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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

00:16:17.580 accept when the weather cools down golden nugget online casino turns up the heat this winter make any

00:16:25.880 moment golden and play thousands of games like her new slot wolf it up and all the fan favorite huff and

00:16:32.760 pop games whether you're curled up on the couch or taking five between snow shovels play winner's hottest

00:16:39.300 collection of slots from brand new games to the classics you know and love you can also pull up

00:16:45.400 your favorite table games like blackjack roulette and craps or go for even more excitement with our

00:16:51.420 library of live dealer games download the golden nugget online casino app and you've got everything you

00:16:58.000 need to layer on the fun this winter in partnership with golden nugget online casino gambling problem

00:17:05.260 call connex ontario at 1-866-531-2600 19 and over physically present in ontario eligibility restrictions

00:17:14.240 apply see golden nugget casino.com for details please play responsibly that people did not like her to her

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

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

00:22:12.860 been paying attention surprisingly mean-spirited maybe we should ask now streaming on paramount plus

00:22:19.680 it began on the shores of new jersey the cords of gym tan laundry reverberated north to canada

00:22:25.940 where a new type of party animal resides they move as a herd migrating to their favorite watering holes

00:22:32.640 asserting dominance by flexing grinding and twerking coupling is quick steamy and sometimes in hot tubs

00:22:39.760 when morning arrives they do it all over again canada shore new original series now streaming on paramount plus

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

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript