Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - DM Reporter DROPS BOMBSHELLS !!

00:00:00.000 you know, to understand what was happening, you just have to look at how long it took

00:00:04.860 after the legal papers have filed, which showed those incredible rants from Ryan Reynolds to his

00:00:10.700 agency, how long it took for those to even come out in any mainstream media in the USA.

00:00:21.400 Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk. I'm Sashdi Floor, journalist, Hollywood truth teller,

00:00:25.640 and your voice of reason in a town built on delusion.

00:00:29.980 Okay, a quick intro of my guest here.

00:00:31.960 Alison Bouchoff has worked for the Daily Mail for over 20 years.

00:00:37.500 She's their editor-at-large and she has covered

00:00:40.120 the Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni and the Wayfair party since the beginning.

00:00:45.880 I have reported on her reporting so many times

00:00:49.360 because she's one of those people who actually reported on the truth.

00:00:53.880 She was also mentioned in Blake Vively's lawsuit, where they insisted that she was given talking points before she published her articles.

00:01:02.720 I was so curious to find out what happened behind the scenes at the Daily Mail when all of this was going on.

00:01:09.200 And Alison is sharing everything.

00:01:12.520 Also, she talks about her new book, Brand Beckham, that you should get your hands on.

00:01:17.780 It's a really easy read, and it's all about what happened to the Beckham family.

00:01:22.660 As you know, there's a lot of family drama going on there.

00:01:26.260 I will leave a link below so you can get hold of the book if you want to read it.

00:01:31.360 Or if you just want to listen to it, you can do that as well.

00:01:35.060 And I also, by the way, got a chance to ask Alison what it was like to be on the witness stand

00:01:40.700 in this very public case that Prince Harry and Elton John and other celebrities filed against the Daily Mail,

00:01:49.520 accusing them of using unethical methods to get a hold of information in their reporting.

00:01:57.380 So Alison had to get up on that stand and find her notes from over 20 years ago.

00:02:03.140 Now the judge dismissed all 97 claims, by the way, against the Daily Mail

00:02:09.220 and Prince Harry and Elton John and the other plaintiffs have to cover the legal fees from Daily Mail

00:02:16.420 And that could be in the millions and millions and millions of pounds.

00:02:21.520 Anyways, let's get into it with Alison.

00:02:24.500 Thank you for being here, Alison.

00:02:26.000 I feel like you're one of the few people, I have to say, out there of like mainstream media, whatever we call it, who actually has been reporting very fairly on this case.

00:02:37.280 Why has The Daily Mail been more or less the only outlet that I feel has been reporting fairly on this?

00:02:45.120 Well, first of all, so nice to be with you and thank you. I am unusually with this case

00:02:54.340 because I'm obviously based in the UK, but I had a couple of contacts and people I knew

00:03:00.040 who were involved in the case. So I wasn't quite as swayed by some of the kind of big

00:03:06.460 name publicists who were involved in the initial lawsuit as others were. And, you know, some

00:03:10.640 people do get kind of bullied might be the wrong word but you know influenced by your sort of uh

00:03:17.760 your sort of Leslie Sloan type people but you know for me I don't care if people hate me I don't mind

00:03:22.200 because I'm a Brit so I'm just like okay you do you I just I can call it as I see it that's all

00:03:29.380 but I mean I feel like there's been so much talk about how influential this

00:03:34.780 this publicist, especially then Leslie Sloan, since you're mentioning her, has been in this

00:03:40.220 case. And maybe there's other, you know, powers behind this that we as a public hasn't, we haven't

00:03:48.100 seen or don't know about how all these things goes on behind the scenes. Have you, I mean,

00:03:54.840 have you spoken to Leslie yourself, by the way? Not on this one. I think you're so right. There

00:04:01.460 are the powers behind the scenes. And I think, you know, to understand what was happening,

00:04:06.100 you just have to look at how long it took after the legal papers of file, which showed those

00:04:11.480 incredible rants from Ryan Reynolds to his agency, how long it took for those to even come out

00:04:17.460 in any mainstream media in the USA. And I, you know, I don't doubt that people live in fear of

00:04:24.620 Ari Emanuel, who is, you know, one of the most powerful, if not possibly the most powerful man

00:04:29.700 in Hollywood. And people just, you know, he's Ari's favourite client. And people just didn't

00:04:34.880 want to dig into what was there in publicly available documents. People just didn't want

00:04:39.100 to dig into it and draw the obvious implication, which is this is really damaging for Ryan Reynolds.

