Speaker 1: The following episode will be discussing childhood sexual abuse, grooming
Speaker 1: and the effects they can have. It also contains uncensored
Speaker 1: adult language. These subject matters can be sensitive for many
Speaker 1: of us, and if you find yourself at all worried
Speaker 1: about listening to this episode, please skip right past this
Speaker 1: one and we will return to our regular programming next week.
Speaker 1: With this in mind, here's this week's episode of pod
Speaker 1: Meets World.
Speaker 2: Hello, Welcome to pod meets World.
Speaker 3: This episode is going to be a little out of
Speaker 3: format and with a slightly different tone, but we do
Speaker 3: hope that you will stick with it as we think
Speaker 3: this is going to be a very important discussion, not
Speaker 3: only for us, but for you as well. When we
Speaker 3: decided to embark on the journey that is pod meets
Speaker 3: World a few years back, we set a few guidelines
Speaker 3: for ourselves, and at the top of the list was
Speaker 3: that we were going to be as honest and open
Speaker 3: as possible, because regardless of how many people listened, we
Speaker 3: knew that if we were going to look back on
Speaker 3: our childhoods, it would mean a whole lot to us.
Speaker 3: We weren't going to shy away from anything just because
Speaker 3: it was uncomfortable or inconvenient, and so far all three
Speaker 3: of us have agreed talking about our shared history on
Speaker 3: this podcast, The good and the Bad has become the
Speaker 3: body of work we are most proud of in our careers,
Speaker 3: and so today we face one of those uncomfortable and
Speaker 3: inconvenient moments. Every episode we mentioned the guest stars that
Speaker 3: you're going to see, We say their name, and we
Speaker 3: mentioned the other shows they've been on. And with season
Speaker 3: five looming close, we know that we'll need to address
Speaker 3: an actor and behind the scenes figure who appeared on
Speaker 3: the show starting in nineteen ninety seven, and we knew
Speaker 3: this deserved a more detailed discussion, especially even since we
Speaker 3: as hosts are still unpacking everything involved, and we know
Speaker 3: that discourse around this subject has culturally ramped up, with
Speaker 3: Will and Writer even being contacted recently for a statement.
Speaker 3: So we decided to talk about it here on our podcast,
Speaker 3: where we can dig much deeper than one sentence.
Speaker 2: This episode is.
Speaker 3: Unrehearsed or really not pre produced at all outside of
Speaker 3: this intro, and we are taping it without knowing when
Speaker 3: it will air, and we have reached out to an
Speaker 3: expert family therapist, Katie Morton. Katie has been on the
Speaker 3: forefront of the mental health movement since twenty eleven, demystifying
Speaker 3: mental health myths and replacing stigmas with understanding, amassing over
Speaker 3: one point three million subscribers on YouTube and over one
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty million views of help. She's released two books,
Speaker 3: Are You Okay, A Guide to Caring for Mental health
Speaker 3: and the book that brought her to us today, twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one's Traumatized, Identify, Understand and Cope with PTSD and
Speaker 3: Emotional Stress.
Speaker 4: Hello Katie, Hi, thanks for having.
Speaker 2: Me, Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety seven, for the start of season, a
Speaker 3: new stand in was brought on the show. He had
Speaker 3: worked on sitcoms before Boymeet's World in similar capacities, also
Speaker 3: moonlighting as an acting coach, and as you've learned from
Speaker 3: this podcast, since it takes a village to produce television,
Speaker 3: he was added to a roster that was always constantly changing,
Speaker 3: and so this is when Brian Peck entered Our Lives.
Speaker 3: He would eventually become a mainstay on set, not just
Speaker 3: working on the show and appearing on it with many
Speaker 3: small rules until it concluded in two thousand and one,
Speaker 3: but integrating himself into Will and Writer's personal life, becoming
Speaker 3: part of their most trusted inner circle, despite being more
Speaker 3: than fifteen years older than both of them and crossing
Speaker 3: many workplace boundaries. And then in August of two thousand
Speaker 3: and three, he was arrested in Los Angeles, then forty
Speaker 3: three years old, for lude acts with a child that
Speaker 3: occurred in two thousand and one with an underage student
Speaker 3: he was coaching. To say this came as a shock
Speaker 3: to us at the time would have been an understatement.
Speaker 3: We saw no signs of this behavior and were not
Speaker 3: victimized ourselves, and were constantly being told by this person
Speaker 3: who was our friend that he was the actual victim.
Speaker 3: In the end, he was convicted and spent sixteen months
Speaker 3: in prison. There had been reports of him working on
Speaker 3: sets that involved kid actors after his release, with watchdog
Speaker 3: groups and media outlets correctly staying vigilant on his actions,
Speaker 3: but we couldn't confirm anything outside of what we've read online.
Speaker 3: So here we are today to have an honest and
Speaker 3: open discussion about a hot button topic in Hollywood and
Speaker 3: hopes that this will not just become another clickbait headline,
Speaker 3: but rather lead people to this episode a longer open
Speaker 3: and raw dialogue about sexual predators, manipulation, and grooming. Katie,
Speaker 3: I'm going to let you take it from here, and
Speaker 3: we thank you so very much for joining us, as
Speaker 3: we want to be very considerate of any victims involved.
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course, thanks for having me. I think I
Speaker 4: mean is it's a difficult topic to address because the
Speaker 4: thing that I think I first want to talk about
Speaker 4: is to help people understand what the term grooming means,
Speaker 4: because I think it's wonderful and social media that we
Speaker 4: talk about things. People use language and you know, we're
Speaker 4: sharing information, but sometimes that comes with a lack of
Speaker 4: actual understanding. And the thing about grooming that makes it difficult, painful,
Speaker 4: and confusing is because it is a form of manipulation,
Speaker 4: and a lot of people don't understand that. I think, oh,
Speaker 4: if I was groomed, then that means that something happened
Speaker 4: to me in that moment they were harming me. We
Speaker 4: think of like abuse itself, right, and grooming in and
Speaker 4: of itself is not like a criminal act. It's not
Speaker 4: something I can diagnose. It's not something that is even
Speaker 4: often noticed. And the reason for it is that when
Speaker 4: someone's being groomed, the entire goal is to get something
Speaker 4: from another person, meaning that if let's say I'm the
Speaker 4: abuser and I'm grooming you, Daniel, I might make friends
Speaker 4: with your parents, I might make friends with your friends.
Speaker 4: I might try to get a job at the same place.
Speaker 4: Let's say we both work at a restaurant. Right, I'll
Speaker 4: try to kind of weasel my way into your life
Speaker 4: so that other people in your life will vouch for me.
Speaker 4: And I think that's what is really hard for people
Speaker 4: to understand and what ends up kind of causing what
Speaker 4: i'd call like cognitive dissonance, like this, these can't occur together.
Speaker 4: It's like, but this was my friend or this was
Speaker 4: a person in my life. I worked with them for years.
Speaker 4: In your case, it was on the set, and you're like, this,
Speaker 4: nothing happened to me, right, but they did these horrible things,
Speaker 4: And then it's like it's really hard for us to
Speaker 4: make sense of it. Hence why grooming is effective. And
Speaker 4: I know that sounds kind of icky and that makes
Speaker 4: us all want to like rip our skin off, like
Speaker 4: h but that's kind of That's the reason it works
Speaker 4: is because it's slow and steady manipulation to find a
Speaker 4: way to get into our life to either harm us
Speaker 4: or to harm someone close to us. That's why I said, like,
Speaker 4: I could become friends with your parents or friends with
Speaker 4: your parents, you know, your friends, because the whole goal
Speaker 4: is to to have you put your walls down right
Speaker 4: feel safe.
Speaker 5: Can I ask a quick question, I'm sorry, no, cut
Speaker 5: your goal for it? Does the abuser know they're doing this?
Speaker 4: Yes and no. It depends on the person. I think
Speaker 4: the awareness isn't there because they're the ultimate goal is
Speaker 4: to get whatever it is they want. So let's say
Speaker 4: it is sexual abuse of a minor. If they're attracted
Speaker 4: to a certain kid or a certain person, then the
Speaker 4: goal is to get that. Does that make sense? So
Speaker 4: whether or not they're really aware of oh, what I'm
Speaker 4: doing is like grooming behavior. It's almost like like when
Speaker 4: you're a kid, you know, and you want your parents
Speaker 4: to let you go to a party and they've said no,
Speaker 4: and you're like, I'm going to ask dad. I already
Speaker 4: asked mom. She said no, I'm gonna I'm going to
Speaker 4: try another way. It's that same type of experience where
Speaker 4: the goal is to get that end result and we
Speaker 4: don't care how we get to it. That's a good question.
Speaker 3: Well, when you mentioned the parent situation, like that you
Speaker 3: might become friends with my parents, is the goal in
Speaker 3: that situation that my parents would then trust you, So
Speaker 3: now my parents will allow you to have access to me.
Speaker 3: And if my parents trust you, it may help me
Speaker 3: feel more trustworthy around you too, because it's like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, when you look around and you go, hey,
Speaker 3: if we all agree that this person's cool, there's much
Speaker 3: less questioning that needs to go on about whether or
Speaker 3: not this person is cool because we all agree.
Speaker 4: And I think, especially in the case of being like
Speaker 4: a child star, you have a often more responsibilities than
Speaker 4: a normal child, and unfortunately that can also come with
Speaker 4: less protectorates, like our parents might not be as involved.
Speaker 4: Which I don't know how this person worked their way
Speaker 4: into your life specifically, but my hypothesis would be that
Speaker 4: they made friends with your friends and started hanging out
Speaker 4: to make it more normalized little by little, because then
Speaker 4: it doesn't feel because that person was way older, right,
Speaker 4: which as adults now, if we saw like remove ourselves
Speaker 4: from it, if we saw like a fifteen year old
Speaker 4: hanging out with a thirty year old, we'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm forty and I don't even think I
Speaker 4: can really hang with like twenty year olds, right, I
Speaker 4: think I can until we're together, and then I'm like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, I guess I am forty, So I
Speaker 4: think that what might have been an automatic, Oh this
Speaker 4: is weird kind of Then it's slow, but sure, we
Speaker 4: get to know other people. They bring them around, We
Speaker 4: bring them around, and it's that slow and steady kind
Speaker 4: of wiggling in to where all of a sudden it
Speaker 4: feels normal.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 4: No parent was probably there to be like, hey, this
Speaker 4: is an adult, you're still children.
