Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - Ep 3： Fame, Ego, and the Machine： The Rise and Rot of Hollywood’s Favorite Faces

00:00:00.000 hi and welcome to this third episode of flawsome talk the podcast a lot of you probably know me

00:00:11.820 from youtube and my show that i do that basically every single day where i talk a lot about Blake

00:00:18.000 Lively and Justin Baldoni's legal feud here on this podcast i do dig a little deeper and sometimes

00:00:24.500 i talk about other things too but everything is hollywood related and related to the hypocrisy

00:00:32.200 and the corruption and all the lies that are fed us maybe hollywood isn't really a dream factory

00:00:38.540 maybe they're actually a monster machine and i think we've seen the results of that especially

00:00:44.480 lately watching Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds fall from grace in the public eye in this episode i'm

00:00:52.420 going to mention some of the situations that i've been in where these big egos haven't been stopped

00:00:58.980 and of course i've been blamed for their behavior and also about those enablers and everyone involved

00:01:05.660 in creating this illusion that's been sold to us for so many years and also how i have been a part

00:01:13.260 of that the way i see it the major problem isn't always that the celebrity acts like a god it's the

00:01:19.720 army of people getting paid to keep them there so here's a question for everyone including myself

00:01:25.980 if you are surrounded by people that never say no to you and put you on a pedestal and give you

00:01:33.140 validation every day of how amazing you are would that make you turn into a monster as well you have

00:01:40.620 to remember all these people around the celebrities their job is to create an illusion and if that means

00:01:47.800 silencing victims punishing whistleblowers or gaslighting the press so be it actors can scream

00:01:54.920 cheat assault people spiral out of control in front of us and they still walk away with the franchise

00:02:01.400 deal and a standing ovation i've asked myself this so many times if actually i believe that narcissists

00:02:08.360 are drawn to hollywood and a lot of people that choose to become actors have a lot of insecurities

00:02:14.580 and need a lot of validation or if it's regular people with a dream to become actors that go to

00:02:21.420 hollywood and then the machine is what makes them into monsters if the big celebrities were born that way 0.97

00:02:28.540 or if they become that way because of the way they are treated by the people around them and by the press

00:02:36.200 and by the public do we create the monsters or are there monsters already i think this video that

00:02:43.640 someone sent me thank you glenda for sending me this video this is a buddy buzz advertisement from

00:02:48.900 three years ago when blake lively was pushing her brand buddy buzz she's talking to alexa but it feels

00:02:56.040 like she is really talking to her ego hey alexa add betty buzz to my whole food shopping cart it might 1.00

00:03:03.180 not be my place to say but i'm such a huge fan of your work as an actor a director a business owner

00:03:08.700 the world really needs more women-owned businesses women-owned businesses are great but why stop there 1.00

00:03:14.160 maybe women should take over all of the businesses maybe women should take over everything everywhere 1.00

00:03:19.220 imagine it blake total world domination you and i together i think these are the things that

00:03:25.520 probably blake lively is telling herself every day and people around her so this commercial i think

00:03:31.540 it's so spot on to explain how celebrities think and she even made it into an ad i remember i read this

00:03:39.680 quote from a publicist an anonymous publicist in hollywood saying that when you're famous people don't tell

00:03:45.680 you the truth they tell you what you want to hear and if you're not careful you'll start believing it

00:03:51.680 i think one of the things that people were mostly shocked about when all these things about blake lively

00:03:56.440 came out is how the pr machinery works behind the scenes and how the pr machinery machinery protects the

00:04:04.700 celebrities and also how they play a big role in working with the media to create an image and to sell us

00:04:13.040 lies about their clients and the media is buying it it's interesting because i talked to magnus about

00:04:18.520 that a lot my partner because he's also a celebrity reporter and he's interviewed hundreds probably a

00:04:25.160 thousands of celebrities throughout his career and we had a discussion the other day thinking like

00:04:32.120 why would we always portray celebrities in a good light in our articles we did i mean i did tv

00:04:41.340 interviews as well and when you see someone on a video it's a little bit different because you can't

00:04:45.140 really hide who they are because people can see for themselves but when you're writing an article

00:04:50.000 you're always kind of putting them in a nice light we're always complimenting them it's like we're all

00:04:57.880 kind of brainwashed but this at the same time we knew if we didn't do that we would probably be

00:05:04.540 blacklisted and not invited back to interview that celebrity i've seen that happen before it happened to a

00:05:10.140 colleague of mine who interviewed julia roberts and he actually wrote what happened in the interview

00:05:15.320 that she was being very rude at a roundtable interview and it was published in vanity fair in

00:05:20.820 italy somehow george clooney saw it and he sent it to julia roberts and then the whole thing went down and

00:05:29.760 he was blacklisted from ever interviewing julia roberts again or anyone on this publicist list

00:05:37.400 and the thing is julia roberts had a bad reputation she hasn't always been america's sweetheart 1.00

00:05:42.580 i've only had good experiences with her but i've heard stories and these are stories that

00:05:48.560 journalists talk about we all sit in the hallway before we do these interviews and we share experiences

00:05:54.340 with the person we're about to interview and i've seen these things happen a lot when reporters have

00:06:00.960 asked just normal questions to a celebrity and then they end up in trouble because the celebrity

00:06:07.640 was not able to behave in a normal nice polite way i think one of the reasons why people are so

00:06:16.580 angry with blake lively right now is because they feel betrayed because for so long this machine protected

00:06:24.940 her as we saw so many people come out after my interview and after a lot of other things happened

00:06:30.400 with her where she was not behaving very nice a lot of people in the industry came out

00:06:36.660 mostly small players obviously because the big players don't want to risk anything but extras on sets

00:06:43.140 makeup artists stylists other people that were around her came out and told their stories

00:06:48.940 with her and that she was disrespectful she was not very nice she was rude she was entitled all these

00:06:55.160 things that just people around let happen and no one talked about it one of the people who protected

00:07:01.080 her was leslie sloan which interestingly enough i've talked about this on my youtube channel that

00:07:07.820 i find it so interesting why no one confiscated my interview with blake lively when it happened because as you

00:07:16.480 know she was acting pretty rude and people reacted very strongly to it and when it happened i was very

00:07:22.200 affected by it i thought it was a horrible horrible experience and to me that either shows a for the

00:07:29.540 people in that room and for leslie sloan who was obviously in that room i didn't see her i didn't look

00:07:34.360 for her i because those are the things that i never paid attention to in these interviews it's so

00:07:38.420 stressful going into that room preparing your questions and getting a good vibe and all those things i never

00:07:45.080 pay attention to who else is in that room but i'm sure leslie sloan was there and either she wasn't paying 1.00

00:07:50.060 attention to what happened or she thought that was just normal behavior which i think is even more disturbing

00:07:56.360 because i've seen i think every single reporter that i know in this industry has once or twice

00:08:03.900 gotten their interview confiscated and most of the time it's absolutely not their fault they just

00:08:11.340 asked regular questions celebrity didn't like the question or the publicist didn't like the question

00:08:16.800 and their interview was banned i remember one of these episodes uh i was pretty shocked because i

00:08:24.840 witnessed this myself when an australian journalist came out of the room after he had been interviewing

00:08:30.380 brie larson and a publicist approached him immediately and started yelling at him and i was like what's

00:08:37.780 happening here what did he do why is she so furious with him and he was just standing there really

00:08:43.280 baffled and didn't understand what was happening himself and i asked him after and he said that

00:08:50.260 he had asked brie larson what she felt like being named after a cheese brie and she got really upset about

00:08:59.720 it and he got yelled at and he was not able to keep that interview so he flew all the way from

00:09:06.340 australia which is to la a long long trip and he asked her about brie it's a very innocent thing to