00:04:44.520 He actually looks, I'm going to use the word, he looks like an a-hole. You know, he's behaving in

00:04:49.960 a really bullying way. He's actually, you know, the tone of the response is from his own agent.

00:04:55.660 this guy is actually scared of him you know he says at one point excuse me i don't feel i can

00:05:01.140 respond to you with the same what was it i can't remember with the same fervor or something yeah

00:05:06.420 yeah you're like oh my god this guy is actually struggling to know what to say in response to

00:05:10.980 this kind of tantruming a-lister who is just you know and i think that the effect on ryan

00:05:18.620 vendors's brand is really huge but i think that initially you really saw an attempt to containment

00:05:24.560 of that. Yeah, I think for the public in general who doesn't know much about how journalism works,

00:05:31.140 I think that's one of the things that we've learned. I mean, I know a little bit about it,

00:05:35.100 but I've never, you know, worked for US press or the UK press. We work a little differently in

00:05:40.560 Norway. But to see that whole dynamic and how it has worked in this case, and to see the text

00:05:47.860 messages between publicists and journalists. I mean, did you see those texts from Leslie Sloan?

00:05:53.180 were you shocked when you saw how she was pressuring people? Yeah, I wasn't shocked actually

00:05:58.640 at all when I saw how she was pressuring people. Really? Yeah, because that's what these people do. 0.96

00:06:03.860 But yes, I mean, it is shocking actually because, you know, they aren't even asking you,

00:06:10.840 you know, they're telling you and they're saying, no, you see a willingness to tell untruths for

00:06:17.180 the clients, which is actually quite breathtaking. I mean, as a journalist, you know, you often

00:06:21.640 suspect it, but you don't always know quite as clearly as was shown in this instance.

00:06:27.820 And your reporting showed up in the lawsuit as well. I saw they were referencing it.

00:06:32.500 I know. Well, that's nice, isn't it? I don't know why. Just because I, yeah, I think I was a little

00:06:38.440 bit early on it because I remember it was all filed, wasn't it, around late December. And then

00:06:43.900 everyone went off on Christmas holiday. And I'm no exception. I also wanted to go off on Christmas

00:06:49.520 holiday and not work. And then I rang a friend of mine who was, you know, tangentially involved

00:06:56.700 and said, oh, you know, I don't want to work Christmas, but just tell me, you know, is there 1.00

00:07:00.800 going to be a response from the Baldonian? Because this looks really bad for him. You know, he looks 0.97

00:07:04.460 like a creep. And my friend said, oh, yes. I mean, the only reason there hasn't been one yet is

00:07:10.820 because, you know, all the lawyers are kind of closed for Christmas. But, you know, wait for the

00:07:15.060 1st of January, baby. Here it comes. I thought, okay, well, I'm going to have to start writing

00:07:19.640 about this then and say that there is another side and that there is going to be a fight back

00:07:24.000 and that he's not just going to roll over, you know, and that actually he's got a lot of things

00:07:29.520 to say about her behavior to him, which, you know, which I think was so fascinating. And I think

00:07:35.540 that's why the case was so much bigger than anything else, isn't it? Because you actually

00:07:40.560 You get to see really fully both sides, you know.

00:07:44.440 For sure.

00:07:45.180 I mean, you were kind of, it was insinuated in the lawsuit

00:07:47.980 that you were also part of the smear campaign,

00:07:50.240 that you had been influenced, I think I saw somewhere,

00:07:52.880 to write these things about Blake.

00:07:56.100 It is crazy to me.

00:07:59.020 But I think often, and the same is true for people who write on,

00:08:04.120 you know, people who write comments and go,

00:08:05.720 this person's just parroting a line from someone.