Speaker 7: That's all we did though, as kids child act with adults.
Speaker 7: You hung out with adults all the time. We were adults.
Speaker 7: Other than our ages. We were treated completely and totally
Speaker 7: as adults. There was unless you were really a kid,
Speaker 7: like a kid kid like Lily nick Say who was
Speaker 7: five or six at the time, or even when Lindsay
Speaker 7: came on and she was eleven, if you were fourteen, fifteen,
Speaker 7: sixteen hanging out with people that were forty forty five fifty.
Speaker 5: Was you did that experience?
Speaker 8: I was yeah.
Speaker 7: There was no you were treated there there was no
Speaker 7: age gap. It just didn't exist on a set. You
Speaker 7: were everyone was thrown together, and it didn't mad. There
Speaker 7: might have been a hierarchy when it came to more
Speaker 7: powerful positions of who you.
Speaker 8: Were I was going to show.
Speaker 6: But in a weird way, it actually inverted those hierarchies
Speaker 6: because we were show. Yeah we have the power, right like,
Speaker 6: and we were in we were in positions of authority
Speaker 6: weirdly to the other people that we were working with,
Speaker 6: Like I mean we by especially by like season five,
Speaker 6: the show's you going to go on with or without
Speaker 6: certain stand ins or directors or stage managers. It's not
Speaker 6: going to go on without us, And.
Speaker 5: We've gone like that.
Speaker 7: If you said we don't want them on the set anymore,
Speaker 7: that would have been it.
Speaker 5: It would have been gone.
Speaker 7: But the idea of seeing you know, on the street
Speaker 7: in everyday life, if you see two friends one of
Speaker 7: them's forty and one of them seventeen, it looks weird.
Speaker 5: On a set, it looks completely and totally normal.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's on a set, it does.
Speaker 3: But this person also then did go to events you
Speaker 3: guys would have, you know, parties, you would have after work.
Speaker 3: And again it's part of like I know, for me
Speaker 3: as a teenager, when the adults treated me like an adult.
Speaker 3: That made me feel so good because all I wanted,
Speaker 3: is I've courted, was to be seen, was to be
Speaker 3: an adult, and was to be mature enough to hang
Speaker 3: out with other adults. So them coming to a party
Speaker 3: or them hanging out with my friends didn't make me
Speaker 3: think badly of them. It made me think very highly
Speaker 3: of myself. Eli's an unfair thing for the kid in
Speaker 3: a relationship to go, hey, it's.
Speaker 2: Is it weird that you want to hang out with me?
Speaker 2: It should be the adult.
Speaker 3: Who knows, Yes, what on earth am I going to
Speaker 3: do hanging out with a bunch of kids Like that's
Speaker 3: a boundary I couldn't cross. I mean, I know on
Speaker 3: Girl Meets World, the kids always wanted me to do
Speaker 3: things with them, and sometimes I did. Sometimes we'd go
Speaker 3: to lunch, but for the most part, I was very
Speaker 3: much like, guys, you guys are a core group of
Speaker 3: teen friends, and that's great you guys foster that relationship.
Speaker 3: But just because we all work together doesn't mean I
Speaker 3: should be at your hangouts like chat totally.
Speaker 4: And I know that's why you're a little more vulnerable
Speaker 4: in that particular situation when you feel like you're the adult,
Speaker 4: or you have as much power. The power dynamic is
Speaker 4: a little bit off, and there aren't I assume for
Speaker 4: most of you, your parents weren't like onset every day.
Speaker 8: Checking out by season five.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so the people in your life who should
Speaker 4: have been like this is weird because you again, like
Speaker 4: to Daniel's point, like you're not supposed to as a kid,
Speaker 4: be the one that's like this isn't right. You know,
Speaker 4: we want to be cool. I remember when I was
Speaker 4: a kid, like counting down the days until I was
Speaker 4: sixteen or eighteen or twenty one, Like everything was like
Speaker 4: I wanted to be responsible. I wanted people to take
Speaker 4: me seriously, and that was taken advantage of, you know,
Speaker 4: and that that's why adults, that's why there are protectants
Speaker 4: in place for children on sets, especially the little ones,
Speaker 4: because and obvious this is probably also why it happens
Speaker 4: a lot in Hollywood is because children and teenagers in
Speaker 4: particular are very vulnerable. Because what teen doesn't want to
Speaker 4: be cool, doesn't want to hang out with the older kids.
Speaker 4: I mean, even you could people might not like this,
Speaker 4: but like when you're eighteen, when I was a kid
Speaker 4: group in a really small town, so like you try
Speaker 4: to get your older brother to buy you beer, and
Speaker 4: like you want to be old and cool, and like,
Speaker 4: I think that that can sometimes get confused, and that
Speaker 4: can you know, there's no bone in my body that
Speaker 4: says that it's appropriate for, like, you know, a thirty
Speaker 4: year old to be hanging out with fifteen year olds.
Speaker 7: That's one of the reasons I'm struggling so much of this,
Speaker 7: and it's been bothering me for so long is I
Speaker 7: wasn't fifteen.
Speaker 5: I was like nineteen, and.
Speaker 7: I wanted because I'd been an actor for so long,
Speaker 7: because I've been living by myself. I want to look
Speaker 7: back and think that I was worldly and there's no
Speaker 7: way that I could have been taken advantage of at
Speaker 7: that age, and there's no way that I could be
Speaker 7: manipulated like this because I was an adult.
Speaker 5: And that's one of the things that's really.
Speaker 7: Sticking with me more than anything else, is that I
Speaker 7: have this anger towards myself of where it's like, you
Speaker 7: were supposed to know this then.
Speaker 5: Were you, though I don't, I mean in my head
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 7: I was, you know, by the time I had heard
Speaker 7: what had happened, I'd known this man for years and years,
Speaker 7: had no idea that any of this was going on, obviously,
Speaker 7: and the idea that now at twenty four or whatever,
Speaker 7: I was twenty four to twenty five when when it
Speaker 7: happened and found out about it that I didn't know,
Speaker 7: couldn't spot it, didn't I mean, that was a failure,
Speaker 7: my own failure in my mind, where it was like,
Speaker 7: I I don't know, I don't even I don't even
Speaker 7: know how to put half of what I'm feeling into words,
Speaker 7: to be totally honest with you. And I've been thinking
Speaker 7: about it for a long time now, and it's just
Speaker 7: that's one of the things that's really sticking with me
Speaker 7: is it was like I'd love to say, oh it
Speaker 7: was because I was going through my anxiety, it was
Speaker 7: because I was only twenty foot, But there's no in
Speaker 7: my head, there's no excuses to where it's like, how
Speaker 7: did you not see this?
Speaker 5: How did you not?
Speaker 7: I don't know?
Speaker 4: It's I hear you and I think, unfortunately there's a
Speaker 4: lot pack a couple things, and you let me know
Speaker 4: if you're like Katie, your way off base, you can
Speaker 4: tell me like that's stupid. I don't agree, but I
Speaker 4: think when we when we look back as adults, So
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know how old each and every
Speaker 4: one of you are, but I'm forty. Even at twenty five,
Speaker 4: I would say I was like adult light, right, like
Speaker 4: they you know, right. But when we look back on
Speaker 4: old experiences with our adult glasses, it's hard for us
Speaker 4: to know or remember what it was like to actually
Speaker 4: be a kid that at that age nineteen I would
Speaker 4: still say as a kid, I mean I was a kid,
Speaker 4: like I was not making good decisions. So we forget
Speaker 4: what it's like. And then you're judging younger you with
Speaker 4: adult use knowledge, right, and younger you didn't even know.
Speaker 4: And I think that's the tricky thing when it comes
Speaker 4: to any abusive situation. And I know abuse can feel
Speaker 4: like a big word, but abuse, like in this case,
Speaker 4: if you were manipulated to give someone access to other
Speaker 4: people to be at the same places, you know, they
Speaker 4: abuse that relationship, right, we could at least use that
Speaker 4: term to discover. And so if we felt like we
Speaker 4: were used in some way, it's our immediate response to
Speaker 4: any kind of abuse or trauma is to minimize and
Speaker 4: invalidate our experience because we want to take blame for it,
Speaker 4: because we were kind of part of it, even though
Speaker 4: we weren't an active part. It's confusing. I understand why
Speaker 4: you're feeling very like these two things can't coexist. He
Speaker 4: can't be a bad guy and I can't be a
Speaker 4: good guy. How did that happen? And I think the
Speaker 4: untangling and the understanding of that manipulation and why they
Speaker 4: do it and how they do it can at least
Speaker 4: give us another perspective. It takes time. Like again, I
Speaker 4: just encourage you. Something I have my patience to when
Speaker 4: we're trying to make sense of an old thing that
Speaker 4: happened and we feel like we can't even remember what
Speaker 4: it's like to be us at that age, is to
Speaker 4: and luckily, you probably have a lot of footage, a
Speaker 4: lot of photos of yourself at that age, and if
Speaker 4: you can ever, I don't know if you have this,
Speaker 4: but I stumbled upon my own recently old emails or
Speaker 4: old letters. Reading through that, I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: Like I was in college and it was me and
Speaker 4: one of my girlfriends, she was studying abroad. We sent
Speaker 4: emails back and forth. Mortified, I don't even know that, Katie.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't even remember I don't even know
Speaker 4: what that was like. And I don't know if you
Speaker 4: can access some of that, because sometimes getting into the
Speaker 4: head of you at nineteen or twenty, it can give
Speaker 4: you a little bit of compassion for yourself, a little
Speaker 4: understanding for the fact that hey, I thought I knew everything,
Speaker 4: but I didn't know anything, you know, and not like
Speaker 4: in a judgmental way, just like you're really just like
Speaker 4: a kid. Still.