00:09:16.680 ask if you ask me and i'm sure she's been asked that before she just didn't want that so he had to fly

00:09:23.160 back to australia without an interview with brie larson i had another colleague who referred to

00:09:29.220 zoe kravitz as a nepo baby and the studio got furious the publicist got furious and they took

00:09:36.920 her tape she referred to her as a nepo baby to channing tatum who was then dating her and they

00:09:43.640 wouldn't let her keep her channing tatum interview and she was banned from the studio for three junkets

00:09:51.300 falling after that i don't know what happened after that but this is recently so these things are

00:09:56.480 happening all the time i remember my second interview with blake lively for a simple favor

00:10:02.460 the first one in of those movies it was in 2018 and i entered the room and they were just like oh

00:10:09.600 we're staging the room here it's such a bad experience in here and the two of them were

00:10:14.060 talking together they were really upset and i learned what had happened afterwards i saw the guy

00:10:18.860 the interviewer in the hallway this tiny little guy from i think he was from mexico and he was so sweet

00:10:24.800 and he was so shocked but what happened because he first of all his english was really bad which also

00:10:31.020 happens in these situations there are international journalists and english is not their first language

00:10:35.560 and there are different cultural codes you know so you don't always know how to ask a question

00:10:40.260 in a polite polite or the correct way uh in hollywood terms so he had asked what they felt like how their

00:10:49.240 characters were kind of bitches in the movie and if they could relate to that or something like that 1.00

00:10:57.340 he didn't call them bitches he called their characters that was something like that and they got so upset

00:11:03.040 and this woman again i don't know that might have been leslie sloane yelling at him in the hallway 0.70

00:11:08.140 telling him that you're not getting that interview and you can get a generic interview that if we have

00:11:13.520 done for you when they only talk about the movie and he was just like you know completely shocked and

00:11:19.620 he had to fly back to mexico without an interview same thing happened to me when i was interviewing

00:11:23.940 jason stanham they didn't take my interview away but i asked him how he was celebrating his 50th birthday

00:11:29.400 and he was if he was excited about it and this publicist from the sideline was like next question

00:11:35.280 we're not talking about that i was like what it's so ridiculous like what are these people

00:11:41.680 funny thing i asked don johnson about the same thing he turned 70 and he was the loveliest guy

00:11:48.000 so it's all about the personality of the person that you're interviewing and you never know these

00:11:53.640 things when i asked don johnson about it he was so sweet about it and he was so grateful that he was

00:11:59.800 where he was he's like it's in my 70s i am turning 70 and i'm so excited about it he said i'm the luckiest

00:12:07.060 guy in the world and he was just really enjoying talking about how lucky he was so that again shows

00:12:15.240 that it's only about the person how can you guess what that person would like to be asked or not

00:12:20.500 as a reporter i also had a situation i remember with joaquin phoenix it was a round table we were

00:12:27.320 like five journalists at the round tables there are no cameras you just sit there and then you write

00:12:32.300 an article afterwards and he just decided that he didn't want to answer any questions so whatever

00:12:37.880 we asked him he was like i'm not gonna answer that and then i don't remember who said it someone said

00:12:43.240 why why don't we want to answer questions and he was like i just don't feel like it

00:12:47.580 and we left and i remember actually after that we did get an email from the studio apologizing

00:12:55.480 on the behalf of joaquin phoenix uh which i really appreciated because you know i was there for four

00:13:03.260 hours that day you know you take i took the subway up this was in new york i waited for a few hours i

00:13:08.680 had prepared questions i had prepared and pre-sold the story about joaquin phoenix and i couldn't deliver

00:13:15.560 i didn't make any money that day because joaquin phoenix didn't feel like it so i don't know if we can

00:13:22.360 just blame this on the yes people i don't know if narcissism and big egos are a result of fame

00:13:29.960 itself or if these people already have that in them but the thing is as soon as they question their