00:08:08.720 I'm like, no, you don't understand how it works. That is my job is to speak to both sides if I

00:08:13.780 possibly can and to reflect what each side has said. I'm not the judge. It's not my job to

00:08:19.100 determine what's right and what's wrong and who's lying. In fact, part of my job can often be to

00:08:23.720 reflect lies told by other people. That's actually my job is to present both sides. So that's just

00:08:30.000 journalism. So I think mentioning me in the lawsuit was just a misunderstanding of journalistic

00:08:34.980 practice, but there you go. I think it was a compliment. Everyone that's mentioned this lawsuit

00:08:39.260 because they were telling the truth and then she really couldn't handle that. But I feel like we

00:08:45.480 still see that. I don't know what you feel about this. I feel like we still see, especially media

00:08:50.080 in the US, still reporting on this like, you know, nothing happened, especially People Magazine and

00:08:56.260 those kind of outlets are just like, look at Blake Wively wearing, bringing her her maze bag,

00:09:02.120 like worth a hundred thousand dollars and pretending like so i feel like there's some

00:09:06.840 you know there's some powers behind there that are oh for sure and when you saw that how it was

00:09:12.800 reported the settlement as if it was that blake had won and she said i'm really pleased that i

00:09:17.860 shone a light on on this terrible retaliatory smear campaign i'm like what are you odd about

00:09:23.160 I mean, she started the fight.

00:09:25.960 He ended the fight.

00:09:28.120 Yeah.

00:09:28.540 I mean.

00:09:29.840 Yeah.

00:09:30.400 Yeah.

00:09:30.920 Yeah.

00:09:31.700 Had you heard, you know, about the reputation of Blake and Ryan really before?

00:09:38.240 I mean, I'm sure you heard stories.

00:09:40.460 I feel for me, I was a bit shocked by Ryan Reynolds because I thought that he was a nice guy.

00:09:45.520 Did you think that?

00:09:46.460 Or were you like, oh.

00:09:48.600 No.

00:09:49.020 And, you know, we'd all heard stories about Blake from Gossip Girl days.

00:09:52.600 But with Ryan Reynolds, I think it was all to do with that second Deadpool film where he basically got the director fired and took over the movie and wrote a lot of it.

00:10:02.280 Oh, this sounds familiar.

00:10:03.540 Anyway, and it was from that.

00:10:06.520 And I thought, oh, this kind of quippy Mr. Nice guy, you know, don't stand in his way when he wants to take over the film because you're going to get fired.

00:10:15.880 Well, I think the guy left.

00:10:17.120 He didn't actually get fired, but yeah, he left because he couldn't stand working again with Ryan Reynolds.

00:10:22.160 who'd done Deadpool 1. It was a huge success.

00:10:24.420 Wanted to go back and do two and just said,

00:10:25.980 no, actually, I can't work with this guy.

00:10:28.580 I feel there's more and more stories like that coming out now,

00:10:30.940 and I'm sure there's going to be more.

00:10:32.980 I hope there's going to be more. 1.00

00:10:34.460 I hope people don't have to work with these kind of assholes anymore. 1.00

00:10:38.240 It must be horrible. 1.00

00:10:39.360 I mean, you can't talk about it.

00:10:40.680 You can't really say anything because they're rich and powerful

00:10:43.440 and super famous, and anyways, we have to talk about your book, Alison,

00:10:48.580 because you've been working on a book that's amazing

00:10:51.560 and that everyone can bring with them to the beach this summer.

00:10:55.680 Tell us about the Beckham brand.

00:10:57.720 Why is it called the Beckham brand?

00:11:00.120 So I think we in the UK press started talking about brand Beckham

00:11:03.980 when David started to make a lot of commercial deals

00:11:07.240 as his football career was coming to an end.

00:11:09.600 But then it became something else

00:11:10.800 because then Victoria's fashion brand took off.

00:11:13.060 And then the brand came to be like shorthand for them as a family

00:11:17.420 because it was always them presenting themselves

00:11:19.940 in these lineups with, you know, the three kids and the two grownups.