Speaker 6: I think it's very hard for us too, in the
Speaker 6: particular situation we're in.
Speaker 8: Because.
Speaker 6: Because we were achieving success, you know, Like what we
Speaker 6: were doing at that age was an accomplishment. We had
Speaker 6: made it as actors into the top what ten percent
Speaker 6: of actors in the whole world, two percent of actors
Speaker 6: in the whole world. We were paid to be on
Speaker 6: a TV show. So like, as far as everyone around
Speaker 6: us and the whole we were successful. We were achieving something.
Speaker 6: And I think that there's prob we want to have
Speaker 6: pride in them, right, like we want to have pride
Speaker 6: and how mature we were and how together we were
Speaker 6: and how we accomplished, you know. And I remember you
Speaker 6: would as a kid actor, you would know the other
Speaker 6: kid actors who weren't going to make it because they
Speaker 6: didn't have the abilities, not necessarily the talent, but just
Speaker 6: the life skills. They couldn't manage their money, they couldn't
Speaker 6: figure out their apartment situation, they didn't know how to
Speaker 6: take care of themselves. And like, the three of us
Speaker 6: were highly capable teenagers. And I think that that capability,
Speaker 6: you know, it's hard to look back and not see
Speaker 6: it all capable, you know, like to look back and
Speaker 6: be like, oh, I was super capable in all these ways,
Speaker 6: but I still had no clue to spot a bad person,
Speaker 6: you know that I was still a sucker for kindness
Speaker 6: or you know. And I think like Will and I,
Speaker 6: you know, Will, we've talked about this. Like another part
Speaker 6: of it that you know, is blurring these lines is
Speaker 6: like I always dated older women. Yeah, from the age
Speaker 6: of sixteen or seventeen on, like I dated a couple
Speaker 6: people and then literally ever since I was seventeen, never
Speaker 6: dated a woman in my age. And I think that
Speaker 6: that was again part of these boundaries, and it like
Speaker 6: went through degrees, Like you're talking about.
Speaker 8: Two or three years older. It's not that big of
Speaker 8: a deal.
Speaker 6: I mean it was a bigger deal back then, sure,
Speaker 6: But I was also dating women way older than like yeah,
Speaker 6: like and you and I have talked about, like that's
Speaker 6: that was really hard for me to recognize, Like that's it.
Speaker 6: That's also kind of messed up. Like I looked at
Speaker 6: it as an accomplishment to be eighteen and having an
Speaker 6: affair with a thirty two year old woman Like that
Speaker 6: was something I was like proud of until relatively recently
Speaker 6: where I was like, what is up with that person?
Speaker 8: Like that is so weird.
Speaker 6: That is not cool, you know, and like and to
Speaker 6: the power dynamics were a little different because male female
Speaker 6: again actor, you know, but like that's messed up, right,
Speaker 6: And that's very hard for me to recognize because again,
Speaker 6: I want to be.
Speaker 8: Proud of that.
Speaker 6: I wanted to be proud of that, like I'm so mature,
Speaker 6: I'm so cool that I can date older women. And
Speaker 6: like in retrospect, like, no, man, that's that's again that
Speaker 6: like boundary crossing.
Speaker 8: That was just are for the course.
Speaker 4: Well it became normalized, right, So then that's what he
Speaker 4: went out in the world looking for. And not to
Speaker 4: make assumptions about either of your lives, but for any
Speaker 4: of my patients who end up dating, marrying, being involved
Speaker 4: with people that are a lot older. A lot of
Speaker 4: times that comes out of a lack of support from parents.
Speaker 4: And not to say parents are bad. I think people
Speaker 4: want to throw parents under the bus a lot. But
Speaker 4: it's not about that. It's more about the emotional support
Speaker 4: that we get from parents. And I mean that in
Speaker 4: the most honest way. That like if your mother's had
Speaker 4: been there and been around the set, and this person
Speaker 4: was there and like he's a little old, like take
Speaker 4: you aside, like this person's a little old, you know.
Speaker 4: Just having that kind of what i'd call wise counsel
Speaker 4: and having that support is really important when we're children,
Speaker 4: even though as teens we want to push our parents away.
Speaker 4: I know better, you're so stupid. You don't know what
Speaker 4: it's like to be me. And obviously in a position
Speaker 4: of power, we're earning money things like that, but we
Speaker 4: can go out looking for other people to essentially fill
Speaker 4: that void of that support that we needed and didn't get,
Speaker 4: even though I know it's hard to maybe realize because
Speaker 4: you didn't know it at the time. Right, Often when
Speaker 4: we're kids, we don't know what we need until.
Speaker 7: I go I was in a different scenario. It's very
Speaker 7: strange because I ended up marrying an older woman. I
Speaker 7: usually dated older women. My parents are still my two
Speaker 7: biggest supporters that I've ever had. But I still left
Speaker 7: at sixteen to go and do Boyman's World. Yeah, so,
Speaker 7: I mean I was still It killed me that I
Speaker 7: had to leave. It killed them that I had to leave,
Speaker 7: but they knew for me to do what I loved
Speaker 7: and what I wanted to do, that I had to go.
Speaker 7: And my mom has told me to this day that
Speaker 7: there were when she first came on the set. It
Speaker 7: might have even been when we were doing the first photoshoot,
Speaker 7: she said, I did not like the way.
Speaker 5: A lot of the older women were looking at you.
Speaker 5: She said.
Speaker 7: She told me that right from the start, I do
Speaker 7: not like the way that they're looking at you. And
Speaker 7: she would tell me that often, you know where she
Speaker 7: would come to the set and she would say, I
Speaker 7: don't like She would tell me, I don't like the
Speaker 7: way the men are looking at Danielle.
Speaker 5: I don't like the way the women are looking at you.
Speaker 5: She would tell me that all the time. So and
Speaker 5: I still ended up with an older woman.
Speaker 7: So I think one of those reasons is, you know,
Speaker 7: when you're sixteen and you're living I had a guardian
Speaker 7: until I was eighteen, but I was essentially living by myself.
Speaker 5: You had to grow up in certain ways.
Speaker 7: And I think that's why looking back at this is
Speaker 7: so and I think it's what Riders talking about. There's
Speaker 7: this strange twisting of in some ways you are way
Speaker 7: more mature than anybody else your age, and in other ways,
Speaker 7: and so because of that, you ignore the fact that
Speaker 7: at the end of the day, you're still nineteen. Yeah,
Speaker 7: you know that you can only be so worldly. You
Speaker 7: can only be you know. I look back and I go,
Speaker 7: I can't. I can't have been this naive. I mean,
Speaker 7: this man came onto our set, befriended us instantly, super
Speaker 7: nice guy, to the point where I didn't have a
Speaker 7: lot of friends. I still don't have a lot of friends.
Speaker 7: I keep my circle of friends very, very small.
Speaker 4: And it's probably protective, right, Yeah, who wants something from me?
Speaker 4: Who's who's authentically my friends?
Speaker 7: And the anxiety And I never blame my mental illness
Speaker 7: for anything, and I'm not about to start now. My
Speaker 7: decisions are all my own. But because of the anxiety,
Speaker 7: it also keeps your world very small. So I was
Speaker 7: I was making sure I knew who was in my world.
Speaker 7: I didn't go to parties. I didn't didn't really do
Speaker 7: that stuff. But I was working a lot after Boy
Speaker 7: Meets World, and this guy had so ingratiated himself into
Speaker 7: my life. I took him to three shows after Boy
Speaker 7: Meets World.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so, I.
Speaker 7: Mean this was the type of thing where the person
Speaker 7: he presented was this great, funny guy who was really
Speaker 7: good at his job and you wanted to hang out with. Again,
Speaker 7: I didn't hang out with him a lot socially, but
Speaker 7: we were on four different shows together on sets all
Speaker 7: the time.
Speaker 8: I did, I'm going out all the time.
Speaker 5: You hung out socially, right, Yes, so that's the thing is,
Speaker 5: but that's because I didn't.
Speaker 7: I mean, I just didn't have much of a social
Speaker 7: life because I was in my house. But I saw
Speaker 7: him every day, hung out with him every day, talk
Speaker 7: to him every day. And so to look back at
Speaker 7: that and and then him telling us what happened, I'll
Speaker 7: just say, for me telling me what happened, and then
Speaker 7: instantly spinning it to where it wasn't his fault, it
Speaker 7: was clearly the fault of his victim. My initial instinct
Speaker 7: because of the years I've been with him, is like, well, yeah,
Speaker 7: of course it can't be.
Speaker 5: You can't be.
Speaker 2: You right, you're innocent.
Speaker 5: I mean, it can't It can't possibly be that.
Speaker 7: So you sidle up to the guy who now you
Speaker 7: look back as adult, and.
Speaker 5: You go, that's that's he's horrible. And my instinct initially was, well,
Speaker 5: my friend can't be. This can't be. So it's got
Speaker 5: to be the other person's fault has to be.
Speaker 7: The story of course makes complete sense the way that
Speaker 7: he's saying it, and you're damn right, it's that kid's fault.
Speaker 5: How dare he? And I look back at that now as.
Speaker 7: An adult, and it it makes me want to cry
Speaker 7: that I ever was that naive And it's I don't know.
Speaker 5: Again, I have all these We've tried, writer and I have.
Speaker 7: Tried talking about this. Danielle and Ryder and I have
Speaker 7: tried talking about this. We've all tried to discuss this,
Speaker 7: and I still can't get the words out to describe
Speaker 7: all of the things that I'm feeling inside of myself.
Speaker 7: And it's it's again, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Can I add a layer to this too that I
Speaker 3: think is really important to talk about because I think it.