00:13:37.220 egos they are out and they're replaced by someone else who is just going to say yes to that person

00:13:45.300 i remember i saw an interview with justin bieber very early on in his career when he said that he

00:13:51.500 didn't like the person that he had turned into and i think some celebrities come to this realization

00:13:57.740 when they're like wow do i like this person do i want to be this person is this really who i am

00:14:04.220 or is this a product of what i've been exposed to and the way i've been treated so i believe these

00:14:11.020 things myself and most of these people are surrounded by people that want something from them you know

00:14:16.520 they want to make money of them they want to be around them to be famous themselves all these

00:14:20.540 things that makes it hard of course to trust people and to get nice good people around you

00:14:27.520 that actually will tell you the truth and i think some of these people that are able to keep

00:14:33.980 their feet on the ground are the people that have good families because people are more likely to

00:14:39.380 listen to family members than they are to friends or people that come into their lives through work

00:14:44.900 um so if you have good parents or if you have good siblings or if you have a good spouse that are

00:14:50.280 telling you these things so when do these people become narcissists i think that's one of the words

00:14:55.360 that been used so much to describe both blake lively and ryan reynolds and there is a difference

00:15:02.020 between being a narcissist and having narcissistic personality disorder which is a diagnosis of a mental

00:15:08.880 health condition from the psychology that i learned in school you know i was a teacher to begin with

00:15:14.360 and i did study psychology a little bit and you know i think when you're already prone to have

00:15:20.060 narcissism to have narcissistic traits i think it's easier to get pushed into developing some kind of

00:15:27.220 disorder around it i think this happens when you lose the ability to empathize with others and when you

00:15:34.500 expect constant praise and admiration from everyone around you and if you ever get criticized you'll react

00:15:41.740 with contempt with contempt and rage also you will exploit other people for personal gain and become

00:15:47.880 obsessed with power status and your own image these are core traits of narcissistic personality disorder

00:15:55.200 and i think when you heard me talk about these traits it does describe the way we've seen blake

00:16:01.640 lively and ryan reynolds behave and i think the worst example of this is how we saw blake lively being

00:16:08.980 criticized in the media and online after or during her press tour for the dance with us and she could not

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00:17:22.220 that was inimaginable she could not accept it and for her it could never be true so she had to find

00:17:29.020 someone to blame for it and she found justin bildoni she blamed him for her downfall in the public court

00:17:37.220 of opinion and to me it's so absurd how she got people around her to support that idea because everyone

00:17:45.400 saw what was happening everyone witnessed with their own eyes they saw her behavior with their own

00:17:52.220 eyes and still people came out to support her i think one of the biggest damaging consequences

00:17:57.640 for from fame is emotional isolation celebrities are always surrounded by people but then again they

00:18:05.640 feel really alone and they have no connection to the real world they have no interactions with the real

00:18:12.840 world when they meet real people they are fans they come up to them they want selfies with them they want

00:18:18.640 autographs with them they're screaming they're applauding them telling them they're amazing and

00:18:24.660 they love them and when they meet people that don't act like that they think it's something wrong with

00:18:30.800 them not with themselves but with the people who are not praising them and idolizing them so their

00:18:38.100 self-image inflates like a balloon with no string and eventually it drifts off so high that no one reaches it

00:18:45.860 anymore another example of this an interview that i showed on my youtube channel i did with ezra miller

00:18:52.480 a few years ago it was for a fantastic beast or whatever that movie and he was behaving so outrageously

00:19:01.840 rude through that whole interview i was sitting there i was in shock i left that room i was in shock

00:19:07.740 they actually let me keep the interview which also was a shock to me and i spoke to other journalists

00:19:13.120 that were doing interviews that same day and they were like wow they let him continue acting out like

00:19:20.540 this and stories started popping up when he was being violent he's tried to struggle this woman there

00:19:25.680 were stories of him grooming a young girl they were really horrific stories still warner decided to let

