Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and one, Tommy Mottola, then the head
Speaker 2: of Sony Music Entertainment, called murder inks IRV Gotti, who
Speaker 2: at the time was working with the likes of jay Z,
Speaker 2: y Ashanti and DMX. Tommy asked Gotti to do a
Speaker 2: remix of Jennifer Lopez's I'm Real, which became a huge
Speaker 2: radio hit and led to more remixes with j Lo.
Speaker 2: In the world of hip hop and crossover pop in
Speaker 2: the early yachts, IRV Gotti was at the top of
Speaker 2: his game, and then admittedly he messed up big time.
Speaker 2: In the latest season of revision of History, Malcolm Gladwell
Speaker 2: is looking at the origins and consequences of mistakes while
Speaker 2: we make them, the context in which we make them,
Speaker 2: and what happens after we make them. Here's the story
Speaker 2: of Gotti's mistake and what it tells us, not about
Speaker 2: the individual who makes a mistake, but the witnesses who
Speaker 2: watch it happen, enjoyed the episode, and find more of
Speaker 2: Revisionist History wherever you get podcasts.
Speaker 3: This guy calls me like seven in the morning, like
Speaker 3: Tommy was South.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and one, the head of Sony Music
Speaker 1: Tommy Mottola called the rap producer IRV Gotti at the
Speaker 1: time God. He worked with jay Z, Ja Rule, Ashanti
Speaker 1: DMX in the hip hop world of the early arts.
Speaker 1: He was at the top of his game.
Speaker 3: He's like, yo, I need you to make a record,
Speaker 3: And I said what he said, make a record with
Speaker 3: j Lo and put jaw on it and make it
Speaker 3: a duet. And I say, yo, I need total creative
Speaker 3: at TIMMS, I'm doing whatever the fuck I want. Tommy
Speaker 3: was like, you could do whatever the fuck you want
Speaker 3: as long as it's a duet with Jo Roul and
Speaker 3: j Loo.
Speaker 1: Mattola wanted Gotti to do a remix if I'm Real,
Speaker 1: a single off Jlo's second album. The first time around
Speaker 1: it had been a generic ballad. Matola thought it could
Speaker 1: be reinvigorated God. He went to work and started to
Speaker 1: make a demo with Ja Rule and Ashanti.
Speaker 3: I said, yo, I got the records. I'm Real. Him
Speaker 3: and his wife Talia come to the crack house, my
Speaker 3: studio and solo and it's funny because the freight elevator
Speaker 3: used to always go out, so him and Talia walked
Speaker 3: up six flights of stairs. He gets upstairs he said,
Speaker 3: this fucking record better be fucking good. So I played
Speaker 3: I play real form. Him and his wife go crazy.
Speaker 3: They're like, oh my god, it was a one listen.
Speaker 3: They listened and it was like, it's the biggest record.
Speaker 3: So he puts me on a private jet. I fly
Speaker 3: to La record the record with j Lo. Next thing
Speaker 3: you know, the record comes out. It's all over the radio.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about maybe a couple of days after we
Speaker 3: recorded it, it's all over the radio.
Speaker 1: A few months later, God, he made another remix from
Speaker 1: Jalo's album Ain't It Funny? The same thing happened.
Speaker 3: You don't even understand. Those records was colossal, not just
Speaker 3: in the States, on the planet Earth. I don't give
Speaker 3: a fuck. If you went to Germany, Australia, Africa, that
Speaker 3: shit was in heavy rotation. Look, those are the two
Speaker 3: biggest records, and for me to do, i'mral and instead
Speaker 3: fuck it and Ain't It Funny? It was like at
Speaker 3: that point in my life, I was like on top
Speaker 3: of the world. It was a feeling of invincibility. It
Speaker 3: was a feeling of I could do whatever the fuck
Speaker 3: I want to portray who I was at that moment.
Speaker 3: That's that's who I was. I'm from the hood. I'm
Speaker 3: making all of this money. I'm producing records for everybody.
Speaker 3: All of them are working and going number one, and
Speaker 3: money's raining from the sky. I could do no wrong.
Speaker 1: It was at this point that IRV God he made
Speaker 1: a mistake. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This
Speaker 1: is the third episode in our mini series inspired by
Speaker 1: Michael Linton and Josh Steiner's book From Mistakes to Meaning Will.
Speaker 1: The authors sit down with a wide range of people
Speaker 1: and try to make sense of their biggest screw ups.