Speaker 3: I think it's important. Like, we had a lot of
Speaker 3: stand ins leading up to season five.
Speaker 2: And sometimes it just happened.
Speaker 3: Recently, we were like, Hey, that guy who's in this
Speaker 3: episode is one of our stand ins, and we couldn't
Speaker 3: remember his name. And that's not because we're terrible people,
Speaker 3: and it's not because we have awful memories. Sometimes it's
Speaker 3: just because even though we worked with those people every day,
Speaker 3: there were boundaries in place that adult did have boundaries
Speaker 3: with us, didn't try to separate us from our friends
Speaker 3: or have lunch with us every day off stage.
Speaker 2: This particular person did.
Speaker 3: All the years of having stand ins, no one ever
Speaker 3: do I remember regularly going to lunch with the cast members,
Speaker 3: but this person did. And part of that's because when
Speaker 3: they arrived on set, they were extremely charming, They were
Speaker 3: very personable, They had a lot of jokes. They also,
Speaker 3: because of their many years of experience working in the
Speaker 3: entertainment industry, knew other very successful famous kids and young
Speaker 3: men and regularly talked about them. And regardless of how
Speaker 3: much we had, you know, for how many years we
Speaker 3: had been in the industry, or the thought that actors
Speaker 3: were still just people famous actors that were succeeding at
Speaker 3: the very thing we were doing, and sometimes in movies,
Speaker 3: which for a lot of us was like the real goal,
Speaker 3: Like we're on a sitcom now, but we all want
Speaker 3: to be movie stars. And this person was friends with
Speaker 3: those movie stars and they mentioned them and that's it
Speaker 3: felt It felt cool. It felt like, Wow, this guy
Speaker 3: knows those people. Those are his friends, and he always
Speaker 3: had funny stories, and he always had great stories, and
Speaker 3: you'd want to know more, and next thing you know.
Speaker 2: You'd be at lunch with this person.
Speaker 3: Also, it was well and so that's one aspect that
Speaker 3: I just want to point out that this person very
Speaker 3: quickly was like we're going to be friends, and did
Speaker 3: we were like this guy's great Two this person was
Speaker 3: this person was gay, and we knew that he was gay,
Speaker 3: and homophobia was rampant, especially in the nineties, and when
Speaker 3: we when he's gay, all of us that side of
Speaker 3: us that's like, that doesn't mean anything to us, don't care,
Speaker 3: doesn't mean anything to us. But the other adults on
Speaker 3: set who maybe could have or should have said, why
Speaker 3: are you guys going to lunch with this guy? Why
Speaker 3: is this guy going to writer's house?
Speaker 2: For a party.
Speaker 3: There was probably a part of them that didn't say
Speaker 3: it because they were afraid it was going to be
Speaker 3: taken as homophobia instead of this is a boundary gay
Speaker 3: or not. This is a boundary about adults and kids.
Speaker 3: And so I also think that's important in the story
Speaker 3: of writer and Will about why he befriended the two.
Speaker 2: Of you so closely.
Speaker 3: And I did have lunch with him a couple of times,
Speaker 3: but only because someone else would invite me. Someon would say, Hey,
Speaker 3: I'm going to lunch with him, do you want to come,
Speaker 3: And I'd go, yeah, sure, I'll go to lunch. But
Speaker 3: he didn't really make an effort to get to know me.
Speaker 3: He didn't ingratiate himselves as much into my life. I
Speaker 3: never heard from him again after the show ended. Then
Speaker 3: I didn't, you know, he didn't come to my parents'
Speaker 3: house or he didn't do that with me.
Speaker 4: Which is kind of important to note again because the
Speaker 4: manipulation piece, like what grooming is, there's an end goal,
Speaker 4: and I think at the very least see the difference
Speaker 4: between those two things, because when again going back to
Speaker 4: like being a kid and trying to manipulate a parent
Speaker 4: to give us something we want. We can be really
Speaker 4: really friendly and we have all our jokes planned and
Speaker 4: we're so people when they want to get something can
Speaker 4: be incredibly charismatic, and they also move quick before we
Speaker 4: even have a chance to ask questions. It's almost like,
Speaker 4: in their fervor to get that thing, we don't even
Speaker 4: know what to think. And then they're already part of
Speaker 4: our group and then we're.
Speaker 8: Like, oh okay.
Speaker 4: It's almost like we don't have a chance to sit
Speaker 4: around with our friends that were friends before they were
Speaker 4: part of this and be like, hey, what do you
Speaker 4: think about so and so, or what's you know, or
Speaker 4: have a mom come to visit the set and be like, hey,
Speaker 4: well this is weird. Right, there was no chance it
Speaker 4: was already happening. It had already happened. And I think
Speaker 4: that's part of why they move so quick, why they
Speaker 4: are so charismatic, why the way that they interact is
Speaker 4: feels so nice natural.
Speaker 7: You know. That's one of the things that Ryder and
Speaker 7: I have also talked about before, what Danielle as well,
Speaker 7: but really Wright and I is the fact that if
Speaker 7: he was telling us all these stories with all these
Speaker 7: famous names, that means chances are he was telling other
Speaker 7: people's stories with our names, yes, exactly.
Speaker 4: And probably to get access in another way.
Speaker 5: In addition, that, to me is another thing that I
Speaker 5: think back on. It just I don't know.
Speaker 7: He must have been because that was one of the
Speaker 7: things he was famous for, is his storytelling and the
Speaker 7: people he knew and and how he knew them.
Speaker 5: And you know who you should meet and you know, oh, man,
Speaker 5: you know who'll be great as this director? You should
Speaker 5: meet this person.
Speaker 8: This remember used to call him the forest Pump of Hollywood.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because he knew everybody.
Speaker 6: He knew everybody, had been behind the scene of so
Speaker 6: many famous movies and conversations and like, yeah.
Speaker 5: You knew everybody.
Speaker 7: And what I'm starting to realize is he wasn't just
Speaker 7: telling us stories.
Speaker 5: He was using that. Yeah.
Speaker 7: So yeah, this idea that I was somehow collected without
Speaker 7: knowing it is Nope.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's probably I'm telling you guys this I think.
Speaker 6: But you know, I saw this person maybe seven years ago.
Speaker 6: I went to a party and he was there, and
Speaker 6: it was such It was one of the most intense
Speaker 6: experiences in my life because I saw him.
Speaker 8: I hadn't seen him for years, and he.
Speaker 6: Immediately started talking to me as you know, old friends
Speaker 6: or whatever, like hey, oh my god, and I had
Speaker 6: this it felt like an out of body experience where
Speaker 6: I'm having a conversation with him and I was finally
Speaker 6: able to hear the name dropping, like how he was
Speaker 6: able to in thirty seconds a couple of minutes of
Speaker 6: conversation with me, where he was talking the whole time,
Speaker 6: and I was just like, oh hi, where he was like,
Speaker 6: I was just oh right or strong, so good to
Speaker 6: see you. You know. I was just talking to my
Speaker 6: buddy blah blah blah the other day, and we were
Speaker 6: across the room from so and so the other day,
Speaker 6: and I saw and like all these names, and suddenly
Speaker 6: I could see this constellation, this web that this person
Speaker 6: was laying where what he was letting me know, like
Speaker 6: the story that he was telling was nonsense, but what
Speaker 6: he was letting me know was that he was with
Speaker 6: famous people who rationals who.
Speaker 8: Validate him and and and and.
Speaker 6: Put him in a category of Hollywood royalty or like
Speaker 6: around all and like he did that constantly when we
Speaker 6: were on the setup pointments world, and I never saw
Speaker 6: it because it was so effortless and so and here
Speaker 6: I was like at this party and like I had
Speaker 6: to leave. I was so freaked the fuck out I
Speaker 6: had to, like, you know, my wife was there, and
Speaker 6: I was like, we have to leave, Like I could not.
Speaker 6: I was like and because I could see this finally
Speaker 6: for what was happening, and it was awful. It was
Speaker 6: like a truly like and I'm sure that was happening
Speaker 6: all the time when we were back in the day,
Speaker 6: but to me, it was like, can I be part
Speaker 6: of this group? Can I be part of this recognized
Speaker 6: famous person club that he was a part of and
Speaker 6: that he was a member of, and that I wanted
Speaker 6: to be a part of too, you know, like and yeah,
Speaker 6: it felt, Yeah, it's awful.
Speaker 8: The other thing I would say is like, I, you.
Speaker 6: Know, going back to Katie, what you were saying about
Speaker 6: wise counsel, you know, like I remember my parents actually
Speaker 6: saying something to me, not about this person. There were
Speaker 6: multiple people at the time, men, older men, who I
Speaker 6: would hang out with as if they were peers. That
Speaker 6: was something that happened often, and I remember my parents
Speaker 6: like being kind of upset about one of them, being like,
Speaker 6: why are you hanging out with this guy? Like he's
Speaker 6: in his forties, what's your deal or late thirties early forties,
Speaker 6: like what? And I remember saying to my dad, who
Speaker 6: brung it up to him. I was like, well, that
Speaker 6: person's kind of like a permanent kid, and that was
Speaker 6: like something, there was something recognized within these these I
Speaker 6: can think of like three men in my life that
Speaker 6: I was friends with who were like they were sort
Speaker 6: of like childlike and into movies and games. They were stunted,
Speaker 6: and they were aware of that and would talk about
Speaker 6: themselves as if like, Eh, I'm kind of a permanent
Speaker 6: teenager and we as like teenagers who wanted to be
Speaker 6: older would be like, well, that makes them a cool person,
Speaker 6: Like that makes them fun for us to hang out
Speaker 6: with because they're like they're like us, except they can
Speaker 6: buy alcohol and you know, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: It was like, Wow, they're like always living like we live. Now.