00:11:24.220 And that became their brand and their brand became their family.

00:11:27.580 So it wasn't simply David selling razors and football boots and cheap whiskey.

00:11:33.640 It was actually them selling themselves extremely successfully.

00:11:39.920 So, and then it started cracking, this image of the perfect brand that they built.

00:11:45.520 um so can you talk a little bit about you know i mean we've all seen the headlines from brooklyn

00:11:52.260 going out against his parents and painting them as these horrible people really that he wants

00:12:00.440 nothing to do with how much do you know what do you know can you tell us a little bit about like

00:12:05.720 the juicy details here of what has happened and you know so i first started to hear about this

00:12:11.680 story in um july so the wedding was in april 2022 and i started to hear about it in july and a friend

00:12:17.520 rang me and said something is going on between uh david and victoria and brooklyn and he just got

00:12:23.420 married i was like what are you talking about you know because the wedding had looked good

00:12:26.620 looked great in vogue and my friend said no no um there was some something went down at the wedding

00:12:32.920 i'm not quite sure what and there's been a really big falling out and victoria's really upset about

00:12:37.600 it. And I thought, okay. So I'm a bit of a grandma. I'm older than you, I think, Shirstie.

00:12:43.020 And I didn't really understand how to chase through Instagram to look at likes. So I had

00:12:47.500 to get some wonderful young colleague. And I said, how do you work out if someone's liked a

00:12:51.560 picture? And so she showed me. And I sat there for five minutes. I said, well, I think you showed

00:12:56.800 me wrong because David and Victoria aren't liking any of Brooklyn's posts, going back and back and

00:13:01.400 back and back or Nicola's. And she said, oh, that's really weird. And I thought, oh, there's

00:13:06.500 something going on is I wrote a kind of careful story saying that there was some distance and it

00:13:11.140 was denied in very gentle terms like oh well you know weddings can be a bit tense and you know

00:13:16.920 there's nothing serious no real problem and I kind of expected that within a week or so they'd

00:13:22.180 all be liking each other's posts and it will be back to normal but then what what became clear

00:13:26.720 as the year wore on was that this wasn't possible they couldn't bring themselves to like posts by

00:13:32.380 Nicola Peltz anymore, and very seldom liked anything but their son posted, especially,

00:13:37.740 oh, you know, I love my wife so much. And then in September, Nicola and Brooklyn turned up for

00:13:43.180 Victoria's fashion show in Paris. And they didn't stay at the same hotel as the Beckhams. They

00:13:48.840 stayed at the same hotel as her family. They didn't go to the after party where Gigi Hadid

00:13:54.420 and all the models went to, and it was kind of expected that they would go. They didn't.

00:13:57.740 They didn't write anything at all on social media about the show and about how they'd enjoyed it.

00:14:03.320 They wrote about how they'd loved going to other shows in Paris that Fashion Week.

00:14:07.200 And I thought, oh no, this really is.

00:14:09.160 And also Nicola was wearing that absolute face, you know, that face.

00:14:13.720 I thought, okay, something really is going on.

00:14:16.620 And they made up to an extent in 23 and 24, and then it all fell apart really badly around David's 50th birthday,

00:14:24.360 which Brooklyn flew over to London to attend and then didn't go to. The origin of it all actually

00:14:31.440 dates back to before the wedding. I mean, bad things went down at the wedding, which we'll get

00:14:35.260 to. But the origin of it all really seems to be an argument that they had in February of 2022

00:14:43.140 about name rights and Brooklyn's right to own and run his own brand, which actually his name

00:14:50.340 rights belonged to his parents. And his father had sold his name, David Beckham, to Authentic

00:14:57.200 Brands Group. And he wanted Brooklyn to sign an agreement. And Brooklyn decided on advice

00:15:03.220 from Peltz lawyers that that was not in his best interests to do so.

00:15:07.980 So he's not able to use his last name as a brand?

00:15:12.540 That was what he thought it would mean. The Beckham side saying, no, no, not at all. It

00:15:16.700 was a sort of live and let live agreement, just meant that the Beckhams could use Brooklyn Beckham

00:15:20.880 and he could use Brooklyn Beckham, but he wasn't having that. So, and, you know, you get different

00:15:27.220 briefings depending on who you talk to about where the truth actually lay on that one.