Speaker 1: One of their interviews was with her of Gotty just
Speaker 1: before God, he had a stroke and died at the
Speaker 1: age of fifty four. I listened to the interview and
Speaker 1: I found his story so moving that I asked Steiner
Speaker 1: and Linton if I could include it in this series,
Speaker 1: because in his story, I think is a really important
Speaker 1: lesson not about the person who makes the mistake, but
Speaker 1: about the people around the person who makes the mistake.
Speaker 1: The witnesses.
Speaker 4: Man I grew up, Oh man, I grew up. Let
Speaker 4: me describe how I'm the youngest of eight kids.
Speaker 1: This is Gotty talking to Litten and Steiner about his
Speaker 1: childhood and growing up in Queen's We have no money.
Speaker 3: We live in the home. I sleep in the attic.
Speaker 3: They ever slept in the attic of a house in
Speaker 3: the summertime.
Speaker 5: There's no refuge. It's a hundred change. Yes, you wake
Speaker 5: up every every day, you wake up in a puddle
Speaker 5: of sweat like I had. That was my life. That's
Speaker 5: it was a lot of love. My family, the most
Speaker 5: loving family. But we had nothing. So when you talk
Speaker 5: about the ship, you told me, I'm not I don't
Speaker 5: give a fuck. Yo, I'm getting money. Oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna work my ass off
Speaker 5: and get it. I don't give a fuck what comes
Speaker 5: from it.
Speaker 1: He was blunt, reckless, ambitious, and hugely talented. His rise
Speaker 1: in the music world was swim. It was no accident
Speaker 1: than Buttola called Gotti to work with Jennifer Lopez, then
Speaker 1: well on her way to becoming one of the biggest
Speaker 1: celebrities in America, and when the two of them met
Speaker 1: at Gotti's recording studio, Gotti from Queen's Jailah from the
Speaker 1: Bronx to click, just so you know what to expect.
Speaker 1: Were giving you the unfiltered gottie.
Speaker 3: So I had like thirty hood niggas in the studio
Speaker 3: and in walks Jlo, and she was straight Jenny from
Speaker 3: the block. She had on some sweat pants and the
Speaker 3: tank top. And if I tell you, she got in
Speaker 3: that studio and she had every one of my guys
Speaker 3: fall in love with her. She worked and talked to everybody,
Speaker 3: and I was just like, Yo, she's just so dope,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, because she could have been
Speaker 3: on some I'm a big star boogie shit, but she
Speaker 3: was a total opposite, the biggest sex symbol, biggest superstar,
Speaker 3: got on some sweatpants, her as was looking fucking phenomenal.
Speaker 3: She worked, She literally worked the whole home. Like when
Speaker 3: she left, every guy was like, Yo, she's dope.
Speaker 1: I think she liked me.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yo, dog, she's she worked us, Yeo. She
Speaker 3: she worked for fuck the rule. But I thought it
Speaker 3: was so dope of us and me and her specifically, Yo,
Speaker 3: we hit it off. Benny Medina, her manager, Benny Medina,
Speaker 3: was like HERV, you're gonna be like the Quincy Jones
Speaker 3: to her Michael Jackson, she was like, We're not doing
Speaker 3: nothing musically unless you're involved.
Speaker 1: A year later, Ellen Magazine decided to do a cover
Speaker 1: story on Jennifer Lopez. It was for their Sex and
Speaker 1: Body issue June two thousand and two, headline Big Letters.
Speaker 1: J Loo on fashion, that song and Puffy. Puffy referred
Speaker 1: to Puffy Combs, the infamous rap impresario who she'd just
Speaker 1: broken up with, and that song referred to Ain't it funny?
Speaker 1: Because Gotti's reinterpretation of the song turned it into the
Speaker 1: story of someone coming out of a very problematic relationship.
Speaker 1: The writer asks her, is that song about Puffy? She says, no,
Speaker 1: it's not. Then the reporter calls gotty. Jlo says, ain't
Speaker 1: it funny? Isn't about Puffy? What do you say? And
Speaker 1: Gody says, Oh, it's absolutely about Puffy, and Jlo knows it.
Speaker 1: Here's the exact quote from the l magazine article, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, is nearly impossible to find now. My
Speaker 1: producer had to get someone at the New York Public
Speaker 1: Library to unearth the issue from an off site storage unit.