Speaker 6: That's how I want to be when I'm in my
Speaker 6: thirties and forties. Now, Jesus, no, like I want to
Speaker 6: be around other adults talking about grown up things like
Speaker 6: the idea of hanging out with anybody under the age
Speaker 6: of twenty five makes me sick to my stomach, but
Speaker 6: not then, like then, I thought it was like, oh,
Speaker 6: we're meeting each other halfway, like they're permanent children and
Speaker 6: I'm more of an adult and the other yeah, I'm
Speaker 6: an adult out of it, and so it was like
Speaker 6: we're understanding each other in a way, and like that
Speaker 6: is truly disturbing to recognize.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 6: The other thing, I do think that, like Danielle, your
Speaker 6: point about the homophobia is so spot on, and I
Speaker 6: felt that that was explicitly explained to me, and this
Speaker 6: is really really messed up. It was explained to me
Speaker 6: by this person, and I remember having conversations with other
Speaker 6: people that that it was like put into the context
Speaker 6: of straightness in the sense that it was like, well,
Speaker 6: a lot of guys are really into younger girls, like
Speaker 6: that's you know. And I had that experience on a
Speaker 6: fairly regular basis with people from our show men. Straight
Speaker 6: Men from our show would talk about you talk about
Speaker 6: guest stars, hot girls, hot women that were under eight,
Speaker 6: but they would talk about them with me as a peer, like, ka,
Speaker 6: what do you think of that? Let's go check out that.
Speaker 6: And that is all so disturbing in its own right.
Speaker 6: When this situation happened, that was sort of used against
Speaker 6: me in that it was like, well, you know how
Speaker 6: it is, like I'm gay and I'm attracted to younger
Speaker 6: people the same way that straight guys are attracted to
Speaker 6: younger people. So you don't judge me for being attracted
Speaker 6: to or wanting to have sex with this young dude,
Speaker 6: because that's you know, that would be homophobic because straight
Speaker 6: guys do it too.
Speaker 8: But it's like, no, it was awful for the sou
Speaker 8: but it was turned against me.
Speaker 6: It was like used against me to be like, well,
Speaker 6: if you're gonna you know, and it's true, Like I
Speaker 6: remember feeling like I shouldn't judge straight men for wanting
Speaker 6: to be with younger women. But in retrospect, yes, like
Speaker 6: I would never talk about a teenage girl now, I
Speaker 6: would never do that. Back in the nineties that was
Speaker 6: somewhat acceptable or like I still think in some cultures,
Speaker 6: in some circles, it's still acceptable for guys to talk
Speaker 6: about like teenage girls as if that's like and I'm.
Speaker 8: Like, I just like in retro like, oh my god,
Speaker 8: that makes me sick to my stomach, Like.
Speaker 7: Why would they ever think that's That's the thing that's
Speaker 7: so amazing though, is that when you're a kid, or
Speaker 7: when you're younger.
Speaker 5: I won't even use the word kid. When you're younger.
Speaker 7: That's where your brain goes is because mine did the
Speaker 7: same thing. It goes to You're right, that is homophobic.
Speaker 7: I shouldn't be thinking like that way because I don't
Speaker 7: think that way about the straight guys, when in actuality,
Speaker 7: you should be thinking that way about the straight guys.
Speaker 7: That's what should change, is your idea about No, it's
Speaker 7: all disgusting, right, yeah, but you don't do that. You go,
Speaker 7: oh my god, you're right. You're my gay friend, and
Speaker 7: I just judged you, and now you're telling me I'm
Speaker 7: judging you because you're gay.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I'm horrible.
Speaker 2: I feel bad.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but it was it was. Yeah, the whole situation was.
Speaker 7: Again you want to look it'd be one thing to
Speaker 7: look back and say, hey, we're realizing this was a
Speaker 7: pattern now and it's terrible, and I'm glad we realized it.
Speaker 7: And again, I haven't seen writer saw him seven years ago,
Speaker 7: ran into him at a party. I haven't seen this
Speaker 7: guy in almost twenty years. And that would be fine
Speaker 7: if we could use that for our growth. Great, but
Speaker 7: there there's an actual victim here. And and the he
Speaker 7: turned us against the victim to where now we're on
Speaker 7: his team, and.
Speaker 5: How is that?
Speaker 7: And that's the thing where to me, I look back
Speaker 7: at that as my ever loving shame for this entime.
Speaker 7: I mean, getting taken in by somebody who's a good
Speaker 7: actor and a manipulator. You know, Hey, I could chalk
Speaker 7: that up to being young, and that's the way it is.
Speaker 7: You know, it's awful, and I'm going to use that
Speaker 7: as my growth, you know, for my growth as a
Speaker 7: human being. Great, But when there's an actual victim involved,
Speaker 7: and now I'm on the abuser's side, that's the thing
Speaker 7: I can't I can't get over and.
Speaker 5: Haven't been able to get it.
Speaker 8: Clear.
Speaker 6: Though he didn't deny that nothing, he didn't say that
Speaker 6: nothing had happened. So by the time we heard about
Speaker 6: this case and knew anything about it, it was always
Speaker 6: in the context of I did this thing, I am guilty.
Speaker 6: I am going to take whatever punishment the government you know,
Speaker 6: decide determines. I am but but but I am.
Speaker 8: A victim of jailbait, right like I am.
Speaker 6: I I saw that, you know, there was this hot
Speaker 6: guy and I just did this thing and did it
Speaker 6: all underage, Yeah, exactly, And we bought that storyline. We
Speaker 6: bought into that storyline as opposed to saying, whoa grown
Speaker 6: man who's forty something years old, like what the hell
Speaker 6: were you doing to begin?
Speaker 5: And why are you even in that position?
Speaker 8: Yeah? Why are you there?
Speaker 5: And and for me, he called.
Speaker 7: Me to his house, which I been to maybe twice,
Speaker 7: so that alone was weird.
Speaker 5: And he sat me down.
Speaker 7: And because I I guess you said this happened in
Speaker 7: two thousand and one, I didn't hear about this until
Speaker 7: it was it was way after two thousand and one
Speaker 7: where he sat me down.
Speaker 2: And he was arrested in two thousand and three.
Speaker 7: Okay, so that's so I think that's when I found
Speaker 7: out about It was two thousand and three or two
Speaker 7: thousand and four, maybe even later.
Speaker 5: And he called me to his house.
Speaker 7: So he said to me, Hey, this, this is what's happening.
Speaker 7: But this is what happened. He's crying the whole here's
Speaker 7: the real story, and here's.
Speaker 5: The real story.
Speaker 7: And I'm probably I think we'd just done a film
Speaker 7: together which he got me this role. Because I wasn't
Speaker 7: auditioning at the time. It wasn't a great time in
Speaker 7: my life.
Speaker 3: It's just very It's very important for you to know.
Speaker 3: I know it because it isn't about your mind. It
Speaker 3: isn't about the mental illness. It's about the fact that
Speaker 3: he got you a part you were not auditioning because
Speaker 3: of your anxiety and he got you apart a straight
Speaker 3: offer for a movie. Yeah, and you felt indebted to him,
Speaker 3: whether or not it was I mean that was you
Speaker 3: felt that as part of the manipulation, and Katie can
Speaker 3: speak to that. I'm not the expert here, but that's
Speaker 3: part of his manipulation.
Speaker 5: Maybe.
Speaker 7: But I'm again the idea of wrapping up my mental
Speaker 7: illness into any of it, like, because to me it
Speaker 7: seems like I'm pointing to my mental illness like I'm
Speaker 7: blaming it, and it's no excuse, frankly, I'm just.
Speaker 3: Saying, as part of your relationship, he did you such
Speaker 3: a favor as a solid by getting you a role
Speaker 3: that you didn't have to audition for, and so as
Speaker 3: part of your relationship with him, you carried this piece
Speaker 3: of this very good friend of mine has stuck his
Speaker 3: neck out for me and to anyone, you feel indebted
Speaker 3: in that situation. So you had just come off of
Speaker 3: that movie. He brings you to his house, and then
Speaker 3: what does he tell you the story?
Speaker 7: Is he tell well, I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 7: tell the whole it's pretty awful, so I don't want
Speaker 7: to tell the whole story.
Speaker 5: But it wasn't him at all.
Speaker 7: Yes, he committed this act, but he committed this act
Speaker 7: after being manipulated himself, after being taken advantage of.
Speaker 5: I mean, you name it. By the end, he was
Speaker 5: the Saint Jero bit.
Speaker 8: It was just the idea of like this this young.
Speaker 7: Hot person who'd been trying forever to get with this
Speaker 7: person wore him down after trying and trying and trying,
Speaker 7: and this person gave in one time.
Speaker 3: That's a question, and we can edit this out. But
Speaker 3: did he lie about the age of him too? Did
Speaker 3: he Did he tell you how old the kid was?
Speaker 7: Or no?
Speaker 5: I don't remember.
Speaker 6: Well, what I know is that, like since I've looked
Speaker 6: up the case, like I didn't realize he only admitted
Speaker 6: to one thing, but he was charged originally with like
Speaker 6: a bunch of things.
Speaker 8: Yes, but I never heard about.
Speaker 6: Those other things because back then you couldn't google to
Speaker 6: like find out what people were being charged with.
Speaker 8: So like in retrospect, he was making a plea.
Speaker 6: Deal and admitting one thing, which is all he admitted
Speaker 6: to us, but it looks like he was actually being
Speaker 6: charged with a series of crimes.
Speaker 8: And that's really disturbing.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's almost like the Bill Cosby effect,
Speaker 4: where like one person comes out and then you're like,
Speaker 4: holy shit, you know, because if he's that good of
Speaker 4: a manipulator, which clearly he is, and probably so much
Speaker 4: so that he even believes his own lives, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, in order to come across so calm, cool, collected,
Speaker 4: this is what happened. To get emotional, but.
Speaker 7: It was I mean, he then asked us to support
Speaker 7: him and go to court with him, which a lot
Speaker 7: of us did, and we're sitting in that courtroom on
Speaker 7: the wrong side of everything, of course, having no idea.