00:15:32.480 Interesting. So where is your sympathy here with the parents or with Brooklyn or like,

00:15:40.020 I don't feel sorry for any of these people or, I mean, because I have felt like, oh,

00:15:45.400 it must be terrible to be parents and then your son doesn't want to speak to you anymore.

00:15:49.860 But at this point now, what do you think?

00:15:54.760 Well, I feel sorry for everyone, actually. So I'm just, you know, quite soft-hearted. And I do feel

00:16:00.960 very sorry for David and Victoria. They really love their kids. They love him. They've done

00:16:06.060 their best. You know, I think errors were made. And I totally see it from Brooklyn's point of

00:16:11.420 you as well. His parents didn't like the woman he chose to be his wife. He adores this woman.

00:16:17.760 When you invite a child to choose between the family they're born into and the person they've

00:16:22.740 chosen as a romantic partner, it will always end with the kid choosing their romantic partner.

00:16:28.800 That's just what will always happen. And the Beckhams, by all accounts, just kind of pushed

00:16:36.420 him, were a bit passive-aggressive towards Nicola. And then you have this wedding where

00:16:41.220 in the run-up, they're not actually on speaking terms. Things are that bad. And then at this

00:16:45.980 wedding, some things happen with the first dance and speeches and so forth. And everyone takes the

00:16:52.680 most colossal offense. Everyone nurses the grievance. Nobody is willing to be the bigger

00:16:57.120 person and forgive. And that's where we are at in this massive mess.

00:17:01.540 So what are your feelings about Nicola at this point? Why do they dislike her so much? I don't know that much about this. I've read parts of your book. I've read headlines here and there. So what is it about her that they dislike so much, you think?

00:17:19.360 they think that she is very controlling of him and that she's the kind of alpha female who's in

00:17:26.000 charge of their sort of soppy sweetheart of the sun and i think there is you know there's an

00:17:31.040 element of truth to that that she has a lot of influence on him he is very soppy and is a

00:17:37.200 sweet-hearted kid everyone calls him she's quite a lot older than him i think she's four or five

00:17:41.240 years older than he is um which as we all know with boys and girls you know women do mature 0.97

00:17:46.160 so you know she is more mature than him but I don't know how you feel as a feminist I find it 1.00

00:17:53.780 quite problematic some of the narratives that get put on it like that she's bossy that she's a bitch 1.00

00:17:59.740 I think well why shouldn't you stand up for your relationship why shouldn't you stand up for what 0.97

00:18:05.620 you believe is in the best interest of your husband why not why shouldn't you stand up for

00:18:10.860 yourself I mean fundamentally she didn't want to bend the knee to Victoria Beckham well why should

00:18:15.700 she you know what why should she yeah good point what do we feel about victoria beckham i was

00:18:22.520 watching the documentary about her and her fashion brand and i have to say i was a little

00:18:27.420 disappointed when i watched it because i was like oh i thought we would get to know her a little

00:18:31.300 bit but i feel like she's so controlled and she only wants us to see this perfect side of her

00:18:37.460 that is so you know rehearsed all the time uh is that a right you know what do you yeah what do

00:18:44.880 I would really agree with that impression because I watched the documentary as well. It seemed very long. And it seemed like all of the, it felt as if all the imperfection was carefully rehearsed. You know, it just did not feel like an authentic look at somebody's inner life in any way.

00:19:01.240 Now, I mean, maybe we expect too much because these Netflix documentaries, which are kind of authored by the famous person, are very unrevealing, generally.

00:19:11.560 But this was, you know, this was a very unrevealing documentary.

00:19:15.260 Yeah.

00:19:16.360 Yeah.

00:19:17.280 And so there was another documentary about David, though, that I actually really enjoyed a few years ago that we got to learn a little bit more about him.

00:19:25.080 And I was like, wow, he's gone through a lot.