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna lie. We was thinking of effing with
Speaker 1: Puffy because that's what the world wants to hear. And God,
Speaker 1: he tells the reporter a story about running into Puffy before.
Speaker 1: Ain't it funny came out and playing him the demo?
Speaker 1: He says, you know the four Seasons on Dohaney in La.
Speaker 1: I pull up and Puffs out there with his security
Speaker 1: and I say, Puff, come listen to the new record
Speaker 1: I did with your old bitch. So boom, he gets
Speaker 1: in the car. So I'm blasting the record and when
Speaker 1: it gets to the second verse, he jumps out of
Speaker 1: the car, screaming, gotty, you bastard, this is the second verse. Listen,
Speaker 1: you never had.
Speaker 4: This, well, you should have never played the game.
Speaker 3: To play now and that you can lay.
Speaker 1: He calls Jelo's ex boyfriend into his car and says,
Speaker 1: come listen to the new record I just did with
Speaker 1: your old bitch in a very public way. God, he
Speaker 1: was essentially saying Jennifer Lopez wasn't being honest. He called
Speaker 1: her credibility and question.
Speaker 3: When I read it in that magazine, j Lo quote,
Speaker 3: those records are not about Puff, daddy end quote. It was.
Speaker 3: It's the worst mistake I've ever made in my life,
Speaker 3: because I say that to say, because j Lo Benny Medina,
Speaker 3: they was friends. They loved me, They love me like
Speaker 3: I was a writer for them and I would do
Speaker 3: things for them that probably no one else could do,
Speaker 3: and I would get done for them, and she was
Speaker 3: my friend. Like why the fuck would I say that?
Speaker 3: Why the fuck would I say that?
Speaker 1: But God, he didn't stop there. He kept going right.
Speaker 3: So I went on to say other damaging things, like
Speaker 3: how would she know? She didn't write the records. We
Speaker 3: made records and wrote the records. She just did what
Speaker 3: we said, so she don't know who the fuck we
Speaker 3: was talking about. And yeah, we was talking about Diddy.
Speaker 3: And then I said some more damage and shit, I
Speaker 3: was like, guys like me, we didn't listen to Jake,
Speaker 3: We don't listen to Jalo's music. I made guys like
Speaker 3: me listening to j Loo's music. I said, before then
Speaker 3: we just hit the mute button and looked at her ass. Yeah. God.
Speaker 1: He reflected on this with Michael Linton and Josh Steiner
Speaker 1: when they spoke Wow.
Speaker 3: And you could pull all this up in the l
Speaker 3: magazine is there. Those are vivid quotes. Those are like
Speaker 3: supreme asshole quotes that wasn't warranted. And when I look back,
Speaker 3: I was like, what did you do to your friend? Yeah? So,
Speaker 3: needless to say, needless to say, ruined my relationship with
Speaker 3: j Lo. I apologized, I sent to Candy and flowers
Speaker 3: and apologized a million times, and I was high, that's
Speaker 3: no excuse, you know what I'm saying. I apologize by
Speaker 3: us and she accepted my apology, but it forever damaged
Speaker 3: your relationship, right. You know, superstars like j Loo, they
Speaker 3: have a small circle of people who they could trust.
Speaker 3: And I think I was in there for a second
Speaker 3: and I totally ruined it. Right, So I'm an asshole.
Speaker 3: Well you were in that moment. I'm totally in the
Speaker 3: wrong and I'm a complete idiot. Make sure you say
Speaker 3: that that I said that I'm a complete idiot. She
Speaker 3: didn't warrant that, she didn't warrant nothing that I said.
Speaker 3: She was my friend, And why would I do that
Speaker 3: with the biggest thought and most beautifulst person. Why how
Speaker 3: do I do that with Jala.
Speaker 1: One of the themes we've tried to explore in this series
Speaker 1: is that mistakes have roots. They aren't random events. They
Speaker 1: come from somewhere, They arise out of a context, but
Speaker 1: the context often isn't obvious, not to those around the
Speaker 1: mistake maker, and often not even to the mistake maker themselves.
Speaker 1: In Gody's case, the context was a telephone call had
Speaker 1: been on just before the reporter called. It was with
Speaker 1: a prominent music industry executive. God. He asked that the
Speaker 1: man's name not be used, so we're gonna bleep out
Speaker 1: every mention of his name. All you need to know
Speaker 1: is that the executive is white, and God he was black.
Speaker 1: The two of them had an argument. One of Gody's
Speaker 1: artists had played a part in a hit song and
Speaker 1: was in the music video, but had been left out
Speaker 1: of the radio version, and God he was unhappy about it.
Speaker 3: So I was like, Yo, you're killing my artists. You
Speaker 3: got him on the video, but on radio he's not there.
Speaker 3: It's and then like mixed signals, Why are you hurting me?
Speaker 1: Their argument got heated. The executive said it wasn't his fault,
Speaker 1: the decision was someone else's at his label, a black man.
Speaker 3: He was like, I told that fat nigga not to
Speaker 3: not to put this out. But when he said the
Speaker 3: N word, Oh, that's when I went crazy.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 3: I said, what the fuck you say? I said, you
Speaker 3: just call Cory Roone and nigga. I said, when this,
Speaker 3: when this nigga see you, I'm gonna fuck you up.
Speaker 3: I said, how about that? And he was like, and
Speaker 3: we argue him, but he said he used the N
Speaker 3: word on some racist shit. He said, I told us
Speaker 3: fat nigga not to put the record out or put
Speaker 3: him on it. Yeah, but when he said nigga, I went,
Speaker 3: that's that's that's the anger. Yep. I'm not a volatile person.
Speaker 3: I'm not a pop off. I would describe myself as
Speaker 3: a cool guy, level headed. But it's something about when
Speaker 3: a white person like uses the word nigga to me.
Speaker 3: Mm hm oh, I'm ready to kill because it's like
Speaker 3: you start thinking of all of the fucked up shit
Speaker 3: that black people have been through when you got the
Speaker 3: audacity to say nigga in front of me. Oh, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna show you a nigga, now you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Like I used to always say, like when people would
Speaker 3: ask me how how would you be able? How did
Speaker 3: how would you think you would be able to operate
Speaker 3: in those times of racism? And I always answer, I
Speaker 3: would die. You know what? I'm saying because I couldn't
Speaker 3: take the racism that would have been bestowed upon me.
Speaker 3: I would have killed me a couple of white people
Speaker 3: and they would have hung me and killed me, and
Speaker 3: my life would be over. I couldn't take them doing
Speaker 3: something to my mother or you know, hanging my father,
Speaker 3: and I'm living life. Nah, you're gonna have to kill
Speaker 3: me too. So these are the thoughts that's in my mind. Yeah,
Speaker 3: have you experienced that before where you had white people
Speaker 3: say things with you. A lot of my white friends
Speaker 3: to say, Yo, that's my nigga. But I'm not mad
Speaker 3: at that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, use it when they say that's my nigga, it's
Speaker 4: in IgG a.
Speaker 3: He said, Yo, I told that fat nigga, that's n
Speaker 3: I G G e R. It's a big, big difference.
Speaker 3: Like I couldn't I couldn't believe that he just used
Speaker 3: the N word to me. That's what made me so volatile.
Speaker 3: And it was so weird. It was like as soon
Speaker 3: as I hung up with the phone rang with L
Speaker 3: it wasn't like a five minute it wasn't even like
Speaker 3: a five minute cool off period. No hung up, man, Yo,
Speaker 3: this is old magazine. Yeah, what the fuck? Y'all want.
Speaker 3: I didn't like saying hello a little different?
Speaker 1: Can I ask, So, what do you think it was
Speaker 1: that made you You think you were just gonna lash
Speaker 1: out at anybody who showed up in that moment?
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, within that five minutes, Yeah, it was going
Speaker 3: to get the exact thing vibe what the fuck you want? Yeah,
Speaker 3: it just what happened. It was the old magazine, not
Speaker 3: one of my boys. Yeah, so I said what the
Speaker 3: fuck you want? And he was like, oh, oh, I see.
Speaker 3: Like as soon as he heard that response, he immediately
Speaker 3: cut to the chase. He said, oh, oh, I'll just
Speaker 3: get right to it.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, Jlo said that the records, I'm really made
Speaker 3: it funny and not about puff daddy ex boyfriend, and
Speaker 3: I was like, what that bitch is lying?
Speaker 1: This was Serve Gotty's mistake. It changed his life. There
Speaker 1: was a version of the next twenty years where he
Speaker 1: could have been a creative partner with one of the
Speaker 1: biggest stars in the world. He had ideas from movies, collaborations.
Speaker 1: Jaelo was at once in a lifetime opportunity. That's why
Speaker 1: this was a mistake. It had consequences, but there was
Speaker 1: a point in Gotty's interview with Steiner and Linton that
Speaker 1: I couldn't get out of my mind.
Speaker 3: Listen, how quickly did you realize that you'd made a mistake.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize quickly. I was so angry and mad
Speaker 3: when I got off the phone with that magazine. I
Speaker 3: thought nothing of it. It hit me when they sent
Speaker 3: me like the transcripts of what they was gonna plant.
Speaker 3: How long after that was that? A couple a week
Speaker 3: or so? I would say, A right, And when you
Speaker 3: did you realize it right away? Yeah? I was like,
Speaker 3: don't print that. They was like it's too but they
Speaker 3: was like it's too late. Yeah. They loved it. They
Speaker 3: loved it, and they said it was too late, and
Speaker 3: I was trying to get them not to print it,
Speaker 3: but they wasn't. They like, hey, buddy, you said it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, did you get me try to did you get
Speaker 7: me help to try to get them not to do it,
Speaker 7: or did you just.
Speaker 3: Let it go? Let it go? I gave it my effort,
Speaker 3: but after my effort, I just let it.
Speaker 8: Oh.
Speaker 1: He realized he'd made a mistake that, in his anger
Speaker 1: at one person, he had said something he didn't mean
Speaker 1: to another, and when he tried to prevent his mistake
Speaker 1: from having consequences, from turning into a serious mistake. He
Speaker 1: was told, hey, buddy, you said it, it's too late.
Speaker 1: After Linton and Steiner's book came out, I interviewed them
Speaker 1: on stage at the ninety second Street Why in New York,
Speaker 1: and I brought up their chapter on gaudy. So who's
Speaker 1: the villain of the story.
Speaker 3: Not every story has to have a villain.
Speaker 1: No, but tell me who the villain of the stories?
Speaker 7: So don't Michael, don't fall for this like this is okay,
Speaker 7: this look at this is why he's so good.
Speaker 6: But don't fall for his trap.
Speaker 3: Like okay, you can say not everyone.
Speaker 1: I got to keep the conversation going. I would argue
Speaker 1: it was the executive who used the N word, Josh,
Speaker 1: here's a villain of the story.
Speaker 3: Here's what I think that guy acted terribly. There is
Speaker 3: no villain in the story.
Speaker 7: And I think an important piece of what we tried
Speaker 7: to describe is that there isn't always a villain, There
Speaker 7: isn't always some outside danger, there isn't always some consequence
Speaker 7: that has been derived from a villain. That these things
Speaker 7: are deep rooted in ourselves and we're not villainous, and
Speaker 7: so that aspect of our personality doesn't make us bad.
Speaker 7: This isn't a morality test. This is an opportunity to
Speaker 7: explore oneself and come to terms and acceptance of the
Speaker 7: fact that we're flawed, and the way to get hopefully
Speaker 7: healthier and better is to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Who do you think the villain?
Speaker 8: Is?
Speaker 1: A man who has a very close relationship to the
Speaker 1: biggest rock star in the world, a relationship that has
Speaker 1: resulted in extraordinary commercial success. Is called by a reporter
Speaker 1: and has asked a question about that relationship, and in
Speaker 1: the course of answering that question, the man says, Oh,
Speaker 1: she's a liar. Who's the villain in the story? Do
Speaker 1: you think it's erv Now it's the reporter, But the
Speaker 1: reporter doesn't No, no, no no. This is a crucial, crucial point, Michael.
Speaker 1: Think this is because it's about when mistakes are made
Speaker 1: and they are as deeply rooted as you suggest they are,
Speaker 1: they're not what's you're The whole argument of the book
Speaker 1: is a mistake can come out in the spur of
Speaker 1: the moment, but it's not something that's coming out of
Speaker 1: the spur of the moment. It's something that has roots.
Speaker 1: And what does that require of those who are observe
Speaker 1: and are part of the process in which the mistake
Speaker 1: is played out. It requires some degree of grace and
Speaker 1: forgiveness and understanding. So the reporter, here's some IRV God,
Speaker 1: IRV God. He say something that is completely out of place. Right,
Speaker 1: it makes the reason the reason that story. So that
Speaker 1: story what you didn't what is important? Detail is here
Speaker 1: is it goes. It's all across the country. It's like
Speaker 1: it's huge. That's why it blows up so much. Everyone
Speaker 1: seizes on this. Her longtime collaborator called j Lo a liar. Right,
Speaker 1: if you are the reporter in that instance, and someone
Speaker 1: says something they shouldn't say, your obligation is to say,
Speaker 1: why did you say that? And if they can't give
Speaker 1: you a satisfactory answer, your obligation is not to use it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's not to use it. You're not You shouldn't.