Speaker 7: This filled with child actors, to the point where the
Speaker 7: victim's mother turned and said, look at all the famous
Speaker 7: people you brought with you, and it doesn't change what
Speaker 7: you did to my kid. And I just sat there
Speaker 7: wanting to die, where it was like, what the hell am.
Speaker 5: I doing here? Yeah, And it was horrifying all the
Speaker 5: way around.
Speaker 3: And question again, question, were there any women there. Did
Speaker 3: he bring any famous women with him?
Speaker 6: I can't remember friends that were women.
Speaker 8: There was a lot of us.
Speaker 7: I mean, there was a lot of us there that
Speaker 7: were that were very recognizable. Again to the point where
Speaker 7: the victim's mom pointed it out, and you know, he
Speaker 7: he had us head writer and I write letters of
Speaker 7: support to the judge. And these are things we did
Speaker 7: and and again we did them because we were then
Speaker 7: lied to.
Speaker 5: We weren't told the whole story. But it doesn't change
Speaker 5: the fact that we did it.
Speaker 8: And I think part of it.
Speaker 5: Just not to cut you off, no please at this point.
Speaker 4: No, No, You're fine. It's a lot. There's a lot
Speaker 4: to unpack because you knew this one story and now
Speaker 4: there's all this evidence of another story and it's with
Speaker 4: for lack of a better terments of mind. Fuck, you're
Speaker 4: like what. But I think the big piece that we
Speaker 4: have to remember, and I know this might be a
Speaker 4: hard pill to swallow, is that you were victimized in
Speaker 4: your own way. I'm not comparing We're not comparing pain
Speaker 4: for pain. I'm not saying no, if you take the
Speaker 4: slice of pie, there's less pain for others. You know,
Speaker 4: a lot of people feel like that, like, well, if
Speaker 4: I say I'm a victim, then that what does that
Speaker 4: mean for that child that he harmed too? That's we're
Speaker 4: not comparing, but you were victimized in your own way.
Speaker 4: Think of the pain that you're enduring now trying to
Speaker 4: like figure out it makes sense of like you said,
Speaker 4: the shame and the guilt and like, what the hell
Speaker 4: am I doing here? This is horrifying. I think a
Speaker 4: big piece of when you said, like, I take this
Speaker 4: to grow on my life, Like, I think a big
Speaker 4: piece of the healing is going to be acknowledging the
Speaker 4: fact that someone took advantage of you in a situation
Speaker 4: when you didn't think you were vulnerable and you were
Speaker 4: and they were like a master manipulator, and so you
Speaker 4: were victimized in your own way and now left to
Speaker 4: kind of pick up the pieces, which is shitty. He's
Speaker 4: a bad person, and it's not saying, oh, we should
Speaker 4: keep blaming him and shame, shame, shame, shame, But there
Speaker 4: at least needs to be this acknowledgment, and that might
Speaker 4: take time. I mean I'm speaking things that might be
Speaker 4: out in the future of therapeutic work for you. You know,
Speaker 4: as you try to tease out the fact that Behay,
Speaker 4: I really liked this guy. I trusted him. Yeah, but
Speaker 4: then like what the fuck? Right?
Speaker 7: I guess that's why I asked that question at the beginning,
Speaker 7: and I wonder if it's part of my brain is
Speaker 7: still trying to rationalize what I saw in him that
Speaker 7: made him a good what I thought was a good person,
Speaker 7: which is why I asked, do you think he knew
Speaker 7: what he was doing? And he because I guess that
Speaker 7: changes things or does it?
Speaker 5: Not?
Speaker 4: For you? Not for you?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 4: Your experience is your experience, and that's why there is
Speaker 4: a big piece of healing, like in the WU since
Speaker 4: we call it like inner child work, But there is
Speaker 4: a piece of looking back. I mean, like, hey, I
Speaker 4: didn't know he knew and the blames on him because
Speaker 4: all I knew was, hey, this guy was fun, he
Speaker 4: was nice, he was he knew people, he was always
Speaker 4: would come to parties. He made me feel so adult.
Speaker 4: I felt seen by him, you know. But then as
Speaker 4: we look back, we're like, he didn't have any friends
Speaker 4: that were women, which is kind of strange. He maybe
Speaker 4: didn't even hang out with people his own age. I
Speaker 4: don't know, that's a question I would have. Is there
Speaker 4: anybody he was close with that was his age or older?
Speaker 8: There was definitely a few group. Yeah. Well, and he
Speaker 8: was very well connected, very well connected with and so.
Speaker 3: Much of that very well connectedness is also part of
Speaker 3: the manipulation. Like I was thinking about writer, the story
Speaker 3: you told when you saw him seven years ago, and
Speaker 3: thinking about how his manipulation changed, and that all he
Speaker 3: cared about when he saw you was walking away from
Speaker 3: that situation, letting you know that these other famous, very
Speaker 3: well connected people don't care about my crime. You shouldn't either.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I feel it.
Speaker 8: I still feel it.
Speaker 6: M Yeah, I mean, I'm so uncomfortable with doing this episode.
Speaker 5: I hate it.
Speaker 8: I hate it, and I you know, and it's.
Speaker 6: Because I still feel bad. I still feel like we
Speaker 6: should not be ruining this man's life more. I still
Speaker 6: feel that, and I don't, you know, I mean, I
Speaker 6: think there's a lot of layers to that, Like, you know,
Speaker 6: it just makes me so uncomfortable, mostly because I don't
Speaker 6: We're gonna We're gonna air this episode and a million
Speaker 6: articles are gonna be written.
Speaker 8: We know that's happened.
Speaker 6: There's gonna be variety, there's gonna be clickbait articles. There's
Speaker 6: and we're not adding any new information to the world. Instead,
Speaker 6: we're bringing something that's already out there. But but it's
Speaker 6: not in the foreground, right.
Speaker 5: And it's it's we're shining a spotlight.
Speaker 6: It's not yeah, okay, but like the fact that this person,
Speaker 6: a convicted child sex offender work on Boy Meets World.
Speaker 6: It's not like even one of the up one hundred
Speaker 6: facts about Boy Meets World in the in the universe.
Speaker 8: After this, it's going to be.
Speaker 6: Like the thing, right, it's gonna be, uh, it will
Speaker 6: rise to the top of like one of the most
Speaker 6: talked about facts about us and our show, and like, okay,
Speaker 6: so what's wrong with that?
Speaker 8: And I think I have like.
Speaker 6: I think like heedophilia just lends itself towards to a
Speaker 6: moral panic and that I don't love the idea that
Speaker 6: like we're playing into the sort of conspiracy theories around Hollywood,
Speaker 6: which are ridiculous and so overblown.
Speaker 8: I think.
Speaker 6: I don't like the idea that like we are you know,
Speaker 6: affecting the cultural memory of Boy Meets World with this,
Speaker 6: because that's a bummer, because I feel like in my
Speaker 6: experience of Boyman's World, like it's not that big of
Speaker 6: a part of it.
Speaker 5: No, Well, but it has almost nothing to do with
Speaker 5: Boy Meets World.
Speaker 8: See that's what it's going, says to me.
Speaker 5: This has nothing to do with Boy means World.
Speaker 7: This has to do with me now as a forty
Speaker 7: seven year old man in the person I've become, and
Speaker 7: this affected me as a person. In fact, the show
Speaker 7: in any way, shape or form, it does affect my.
Speaker 5: Memory of the show in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 7: As a matter of fact, most of my memories of
Speaker 7: this person and this manipulation happened after Boy for me. Yeah,
Speaker 7: so I think I think people will disconnect the two.
Speaker 5: Look, the clickbait articles are going to happen.
Speaker 7: We just saw this last week where I told the
Speaker 7: story that I've told a hundred times before and it
Speaker 7: blew up and it just.
Speaker 5: Came out of nowhere. So yes, it's gonna be everywhere.
Speaker 7: But that's also just the culture nowadays, and the people
Speaker 7: are going to believe what they want to believe. But
Speaker 7: the people that are actually listening, I think actually listening
Speaker 7: will we'll see what we're talking about and realize that
Speaker 7: it has nothing to do with Boy me World.
Speaker 8: But it's not even the culture nowadays.
Speaker 6: This is like a classic thing that's you know, the
Speaker 6: satanic panic of the eighties. You have like the Repressed
Speaker 6: Memories movement, Pizzagate, like right, Florida book bannings, like right now,
Speaker 6: it's like there's like it's a moral panic with pedophilia
Speaker 6: that is such and you know, there's a reason for it.
Speaker 8: It's like a it's like a unifying it's pure evial.
Speaker 6: It's like one of the few things that we can
Speaker 6: say is just awful no matter what, because like murder
Speaker 6: sometimes can be justified, right, Like there are times people
Speaker 6: can argue whether it's you know, but like sexual predator
Speaker 6: of children like now, like prisoners kill.
Speaker 4: I was just going to say, when you go to
Speaker 4: prison they.
Speaker 6: Yeah, people, right, And so in a weird way, it's
Speaker 6: a rallying cry like unites people. It's like, well, we
Speaker 6: can all agree that like this is evil, you know,
Speaker 6: and and so in a way it becomes this like
Speaker 6: cycle of you know, like self, I don't know, So
Speaker 6: I'm just worried about playing into that moral panic.
Speaker 8: I'm worried about it.
Speaker 2: But this did happen. I agree with you.
Speaker 8: Right, But why are we talking about it?
Speaker 6: Why are we bringing it up now, you know, and
Speaker 6: that like, because I watched a lot of people behave
Speaker 6: horribly during boring mes War, Like I watched grown ups
Speaker 6: do awful things. I'm not furnishing their reputation. I'm not
Speaker 6: bringing it up, you know. And so that that's where
Speaker 6: I'm like, why, you know, and that's what I But
Speaker 6: then I'm like, why am I feeling bad for this person?
Speaker 8: Why am I you know, because I'm not friends with
Speaker 8: this person.