00:19:26.960 he is like you know uh when people were yelling at him and the stadium you know hating on him and

00:19:34.520 he just like you know arose from that and the cheating scandal and all of that stuff not that

00:19:42.500 that was only for him of course that was horrible for Victoria as well but I feel like this they've

00:19:47.220 survived a lot together which I think is pretty impressive that they actually stuck together

00:19:51.700 and yeah but let's go back to the branding that you talked about because I feel like now with

00:20:00.860 social media it is so easy for the public to you know discover things about celebrities that they

00:20:07.640 might not want you to discover like you were discovering this by looking at likes you know

00:20:12.600 so what do you feel about how things have changed because of social media

00:20:17.960 in regards to this kind of story.

00:20:21.240 Yeah, things have changed totally.

00:20:22.460 And, you know, the Beckhams were very good

00:20:24.240 at being celebrities in the 1990s.

00:20:27.340 They really enjoyed it.

00:20:28.980 They always wanted to be famous

00:20:30.460 and they wanted to be more famous.

00:20:31.860 They're not those pen-in-the-art celebrities

00:20:34.360 who go, oh, yes, I want to be, you know,

00:20:36.480 an Oscar-winning actor,

00:20:37.460 but I just don't want to be famous.

00:20:38.820 I mean, no, they loved being famous.

00:20:40.960 They loved everything about it.

00:20:42.200 They loved the paper.

00:20:43.020 They'd buy all the newspapers every day.

00:20:44.680 They loved looking at pictures of themselves

00:20:46.580 in the papers they would dress up to go out in the hope that they would be in the papers you know

00:20:52.380 so they were you know as someone said to me um they were sort of like instagram stars before

00:20:58.340 there was instagram because they absolutely curated very deliberately um and pumped out

00:21:04.980 endless content about themselves and and and created this amazing thing there's no playbook

00:21:11.220 for creating the brand that they've created and their level of fame attention globally and money

00:21:18.340 has been astonishing do you feel that they're ever going to reconcile with brooklyn or he's

00:21:26.860 gonna reconcile do you think that they're ever gonna you know i would i would love for it to

00:21:33.200 happen and i'm i'm sure that um they would love for it to happen but for this they go ahead someone

00:21:40.480 has to be the bigger person. So somebody has to say, okay, I'm, I, you know, we goofed, we're

00:21:46.260 sorry. And the, the, what I hear from the Beckham's camp is they don't think they've done anything

00:21:51.620 that they have to apologize for. And Nicola, I believe is insisting upon an apology. She wants

00:21:57.480 a public apology. So until someone changes, you know, changes what they want, that then a

00:22:04.540 reconciliation looks really unlikely. So when you're writing a book like this, I mean, are you

00:22:09.120 little worried that someone's going to come after you or you know that and the backhands if they're

00:22:15.340 going to react to it is there something that you think about like okay so what I did was what I do

00:22:22.100 when I'm writing uh journalistically which is you know I know the law um I'm not reckless but I

00:22:28.100 I put it I write the most interesting possible version of the story that I think that will be

00:22:33.640 safe legally and then our very good lawyers at the Daily Mail will read it and you know say no

00:22:38.920 you can't you can't have that um uh penguin have have very good lawyers on my publisher

00:22:44.820 penguin random house they have nice a nice team of lawyers and you know i sent off my manuscript

00:22:49.960 and we had the legal read and they took out four or five lines i thought i can live with that so

00:22:56.420 they you know that's fine it's some ultimately someone else carries the can if it's if i've

00:23:02.360 goofed because uh that's that's the um burden of the publisher so yeah okay that's that's a good

00:23:10.140 thing about having a publisher house to back you and the daily mail of course as well so we have

00:23:15.260 to talk a little bit about this other lawsuit that you've been involved in you're in the middle

00:23:19.880 of a lot of drama more drama than me a year of drama i know it's crazy i mean this is a crazy

00:23:28.440 story because you had to witness against Harry I would be terrified can you talk about the

00:23:35.960 experience of having to witness I mean so um I had to give evidence in the high court which is

00:23:42.080 in itself very intimidating because it's in this beautiful gothic medieval building and you know