Speaker 1: You can't make someone The reporter turned that from a
Speaker 1: nothing into a destruction of someone's career because they had
Speaker 1: not the slightest concern for his well being or his reputation,
Speaker 1: and they if they had an ounce of self understanding
Speaker 1: or of general understanding. They would have understood that he
Speaker 1: didn't mean to say that. They should at the very
Speaker 1: least have said, did you mean to say that? Right,
Speaker 1: that's your responsibility, and the reporter fail in that fundamental
Speaker 1: Why do people hate the press Because because in an
Speaker 1: interview like this, where we could talk for three hours
Speaker 1: and you say one thing out of place because you
Speaker 1: have to be irritated about something else, and the reporter
Speaker 1: runs with that one thing that's about practice. Why is
Speaker 1: this person getting a pass that's terror? Sorry, I'm really
Speaker 1: upset about this. I was upset about this because you
Speaker 1: can't do this if you're a journalist. The whole profession
Speaker 1: works on an implied contract. Somebody grants you the gift
Speaker 1: of their time and attention and thoughts. They make themselves vulnerable,
Speaker 1: and in return you pledged to respect that vulnerability. You're
Speaker 1: not a stenographer. You've entered, for the duration of the
Speaker 1: interview into an intimate relationship, and intimate relationships have rules.
Speaker 1: But then I went home after that interview at the y,
Speaker 1: after I had called the reporter a villain and a
Speaker 1: disgrace to our profession, and I realized I don't even
Speaker 1: know who this person is, and then I thought to myself, Oops,
Speaker 1: now I've made a mistake. So I decided to track
Speaker 1: the reporter down. That's after the break. What do you
Speaker 1: remember about that interview?
Speaker 8: It's funny you're asking this something that no one's ever
Speaker 8: asked me, because I remember that interview quite well.
Speaker 6: For a few reasons.
Speaker 1: This is Carter Harris, he wrote yel profile. He's now
Speaker 1: a screenwriter teaches at NYU, and one of the reasons
Speaker 1: this article he wrote twenty five years ago, sticks out
Speaker 1: is the reaction a God, particularly from Jlo and her
Speaker 1: manager Benny Medina.
Speaker 8: I actually remember being in a car with Benny Medina
Speaker 8: in Los Angeles, and I can't remember why we were
Speaker 8: in a car, but he was telling me how disappointed
Speaker 8: Jlo was, and he was because it seemed like a
Speaker 8: negative interview.
Speaker 6: I wasn't negative at all from my perspective.
Speaker 1: At some point, his profile of Jlo completely disappeared from
Speaker 1: the internet, and he always wondered if Jlo and her
Speaker 1: manager had something to do with it. Was God upset
Speaker 1: during the call, Yes, he was. Harris remembers he seemed
Speaker 1: like he was in a state. He mentioned something about
Speaker 1: having just gotten off the phone with someone he thought
Speaker 1: Harris was a fashion writer, and God, he seemed relieved
Speaker 1: to learn that Harris had been an editor at The Source,
Speaker 1: the magazine that was the bible of rap at the time.
Speaker 1: They talked about Puffy Combs and I'm real, I ate
Speaker 1: it funny. And then God, he said that bit about
Speaker 1: Jlo not telling the truth when you heard it when
Speaker 1: you were reviewing him and decided to use what you
Speaker 1: were using, did you did you think that you might
Speaker 1: be jeopardizing his relationship with Jaeloh?
Speaker 8: No, And maybe that was naive of me, But what
Speaker 8: I thought was in the moment was Wow, that was honest.
Speaker 6: She might be a little bit.
Speaker 8: Irked vexed by one or two of the quotes, but
Speaker 8: I never imagined that it would.
Speaker 6: Be such a big deal for her or for him.
Speaker 6: I mean, I thought she'd be vexed.
Speaker 8: I mean, when you say, you know, I gave her
Speaker 8: more hood credibility, that's gonna be like, come on, dude.