Speaker 6: I can honestly say this person is I agree with
Speaker 6: everything that's been said, manipulative, charming in the awful way,
Speaker 6: like I can agree with all those things, but I
Speaker 6: still feel, you know. And then, like I said, I
Speaker 6: worry about playing into you know, I think damaging our industry,
Speaker 6: which is an industry I love, Like I love Hollywood.
Speaker 6: I think it's you know, it's one of the few
Speaker 6: businesses that's built around art and expression, self expression, and
Speaker 6: I think it, you know, it's something I care about,
Speaker 6: and I feel like it Hollywood gets vilified by other forces,
Speaker 6: whether that's you know, politicians or the church or you know,
Speaker 6: like I feel like I oftentimes like Hollywood gets pushed back,
Speaker 6: and I think pedophilia becomes an easy way to sort
Speaker 6: of like target Hollywood and like, you know, say like,
Speaker 6: oh see, it's a den of iniquity. That's just awful people,
Speaker 6: and it's been vilified historically time and time again, and
Speaker 6: so I hate playing into that.
Speaker 8: I hate the idea.
Speaker 4: Of, like what if we reframe it a little bit.
Speaker 4: Not to be a total therapist, I apologize, but like
Speaker 4: what if instead of thinking like, oh, we're shitting on Hollywood,
Speaker 4: we're going to tarnish Boy Meets World, we instead say,
Speaker 4: you know, it actually happened. He was part of the cast,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't anything to do with the show itself.
Speaker 4: This isn't actually representative of Hollywood as a whole. But
Speaker 4: the point of talking about it is to educate people
Speaker 4: so that other people in the world, because this doesn't
Speaker 4: happen in any kind of vacuum. This happens, unfortunately everywhere,
Speaker 4: to a lot of different children, probably you know, happening
Speaker 4: to someone at this very moment, so one child can hear, hey,
Speaker 4: this is a little weird. This person's a little older.
Speaker 4: And I was listening to this podcast and somebody told
Speaker 4: me that that's something I should like look out for.
Speaker 4: It's a red flag because if you're a teenager, you're
Speaker 4: not going to ask your parents because they don't know anything.
Speaker 4: We always think they don't know anything. That then maybe
Speaker 4: one kid could speak up or could remove themselves from
Speaker 4: a situation and not feel the way that you guys
Speaker 4: feel now, or like the way the victim felt in
Speaker 4: that courtroom.
Speaker 3: And also, if you are not a person who's being
Speaker 3: victimized yourself in the way of being sexually abused, you
Speaker 3: may still be victimized by just being a person. This
Speaker 3: This person can say, look who I'm friends with?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and maybe you have to give you an opportunity
Speaker 4: to cut them out to be like, you know what,
Speaker 4: that is a little weird. I have other friends I'd
Speaker 4: rather spend time with, you know, And I think.
Speaker 5: You can dissect it from boy me to world. So
Speaker 5: it's also all this happened after boy.
Speaker 7: I mean, this was We've talked about every guest star
Speaker 7: that's come on the show, and he's coming on the show.
Speaker 7: I mean, it's not if I could see what you're saying, writer,
Speaker 7: and you know, you and I've gone back and forth
Speaker 7: about this. I didn't want to do this either. You
Speaker 7: didn't want to do this. It's been very tough. I
Speaker 7: can see it if it was just some guy that
Speaker 7: was never going to be on screen. It's a story
Speaker 7: we knew if people wanted to find it, they could
Speaker 7: find it. But the factor remains that we start every
Speaker 7: episode with Danielle reading down the guest list and who's
Speaker 7: there and who's on the episode, and that's gonna happen
Speaker 7: multiple times. He did like four or five episodes. So
Speaker 7: it's one of those things where she's right with what
Speaker 7: she said in the beginning, where we said we were
Speaker 7: gonna be honest about everything that went on. Damn the consequences,
Speaker 7: and it's you know what, are we just going to
Speaker 7: say his name and and then move on? You know,
Speaker 7: I guess we could have done that, but I don't
Speaker 7: know if that would have been staying true to who
Speaker 7: what we what we started doing.
Speaker 3: Do either of you still feel like like the manipulat?
Speaker 2: I mean, do you? I know you don't feel any
Speaker 2: sort of sense of like loyalty to him, but there
Speaker 2: is a little.
Speaker 3: There's a sense of feeling like you want to still
Speaker 3: protect this person, do you, Katie? Can you talk to
Speaker 3: like are they still being manipulated?
Speaker 8: Is this just is this.
Speaker 3: A sign of like how good this person was at
Speaker 3: manipulating them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a couple of pieces to it. He's obviously
Speaker 4: very good at what he does and forging what feels
Speaker 4: like a real relationship. And I don't want to take
Speaker 4: that from either of you will a writer to say like, oh,
Speaker 4: it wasn't a real relationship, but it was a facade
Speaker 4: of a relationship with goals in mind, which I think
Speaker 4: we could all take a minute and say, when we're
Speaker 4: friends with someone, it's just because we like them and
Speaker 4: they're nice, and we share maybe the same types of
Speaker 4: music that we like, or food, or we have the
Speaker 4: same joys. So none of us would have entered into
Speaker 4: a relationship with a goal, but he did, and so
Speaker 4: he put together kind of writer. Like you said, when
Speaker 4: you saw him at that party, he gave you the
Speaker 4: willies because he was he was doing that web again
Speaker 4: to make you start to feel like he was important
Speaker 4: and he should be in your life. But you're not
Speaker 4: a kid anymore, and you had the ability to be like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you're like, what the hell is this it? You know,
Speaker 4: but he's very good at what he does, and I
Speaker 4: think the past, those past manipulations have painted this picture
Speaker 4: that we're having a tough time scene out of because
Speaker 4: you still have those old relationship memories. You have those
Speaker 4: old situations, and you know, he did go to prison,
Speaker 4: he did serve his time. You know, how long do
Speaker 4: we keep beating someone up for that? You know, there
Speaker 4: can be a lot of different views. Yeah, but I
Speaker 4: don't ever side with someone who's harmed another person by saying, oh,
Speaker 4: you can only talk about this for six months, or
Speaker 4: you can only be upset for x amount of time
Speaker 4: like that, We would all laugh and be like, that
Speaker 4: doesn't you can't say that, like, you know, someone harmed me,
Speaker 4: someone hurt me, someone hurt someone I cared about, someone
Speaker 4: made me feel like a jackass. They put me in
Speaker 4: a bad position. You know, those all those pieces of it.
Speaker 4: And so there's the old experiences that you guys get
Speaker 4: to have. You get to think of them however you
Speaker 4: want to think about them. Those are your life experiences.
Speaker 4: He was a friend of yours, that's okay. That doesn't
Speaker 4: make you a bad per and you didn't know, you know,
Speaker 4: you get to have that, which I know it feels
Speaker 4: like it can't coexist, but it can. But then there's
Speaker 4: this other piece when it comes to manipulation and abuse,
Speaker 4: where we can form what's called like a trauma bond,
Speaker 4: where when you feel like you've been through a war
Speaker 4: with someone, or you feel like you've been through a
Speaker 4: certain situation with someone, and you feel bonded to them.
Speaker 4: And this can happen for many reasons. For a lot
Speaker 4: of people, it's like, if it's active, like physical, sexual
Speaker 4: emotional abuse, we bond with them hoping that they won't
Speaker 4: hurt us again if I'm extra kind today, that won't happen.
Speaker 4: But for a lot of us, it happens in the
Speaker 4: fact where we're like, but wait, you know, we've been
Speaker 4: through a lot together. I you know, we were in
Speaker 4: this crazy experience together through Boy Meets World, and there
Speaker 4: were some wild things happening in my life and I
Speaker 4: felt very vulnerable. And whether we recognize it or not,
Speaker 4: we can be bonded with certain people through tumultuous times.
Speaker 4: And you could argue that in this case, with all
Speaker 4: that has happened and all that has come out, that
Speaker 4: we can in some ways feel bonded like we kind
Speaker 4: of and and for like Will, you're saying, like, he
Speaker 4: got me a role, so we're like, but I kind
Speaker 4: of owe the guy, like, I don't really have anything
Speaker 4: to tell me, Like, he wasn't bad to me directly, right,
Speaker 4: but he kind of was, but he kind of was
Speaker 4: a little yet.
Speaker 7: I mean again, and not that I ever recognized he
Speaker 7: was always right. He's always the good guy, you know,
Speaker 7: the guy you want to be on the set with
Speaker 7: the guy but that's what he wanted to show up
Speaker 7: on time, and you know, that's that's all I ever saw,
Speaker 7: was the.
Speaker 5: Guy with good stories who was good at his job.
Speaker 4: Of course he was, Yeah, And that the thing that
Speaker 4: I can't it's it's going to take time to untangle.
Speaker 4: But I want you to both feel like you can
Speaker 4: do this, that you be like a goal is like
Speaker 4: to be able to acknowledge, Hey, he was a good
Speaker 4: friend of mine back then, but with the knowledge I
Speaker 4: have today, he's not. And those both can exist. I
Speaker 4: can say he's a dirt bag, but at the time
Speaker 4: when we were friends, he was a friend. I know,
Speaker 4: it feels like they can't co exist, But I think
Speaker 4: that might be the kind of like issue that we're
Speaker 4: running into, where you're like, but he was good to me,
Speaker 4: He showed up on time, he was funny, We had
Speaker 4: a good time he didn't do anything to me directly,
Speaker 4: but now I know and even Writer like I saw
Speaker 4: him a few like a few years ago and like,
Speaker 4: well that I wouldn't be friends with that person today. No, yeah,
Speaker 4: I know, I'm sorry. I hate that this person did.
Speaker 5: To apologize at all for it.
Speaker 7: It's just it's it's all bad, you know, just that's.
Speaker 4: The wake of abuse of any kind, like the ripple
Speaker 4: effects go far.