00:23:47.000 all the rest of it and when you go into court there's always a few photographers hanging around

00:23:51.760 to take a picture of someone coming to give evidence so that's not much fun I didn't actually

00:23:55.220 to give evidence against Prince Harry it was again it was he was one of a number of plaintiffs

00:24:00.000 and actually um the complaint that related to me was from an article in 2003 about an actress

00:24:06.080 called Sadie Frost who used to be married to Jude Law so I am you know I'm way on the fringes of

00:24:11.020 this of this drama but it was very intimidating um I had to face Harry's uh barrister David

00:24:17.940 sherborne um who's kind of famous um uh he also acted for johnny depp so yeah he's you know um

00:24:26.980 but actually in the end i almost enjoyed it because it had been four years of stress and then i got

00:24:34.220 years yeah and i finally got to stand up and say my piece which is i didn't do this uh you know

00:24:40.980 it's hard to prove because it's so long ago 2003 yes how do you remember i mean you didn't do

00:24:46.300 something of course you remember if you did something illegal but you know remembering how

00:24:51.460 you got detailed from a story like 25 years ago yeah so all i was able to do you know and our

00:24:58.360 lawyer said you're just there to help the judge make up his mind so i said well all i can do is

00:25:02.860 tell you what i would do if i was given a story like this because i don't actually remember writing

00:25:07.220 this particular one um so i could assist the judge and i could say clearly and loudly and

00:25:12.760 repeatedly i've never had to phone i didn't get this information in any bad way because that's

00:25:18.160 not what i do that's what not what the daily mail does that's not what we've ever done

00:25:21.820 so just absolutely categorically no but um it was it was worrying i went to um witness training

00:25:29.840 which is interesting experience and uh so they let they they question you as if they are david

00:25:36.260 sherborne and the first time they let you do it totally raw so as if you haven't had any training

00:25:40.360 and then they build on your mistakes.

00:25:42.460 So, and I thought I was going to be fine

00:25:44.380 because I like to chatter.

00:25:45.640 I thought, yeah, okay.

00:25:46.960 And that's what you should not do.

00:25:49.200 That's what you shouldn't do.

00:25:51.200 One of the key things is say the fact 0.97

00:25:54.460 and then shut up. 0.89

00:25:56.660 But they said, yeah, Alison, 1.00

00:25:58.380 stop being sarcastic and stop making jokes. 1.00

00:26:02.160 The judge doesn't want to hear your jokes

00:26:04.040 or your sarcasm.

00:26:05.140 I was like, oh, that's what I do when I'm nervous.

00:26:07.800 So yeah, it was very useful.

00:26:10.360 I was, you know, I was going to be a witness against Blake and I was, I was going on AI.

00:26:16.840 I was putting all this into ChatGP and I was like, ask me these questions. And then I responded

00:26:21.920 and ChatGP was like, don't say that. No, no, no, no, no. Everything I did was wrong. So

00:26:27.120 I was like, okay, yes and no. That's basically the trick.

00:26:33.040 Yes and no. But if you ever get in that situation again, don't go to ChatGP.

00:26:37.360 ask me I'm going to get you in touch with a proper barrister who'll give you proper training

00:26:42.680 oh my god how many people we never have to do it again how many people were in the courthouse

00:26:49.000 when that when you were there like how many people were staring at you um so I didn't look but uh

00:26:55.340 I mean maybe a couple a dozen maybe yeah 20 to 30 people because you've got the press benches and

00:27:01.840 then you've got a bench of their lawyers and a bench of our lawyers and then the court stenographer,

00:27:07.640 the judge, the barristers. So, yeah. How did you feel after the judge had ruled? It was pretty

00:27:14.840 astonishing. 97 claims, was it? 97 claims, yeah. It was amazing. And my husband kept

00:27:24.040 popping his head around the door here going, yeah, it's really good, isn't it? I was going,

00:27:27.880 I'm trying to read it. Don't talk to me yet. I've got to read every single word of this, you know, 100 page judgment, 200 page judgment. Yeah, it was amazing. I couldn't believe that every single one was found not proven. And that's, that was pretty amazing vindication of the newspaper I love and colleagues who I really treasure on it.

