like, oh, I just want to make
Speaker 1: people feel comfortable or happy or laugh, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to instigate anything too. Now, when I as an outsider,
Speaker 1: look at what you've done. You stand for things, and
Speaker 1: you talk about things that matter, and you get angry
Speaker 1: about certain things that you talk about it in a
Speaker 1: way that's productive. And that's what I really like about
Speaker 1: the people that do something in the world is the
Speaker 1: way that a react. I completely agree. And we're only
Speaker 1: going to play this last clip on my podcast about
Speaker 1: what you like about me? So Ally, I have a
Speaker 1: question for you. Can't wait. What was the first big
Speaker 1: lie that you remember telling your parents? Oh gosh, what
Speaker 1: an interesting question, francesco Um. The first big lie, I mean,
Speaker 1: there were thousands of little ones. The first big lie
Speaker 1: was I told my parents that I was spending the
Speaker 1: night at my friend Cecilia's house, and instead I took
Speaker 1: the car. We had a Volkswagen Rabbit and I didn't
Speaker 1: have a driver's license, and I drove it to the
Speaker 1: beach two enough hours away to meet this boy that
Speaker 1: I had a crush on, and we walked on the
Speaker 1: beach all night until sunrise, and then I came back.
Speaker 1: It turns out my parents found out what I did,
Speaker 1: and there was a big poster on our front door,
Speaker 1: and it was a dog with a chain and it
Speaker 1: said you are in the doghouse. That was a big life.
Speaker 1: But you know what, because of the way I grew up.
Speaker 1: I have two teenage daughters, and I can smell a
Speaker 1: lie from a thousand feet away if they even try.
Speaker 1: Do you have a look? Do they know? So? I
Speaker 1: parent a lot with humor, so if they're lying, I
Speaker 1: find a funny way to crack it open. Do you
Speaker 1: wait like you know that they're lying before dinner is
Speaker 1: served with you and your family? Do you wait until
Speaker 1: like mad course entree or do you say it like
Speaker 1: as soon as you see them? It depends on what
Speaker 1: I perceive is a lie. And I always give them
Speaker 1: the opportunity to be honest. So, for example, if I
Speaker 1: said to one of my daughters, um, like I'd heard
Speaker 1: that one had a boyfriend, and I said, so, do
Speaker 1: you have a boyfriend, And if she lied and said no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't I'll go huh oh, I just said don't know.
Speaker 1: I thought maybe you had a boyfriend as consens it.
Speaker 1: And then in the middle of dinner a little bit later,
Speaker 1: I'll say, um, why are their bridal magazines coming to
Speaker 1: you know, I'll make some funny joke that then we'll
Speaker 1: make her laugh, and then I'll go, come on, you
Speaker 1: have a boy And you know, I'll get it out
Speaker 1: of it in a different way because I find that
Speaker 1: parenting it doesn't work to be like you tell me
Speaker 1: the truth right now, or you're grounded like that stuff
Speaker 1: doesn't work. So I find a way to crack it open. Alright, alright,
Speaker 1: read their journal. There you go. That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I've taken so much time from you, so I just
Speaker 1: want to thank you Francesco so much. I really really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And again I do love your stuff. I
Speaker 1: really love your stuff. Thank you, Francesco. His accident happened
Speaker 1: nineteen years ago, and he seems to be in such
Speaker 1: a great physical place right now, and he gets better
Speaker 1: and better every year. He's an amazing person and I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated by his company, his entrepreneurship. He wrote a memoir
Speaker 1: ten years ago, and Francesco, let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: You have another book in you, trust me, do with
Speaker 1: it what you will. How ironic that his doctor first
Speaker 1: told him that he would never be able to move
Speaker 1: anything and would probably die. So there you have it.
Speaker 1: There you have the incredible Francesco Clark. I do want
Speaker 1: to say too that there's a reason that we posted
Speaker 1: this episode on Thanksgiving, and the reason is that I
Speaker 1: think francesco story has showed us how important and how
Speaker 1: amazing the love and connection of family and friends are.
Speaker 1: That they were an integral part of Francesco's recovery and
Speaker 1: his continuing growth. And so I say on this Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: Day to reach out to all your family and friends
Speaker 1: and be grateful for them and thank them because they
Speaker 1: are the scaffolding around us, and then you can over
Speaker 1: eat your turkey. Thank you for listening to Go ask Alli.
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast, and
Speaker 1: follow me on social media on Twitter at Ali e
Speaker 1: Wentworth It on Instagram at the Real Ali Wentworth and
Speaker 1: if you have questions or guest suggestions, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you call it text me at three to
Speaker 1: three four six three five six, or email Go Ask
Speaker 1: Aali podcast at gmail dot com. Go Ask Ali is
Speaker 1: a production of Shonda land Audio and partnership with I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.