Speaker 3: I think there's also a lot for especially for Will,
Speaker 3: but I know for Writer too, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: shame in feeling at all like they should feel bad
Speaker 3: for themselves. They feel so bad for his victim. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that they sided with this other person instead of
Speaker 3: with this victim. And there's a part of them that
Speaker 3: feels like if I think of myself as being victimized
Speaker 3: in it, I'm somehow taking away from the quote unquote
Speaker 3: real victim.
Speaker 4: That's why I said, it's not like PI, like you're
Speaker 4: not taking a slice from someone else. The Unfortunately it
Speaker 4: was not unlimited amounts of pain, you know. There are
Speaker 4: unlimited amounts pain, you know.
Speaker 5: But I also think there's that everybody's trying to be
Speaker 5: a victim.
Speaker 8: Nowadays.
Speaker 7: It seems like that should take it from you, I know,
Speaker 7: but it's it just seems like that's the first thing
Speaker 7: you go to is I was a victim of this,
Speaker 7: or I was a victim of that, or and it's
Speaker 7: just to me in this entire situation, And I know
Speaker 7: I'm wrong when I say this. That's and I'm still
Speaker 7: going to say it. To me, there was one victim
Speaker 7: and I was on the wrong side in the courtroom
Speaker 7: when he was there, So that that, to me is
Speaker 7: how I look at it.
Speaker 5: There was an actual victim and it wasn't me.
Speaker 4: Well, and sometimes the words can be strong, like I said,
Speaker 4: like trauma or abuse can be heavy. Victim might be
Speaker 4: too heavy. It might be easier for you to accept
Speaker 4: if I said you were manipulated someone.
Speaker 8: You I mean that.
Speaker 7: I get, I mean that certainly. But yeah, there's yeah,
Speaker 7: there was one victim here, and I hope he's doing okay. Frankly, god,
Speaker 7: I'd love to sit down with that guy.
Speaker 6: But I think, you know, going back to what you
Speaker 6: were saying, Katie about like reframing this in some sort
Speaker 6: of positive way that can be helpful to other people.
Speaker 6: I think like the biggest takeaway for me is just
Speaker 6: you know, we have this notion of like predators as
Speaker 6: evil people in trench coats, hanging out at schools, you know,
Speaker 6: wringing their hands and whirling their mustache, and it's just
Speaker 6: never the case. It's a family member, it's a coworker,
Speaker 6: and they are the coolest person. They are so nice,
Speaker 6: they are so fun, they're so and that is just like,
Speaker 6: that's still so hard for me to wrap my head
Speaker 6: around personally, because I think of myself as having good
Speaker 6: radar about people. Like no, I spent like so much
Speaker 6: of my adolescence being very good at eliminating people from
Speaker 6: my life who were my friends just because I was famous.
Speaker 6: I thought, you know, like I was like that was
Speaker 6: what I got really good at, is like not dating
Speaker 6: women who just because I was in Team B one
Speaker 6: found me attractive or because I was making money, or
Speaker 6: like I was very like I'm you know, I find
Speaker 6: people I look for, you know, connection with the deeper
Speaker 6: you know, And here I was falling for this guy
Speaker 6: as like a true friend, Like I really considered this
Speaker 6: person one of my close like close friends at that age.
Speaker 6: I'm also you know, because I was a budding film person,
Speaker 6: like you know, I was on a TV show but
Speaker 6: I was learning about movies and directing and writing and
Speaker 6: like that's become my life. And this person was instrumental
Speaker 6: in that. Because this person was a film buff. They
Speaker 6: had worked in the industry and they could talk to me.
Speaker 6: We would sit and talk about film and movies and
Speaker 6: like and then he had worked on all these classic films.
Speaker 6: There no knew all these people, and so there was
Speaker 6: this part of this like film nerd community, and like
Speaker 6: it just felt I felt like I was very cool.
Speaker 6: I felt like I was very much like invited to
Speaker 6: the cool kids table, and I fell for it. And
Speaker 6: that's just like I hope, you know, I just like think,
Speaker 6: like I think everybody sort of gets that, Like, but
Speaker 6: it's worth reiterating, like it's never the guy in a
Speaker 6: trench coat.
Speaker 8: It's never the stranger. I don't know, maybe it is,
Speaker 8: but that's like so rare. It's rare.
Speaker 6: It's merely it's mostly those people who are you know
Speaker 6: this the camp counselor the priest, the teacher. It's the
Speaker 6: people who have access to children, and they're so freaking cool.
Speaker 6: They're so friendly, they're so and that is just oh,
Speaker 6: it's so basic, Like do you guys know Into the Woods.
Speaker 6: Yeah the musical, Oh yeah, I love I love that musical.
Speaker 6: It's like, to me, it's like one of this I
Speaker 6: think it's like what for like some people what like
Speaker 6: Shakespeare texts are like I think Into the Woods is
Speaker 6: like one of the greatest texts ever.
Speaker 8: That the lyrics, it's just I fin think it's so beautiful.
Speaker 6: And and there's these these songs in the first act
Speaker 6: where Little Red Riding Hood and Jack sing about their
Speaker 6: experience Jack from Jack and the bean Stalk sing about
Speaker 6: their experiences.
Speaker 8: The most beautiful songs ever.
Speaker 6: It's like, I mean, I cry listen to them all
Speaker 6: the time, and uh, Little Red Riding Hood when we
Speaker 6: look up the lyrics, but you know, they're basically they're
Speaker 6: describing their their journeys that they had, Little Red riding
Speaker 6: with the wolf where she gets swallowed, and Jack where
Speaker 6: he finds the giants, and they're they're they're such beautiful
Speaker 6: songs because they're telling the story of these fairy tales,
Speaker 6: but they're also as characters narrating, they're interpreting their own
Speaker 6: fairy tales, and they're like discovering that the ambiguity of
Speaker 6: growing up, Like.
Speaker 8: You know, they they they've entered.
Speaker 6: They had this thrilling adventure that changed them permanently, and
Speaker 6: they're sad about that change.
Speaker 8: They're like they grew up.
Speaker 6: And it complicates the sort of pat like easy interpretation
Speaker 6: of these fairy tales. It's like, because you look at
Speaker 6: like little Red Rider and it's like, don't talk to strangers, right,
Speaker 6: that's like the thing. But she instead sings about being excited.
Speaker 6: She sings about how I was. I was excited and
Speaker 6: scared by the wolf, and the wolf changed me in
Speaker 6: ways that I'm actually happy about because now I'm able
Speaker 6: to appreciate the flowers. And I you know, I didn't
Speaker 6: listen to my mom and I went off the path,
Speaker 6: and I actually cherished that I did that. But I'm
Speaker 6: also very lucky to have survived. And she has, you know,
Speaker 6: the famous line is like and I know things now,
Speaker 6: many valuable things that I hadn't known before. Do not
Speaker 6: put your faith in a cape and a hood. They
Speaker 6: will not protect you the way that they should. And
Speaker 6: take extra care with strangers. Even flowers have their dangers,
Speaker 6: and those scary is exciting. Nice is different than good.
Speaker 6: That's so good, And it's like nice is different than
Speaker 6: good is like it's kind of what we've been saying.
Speaker 6: Oh and then it goes on. Now I know, don't
Speaker 6: be scared. Granny is right. Just be prepared. Isn't it
Speaker 6: nice to know a lot and a little bit not.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, like ignorance is bliss kind of part and there.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like you've lost your innocence as a child, but
Speaker 6: you know, and you want that back. We're also really
Speaker 6: glad that you had this experience. Anyway, Nice is different
Speaker 6: than good is like one of those like essential lines
Speaker 6: that I always think about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, especially in this case, right, because super friendly, super nice,
Speaker 4: it's very different than good. And I agree with you.
Speaker 4: It is important for people to know that a lot
Speaker 4: of predators don't look like the big bad man in
Speaker 4: a trench coat bringing his hands. At ninety nine percent
Speaker 4: of the time it is a friend, a family member.
Speaker 4: I mean, I even had a patient years ago who
Speaker 4: was abused by her uncle for years and was still
Speaker 4: in love with him, like as an adult.
Speaker 6: You know the thing, I think, even if you've had
Speaker 6: the actual encounter, that the actual sexual encounter, I imagine
Speaker 6: you know, people that have been raped don't even think
Speaker 6: of it as.
Speaker 8: Rape, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 6: Like they just think of it as they think of
Speaker 6: it as a real love connection or a real actual
Speaker 6: experience that was and that's that's the real awfulness.
Speaker 4: But we can even see that, like you could apply
Speaker 4: that same kind of belief to the situation that we're
Speaker 4: talking about, where like, you know, they see that as
Speaker 4: a real relationship. You see saw your friendship as a
Speaker 4: real friendship. Absolutely, And so it's it's hard. I think
Speaker 4: a lot of people don't understand that when something has
Speaker 4: been has happened, when you've been manipulated or abused in
Speaker 4: any way, it's hard for us to make sense of
Speaker 4: the fact that but hey, I had this relationship, but
Speaker 4: I thought they cared about me. But now you're telling
Speaker 4: me this is bad. I don't think that's bad, but this,
Speaker 4: you know it, I think that's that kind of I
Speaker 4: guess would be that's part of that internal discomfort that
Speaker 4: you're both experiencing and why it's hard to talk about
Speaker 4: and why you're like, I don't even know if I
Speaker 4: want to. Why are we doing this? Because how do
Speaker 4: we feel about it? Uncomfort?
Speaker 3: You know, well, Katie, thank you so much for being
Speaker 3: here with us and helping us parse through these feelings
Speaker 3: and helping us make sure we were sensitive to any
Speaker 3: victims who may be listening. And if you suspect or
Speaker 3: if you or yourself are being abused or suspect someone else's,
Speaker 3: you can call one eight hundred sixty five six four
Speaker 3: six seven three. Help is available twenty four hours a day,
Speaker 3: or tell an adult you trust, like your parent or
Speaker 3: a teacher