00:27:48.940 So, and, you know, just actually very important for the British media scene in general is that, you know, there were some rogue people and rogue publications who got up to bad stuff 25 years ago.

00:28:02.820 And that doesn't mean everyone did it.

00:28:04.280 That doesn't mean that journalists would dream of doing anything like that now.

00:28:07.820 And, you know, I wanted to, it's really, it's positive to be part of reclaiming the narrative slightly and saying, no, actually, we do have integrity.

00:28:16.360 I know people just laugh about journalistic integrity, but actually it matters when you're

00:28:20.080 a journalist. It's all that matters to you. It does, for sure. I feel like journalists

00:28:25.000 have gotten such a bad rep. And I remember when I was, you know, in the beginning of my career,

00:28:31.380 I was really proud to say I was a journalist. And then I became kind of not ashamed of it,

00:28:36.600 but it was kind of something that I felt like people were looking at you like, oh, okay. It

00:28:41.780 it wasn't something that was looked upon, you know, I don't know. Do you feel the same way

00:28:48.780 that journalists are looked upon different now than what we used to?

00:28:53.440 Yeah, I think it certainly becomes, there's a bit less respect given to it. You know,

00:28:59.900 you think about, you know, Woodward and Bernstein and all that, you know, what heroes they were.

00:29:03.940 And I think we've had a long time of celebrities trashing journalists and saying, you know,

00:29:07.980 you're intrusive you're beastly you're monstrous and like well we're not that monstrous when we're

00:29:11.900 helping you to sell your movie when we're giving people important information um when we're just 0.97

00:29:17.240 entertaining people what's you know what's wrong with that but you know as with all discourse

00:29:22.500 things become so sour don't they i remember i moved into a new house and we went around to

00:29:27.460 the neighbors they invited us for drinks and he had one of his friends there who said oh what do

00:29:31.660 you do and i said oh i'm a journalist with the daily mail and this man very respectable middle 0.99

00:29:37.220 age man looked at me he went I wouldn't bite my ass with the daily mail what a thing to say to 0.98

00:29:46.260 someone you've just met you don't know me at all that is the rudest thing isn't it oh my god how 0.99

00:29:53.420 did that dinner go from there or drinks did you leave well you know we hung around for a bit and

00:29:59.260 then we left yeah wow well this was really great Alison thank you so much for taking the time to

00:30:06.700 talk to me and to my audience. I know they're going to love you. So where can they order your

00:30:11.800 book? Well, uh, I know it's definitely available on Amazon and if you don't like reading, uh,

00:30:17.800 it's also available on audio book. So, um, yeah, that's perfect. I'll leave a link below

00:30:24.060 to where you can get the book and then they can all follow you on the daily mail

00:30:28.360 and on social media as well. I'll leave links to everything and my favorite articles that you wrote

00:30:33.820 about the Lively versus Boldoni.

00:30:36.680 Oh, yes.

00:30:37.460 Because there's some really good ones.

00:30:40.000 I reported on your reporting so many times here

00:30:42.720 because I think you're just spot on

00:30:44.620 and you're like not afraid to tell the truth,

00:30:47.460 which is really, really amazing.

00:30:49.420 So keep doing that.

00:30:51.500 Well, we have mutual admiration for each other, Sheth.

00:30:53.840 Thank you.

00:30:55.280 Thank you so much to Alison for doing this.

00:30:57.880 I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

00:31:00.660 I really, really appreciate that you took the time

00:31:03.160 to talk to me and to you guys here on my channel and I really really hope she will come back because

00:31:08.780 she has all the tea. Anyways if you haven't subscribed yet please do that and if you have

00:31:15.120 subscribed and think that you're still subscribed you might not be because that does happen sometimes

00:31:20.080 as well and also hit the notification bell so you never miss an episode of Flawsome Talk and again

00:31:25.200 a reminder you can find the links to buy Alison's book in my description and in the pinned comment

00:31:31.440 as well.

Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - August 08, 2026

DM Reporter DROPS BOMBSHELLS !!

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