Speaker 8: Or when you say it was really about Diddy and
Speaker 8: basically you're accusing her of not being honest, you know,
Speaker 8: yeah that I totally understand why she was vexed. And
Speaker 8: I even at the time, I was like, oh, she
Speaker 8: might be a little ticked off about this, but I
Speaker 8: figured they'd air it out, either publicly or privately, that
Speaker 8: she'd be like, come on, he overstepped on this one.
Speaker 8: And then maybe he comes back and says, yeah, all right,
Speaker 8: I was on Molly what she was willing to say
Speaker 8: back then?
Speaker 1: Is it weird to hear someone say twenty five years
Speaker 1: later the biggest mistake they made in their life was
Speaker 1: something they said to you in an interview.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 6: Absolutely made me feel very strange.
Speaker 3: When I heard that. I was. I was, I was.
Speaker 8: I was very surprised and very I was a little
Speaker 8: disturbed too, because that when I heard that then I
Speaker 8: did have feelings.
Speaker 6: Then I was like, oh shit, what did I do wrong?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 6: It was like, what was I responsible for this? Somehow?
Speaker 1: Did he run the quotes by Gody and tell him
Speaker 1: that it was too late? You said it? No, that
Speaker 1: would have been the fact checker. That's the way things
Speaker 1: worked in the magazine world of those years.
Speaker 8: If he had called me and said, I was in
Speaker 8: a state, can you take those quotes out? Yeah, I
Speaker 8: probably would have worked with him on that. But I
Speaker 8: never got that call. Nobody ever asked me about those quotes, so,
Speaker 8: you know, what can I what can I really do?
Speaker 8: But yeah, I certainly felt weird about it.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I.
Speaker 8: Don't take any any joy in being, you know, a
Speaker 8: part of anyone's biggest regret.
Speaker 1: Carter was frank and thoughtful. I liked him. He was
Speaker 1: talking about a decision he made many years ago when
Speaker 1: he was much younger, and he said that he wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily do the same thing today. I understand that you
Speaker 1: have to make a certain number of mistakes to understand
Speaker 1: what a mistake is.
Speaker 8: It's really interesting because if I had been in the
Speaker 8: gym and somebody had told me this story and I
Speaker 8: was not the reporter and I was not Gotti, I
Speaker 8: probably would have had the exact same response. I'm pretty
Speaker 8: sure I would have been, like what they said, what
Speaker 8: they messed with Gotti? Like and they screwed up a
Speaker 8: relationship with Jalo and Gotti. You know, this is bullshit.
Speaker 8: This is like the media. You know they do this,
Speaker 8: especially l and these corporate magazines and you know all that.
Speaker 8: So I'm not surprised to hear that that was your response.
Speaker 8: That probably would have been my response. But to the
Speaker 8: larger point. I think we all do this in our
Speaker 8: own way, in lots of different contexts. We jump to conclusions,
Speaker 8: mistaken conclusions, and I certainly do in my life. And
Speaker 8: if I've learned anything it's that I have to check
Speaker 8: myself sometimes and say, wait a minute, I'm human like
Speaker 8: everybody else, I'm jumping to a conclusion. I should go
Speaker 8: look and see if there's more to this story. Doesn't
Speaker 8: necessarily mean my conclusion that I wanted to jump to
Speaker 8: is wrong, could be right, could be worse than I
Speaker 8: thought it was. But I do think that that's the
Speaker 8: thing to take from this is like, hey, everybody, each
Speaker 8: of us can check ourselves. You know, we all have
Speaker 8: the ability to check ourselves and say, hey, maybe I
Speaker 8: should look into this a little bit more.
Speaker 1: We can all check ourselves a little bit more. On that,
Speaker 1: I have to agree. Revisious History is produced by Nina
Speaker 1: Bird Lawrence, Lucy Sullivan, and Ben Adatt Haffrey. Our editor
Speaker 1: is Karen Schakerji. Fact checking by Angelie Mercado. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer Jacob Smith. Engineering by Nina Bird Lawrence, original music
Speaker 1: by Luis Quira, Sound design and mastering by Marcelo Diela.
Speaker 3: Vera.
Speaker 1: I'm Malcolm Gladwell, coming up on the next episode in
Speaker 1: our Mistakes series.
Speaker 6: This was madness and yeah and it was just jaw
Speaker 6: on the floor. I just never experienced anything like that
Speaker 6: and I didn't see it coming