00:19:31.220 him act to be the flash they put a lot of money into that movie and promoting it and they still supported

00:19:38.340 him which i find troublesome to begin with but also when you think about it how they treated johnny depp

00:19:43.920 who had marital problems but he didn't have issues with anyone else in the industry and johnny depp was

00:19:50.040 dropped by disney before even anything was proven in court and and i wonder why that happened why it

00:19:57.340 happened so fast with johnny depp and it didn't happen that way with ezra miller the only reason i can come up

00:20:04.420 with is that ezra miller represents a minority he is non-binary so i guess he checked one of their

00:20:12.780 woke boxes and that's why they kept him on for so long i can't find any other explanations for why

00:20:20.200 they protected him for so long the thing is in many instances bad behavior doesn't get punished it

00:20:26.020 actually gets rewarded it gets more attention it gets clicks and the louder the meltdown the bigger the

00:20:32.740 headlines and the more reward because click equals relevance and relevance that's currency i actually

00:20:40.400 spoke to a journalist colleague of mine who said that he knows this big producer and she had said

00:20:45.920 to him you know i really miss the days where the celebrities was were behaving out of control in these

00:20:51.500 press junkets when they were drunk and sitting there and being inappropriate because a lot of these

00:20:56.080 interviews were talked about and they created a lot of tension around the movie and it sold the movie

00:21:02.540 you know if there is a scandal surrounding a movie it does get a lot of attention and people actually

00:21:08.260 go to see the movie i don't know if that was the reason why it ends with us was so successful but i do

00:21:13.620 think it was the reason why people watched another simple favor they were curious because there's been so

00:21:20.120 much scandal around blake lively that they were curious to watch the movie because of that and sometimes

00:21:25.540 we know that these scandals are even manufactured publicists help set up fake romances to sell a movie 0.63

00:21:34.100 so they put rumors out there that there's something going on between the two leads so people will get

00:21:40.080 more curious if they're actually dating in real life these are things that have commonly been used in

00:21:46.400 hollywood and the thing is most of the time we've been buying it we've been fooled this is why i think

00:21:53.220 people were so angry and disappointed with ryan reynolds and blake lively because all of a sudden

00:21:59.680 we realized that blake lively isn't this refreshingly honest girls next girl next door that were sold to

00:22:06.980 us ryan reynolds isn't just a lovable goofball they're powerful image obsessed people and if you've

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00:22:47.320 ask ourselves why we were so eager to believe this performance in the first place why do the

00:22:52.380 industry and we as the audience reward charisma over kindness and curated perfection over authenticity

00:22:59.280 so what does the fall of blake lively and ryan reynolds in the public eye really tell us is the era of

00:23:06.260 celebrity illusion crumbling slowly loudly very publicly the smugness dressed up in charm the deflection

00:23:16.140 passed off his wits the passive aggressive swipes at people beneath them in status it was never cute

00:23:23.400 we were just used to laughing it off but now i think the audience has changed we are paying attention

00:23:30.180 and the old tricks don't work anymore we want transparency we want accountability we want honesty

00:23:36.700 i think what we're witnessing now isn't just a pr slip i think it's a cultural shift a public awakening

00:23:43.740 and maybe just maybe it's time that hollywood started listening because the audience isn't here to clap on cue anymore

00:23:50.660 we're watching with our eyes open anyways you guys let me know if you're watching this on youtube

00:23:56.140 what you think about this in the comment section and if you're on apple amazon iheart or spotify

00:24:04.220 thank you for listening i really appreciate it and please subscribe whatever you want to watch or hear

00:24:10.400 or listen to this podcast yes and please send me tips if there's anything you want me to talk about

00:24:15.360 i am on flawsome talk at gmail.com and i hope i see you in my next episode next week

00:24:21.500 or please visit my youtube channel where i upload new videos basically every single day

Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - June 13, 2025

Ep 3： Fame, Ego, and the Machine： The Rise and Rot of Hollywood’s Favorite Faces

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